Fire. Screams. The splintering echo of a throne hall collapsing under its own betrayal.
Kael stood in the middle of it all, a boy too young to die, yet already watching the world end. His twin sister's blood-slick hand gripped his tightly, the only anchor between reality and the nightmare. Bodies lay strewn in the flickering light—royal guards, handmaidens, his brothers. All except one.
The traitor. His older brother, face unreadable, eyes full of cold purpose.
Kael's breath caught—he turned to shield his sister, and the vision snapped.
*****
He awoke with a sharp breath, chest rising fast beneath the thin blanket. The ceiling of their cottage met his gaze—rough beams and shadows carved by morning light. Silence pressed in around him, broken only by distant birds and the faint creak of wood adjusting to the new day.
His hand, still curled as if gripping hers.
Kael sat up slowly. The dream always ended there, before the fire reached them, before the world was rewritten. He ran a hand through his dark hair and looked toward the small window. Morning.
The faint scent of smoke still lingered in the air, clinging to crumbling wood and ash-dusted stone. Morning sunlight slipped through the cracks of the old town's walls, catching the quiet hum of life as the people slowly began their routines. Among them walked a boy—seventeen, maybe eighteen—his presence like a cold draft through the town square. He was neither hurried nor idle, simply existing, eyes dull, expression unreadable.
Kael.
Few knew his name, Kael Thorne.Fewer still dared speak it. He kept to himself, a silent figure who arrived two years ago with a younger girl by his side. No relatives. No history. No past.
The girl, Veila Thorne—his twin, some whispered—was the opposite. Bright, kind, always speaking with the vendors and offering to help the old woman with her baskets. She carried warmth. Kael carried the absence of it.
---
Kael entered the small eatery near the square, where the scent of stewed meat and baked root filled the air. The innkeeper gave a short nod—no words passed between them. None were needed.
He took his usual seat by the window, facing out toward the street where carts rolled over cobblestone and voices drifted like smoke. His meal arrived shortly—a wooden bowl of thick barley stew and a slab of rye bread. He ate quietly, slowly, finishing every bite without lifting his eyes.
When he was done, he set a few coins—precisely counted—on the corner of the table. Then he rose and left without a word, the chair legs scraping softly against the floor.
The city deepened as he walked—stone streets narrowing, walls growing taller, older, closer. He wandered without aim, just as he always did, silent and unnoticed except for the occasional sideways glance from vendors or townsfolk. All of them knew him. Or thought they did.
He had barely spoken to anyone since the day he arrived.
A small boy came rushing around the corner, clutching a wooden toy sword. He wasn't watching. He collided hard into Kael's side and stumbled backward, landing on the ground with a thump.
Kael stopped. He looked down. The boy blinked up, wide-eyed, but before he could say anything, a young woman—likely his sister—hurried over.
"I'm so sorry," she said, placing a protective hand on the child's shoulder. "He doesn't look where he's going—"
Kael met her eyes. Then, unexpectedly, he gave a faint, small smile.
"It's alright," he said. His voice was quiet, even, like an old stringed instrument being played for the first time in years.
The girl blinked. Just slightly.
"I—thank you," she replied, surprised but not startled.
As Kael continued walking, the boy peered after him.
He hadn't seemed cold.
Just… distant. And perhaps, for the first time, human.
---
The sky was soft gold now, touched with streaks of fire as the sun began to dip behind the hills. Shadows stretched long across the buildings, and Kael, as always, kept walking.
He turned down an alley where the light didn't reach, the bricks mossed with age and the air still. Voices echoed—low, cruel, and mocking.
A boy, no older than fourteen, was crumpled near the wall, bleeding from his lip as two thugs laughed and kicked him. One rifled through his pockets. The other leaned against the wall, arms crossed.
Kael slowed.
He didn't stop.
The thugs noticed him, briefly, but said nothing.
He passed them.
Then he heard the boy's muffled sob.
It wasn't the pain. It was the helplessness.
A memory surfaced—sharp and uninvited. Another alley. Another child. A sister's hand trembling in his.
Kael stopped. His fingers curled slowly at his side.
Without a word, he turned and followed the men from a distance, moving like wind through a crack. No footsteps. No attention drawn.
They dragged the boy through crooked streets to the edge of the city, where broken stone and rotted beams marked the shell of a forgotten warehouse.
Inside, they threw the boy down.
"Nothing on him," one growled.
"Waste of time," the other spat. "But he saw our faces."
"Then we end it."
As one drew a blade, the world shifted.
It began like a hush—like the air itself had paused to listen.
Then came the pressure.
An invisible force pressed down on the room, dense and suffocating. It wasn't just weight—it was will. The men's limbs locked. Their lungs seized. Their thoughts scattered.
Their eyes widened as they turned toward the doorway—no one was there.
Only a figure, barely visible in the growing dark, half-shrouded by shadow and the fading light that spilled through the cracks in the beams. His face was hidden by perfect positioning, kept in silhouette by instinct or something more deliberate. His eyes were unreadable—just two reflections caught in the dying sun.
Kael had simply broken the seal that had kept his full power hidden to the visible eyes and this caused the sudden pressure that occured to the weak near him.
Kael stepped forward.
The pressure surged with every step. The very walls groaned. Dust lifted in the air and froze, caught in unnatural stillness. The thugs collapsed to their knees, spines bowed as if the air itself were forcing them into submission.
One of them whimpered. The other tried to scream but couldn't even open his mouth.
Terror rooted them. Not the fear of death, but of something ancient. Inhuman.
The boy, still bleeding, tried to push himself backward. But even his breath caught in his throat.
He looked at Kael—and what he saw wasn't salvation.
It was something cold. Detached. Absolute.
Kael raised one hand—and then, in an instant, vanished.
The pressure vanished with him. It was as though the world took its first breath again.
The men scrambled to their feet, trembling and pale. They didn't speak. They didn't look back.
They just ran.
The boy remained, shaking, staring at the place where the figure had stood.
He didn't know who had saved him.
But he knew one thing:
He would never forget the feeling of that power.
And he hoped never to feel it again.