Carson Vale:
The slow clap echoed in the wreckage of my room. Shards of glass glittered around Cael's boots, each step he took crunching like brittle bones.
"Not bad," he said, head tilted, eyes lit with something between amusement and calculation. "I wondered how long it would take for that part of you to wake up."
I clenched the bat tighter. "You sent that thing?"
Cael smirked. "Sent? No. I simply… invited it. Big difference. And clearly, you handled yourself."
Elena stepped between us, fierce as I'd ever seen her, her voice like a whip.
"Cael, he's not ready for this."
His gaze slid over her, dismissive but not without recognition. "Funny. I thought you were the one who wanted him to step into his place."
I could feel something shifting in the air heavy, magnetic like invisible threads pulling taut between the three of us. The voice in my head hadn't gone. It whispered now, softer but more insistent.
"He wants to own you. Don't let him."
"What place?" I demanded.
Cael's grin widened, sharp and slow. "The one you were born to take. The one your father died to protect."
My stomach twisted. "You didn't know my father."
Cael took one more step forward, close enough that I could smell the faint burn of his cologne and something darker underneath smoke, maybe blood.
"Oh, Carson… I knew him better than you think. And when I'm done, you'll see just how much of him is still in you. Whether you like it or not."
A rumble of thunder rolled outside, rattling what little glass was left in the frame. For a moment, his eyes flickered not with light, but with something alive. Something old.
Elena's hand brushed mine, just a fraction, as if grounding me.
"Carson," she murmured, "you have to decide. Tonight. Which side you're on."
I didn't answer.
Not yet.
Because in the reflection of the broken window behind Cael…
There was another figure.
And it was smiling too.
.....
The figure in the glass didn't move when I turned.
It only moved when Cael did.
Like a shadow stitched to his bones.
Cael glanced over his shoulder, not at the reflection at me as if daring me to ask. I didn't.
Some questions were better saved for when you weren't standing in a wrecked apartment with something smiling in the glass.
"Walk with me," he said, already heading for the door.
Elena's jaw tightened. "Carson—"
I raised a hand, not to silence her, but to tell her I understood. This wasn't a request. Whatever Cael had planned, he wasn't leaving without me. And the part of me I didn't want to acknowledge — the part that had ripped that shadow creature apart without thinking, wanted to see where this would go.
Outside, the night air was cold, sharp, tasting faintly of rain. Cael didn't speak. Neither did I. We cut through side streets I didn't recognize, the lamps growing fewer until the only light came from flickering signs and a distant, low red glow.
It wasn't until we reached the alley with the steel door that I heard the voices. Low, muttering, in a language I didn't understand. But one word repeated often enough that it stuck.
My name.
Cael banged once on the door. No knock pattern. Just one heavy thud.
It opened to reveal a man whose skin seemed to hum with heat, his eyes catching the dim light like molten gold. Behind him, the room breathed heat, too not metaphorical heat. Actual waves of it, pressing against my face.
Cael looked back at me, smile barely there.
"They've been waiting for you."
I should've turned around.
I didn't.
Inside, the air smelled of ash and metal. The people if they were people sat in a loose circle. Each of them wore a ring with a symbol I didn't recognize.
Except one.
One wore a ring that had belonged to my father.
The molten-eyed man spoke first. "Carson Vale… the seal is breaking."
My skin prickled.
"What seal?"
Cael's hand landed on my shoulder, a weight both reassuring and warning.
"The one that's been keeping your power from swallowing you whole."
And then somewhere deep in the floor beneath us... something answered.
.....
The sound rose from the floor like a growl made of stone and thunder.
It wasn't loud.
It was deep, the kind of sound that didn't pass through your ears so much as it rolled inside your chest, rattling your bones until your heartbeat wasn't yours anymore.
Every head in the circle turned toward me. Not toward Cael. Not toward the molten-eyed man.
Me.
Cael's grip on my shoulder tightened.
"Careful," he murmured, so softly I almost thought I imagined it. "If you answer, you can't go back."
I wanted to ask answer what?, but the floor beneath the circle cracked. The heat surged, and from that opening a single curl of dark smoke rose twisting into a shape I couldn't name but somehow recognized.
It stopped in front of me, almost… studying me.
Then a voice not in the air, but inside my head whispered:
"You look like him."
I swallowed hard. "Like who?"
Cael didn't flinch when the smoke coiled toward his face, but I saw the faintest glint of satisfaction in his eyes.
The molten-eyed man leaned forward.
"Your father."
My chest tightened.
"He's dead."
The circle laughed not like it was funny, but like it was pathetic that I believed it.
The molten-eyed man shook his head.
"No. They didn't kill him, Carson. They used him. And when the seal on him cracked, he chose to disappear… before the thing inside him burned the world."
My pulse pounded in my ears. "You're lying."
Cael stepped in front of me then, and for a split second, the shadow in the glass back at the apartment flickered behind him, its grin wider now.
"Maybe they are," he said. "But if they're not… then that thing you just heard? That's not calling for me. It's calling for you. Just like it called for him."
The smoke's whisper deepened, curling around my thoughts:
"The bloodline doesn't break. It burns."
And with that, the crack in the floor split wider, the heat surged, and something big started to push its way up a shape that made my instincts scream to run even as something darker in me wanted to welcome it.
Cael's voice was almost pleased.
"Now, Carson… let's see if you're ready to meet what's been waiting for you your whole life."