Rain began to fall — soft, glimmering drops that shimmered faintly as they hit the pavement. Even the weather in Voltixol Prime was tinged with energy; the stormclouds pulsed with low electric veins, like the sky itself was alive.
Kael moved quickly through the streets, his coat rippling under the glow of passing drones. His wristband displayed a faint orange trail — a tracker line leading toward Eryndor's sector.
He didn't like this feeling.
Silence. No pings, no status feed. Just absence.
Eryndor was the kind of person who filled every room with sound — laughter, argument, plans.
For him to vanish like this…
Rykas was already waiting by the building when Kael arrived. The place was dark — too dark.
"Power grid's off," Rykas muttered, tapping the side of his wristband. "No signal in or out. Feels like a blackout field."
Kael frowned. "He wouldn't just cut power. You sure HQ didn't pull him for something?"
"I checked. No mission log, no clearance. It's like he never existed."
They exchanged a look — the kind that carried years of trust. Then Kael pressed his palm to the lockpad. A soft click echoed, followed by a pulse of static.
The door slid open with a groan.
Inside, the air was heavy with dust and faint ozone — the kind of trace left behind by lightning energy. Screens were shattered. Papers scattered. The smell of burnt circuitry filled the room.
"Looks like a storm hit inside," Rykas said, stepping carefully over broken glass.
Kael knelt beside a cracked datapad. The last image still flickered faintly — Eryndor's face, grainy and half-glitched. His mouth was moving, but no sound came.
Then the file distorted completely. The screen burst into static, and a low hum filled the room — like whispering through an electric field.
"Kael…" Rykas said quietly. "That hum. You feel that?"
Kael did. It wasn't sound — it was pressure, resonating somewhere deep in his chest. A vibration that grew sharper, faster, like a heart syncing to some hidden rhythm.
The air around his hand began to glow — faint lines of orange and white threading through his skin, flickering like lightning veins.
"Kael. You're—"
"It's fine." His voice was calm, but his pulse wasn't. "It's reacting to something."
He stood slowly, following the sound toward Eryndor's desk. Beneath the surface, the wood had blackened — burned not by fire, but by concentrated energy. He brushed the ash aside and found a single object embedded in the grain.
A pendant. Metallic, oval, etched with three interlocking circles — one for light, one for shadow, one for time.
It pulsed once, faintly, as Kael touched it.
The world around him blurred.
For an instant, he wasn't in the apartment anymore. The walls melted into gold and shadow — he saw shapes, fragments: a battlefield of broken towers, a man cloaked in flame and lightning, another standing before him with silver eyes filled with pain.
Then the vision shattered.
Kael stumbled back, gasping. Rykas caught his shoulder.
"Kael! What the hell was that?"
"A memory… but not mine."
He looked down at the pendant. The glow had faded — now dull, lifeless metal. But his hand still trembled faintly with power.
Outside, thunder cracked — close enough to rattle the glass.
Rykas's eyes narrowed. "We should leave. Whoever did this might come back."
"No," Kael said softly. "We're missing something."
He walked toward Eryndor's window. Across the skyline, the neon lights of Voltixol reflected in the rain — red, gold, and blue, like fractured stars.
And then he saw it.
On the opposite rooftop, a tall figure stood — motionless, cloaked in shadow, watching them. Lightning flashed, and for a split second Kael thought he saw the faint outline of horns.
When the light faded, the figure was gone.
"Dark Elves…" Rykas muttered.
"Impossible. The Accord was decades ago," Kael said.
"Then either history lied — or someone's rewriting it."
The pendant in Kael's hand flickered once more — this time with a faint pulse of time.
He stared at it, the words from that long-ago poem echoing quietly in his head:
"Every spark burns a shadow…"
And somewhere deep inside, a whisper followed — one that wasn't his own.
Find the Verse.
Find the Truth before Time forgets you.
Kael closed his fist around the pendant, eyes hardening.
"We're not reporting this yet," he said quietly. "We find Eryndor ourselves."
Rykas nodded. "You got it."
Outside, the storm broke in full — thunder roaring over Voltixol Prime as Kael and Rykas disappeared into the rain.
Above them, the stars watched — silent, waiting — just as they had in that ancient poem.