Draven's Reach, Present Day
The portal sealed behind him with a whisper of displaced air, leaving only the scent of burned magic and distant rain. Kael stood where he had fallen thirteen years ago, on the bloodstained balcony of the Hall of Gears. Thirteen years that had passed simultaneously on both worlds, second by second, heartbeat by heartbeat. The marble beneath his boots was stained dark, not with blood (that had long since washed away) but with something deeper. Memory.
His hands found the brass railing, fingers tracing familiar grooves worn smooth by countless evenings watching the city below. The metal was cold, tarnished green in places, neglected.
Like everything else.
Draven's Reach stretched before him, a corpse of bronze and broken promises.
The memory of gleaming towers shimmered over the reality of decay like heat mirages, then dissolved, leaving only ruin. Where spires of bronze had once pierced the sky, now vines crept up weathered sides like grasping fingers. The great chimney stacks that had breathed white steam into endless blue stood muted, their mouths dark and cold. No automatons clattered through streets that remembered the sound of silver wheels on cobblestone. No children's laughter echoed from the Brass Promenade.
The fountains in the Clockwork Gardens had gone dry.
Kael's throat tightened. This was his city. His masterpiece. His legacy.
Ruined.
The city called to him, broken and waiting.
The City Center
Three streets below, in what had been the Grand Plaza, canvas tents and crude wooden shacks huddled together like frightened animals. Smoke rose from cooking fires where once the great Celebration Fountain had danced with light and music. People moved between the makeshift shelters: refugees, citizens, survivors. They wore clothes that might once have been fine, now patched and faded. Their faces carried the weight of years without hope.
"Tommy, hand me that rope."
A man knelt beside a collapsed tent, his weathered hands working to secure a corner. His hair was gray, his back bent with more than age. Something about his movements, careful and precise, spoke of old training. Old discipline.
The boy beside him (ten, maybe eleven) passed the rope without looking, his attention fixed on something above. "Dad," he said, voice pitched with excitement. "Dad, look."
"Not now, Tommy. This wind's getting worse and if we don't..."
"Dad, look at the balcony."
The man followed his son's gaze upward, past the broken streetlamps and rusted signs, to the Hall of Gears. To the shadowed figure standing where no one had stood for thirteen years.
Tommy tugged his father's sleeve. "Dad, it's him! The man from the old posters! The one with the crown and the silver hair!"
"Tommy, that's just..." The man's words died. Thirteen years of memorial walls and missing person notices. Every child in the city knew that face. For a moment, just a moment, the light caught the figure on the balcony differently. Caught the gleam of silver in dark hair, the familiar line of shoulders he'd seen a hundred times on faded photographs and remembrance shrines.
"That's impossible," he whispered.
When he looked again, the balcony was empty.
The Hall of Gears
Kael turned from the railing, from the sight of his broken city, and walked into the hall that had once blazed with celebration. Dust motes danced in shafts of afternoon light that fell through cracked windows. Tables lay overturned, their legs broken, their surfaces scarred.
The great chandelier hung at an angle, half its crystals missing, the rest coated in grime.
For a moment, the ghosts of celebration overlaid the dust and silence. Liora's laughter, silver and sharp. Garret's scholarly toast. Asla's grin as her blade caught the light. Torren's thunderous applause. Then the phantoms faded, leaving him alone with the truth.
Here, Liora had lifted her glass and smiled. There, Garret had raised his cup to trust repaid. And here, in this spot where Kael now stood, they had surrounded him. Surrounded him and...
He closed his eyes, pushed the memory down. The betrayal was the past. The wreckage was the present. What came next, that was his choice.
His footsteps echoed as he crossed the hall, each sound a small violence in the silence. Doors hung open on broken hinges. Corridors that had hummed with activity stood empty, their walls stripped of tapestries and art. Someone had been thorough. Someone had taken everything of value and left only the bones.
The throne room doors were massive things of carved oak and brass, designed to impress visitors and inspire awe. Now they hung askew, one torn completely from its hinges. Beyond lay the chamber where he had held court, where he had dispensed justice and settled disputes and tried to build something worthy.
The throne was gone. Of course it was. Probably melted down, the gold sold, the gems pried out and traded for bread or passage to safer lands. In its place sat only the raised dais, empty stone steps leading to nothing.
Kael stood at the edge of the throne room for a long moment, remembering. Then he turned and walked deeper into the palace, toward chambers no thief could have touched. Toward rooms sealed by magic older and stronger than anything his betrayers had understood.
His Private Chambers
The door to his personal quarters recognized him still. Ancient wards parted like curtains, allowing him passage into rooms that time had touched but not ravaged. Here the dust lay thick but undisturbed.
Here his belongings waited as he had left them thirteen years ago.
His bed, still unmade from the morning of his birthday. Books scattered on the table beside it, their pages marked with notes in his own hand. A cup that had once held tea, now holding only stains and memories.
On the nightstand lay a leather-bound journal, still open to his last entry: "Tomorrow is my birthday. Perhaps this year I'll finally feel like I belong here." His hand trembled as he closed the book. The naive hope of that younger self felt like a blade between the ribs.
The wardrobe stood against the far wall, its dark wood unmarked by the years. Kael opened it slowly, as if something might escape. Inside hung the clothes of a king: ceremonial robes, court dress, traveling gear.
And there, at the back, the uniform he had hoped never to wear again.
Military dress, royal blue with silver trim. The jacket of a commander, the boots of a soldier. The regalia of a man who had built an empire from ashes and ruled it for twelve years before it all came crashing down.
Kael lifted the uniform from its hook, felt the weight of memory in the fabric. The last time he had worn this, it had been to inspect the city's defenses. To review the troops that would never be called to defend against the threat that came from within.
He dressed slowly, methodically. Each piece of clothing was armor against doubt, against the part of him that wanted to walk away, return to Earth, leave Draven's Reach to its fate. The jacket fit perfectly, as if thirteen years of Earth-time had changed nothing.
The boots still molded to his feet like old friends.
When he was finished, he looked at himself in the mirror across the room. The reflection that stared back was not the broken exile who had crawled through a portal thirteen years ago. Nor was it the naive dreamer who had left Earth behind.
This was something new. Something harder.
Something dangerous.
It was time to wake the sleeping giant.
The Control Room
The deepest part of the palace had always been his private domain. Here, beneath layers of stone and steel and protective wards, lay the heart of Draven's Reach. The control systems he had designed and built with his own hands, the failsafes he had hoped never to use, the emergency protocols that would activate only in the gravest need.
The door was exactly as he had left it. Solid steel inscribed with protection runes, sealed by magic that recognized only one man in all the world. His betrayers had tried to breach it (he could see the scorch marks, the scratches where blades and spells had failed against his defenses).
They had gotten close, but close wasn't enough.
The door opened at his touch, wards recognizing their creator. Beyond lay a chamber that hummed with potential energy, with systems that had waited thirteen years for his return. Brass panels lined the walls, covered in switches and gauges and readouts.
At the center sat a chair that faced a wall of monitors, each one dark, each one waiting.
Kael sat down and began to wake his city.
Power first. His fingers danced across familiar controls, activating generators that had slumbered in the deep places beneath Draven's Reach. The generators groaned, sputtered once, then caught with a rumble that shook the floor. One by one, lights began to flicker on across the palace.
Then throughout the city itself, as emergency systems came online and brought illumination to streets that had known only darkness.
Water next. The great pumps that drew from the underground springs, that fed the fountains and the homes and the workshops. Ancient pumps wheezed to life, pipes clanging protests before settling into steady rhythm. He could hear them starting up, groaning with disuse but still functional.
Still faithful.
And finally, the gates.
His hand hovered over the controls for a moment. Once he did this, there would be no hiding. No pretending he was just another survivor returned from exile. Everyone would know that Kael Draven had come home.
He thought of the refugees below, huddled in their tents. Of the father and son who had glimpsed him on the balcony. Of the young woman somewhere in the city, facing horrors he could prevent.
His hand came down hard on the switch.
Throughout Draven's Reach, the great bronze gates began to move. The gate mechanism shrieked metal against metal, grinding through years of rust and neglect. Mechanisms that had stood open for thirteen years groaned to life, barriers rising from the ground and swinging closed across every entrance to the city.
The sound echoed off brass walls and broken dreams, announcing to anyone who cared to listen that Draven's Reach was under new management.
Or perhaps, old management.
As the city systems came online, one monitor flickered with an anomaly. Movement in the Lower Districts, too organized to be refugees. Kael made a mental note to investigate, then dismissed it.
First, he had a city to reclaim.
Kael leaned back in his chair and smiled. It was not a pleasant expression.
He was home.