The fire was gone. Steam hissed from cracked cobblestones, curling into the night sky like the dying breath of the slums themselves. Merchants huddled against collapsed stalls, clutching singed goods, too afraid to scream lest they draw attention from the boy who had just frozen men alive.
Jade stood at the center, frost creeping outward in delicate lace until it melted into the surrounding puddles. His blindfold fluttered faintly in the heat, hair silver-blue against the flames' glow. His small chest rose and fell with a steady rhythm, utterly calm.
Then—
"JADE!"
Niamh burst from the smoke, skirts scorched, knife in hand though her arm trembled with age. Her hands blur as she reached for him, pulling him roughly against her chest. Her grip was fierce, almost desperate, as though she could squeeze the cold from him by sheer force.
"What do you think you're doing?" Her voice cracked, loud enough that even the fleeing Rats heard. " What do you think you're doing running into fire like that ?! ,You could've been burned, you could've—" She broke off, staring at the frozen body crumbling behind him.
Jade lifted his face from her cloak, calm as ever. "I told you. Waiting would drown us. I can't wait anymore."
Niamh's mouth opened, then closed, her throat working. Her hands, fast and skilled as they were, shook. She wanted to scold him, drag him home, shield him like the infant she once found abandoned. But she couldn't—not when his eyes, hidden though they were, burned with intent.
Gorvoth appeared next, his hammer still slung over one shoulder. He surveyed the scene with one glance, lips tightening. "Well. That answers whether you were bait."
Jade looked up at him nodding slightly.
The old smith snorted, though his gaze lingered on the frozen corpse. "Careful, boy. Victories like this don't stay quiet. The Rats will scream your name to every gutter, and the Ravens will write it into their ledgers. You've painted a mark on your back in blood and frost."
"Then let them come," Jade said softly.
---
By dawn, Nexus City was a hive of whispers.
> The blindfolded boy froze the Ash Rats.
The Silent Ravens pulled back, didn't even touch him.
Beta, they say. But no Beta does this.
In taverns, voices hushed whenever his name was spoken. Merchants sold rumors like spices, each adding flavor: his hair glows under starlight, his eyes see through walls, he speaks to ghosts.
And in the towering Spire, where wealth and power pooled like stagnant water, one man listened more carefully than most.
Governor Kael Varros sat in his private chamber, holo-screens dimmed. His broad shoulders filled the armchair, the air around him heavy with the dominance of a Dominant Alpha with an [A] rank Talent. Yet his gaze was softened, distant, as he held the hand of a frail woman reclining against silken pillows.
Her breath rattled faintly, her skin pale with an illness no healer, no alchemist, no Talent could touch. For years, Kael had scoured Nexarion and beyond for a cure, only to be met with failure.
Tonight, though, his steward entered quietly and bowed low. "Governor. Word from the slums."
Kael lifted his eyes. "Speak."
"The boy again. The one from the alchemy exams. They say he froze a faction leader where he stood. The Ash Rats broke. The Ravens… observed."
Silence stretched. Kael's grip on his wife's hand tightened.
Finally, he leaned back, voice low. "A boy who unsettles both factions? Perhaps… a piece worth moving."
His wife stirred weakly, her gaze hazy. "A child…? Kael… don't…"
But Kael only stroked her hair, eyes narrowing. "If he is what they whisper, he may not only be a weapon… maybe a cure."
...
On the rooftops, the Silent Ravens reconvened at dawn. Their leader's silver hair glinted faintly as he exhaled frost into the morning air—not frost from the cold, but from the lingering fear of what they'd witnessed.
"The Ash Rats failed," murmured the toxin-blooded man.
The woman with shadow-ink eyes hissed. "Not failed. Exposed. He froze their leader without effort."
Their leader said nothing for a long moment. Then: "The boy is more than rumor. But we do not strike yet. He is watched. Touched too soon, and the city will not see a villain. They will see us. Let the Ash Rats bleed more. Let the Guild stir. We remain patient."
"And when?" the shadow-eyed woman pressed.
"When he believes himself untouchable." His smile was thin, predatory. "That is when we clip his wings."
....
The shop smelled faintly of smoke and wet ash when they returned. Niamh moved with quick, angry efficiency, wiping soot from Jade's white cheeks, scrubbing his hair as if she could erase the memory of flames. Her hands all over him, a mother's fury sharpening every motion.
"You need to stop scaring me like that Jade!" she snapped.
Jade sat calmly, letting her fuss, frost still curled faintly along his fingertips. "Sorry, but i can't promise. You know the storm that's coming ,Niamh."
"I do! But you—" She broke off, stabbing the rag into the bucket. "You'll be the death of me, Jade."
Gorvoth watched from his chair, pipe lit now. Smoke curled upward, slow and steady. "No, woman. He'll be the death of many. And the salvation of some." His eyes met Jade's. "Question is, boy, can you tell which is which?"
Jade tilted his head, expression unreadable beneath the blindfold. "Not yet. But I'll learn. That's what the board is for."
That night, as the city simmered, a quiet knock sounded at Gorvoth's shop. Not a Raven. Not a Rat. But a messenger dressed in the muted green of the Alchemist Guild.
The man bowed stiffly, voice formal. "By order of the Guild Council, the boy known as Jade is summoned. Allegations of disruption, of illegal alchemy, of interference in Guild affairs will be addressed at hearing."
Niamh's breath caught, her hand flying to Jade's shoulder.
Gorvoth's jaw clenched. "So it begins," he muttered.
Jade only smiled faintly, frost curling at the edges of his lips. "Good. I was waiting for them."
The messenger blinked, unsettled by the calm in his voice.
And somewhere, hidden behind the Guild's walls, a red-haired woman smiled with venom, her eyes burning with a vendetta she had nursed since the exams.
---------------------------------------------------------
That night, Jade bade farewell to Gorvoth, even though he insisted on walking them home, but Jade assured him he would be fine and would be able to protect both himself and Niamh. Gorvoth, knowing what Jade was capable of, agreed after giving Jade a meaningful look. "Goodnight then, I'll see you at the court hearing tomorrow," he said, before turning to leave.
Suddenly, air grew silent, shadows muted like they had been frozen in place, and from the darkness lurking around the narrow alley, the Ash Rats emerged, their eyes fixed on Jade with a vicious intent.
They had calculated that Gorvoth and Niamh, Jade's guardians, were his weaknesses, and they aimed to exploit that.
Niamh's face contorted with worry, her hands fluttering around Jade like a protective mother bird. The Ash Rats sneered, thinking they had Jade's weak points right where they wanted them. But Jade's gaze locked onto the thugs, his eyes flashing with a cold smile. He had been expecting them. A chill wind swept through the street, and frost began to etch the cobblestones.
....
The air snapped taut, silence swallowing the back alley where Jade had drawn them in. The Ash Rats stood in their ragged coats, weapons trembling just slightly in their hands, and opposite them the Silent Ravens in their lacquered armor.
And in the center of it all — a boy with silvery-blue hair that caught the torchlight like strands of moonfire.
Jade's lips curved, faint, unreadable. The chalk lines and threads of mana he had scattered earlier along the alley floor shimmered — a glimmer only those with sharp senses could see. And they did.
One Raven's hand twitched toward his blade. "What trick is this?"
An Ash Rat spat on the stones. "The brat's got guts, I'll give him that." His eyes narrowed, trying to track the faint glows. "But it won't stop us this time !"
Jade tilted his head, the dual irises in his eyes catching the firelight — one silvery-grey, the other golden-purple — overlapping, wrong, mesmerizing. "It won't stop you," he said softly, voice carrying like frost in the lungs. "It'll bury you."
The threads of light snapped alive.
Walls of ice surged from the stones, not jagged shards but sculpted barriers — seamless, unyielding, cutting the alley into compartments. Ravens and Rats were trapped together, forced against each other, their movements constrained.
Panic spread first in breaths, then in shouts.
"You bastard—!" A Raven lunged, only to crash shoulder-first into a gleaming wall, frost climbing over his armor.
"Why isn't it breaking?!" one of the Rats howled, fists bruising against the frozen walls.
Jade's aura seeped outward, that suffocating, bitter chill that gnawed at bone and thought alike. And worse — it was steady. Controlled. No child should command mana with this precision.
Niamh, standing a pace behind, her old eyes wide, clutched her shawl. Her fingers twitched. She could feel her boy walking a razor's edge. Her breath was tight in her throat. To her, he was still that baby she had pulled from the filth seven years ago. And she hated herself for being a liability to him when she should be protecting his childhood.
A Raven with sharper senses snarled. His Talent flared — Soundbreaker [C], his voice splitting the air into a weapon as he roared, the ice vibrating under the resonance. "CRUSH HIM!"
The Ash Rats, unwilling to be mocked, answered with a chorus of snarls, their leader activating Steel Skin [D], his flesh turning metallic gray as he slammed his fists into the frozen wall. Sparks flew, but the ice held.
Jade smiled faintly, the frost around him whispering. "Struggle more."
The boy didn't shout, didn't posture. He simply watched, his system quietly ticking as every flailing strike, every desperate clash spilled blood within the icy cage he'd built. And the factions began tearing each other apart, realizing too late who had penned them in like beasts.
Above, faint cracks spidered along the rooftops where the magical pressure leaked into the night. Nexus City would feel this.