Morning returned as if nothing had happened.
The slums of Keystone yawned beneath a new sky, washed clean by the storm yet heavy with smoke. The canal reflected the ruins like an open wound that refused to close.
Jayden stood where his home used to be. The boards were blackened, the roof a broken rib cage half-sunk into the mud. Every breath tasted of salt and ash.
Behind him, someone muttered, "Poor boy survived the strike."
Another whispered, "Saw the whole house glow blue."
He didn't answer. Words were pity, and pity was rot.
Marla lay on a cot inside the neighbor's hut, pale and still but breathing. The healer said she might wake, or might not. Bram's name hung in the air like smoke. No wind could move.
Jayden thanked them all, bowed once, and left before they could ask how he lived. He had no answer that would make sense. I drowned, he thought. And then I didn't.
The canals ran quiet that day. Barges drifted lazily, children shouted from rooftops, and life crept back into the cracks. But wherever he walked, the water followed him with its eyes — reflections rippling, small waves tugging toward his steps.
By noon he'd reached the far pier, a forgotten place where the city's pulse dimmed. He dropped to his knees, cupped the murky water, and watched it spill through his fingers.
It should have felt cold. It didn't.
A faint warmth pulsed behind his left eye. For a heartbeat the world tilted — colors deepened, sounds stretched thin, and he could feel the flow beneath the surface: currents coiling, threads weaving through the silt.
He blinked, and it was gone.
No witnesses. No Codex voice. Just him and the river's slow breathing.
He spent the next hours testing that feeling.
First by accident — tossing pebbles, tracing ripples, watching them stop when he willed them to.
Then by intent — spreading his palm over the canal, exhaling until the surface stilled.
At first nothing happened. The water mocked him, flat and silent.
Then, a tremor.
A single drop lifted from the surface, hovering in the air like a tear refusing to fall.
Jayden stared until it burst, splashing his cheek. He laughed once, short and startled.
Again.
He steadied his breath, lowered his heartbeat, and reached for the pulse beneath his skin — the same pulse he'd felt in the Realm, when the Leviathan's gaze had nearly broken him. Something ancient answered, faint but real.
The canal shivered. Dozens of droplets rose, orbiting his hand like a ring of translucent moons. They spun faster, merging into a thin ribbon that cut the light into shards.
He moved his wrist; the ribbon obeyed.
He smiled. It's listening.
The smile faded. Power thrummed through his veins, too wild, too eager. He lost focus; the ribbon collapsed with a splash that drenched his knees.
Panting, he dropped to the dock. "Too much," he whispered. "Too fast."
No one answered. Only the canal, settling back into stillness.
As dusk bled into the sky, he sat cross-legged, watching reflections slide over the water's skin. Each ripple caught a fragment of the setting sun, scattering gold like coins he'd never own.
He thought of Bram's calloused hands, Marla's tired smile, Taylor's reckless grin. Of the lightning that had taken one, spared another, and remade him into something he couldn't name.
The ache in his chest twisted, hot and sharp. For an instant his vision blurred—and the mark in his eye flickered alive.
Blue runes bloomed within his iris, rippling outward like expanding rings. The canal answered. A column of water surged upward, towering above the pier, glimmering with moonlight though no moon had risen.
Jayden gasped, forcing his mind to steady. "Down," he commanded through gritted teeth.
The column trembled… and obeyed. It collapsed back into the canal with a sound like a sigh.
He fell to one knee, trembling, soaked but grinning.
Control. Real control.
Night deepened. The city lights of upper Keystone blinked to life, reflected in the canals like constellations drowning upside-down.
Jayden sat there until the stars took their places. His hands were raw, his body spent, but something within him had settled — a new rhythm, calm yet unyielding.
He looked into the water. His reflection stared back, no longer the ragged boy hauling buckets through mud. The same face, but different eyes — eyes that carried the quiet of the depths.
"I'll master this," he murmured. "All of it."
The canal rippled once, as if the world had heard but refused to care. That was fine. He didn't need its blessing.
He gathered his blades, slung them across his back, and turned toward the sleeping city. Behind him, the water stilled completely, clear enough to mirror the stars — and for a heartbeat, the faint outline of an enormous eye shimmered beneath the surface, watching him go.