Night pressed heavy over the citadel. The training fields were empty, lit only by pale moonlight and the faint glow of runes etched into the stone.
Kael stood alone in the ring. His breaths came harsh and uneven, his palms trembling. He had tried for hours to summon Silence on command. To bend it. To make it his.
Nothing.
And then, suddenly, everything.
The stillness would crash outward without warning, choking the air, snuffing sparks, leaving him gasping until it collapsed again. Every attempt ended the same: failure, fear, exhaustion.
"You're drowning."
The voice cut through the night like a blade.
Kael spun, heart lurching. A man leaned against the far column, wrapped in a cloak of shadow-gray, his eyes faintly burning like embers beneath a hood. He hadn't made a sound when he arrived.
"Ashen Vox," Kael whispered. He'd seen the man once during the initiation. He hadn't expected… this.
Vox's lips curved faintly. "The boy with the abyss inside him."
Kael's fists tightened. "If you're here to tell me I'm cursed, save it. I've heard enough."
Vox pushed off the column, stepping closer, each footfall disturbingly silent. "Cursed? No. You're raw iron pulled from the ground. Sharp enough to cut the hands of anyone foolish enough to grasp you—but worthless unless forged."
He raised a hand. The air around Kael shimmered—and then Vox unleashed a wave of his own Resonance. It wasn't flame, or shadow, or light. It was pressure, ancient and suffocating, like the weight of centuries collapsing inward.
Kael staggered, choking.
"Defend yourself," Vox said.
"I—can't!" Kael forced the word out, struggling as the pressure bore down.
"Then you will die. And the silence with you."
Something inside Kael snapped. The abyss in him stirred—not wild this time, but desperate. He pulled, clawed inward, and for a heartbeat, he felt something shift.
The silence wrapped not outward, but inward.
A still veil folded over his body, cocooning him. Vox's crushing Resonance struck it—and dissolved into nothing.
Kael gasped, falling to one knee. The veil flickered, unstable, but it had worked.
Vox's ember-eyes sharpened. "Silent Veil. A shield born from void. Crude, incomplete… but real."
Kael's chest heaved. "I—I stopped it."
"For now." Vox turned, already stepping back into the shadows. "You've taken one step. A thousand remain. Control your abyss—or it will consume more than your enemies."
His voice lingered as his body faded into darkness.
"And remember, boy—power is not for comfort. It is for fear."
Then he was gone, leaving Kael kneeling in the moonlit ring, trembling but alive, the ghost of the veil still tingling over his skin.
For the first time, Kael felt not just fear of his Silence—but the faintest spark of hope.