The Kane estate did not panic.
That was the first thing Mason noticed when awareness returned to him in fragments. No alarms. No running servants. No shouting guards. The estate absorbed catastrophe the way stone absorbed rain.
Quietly.
He sat on the floor of a different room now. Smaller. Private. Reinforced, but not a training hall. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and old wood polish. His hands rested in his lap, still stained with dust and dried blood that was not his.
Mom was gone.
The thought arrived without emotion at first, like a fact read from a page.
Gone.
Richard Kane stood near the far wall, speaking in a low voice to two senior aides. Their faces were grave but composed. Orders were being issued. Movements planned. Control reasserted.
Mason did not listen.
His chest felt hollow, as if the space where something vital had lived had been scooped clean. Breathing felt optional. Blinking felt unnecessary.
Richard turned.
"You are stable," he said. "Physically."
Mason did not look up.
"There will be no public announcement yet," Richard continued. "The narrative will be handled carefully."
Still nothing.
Richard paused, then spoke again, slower this time. "What occurred today was irreversible. What matters now is what follows."
Mason's fingers curled slightly.
Richard watched the movement, then nodded once, as if confirming a hypothesis. "Rest. You will resume training when you are ready."
The door opened before Mason could process the words.
Crystal stepped inside first.
She was fourteen now, tall and sharp eyed, her posture composed in the way only someone raised in constant awareness could be. Her eyes flicked immediately to Mason, then to his hands, then to his face. Something unreadable passed through her expression.
Arc followed.
He was twelve, broader than Mason had been at that age, energy barely contained even when he stood still. His usual restlessness was gone. He looked around once, then locked onto Mason.
Neither spoke at first.
Crystal moved closer and sat beside Mason without asking. Her shoulder brushed his. It was deliberate.
Arc hovered for a moment, then dropped down cross legged in front of him, studying his brother's face like he was trying to memorize it.
"You look bad," Arc said finally.
Crystal shot him a look. "Not helpful."
"I mean," Arc corrected, quieter, "you look different."
Mason blinked once.
Crystal rested her hands together, fingers interlaced tightly. "Father told us there was an accident."
Mason let out a short, humorless breath. It surprised him.
Arc frowned. "That bad, huh."
Crystal did not push. She never did. Instead, she leaned back slightly, giving Mason space while still staying close.
"We can stay," she said. "If you want."
Silence stretched.
Mason nodded once.
That was enough.
They stayed.
No questions. No speeches. Arc cracked one weak joke about how the training hall was definitely getting renovated now. Crystal snorted despite herself, then caught Mason watching and looked away quickly.
Hours passed like that.
Eventually, Mason stood.
"I need to be alone," he said.
His voice sounded distant to his own ears.
Crystal rose immediately. "We'll be outside."
Arc hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. We'll be around."
They did not hug him. Did not grab his arm. They respected the line between presence and pressure.
Mason closed the door behind him.
The room he retreated to had once been his mother's study.
He sat at the desk where she used to read, fingers tracing the edge where her hand had rested countless times. The world felt muted, as if someone had turned the volume down on existence itself.
Days passed.
Training continued for Crystal and Arc. Lessons. Meals. Routine.
Mason did none of it.
He ate when food appeared. Slept when exhaustion dragged him under. He spoke only when required, and even then, sparingly.
Crystal knocked once each night.
Arc left dumb little notes outside the door. Short sentences. Bad handwriting. Things like Eat something or Don't die in there.
Mason read every one.
He never responded.
Richard watched it all from a distance.
He did not interfere. Did not force conversation. Did not demand progress. His attention was sharp, calculating, patient.
The awakening had occurred.
Not fully. Not cleanly.
But something had answered.
And now Mason Kane moved through the estate like a ghost, carrying grief like a second spine, silent and unbroken, while the world outside remained blissfully unaware that the foundation of the Kane lineage had cracked.
Not shattered.
Cracked.
And cracks, Richard knew, were where pressure eventually reshaped stone.
The training hall felt wrong without Mason.
Crystal noticed it first. She always did.
The space was the same as it had always been. Reinforced walls etched with old Kane sigils. Polished black flooring scarred from years of controlled violence. High ceilings designed to absorb shock and sound. Everything was intact. Everything was prepared.
And yet something essential was missing.
"Again," the instructor said.
Crystal inhaled slowly and stepped forward. Her eyes focused on the far wall, on a brass marker embedded near the ceiling. She narrowed her gaze and vanished.
The air folded.
She reappeared instantly, boots striking stone with clean precision. No distortion. No instability. Perfect line of sight. Perfect execution.
"Range increasing," the instructor noted. "Good."
Arc cracked his neck beside her, electricity whispering faintly along his forearms. "Show off."
Crystal glanced at him. "You're just slow."
Arc grinned and stepped forward. Lightning surged at once, sharp and violent, crawling up his spine and bursting outward in controlled arcs. He raised one hand and pulled the current inward, compressing it until it hummed loudly enough to vibrate the floor.
Then he released it.
The bolt struck a reinforced target dummy and detonated in a flash of white blue light. The dummy skidded backward but stayed upright.
"Still standing," Crystal said flatly.
Arc scowled. "That thing hates me."
The instructor cleared his throat. "Again. Less force. More control."
Arc rolled his shoulders. "Yeah yeah."
They reset.
Normally Mason would be standing off to the side. Watching. Quiet. Saying nothing but somehow making everything feel steadier just by being there.
Arc noticed his absence halfway through the next exercise.
"You think he's eating?" he asked casually, eyes fixed forward.
Crystal did not look at him. "He eats."
"That wasn't a yes."
Crystal blinked once and vanished again. She reappeared behind Arc and flicked the back of his head.
"Focus," she said. "You mess up when you talk."
Arc winced and laughed quietly. "See that's what he does. He just stares at you until you feel stupid."
Crystal's jaw tightened. Just slightly.
They trained harder after that.
Crystal pushed her teleportation further, chaining short jumps without rest, testing angles, forcing her vision to track faster than comfort allowed. Arc dialed back raw output and worked on shaping lightning into tighter forms, forcing it to bend instead of explode.
Neither mentioned Mason again.
After training, they sat on the steps outside the hall, sweat cooling against their skin.
Arc leaned back on his hands. "He's going to hate missing this."
Crystal shook her head. "No. He won't."
Arc frowned. "How do you know?"
"Because," she said quietly, "he never wanted to be here. He just came because we were."
Arc was silent for a moment.
Then he snorted. "Figures. Big brother suffering in silence like it's a hobby."
Crystal allowed a small smile. Brief. Faint. Gone as quickly as it appeared.
"We'll train," she said. "We'll get better. When he comes back, we won't slow him down."
Arc nodded. "Yeah. That'd be annoying."
They sat there a while longer.
Inside the estate, Mason remained absent from the hall, from the schedule, from the rhythm of Kane life. But outside it, two siblings trained harder than ever, not to surpass him, not to replace him, but so that when he returned, he would not have to carry the weight alone.