CHAPTER 10 THE MAN WHO TOOK EVERYTHING
They buried Lysenne with broken hands.
The ground was too hard, frozen beneath ash and ruin, and the shovel blade snapped halfway through. Kael kept digging anyway. When the handle broke he used a piece of scrap metal. When that bent, he used his fingers.
He didn't feel pain.
He felt hollow, like something essential had been removed and the body hadn't noticed yet.
Aira stood behind him, silent tears carving tracks through soot on her cheeks. Riven paced in short, violent circles, muttering curses to gods he didn't believe in anymore.
When the grave was finished, Kael laid Lysenne inside it himself.
Her hair was still braided. Her lips still parted like she was about to say his name.
He covered her with dirt.
He did not cry.
The fog thickened.
"Kael Arden."
The voice did not echo.
It didn't need to.
The world bent around it.
Kael stood slowly.
Vaelor Creed was standing ten paces away, hands folded behind his back like a man admiring a sunset.
"How did you find us?" Aira whispered.
Vaelor didn't look at her. His eyes never left Kael.
"You don't hide from men like me," Vaelor said calmly. "You merely postpone being found."
Riven stepped forward, flames crawling across his arms. "You touch him and I'll burn this city to ash."
Vaelor glanced at him once, bored. The flames guttered and died like candles in a vacuum.
Riven collapsed to his knees, gasping.
Kael moved between them. "This is about me."
Vaelor smiled faintly. "Everything is."
He walked past Kael and stopped at Lysenne's grave.
"Such a small woman," Vaelor mused. "Yet she kept you alive for years. Fed you. Healed you. Loved you."
Kael's voice shook. "Don't say her name."
Vaelor looked over his shoulder. "Why not? It was the last word she spoke."
Kael felt something rupture in his chest.
"You're lying."
Vaelor turned fully now, eyes bright with something that wasn't cruelty.
It was satisfaction.
"She begged," Vaelor said softly. "Not for herself. For you. Told my men you were worth saving."
Aira made a strangled sound.
Riven tried to stand again and failed.
Vaelor stepped closer to Kael until they were face to face.
"You think I kill because I'm angry," Vaelor said. "I don't. Anger is sloppy."
He placed a finger against Kael's sternum.
"I kill because it teaches."
The Apex Core shrieked.
HOST EMOTIONAL INTEGRITY: CRITICAL.ASCENSION EVENT: IMMINENT.
Kael didn't see the text.
He saw Lysenne's hands when she wrapped his wounds.The way she always pretended she didn't care.The way she always came back anyway.
"You burned my world," Kael whispered.
Vaelor's smile widened. "No. I clarified it."
He leaned closer, voice dropping into something intimate.
"You don't get to rise, Kael Arden. Not without paying for it. And the price of your power will always be people."
Something inside Kael broke open like a storm gate.
The shadows around his feet surged outward in a violent ring, ripping stone from the ground. Aira screamed as she was thrown back. Riven was hurled against the shrine wall with bone-shaking force.
Vaelor remained standing.
Unmoved.
He watched Kael unravel with fascination.
"There it is," Vaelor murmured. "That thing inside you. I've been waiting to see it fully."
Kael's vision blurred red.
"I will kill you."
Vaelor nodded, approving. "Good. That's exactly what I want you to believe."
Kael lunged.
His blade passed through Vaelor like smoke.
Vaelor's image wavered, then solidified behind him.
"Your anger is precious," Vaelor said behind his ear. "I intend to cultivate it."
Kael spun, striking again and again, shadows ripping the ground apart. Vaelor stepped casually through the storm, untouched.
Then Vaelor raised his hand.
Kael was slammed to the earth so hard the stone cratered beneath him.
Vaelor crouched beside him, calm as a priest at confession.
"You're going to become very powerful," Vaelor said. "Strong enough to destroy everything I care about."
His fingers tightened around Kael's jaw.
"And when you finally think you've won… I will take something even more important than this woman."
Kael tried to scream.
Nothing came out.
Vaelor released him and stood.
"We're only just beginning, Kael Arden."
Then he was gone.
The fog swallowed the space where he'd stood.
Kael lay in the shattered earth, breath coming in broken sobs he didn't recognize as his own.
Above his vision, the Apex Core pulsed like a living wound.
NEW DIRECTIVE REGISTERED.OBJECTIVE: TERMINATE VAELOR CREED.STATUS: PERMANENT.
Kael didn't read it.
He already knew.
He pressed his forehead into the dirt over Lysenne's grave and finally, violently, began to cry.
Not in grief.
In rage.