The wind changed before the city did. Kael felt it first, a tightening in the air like the world had drawn a breath and refused to release it. The ash that usually drifted lazily through the ruins began to spiral upward in unnatural patterns, twisting against gravity. Lyra stopped walking, her shadows tightening around her ankles like living chains sensing danger.
"We're not alone," she said.
Kael's pulse slowed instead of quickened. The energy inside him stirred, not chaotic this time but alert. They stood at the edge of Civic Square, once the beating heart of the city and now a hollowed scar of shattered statues and collapsed government buildings. The marble dome of the old courthouse leaned sideways, cracked and sinking like a dying titan. At the center of the destruction stood a man in a long dark coat that brushed the ash-covered ground. His posture was straight, composed, his hands clasped behind his back as though he were surveying property he owned. Power radiated from him steadily, oppressively.
"Who is that?" Kael asked quietly.
Lyra did not look at him. "Mordain Kreel."
The name carried weight. Mordain looked no older than his mid-thirties, sharp features
cut from pale skin untouched by ash, dark hair slicked back without a strand out of place. He did not look like a survivor of the fall. He looked like someone who had mastered it. Five figures knelt before him, not bound, not restrained, kneeling willingly. Their eyes glowed faintly red. Kael felt
something cold settle in his stomach.
"They're awakened."
"Yes," Lyra replied. "And they belong to him."
As if summoned, Mordain slowly turned his head. His eyes were silver bright, reflective, inhuman. He smiled, and the temperature seemed to drop.
"Come forward," he said calmly, his voice
carrying across the square without strain. One of the kneeling figures stood, a young woman trembling visibly.
"Please," she whispered. "I can't control it yet—"
"You misunderstand," Mordain said gently as he raised one hand. "Control is not
something you are given. It is something you surrender."
The air twisted violently. The woman screamed as her body lifted from the ground as though seized by invisible strings. Her limbs bent at impossible angles, shadows pouring from her mouth like smoke. Kael staggered back as Lyra grabbed his arm and hissed, "Don't."
The woman's scream cut off abruptly. She fell, not as a body, but as ash, collapsing into
nothing and leaving only a faint scorched silhouette on the stone.
Mordain lowered his hand calmly. "Power
without obedience is chaos," he said softly. The remaining kneeling awakened trembled harder. Kael's heart pounded in his ears.
"That's impossible."
"No," Lyra replied. "That's control."
Mordain's head turned directly toward them, and even from across the square Kael felt the weight of that silver gaze settle onto him.
"He sees us," Kael breathed.
"Of course he does."
The kneeling figures shifted aside as Mordain began walking forward, each step
deliberate, measured, the ground darkening beneath his boots. Inside Kael, something answered, not fear but recognition. His power stirred like a caged animal sensing something greater.
Mordain stopped halfway across the square. "You've been hiding," he called, not to Lyra
but to Kael. Lyra's grip tightened. "Do not respond." But Kael could not look away.
"You've awakened recently," Mordain continued conversationally. "Unstable. Untested. Interesting."
The ash lifted from the ground into a widening cyclone as pressure built behind Kael's eyes. Lyra stepped in front of him, shadows surging outward to form a barrier
that instantly splintered with cracks.
"Leave," she commanded.
Mordain's smile sharpened. "The shadow child," he murmured.
"You survived." Mordain continued. "Impressive. I assumed the
fissure consumed you."
"It tried," Lyra replied evenly.
"And yet here you are. Protecting another stray."
The word burned through Kael. Heat flared inside his chest and dark energy flickered
across his fingers.
Mordain noticed and laughed softly. "There it is."
The cyclone intensified, debris ripping from the ground, abandoned cars twisting inward
with shrieking metal. An invisible force slammed into Kael, gravity thickening
as his lungs compressed and he dropped to one knee. The power inside him surged
in answer.
"Kael!"
Lyra shouted, but something snapped inside him. The energy exploded outward,
not wild but focused, a shockwave tearing through the square and shattering the
ash cyclone in a violent burst. Windows exploded in distant buildings and the
kneeling awakened were thrown backward. Mordain slid one step, only one, but he
moved. Silence followed. Kael stood, breathing hard, dark energy shimmering
faintly around his hands.
Across the square, Mordain calmly adjusted his coat, his silver eyes gleaming brighter.
"Extraordinary," he said. He glanced at his followers. "This is what the world
is becoming."
Then he looked back at Kael. "You have potential. You will join me." It was not an offer but a certainty.
Kael forced himself upright. "I won't kneel."
Mordain's expression did not change. "Kneeling is optional. Obedience is not." The ground trembled and cracks raced toward Kael's feet.
Lyra grabbed him. "We leave. Now."
She slammed her palm against the earth and shadows erupted upward, swallowing them whole as the world twisted and sound vanished. They reappeared three streets away inside a collapsed subway entrance. Kael dropped to his knees, gasping as his veins burned. Lyra staggered slightly, the first visible crack in her composure.
"He wasn't even trying," she said quietly. Kael stared at his trembling hands. "I pushed
him back."
"For a second," she replied. "And now he knows exactly who you are."
Above them the wind howled differently, searching. "He won't ignore you," Lyra added.
"Good," Kael muttered, but she turned sharply toward him. "You don't understand.
Mordain does not chase prey. He cultivates weapons."
Silence stretched between them as a low tremor rolled through the city. Kael felt it
again, that pull, that ancient recognition, as if something vast had noticed him and approved.
Far above, in the ruined square, Mordain Kreel stood alone while ash drifted around him. He looked toward the direction Kael had fled and a faint smile curved his lips.
"At last," he murmured, the silver in his eyes pulsing brighter.
"The world begins to move."