The void between us was thick with smoke.
Grim leaned back in his chair, the wooden legs groaning under his weight. The ember of his cigarette pulsed like a dying star, casting flickering shadows across his scarred face. His eyes—older than the wounds on his knuckles—locked onto mine.
"So, kid." He exhaled, the smoke curling between us like a specter. "Still think I'm the bad guy?"
The weight of his story pressed against my ribs.
A mother's blood in the dirt. A king's laughter echoing from a severed head. And Zeke—alive, breathing freely while my sister's lungs had turned to ash.
My fingers twitched.
"Why?" The word clawed its way out, ragged. "Why does he get to breathe?"
Grim tapped his cigarette, ashes crumbling like dead skin onto the table.
"Trust me," he said, voice low, "I want to gut that bastard more than you do. But rage ain't a weapon, Arthur. It's a noose."
He leaned forward, the table creaking under his weight. The scent of tobacco and iron filled the air.
"We're short on soldiers. Short on time. But you?" A smirk tugged at his lips. "You're a spark in the dark. And Kyo? That boy's a wildfire waiting to happen."
A revolution. Again.
The irony tasted bitter.
"You're asking me to burn down the world twice?"
"I'm asking you to build something," he corrected. "After we salt the earth."
Then, his voice dropped—cold, sharp.
"Hey."
The shift was sudden, like a blade unsheathed. My throat tightened.
"What'd Kyo tell you in there?"
I swallowed. "He, uh... explained the towers. The sun and moon thing. Said I'd never be stronger than him."
Grim's jaw flexed.
"That liar."
His fist hit the table. The cigarette cartwheeled into the dark, ember sputtering out.
"Two weeks in the void, and all he gave you was cosmic trivia?"
I flinched.
"He mentioned a 'real sun'—"
"Of course he did." Grim's laugh was a serrated thing. "That boy's so obsessed with light, he's blind to the blood on his hands."
He stood abruptly, the chair screeching against the floor.
"You wanna know why he really wants that sun?" His voice was a whisper now, venomous. "Ask him who lit the pyre under his family. Ask him how loud his little sister screamed."
Silence.
The kind that comes before a storm.
Then, quieter, as he flicked a fresh cigarette into his mouth:
"You're scared of me. Good. Means you're not stupid."
A match flared, illuminating the sharp lines of his face.
"But Arthur?" He took a slow drag, the ember glowing like a predator's eye.
"You should be terrified of what Kyo's not saying."
Why should I be terrified? That was what I wanted to say—but I'd already gotten a glimpse of it during those two weeks in the void.
"But if he isn't going to tell you anything else, then I won't intervene. It's better if you strengthen your friendship naturally until he's ready." Grim's voice was firm, leaving no room for argument.
I nodded silently as the door clicked shut behind him.
Then it hit me.
Wait.
I'm still stuck in this damn chair.
"WAIT! HELP ME!" My voice cracked with desperation.
The door burst open.
Of all the people in the tower, it was Hange Ursla who strode in—the one person I had something resembling a connection with.
Her visits to the recovering Rapan used to irritate me, but over the years, I'd grown to... anticipate them.
She moved with effortless grace, her fingers deftly undoing the restraints. The chains clattered to the floor, but I barely noticed.
Because she was close.
Too close.
Her presence alone sent fire through my veins.
Hange was, without question, the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Long, ink-black hair cascaded over her shoulders, framing piercing grey eyes that seemed to see right through me. Her skin was pale as moonlight, her figure both elegant and deadly—every inch the kind of woman who could ruin a man with a single glance.
And right now, she was smirking at me.
"I see you've grown quite a bit since my last visit." She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, leaning against the table with an infuriatingly casual air.
"U-uh... yeah. I'm a growing boy." My voice came out embarrassingly weak.
Her grin turned wicked. "So does that mean every part of you has grown?"
My face burned. "W-well, yeah, of course—" I turned away, my pulse hammering.
"I was asking about your control over light." She arched a brow, amusement dancing in her eyes. "Get any strange ideas out of your head."
"O-oh." I swallowed hard. "Right. Well, it's only been six months, but I can channel light through my entire body now. I'm faster."
For a moment, silence.
Then—
"Tch." Her expression darkened. "Six months, and this is all you've managed? Pathetic." She straightened, her voice sharp as a blade. "Follow me. We're starting training now."
"Over the centuries, we've grown weak."
Hange's voice cut through the stale air of the training hall, its high ceilings strung with tattered banners from forgotten wars. Dust motes swirled in the slanted light of the tower's artificial sun, catching on the sweat-slicked training dummies and the old bloodstains no one bothered to scrub away.
She peeled off her jacket, revealing a black tank top that clung to her like a second skin, the fabric straining over the knotted scars along her shoulders—void-burns, the marks of a Nullborn who'd danced too close to the abyss. Military-style pants, frayed at the knees, rustled as she stepped forward, her boots scuffing the worn glyphs etched into the stone floor.
"A select few each generation inherit the void's whisper. We call them Nullborn." Her grey eyes locked onto mine, unblinking. "But you and Kyo? You're this era's Noctarch and Luminarch. And people like Iben?" She smirked. "Limit Breakers. Though you already knew that."
A wooden sword whistled through the air. I caught it by the hilt, the impact stinging my palm.
"If you and Kyo fought together at full power, no Nullborn could stand against you." She rolled her shoulders, cracking her neck. "But Kyo doesn't need you to shine. You? You're just his reflection."
The words hit like a boot to the ribs. Useless. A glorified battery for Kyo's brilliance. Even among Nullborn, I'd be strong—but against Grim, whose power was the void incarnate, or Kyo, who burned without borrowing?
A grain of sand on the beach.
Hange lunged, her wooden blade a blur. I barely parried, the clash reverberating up my arms.
"Most Nullborn," she hissed, pressing close enough that I could smell iron and ozone on her breath, "use the void indirectly. Like me." A twist of her wrist sent me stumbling back. "I heal wounds by stitching them shut with nothingness."
Another strike. This one glanced off my thigh—a bruise tomorrow.
"Clara's different." Hange pivoted, her ponytail whipping like a lash. "She's Lonise. Faster, stronger—and incapable of lying." A cruel smile. "Their noses grow when they lie. Makes them terrible spies."
The wooden sword slammed into my ribs. I wheezed.
"Her family?" Hange's voice dropped, icy. "Captured. Tortured for three days. They couldn't lie to save themselves. Clawed their own throats out by the end."
She vanished.
A whisper behind me: "And you think your pain is special?"
The world upended as her foot hooked my ankle. I hit the ground hard, the taste of copper flooding my mouth.
Hange loomed over me, the tower's false sun haloing her like a crowned executioner.
"Get up."