Pain.
That was the first thing Kaen felt as he clawed his way back to consciousness.
His lungs burned. His skin prickled like needles of fire danced across it. Every breath tasted of smoke and rusted metal.
He opened his eyes.
The ruins were no longer silent.
Cracks webbed across the earth where he stood. Ember-red symbols flickered beneath his feet before fading, like fireflies in retreat. The scorched air shimmered with leftover energy.
Turo and his friends were gone—vanished, or maybe they ran. Cowards always ran when the world changed without them.
Kaen rose shakily to his feet. His body felt… different.
Lighter. Heavier. Alive.
He pulled back his cloak and saw it—the mark. A burning crescent eclipse chained by fractured sigils, etched across his back like a brand from the gods.
A mark no one in Auraterra should possess.
> "Shadowless no more…" he whispered.
Then the memories hit.
Not his.
Images flooded his mind—of towers swallowed by storms, of creatures born from dying stars, of a child crying over the body of a burning titan. The emotions weren't his, but the pain felt real. Too real.
Suddenly, a sharp clang rang out.
Kaen spun around, instinct faster than thought—and raised his hand.
A flash of energy erupted from his palm.
A rock the size of his head exploded mid-air.
Silence.
A slow, horrified voice came from the shadows. "W-what… was that?"
It was Turo.
He hadn't run far. His friends stood behind him, wide-eyed, frozen in place.
Kaen stared at his own hand, still crackling faintly.
> What am I?
Turo stumbled back, clutching his chain like it could protect him. "You're a freak… that's what you are. That thing—whatever you touched—it cursed you!"
"No," Kaen replied softly. "It showed me who I am."
He turned away, cloak billowing, ember mark pulsing once.
> Let them fear me. Just this once.
He didn't want revenge.
But he wanted them to remember.
Far above, unseen by Kaen, a pair of violet eyes blinked open in the sky—hidden behind a veil of clouds.
A voice murmured through the aether.
> "The Fractured One has awakened. Notify the High Circle… and prepare the Sealhunters."
Meanwhile, deep beneath Auraterra, in a vault of shifting stone and whispering shadows, an ancient relic trembled.
It hadn't pulsed in a thousand years.
Now, it wept flame.
End of Chapter 2