Kael stood alone on the seawall as night closed around Blackwake Harbor.
The stone beneath his boots was slick with salt and old rain, polished smooth by decades of storms that had come and gone without ever caring who stood in their path. The sea below was restless, heaving in long, powerful breaths as waves struck the wall and fell back again, unsatisfied. Far out on the horizon, lightning tore open the sky, white and violet seams splitting cloud from cloud, briefly illuminating the Inland Sea as if it were a living thing being flayed and stitched back together in the same instant.
For a heartbeat at a time, the world looked broken.
Then the darkness returned, thicker for having been interrupted.
Kael rested his hands on the cold stone and leaned forward, feeling the vibration of the waves through his bones. Wind whipped his hair into his eyes. The air smelled sharp—ozone, salt, rain not yet fallen. A storm was coming fast, the kind sailors respected and gods pretended to command.
Inside him, something coiled.
It was not a surge. Not a roar. Not a burning hunger for more.
It was readiness.
A quiet, patient alignment of muscle and breath, of instinct and outcome. His body felt available—as if it had already agreed to whatever demand might be placed upon it next. He flexed his fingers, and they responded with smooth precision, no stiffness, no hesitation. Even the old scar along his arm felt different tonight—warm, alive, as though blood flowed there with particular intent.
The strength was not asking him what he wanted.
It never did.
It waited for need.
That was the horror of it.
Gods, at least, made their desires known. They thundered from the sky or whispered through dreams. They demanded offerings, obedience, sacrifice. Their tyranny was loud, theatrical, unmistakable.
What Kael carried was quieter.
Gods ruled because people feared what would happen if they didn't kneel.
He ruled—if that word could even be used—because people believed things would go wrong if he wasn't there.
Gods enforced law with punishment.
He attracted reliance with relief.
Gods crushed dissent.
He dissolved it by solving the problem before anyone else could act.
Hope was a gentler chain than fear.
And far harder to break.
Kael dragged a hand down his face, fingers coming away wet—not from rain, but from blood. He hadn't realized how hard he'd been clenching his fists until his palms split open along old calluses. The pain barely registered. His body acknowledged it, logged it, and quietly prepared to continue regardless.
That frightened him more than any lightning strike.
"I didn't choose this," he said aloud, his voice nearly lost to the wind.
The words felt inadequate as soon as they left his mouth. Too small for the weight pressing behind his eyes. Too human.
He remembered Ashfields—fires kept low, people moving because they had to, not because someone told them to. He remembered Ressan Ford, the way relief had turned into waiting, waiting into expectation. He remembered the look on the father's face when the child died—not rage, not hatred, but confusion sharpened into blame by grief.
You healed others.
No, he hadn't.
He fought.
He acted.
He refused to let the world stall long enough for someone else to take responsibility.
But the world had learned the wrong lesson from that.
Lightning split the sky again, closer this time, thunder following immediately with a sound that rattled the stone beneath him. Rain began to fall in heavy, cold sheets, soaking his clothes in seconds. The harbor lights flickered but held.
Somewhere behind him, in the city, people were lighting candles. Whispering his name. Telling stories that made sense of chaos by giving it a face—his face, even if none of them truly knew it.
Kael straightened slowly.
If he stayed, belief would continue to gather. It would sharpen further, turn expectation into demand. One day, someone would beg him to make a choice that could not be undone—and he would feel the strength inside him answer before his mind could refuse.
That was how gods were made.
Not by desire.
By accumulation.
The storm roared, rain lashing sideways now, waves crashing high enough to spray the seawall. Kael closed his eyes and let the water soak him through, grounding himself in sensation—cold, weight, breath. Human things.
"I won't become this," he said again, louder now, voice cracking against the wind.
The storm did not pause.
The sea did not listen.
The city behind him did not stop hoping.
The world answered him in the only way it ever had—by continuing to turn, indifferent and relentless, carrying consequences forward whether anyone wanted them or not.
Kael opened his eyes and looked out across the black water, toward continents still untouched by his name, toward distance that might dilute belief rather than concentrate it.
For now.
He turned away from the seawall, rain streaming down his face, blood washing from his hands into the gutters of Blackwake.
He would keep moving.
Not because he was running.
But because standing still was how you became something the world decided it needed—and would never let go of again.