Episode 14: "Ash in the King's Wake"
The fortress stood silent.
Once a monument to containment, Zephyron now groaned under the weight of what had been unleashed. Crumpled beams jutted from the earth like broken teeth. Gravity rippled in spiraling whimpers across the ruined corridors. Smoke curled around fractured pillars, carrying the faint scent of burned circuitry and blood.
And through it all walked a single man.
No guards. No retinue. No trumpets or orders barked through radios.
Just footsteps.
Measured. Final.
The King moved through the broken halls like gravity itself bowed in apology. His cloak dragged across cracked tiles, each stride disturbing only silence. There was no rage in him. No fury. Only stillness stretched so tight it could snap stars in half.
He paused before the remains of Cellblock Theta.
Metal, warped by gravitational distortion, hung like melted bone. Rubble floated midair where the laws of weight had forgotten themselves. And there, in the center of it all, lay the husk of the Anti-Grav Enforcer—twisted, collapsed, starlight scars scorched deep into its core.
The King knelt beside the wreckage and placed his hand upon the dented chestplate. His palm pressed flat, fingers splayed.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the ground beneath him thrummed.
Not violently. But in resonance. The world remembered.
He closed his eyes, and listened.
A battlefield echoed back.
Breaths staggered through pain.
The rhythmic hum of a forged relic sword.
A voice—young, cracked with defiance.
"I won't bow to you. I won't bow to anyone."
The King opened his eyes slowly. Stood.
"Not raw strength," he murmured. "Not even control. Harmony."
He stepped away from the corpse of the machine and ran his fingertips along the warped wall. Residual gravity danced along his skin like dying embers. He read the air the way others read ink — every shift in weight, every microfracture of field.
The boy hadn't just fought.
He'd composed.
One of the generals behind him dared to speak.
"We believe the girl led the escape, my lord. The anomaly—Sera."
The King didn't turn.
"She's intelligent. Adaptable. But she's not the pulse."
He walked further into the wreckage, to a spot where the floor had cratered slightly. Scorched symbols—gravity script from the old world—rippled across the surface in fading pulses.
His gaze lingered.
"There was another."
"Another?" the general asked cautiously.
The King said nothing at first.
He saw it in the residue—the pattern of forcewaves, the way the pressure spiked and sang in spirals. The memory of an attack so precise, so deliberate, it bypassed defense entirely.
Not brute force.
Technique.
"I know this style," he whispered.
He could see it again now—in the afterimage etched into the floor like phantom ink.
The curved strike.
The reverse grip.
The twist of the hip mid-step.
A ghost from memory stirred.
"Coren…"
The name left his lips before he could stop it.
The general tilted his head. "You mean the Riftguard defector? He disappeared years ago."
The King's face was unreadable. But a muscle in his jaw tightened.
"I trained him. My first and finest disciple. He learned faster than any. Asked better questions than I ever wanted to answer."
He looked down at the smoldering stone.
"If this technique has returned… he's still alive."
The general hesitated. "Or someone trained by him."
The King's silence was answer enough.
The wind outside howled softly, dragging smoke and stardust through the cracks in the walls. Somewhere far above, the last siren flickered out.
The general waited for orders.
But the King only whispered:
"We've entered the second verse."
Then he turned and walked into the ruin, alone.
Episode 15: "The Humming Blade"
Kael stumbled forward, his weight shifting against Sera's shoulder.
His breaths were shallow, tight, every movement dragging fresh pain up his spine. The wound across his ribs had reopened, and his left leg shook beneath him. But still, he didn't fall.
Figures approached—quiet, composed. One stepped forward, robes loose around a wiry frame, their voice even.
"You're wounded. May we help?"
Kael met their gaze, teeth clenched, and gave the smallest nod.
He was led inside one of the homes. The walls offered stillness Kael hadn't felt in days. Sera helped him lower onto a padded bench that hovered just off the floor, supported by some unseen field.
A woman entered quietly, sleeves rolled to her elbows, carrying a satchel of simple supplies.
"I'll need to clean this," she said, indicating his side. "May I?"
Kael blinked at her—tired, wary—but nodded again.
She worked quickly and with care. Her hands were gentle, but practiced. The cloth soaked with antiseptic touched his wound, and he hissed.
Sera stood nearby, arms folded, eyes sharp but calm.
The healer worked in silence—until her fingers brushed the strap across Kael's back.
She paused.
Something vibrated in the air—soft and subtle, like the hum of a string pulled taut.
She shifted Kael slightly, and the relic sword came into full view.
Her breath caught.
"…This is no Riftguard weapon," she whispered.
Sera stepped closer, gaze narrowing. "You recognize it?"
"No," the healer said. "But I feel it."
She held her hand just above the sword's hilt—never touching—yet the air between her fingers and the relic shimmered faintly. A sound, almost a tone, hovered around it. Faint. Lingering. Like the echo of a voice not yet spoken.
Another figure entered—one of the elders.
Their eyes landed on the weapon immediately.
They didn't speak at first. Just listened.
"…It hums," the elder said.
Kael stirred. "It's been doing that since the prison. It changed shape when I needed it. Like it responded to… something inside me."
"It responded to the Song," the elder murmured. "To a fragment still written in your blood."
Sera glanced at Kael, then back. "Are you saying… he's the one you've been waiting for?"
The elder didn't answer at first.
Instead, they stepped forward, lowering their head as if in thought. Then they spoke softly, like reciting a verse long memorized.
"When heart meets song beneath blind skies…
The Core shall stir. The Rift shall break.
A sword shall sing the stars awake."
Kael's fingers unconsciously brushed the hilt.
The blade pulsed again—low and resonant, as if in response to the verse.
The elder looked to Sera. "You brought him here."
"I didn't know what he was," she said. "I still don't."
The elder nodded.
"Neither does he. But the Song does."
A silence followed.
Then, the healer quietly finished bandaging Kael's side and stepped back.
"You'll need rest," she said, softly now. "Both of you."
Kael leaned back, muscles sagging in exhaustion, but his hand never left the relic blade.
And even as sleep began to pull at his limbs, the sword hummed gently at his side—
—one note, unfinished.
Waiting for the next line.
Episode 16: "The Starless Field"
Sleep came slowly.
Kael's body sank into the warmth of the hovering bed, breath steady, pain numbed by soft light and careful hands. The bandages around his ribs pressed in just enough to remind him he wasn't dead — but not enough to stop the drift.
The relic sword lay against the wall nearby.
It hummed once — faint, like a lullaby played on a broken instrument.
And Kael dreamed.
——
He stood in a field with no stars.
The sky above him was not black, but missing — a hole where the heavens should be. No wind stirred. No sound greeted him. Only silence so vast it pressed against the inside of his skull.
The ground beneath his feet rippled like fabric stretched too tight, silver threads running through it in the shape of constellations long forgotten.
Floating in the air were fragments.
Not stone, not light — something else.
Verses, maybe. Shards of melody shaped like symbols, like pieces of a forgotten tongue that hummed softly when Kael moved. With every step, the air pulsed — faint vibrations brushing across his skin, aligning the floating fragments into new patterns.
He didn't understand the language.
But his bones did.
Ahead, on the far edge of the horizon, a figure appeared — tall, cloaked in something heavier than shadow. They moved with the weight of planets. A sword hung across their back, similar in shape to Kael's, but older. More finished. It gleamed not with starlight, but with memory.
When they spoke, the voice came from everywhere.
Many voices, overlapping. Male and female. Young and ancient. Like the field itself was remembering how to speak.
"You are not the first…
But you may be the last."
Kael tried to respond, but his voice wouldn't leave his mouth.
Instead, his relic sword — now in his hand without him reaching for it — thrummed once. A low, resonant note that bent the symbols around him into a single line of glowing script:
When the Rift first bled, the stars fell silent…
Kael's heart caught in his chest.
He knew that line.
He didn't know how, but he knew.
The cloaked figure raised a hand. Not in warning — in offering.
Their fingers pressed to Kael's chest.
Warmth bloomed outward.
Light surged from within him, not blinding but alive — revealing constellations strung together across the sky of his body. Each point pulsed faintly, held together by thin lines that wavered, frayed, stretched by some unseen force.
He looked up — and the stars returned.
One by one, flaring into being. Small. Fragile. Singing.
But just as they began to align into something whole—
One star collapsed.
A point of light folded inward, imploding on itself.
A ripple of gravity spiraled out — dragging the nearby verses into it. The field bent, cracked, and hummed again — not in harmony, but in warning.
The cloaked figure didn't flinch.
"Every note you forge," they said,
"Will be tested."
Kael's breath hitched.
And then, somewhere in the echo of collapsing stars, he heard his own voice — but older.
Worn. Quiet. Full of weight.
"Don't forget the silence between the lines."
——
Kael's eyes opened.
Morning had not yet come. The room was quiet. Sera sat nearby, half-asleep, arms crossed but head tilted toward him.
The sword still lay against the wall.
And it was humming — the exact line he'd seen in the dream.
When the Rift first bled, the stars fell silent…
Kael sat up slowly, pressing a palm to his ribs, and whispered into the half-light:
"…What are you?"
The sword did not answer.
But it sang.