Johan Mayers walked through the ashfall, twin blacksteel katanas heavy at his hips. The serrated one, Grief, thrummed with the weight of every life it had ended. The razor-thin one, Mercy, was silent—as if ashamed of its own edge.
He didn't need Aether to kill. Skill was enough. Skill, and the rage that burned where his heart should've been.
Ash clung to his cloak, remnants of the village Ardent failed to save. Johan had seen the child's body—skin cracked like porcelain, eyes locked skyward. Not a ghoul. Just a girl. Burned alive by Ardent's Sunfall. Because that's what Aetherborn did. They broke the world and called it salvation.
His fingers twitched toward Grief.
Not yet.
But soon.
He was tracking Ardent now, following scorched earth to Emberfall's outskirts. The Godscar loomed ahead—a pulsing wound in the world, brimming with liquid memory.
Ardent was heading there, chasing a cure for his curse. Johan didn't care about cures. He cared about debts.
And Ardent owed him a sister.
Lila.
The name struck like a blade.
She'd been six when the Radiant's Choir came—voices sweet as sugar-laced poison. They'd fed her to their god, said her memories would "purify" the world. Johan had been too young, too weak. Now, he was neither. And Ardent, his half-brother, carried the same cursed blood that doomed her.
He burns. She dies. Same story.
The air thickened—charged by the aftershock of an Aether Storm. Lightning cracked in the distance, a hymn of melting flesh and raw power. Johan's blindfold tightened around his eyes. He didn't need sight. Sound and instinct were enough. The world made more sense this way—stripped to its edge.
Boots crunched behind him—deliberate. Taunting.
Not Ardent.
Someone else.
"Lost, knight?" The voice was jagged and bright, a grin made sound.
Duke the Silent.
Johan didn't turn. His hand rested on Mercy.
"Walk away."
Duke laughed—a chorus of dead voices echoing through the ash. "Oh, I like you. All sharp and somber. Bet you bleed pretty."
Phantom limbs coiled in the air—heavy, invisible, bending the ash around them. Johan felt them like spiders on his skin. Duke was probing. Testing.
"Last warning," Johan said, voice low. Five words. Always five.
Words were for men who hadn't bled.
Duke stepped closer, crow-feather cloak rustling. "Heard about your brother's bonfire. You gonna gut him for it? Or just brood till the world ends?"
Grief hummed. Johan's grip tightened.
"Not your business."
"Everything's my business," Duke said, smiling in his tone. "Especially when it's this fun. Ardent's got a bounty. Hollow King's offering a throne for his head. Tempting, right?"
Johan turned. The blindfold hid his eyes, not his intent.
"Try it. Die."
Duke's laugh cracked like glass. "You're no fun. Fine. I'll play elsewhere." The limbs vanished, and so did he—swallowed by ash. For now.
Emberfall rose by midday, a city built in the ribcage of a dead god. Streets carved into bone, slick with ash and blood. Merchants hawked ashmarks—glass coins dusted with Aether sand. Children laughed sharp with hunger.
Johan's blindfold drew stares, but no one dared approach. The Glass Knights were known: honor-bound, unbreakable, doomed.
He found The Veinmother's Rest easily. Ardent was inside—Johan felt it. A wrongness in the air. Heat that didn't belong.
He stepped in. Godseed ale hit like a fist. Whispers fell as he entered.
"Glass Knight."
"Empty Blade."
He ignored them. Locked onto Ardent's presence. A corner table. Sword humming. Breath heavy with guilt.
Syl was there too—chain-whip coiled like a predator.
"Well, look who crawled in. The grumpy one," she said.
Johan said nothing. Crossed the room. Silent boots on bone floor.
Ardent met him with his one good eye. The other lost to Aether's price.
"Johan," he said. Voice like smoldering coals. "Didn't expect you."
"You burned a child." Five words. Each one a blade.
Ardent's jaw clenched. "She was a ghoul."
"She wasn't." Johan's hand hovered over Grief. "You didn't check."
Syl leaned in, her scar glowing. "Easy, boys. Tavern's not a battlefield."
"Yet," Johan said.
Ardent stood. His sword flared molten. "You want to judge me? Fine. But you don't know what I carry. The Well's calling, Johan. I'm ending this—Radiant, Hollow King, all of it."
"You'll burn the world first," Johan said. "Like Lila."
The name hit like a spear. Ardent froze. Aether dimmed.
"Don't," he whispered.
"Why?" Johan's voice was ice. "You forgot her face."
Syl's whip twitched. "Enough. Save it for the Godscar."
Neither moved. The tavern held its breath.
Then Johan stepped back.
"You're not worth it."
He left. Door slamming behind. Ash swallowing his footsteps—
but not his wrath.
Outside, the ash thickened, clotting the air. Johan moved through Emberfall's alleys, senses flared. The city was a predator. Bone streets hid worse than ghouls.
A child's cry. Distant. Real.
Not again.
He followed it. Grief drawn.
The alley opened to a bone orchard—petrified mages, faces locked in silent screams. In the center: a girl. No older than Lila. Hands glowing with Aether. A ghoul towered over her—stitched flesh, claws dripping memory-water.
Johan moved. No thought.
Mercy sang.
The ghoul's head hit the ground. The girl stared, Aether fading from her hands.
"You're… a knight?"
"No one's knight." He sheathed Mercy. "Run."
She didn't. Just pointed, trembling.
"They're waking up."
He turned. The statues cracked—shifting. Aether pulsed, wrong.
Hollowborn.
Stone puppets. The Hollow King's echo choir.
They lunged.
Grief sang. Limbs fell.
Mercy sliced. Silent and true.
He fought blind—guided by sound: stone grind, Aether hiss, the girl's breath.
Protect her, instinct screamed.
Kill them all, wrath answered.
The last Hollowborn fell—stone heart shattering.
The girl was gone. He didn't follow.
She's not Lila. No one is.
A crow landed nearby. Its eyes too human.
Duke's voice echoed from its beak.
"Nice show, knight. But you're just delaying the end."
Johan cut the bird in half. Feathers vanished into ash.
He walked on. Toward the Godscar. Toward Ardent.
Toward the end.
I'll break him, Johan vowed. Or I'll break myself.
Ash fell like judgment. The bone orchard whispered one name.
Lila.
A broken mirror lay in the alley's dust, reflecting Johan's blindfold—and nothing else.
Let me know if you want to keep sharpening this or if you're ready to move to Chapter 3.