That night, the city slept badly.
Cries echoed in the alleys. Windows shut tighter. Children clung to scraps and shadows.
But in a room above a quiet inn, a candle burned low.
And Aether sat alone.
⸻
The little wooden figurine lay in front of him.
Its head was chipped. One leg cracked.
It stared at him with eyeless patience.
He hadn't touched it since he picked it from the dirt beside her body.
He could have saved her.
He knew the riot was fake.
He had felt the pull of forced fear. He had sensed the rhythm of trained violence.
He even recognized one of the men—the walk of a Dravarn blade-dancer.
He could've crushed the whole thing before it began.
But he didn't.
⸻
He took a slow breath. Not because he needed it. But because it reminded him of what pain tasted like.
"They wanted a reaction," he said aloud.
"So I gave them restraint."
He picked up the figurine. Turned it slowly in his fingers.
"Now I give them consequences."
⸻
Outside, wind rustled the shutters.
Inside, his aura flickered—just once.
The room did not glow.
The walls did not shake.
But the candle flame bent toward him.
As if it remembered who he truly was.
⸻
He stood.
Reached beneath the loose floorboard.
And pulled out a scroll. Blank to mortal eyes.
But laced with celestial runes that pulsed softly under moonlight.
He whispered two names.
"Mordane."
"Black Flame."
Each name burned into the scroll.
Aether traced his finger along each name once.
"No need for trials," he whispered. "They knew what they did."
Not in hate.
But in judgment.
⸻
"I'm not here to smite."
"I'm here to watch. To understand. To feel."
"But you made the mistake," he whispered, eyes cold.
"You spilled innocent blood while I was listening."
⸻
Not magic.
Judgment.
The air itself was beginning to remember him.
*
The candle burned low.
The inn creaked.
And above it, a god wrote death in silence.
⸻
Aether—Eclipse Raven—stood barefoot on the creaking floorboards. The scroll pulsed faintly in his hand, the ink still glowing where he had written only two names:
Mordane
Black Flame
He spoke no curse.
He whispered no incantation.
That wasn't justice.
Justice didn't need loudness.
It needed finality.
He folded the scroll. Pressed it once against the wooden figurine. A faint sound rang through the planes—like the toll of a bell too old for mortals to hear.
⸻
In Veldenhar's Grand Library, deep beneath the Chancellor's Hall…
Mordane paced, confident. Smug.
Schematics were spread across the marble table—plans for a controlled rebellion, staged martyrdom, and the forced unraveling of a mysterious "Aether."
"We shake the city," he said aloud. "Then we unveil the hero. A puppet of our own. We control the chaos. We craft the savior."
He didn't notice the soft ripple in the glass of his wine.
Didn't see the shadows stretch unnaturally behind the stone columns.
Didn't hear the sound of paper burning in another realm.
But he felt the first pang in his chest—sharp, sudden, and wrong.
He clutched his heart. Stumbled.
His wineglass shattered.
"No… not magic…" he gasped.
Correct.
Judgment.
He tried to reach for a rune-seal on his desk.
His fingers turned black.
He fell to his knees, coughing ash.
And in his final moment, he saw it—
A boy.
Just a boy.
Standing behind him.
Watching.
No glow. No weapon. Just presence.
"You—"
Then silence.
Mordane was gone.
⸻
Elsewhere—
Black Flame slithered across a mirror-realm of smoke and ruin, feeling smug on his achievements.
He felt no fear.
Until the his shadows cracked.
At once.
"No," he rasped. "No, I can't meet my end like this—!"
But judgment.
His form twisted. Smoke panicked. He tried to reform, to escape—
But every time he tried, the shadows held him tighter.
And then—
He finally ceased to exist.
No scream.
Only silence.
⸻
Back in the inn, Aether lit a new candle. Sat down.
He folded the figurine's tiny arms. Pressed a thumb to its head.
"They will never hurt another."
He tucked it back into his coat pocket.
⸻
Outside, it rained in the city.
Only two people died.
And no one knew why.
Except Aether.
And Aurora, who stood at a distance within the Echo Plane, watching.
She whispered one word:
"Quite a suited end for fools like them."
*
Saela never believed in omens.
But three days after the riot, a thunderstorm struck with no clouds.
Mordane dropped dead during a routine inspection.
A cultist known only in shadows—the "Black Flame"—died in a sealed realm.
And the boy with the silver-threaded eyes didn't even flinch.
⸻
She found him in the courtyard behind the inn.
Feeding the birds.
Who feeds pigeons during a manhunt?
Who smiles at street kids with nothing to gain?
And how come—when the sky cracked—he just… looked up calmly, like he understood something the rest of them didn't?
⸻
She stepped up beside him.
Aether didn't turn, but he spoke.
"You've been watching me."
She stiffened.
Then shrugged. "You're suspicious."
He chuckled. Not defensive.
Just knowing.
"How so?"
"You don't act like a servant. You don't even act like you're from this world."
He threw a breadcrumb to the pigeons.
They didn't scatter. They circled him.
"Maybe I'm just tired."
"Or maybe," Saela narrowed her eyes, "you knew what would happen to that girl."
The pigeons fluttered once. Then quieted.
Aether turned to her at last.
"You think I killed her?"
"No," she said immediately, surprising herself. "But I think you let it happen."
Silence.
The wind picked up. His coat fluttered.
He looked… sad.
But not guilty.
"They needed to believe I wasn't a threat," he said softly. "So they gambled with a child's life."
"And you let them."
"Because now," he said, his eyes suddenly very still, "they're both gone."
⸻
Saela's heart skipped.
Not because he threatened her.
Not because he smiled wickedly.
But because he said it like someone describing the weather.
Final. Certain. Unapologetic.
⸻
"What are you?" she asked.
He looked at her for a long time.
Then smiled.
"A boy who wanted to live simply."
"And now?"
He paused.
"Now I wonder if the world will let me."
⸻
Elsewhere…
Dravarn stood in his obsidian war-chamber, reading the reports.
• Mordane: heart failure.
• Black Flame: discorporated.
• No signs of spellcraft.
• No suspects.
• Except a boy.
Just one boy.
No noble blood. No magic registration. No divine trace.
Just… "Aether."
Dravarn crushed the paper in his gauntleted fist.
"Something's wrong," he growled. "The pieces don't add up."
His lieutenant stepped forward.
"Shall we initiate Protocol 7?"
"No," Dravarn said slowly. "Not yet."
*
Dravarn stood alone in the obsidian chamber, shadows crawling across his armor like slow-moving leeches.
The reports lay scattered across the war table. Some still smoked where his gauntlet had pressed too hard.
His subordinates were dead.
Mordane—his greatest manipulator.
Black Flame—a creature older than this kingdom.
Gone.
And the only thread?
A servant boy.
A boy with no records, no heritage, no trace.
Aether.
⸻
A tactical mind like Dravarn's should've laughed. Dismissed it.
But something deeper stirred.
This wasn't sorcery.
This was something colder. Older. Final.
He paced to the northern balcony, overlooking his massive war camps along the Terysian Border. Flags of crimson and bone fluttered in the wind—the mark of Dravarn's Iron Legion.
"This kingdom grows soft," he muttered.
He stared across the valley toward the golden towers of Veldenhar, where nobles still played their political games, too blind to see the war rising on their doorstep.
Dravarn had waited decades for this.
The border skirmishes had started months ago.
His spies whispered of famine in the Veldenhar hinterlands.
Noble houses were splintering.
The Chancellor was slipping into paranoia after Mordane's death.
And now?
Now a divine anomaly had entered the city.
Aether.
Dravarn didn't believe in coincidence.
⸻
A junior officer stepped forward hesitantly.
"Sir. Shall we initiate Protocol 7?"
Protocol 7.
The silent war.
Sleeper agents. Poisoned grain. Plagues disguised as droughts.
The slow death of a kingdom.
Dravarn stared at the horizon.
"…Not yet."
⸻
The wind howled.
The ravens circled.
And somewhere far below, deep in the barracks, a young conscript asked his commander,
"Do you think we'll be in Veldenhar before snow?"
The commander just grinned.
"No, boy."
"We won't take Veldenhar."
"We'll raze it."
*
The royal chambers of Veldenhar held the stillness of a crypt.
No courtiers laughed.
No music played from the gallery alcoves.
No whispers stirred behind the painted screens.
Because two shadows—long feared, never named—were dead.
Not tried.
Not executed.
Simply… erased.
Mordane, the secret-holding tactician.
And the Black Flame, myth made flesh, a bloodstained relic of a forgotten cult.
Neither had stepped foot in these halls for years. Yet the impact of their demise rippled through the palace like shockwaves in stone.
⸻
King Thalen stood before a tall arched window, the early dusk glazing his iron-grey hair in bronze. His crown rested untouched beside him on a stone pedestal, still streaked with soot from yesterday's fire in the lower districts.
At his back knelt General Vos, grim and armor-clad.
"Confirmed, Your Grace," Vos said, voice gravel-thick. "Mordane collapsed in the atrium of his estate. Heart burst. No sign of poison, no magic residue."
"And the other?"
"The Black Flame's body was found in the sewer sanctum beneath Dock Quarter. Charred beyond divine recognition. Yet somehow—no signs of conflict. No survivors."
Thalen closed his eyes.
"They feared no one. They ruled by fear. And now they're ash."
He turned to the war table.
Veldenhar's map spread before him—cities inked, borders bleeding red.
To the east: Dravarn.
"The executioner who did this… are they friend or foe?"
"Unknown," Vos said. "No one saw anything. No witnesses. Just… silence, and corpses."
"Then we are ruled by ghosts."
⸻
The doors opened.
Unannounced. Unapologetic.
And in strode Princess Saela—boots stained, cloak wind-frayed, her braid undone and eyes burning like dawn through fog.
"Still no guards at your chamber door?" she said.
"Still no manners at mine," Thalen replied.
Vos stiffened. Saela didn't care.
She approached the war table, unfurling a scroll with rough hands.
"Your city's bleeding," she said. "And you're lucky the poison cut itself out."
"You think this is luck?"
"I think someone did your job for you."
She tapped two points on the map.
Mordane's estate.
The Dock Quarter vault.
"You're safe again. For now."
Vos crossed his arms.
"And what do you suggest we do? Thank the sewer ghost?"
"No," Saela said. "But I know someone who was near both sites. Quiet. Hidden. Too convenient."
"Who?"
"A tavern boy. Calls himself Aether."
Vos snorted. "A peasant?"
Thalen raised a brow.
"And you believe a stablehand brought down the city's worst monsters?"
"I believe he was present—every time something went wrong… and somehow ended right."
"Coincidence," Vos scoffed. "Drifters swarm this city."
"He's no drifter," Saela said, eyes narrowing. "He walks like someone who's seen kingdoms fall. He speaks like he's forgotten the taste of fear."
⸻
Thalen regarded her closely.
"You want to bring him here."
"No summons. No parade. Just me. A conversation. Let me listen."
Vos protested, "It's a waste of your time."
"Better than wasting more blood," she snapped.
Thalen turned back to the window.
Far beyond the hills, the horizon darkened—not from dusk, but from war banners. Dravarn's Iron Legion had begun its march.
"Very well," the king said at last.
"Find your boy."
"He's not mine," Saela whispered.
"But something tells me… we might be his."
*
Veldenhar's palace loomed like a fortress of silence.
High walls. Cold halls. Marble polished to mirror-like glare.
And somewhere behind them… a king with suspicions and a princess with questions.
Aether stood quietly in the corridor just outside the smaller audience chamber—not the throne room, but something far more dangerous.
Private.
Informal.
Unpredictable.
The guards didn't even look at him.
Why would they? Just another boy, barely taller than a pike.
Shoes worn. Shirt borrowed. Hair windblown and eyes downcast.
⸻
Inside, King Thalen waited behind a low desk, sleeves rolled, map still unfurled.
At his left, General Vos, silent and judgmental.
At his right, Princess Saela, arms crossed, half-expecting this to be a mistake.
Then the doors opened.
And Aether stepped in.
He offered a half-bow, then blinked at the room like he'd walked into the wrong inn.
"Uh… did someone send for me?"
Voice light. Curious.
Not too confident. Not too scared. Just… neutral.
Thalen glanced at Saela, then back at the boy.
"You're Aether."
"Yes, uh… I work over at the Sleepy Kettle. Mopping mostly. Sometimes stew. You need catering?"
Vos raised a brow. Saela bit the inside of her cheek.
"We've heard," Thalen said slowly, "you've been seen in curious places. Near fires. Riots. Disappearances."
Aether blinked.
"Oh. Yeah. I got lost a lot."
"Twice?"
"I have a bad sense of direction."
"Three times?"
"People keep giving me weird directions. I asked one guy for a shortcut to the market and ended up in a sewer. That one smelled."
Vos narrowed his eyes.
"You don't seem concerned."
Aether shrugged.
"Well, I didn't do anything. And I'm too broke to run. So… here I am."
He smiled awkwardly. It was the kind of smile that said I know I'm out of my depth but also please don't stab me, thanks.
Thalen tapped the table.
"You've seen things. We need eyes like yours. People overlook you."
"I mean, yeah. I've been overlooked most of my life."
"Would you be willing," Thalen asked, "to keep your eyes open? If you saw something suspicious… report it?"
Aether rubbed the back of his neck.
"Uhh… I guess? As long as it's not like… a full-time job. I still mop."
⸻
Saela watched all of this in silence.
This wasn't the Aether she remembered—sharp-witted in alleys, lightning-fast with reading danger, vanishing from crime scenes like smoke.
This one looked like he couldn't spell "conspiracy" if you spotted him the vowels.
But something in her gut twisted.
He's playing dumb.
And doing it well.
⸻
"You can go," Thalen finally said.
Aether bowed again, then paused.
"Wait… um. Is there soup? Or was this not that kind of meeting?"
"No soup," Vos growled.
"Noted."
And with that, Aether left, humming quietly to himself like a kid who just dodged a tax collector.
⸻
As the doors closed, Vos scoffed.
"That's your suspect?"
Saela didn't answer.
Her eyes lingered on the spot where Aether stood.
"Not yet," she murmured.
Thalen looked at her sharply.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing," she replied.
But her mind was racing.
Because Aether hadn't made a single mistake.
And that was the most suspicious thing of all.
*