Wind tore past Kael's face. The sea rushed up like a yawning mouth, and gravity had no mercy.
His arms locked around Lia. The sheer drop sent his stomach lurching, but his mind stayed sharp.
Think, Kael. You didn't escape just to die here.
Seren was above them, falling at a controlled angle, her hand glowing with a slow-cast glyph that flickered like a candle in the storm.
"Hold your breath!" she yelled.
The sea slammed into them.
Everything vanished into blue.
---
Kael plunged into the cold. The shock stole his breath even before he could draw it. Salt water pressed against him like a vice. He gripped Lia tightly as the current pulled them deeper.
She was conscious—barely.
The impact had stunned her.
Kael twisted his body, arms flaring wide. He summoned a mental diagram of the Wave-Ward, a surface-flow glyph he'd once read in a dusty tome—unusable without a medium.
But they were surrounded by it.
Water is a medium.
His fingers scraped against his forearm—he bit the skin until it bled.
Blood. Ink of desperation.
He traced the ward mid-swim, letting instinct guide his hand.
A flicker. A spark.
The glyph bloomed, wrapping around him and Lia like a membrane. Their descent slowed. The pressure lightened.
A breath filled his lungs—not air, but mana-infused flow.
They were alive.
Seren joined them seconds later, her own shimmering shield surrounding her. She touched Kael's glyph briefly—just enough to acknowledge it. "Smart."
"I learned from the best," Kael muttered through the mana mist.
She didn't smile. "We need to move."
They kicked through the current, heading toward a rocky shelf beneath the cliffside—a place barely marked on old naval maps, once used by smugglers and fleeing scholars.
Their destination: Drift Hollow, a hidden cavern where the ocean kissed the old stone bones of Vireen's forgotten age.
---
Drift Hollow
They emerged hours later—drenched, silent, and gasping for breath.
The cavern was vast and echoing, lit by faint green moss and glowing sea-crystals embedded in the stone. Driftwood and broken crates littered the upper ledges, where old escape boats had long rotted away.
Kael slumped onto a stone and leaned his head back.
"Tell me we're safe," Lia whispered.
Kael didn't answer right away.
"No," Seren said. "We're not. But we're… gone."
Lia let out a shaky breath.
Kael wiped his face. "Ardyn didn't follow. That means the High Talent only had limited range. Maybe she was ordered not to pursue."
"Or she was confident we'd die in the fall," Seren said.
Kael met her eyes. "She doesn't know us."
A long silence passed. Just water dripping. The weight of everything finally settling.
Then Lia turned to Kael. "Why didn't you run when you first knew they'd come for you?"
Kael looked down.
"I thought I could change things from the inside. I believed logic, reason—truth—could protect me." His voice lowered. "But I forgot something important."
"What?"
"They don't fear truth," Kael said. "They fear the people who remember it."
---
Later that night, Kael sat alone at the mouth of the cavern, watching distant lightning crawl across the horizon.
Seren approached quietly. She handed him a wrapped cloth bundle.
"What is it?"
"Clothes. Dry ones. You'll need them."
He took the bundle, nodding.
She didn't move.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
"That I used to believe in this kingdom," she said. "Even when I was cast out. I thought if I stayed away, things would balance."
"And now?"
"I see the cracks. And you… you're the fault line, Kael."
He glanced at her. "Do you mean that as a warning?"
She looked back. "I mean it as a prophecy."
Then she left him alone.
Kael stared out into the storm.
They tried to break me. Lock me away. Drown me in silence.
But I'm still here.
And I'm not done.
---
Far above, in the shattered Citadel halls, Ardyn knelt before the royal dais, bloodied and silent.
The High Talent stood at its center, her expression unreadable.
"The boy escaped," she said.
"Yes."
"He's not a Talent."
"No."
"But he's something worse."
Ardyn raised his head slowly. "He's a Learner… who survived the chains."
The woman narrowed her eyes. "Then burn the books. Silence the witnesses. If this 'Kael' rises again…"
She let the sentence hang.
Ardyn bowed.
But in his heart, something else stirred.
Not obedience.
Not fear.
Doubt.