The great hall was a cathedral of stone and echo, its high arches swallowing the light that seeped in from fractured skylights above. The families had long since departed, their voices fading down the marble corridors, but to Karn, the silence was far from empty.
He stood still, head slightly tilted. Somewhere beneath the quiet, something breathed.
His mother's warning replayed in his mind like a heartbeat of its own: "Someone who shouldn't be alive."
Every fiber of him wanted to move, to hunt, but he knew better. Instead, he closed his eyes and let the world come to him.
First came the obvious — the settling groan of old beams in the roof, the faint rasp of fabric from his mother's sari swaying against her legs. Then deeper — the scrape of a mouse's claws inside the wall, the patient drip of water from a cracked pipe two floors below.
And then… he heard it.
A heartbeat.Slow. Deliberate. Too slow.
It wasn't just the pace — it was the weight behind it. Each beat sounded dense, like it came from something older than the hall itself. The sound was faint, almost respectful in its attempt to hide, but to Karn, it was as loud as a war drum.
He opened his eyes. The faintest smirk tugged at his lips.
"Found you," he whispered.
His gaze shifted to the far-left balcony, high above the meeting table. It looked empty to the untrained eye, but Karn could feel the slight displacement of air where it shouldn't be.
"Come down," he said, his voice steady, almost casual.
Silence answered him. The heartbeat spiked, just for a second. That was enough.
Karn stepped forward, each movement unhurried but heavy with presence — like the air itself bent to his stride. The dust in the hall seemed to swirl around his boots, catching the pale light.
His mother's eyes followed him, unblinking. She had seen glimpses of his ability before, small moments where he noticed things no one else did. But this… this was the first time he was wielding it like a blade.
The balcony shimmered. The distortion was almost beautiful — like heat bending light over a desert. Then it peeled away, revealing a tall figure draped in a cloak so dark it seemed to swallow the faint gold of the hall's torches.
His face was a ruin of old wounds — half-burned, half-shadow. And from his deep sockets, two amber eyes gleamed like a predator in a cave.
The man's voice was gravel dragged across iron.
"So… the Sun's curse lives."
Karn's expression didn't change, but inside, the words burned.
"And you're supposed to be dead."
The man tilted his head, lips curling in a thin, humorless grin.
"Supposed to be… yes."
Then the air cracked.
Beneath their feet, a black sigil ignited, its edges glowing with an unnatural violet flame. The floor vibrated as the lines spread outward, curling like a spider's web until they reached the walls. In the center, space itself seemed to warp — and then tear.
A gate — but unlike the golden ones Karn had seen in reports. This one was ugly, wrong, breathing like a living wound. It stank of ash, saltwater, and something faintly sweet, like rotting flowers.
Karn's mother's voice rang sharp through the chaos:
"Karn — don't let him step through that gate!"
The man spun and leapt toward the rift, cloak snapping like a living shadow.
Karn moved.
It wasn't speed in the normal sense. The world simply slowed, every detail stretching into clarity — the ripple of the cloak, the way dust caught the violet light, the flicker of fear that passed over the intruder's face when he realized he'd been caught.
Karn's hand shot forward, fingers reaching for the man's throat —— and the instant they touched, the floor beneath them shattered.
Stone fell away in massive slabs, the gate's pull roaring upward. Karn and the intruder plunged into the darkness below, violet light spinning around them like a whirlpool.
The last thing Karn heard before the world inverted was his mother's voice, breaking for the first time:
"Karn—!"