Kael had forgotten what fear felt like until Eren stopped breathing.
Even now, the memory burned behind his eyes — the way the light had swallowed him whole, the way his hand had reached out and vanished through it. He hadn't realized how quiet the world could be until that moment. Quiet, and hollow.
Now, with Eren lying against his shoulder, the fire inside Kael refused to calm. It pulsed beneath his skin like an old wound reopened — the kind that never really healed, only learned how to hurt slower.
He kept his gaze on Eren's face. Amber-hazel eyes closed, lashes trembling, a faint pulse of gold still tracing the lines of his veins. The boy looked almost fragile in the afterglow — too human for what he was, too luminous to belong to this fractured world.
Kael's voice was barely a whisper.
"You keep doing this," he said. "Leaving me behind."
He reached out, brushing a lock of damp hair from Eren's forehead. The touch was soft, hesitant. He wasn't sure if it was meant to comfort Eren — or himself.
He stood and looked toward the fractured skyline. Vareth burned dimly in the distance — neon veins cutting through smog, the red pulse of the tower flickering like a dying heart.
Kael clenched his jaw. "Draven," he muttered. The name tasted like rust.
He could still feel the echo of the man's presence — smooth, sharp, invasive. Like a whisper that didn't belong to this plane.
Draven had touched something deep inside Eren's connection to the Pulse. That meant he wasn't just another enemy. He was something older. Something Kael had once tried to bury.
A faint distortion shimmered across the reflection of the nearest glass shard. Kael tensed.
Then came the voice. Low. Mocking.
"Still pretending you're his savior, Kael?"
Kael's pulse spiked. "Get out."
Draven's reflection smiled — a faint twist of light and shadow. "You can't silence me. You forged me the moment you bound him to the Pulse."
Kael's fists clenched, heat building around his palms. Flames flickered faintly, licking the air. "You're lying."
"Oh, but you know I'm not," Draven murmured. "Tell him who you really are. Tell him what it cost to bring him back."
The glass trembled. Kael stepped closer, jaw tightening. "He's not yours to twist."
Draven's smirk widened. "And yet, he listens to me now."
Kael drove his fist into the shard. The glass exploded in a burst of flame and ash, scattering like dying embers. For a second, the silence roared in his ears — loud enough to drown out thought.
When he turned, Eren was watching him — awake now, eyes still hazy but aware.
"Kael?"
Kael exhaled sharply, the anger melting into exhaustion. He knelt beside him, steadying his breathing. "It's nothing. Just a bad echo."
Eren frowned slightly. "You saw him again, didn't you?"
Kael hesitated, then nodded once. "He's trying to get into your head — through mine."
Eren sat up slowly, his skin catching the faint pulse of the city's glow. "Then he's afraid."
Kael looked at him, startled. "Afraid?"
Eren's lips curved into a tired smile. "He keeps testing us because he doesn't understand us."
"What's to understand?" Kael asked quietly.
Eren's gaze softened, and something in Kael's chest twisted painfully. "That I came back for you."
Kael froze. The words hit harder than any weapon. He didn't trust himself to speak, not with that kind of truth pressing against his ribs.
The fire inside him pulsed — steady, aching, alive.
He reached out, almost without thinking, and Eren didn't pull away. Their hands met — flame and pulse, heat and light, two fractured halves learning how to fit again.
In the distance, the tower's red glow flickered — once, twice — like a warning.
Kael didn't look away.
For now, the only thing that mattered was that Eren was still here.
And for the first time in years, the fire remembered what it was burning for.