Veynfall city had a scent of smoke lingering in the air.
Not the comforting warmth that came from fires at night. The sharp metallic odor of scorching rock—the aroma lingering after Stormblood troops practiced in the upper quarters. Their electricity seared rooftops every day and the city just adapted to the rumble of thunder that was not caused by the weather.
Kael also dwelled beneath it like every rat and orphan that the Stormbloods feigned ignorance of.
Hours had passed since night arrived. It scarcely mattered. The sky, above Veynfall remained a deep purple sporadically illuminated by flashes of far-off lightning. Kael perched on the edge of a clocktower gazing over the slums the wind chilling his neck. He enjoyed being so high up. Here no one disturbed him.
Nobody dared.
Tonight though the city seemed off.
The atmosphere felt dense. Oppressive. Laden, with an unease he couldn't identify.
Kael breathed out. Observed the mist of his breath. "A storm is approaching " he whispered.
Except it wasn't.
He experienced it—the weight pressing against his ribs the warmth spreading through his veins the pounding at the back of his head. His body had been behaving oddly for weeks starting from when he reached nineteen. His blood boiled beneath his skin as if it were overly vibrant.
Like something inside him wanted out.
He rubbed his hands on his pants attempting to calm his breathing. He had experienced bursts before—power that was unnatural instincts, beyond human—but he had always managed to suppress them.
This evening they resisted.
A yell resonated from the alleyways beneath.
Kael tensed. Footsteps echoed loudly within the labyrinth of brick and darkness. Torches blazed. Metal struck. A woman shrieked.
Then a familiar voice echoed.
"Check every street! The Commander demands the thief be caught alive!"
Kael's jaw clenched. Wrathblood enforcers.
Damn it.
He jumped up. Glanced over the edge. Enforcers flooded the slums, like a swarm of bugs—weighty boots, weighty weapons, weighty pride. Their armor shimmered with a red light throbbing with the sacred shard they bore: Wrathblood, the deitys gift of ruin.
Kael felt his stomach plunge.
All of this… for one thief?
He slipped back behind the archway heart pounding fiercely. His fingers grazed the pouch fastened to his waist—the very one holding the relic he had taken just a few hours before: a matte black stone engraved with runes older, than the most ancient temple. Theft wasn't his intention. He had planned to snatch money.. The relic had… beckoned to him. Drew him in.
Once he had touched it a response stirred within him.
He had fled. The artifact had emitted warmth, on his skin since.
"Damn " Kael muttered softly. "Out of everything I might have grabbed…"
Beneath him the clocktower moaned, creaking like a creature.
Below the enforcers dispersed into teams. One team halted under the tower.
Kael tilted forward— enough to catch a glimpse.
Three Wrathblood warriors stood in the alley torches wavering arms ready.. It wasn't the warriors that caused Kael's heart to race.
The person guiding them was the man.
Commander Rydros.
A living legend of the Wrathblood lineage.
A man who previously destroyed a betrayer with one touch.
A man named Kael had encountered a single time previously—in a recollection he was not meant to possess.
Rydros raised an object to his face: a pendant, emitting a red glow. A talisman, for seekers.
Kael instantly sensed the pull as if a hook was piercing into his chest.
The charm responded to him.
"Sir!" yelled one of the soldiers. "The relic's energy trace—it's "
Rydros grinned. "He has arrived."
Kael's breathing faltered.
He retreated abruptly. His boot dragged across the stone. The noise reverberated sharply like a scream, in the darkness.
The soldiers jerked their heads upward.
"There!" someone yelled. "Up, on the tower!"
"Proceed " Rydros commanded.
The trio of soldiers charged toward the towers doorway.
Kael wasted no time. He dashed along the ledge leapt over a damaged stone barrier and coasted down a section of the roof. Tiles cracked under his weight. His hands stung. The tightness, in his chest intensified.
"You must not run."
The murmur was unreal. It simply had to be. It trembled within his skeleton, timeless and frigid.
Kael clenched his jaw. "Not, at this moment."
He crashed onto the ground tumbled and darted into the alleys. The slums sprawled chaotically. He had spent his entire life here—familiar, with every dilapidated door each pathway and every rung of ladder.
He might disappear. He always did.
However his body protested.
A rush of warmth swept over him. His sight grew fuzzy. His legs gave way.
Not now. Not now.
He crashed against a brick wall teeth clenched tightly while the surroundings skewed to one side.
He sensed his pulse.
Felt his blood boiling.
Felt something old and hungry stirring inside him.
"No " he panted. "Keep low."
You were never intended to stay concealed.
The whisper returned—frostier. It seemed as if a voice spoke within his veins.
Kael gripped his ribs shaking. "Be quiet."
At the alleys end a shadow wavered.
Too late.
Three Wrathblood agents turned the corner their swords emitting a glow.
Someone advanced. "Raise your hands, robber."
Kael remained still.
"Get down on your knees " the enforcer growled.
"I stated—"
Another warrior seized Kael by the shoulder.
Everything turned white.
Flames erupted from Kael's body in an explosion. The soldier was hurled back his armor dissolving. The alley's walls fractured. The earth shattered beneath.
Kael looked down at his hands—trembling, radiating, crimson light that did not belong to him.
"What—" His voice faltered. "What did I just—?"
The leftover troops retreated their faces turned pale.
"Commander!" someone shouted with a voice. "He—he—, by the gods he—"
Rydros entered the alley eyes locked on Kael face inscrutable.
For an instant he merely gazed at the boy positioned among the flowing lava.
Then he murmured the phrases that broke Kael's reality:
"He's Emptyborn."
Each soldier halted abruptly.
Kael was confused. The term was unfamiliar to him. Yet judging by the terror distorting their expressions he realized it was something dreadful than a criminal. More dreadful, than being cursed.
Rydros raised his gauntlet—its borders glowing with runes.
"Don't fight, boy. This is compassion."
Kael moved backward. "Don't come near me."
Rydros progressed.
"You ought to have been eliminated when you were born."
Kael felt his heart freeze.
Rydros lifted his hand—
And the relic in Kael's satchel flared.
Not warm. Not bright.
Dark.
A shockwave blasted through the alleyway snuffing out every torch, each rune-light and every flicker of Wrathblood energy. The surroundings plunged into darkness.
Rydros growled. "What's that—?"
The artifact throbbed more.
Kael sensed something underneath him—similar to a gate, in the ground swinging open.
A voice murmured, no longer inside his mind. Emerging from the very earth beneath him.
"Come find me."
Kael stumbled backward. "What—who—"
The pavement, in the alley split.
Dim light filtered through the cracks.
Rydros' eyes widened. "Stay back, from it!"
Kael was unable to move.
The cracks expanded—branching out like veins.
Rydros sprang towards him.
The earth erupted.
Kael dropped.
Down into darkness.
Down into stone and shadow.
Down toward the voice calling his name.
The final sound he caught before the world engulfed him was Rydros' shout:
"Close the crack! Prevent the Hollowborn from getting to whatever lies beneath!"
Then the ground sealed above Kael like a mouth.
And everything went black.