CHAPTER 5: THE MAN WHO CHOSE TO HATE
They ran rooftops until the city thinned into broken warehouses and fog.
Riven led them to an abandoned shrine, its stone cracked, its offerings long stolen. They crouched in the dark, listening to the distant sweep of patrols.
Kael's lungs burned.
His hands shook.
Not from fear.
From the weight of becoming.
"Lysenne's going to get hurt," Kael said.
Riven's voice was flat. "Everyone gets hurt."
Kael glared at him. "She didn't deserve this."
Riven's laugh was harsh. "Neither did you. That never stopped the world."
Kael looked down at his palm. The cut still refused to close.
His interface flickered as if it could sense his exhaustion.
TRAUMA THRESHOLD: NEAR.ASCENSION EVENT: POSSIBLE.
Kael clenched his jaw. He didn't want another "event." He wanted one night where he didn't have to claw himself back from the edge.
Riven leaned against the shrine wall, eyes distant. "You know what scares me?"
Kael didn't answer.
Riven continued anyway. "Not Vaelor. Not the clans. Not the ruins."
He looked at Kael.
"You're starting to make sense of this world. And when that happens… you stop being surprised by cruelty."
Kael swallowed. "That's called growing up."
Riven shook his head. "No. That's called becoming them."
Kael bristled. "I'm not like Vaelor."
Riven's eyes hardened. "Then why did he say your name like it belonged to him?"
Kael's stomach twisted.
Because Vaelor had known his name.
Because Vaelor had said it like a verdict.
Kael stared into the darkness beyond the shrine. The fog moved like something breathing.
"Why does Vaelor care?" Kael asked, voice low. "There are thousands of Unworthy. Why me?"
Riven hesitated.
That hesitation was a knife.
"You know something," Kael said.
Riven's jaw tightened. "I know rumors."
"Tell me."
Riven exhaled, long and shaky. "They say Vaelor purged a whole line years ago. Quiet. No trials. No witnesses. Just… gone."
Kael felt cold spread through his chest.
Riven looked at him like he hated himself for speaking. "They say one child survived. A baby. Slipped through because someone… someone had the nerve to hide him."
Kael's heartbeat thudded in his ears.
Riven's voice dropped. "They say Vaelor has been hunting that loose end ever since."
Kael's mouth went dry. "Why?"
Riven's eyes flickered, pained. "Because Vaelor doesn't leave loose ends. Because leaving you alive means admitting he can make mistakes."
Kael stared at the floor, trying to keep his breathing steady.
His childhood memories were a fog. A few flashes. Cold hands. A woman humming. Blood on stone. A symbol burned into wood.
He'd always assumed the past was blank because he didn't matter.
Now the blankness felt… deliberate.
Kael's interface blinked once, like a slow eye.
HISTORICAL DATA: INCOMPLETE.RECOMMENDATION: SEEK ORIGIN TRUTH.
Kael hated the way it phrased his life like a quest.
But he couldn't deny the pull.
Outside, a distant horn sounded.
Riven tensed. "They're sweeping the district."
Kael stood.
Riven grabbed his arm. "Where are you going?"
Kael looked at him. "To get answers."
Riven's grip tightened. "From who?"
Kael's mouth set. "From the only man arrogant enough to think he owns my existence."
Riven stared at him, then slowly released him. "You're going to get yourself killed."
Kael's voice came out quiet. "Maybe."
Riven's eyes narrowed. "That's not a plan."
Kael held his gaze. "It's a direction."
They moved through alleys and collapsed courtyards until they reached a cliffside overlook where you could see the High Clan district rising like a separate city, clean and bright, guarded by walls that looked too white to be real.
In the center stood Vaelor's fortress, a tower shaped like a blade thrust into the sky.
Kael's chest tightened, not with fear, but with something uglier.
A sense of being looked at.
Even from this distance.
Riven muttered, "He's waiting."
Kael whispered, "He thinks I'll crawl back. Like a dog."
Riven glanced at him. "And if you don't?"
Kael's eyes stayed on the tower. "Then he'll come down from that tower himself."
Riven swallowed. "Why would he?"
Kael's voice was flat, certain in a way that scared him.
"Because men like Vaelor don't hate quietly."
Kael felt the Apex Core stir, like it agreed.
Somewhere deep inside him, beneath the pain and the hunger and the fear, something steady formed.
A promise, not heroic, not pretty.
Just stubborn.
He would not be erased.
And Vaelor Creed, a man who chose to hate, was about to learn that survival could become a weapon.