The alarm never worked.
Arjun Rathore had learned this three months ago when the cheap plastic clock radio—bought secondhand from a Veilborn market stall—finally gave up its ghost. The vendor had sworn it was "good as new," which in Crimson District terms meant "it'll break within a week, but you're too poor to complain."
So instead, Arjun woke to the sounds of his world: the rhythmic drip-drip-drip of the leaking pipe in the corner, the muffled shouting from the apartment below (the Sharmas fought every morning like clockwork), and the distant rumble of the barrier ward generators that kept the wealthy parts of Neo-Mumbai safe from Echo Beast incursions.
Not that the barriers extended this far out.
The Crimson District sat at the edge of the city proper, a cancerous growth of rusted metal and crumbling concrete where fifty thousand Veilborn—the magicless, the forgotten, the expendable—scraped by on government rations and fading hope. The name came from the red dust that coated everything, blown in from the Fracture Zone three kilometers to the east. Some said it was oxidized iron from the dimensional tears. Others claimed it was dried blood from the first beast attacks, two hundred years ago, when the Aether Rift tore open the sky.
Arjun didn't care what it was. He just knew it got in everything—his clothes, his food, his lungs. On bad days, he'd cough up red phlegm and wonder if he'd make it to sixteen.
Today was his sixteenth birthday.
He sat up on his mattress—a thin foam pad on the floor, springs long since given up—and ran a hand through his messy black hair. The mirror propped against the wall showed a lean face with sharp cheekbones, dark circles under brown eyes, and a healing split on his lower lip from last week's run-in with the Red Vipers. Gangs controlled half the district, and the other half was controlled by the rats.
Literally. The rats in Crimson District were the size of small dogs, mutated by residual Aether. They didn't attack unless cornered, but they'd steal anything that wasn't nailed down.
"Arjun?"
The voice came from the other room, soft and hoarse. His sister.
"Yeah, I'm up," he called back, pulling on a faded gray t-shirt with a hole under the left armpit. His jeans were patched at both knees—Anika's handiwork, crude but functional. His boots were held together by duct tape and prayer.
He stood, joints popping, and shuffled to the tiny bathroom they shared. The sink faucet coughed brown water for ten seconds before running semi-clear. He splashed his face, the cold biting his skin, and stared at his reflection.
*Sixteen.*
In six hours, he'd stand in front of ten thousand people and touch an Echo Stone. In six hours, he'd find out if the universe had decided to give him magic, or condemn him to a life of manual labor and early death.
The odds weren't good. Ninety percent of Veilborn stayed Veilborn. Only one in ten awakened an Aether Core, and most of those were weak—Novice-tier at best, barely enough to qualify for anything beyond grunt work.
But there was a chance. A slim, desperate, clinging-to-the-edge chance that he might awaken something strong. Something that would let him get his sister out of this hellhole.
He brushed his teeth with a toothbrush that was older than his sense of hope and headed to the kitchen.
The apartment was a rectangle divided into three spaces: two bedrooms the size of closets and a kitchen-slash-living-room that barely fit a rickety table and a couch held together by willpower. The walls were yellowed, the paint peeling in artistic patterns that might've been interesting if they weren't evidence of structural decay. A single window overlooked the narrow alley four floors below, where trash piled high enough to be considered a architectural feature.
Anika was already at the stove—a two-burner electric hot plate that worked when the power did—frying something that smelled vaguely like eggs. She stood with her back to him, wearing an oversized black hoodie that had belonged to their father and cargo pants she'd stolen from a donation bin. Her short black hair was messy, hacked short with kitchen scissors because she refused to let it grow past her ears.
"Morning," Arjun said, dropping into one of the two chairs that weren't actively broken.
"Happy birthday," Anika replied without turning around. Her voice was flat, the way it always was in the mornings. She wasn't a morning person. She wasn't really an afternoon person either. Anika's default state was "mildly hostile to the world."
"Thanks." He watched her work. She moved efficiently, flipping the eggs—actual eggs, probably cost her a week's ration credits—with a practiced flick of the wrist. "You didn't have to—"
"Shut up." She slid the eggs onto a chipped plate and set it in front of him. Two fried eggs, slightly burnt at the edges. No salt—they'd run out three days ago. No pepper. No toast because they had no bread.
But it was eggs. Real eggs. Not the synthetic protein paste that came in government ration packs.
Arjun's throat tightened. "Anika..."
"I said shut up." She sat across from him with her own plate—one egg, just as burnt. She picked up her fork and started eating without ceremony, not meeting his eyes.
They ate in silence for a minute. The Sharmas were screaming about someone's mother now, the words muffled but passionate. Somewhere in the building, a baby cried. The barrier generators hummed their endless note.
"Where'd you get the credits?" Arjun asked finally.
"Don't worry about it."
"Anika."
She looked up, and her eyes—the same dark brown as his, the same sharp intensity—held a warning. "I said, don't worry about it."
Which meant she'd done something stupid. Probably sold something. Possibly stolen something. Definitely something that would get her in trouble if anyone found out.
"You can't keep—"
"Today's your day," Anika interrupted, her voice hard. "Your Resonance Ceremony. You're going to touch that Stone, and you're going to awaken, and you're going to get us out of here. So don't fucking lecture me about a couple of eggs."
Arjun set down his fork. "What if I don't awaken?"
"You will."
"Most people don't—"
"You're not most people." She stabbed her egg with more violence than necessary. "You're Dad's son. His Bolt affinity was Master-tier. That's genetic, everyone knows it. You'll awaken Bolt, join the military, and get assigned to a real base with real pay."
"And if I'm Veilborn?"
Anika's fork stopped halfway to her mouth. Her jaw tightened. For a moment, she looked exactly like their mother—the same stubborn set of her lips, the same refusal to acknowledge defeat.
"Then we'll figure something else out," she said quietly. "But you won't be."
Arjun wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that genetics mattered, that his father's strength would pass down, that the universe gave a shit about orphaned kids in the Crimson District.
But he'd learned a long time ago that wanting and getting were two different things.
Still, he forced a smile. "Yeah. You're right."
"I know I'm right." Anika finished her egg and stood, grabbing both plates. She dumped them in the sink, which was already full of dishes neither of them had the energy to wash. "Ceremony's at noon. We need to leave by eleven to get through the checkpoints."
"I know."
"Raj is meeting us at the train station at ten-thirty."
"I know."
"Wear something decent. Not that shirt with the hole."
"I don't have another—"
Anika pulled a folded bundle from behind the couch and tossed it at him. Arjun caught it, confused, and unfolded it.
A jacket. Black synthetic leather—the cheap kind, but new. No holes. No patches. The tags were still attached.
"Anika, this costs—"
"I said wear something decent." She crossed her arms, defensive. "It's your birthday. And your Resonance Ceremony. You should look... not like a slum rat."
Arjun stared at the jacket. It must've cost three months of ration credits, minimum. Which meant she'd been saving. Which meant she'd been skipping meals. Which meant—
"Thank you," he said, his voice thick.
"Whatever." Anika turned away, grabbing her father's leather jacket from the hook by the door—the real one, worn and scarred, that had survived two hundred battles and one execution. She shrugged it on, and for a moment, she looked like a soldier. "I'm going out. Back in an hour."
"Where—"
"Out." The door slammed behind her.
Arjun sat alone in the kitchen, holding the jacket, and tried not to think about how much his sister had sacrificed for him.
He spent the next thirty minutes cleaning the apartment.
It wasn't much—sweeping the red dust that accumulated overnight, washing the dishes that had piled up, organizing the clutter that seemed to breed in corners. But it gave him something to do, something to focus on that wasn't the gnawing anxiety in his chest.
At nine-thirty, he showered. The water was ice-cold—the building's heater had been broken for six months—but he scrubbed himself raw anyway, washing away the red dust and the smell of sweat and fear. He dried off with a towel that was more hole than fabric and pulled on his least-damaged jeans.
Then he put on the jacket.
It fit perfectly. Anika had somehow gotten his size exactly right, which meant she'd probably stolen his measurements while he slept. The material was stiff and new, smelling faintly of factory chemicals, but it was warm. It made him look... not rich, but less desperately poor.
He checked himself in the bathroom mirror. The boy staring back didn't look like a Veilborn slum kid anymore. He looked like someone who might have a future.
The thought terrified him.
At ten, Anika returned. She didn't say where she'd been, and Arjun didn't ask. She'd changed into cleaner cargo pants and a gray tank top under their father's jacket, and she'd actually combed her hair, which was a minor miracle.
"Ready?" she asked.
"No."
"Good. Let's go."
They locked the apartment—not that the lock did much—and headed down four flights of stairs. The stairwell smelled like piss and burnt plastic, and the walls were covered in graffiti, half of it gang tags, half of it profane suggestions for what the city council could do with their barrier wards. On the second floor, they passed Mrs. Patel, who was ninety years old and insisted on using the stairs despite the elevator actually working.
"Big day, Arjun beta," she wheezed, clutching the railing. "Your parents would be proud."
"Thank you, Mrs. Patel," Arjun said, because you didn't argue with Mrs. Patel.
"Don't forget us when you're a big fancy mage," she continued, wagging a gnarled finger. "Remember where you came from."
"I will."
"And you, Anika beti, when is your ceremony?"
"Next year," Anika said curtly.
"You'll awaken something fierce, I'm sure. You have your mother's fire." Mrs. Patel cackled, showing three remaining teeth. "She punched a Commander-tier beast once, you know. Bare-handed."
"I know." Anika's voice was tight. She didn't like talking about their mother.
They escaped to the ground floor and out into the street.
Neo-Mumbai sprawled across what used to be the western coast of India, before the Aether Rift reshaped continents and swallowed coastlines. The city proper—the towers of glass and steel, the floating platforms held aloft by Aether-infused tech, the massive barrier wards that shimmered like soap bubbles—was ten kilometers to the west.
The Crimson District was not part of that city.
Here, the buildings were squat and ugly, built from scavenged materials and desperation. The streets were narrow, choked with vendors selling fake Aether crystals and expired ration packs. The air smelled like frying oil, unwashed bodies, and the acrid tang of distant Fracture Zones. Above, the sky was the sickly orange of a polluted sunrise, streaked with clouds that moved wrong, too fast, evidence of dimensional instability.
Arjun and Anika walked in silence, navigating the morning crowds. Most people ignored them—two teenagers in a city of fifty thousand had long since lost the ability to be interesting. But a few eyes lingered on Arjun, calculating. Today was Resonance Day, and everyone knew it. If he awakened, he'd be valuable. If he didn't, he'd be the same worthless Veilborn trash he'd always been.
They passed the market square, where old women sold vegetables mutated by Aether exposure (three-headed carrots, potatoes that glowed faintly) and young men hawked stolen goods from crates. The Red Vipers had a corner here, six gang members lounging against a wall, tattooed and armed with knives and one battered Aether pistol that probably didn't work.
One of them—a guy named Kiran, early twenties, more scar tissue than face—spotted Arjun and grinned.
"Well, well. The birthday boy." He pushed off the wall, swagger in every step. "Heading to your big moment?"
Arjun didn't slow down. "Not interested, Kiran."
"Come on, Rathore. We're practically family. Your dad beat the shit out of my dad, my dad beat the shit out of your dad—that's bonding." Kiran fell into step beside them, too close. He smelled like cheap alcohol and cheaper cologne. "I'm just saying, when you awaken today—if you awaken—you remember who runs this district."
"Last I checked, nobody runs this district," Anika said flatly. "It's a shithole. You can't run a shithole. You just live in it."
Kiran's grin faltered. He looked at Anika, and his eyes flicked to the leather jacket she wore, and something shifted in his expression—respect, or maybe fear. Everyone in Crimson District knew that jacket. Everyone knew who it had belonged to.
"Cute," Kiran said, but he stopped walking. "Good luck today, Rathore. Hope you get something useful. Be a shame if you ended up as useless as your old man."
Arjun's fist clenched. Anika's hand caught his wrist before he could turn around, her grip iron.
"Keep walking," she murmured.
He kept walking.
Behind them, Kiran laughed. "Traitor's son! That's what they'll call you!"
Arjun's jaw ached from clenching it.
"Ignore him," Anika said quietly. "He's trash."
"Dad wasn't a traitor."
"I know."
"They lied. The Consortium, the military, all of them. They lied."
"I know," Anika repeated, and her hand squeezed his wrist once, firm and grounding, before letting go.
They walked the rest of the way in silence.
The checkpoint between Crimson District and the city proper was a fifteen-meter-tall wall of reinforced concrete, topped with razor wire and automated gun turrets that tracked movement with dead mechanical eyes. A single gate allowed passage, manned by bored Military guards in gray uniforms and light Aether armor.
Arjun and Anika joined the line.
There were maybe fifty people ahead of them, mostly Veilborn workers commuting into the city for menial labor jobs—cleaning, construction, corpse removal from Fracture Zone borders. The guards checked IDs with handheld scanners, their expressions ranging from apathy to outright contempt.
"Papers," the guard said when they reached the front.
Arjun pulled his ID card from his pocket—a laminated piece of plastic with his face, name, and the word VEILBORN stamped in red letters. Anika handed over hers.
The guard scanned them, his device beeping twice. He looked at the screen, then at Arjun, then back at the screen.
"Resonance Ceremony today," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes sir."
"First time?"
"Yes sir."
The guard's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes—pity, maybe, or resignation. "Good luck, kid. You'll need it."
He waved them through.
The train station was just inside the gate, a massive structure of steel and glass that gleamed in the morning sun. Trains ran on magnetic rails, powered by Aether-charged crystals, silent and fast. This was where the two worlds intersected—the gleaming future of Neo-Mumbai and the rotting past of Crimson District.
Raj was waiting by the platform, and Arjun couldn't help but smile.
Raj Malhotra was, objectively speaking, the largest sixteen-year-old Arjun had ever met.
Not tall—he was only five-foot-nine—but wide. Round. Soft in all the places Arjun was sharp. At somewhere north of two hundred forty pounds, Raj occupied space with the confidence of a man who'd long since stopped apologizing for it. His face was round and friendly, with chipmunk cheeks and eyes that crinkled when he smiled. His curly black hair stuck up in every direction, no matter how much he tried to tame it.
He wore an XXXL gray hoodie that strained against his stomach and black sweatpants with elastic waistbands. His backpack—reinforced with extra straps—bulged with what Arjun knew from experience was approximately seventy percent snacks.
When he saw them, his face split into a grin.
"There you are!" He waved, the motion causing his whole body to jiggle slightly. "I thought you forgot!"
"How could we forget?" Anika said dryly. "You sent me twelve messages."
"Eleven," Raj corrected. "The twelfth one didn't send. Stupid network." He turned to Arjun and, without warning, pulled him into a hug. Raj gave the best hugs—the kind that felt like being wrapped in a warm, soft blanket. "Happy birthday, brother."
"Thanks, Raj." Arjun hugged back, breathing in the familiar smell of the sandalwood soap Raj used and the faint scent of whatever he'd been cooking that morning. "You didn't have to come all the way out here."
"Are you kidding? Miss your Resonance Ceremony? They'd have to kill me." Raj released him and pulled a small paper bag from his backpack. "Here. I made you something."
Arjun opened the bag. Inside were three cookies—chocolate chip, still warm, wrapped in wax paper.
His chest tightened. "Raj, you shouldn't have—"
"I wanted to. Besides, I had leftover dough." Raj was a terrible liar. He definitely hadn't had leftover dough. He'd probably spent his last ration credits on chocolate chips just to make these. "Eat one now. You need energy."
Arjun bit into a cookie. It was perfect—crispy edges, soft center, the chocolate melting on his tongue. For a moment, everything else faded: the fear, the anxiety, the weight of the day ahead.
"Holy shit," he mumbled through the mouthful.
"Language," Anika said, but she was smirking.
"I'm sixteen now. I can swear." Arjun finished the cookie in three bites and immediately regretted not savoring it longer. "Seriously, Raj, you're going to make someone very happy one day."
Raj's cheeks turned pink. "Yeah, well. Someone has to keep you two alive." His eyes flicked to Anika for just a second—barely a glance—before looking away.
Anika, oblivious as always, checked her watch. "Train's in five minutes. We should get to the platform."
They moved through the station, Raj chattering nervously the whole way.
"So I looked up the statistics last night," he said, slightly out of breath from the walk. "Ten percent of people awaken an Aether Core. Out of those, sixty percent get a single affinity, thirty percent get weak dual affinities, nine percent get strong dual affinities, and one percent get triple affinities."
"I know the statistics, Raj."
"Right, but here's the thing—inheritance matters. If one parent is a mage, your odds go up to fifteen percent. If both parents are mages, it's twenty-five percent. Your dad was Master-tier Bolt, your mom was Adept-tier Aqua. So you're looking at, conservatively, a thirty percent chance of awakening."
"That's not how math works," Anika said.
"It's close enough!" Raj insisted. "And even if you only get a weak affinity, that's still enough to join the military. Basic training, two years of service, steady pay—"
"Raj." Arjun stopped walking. "What if I don't awaken?
Raj looked at him, and for a moment, the cheerful mask dropped. Underneath was something raw and scared.
"Then we'll figure it out," he said quietly. "The three of us. Like always."
Arjun wanted to believe him. He wanted to believe that friendship and determination could overcome the cold reality of a world that didn't give a shit about Veilborn orphans.
The train arrived—a sleek silver bullet that whispered to a stop on magnetic rails. The doors hissed open.
"Come on," Anika said. "We're going to be late."
They boarded.
The train was clean. That was the first thing Arjun noticed—the floors weren't sticky, the seats weren't torn, and the air didn't smell like body odor and despair. This was a city train, built for people who mattered, and Arjun felt immediately out of place.
They found seats in the back. Anika took the window, Arjun sat in the middle, and Raj squeezed into the aisle seat, his bulk overflowing slightly. Around them, other passengers—mostly well-dressed mages in tailored suits and combat gear—glanced at them with thinly veiled disgust.
Veilborn. The looks said it clearly. What are they doing on this train?
Arjun kept his eyes down and tried to ignore it.
The train accelerated smoothly, and Neo-Mumbai proper came into view.
It was breathtaking.
Towers of glass and steel reached into the sky, some so tall they disappeared into the clouds. Floating platforms hovered between buildings, connected by bridges of light.
Massive holographic advertisements flickered across building faces—smiling mages demonstrating Beast Gear, politicians promising safety, the Aether Wardens Guild recruiting new hunters. The streets below teemed with hovercars and pedestrians, a river of life that moved with purpose.
And above it all, the barrier wards shimmered—semi-transparent domes of Aether energy that protected the city from Echo Beast attacks. They pulsed with a soft blue light, powered by Nest Crystals harvested from Fracture Zones, maintained by teams of Archon-tier mages who worked in shifts to keep Neo-Mumbai safe.
It was beautiful and terrible and completely unattainable.
"Do you think we'll ever live there?" Raj asked quietly, pressing his face to the window.
"No," Anika said flatly.
"Maybe," Arjun said.
Anika looked at him. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't hope. Hope is expensive." She turned back to the window, her jaw tight. "We survive. That's enough."
"That's not enough," Arjun said. "There has to be more than just surviving."
"There isn't."
"There could be."
"Not for us."
Raj shifted uncomfortably. "Uh, guys, maybe we could—"
"I'm going to awaken," Arjun said suddenly, surprised by the conviction in his own voice. "I'm going to awaken, and I'm going to join the military, and I'm going to get us out of Crimson District. All three of us."
Anika finally looked at him, and her expression was complicated—hope and fear and something that might've been pride.
"Okay," she said softly. "Okay."
The train descended into the tunnel network, and the world outside went dark.
The Resonance Ceremony was held in Aether Stadium, a massive dome that could seat fifty thousand people and was usually reserved for inter-base tournaments and political rallies.
Today, it hosted ten thousand sixteen-year-olds from across Neo-Mumbai and the surrounding districts, all hoping to awaken.
Arjun, Anika, and Raj arrived at eleven-thirty and joined the crowd.
It was chaos.
Thousands of teenagers milled around the entrance, segregated into groups by district. The Veilborn kids—identifiable by their cheap clothes and nervous energy—clustered together on the left side. The mage-born kids—sleek uniforms, expensive accessories, confident swagger—dominated the center. And somewhere in between were the middle-class kids, neither privileged nor destitute, hoping to tip the scales.
Arjun's group—Crimson District, Sector 7—consisted of maybe two hundred kids. He recognized half of them from the neighborhood: Priya, who sold fake crystals in the market; Dev, whose brother died in a Fracture Zone breach last year; Leela, who was missing three fingers from a gang fight.
They all looked terrified.
"Okay," Raj said, pulling out a granola bar and stress-eating. "So the ceremony goes like this: they call you by district, you line up, you walk onto the stage one at a time, you touch the Echo Stone, and either you awaken or you don't. The whole thing takes about six hours."
"Six hours," Anika muttered. "Fantastic."
"If you awaken, the Stone glows your affinity color. Bolt is blue-white, Aqua is deep blue, Flame is red-orange, Terra is brown-green—"
"We know the colors, Raj," Arjun said, though he appreciated the distraction.
"Right. Right." Raj finished the granola bar in three bites. "And if you awaken multiple affinities, the Stone cycles through colors. That's rare, though. Like, really rare."
"One percent," Arjun murmured, remembering the statistics.
"Yeah."
They stood in silence for a moment.
"I'm scared," Arjun admitted.
"Me too," Raj said immediately.
"Good," Anika said. "Fear keeps you sharp." She glanced at Arjun, and her hand found his and squeezed once. "You've got this."
He squeezed back. "Yeah."
At noon exactly, the stadium doors opened.
The interior of Aether Stadium was stunning.
The dome ceiling was reinforced glass, letting in natural light that cascaded down in golden beams. Holographic displays floated in the air, showing real-time footage from cameras positioned around the arena floor. Ten thousand seats ringed the central stage, and every single one was filled with parents, siblings, friends, and media reporters.
The stage itself was circular, fifty meters across, raised three meters above the ground. At the center sat the Echo Stone.
It was massive—a boulder of raw crystal the size of a small car, glowing faintly with internal light that shifted through a spectrum of colors. This wasn't a carved artifact or a processed gem. This was a piece of the original Aether Rift, preserved for two hundred years, used in every Resonance Ceremony across the world.
It hummed with power Arjun could feel from a hundred meters away.
"Holy shit," he whispered.
"Language," Anika said automatically.
They were directed to the Veilborn section—hard plastic seats in the upper decks, as far from the stage as physically possible. Arjun sat between Anika and Raj, his heart pounding so hard he thought it might escape his chest.
The ceremony began.
A woman in formal Military dress stepped onto the stage. She was tall, dark-skinned, with close-cropped gray hair and a scar that ran from her left temple to her jaw. Her uniform bore the insignia of a General—the highest non-Archon rank—and when she spoke, her voice carried across the stadium without amplification.
"Welcome," she said, "to the 202nd Annual Resonance Ceremony of Neo-Mumbai."
Applause rippled through the crowd.
"Two hundred years ago," the General continued, "the Aether Rift tore open our world. Billions died. Civilization collapsed. But humanity adapted. We evolved. And now, every year, we gather to witness the next generation of mages awaken their potential."
More applause. Arjun barely heard it over the roaring in his ears.
"Some of you will awaken today. Some will not. But all of you have value. All of you have a place in our society." The General's eyes swept the stadium, and for a moment, Arjun swore she looked directly at him. "Let us begin."
The ceremony proceeded in alphabetical order by district.
Aether Heights (the richest district) went first. One by one, teenagers in designer clothes walked onto the stage, touched the Stone, and awakened. Almost all of them—the odds were that good when your parents were Archon-tier. The crowd cheered for each one, and holographic displays showed their affinity colors in brilliant detail.
Bolt. Flame. Aqua. Terra. Gale. Lumina. Shadow.
By the time they finished Aether Heights, two hours had passed, and ninety percent had awakened.
Next came the middle districts. The success rate dropped to sixty percent. The crowd's cheers grew more muted.
Three hours in, they reached the Veilborn districts.
Crimson District, Sector 7 was called at four-fifteen.
Arjun stood on shaking legs.
"You've got this," Anika said fiercely.
"We'll be right here," Raj added.
He nodded, not trusting his voice, and joined the line.
There were forty-seven kids ahead of Arjun.
He watched as, one by one, they climbed the stairs to the stage, walked to the Echo Stone, placed their hand on its surface, and waited.
Most walked away with nothing. The Stone remained dim, inert, a silent rejection. The crowd offered polite applause—consolation applause—and the Veilborn kids descended the stairs with their heads down, their futures solidified as menial laborers.
Eight awakened.
Arjun watched a girl named Priya touch the Stone, and it flared brown-green. Terra. The crowd cheered, and Priya burst into tears of joy. She'd made it. She'd escaped.
Seven more.
By the time Arjun's name was called, his hands were shaking so badly he could barely walk.
"Arjun Rathore, Crimson District, Sector 7."
The cameras swiveled to focus on him. His face appeared on the holographic displays, blown up fifty feet tall, visible to everyone in the stadium. He looked pale and terrified and desperately poor.
He climbed the stairs.
The stage was bigger up close, the Echo Stone even more massive. Up close, he could see the details—the internal fractures, the way light moved through it like liquid, the faint hum that vibrated through his bones.
The General stood beside it, her expression unreadable.
"Place your hand on the Stone," she said. "And focus."
Arjun stepped forward.
His hand touched the crystal.
And the world exploded.
The first thing he felt was cold.
Not the cold of winter or ice, but the cold of the void between stars, the cold of absolute nothing. It shot up his arm and into his chest, spreading through his veins like liquid nitrogen.
Then came the pull.
Something inside the Stone reached into him—into his soul, his core, the deepest part of what made him him—and yanked. Arjun gasped, his knees buckling, and distantly he heard the General say, "Easy, son—"
The Echo Stone flared.
Blue-white light exploded from the crystal, so bright that half the stadium flinched. The holographic displays flickered, overwhelmed.
BOLT.
The crowd erupted into shocked applause. A Veilborn kid from Crimson District awakening Bolt—a combat affinity, a valuable affinity—was rare enough to be newsworthy.
But Arjun barely heard it.
Because the pull hadn't stopped.
The Stone yanked again, harder, and this time it felt like something was tearing inside him. He tried to let go, but his hand was fused to the crystal, locked in place by forces he didn't understand.
"Something's wrong," he gasped.
The General stepped closer, her hand on his shoulder. "What do you feel?"
"It's—it's pulling—"
The Stone flared again.
This time, the light was wrong.
It wasn't blue-white. It wasn't any of the standard affinity colors.
It was black.
Not Shadow-black, which was dark purple. This was true black,
the color of empty space, of dimensional tears, of the Rift itself.
The crowd went silent.
The General's grip on Arjun's shoulder tightened. "What the—"
The Echo Stone cracked.
A sound like shattering glass rang through the stadium, and a spiderweb of fractures spread across the crystal's surface. Alarms blared. The holographic displays went haywire, flickering between static and Arjun's terrified face.
"Get him off the Stone!" someone shouted.
Two Military officers rushed the stage, grabbing Arjun's arm and trying to pull him back. But his hand was still stuck, and the black light was growing brighter, spreading through the Stone like infection.
"I can't—I can't let go—" Arjun's voice broke.
And then the Stone *screamed.*
It was a sound that shouldn't exist—metal on metal, nails on chalkboard, the death cry of something ancient and powerful. The fractures widened, and black energy leaked out, coiling in the air like smoke.
Arjun's vision blurred. He felt something inside him *shift*, something fundamental, like a door opening in his soul that had been locked his entire life.
A voice whispered in his mind, so faint he almost missed it:
*"You are the key..."*
He screamed.
The Echo Stone exploded.
Arjun woke up on the floor of the stage, staring at the dome ceiling.
His ears rang. His entire body ached. His right hand—the one that had touched the Stone—felt like he'd dipped it in acid.
Slowly, he sat up.
The Echo Stone was... broken. The massive crystal was now a pile of shattered fragments, black energy dissipating into the air like steam. The stage was covered in debris. The General was shouting orders into a communication device. Twenty Military officers surrounded the stage, weapons drawn.
And ten thousand people were staring at him in absolute silence.
"What..." Arjun's voice came out as a croak. "What happened?"
The General turned to him, and her expression was something between awe and fear.
"You awakened," she said slowly. "Bolt affinity. The scanners confirmed it."
Relief flooded through him. "I awakened."
"Yes." The General hesitated. "But the Stone... the Stone malfunctioned. That's never happened before."
Arjun looked at the shattered crystal. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"
"It's not your fault." The General helped him to his feet. "These things are ancient. Sometimes they fail." But her eyes said she didn't believe that.
The holographic displays flickered back online, showing Arjun's information:
**NAME: Arjun Rathore**
**DISTRICT: Crimson, Sector 7**
**AFFINITY: Bolt**
**TIER: Novice (Level 2)**
The crowd began to applaud—tentative at first, then louder. A Veilborn kid awakening was news. A Veilborn kid awakening *and* breaking the Echo Stone was a story people would tell for years.
Arjun descended the stairs on wobbly legs, his mind spinning.
He'd done it. He'd awakened. He'd gotten Bolt, just like his father.
So why did he feel like something had gone horribly wrong?
He found Anika and Raj in the crowd. Anika grabbed him in a hug so tight he couldn't breathe.
"You did it," she whispered fiercely. "You fucking did it."
"Language," he mumbled, and she laughed—actually laughed—her eyes wet.
Raj was crying openly, not even trying to hide it. "I knew it. I knew you'd awaken. I told you the statistics—"
"Yeah, yeah." Arjun hugged him too, and for a moment, everything was perfect.
But in the back of his mind, the voice still echoed:
*"You are the key..."*
And deep in his right hand, beneath the skin, something dark and cold pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat.
They took the train back to Crimson District in a daze.
Arjun sat in the same seat as before, but everything felt different. People looked at him differently now—not with contempt, but with curiosity. A few even nodded respectfully. He was a mage now. One of them.
It felt like wearing someone else's skin.
"So what happens next?" Raj asked, munching nervously on a bag of chips he'd bought from a station vendor. "Do they assign you to a base immediately, or do you get a choice, or—"
"He gets a letter in two weeks," Anika interrupted. "Assignment to one of the eight Resonance Bases for mandatory military training. Two years minimum service."
"Which base do you think they'll send you to?" Raj pressed.
"Base 1, probably," Arjun said. "It's closest to Neo-Mumbai. Most Veilborn awakenings go there."
"That's the one with General Paul Rathore, right?" Raj's eyes widened. "Wait, is he related to you? Same last name—"
"No." Arjun's voice was flat. "Common name."
Anika shot him a look but didn't contradict him.
They lapsed into silence.
Arjun stared at his right hand. It looked normal—same calluses, same scars, same faint red dust under the nails. But he could feel it. The cold. The pulse.
He flexed his fingers, and for just a second, the air around his hand *warped*, like reality was bending.
He shoved his hand into his jacket pocket.
"You okay?" Anika asked quietly.
"Yeah. Just tired."
"Liar."
He looked at her. "I'm fine, Anika."
She studied him for a long moment, then nodded. "Okay."
But she didn't believe him.
The train emerged from the tunnel, and Crimson District came into view—gray and red and depressingly familiar. They disembarked at the checkpoint, passed through without issue (the guards actually saluted Arjun, which was surreal), and walked home through streets that felt smaller now, like he was seeing them from a distance.
"We should celebrate," Raj said as they neared the apartment building. "I could cook something. We could—"
"Tomorrow," Arjun said. "I just... I need to sleep."
Raj looked hurt but nodded. "Okay. Tomorrow."
They said their goodbyes on the street. Raj hugged Arjun again—tighter this time, like he was afraid to let go—and whispered, "I'm proud of you, brother."
"Thanks, Raj."
He and Anika climbed the four flights of stairs in silence. The apartment was exactly as they'd left it, small and shabby and home.
Anika went straight to the kitchen and started making tea, because that's what she did when she didn't know what else to do.
Arjun collapsed onto the couch.
"Hey," Anika called from the kitchen. "What did the Stone feel like? When you touched it?"
He considered lying. Considered saying it felt normal, felt like electricity, felt like power.
Instead, he said, "Cold."
"Cold?"
"Yeah. Like..." He struggled for the words. "Like it was pulling something out of me. Or putting something in. I don't know."
Anika appeared in the doorway, holding two chipped mugs of tea. She handed him one and sat beside him.
"The General said it malfunctioned," she said carefully.
"Yeah."
"Do you believe that?"
Arjun sipped his tea. It was too hot and tasted faintly of red dust, but it was comforting. "I don't know what I believe."
They sat in silence, drinking tea, as the sun set over Crimson District and the barrier generators hummed their endless song.
Somewhere in the distance, an Echo Beast howled.
And in Arjun's right hand, hidden beneath the skin, a second Aether Core pulsed with black light—silent, secret, and waiting.
Arjun woke at midnight to the sound of whispering.
He sat up in his bed, heart pounding, and listened.
Silence.
No—not quite silence. There was something. A faint rustling, like fabric moving, or wind through leaves, or voices too distant to understand.
He stood and padded to the window.
Crimson District stretched out below him, bathed in the orange glow of failing streetlights and the distant shimmer of barrier wards. Nothing moved. Nothing seemed wrong.
But the whispering persisted.
It was coming from inside his head.
Arjun pressed his palms to his temples, squeezing his eyes shut. "Stop. Stop. *Stop.*"
The whispering didn't stop.
It grew louder, clearer, until he could almost make out words:
*"...the key... the door... the coming..."*
"Shut up!" he hissed.
The whispering cut off abruptly.
Arjun stood in the dark, breathing hard, and looked at his right hand.
The skin was glowing faintly. Black light, barely visible, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
He clenched his fist, and the light faded.
"What the hell is happening to me?" he whispered.
No answer came.
But in the shadows of the room, something moved—just for a second, just at the edge of his vision.
A figure. Hooded. Watching.
Arjun spun around.
Nothing.
He was alone.
But the air felt wrong. Colder. Heavier.
Slowly, Arjun walked to his closet and pulled out the small lockbox he kept hidden under a pile of old clothes. Inside was a knife—his father's combat knife, military issue, the only thing the government hadn't confiscated after the execution.
He tucked it under his pillow and lay back down, staring at the ceiling.
Sleep didn't come easy.
And when it did, he dreamed of a man with a kind smile and cold eyes, standing in a room full of shattered glass, whispering:
*"Welcome, Arjun. I've been waiting for you."*
To be continued...