Kael stood alone beneath the flickering aetherlamps of the Runeforge chamber, his breath slow, steady, and measured. The air here shimmered faintly, thick with dormant runic energy and the subtle pull of elemental resonance. He had spent hours with Aethros earlier, failing, struggling—and nearly losing control.
Now, it was just him. And the Living Sigil.
A shimmering lattice of etched lines and floating glyphs stretched across the floor—a delicate balance of wind and flame, anchored by a rune at its core. Kael crouched near the center, his gloved hands outstretched. Sweat clung to his brow. His heart thumped like a war drum.
"This time," he whispered, "we don't fight it. We guide it."
He let the Void Crest stir—just slightly. The familiar pulse began, not like thunder but like a low hum, barely perceptible. Not a force to dominate, but one to dance with.
The sigils responded immediately. Wind curled into flame, spiraling upward like a phoenix's breath. The Array flared with radiant energy—unstable, yes—but beautiful. Prisms of color burst outward, bending light with unnatural grace.
Kurozan's voice echoed in his mind, calm and old as ash. "You are learning. But learning has a price."
Kael gritted his teeth as the rune trembled beneath his palm. His gloves sizzled faintly, runes along their seams absorbing and redirecting excess flux. He felt it then—a convergence.
His mind screamed with two truths: this was creation... and this was collapse.
With a guttural cry, Kael pulled back just before the Array could overload. The energy collapsed into a core of brilliant light and then dispersed with a gentle exhale, like breath leaving the lungs of a dying god.
He collapsed to his knees, gasping.
Then—
Silence.
The Array, half-scorched and half-lit with strange violet hues, had survived. But in its heart remained a flickering ember. Aetherflare.
Not a spell.
Not a technique.
A signature. A mark of a Soulborne awakening.
---
Aethros entered the chamber moments later, his steps soft, yet his presence carved through the quiet like a blade through silk.
He looked at the faded sigils, then at Kael.
"You glimpsed a flame not meant for mortal hands."
Kael didn't respond at first. He stared at his gloved hand, fingers still twitching from the strain.
"It felt... alive," he murmured. "Like it was looking back at me."
Aethros gave a curt nod. "That's because it was. Your crest's essence is not just raw power—it's memory, will, and force entwined. You've begun to shape it. But if you rush, it will shape you instead."
Kael glanced back toward the Array, where the faint glow of Aetherflare still lingered.
"Is it usable?"
"In the same way lightning is 'usable,'" Aethros replied. "If you temper it, yes. If not... it consumes."
Kael rose unsteadily, every fiber of his body aching.
"Will I be able to hide it at the Exhibition?"
Aethros was silent for a moment.
"That depends. On whether you intend to win... or to survive."
---
Later that night, Kael sat in his quarters, the faint hum of distant city bells echoing through the arched stone corridors of the Palace complex.
He held a rune crystal up to the moonlight. A fragment of earlier experiments—its surface scorched with faint traces of the Void's essence.
He turned it over and over in his palm, thinking of Senn. Of Arien. Of Veyna's quiet support. Of the Queen's cryptic smile.
He was no longer crestless. Not really.
But to reveal the Void Crest was to abandon anonymity—to call every enemy of the Old War to his doorstep.
He pressed the crystal to the table and etched a new rune onto its surface—slow, careful, precise.
The crystal pulsed once. Then again.
He smiled.
"Not bad for someone barely passing Runes & Sequence 101," he whispered.
Then he felt it: a whisper in the back of his mind.
"You are not the first to shape flame from emptiness."
Kael froze.
Kurozan's voice? No—older. Deeper.
A memory from the Abyss Library rose unbidden—an unmarked corridor he had never explored, but now recalled in exquisite detail.
Aetherflare wasn't new. It was... remembered.
He scribbled the name down hastily in his notebook. Tomorrow he would ask Aethros. Tomorrow, he would learn more.
But tonight, Kael Ryuu dreamed of fire that did not burn, and a voice in the dark that whispered his name with reverence and regret.