Sanguine Reach no longer felt like a home.

  It felt like a mausoleum.

  The great banners of House Volkov still hung from the spires, crimson trimmed in black, but the wind no longer carried warmth through the halls. Every corridor echoed. Every chamber remembered.

  Kaelen walked slowly through the estate, his footsteps unguarded, unchallenged.

  No one stopped him anymore.

  Servants bowed too deeply. Guards looked away. Even the walls felt distant—like the estate itself had decided he no longer belonged.

  He paused outside the training courtyard.

  The stone had been repaired, but the ground still bore faint fractures where gravity and blood had once torn it apart.

  Where she had stood.

  Lyra Volkov.

  His mother.

  Lightning sparked weakly across Kaelen’s fingers without his consent—faint, erratic, hollow. A reflex without a core. An echo of something dead.

  He clenched his fist and forced it down.

  “Don’t,” he whispered to himself.

  Behind him, footsteps approached.

  Measured. Controlled.

  Orion stopped beside him.

  “You shouldn’t push it,” Orion said quietly. “Your channels haven’t healed.”

  Kaelen laughed bitterly. “They never will.”

  Silence stretched between them.

  The city had survived. The Purifiers had retreated. The Elders were dead.

  And yet—

  Everything had been lost.

  Orion finally spoke. “The Council is forming. We can’t leave a vacuum.”

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  Kaelen didn’t look at him. “Congratulations.”

  “That isn’t what I meant.”

  Orion turned to face him. “I’m not Father.”

  That got Kaelen’s attention.

  Orion’s eyes were rimmed with exhaustion. Not physical. Strategic. The kind that came from realizing the world had teeth and learning where to place your hands so it didn’t bite your throat.

  “I won’t discard you,” Orion said. “But I can’t protect you here anymore.”

  Kaelen frowned. “From what?”

  “From becoming a symbol,” Orion replied. “Or a weakness.”

  Kaelen closed his eyes.

  Lyra’s voice echoed in his memory.

  Power isn’t what you wield. It’s what you choose not to.

  Orion stepped closer. He reached into his coat and withdrew a pair of dark gauntlets, etched with storm-pattern conduits and internal dampening seals.

  “Storm-Grip,” Orion said. “They’ll stabilize your residual channels. Keep your lightning from tearing you apart.”

  Kaelen stared at them.

  “I’m sending you away.”

  The words landed softly.

  But they cut deep.

  “You have two years,” Orion continued. “Disappear. Get stronger. Learn who you are without the House.”

  Kaelen finally turned to him. “And if I don’t?”

  Orion’s jaw tightened. “Then you die. Or worse—you’re found.”

  Kaelen took the gauntlets.

  They were warm.

  “I won’t contact you,” Orion added. “You won’t contact me. If we cross paths—”

  “We’re strangers,” Kaelen finished.

  Orion nodded.

  Kaelen hesitated. “What about Elara?”

  Orion’s voice softened. “She thinks you’re on a long mission.”

  Kaelen swallowed.

  “Good.”

  They stood there for a long moment, brothers bound by blood, shadow, gravity, and lightning—each carrying a different piece of Lyra with them.

  Finally, Orion turned away.

  Kaelen moved.

  The Armory had always been sealed to him.

  Tonight, it opened.

  The door recognized his blood.

  Inside, the air shifted.

  Dark ambient Ni flowed like a sleeping ocean, heavy with forgotten oaths and old wars. Kaelen stepped forward slowly, his instincts screaming—not fear, but recognition.

  A hidden wall slid aside.

  Beyond it—

  Weapons.

  Not ceremonial.

  Not relics.

  Tools.

  A katana sheathed in black steel.

  A segmented whip coiled like a living thing.

  Twin daggers balanced perfectly for reverse grip.

  A collapsible spear with a hollowed core.

  A suit of armor, dark and layered, designed for movement and silence.

  And at the center of the room—

  A red-and-black jewel was suspended on a pedestial.

  Kaelen approached it.

  The moment his fingers brushed the surface—

  It dissolved.

  Pain erupted in his chest and head.

  Kaelen screamed as the dark Ni of the armory surged into him, flooding pathways that should have been dead. All the dark ambient Ni flowed into him through all his pores, mouth, eyes, ears, and nose.

  Something answered.

  Not a core.

  A framework.

  A system.

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  Kaelen collapsed.

  When he woke, the armor was on him.

  Perfectly fitted.

  Alive.

  He stared at his reflection in a polished steel panel.

  The boy who had begged his father to listen was gone.

  Something quieter stared back.

  Something sharper.

  Kaelen stood.

  He strapped the weapons to his body, the katana resting comfortably against his spine.

  As he turned to leave, he paused.

  For the first time since the Night of Elders—

  He bowed.

  Not to the House.

  Not to the dead.

  To the path.

  At the gates of Sanguine Reach, the wind howled.

  Kaelen didn’t look back.

  He stepped into the Wilds.

  And the world lost track of him.