One Year Later
The Outer Ring of the Ashen Vale, near the Havenwyck Perimeter
The sun bled through the broken canopy in fractured beams, painting the dead trees with hues of rust and pale gold. The ruins stretched out like the remains of a swallowed civilization—pillars cracked by time, overgrown altars drowned in ivy, and statues whose faces had been long since eroded into silence.
Kael moved through the wreckage with the quiet grace of a predator.
His cloak, charred and threadbare, whispered with each step. The Shard embedded in his chest no longer pulsed—it throbbed, a quiet heart of frost and fire beneath his skin. His eyes, once a soft gray, now glowed faintly with a dull, cold light—as if the stars themselves had dimmed inside them.
He knelt near a half-buried sigil stone, fingers brushing dirt from the ancient carving—a symbol of the old Olympian pantheon, cracked down the middle. A warning. Or a grave.
Suddenly—movement.
The wind shifted. The scent of sweat. Bronze. Blood. Youth.
Kael didn't flinch.
A spear hurtled from the treeline behind him—fast, silent, precise. He turned without hurry and snatched it from the air with one hand. The shaft splintered in his grip. His eyes rose to the crumbled ridge beyond the clearing.
Six figures dropped from the shadows—armor gleaming, weapons drawn. Greek. Demigods. Barely more than boys, but skilled, trained, and burning with righteous fury.
"Stand down!" shouted their leader, a tall youth with gold-threaded vambraces and a Corinthian helmet pushed back to reveal stormy eyes. "By the decree of the Oracle, we are to take the titan's emissary alive—or dead if we must."
Kael straightened slowly, dusting his hand on his cloak. His voice, when it came, was low. Measured. Cold.
"You think I serve a titan?"
"Your mark burns like one," the youth growled. "You wield stolen power. We felt the fracture shift—your kind always leave scars."
Kael looked down at the Shard's faint glow beneath his armor, and for a moment, something flickered behind his eyes. Memory. A whisper of her—a hand torn away. A voice silenced.
But the moment passed.
"I don't serve anyone," he said flatly.
"Then you die a dogs death."
They screamed as they charged.
The first came at him with twin blades, moving with the fluid precision of Athena's teachings. Kael sidestepped, caught the boy's wrist, and drove his knee into the demigod's chest. Bone cracked. The boy screamed and folded like parchment.
The second hurled a discus etched with runes of binding. Kael caught it mid-spin, let the enchantment flash uselessly over his skin, then hurled it back. It shattered against the demigod's helm, sending him sprawling into a tree.
"Hold formation!" the leader barked, but there was fear in his voice now.
Kael advanced, slow and relentless. No spells. No theatrics. Just raw, overwhelming pressure. His every movement radiated the weight of someone who had broken to become what the world feared.
Another lunged. Kael twisted low, swept the boy's leg out, and before the youth could hit the ground, Kael buried a dagger into his shoulder—not to kill. To disable. To send a message.
He could have ended them all.
He chose not to.
Which, somehow, was worse.
The last two backed away. One muttered a prayer to Hermes. The other held a glowing brand of Apollo, its light flickering as though uncertain.
Kael stopped a breath away from them.
"You think I'm a weapon," he said, voice flat. "You're wrong."
He raised his hand. The Shard pulsed once.
The earth beneath them shivered—not violently, but like it recognized something beneath the surface. Something ancient. Something best left forgotten.
The demigods staggered, eyes wide, fear overtaking duty.
"I'm what's left after the weapon's been used."
With a cry, the leader lunged one last time, rage drowning fear. Kael didn't move. Instead, he looked at the youth.
Just looked.
And the boy froze.
His sword dropped. His knees buckled. He stared into Kael's eyes and saw not a man—but a storm. A choice made. A soul that had died to save one thing, and lived long enough to regret it.
Kael turned and walked away as the last of the demigods fell to their knees behind him, not from wounds—but from understanding.
As he vanished into the mist, one of them whispered, shaking, "What was he?"
The leader's voice, small and broken, answered, "The price."
And beneath Havenwyck's oldest root, in a chamber unseen, a presence stirred.
The One Who Denied the Sky opened a single, slitted eye.
And smiled.