Kael placed a hand on his neck and rolled it slowly, exhaling.
"I wonder if there's a luck pathway." he murmured, glancing down.
Slow thick streams of blood ran down his chin and dripped onto his coat.
His second failed refinement in a row.
He turned his head slightly to the left.
Sophie sat on the bed as she had for the past few days, scribbling in Syleena's sketchbook.
This was the problem. The moment he had confirmed she was an information pathway Luminaire he could no longer afford full concentration on the refinement orb. It wasn't the only reason he kept failing, but he had no doubt it was contributing. Add the dull persistent ache of a damaged soul, the sleepless nights, and the constraints of his current state, and this had become the most difficult refinement he had ever attempted.
Killing her would remove one layer of the problem. But that was never a real option. He still needed Syleena, and Syleena needed Sophie alive. The mindstones she owed him wouldn't be paid until the refinement succeeded either.
'How do I get some privacy?'
He pushed the remaining ingredients aside and leaned back into his chair.
"Want something to eat?" Sophie asked in a small voice.
She was still quite stiff around him. Reasonably so. Few people would be comfortable around a higher ranking Luminaire, let alone one who had thrown a knife past their neck on the first day.
She brought over a single biscuit and set it on the desk before retreating to the bed.
Kael ate it without hesitation.
'What's the state of things outside?'
Ever since entering the hideout he had felt the walls closing in slightly. After the black market he wasn't ready to go outside yet, and information had become something close to a shortage because of it. Syleena gave updates occasionally, but Kael couldn't fully trust what she chose to share. He had the distinct feeling she left out details she considered none of his concern.
It wasn't ideal… but it was what he had.
'Maybe I should just switch to the information pathway.'
Through all of it he had never stopped returning to Point Aegis. Progress felt like climbing a mountain one loose stone at a time, but he felt he had at least managed to find his footing on the first few.
Sophie twitched when Kael stood up abruptly and walked through the wall. Only after several minutes had passed did she exhale, not having realised she had been holding her breath at all.
Kael adjusted his coat as he turned a corner.
"I need to clear my head." he murmured.
The truth was he felt like he had been making excuses lately. Sophie was a disruption, without question. But something else was gnawing at him. His focus had been slipping in ways he couldn't entirely account for.
Kael found a bench and sat down.
He reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a notebook, opening it on his knee. A feather quill appeared behind him and fell onto the paper, rolling down the page until it caught against the spine. He picked it up and released a thread of purified Will into it, carefully cleansed of any white tendrils.
The moment his Will filled the quill it began to write on its own.
Kael turned his gaze away.
'Is it really just the state of my soul making me feel this way?'
The thought surfaced every now and then. And like always it led nowhere.
He sighed.
Whatever the truth was it changed nothing. Life had never adjusted itself to his misfortune and it wasn't about to start. The goals remained. Refine Syleena's mote, collect the mindstone payment, continue studying Point Aegis, and somehow advance it to rank three.
Kael kicked at the snow with his foot and watched it hit the ground a few steps away with a wet slap.
Today was the first time this year the temperature had gone above zero.
'We've had quite a decent winter.'
He dismissed the mote and walked on.
Just as he turned a corner a Luminaire appeared from the other direction, not paying attention, and walked straight into him.
"Ah. My bad." The middle aged man said with an apologetic smile.
Kael was about to respond when the man's eyes dropped to the empty coat sleeve, then moved up to his hair.
Something changed in an instant.
The colour left his face. He stumbled backward as though the ground had shifted beneath him.
"No wor—"
Before Kael could finish the man was already scrambling away, hands waving frantically.
"Don't kill me. I'll tell no one, I swear. Take everything!"
He flung three mindstones at Kael's feet and crawled backward before finding his footing and sprinting away as fast as his legs would carry him.
Kael watched until he disappeared.
'Such a strange reaction…"
He crouched and pocketed the mindstones.
He couldn't afford to chase him right now. Besides, the speed he had shown was well beyond what a normal Luminaire could manage without cultivating something specifically for it.
No different from any other walk he had taken, Kael felt refreshed by the time he stepped back through the illusion. He removed his coat and draped it over the chair.
Against all odds he had managed to maintain something close to hygiene inside the hideout. His coat however was another matter entirely. Drenched in his own blood again, as it had been more often than not.
He sat down and entered his inner realm.
'Back to studying.'
—
Syleena turned a corner and slipped between two buildings, entering the desolate outskirts of Velthoria.
She walked up to a large spruce tree where a lone man sat with his face buried in his palms. Two lifeless bodies lay on either side of him.
"How'd it go?" Syleena asked.
The man shivered and shook his head.
"They're gone. They're all gone."
Syleena crouched in front of him.
"Well?"
Adam just shook his head again.
"A fourth." His voice was broken. "That's how many mortals I killed."
Syleena let her thoughts drift past his state.
'A fourth.'
She had known from the start that killing every mortal in the district was beyond realistic. But a quarter of them was already far beyond what she had expected from him.
She pressed a finger to her lips absently.
On the surface it looked like nothing more than the deaths of mortals. But the reality ran deeper. Supply chains at the lowest level would take a significant hit. Shoemakers, farmers, small traders. Output across all of it would drop, and eventually that shortage would climb upward into the Luminaire district.
Resources. One of the most overlooked factors in any war, perpetually overshadowed by raw battle strength and numbers.
"Why did you stop?"
Adam looked up at her. The confusion on his face had another layer underneath it. Why was she so unbothered?
"Vael." he said. "Vael came personally."
Syleena went still.
In what world did the head of Valthorne come in person to stop a slaughter in the mortal district? Either he had understood the threat it posed to them, or he had happened to be there for other reasons entirely. Both possibilities were worth considering and neither was comfortable.
"How did you escape? Why did he come at all?"
"What does it matter." Adam's voice was losing coherence. "None of them deserved it. None of those mortals had done anything to me."
His words continued to unravel the longer he spoke. Syleena listened until they stopped making sense, then turned away.
'I need to move. If Vael has been here recently I've already waited too long.'
Syleena retraced her steps quickly, slipping past building after building.
It was the only logical choice. She didn't doubt her own capabilities. But capabilities meant nothing when raw power of that scale entered the equation.
Her coat whipped as she turned a corner.
Then her entire body stopped.
A man in a dress uniform stood with his arms crossed, studying a ruined building. Two men flanked him, hands behind their backs, nodding slowly as they explained something.
Her eyes widened. Dirt scattered at her feet as she turned to run.
But before she could complete the turn his head moved. Eyes cold as iron found her.
Vael extended his arm in her direction.
The trees stopped mid sway. Mortals all around her ceased mid step, as though the air itself had solidified around them. The birds overhead hung frozen against the sky, suspended in defiance of every law nature had ever written.
Then it happened all at once.
The birds became dark streaks, shot downward and ceased to exist against the ground. The trees followed. As though a mountain had been set upon them they flattened instantly, pressed thin as paper against the earth. Almost a quarter of the mortal district simply vanished. Pushed into the ground by something unseen, something that left no dust, debris or sound. The absence of it made the whole scene look wrong. Like reality had been edited. Not a single mortal within its range was spared.
Syleena looked around. Cold sweat ran down her neck.
There was nothing. Nothing to hide behind in any direction. She would need to sprint for more than ten minutes before finding anything that could help her.
"There's someone here."
Vael crossed his arms as he began to ascend.
Syleena had stopped breathing entirely, careful not to stare too directly at him, terrified he could sense it somehow.
Vael's expression remained blank as he levitated toward her direction.
"One of you, go get Elara. She may be able to find whoever is hiding."
A Luminaire nodded and set off toward the Luminaire district.
The closer Vael came, the more oppressive his rank five Luminaire aura grew. He stopped a few steps from Syleena and his eyes snapped onto her.
"Ah… it's you…" He raised his hand toward her.
Swoosh.
Something yellow tore past Syleena's head, sending her hair whipping through the air.
A thunderclap rang out as golden sparks erupted in an explosion, the momentum carrying them outward like a wave washing over everything behind Vael.
A heartbeat passed before the sparks cleared. Vael shook his hand gently, closing and opening it into fist a few times.
"So this is wha—"
Before he could finish, two more streaks flew toward him. One stopped dead in the air before changing direction and driving straight into the ground. The other flew past Vael and into the Luminaire, reducing him instantly to a crimson cloud, leaving nothing solid behind.
Vael's eyes lifted from Syleena to a dot over a thousand steps away, where a lone figure stood calmly on a floating blade.
"We had a deal…" Vael said calmly.
"Drop the act, Vael. We both knew this day would come eventually."
Taric's voice reverberated through the open space as he drew a slow arc above his head. Vael watched with a sullen expression as golden blades began forming behind Taric, more and more until they resembled a wall rather than countless individual blades.
Vael suddenly reached out toward Syleena, but before any mote could activate another streak of yellow crashed into his hand, ricocheting straight up into the heavens and vanishing into the clouds in an instant.
Syleena hadn't been able to follow any of it.
'Why is father here?'
According to her information, the two weren't supposed to fight for another few weeks. Something had caused them to clash early.
Going against every gut feeling and every wretched thought screaming at her, she turned and ran from Vael. It was the only way. She had to put her trust in her father one last time.
Vael watched her retreating back until she vanished from his perception entirely, disappearing as if she had never been there.
He turned his full attention to Taric.
"Have you lost your mind?"
Taric only looked at him with an indifferent expression.
"People change, Vael. I had hoped you would too…" He shifted his gaze toward the clouds. "Rise with me."
Vael scoffed began to float higher.
This was the last drop of respect Taric would show. When two Luminaires of this level fought, they would rise into the sky, not to spare what was below out of any ethical consideration. The truth was simpler than that. Knowing a winner would emerge meant damaging anything on the ground was potentially damaging your own future resources.
When they had risen high enough that Velthoria below looked like a detailed map, Vael spoke again.
"She's talented, you know. Syleena." He paused. "She managed to reach rank three as a mind pathway this quickly. It puts my own son to shame. And that's not even accounting for Kael."
Vael clasped his hands behind his back.
"How did you manage to gather so many prodigies, Taric?"
Taric's gaze deepened.
"Is that so…"
He hadn't known she had advanced this many ranks..
"Kael is not of Eireindaile blood. He is simply a hired mercenary."
Now it was Vael's gaze that deepened.
"What?"
So this entire time, the Kael who had caused havoc throughout Velthoria had never even been of Eireindaile blood. The entire reason Vael hadn't committed more resources was because he had assumed otherwise. It was also why he had waited until war was inevitable before placing a bounty on him.
"So you're telling me you have no names reaching rank three within the Refinement pathway in Farkath in less than a year?"
Taric adjusted his sleeve.
"That's news to me…"
He could hardly believe what he was hearing. Had someone from the Refinement pathway truly appeared within his own city without his knowledge and reached rank three in the same time as his daughter? Unbelievable. For more than three decades he had tried to nurture a Refinement Luminaire.
Not only because it could strengthen a noble family immensely compared to other strategies, but because he had always wanted to refine something, something that was far beyond his own reach.
Ever since childhood he had heard stories of Eireindaile's first ancestor. A Refinement Luminaire. One who had built an empire alone through refinement and careful deals, and the only Luminaire Taric knew of who had ever produced a recipe for a soulbound mote. From that, a single goal had taken root. Upon becoming family head, he would spend every day trying to refine that mote.
Not simply because it was an unknown soulbound mote, but because he felt a strange pull toward owning something his ancestor had once used. The obsession had grown past reason. The men beneath him had eventually been forced to intervene. His soul had taken serious damage, and his fixation had nearly brought Farkath's resources to ruin.
When he finally accepted that the odds of a successful refinement sat well below one percent, he had shifted his efforts toward nurturing a Luminaire with natural talent in that field. Years passed. Nothing came of it.
'I need him…'
Taric's gaze hardened.
"Enough talk, Vael."
The moment the words left his lips, the gravity around him multiplied tenfold. Low-hanging clouds shot toward the ground, splitting open to reveal a pale blue sky above. Behind him, his wall of blades remained still and indifferent, like a monolith.