The trail northward took them into higher ground, where the trees thinned and the hills turned jagged, climbing like broken spines into the mist. The region was called Yavenga's Rise, a ridge-land known for old watchpoints and lightning-warped rocks.
The scanner had been pulsing slower, dimmer, but it hadn't gone cold. Not yet.
Dakarai walked at the rear of the group, letting Kazi and Rhazir keep to the front. He liked it that way. It gave him space, to think, to watch, to breathe without the weight of their eyes on him.
He wasn't tired. But he was… tight. Stretched like the wires inside his own energy.
He could feel it building.
The pressure.
Not just from the Mark.
From everything.
He glanced at Kazi. She moved like she always did, alert, driven, relentless. Fire at her fingertips, fire in her eyes. She was the kind of person who burned forward no matter what was in front of her.
He admired that.
But it scared him too.
Because sometimes… you didn't see what was behind you until it caught up.
The slope narrowed between two sharp ridges where black rock jutted from the soil. The sky overhead had turned a pale, storm-heavy gray and close to letting loose.
Kazi slowed, checking the scanner Rhazir handed her.
"We're near," she said.
Rhazir nodded once. "Somewhere below the ridge line. A valley opens up beyond."
They pressed forward, the path dipping into a wooded hollow marked by scattered stone pillars, broken pieces of architecture, forgotten and reclaimed by moss.
Dakarai kept his steps light, sparking a trail of electricity between his fingers as he walked. It calmed him. Let the charge flow, don't hold it. That's what he had learned since awakening.
Control wasn't about suppression.
It was about release.
They made camp near a set of low ruins that looked like they once held meaning, maybe a temple, maybe a place of power. The air vibrated here, not violently, but rhythmically. The pulse of something watching; or waiting.
As Kazi and Rhazir went over the scanner, Dakarai stepped away, finding space near a ridge wall.
He pulled his hood back and sat on a large slab of stone, placing both palms on the ground.
He let his power hum through him, down his arms, into the earth. Just enough to feel the feedback.
Lightning always looked chaotic to outsiders.
But it followed rules. Formulas. Patterns.
Even when it danced.
As he sat there, he began to think of Luma. The look in her eyes. The twist in her smile.
It could've been Kazi. Or him.
It still could be.
And Rhazir…
He didn't trust him.
Not since Ayenro.
Not since the scanner "just happened" to lead them to nothing.
Dakarai didn't say it out loud.
But he'd been watching too.
"You always drift when things get quiet."
Kazi's voice brought him back.
She walked over and sat beside him, resting her elbows on her knees.
Dakarai smirked. "Somebody's gotta think about the worst-case scenario."
She nudged his shoulder. "And here I thought you were the cool one."
"I'm lightning. Not ice."
They sat in silence for a few seconds before Kazi spoke again.
"You've been different lately."
Dakarai didn't answer at first.
Then: "I feel it. All the time. The power. The pressure. Like something's waiting to burst. I keep wondering if I'll lose control one day and lose myself."
Kazi nodded slowly. "I used to think that too. That fire was just destruction waiting to happen. But it's more than that. It's heat. Light. It shapes things."
"And lightning?"
She looked at him. "It connects things."
Dakarai didn't reply.
But the thought stayed.
Later that night, long after Rhazir had gone silent in meditation and the fire had burned low, a sound echoed from beyond the ridge.
It wasn't thunder or the wind.
It was something sharp and sudden.
Like a flare.
Kazi and Dakarai were on their feet in seconds. Rhazir rose more slowly, his eyes already scanning the horizon.
"There," Dakarai said, pointing toward a distant slope where a flicker of movement lit the trees.
A bright flash could be seen. It wasn't lightning or fire but something in between.
The group started running towards the commotion.
The trees closed in quickly, rising dense and tangled as they descended the hill. Roots curled like fingers across the dirt, and the air shimmered with static.
Then they saw it.
A clearing. Cracked with heat. The grass scorched in jagged spirals. Stone pillars, natural or carved, they couldn't tell, stood in a loose circle.
And at the center of it all, standing alone with his back turned, was a figure.
Tall and still.
The energy radiating off him was intense but it wasn't wild or corrupted.
But pressurized.
Kazi's Mark flared beneath her skin.
Dakarai's hand sparked unconsciously.
Rhazir slowed, watching closely.
The figure turned.
His eyes glowed faint bronze, not with fire, not with light, but with pure resonance. His body bore the markings of awakening, glyphs running across his chest and down his left arm. His aura buzzed with potential.
He didn't speak.
He didn't run.
He just raised one hand and gestured, not in greeting, but in the form of a challenge.
And smiled.