Kael was not in his body.
He floated through a realm of light and soundless screams. Time had no meaning here. Pain was not sharp, it was infinite.
Images came and went.
A tower burning.
A child with eyes like molten gold.
A city falling through sky.
Elira, calling his name, but from a great distance.
And beneath it all, a thread.
Thin. Fractured. Burning. His magic, perhaps. Or something older.
He reached for it.
The moment he touched it, the world turned inside out.
Pain bloomed. Not of the flesh. Of memory.
He saw himself as a child. Alone. Unwanted.
He saw the first time he called lightning, not in glory, but in terror.
He saw his father's face, proud, then afraid.
He saw Elira.
Not on their wedding day, but the night she chose him, even when the world had not.
He screamed.
And the realm screamed back.
The thread wrapped around him. Tight. Blinding.
Not fire. Not thunder. Thought.
It burned through him like cleansing heat.
And then,
Stillness.
Kael awoke with a gasp.
Elira was beside him, eyes wide, tears in them. The Watchers had gone.
The twins were quiet. Calm.
Kael sat up.
Not easily. Not without trembling. But he sat.
The mist pulsed once.
And somewhere deep beneath the earth, something ancient turned its gaze toward him.
Kael breathed.
Alive.
Changed.