The air in the Scorian slums tasted like rust and regret. The sky, veiled in a permanent haze of crimson smoke, smothered the sun and left the world stained in firelight.
Aion Vale stood barefoot on the cracked stone of a rooftop, watching the Ether Guard drag another corpse down the street. The boy couldn't tell if it was someone he knew—there were too many bodies lately, too many screams swallowed by silence.
He was thirteen. Thin, sharp-eyed, with soot-colored hair that curled against his temples and a lean body built by starvation. He clutched a broken dagger, his only inheritance, and counted the guards beneath his breath.
"Six. Two with Ether blades. One caster," he murmured.
From the alley below, a shout cracked the air. "You there! Street rat!"
Aion didn't wait. He dropped from the rooftop, knees bending on impact, and sprinted into the maze of crumbling alleys. He knew this district better than anyone—better than the guards, better than the gangs.
He ran not because he feared them, but because he was smart. Etherians—the chosen, the gifted—could burn you to ash for less than a glance. He was nothing. No Law. No core. No hope.
Or so they thought.
---
Aion burst into an old forge, long abandoned since the Fire Wars. He ducked behind a slag heap and breathed quietly, heart hammering.
He didn't notice the man until it was too late.
A figure stepped from the shadows, cloaked in cracked armor, eyes like molten steel. Aion froze. This wasn't a guard. This was something worse.
The man's voice was low and crackling, like burning coal. "You're the last, aren't you?"
Aion said nothing. The man stepped closer. "The Null Line. It was supposed to be extinct."
"Get away from me," Aion growled, raising the broken dagger. The man didn't flinch.
"You don't feel it? The void inside you?" He stepped forward. "Let me help you awaken it. Let me—"
Aion lunged, slashing—
—but the dagger met nothing. The man vanished.
Suddenly, pain exploded in Aion's chest. The man was behind him, fingers buried in his back, not piercing flesh, but Ether itself. A cold, screaming emptiness swallowed Aion whole.
The world blurred. His thoughts shattered. His heart stopped.
Then—
Something snapped.
An explosion of pure silence pulsed outward, leveling the forge. The intruder staggered back, blood pouring from his eyes.
"You—what are you?" he gasped.
Aion rose from the rubble, eyes glowing with a soft, pulsing void. The Ether in the air twisted unnaturally around him.
"I don't know," Aion said, voice layered with something alien. "But I think you just made a mistake."