The fight with Veyra had left Aion shaken, but something deeper had shifted within him.
The Null didn't just respond anymore—it anticipated. It hungered.
They had camped on the edge of the Ashlands, near a buried bunker left from the Ether Wars. Kael snored softly nearby, his injuries wrapped in scavenged bandages. But Aion couldn't sleep.
He stared into the remains of a dying fire, his hand open in front of him. The Ether around his fingers twitched, recoiled—like it knew it didn't belong near him anymore.
Then, a voice behind him:
"You've taken your first step toward becoming what they fear."
Aion sprang to his feet, Null flickering defensively. But the figure that stepped out of the shadows wasn't Veyra.
He was cloaked in faded bronze, with a mask that shimmered like liquid metal—no eyes, no mouth, just a flat surface that mirrored Aion's own face back at him.
"I don't want to become a monster," Aion said.
"Too late," the figure replied. "You already are. But not the kind they think."
He raised his hand. Ether flowed from it—not natural Law. Not even manipulated.
It was raw. Unfiltered. Wild.
"You're not the only Nullborn."
Aion's pulse skipped.
The figure removed his mask.
His face was covered in runic scars, burned deep, glowing faintly.
"My name is Itheon. I survived the First Erasure. And I'm here to teach you before she kills you."
---
Later, under the low glow of Ether fire, Itheon spoke of things long buried:
Of a time before the Empire.
Of the Thirteenth Law—the Null—struck from history because it didn't bind, it unbound.
Of how the Null was once wielded by beings called The Fractured Circle, who turned entire cities into silence during the Godfall.
"They wiped us from the record," Itheon said. "But we survived. Scattered. Buried. Waiting for the Null to rise again."
"And now it has," Aion muttered.
Itheon nodded. "You're the first natural-born Null in over a thousand years. Not corrupted. Not implanted. Born of Void."
Aion looked down at his hands.
"I don't want to destroy everything."
"Then learn to control it. Or the Null will decide what breaks."
---
Far away, Veyra stood atop the Citadel again, staring toward the Ashlands. Her cracked mask rested at her side.
Maelrik approached.
"You didn't kill him."
"No," she said. "He's becoming something else."
She turned toward the stars.
"If he masters the Null, not even the Empire's core will stand."
Maelrik narrowed his eyes. "Then we'll burn everything between him and Scoria."