The figure on the ridge didn't move.
Wind screamed around him, stirring the ash and fractured light that still hovered from the Echo Purist battle. He stood straight, long cloak whipping behind him like a dark flag. No armor. No visible weapons. Just a black staff that shimmered like rain and a presence that made Kael's skin tighten.
Lira lowered her scope slowly. "He's not tagged. Not Purist. Not League. Not even feral-encoded. I'm not reading anything."
Aren narrowed his eyes. "That's impossible. Everyone leaves a signature."
"Unless he wants us to think that," Lira murmured.
Drex stepped forward, cracking his neck. "Then let's find out."
Kael didn't move.
The Core inside his chest—no longer just a cube, but a presence—throbbed with tension.
"He's not here for a fight," Kael said quietly.
"How do you know?" Drex asked.
Kael shook his head.
"I don't."
But he felt it.
The man on the ridge raised one hand.
Not in greeting.
In command.
---
Lightning fell.
Not colorless like before—but blue, sharp and alive, coiling like a whip. It struck the earth thirty meters from their position and etched a perfect symbol into the stone.
A message.
Kael stepped toward it.
"Are you insane?" Lira hissed.
"Maybe."
The others followed—slowly, warily.
The symbol on the rock glowed faintly as they approached. It wasn't a glyph from any current dialect. But Kael recognized something about it.
It was old.
Older than Arien's memories. Older than the Guild systems.
He knelt beside it.
Aren whispered, "You can read that?"
Kael frowned. "No. But I can… feel it."
He placed his hand on the stone.
And everything went white.
---
He wasn't standing in the crater anymore.
He stood in a long, silent chamber made of thunder and thought. Columns of glass and storm held up a sky that shifted like a living painting. In front of him, the man stood at the end of a long bridge.
This close, Kael could see him clearly.
His face was lined but not old. His eyes were mismatched—one silver, one like storm glass. His voice sounded like distant thunder wrapped in calm.
"You carry a seed," the man said. "But you do not yet know what kind."
Kael's mouth was dry. "I… I didn't choose it. It chose me."
The man nodded. "As it must. And now you must choose how you grow."
Kael glanced around. "Where am I?"
"This is a shard of storm-memory," the man replied. "A preserved echo that waits for heirs."
Kael blinked. "Then you're not real?"
"I am as real as your choice."
---
The man extended a hand.
From the storm formed a series of floating symbols—talent paths, Kael realized. But unlike the rigid Tier grids of the Guilds, these were wild, branching things. They twisted and curled like plants or thoughts.
"These are Heirpaths. Ancient, fluid channels shaped not by what you can do, but by what you're willing to become."
Kael stared. "I've never heard of them."
"No one has. Not anymore."
"Why show me this?"
"Because you have a core born of legacy," the man said. "And if you do not shape it… someone else will."
Kael swallowed hard.
"So what are you?"
The man's smile was faint. "I am the last Echo Stormkeeper."
"And what does that mean?"
"I speak to storms," he said simply. "And I remember what they forget."
---
Kael reached toward one of the Heirpaths.
It flickered—showing him a glimpse.
Roots that wrapped around minds. Echoes that whispered between dimensions. Weapons formed from moments. Shields made from silence.
He couldn't choose. Not yet.
But he understood something.
The Core inside him was more than just a tool. It was a question.
And every decision he made would become its answer.
He turned back to the Stormkeeper.
"What now?"
"You wake," the man said. "And you prepare. Because others will come. Not just the Purists. Not just the Guilds. The world is waking up, Kael. And the old bloodlines want their thrones back."
The chamber shook.
"You will be hunted."
---
Kael opened his eyes to screams.
Lira knelt beside him, slapping his face. "Come on, you were out for two full minutes!"
He sat up. The symbol on the rock had faded.
The man on the ridge was gone.
"Did… did any of you see that?" Kael asked.
Aren blinked. "See what?"
Kael turned to Drex.
"He was real. He showed me—paths. He told me I'd be hunted."
Drex grunted. "Then he's probably right."
Lira's expression turned serious. "Something scrambled our coms the moment you touched the stone. Even the drones shut down."
Aren looked around. "We should move. This place is gonna draw scavvers, Purists, and who knows what else."
Kael nodded.
But his eyes drifted back to where the man had stood.
The storm had ended.
But he had a feeling it was only the first.
---
In the Shadows
Far beyond the hills, in the bowels of a twisted tower of black crystal, a woman stood in a circle of flame.
She wore no armor.
Her skin was marked with the sigils of blood-bound contracts.
A whispering servant approached.
"The Seedbearer bloomed early."
She turned slowly.
"And the Stormkeeper?"
"Interfered."
She smiled, darkly.
"Then the game begins."
She raised her hand.
Three chains of light snaked from her fingers—each attached to a different cage.
Within them: a shattered echo clone, a weeping seer, and a boy with eyes stitched shut.
"We begin Phase One."
---