POV: KaelThe vase fell off the shelf and I swear to God I wasn’t even close to it.I was standing at least three feet away with my hands behind my back, doing that thing I always do at these family dinners where I try to blend into the wallpaper and hope nobody notices me. But the vase fell anyway, hit the marble floor, and shattered into a hundred pieces.And now everyone was looking at me.“Kael.” My mother-in-law said my name like it tasted bad in her mouth. Eleanor Morrison was standing at the head of the dining table in one of her expensive silk outfits, looking at me the way you’d look at something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of your shoe. “What have you done?”I didn’t touch it. I didn’t even breathe on it. But here I was, already kneeling down to pick up the pieces because that’s what I do. That’s what I’ve been doing for three years now. Something goes wrong, I take the blame, I clean up the mess, and we all move on until the next time.“That vase was a gift from the Mini

POV: KaelThe Morrison family sold me before breakfast.I found out from Ava, who came to my room at 6 AM with red-rimmed eyes and shaking hands.“They made a deal with some businessman,” she said. “Chen Wei. He’s supposed to take you away, handle the ‘legal complications,’ make the footage disappear.”“Wait, Chen Wei?” Something flickered in my memory. “Wasn’t there a Mr. Chen at dinner last night? The one who looked at me and ran?”“Different Chen. I think.” She bit her lip. “Kael, you have to run. Whatever they’re planning, it’s not good.”“I can’t run.” I took her hands in mine. They were cold. “If I run, they’ll come after you. Call you an accomplice. Your family would—”“My family is selling you to someone who wants to dissect you!” Her voice rose. “Don’t you understand? They’re scared of what you did last night. Feng’s hand is destroyed — the doctors said he’ll never use it properly again. And the security footage from the courtyard…” She shuddered. “They watched it fifty times

POV: KaelWe ran.Ava drove because my hands wouldn’t stop shaking — not from fear, but from excess. There was too much energy in my body now, spilling over like water from an overfilled cup. The dashboard lights flickered when I breathed too deeply. The radio cycled through stations without being touched.“That’s creepy,” Ava said, eyeing the radio. “Can you make it stop?”“I don’t know how I’m making it start.”“Fair point.”I told her everything. The warehouse. The creature that used to be Chen Wei. The golden blood. The voice inside my skull that spoke in languages I don’t know but understood perfectly.She didn’t crash the car. Didn’t pull over and demand I get out. She just drove faster and asked questions.“How long have you felt different?”“Since last night. Maybe longer. Maybe always.”“What do the memories look like?”“Fragments. Sensations. Nothing clear.”“When you hear the voice, does it feel separate or does it feel like you?”“Both. Neither. Something in between.”She

POV: KaelThe memories came harder now.They didn’t wait for sleep anymore. They ambushed me in the shower, in the car, in the middle of conversations. One moment I was present, human, Kael. The next moment I was drowning in experiences that spanned longer than humanity had existed.We’d been driving for hours, putting distance between us and the motel, when the latest one hit.I was in the passenger seat. Ava was driving. One second I was watching the highway scroll past. The next second I was somewhere else entirely.I remembered my throne.Not a chair. Not a seat of power in the conventional sense. A singularity of compressed starlight, orbited by lesser lights that represented the domains I judged. Each light a world. Each world a civilization. Each civilization full of beings who had, at some point, answered to me.I remembered the weight of it. The responsibility. The absolute certainty that what I did mattered, that every judgment I delivered rippled through existence like ston

POV: KaelThe summons arrived at midnight.Not through phone or computer or any human technology. It burned directly into my consciousness — cold fire searing patterns behind my eyes, words forming in a language I’d known longer than this planet had existed.By order of the Celestial Court, you are commanded to present yourself for judgment. Your awakening has been noted. Your destruction of Court servants has been recorded. Your refusal to submit compounds your original crimes.The crimes they mentioned weren’t specified. They didn’t need to be. We both knew what I’d done — I tried to hold them accountable. I tried to judge the unjudgeable. And for that sin, they unmade me.The message continued:Failure to comply will result in escalation. Mortal casualties will be considered acceptable losses. All beings connected to your current incarnation will be treated as co-conspirators.They were threatening Ava.Threatening everyone I’d touched in three years.Threatening to kill innocent p