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Chapter 13: Aftermath
Kael made it back to the hospital by noon, and nobody noticed.It was not skill. It was luck, and the fact that a city in the middle of a gate alert had better things to look at than a bloody young man in a torn gown slipping out of a stairwell shadow. He came up through the floor of a supply closet on the third floor, crouched among mop buckets and boxes of bandages, and stayed there until his legs stopped shaking.My lord, the Knight murmured inside his head. You are injured."I noticed."You have used the Domain's healing once already today. A second use would raise questions."I have no idea what that means." Kael pressed his back against the wall and slid down it. "But sure."[HOST STATUS: WOUNDED. HP: 31%.][MANA: 4%.][SUGGESTION: REST.]"Rest," he repeated. "Right. I'll put that on the list, right after not dying."He pulled a towel off a shelf and wrapped it around his forearm. The needle-teeth marks had stopped bleeding, but the skin around them was gray and puffy. Beneath h
Chapter 12: The Ancient Knight
The Spawn-Mother screamed.It was not the wet, layered chorus from before. This was a single, shrill sound that cracked the stalactites overhead and sent dust raining across the cavern floor. It tore its ruined wrist free from the knight's grip and scrambled backward, its mouths gaping in pure animal terror.The knight rose.Slowly, without hurry, the way a man stands up from a table after a long meal. The tattered cloak settled around its shoulders. The violet fire behind its visor burned steady and cold."You have grown bold, little mother," it said.The creature hissed, backing toward the black pool."Once, you ran from the sound of my name." The knight drew the pitch-black sword from its hip, and the thousand tiny names along the blade flickered with pale light. "Now you lay a claw on my liege?"Kael tried to speak. All that came out was a wet cough."Be still, my lord." The knight did not turn its head. "You are bleeding. Let me handle the vermin.""I don't..." Kael coughed again
Chapter 11: Another Gate
The alarm was still wailing when Kael started walking."Veyron." Hale caught his arm. "Where do you think you're going?""To the gate.""You're not on any roster. You're not even a registered survivor. Yesterday the Association listed you as missing, presumed dead." The captain's grip tightened. "You think they'll let you walk through the cordon in a hospital gown?""No.""Then what...""I'll go around them."Hale stared at him. Behind them, doctors were hurrying down the corridor, shouting about evacuation protocols. Nurses were wheeling beds toward the stairwell. Nobody was looking at two men standing beside the last door on the left."Captain," Kael said quietly. "The thing in that cavern killed Warrick. It nearly killed all of us. If a second one is coming out of that gate and the Association only sends a standard strike team, people are going to die.""You don't know that.""The system says survive." Kael caught himself. "I mean, I just know."Hale's eyes narrowed. For a heartbea
Chapter 10: The Girl Who Thought He Was Dead
Kael did not remember crossing the corridor.One moment he was sitting on the hospital bed with dawn light on his hands, and the next he was running barefoot down a white hallway, the thin gown flapping around his legs, the nurse hurrying behind him and calling something he didn't hear.His ribs didn't hurt. The claw marks were gone, but his body remembered them anyway, and every step felt like running on a wound that no longer existed.She's awake.She keeps saying you're dead.He stopped in front of the last door on the left. A plastic tag read WHITMORE, E. in neat black letters. For one long second his hand hovered over the handle, because he suddenly understood what he was about to do.Yesterday, Elara had watched him die.Now he was going to walk through that door and tell her he hadn't."Mr. Veyron?" The nurse caught up, breathing hard. "I should warn you, she's been given medication. She's disoriented. Whatever she says, please be gentle.""I will."He pushed the door open.The
Chapter 9: The World Within The System
Hale did not move from the doorway. The emergency lights painted the room in dull red, and in their glow the captain looked like a man standing at the edge of something deep. His flashlight beam stayed on Kael's hand, on the faint blue afterglow still crawling between his knuckles. "Captain," Kael said hoarsely. "I can explain." "Can you?" Kael opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He had no words for any of it. A voice in his head, a world waiting in his shadow, a power that was not his and was somehow his anyway. "No," he admitted. Hale was silent for a long moment. Then he stepped inside and closed the door behind him, and the corridor noise dulled to a murmur. He looked at the shattered light fixture, the open window, the scorched bedpost. When he spoke again, his voice was low and very steady. "The power failed," he said. "Old building. Bad wiring. That's what I'm going to tell anyone who asks." Kael stared at him. "I have spent twenty years watching the Association decide
Chapter 8: An Unfamiliar Power
Kael did not sleep. He lay in the dark with his eyes open, listening to the hospital breathe around him, and every time he closed his eyes he heard the same four words. There were twelve. They are missing. The system had gone silent after that, as though it had said more than it intended. Its blue pane had dissolved, and for hours there was nothing but the beep of the monitor and the slow creep of gray light across the window. At dawn, Dr. Ashgrove came in to check his vitals. He found nothing wrong, which seemed to disturb him more than anything. "There's one more thing," Kael said, before the doctor could leave. "Elara Whitmore. Can I see her?" Dr. Ashgrove hesitated. He glanced at the chart in his hands, then at Kael's face, and something in his expression softened. "Five minutes," he said. "Not a second more." The intensive care wing was quiet and cold, lit by the soft green glow of monitors. A nurse walked Kael to the last room on the left and left him at the door without a
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