THE WAR THAT FOLLOWED ME

CHAPTER 6: THE WORLD WITHOUT PROPHECY

The first thing Kade Reyes learned after losing the relic was fear.

Not the sharp, immediate kind that came with gunfire or alien blades but the quieter one that crept in between breaths. The kind that had no calculations to drown it out, no probability curves to flatten it into certainty.

Fear that had no answer.

He stood on the roof of the transit hub as dawn bled slowly into the smog-filled sky of New Ardent. The city looked different in daylight—wounded, scarred, but alive. Smoke curled from distant districts. Emergency sirens wailed intermittently, like a city calling out to itself just to prove it could still speak.

Kade flexed his fingers.

They shook.

He clenched them into fists and forced the tremor down.

Get it together, he told himself. You chose this.

But choosing didn’t make it easier.

A Soldier Relearning Gravity

“You’re compensating too late.”

The voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

Captain Elira Voss stood a few paces away, arms crossed, eyes sharp beneath a mess of tied-back hair. Her city guard uniform was scorched and patched, insignia half-burned off—but she wore it like a badge of defiance.

Kade frowned. “I dodged it.”

“You survived it,” she corrected. “That’s not the same thing.”

She stepped forward and without warning shoved him hard in the shoulder.

Kade stumbled, barely catching himself before going down.

Elira shook her head. “With the relic, you moved before danger arrived. Now you move after. That hesitation will get you killed.”

He straightened slowly, jaw tight. “You volunteered to lecture me?”

“I volunteered to keep you alive,” she said flatly. “Because right now, you’re a symbol—and symbols die fast.”

That stung more than he expected.

They were training on the rooftop because it was the only open space left intact. No drones. No relic assistance. Just muscle memory and instinct.

And instinct wasn’t enough.

Kade lunged at her.

Elira sidestepped, hooked his arm, and threw him onto the concrete with brutal efficiency.

Pain exploded across his back.

He groaned, staring up at the sky.

“You fight like you’re still waiting for permission,” she said, looking down at him. “From the relic. From fate. From something bigger than you.”

Kade pushed himself up slowly. “I spent years trusting it.”

“And now?” Elira asked.

He hesitated.

“…now I don’t know who I am without it.”

She studied him for a long moment.

“Good,” she said. “That means you’re finally human again.”

Politics Crawl Out of the Rubble

Inside the transit hub, the mood was shifting.

Mila stood before a cluster of holographic displays, coordinating power reroutes, civilian aid, and encrypted resistance channels. She hadn’t slept. No one had.

Rashid leaned against a support pillar nearby, listening as a heated argument erupted over comms.

“The council wants him detained,” one voice barked.

“They’re afraid,” another replied.

“They should be,” a third snapped. “He nearly destabilized the planet.”

Mila muted the channel with a sharp gesture.

“They’re circling,” she said quietly.

Rashid nodded. “Without the relic, Kade’s usefulness dropped. Without prophecy, he’s unpredictable. That terrifies people who think they’re in charge.”

Mila folded her arms. “He saved the city.”

“That doesn’t matter to politicians,” Rashid said. “Only control does.”

A new alert blinked on Mila’s console.

Her breath caught.

“Rashid… we’ve got movement. Not Vaelith.”

He straightened. “From where?”

She brought up the star map the entity had shown them earlier.

One of the distant signals had moved.

Closer.

Kade felt it before anyone told him.

A pressure in the air. Not alien. Not human.

Different.

Alarms blared across the hub as an unidentified craft slipped through the upper atmosphere—sleek, angular, but nothing like Vaelith design. It didn’t attack. It didn’t flee.

It waited.

A transmission cut through all channels at once.

“This is Envoy Serex of the Axiom Concord.”

The voice was calm, genderless, impossibly composed.

“We request parley.”

Mila stared at the screen. “They… they’re not firing.”

Rashid’s eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t mean they’re friendly.”

Outside, Kade watched the craft hover above the city like a thought given form.

Elira joined him, expression grim. “You ever seen tech like that?”

“No,” Kade said. “But I’ve felt something like it.”

The envoy’s image flickered into being above the central plaza—a tall, luminous figure composed of shifting geometric light.

“Kade Reyes,” Serex said, turning its gaze directly toward him despite the distance. “You have disrupted a closed system.”

Kade stepped forward. “Good. It was choking us.”

A faint ripple passed through the envoy.

“Your defiance has alerted forces beyond the Vaelith,” Serex continued. “Some will observe. Some will intervene.”

“And you?” Kade asked.

“We prefer stability,” Serex said. “Which makes you… inconvenient.”

The word hung heavy.

“But,” the envoy added, “also necessary.”

The Core Struggle Made Plain

Later, in a sealed chamber beneath the hub, the inner circle gathered—Kade, Mila, Rashid, Elira.

“The Concord maintains balance across multiple civilizations,” Mila summarized. “They allowed the Vaelith to operate because the relic kept outcomes predictable.”

Kade leaned back, arms crossed. “And I broke their toy.”

“Yes,” Mila said softly. “You did.”

Rashid exhaled. “So now what? We’re caught between invaders and overseers?”

Elira scoffed. “Figures.”

The truth settled in like a weight.

Without the relic, Earth was no longer a managed warzone.

It was a wildcard.

Serex’s words echoed in Kade’s mind: Inconvenient. Necessary.

“They don’t want me dead,” Kade said slowly. “They want me controlled.”

Mila met his eyes. “And you?”

He thought of the civilians. The city. The choice he’d made without knowing the future.

“I don’t want anyone deciding our fate for us,” he said.

Silence followed.

Then Elira nodded. “Then we’re aligned.”

A sudden surge of energy rocked the hub.

Mila spun back to her console. “Kade—Vaelith signatures are spiking again. They’re not retreating anymore.”

The star map lit up.

Multiple fronts.

Multiple factions.

And one new signal—deep, ancient, and moving fast.

Serex’s voice returned, colder now.

“The window for neutrality has closed.”

Kade rose to his feet.

No relic.

No prophecy.

No certainty.

Just choice.

“Then tell your Concord this,” he said. “We’re done being managed.”

Outside, the sky darkened—not with night, but with incoming fire.

And for the first time in the war, humanity would fight not to survive....

But to decide its own future.