The King's Guard

Chapter 36

The training halls were empty, echoing only with Kael’s boots. Torches flickered along the stone walls, their smoke curling into high arches. He had chosen this time carefully between rotations, and before dawn. No one was meant to see what he was about to try.

He stepped into the centre of the floor, laid his palm flat, and closed his eyes.

The Rift stirred.

At first it was nothing more than a vibration beneath his ribs, a slow hum that matched his heartbeat. Then it deepened, pulling against the rhythm, dragging time’s fabric like water against a current.

Kael exhaled. “Steady.”

The air thickened. Dust hung mid-fall. One torch flame bent sideways, then froze entirely.

A bird wheeled across the rafters and locked in place, wings suspended.

Kael’s jaw clenched. “I can hold it. Just… hold.”

The floor rippled. Not stone anymore, but waves of glass, bending with each pulse of his breath. His hand trembled. The Rift wanted to fracture the hall itself.

“No,” he muttered. “Not this time. I’m in control.”

The hum sharpened into a metallic grind. Shadows warped. For a moment, he glimpsed something through the distortion: himself, older, face hollow, eyes lit by the same unnatural glow. The vision broke with a snap, his knees nearly giving.

Then a voice behind him:

“Stop.”

Kael whipped around. Darius stood at the edge of the hall, half in shadow. His expression was carved flat, but his eyes were locked on the distortion bending around Kael.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Kael said, breath ragged.

“I’m here because you shouldn’t be here.” Darius stepped closer. “You think this hall hasn’t felt that surge before? The stones remember. They’ve been marked by it.”

Kael gritted his teeth and tried to suppress the hum. The Rift bucked, like reins tearing through his grip. “I had it under control.”

“No,” Darius said firmly. “It had you.”

The frozen bird above shuddered, then broke free, flapping wildly. Torches snapped back into motion, flames spilling sparks. Kael staggered, barely keeping his feet as the hall settled into its ordinary rhythm.

He wiped his mouth. Blood streaked his hand.

Darius stopped only a few paces away. His voice was low. “You don’t understand what you’re carrying.”

“I’m trying to,” Kael shot back, his voice rough. “Every day I try. You think I want this?”

“Want has nothing to do with it. The Rift doesn’t care about what you want.”

Kael’s hand curled into a fist. “Then what am I supposed to do? Let it eat me alive? Pretend it isn’t tearing through me every time I close my eyes?”

Darius studied him, his face unreadable. “That’s what they want.”

Kael blinked. “They?”

“The ones already watching you. The Archon. Velreth. Jared’s House. You think they don’t know what stirs inside you? They’ve been waiting for the moment you lose hold.”

Kael’s chest rose and fell hard. “Then I can’t lose.”

Darius’s tone sharpened. “That’s not control talking. That’s fear. And fear is what opens the fracture wide. Fear is what feeds it.”

Kael straightened, wiped the blood against his sleeve. “You’ve seen this before.”

Darius’s silence lasted too long. Finally, he said, “Yes.”

Kael’s eyes narrowed. “What happened?”

Darius didn’t answer immediately. He looked past him, at the bird still flapping madly, circling the rafters. His jaw set. Then he said, “You’ll know soon enough.”

Kael stepped forward, anger flashing. “I need to know now. If this thing is going to kill me, I deserve to know what I’m facing.”

Darius’s gaze cut back to him. “Push again like that, and you’ll find out the way I did. And you won’t walk away as clean.”

“Clean?” Kael scoffed. He gestured at the blood on his sleeve. “Does this look clean to you?”

Darius’s voice hardened. “You think blood is the cost? That’s nothing. Wait until you’ve seen what else it takes. Wait until you’ve watched someone you care about be unmade because you couldn’t hold the Rift back.”

Kael stared at him, chest still heaving. “Tell me, then. Tell me what it takes.”

“Not here,” Darius said. His voice dropped lower, almost like a warning. “Not yet.”

The words hung between them.

Kael stepped back, fists clenched. “So I’m just supposed to keep guessing? Keep stumbling until I tear something open that I can’t close? That’s the grand plan?”

Darius moved closer, his tone suddenly sharp. “Better you stumble now, when the damage is small, than later… when lives depend on it, when an entire squad is standing too close.”

Kael’s mouth set hard. His voice was low but steady. “Lives already depend on it. Every drill, every trial. You know that as well as I do.”

Silence followed. Darius’s face didn’t shift, but his eyes betrayed something. Remorse, maybe, or a memory Kael wasn’t meant to see. His jaw worked once, as if he was holding back words that didn’t belong in the open air.

Kael pressed on, refusing the silence. “Then answer me this. When it happened to you, when the Rift slipped its leash, did anyone stop you? Did anyone step in?”

The faintest pause. Long enough to mean more than words.

Finally: “No.”

Kael exhaled, bitter, almost laughing at the emptiness of it. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better? That I’m walking the same road to the same end?”

“It’s supposed to make you wary,” Darius said, his voice clipped, controlled. “It’s supposed to remind you what happens if you believe for even one second that you’re untouchable.”

The torches hissed. Wax crackled down the iron holders. Above them, the bird finally broke from its frantic circle, fleeing through a gap in the rafters, wings beating hard into the night. Kael stared at the empty space it left, wishing he could follow.

Darius spoke quieter now, the sharpness fading into something heavier. “Listen to me. You don’t know what you’re carrying. Not really. But they do. And they’ll keep pushing until you break it wide open. That’s how they work. Pressure until something shatters.”

Kael turned, the words settling in him like a weight he couldn’t shake. “Then maybe I should let it break. Maybe that’s the only way to see what’s really inside.”

“Don’t,” Darius snapped, sharper than before, his voice echoing hard off the stone walls. “That’s what they want. That’s exactly the trap. You give in, and you’ll never claw your way back.”

Kael looked back at him, jaw tight, eyes blazing with equal parts anger and desperation. “Then tell me how not to. Tell me what I’m supposed to do instead of choking on warnings.”

Darius’s eyes shifted uneasily, almost reluctant. A flicker passed across his face before he pushed it back down. “I will. But if you hear it, you can’t go back to who you were. You’ll carry it with you, and nothing will ever sit the same again.”

Kael stood silent, waiting.

Darius took one long breath. “Come to my chambers tomorrow night. Alone. I’ll tell you what it means to carry the Rift.”

Kael’s chest eased, though only slightly. “And if I don’t?”

Darius gave a grim half-smile. “Then you’ll find out anyway. Just not in a way you’ll survive.”

Kael’s jaw tightened. “You keep speaking in riddles. If you know something, why not say it now?”

“Because,” Darius said, stepping closer, “words alone won’t be enough. You need to see it. To feel it. If I hand you the truth too quickly, it will tear you apart.”

Kael frowned. “You think I’m that weak?”

“I think,” Darius replied, his eyes narrowing, “that the Rift inside you is stronger than you realise. It listens. It waits. And if I speak carelessly here, it will take those words as an invitation.”

Kael’s stomach twisted. “An invitation to what?”

Darius’s mouth curved in something that was not quite a smile. “To open. To break. To consume you before you’re ready to resist it.”

Silence stretched between them.

Kael’s hand drifted unconsciously toward the hilt at his side. “Then why bother warning me at all?”

“Because I’d rather you walk into the fire prepared than stumble into it blind,” Darius said. His voice lowered, almost a growl. “That’s the difference between choice and death.”

Kael searched his face, half-expecting some flicker of cruelty, but Darius’s expression was carved from stone.

“You said tomorrow,” Kael pressed. “Why not tonight?”

“Because tonight,” Darius said, glancing at the darkened walls around them, “the Rift is still watching through what just happened. It already knows we’re speaking. If I show you more now, it’ll react.” His gaze sharpened. “You’ve already tempted it enough for one night.”

Kael’s throat felt dry. “And if I decide not to trust you? If I stay away from your chambers?”

Darius tilted his head, the shadow of that grim smile returning. “Then the Rift will show you the truth itself. Piece by piece. And when it does, you won’t be standing here to ask me about it.”

Kael’s breath caught, but he forced himself not to look away. “So it’s trust you want?”

“No,” Darius said quietly. “I want you alive.”

He turned and left, boots echoing until the hall swallowed the sound.

Kael stood in the centre, breathing hard, staring at the floor that had rippled like water only minutes before.

Then he pulled his journal free, scrawled fast and jagged.

> Rift fracture: bird, torches, stone ripple. Blood drawn. Darius intervened. He knows more. Tomorrow—his chambers.

His hand hesitated, then he added:

> He warned me: they want it to break.

Kael closed the book. The silence pressed in again, thicker than before.