The King's Guard

Chapter 64

The training hall was empty, torches guttering low against the stone. Kael stood in the centre, jacket discarded, shirt clinging with sweat. His sword lay untouched on the bench; this wasn’t about steel. It hadn’t been about steel for a long time now. This was about something deeper, something that didn’t fit into human hands or human rules.

He closed his eyes, letting the silence thicken until it pressed against his eardrums. He could hear his heartbeat like a fist knocking from inside his ribs.

The Rift. The hum beneath the skin. The pressure waiting to split him open.

He exhaled, slow, like he was trying to breathe around a blade. His fingers twitched, and the air wavered with a soft distortion, a shimmer like heat rising off metal.

“You’re doing it again.”

Kael’s eyes snapped open. Reyna leaned in the doorway, arms folded, hair tied back but still wild enough to catch the torchlight. Her expression was the same mixture she always wore around him lately: irritation layered over concern.

“You should be asleep,” he muttered, wiping his face with the back of his wrist.

“So should you.” She stepped into the hall, boots echoing on stone, each tap sounding far too loud in the oppressive quiet. “But instead you’re trying to tear holes in the air. Alone.”

“I need control,” Kael said. His voice was low but edged with something sharp. “Not collapse. Not another mistake.”

Reyna’s brow tightened. “And if control isn’t possible?”

“It has to be.” The words came out harder than he meant, cutting off the air between them. “It has to be.”

Reyna stared at him for a long moment. Not angry. Not pitying. Just… worried. She sighed and dragged a hand through her hair. “Just don’t bring the hall down on us. If you’re going to break reality, at least aim it somewhere that isn’t under my sleeping quarters.”

He forced a weak laugh, but it died almost immediately.

“I’ll cover for you if anyone asks,” she added, turning toward the door.

“Reyna—”

“Don’t thank me,” she said without looking back. “Just don’t die in here.”

Then she was gone, her footsteps fading into the corridor.

Kael stood alone again, the space around him seeming wider, colder. He planted his feet, grounding himself. His hands trembled despite his efforts.

The air shimmered more violently this time. Light bent and curved as if afraid of touching him. A pulse throbbed deep inside his ribs, beating against bone like it wanted out. His vision doubled—two torches, two benches, two of him, all vibrating slightly out of sync.

“Not yet,” he whispered to himself, steadying his breath.

The floor beneath his boots rippled like water disturbed by a stone. A small bird, trapped high in the rafters, froze mid-flight, its wings suspended as though caught in amber. The torches flickered, elongating into thin lines of molten gold.

Kael’s breath hitched. “It’s working…”

But the moment he said it, the distortion lurched. The walls bled sideways, stretching as though being pulled toward some invisible point. Sound thinned until even his heartbeat felt like it was coming from another room. His heart stumbled in his chest, each beat painful.

“Kael!”

The shout cut through the distortion like a blade. It dragged him back toward himself. Darius stood at the hall’s edge, cloak half thrown over one shoulder, hair unkempt like he’d run here. His eyes widened at the fractured air.

“Stop—now!”

Kael clenched his jaw. “I can hold it.”

“You can’t!” Darius barked. He stepped forward, only to stagger as the distortion tugged at him. The air around him warped, pulling at his limbs like unseen currents.

Panic flashed through Kael. “Stay back!”

The distortion deepened. Darius’s outline bent, his hand stretching unnaturally as though the space between him and Kael was being swallowed by something hungry.

“Release it!” Darius shouted. “Before it swallows us both!”

“I—I don’t know how—”

“Yes you do!” Darius snapped, forcing his voice through the vibrating air. “You did it before. Collapse it. Shut it down!”

Kael squeezed his eyes shut and reached inward. The pressure inside him burned like a hot coal pressed to his sternum. He grabbed at it, not gently, not skillfully—just desperately, yanking the knot tight with every scrap of will he had left.

The hall snapped back.

The bird jolted into motion and crashed against the rafters before fluttering away in a panicked spiral. The torches steadied, their flames shrinking back into their proper shapes.

Kael’s knees buckled. He collapsed, coughing so hard his body convulsed. Blood splattered the stone beneath him.

Darius cursed under his breath and crouched beside him, gripping his shoulder firmly. “You fool,” he said, voice low and shaking. “You nearly dragged me in.”

Kael spat iron from his mouth and wiped his chin. “I had it. For a moment… I had it.”

“You had nothing but chaos,” Darius growled. “You think control is about force? About squeezing something until it obeys?”

“I need it,” Kael rasped. “If I can’t use it—”

“You’ll use it when it breaks you,” Darius said flatly. “And by then it’ll be too late.”

Kael’s head dropped forward, breath rattling in his throat. “Then teach me.”

Darius didn’t answer at first. His jaw tightened, muscles shifting under the dim light. “You don’t understand what you’re carrying,” he said finally. “But they do.”

Kael blinked, swaying slightly. “They?”

Darius stood, cloak brushing the floor, shadows gathering around him. “The ones who watch. Velreth. Archon. Perhaps even higher. They know. They wait.”

Kael tried to rise, hands trembling against the stone. “And you? What do you know?”

Darius hesitated. His eyes flickered with something Kael couldn’t read—fear? Regret? Recognition? Then it was gone. “Enough to fear it,” he said quietly. “Enough to fear you.”

Kael’s chest clenched. “So you think I’ll destroy everything?”

“I think,” Darius replied, “that if you don’t learn what power costs, you’ll never survive long enough to wield it.”

Silence settled between them, heavy and suffocating, broken only by Kael’s uneven breathing and the soft hiss of torch flames.

Finally Kael muttered, “If you’re afraid of me… why keep me here? Why not warn them? Why not throw me out, or lock me away?”

Darius’s answer came after a long moment. “Because fear isn’t always a reason to turn away,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a reason to prepare.”

The torches sputtered again, one guttering low and then extinguishing with a faint hiss. Shadows crept up the walls as Darius turned toward the door.

“Rest,” he said without looking back. “And hide what happened. If Archon sees weakness, he’ll use it.”

Kael wiped blood from his lips and forced his voice steady. “And if I can’t hide it?”

“Then learn to lie better,” Darius said, and left him standing alone in the dim hall.

Kael leaned against the wall, pulse still shuddering through him. His reflection in the steel brackets looked fractured, blurred, as though he existed in more than one place at once. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

He stared at his own distorted outline and whispered, “One day, I will hold it.”

But the fear in his voice betrayed him.