2025-09-01 19:25:33Ryan’s heart was still racing. The hum of power inside him hadn’t faded completely—tiny sparks still flickered across his fingertips, as though electricity had made his body its new home. He clenched his hands, trying to steady them, but it was no use.
The girl in the coat stood a few feet away, calm as if she had been waiting all night for this exact moment. Her eyes were focused on him—not on his face, but on the pendant glowing faintly against his chest. Ryan swallowed hard. “What… what did you just say?” “That you’ve awakened,” she replied coolly, her voice steady but carrying something sharp underneath. “And not just awakened. That pendant isn’t ordinary. You’re carrying something people have killed for.” Her words were like ice water dumped over his head. Ryan shook his head. “No. This is just… it’s just my mom’s necklace. It’s all I have left of her. That’s it.” The girl tilted her head slightly, her dark eyes unreadable. “Do you really believe that?” Ryan froze. The pendant pulsed faintly again, as if mocking his denial. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he muttered, his voice breaking. “I didn’t ask for this. I don’t even know what just happened back there—” He pointed shakily at the scorched pavement, the cracks still smoking faintly. “That wasn’t me. It can’t have been me.” The girl’s expression softened, just barely. She took a careful step closer, her boots crunching against the shattered glass on the ground. “What’s your name?” she asked. “Ryan. Ryan Carter.” “Ryan…” She repeated it slowly, testing it on her tongue. “Listen to me. You don’t have the luxury of pretending this didn’t happen. That outburst of energy? It was like a flare in the night. Every mystic within miles will have felt it. And now, they’ll be coming for you.” Mystic. The word landed heavily, foreign and unreal. Ryan let out a strained laugh. “Mystic? What does that even mean? Are you telling me magic is real now? That I’m supposed to believe in secret powers and chosen ones? That’s insane.” “Insane?” Her voice sharpened, and for the first time, Ryan saw a flicker of something beneath her composure—a quiet anger, a spark of urgency. “Do you think the scorch marks on this street are insane? Do you think your hands are sparking because of some convenient static electricity? Wake up, Ryan. Your life just changed, whether you accept it or not.” Her words hit like blows. Ryan looked at his hands again, flexing his fingers. Electricity shimmered faintly, responding to his panic. He clenched them into fists until his nails dug into his palms. He wanted to scream. He wanted to run. He wanted this all to be a nightmare. But then he remembered Brad’s face—the way the pendant had leapt back into his hand, the way his mother’s voice had echoed in his mind. Ryan… awaken. The girl must have seen the shift in his expression, because she relaxed slightly. “Good,” she murmured. “You’re starting to understand.” Ryan raised his eyes to her. “Who are you?” Her lips curved into a small, humorless smile. “Maya.” “Maya…” He repeated it quietly, trying to ground himself with something familiar. “And you just… what? Happened to be walking by when all this went down?” “Not exactly,” Maya said. She pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders, scanning the empty street. “I’ve been keeping watch. The pendant you’re wearing—it’s been silent for years. But tonight, it called. I followed its signal, and here you are.” Ryan’s chest tightened. “You knew about this? About me?” Maya shook her head. “Not you. Just the pendant. I didn’t know who carried it. Honestly, I didn’t think anyone alive still had it.” Ryan took a step back, his mind spinning. “You’re telling me my mom gave me something people have killed for, and she never explained it?” “Maybe she wanted to protect you,” Maya said quietly. “Or maybe she knew the truth—that one day, it would awaken on its own. Tonight was that day.” Ryan’s knees felt weak. He leaned against the wall, clutching the pendant as if it might anchor him. “Why me?” he whispered. Maya studied him for a long moment before answering. “Because you’re not ordinary, Ryan. You’re the last mystic of your bloodline.” The words echoed in his head, twisting into something both terrifying and strangely familiar. The last mystic. Before he could respond, a sound split the night. A sharp crack, like shattering glass. Maya stiffened instantly, her hand slipping beneath her coat. Ryan saw a flash of metal—dagger, gun, he couldn’t tell. “Stay behind me,” she ordered. Ryan’s pulse spiked. “What—” The air shifted. From the far end of the alley, three figures emerged. Unlike Brad and his friends, these weren’t drunk college kids looking for trouble. They moved with purpose, their eyes gleaming faintly in the dark. The tallest of them grinned, revealing teeth too sharp to be human. Ryan’s skin crawled. “Looks like we found the source,” the tall one said, his voice low and guttural. His gaze locked on Ryan. “The pendant calls loudly tonight.” Maya stepped forward, blocking Ryan with her body. “You don’t want this fight.” The man’s grin widened. “Oh, I do. The boy’s power is unclaimed. Fresh. Ripe.” His companions chuckled darkly, their forms shimmering. For a moment, Ryan swore he saw claws glinting in the faint light. Every instinct screamed at him to run, but his legs wouldn’t move. Maya’s stance shifted, low and ready, her coat flaring slightly. “Ryan,” she hissed without looking back. “When I say run, you run. Don’t look back. Don’t stop.” “But—” “Do. You. Understand?” Ryan’s throat was dry. He nodded. The tall man lunged. Maya moved like lightning. One moment she was standing still, the next she was a blur of motion, her blade flashing in the air. Sparks flew as metal clashed against something harder than bone. The alley erupted into chaos. Ryan stumbled backward, his heart hammering. Maya was fast—inhumanly fast—but the attackers weren’t ordinary either. Claws raked the air, slamming against brick walls, sending chunks of stone flying. Sparks and shadows danced wildly, throwing monstrous shapes across the alley. One of them broke past Maya, rushing straight at Ryan. Time slowed. Ryan saw the glint of claws raised to strike. His body froze, but the pendant burned against his chest, surging with heat. Electricity raced down his arms, gathering in his hands without his command. He screamed, thrusting his palms forward. A bolt of lightning tore through the air. It struck the attacker square in the chest, hurling him backward into the wall with a thunderous crack. Smoke and dust filled the alley. Ryan collapsed to his knees, gasping, his body trembling from the force of it. His hands shook violently, still buzzing with residual sparks. The other two attackers faltered, their grins fading. Maya didn’t hesitate. Her blade swept across one of their throats in a clean arc, sending him crashing to the ground. The last snarled and retreated into the shadows, vanishing with a hiss. Silence returned, broken only by Ryan’s ragged breathing. Maya wiped her blade clean and turned to him. Ryan stared at his hands, his mind reeling. “I… I did that…” “Yes,” Maya said firmly. She sheathed her weapon and extended a hand to him. “And that was only the beginning.” Ryan looked up at her, electricity still flickering faintly in his vision, the weight of her words sinking deep. The beginning. His world would never be ordinary again.
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Chapter 64 – The Keepers’ Oath
The hall of Lethen Pass did not feel like a fortress meant for kings.It felt like a house that had learned how to bite.Smoke from the hearth curled lazily toward beams darkened by centuries of winters. Shields hung beside drying herbs, and the long tables bore scars from both knives and laughter. Yet beneath the homely warmth lay an alertness Ryan recognized from Kael—the quiet readiness of people who expected trouble and had decided to outlive it.Seris watched them as a grandmother might watch a storm through her window, curious but unafraid.“You’ve crossed many thresholds to reach this one,” she said when the bowls were empty. “The marsh, the river, the city that pretends it fears nothing. Each place leaves a fingerprint. Tell me what you carry.”Ryan hesitated. Words had never been kind to what lived inside him.Olivia answered instead. “He carries a storm that wants to be free. And a Dominion that wants it chained.”<
Chapter 63 – The Mile of Crooked Pines
Night in the scrublands sounded different from the marsh.Where the wetlands had whispered and chimed, this country spoke in dry tongues—pine needles scratching one another, small animals skittering through brittle leaves, the occasional crack of sap inside the trees like distant knuckles. The air smelled of resin and dust, clean after the sour breath of salt.Ryan took the second watch.The others slept in uneven shapes around the fire: Kael on his back with one hand still resting on the spear, Maya curled like a satisfied cat after a meal of unlucky rabbit, Olivia close enough that their shoulders almost touched even in dreams. Hobb snored with the stubborn determination of a man who had survived worse roads than this.The storm in Ryan’s chest was quiet, content from the offering he had given the marsh folk. He wondered if power could feel gratitude. The idea unsettled him less than it once would have.Beyond the ring of fire
Chapter 62 – The Salt Marsh Road
The marsh began with a smell.It reached them before the land changed—brine and crushed reeds, a sweetness gone sour beneath the sun. The road narrowed from honest dirt into a ribbon of pale shells that clicked beneath the cart wheels like small bones. On either side the world flattened into water and grass, stitched together by channels that gleamed like knives.Ryan rode at the back with his feet dangling over the edge, letting the wind worry his hair. After the noise of Vareth, the silence felt suspicious, as if the marsh were listening for mistakes.The driver, whose name turned out to be Hobb, hummed tunelessly and pretended not to hear anything else.Maya balanced on the front rail, tossing bits of bread to birds that were far too large and far too interested. “Cheerful place,” she said. “Looks like a grave that forgot to lie down.”Kael walked beside the cart to spare the old horse his weight. “Good terrain for ambush.”
Chapter 61 – Ashes That Know Our Names
Dawn found Vareth limping but alive.Smoke thinned into pale ribbons above the docks, carrying with it the sour smell of wet timber and spilled oil. The river had returned to its ordinary face, pretending innocence as gulls argued over floating scraps. Only the broken piers and the Dominion ship listing like a wounded animal told the truth of the night.Ryan woke on a narrow cot in Brin’s tavern with sunlight stabbing through warped shutters.For a moment he could not remember where his body ended and the storm began. Every muscle ached as if he had wrestled the river with bare hands—which, he supposed, he had. His palms were scored with thin silver lines where the chains had bitten him, already fading to scars that shimmered when he breathed.Olivia slept in the chair beside him, head tilted against the wall, fingers still curled loosely around his. The bond between them hummed steady and warm, a quiet hearth after a long winter.He tried to sit and the room spun.“Don’t,” Brin said
Chapter 60 – What Rises from Deep Water
The streets above had changed their voice.Where an hour ago there had been music and drunk laughter, now there was the anxious clatter of shutters and the quick, nervous barking of dogs. People moved with the purposeful haste of those who did not want to understand what they were hearing. The river wind carried a new smell—wet iron and something sour, like weeds rotting in a jar.Ryan stepped out of the courtyard first. The key in his pocket felt warmer than it should, as if it had learned the shape of his pulse. Olivia emerged beside him, drawing her cloak tighter around her shoulders. Kael followed, unwrapping his spear without bothering to hide it anymore. Maya vaulted the low wall instead of using the gate, landing lightly in the alley with a grin that looked slightly forced.Maris closed the hidden door and pressed the stones until the seam vanished again. “If that thing destroys my city,” she said, “I’m charging you double.”“Fair
Chapter 59 – The Price of Favors
The bells of Vareth did not stop until the sky had turned the color of bruised plums.Their sound rolled along the river in uneven waves, sometimes joyous, sometimes sharp enough to feel like warning. From the alleys came laughter and curses, the crash of mugs, the hurried slam of shutters as honest folk decided they wanted no part of whatever had happened on the docks. The city celebrated the way it survived—loudly and with very little trust.Ryan walked beside Maris through a maze of back streets that smelled of yeast and fish scales. Olivia kept close to his left, her steps slower now that the rush of battle had drained from her. Kael followed behind with Maya, the two of them arguing in low voices about whether the Cantor’s mask had been carved from bone or ivory.The key Maris had given him lay heavy in his palm.“Where are you taking us?” Ryan asked.“To a place the Dominion hasn’t learned to see,” she replied. “Every city has one. A room the river keeps secret.”They passed ben
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