The victory felt as cold and sharp as the rain that still clung to Kaelen’s uniform. He fastened the Concord-issued suppression cuffs around Lyra’s wrists, the arcane metal glowing with a soft, blue light that dampened the chaotic magic crackling just beneath her skin.
She didn’t struggle, but her silence was more unnerving than any curse she could have spat at him. Her eyes, the color of a gathering storm, followed his every move with a mixture of seething hatred and weary resignation.
“Satisfied, Warden?” she finally murmured, her voice a low rasp. “Got your pet chaos-wielder all collared and ready for her cage.”
“You are a threat to the stability of this city, Valerius,” Kaelen replied, his tone clipped and impersonal. He performed a final check on the cuffs, his movements precise and economical.
“My only satisfaction comes from upholding the law.”
“The law,” she scoffed, a bitter smile twisting her lips.
“You mean the Concord’s law. Funny how it always seems to benefit them.”
Kaelen ignored her, turning to signal the transport that hovered silently in the street below the rooftop. It was a standard Warden conveyance—a sleek, armored carriage of dark iron and reinforced glass, levitating a few feet off the cobblestones and humming with contained magical energy.
Two junior Wardens stood guard, their faces impassive beneath their helms. Duty. Order.
This was what kept Aethel from tearing itself apart. He held onto that thought, a shield against the unsettling wildness that radiated from the woman beside him.
He thought of Elara, her still face in the infirmary, and his resolve hardened into granite. This was for her.
He gripped Lyra’s arm, his touch firm and unyielding. “Move.”
She flinched but complied, letting him guide her toward the fire escape that led down to the street. The journey to the Concord Spire would be short, and then she would be processed, contained, and he could finally turn his full attention back to finding a cure for his sister.
A simple, clean capture.
The inside of the transport was sterile and confining. Lyra was seated on a metal bench, Kaelen taking the one opposite her.
The junior Wardens sealed the door, the world outside reduced to a blur of rain-streaked light as the carriage began to glide smoothly through the city’s arteries. The low hum of its engine was the only sound, a monotonous drone that seemed to amplify the tension coiling between them.
Kaelen maintained his professional vigilance, but his mind was already moving ahead, composing his report for Elder Maeve. Target apprehended. No collateral damage. Threat neutralized.
It was the kind of report he had filed a hundred times before.
“You look so proud of yourself,” Lyra said, breaking the silence. She leaned forward slightly, the blue glow of the cuffs casting shadows on her face.
“Like a predator that’s finally trapped something it doesn’t understand.”
“I understand chaos, Valerius. It’s a cancer that consumes everything it touches,” Kaelen countered, his gaze unwavering.
“My job is to cut it out before it spreads.”
“You think order is the cure? Your perfect, sterile order is just a prettier cage.
It suffocates everything until all that’s left is gray stone and silence. At least chaos is alive.”
Before Kaelen could form a response, the world erupted.
An explosion of emerald energy slammed into the side of the carriage, sending it lurching sideways with a deafening shriek of twisted metal. Kaelen was thrown from his seat, his training kicking in instantly.
He cushioned his impact with a flicker of kinetic magic, rolling to his feet in a defensive stance. The two junior Wardens were groaning, momentarily stunned.
Outside, shouts echoed through the downpour.
Ambush.
“Stay down!” he barked at Lyra, though the command was unnecessary. She was already pressed against the far wall, her eyes wide, scanning the chaos with an intensity that matched his own.
A second blast ripped the door from its hinges, and masked figures filled the opening. They wore no uniform Kaelen recognized, only dark, functional robes, their faces obscured by blank, porcelain masks.
Their magic was aggressive and visceral—shadowy tendrils snaked into the carriage, accompanied by bolts of corrosive green energy.
Kaelen moved without thinking. A shield of hard light shimmered into existence before him, deflecting a volley of spells.
He drew his runic blade, its edge humming as he channeled his magic through it, preparing a counter-assault.
His mission parameters had changed: protect the asset, neutralize the threat. Lyra was still his prisoner, his responsibility.
But the attackers weren’t focusing on him. Their spells seemed directed at the space between him and Lyra, as if trying to separate them, to get to her.
One of the mages lunged, and Kaelen met him with a precise arc of his blade, forcing him back. The fight was a brutal, close-quarters affair, the cramped space of the carriage a maelstrom of light and shadow.
Through the chaos, Kaelen noticed Lyra wasn’t cowering. She was watching the mages’ spellcasting, a frown creasing her brow.
Even with her magic suppressed, she was analyzing, dissecting. Her lips moved, and he could just make out her whisper over the din,
“That’s not… that’s not right.”
Then, everything changed.
A new presence washed over the scene, a pressure in the air so immense it made the ambient magic of the city feel like a child’s parlor trick. It didn’t come from the masked mages.
It came from everywhere at once. A sound, like a thousand crystal chimes ringing in perfect harmony, resonated not in their ears, but in the marrow of their bones.
The attackers froze, their porcelain masks turning in confusion. Kaelen felt a prickle of primal fear.
This was magic on a scale he had never encountered—ancient, powerful, and utterly alien.
A light began to build, originating from nowhere and filling everything. It was not the harsh green of the ambushers or the cool blue of Concord magic.
It was gold. A pure, liquid gold that poured into the ruined carriage, saturating the air, the metal, the very fabric of their being.
It wasn’t hot, but it carried an impossible weight, a pressure that promised to rewrite reality itself.
Kaelen saw the masked mages stumble back, their own spells sputtering and dying in the face of this overwhelming force. One of them raised a hand as if to ward it off, only for the golden light to pass through it harmlessly.
Then, with a shared, frantic urgency, they vanished, melting back into the rain-slicked night as if they were never there.
The light converged, focusing on the only two people left in the carriage. Kaelen braced himself for an impact, for pain, for annihilation.
But when it hit, it was a gentle, terrifying wave that soaked through his defenses as if they were paper. It washed over him and over Lyra, a warm, inexorable tide connecting them, weaving something between them.
For a breathtaking second, he felt a dizzying echo of another person’s consciousness—a maelstrom of defiance, fear, and a fierce, burning spark of will. It was hers.
Then, as quickly as it came, the golden light imploded, winking out of existence and leaving behind a profound, ringing silence.
The rain was the only sound. Kaelen was on one knee, his blade still in hand, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The carriage was a wreck, the bodies of the junior Wardens slumped unconscious against the wall. Across from him, Lyra was pushing herself up, her expression a mask of stunned disbelief.
“What in the hells was that?” she breathed, her voice shaking.
Kaelen didn’t have an answer. His mind raced, trying to categorize the spell, to place it within the rigid framework of his Concord training.
It fit nowhere. “Stay put,” he commanded, his voice tight with adrenaline.
He needed to secure the area, assess the damage.
He stood up fully and took a step away from her, toward the shattered doorway of the carriage.
Pain.
It wasn’t a cut or a burn. It was a searing, white-hot wire of agony that ignited simultaneously in every nerve ending of his body.
It was absolute and all-consuming, a violation that went deeper than flesh. His vision bleached white, and a guttural cry was torn from his throat.
He collapsed back to the floor, his muscles spasming uncontrollably.
He heard a choked scream that mirrored his own. Peeling his eyes open, he saw Lyra writhing on the floor, her face pale, her teeth clenched.
She was clutching her stomach, her whole body trembling with the same agonizing shock that was coursing through him.
The pain subsided as quickly as it had struck, leaving a phantom, tingling echo in its wake. Kaelen gasped for breath, his body slick with a cold sweat.
What had just happened?
“Don’t… move,” Lyra panted, her eyes locked on him. There was a new, horrifying understanding dawning in their stormy depths.
Slowly, deliberately, Kaelen pushed himself onto his hands and knees. He watched her, and she watched him.
They were no more than five feet apart. He braced himself and shifted his weight, trying to move just an inch farther away.
The agony returned, a flawless, instantaneous echo of the first wave. It was a shared current, a circuit of torment completed by their separation.
It wasn’t just his pain; he could feel the sharp, frantic edges of her suffering as if it were his own, a horrifying new layer to the torment. It was the pain of two bodies trying to occupy one space of suffering.
He fell back, landing heavily beside her. They lay there on the cold, wet floor of the ruined transport, panting in the sudden absence of pain, their proximity the only thing keeping the agony at bay.
He stared at the ceiling, the reality of their situation crashing down on him with the force of a physical blow. The masked attackers.
The inexplicable golden spell. And now this… this chain, forged from pain.
“This is your fault,” Lyra hissed, her voice trembling with rage and agony. “Some kind of chaotic blowback from one of your spells.”
“This wasn’t Concord magic,” Kaelen bit back, the fury in his own voice surprising him. He was the Warden.
He was in control. But control was a laughable fiction now.
He was tethered to his prisoner by an invisible leash of pure torment. He pushed himself into a sitting position, careful not to move away from her.
The world tilted, his simple mission fracturing into a thousand impossible shards.
He looked down at Lyra, who was watching him with a venomous glare that was now laced with a dawning, mutual horror. The cuffs on her wrists still glowed their placid blue, a mockery of the true prison that now bound them both.
His simple mission of imprisonment had just become an inescapable, torturous partnership. He was no longer her captor. In a way he couldn’t begin to comprehend, they were now captives together.