Cale

  Home was quiet. I was lucky that Gran and Ellara were asleep, that they weren’t having to mess with my identity. They didn't know. I like it that way; I know that I am not going to keep it from them forever. I was going to have to tell them about my past, my unique nature… my sins eventually. But not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe not.

  Tonight I was home. It was too quiet.

  From the roof, Arclight lit up the sky like it was a color festival, the magic metal and runes inlaying its work, emanating on my horizon like a beacon of despair or hope. The city around Arclight presented itself the way it wanted to be seen: stable, secure, untouched by what had just happened beyond its edges.

  The feeds told a different story.

  I sat on the edge of the roof, boots braced against cold stone, coat hanging loose around my shoulders, and watched the World Tree Lattice come apart in real time.

  It wasn’t just noise—it was velocity. Threads of attention collided and recoiled, priority channels surging as others collapsed beneath them. Feeds stacked over feeds. Angles replayed until they lost context. Slow-motion clips cycled the same moments again and again, as if the lattice itself couldn’t decide which version of the night it wanted to remember.

  The beam, caught mid-release, a column of light splitting the dark. The scar carved through the grounds, still glowing faintly where reality hadn’t finished knitting itself back together. The mask—blank, skull-still, impossible to read. The blade at my side, black and matte, reflecting nothing. And me, framed at the center of it all, carrying a child through smoke and fire like something dragged out of a half-forgotten warning tale parents used to scare themselves more than their kids.

  The labels came after.

  He was a living legend.

  He was a walking disaster.

  He was a killer.

  He was a necessary evil.

  He… I was a king.

  I was a savior.

  I was… am a monster….

  The demon that sat in the darkness…

  They stacked on top of each other until they stopped feeling like words at all—just weight, pressing down from every direction, flattening nuance into something simple enough to consume. The lattice didn’t care which one was true. It carried all of them equally, spreading the images outward until the story no longer belonged to me.

  I looked away from the feeds, but the afterimages lingered behind my eyes, burned in by repetition.

  At some point, the noise stopped being loud.

  It just became constant.

  I blinked.

  For a moment, the city lights were gone.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I saw vacant eyes instead.

  Men broken by the world and their inability to gather necessary power. Women huddling together with their children, completely beholden to those that exercised violence over their heads. I saw… someone too young, too bright-eyed to have hope mashed together with an image of a tear-streaked face gripping a weapon they didn’t know how to use to fight a threat they couldn't win against.

  Then the faces, ones from years ago or just weeks ago. Faces I’d never learned the names of.

  The moment before impact, whether it was spell, sword, or fist. There was the instant after. The stillness that followed.

  My vision tunneled. My hands started to shake. It was a sort of controlled violence. It wasn't enough for anyone else to notice. But I felt it—fine tremors running through my fingers, tension locking into my jaw, breath coming just a fraction too shallow.

  It was born of the type of violence people should not ever have to endure to deal with or be dealt upon.

  It was the world of the Wastes that I had hoped to leave behind.

  I closed my eyes and counted.

  I crossed my legs, rested my hands on my knees, and began cycling mana through my meridians, guiding it to every part of my body in a patient, steady loop.

  Breathe in—fortify.

  Breathe out—modify.

  Breathe in.

  Breathe out.

  I have done things. Bad things. Distingusing things in anger, fury, hatred and pain. I have done things that would make grown men cry and my family hate me.

  I have done things. That if necessary I would do again. I would do them again because doing them seemed like the right thing at the time.

  I would do them and inspect the lifeless stares of the dead in my sleep.

  But I would not change what I did it. I wouldn't regret them. And won't look away from the stares of the dead. No matter the context of their lives. I will carry them now. Carry them in the dark.

  I didn’t slow the tension but focused on shoring up my foundation and, more importantly, my resolve. Then I retreated inward, opening my Mana Room.

  The construct recognized me instantly and the connection was placed.

  The space beyond was circular and bare by design—no furniture, no decoration. Stone walls cut with containment grooves and anchoring sigils surrounded me, each line carved directly into the structure. The floor bore the faint scars of older arrays layered over one another, remnants of systems I had built, stripped down, and rebuilt when they stopped being enough.

  This was where I stayed functional.

  I stepped into the center and let the door seal.

  The air shifted as the room woke.

  “Active protocol,” I said quietly.

  The link and the vessels were intact. Energy flowed cleanly between them, unforced and natural, like breath shared across distance. Whatever waited on the other end was awake, aligned, and ready to respond if called.

  “Good,” was all that I said.

  I left my Mana Room and opened my eyes, then rolled my shoulders once. Then again. I shook out the stiffness.

  The tremble in my hands was gone, replaced by clarity and resolve. Like I had always done. Like I would also do.

  The Wastes didn’t let go just because you left it.

  I drew a slow breath and let Aura circulate without reinforcement. I layered in a touch of Sanatio—not enough to proactively seek damage or heal, just enough to anchor sensation where it belonged. The tremor eased. Not gone, but manageable.

  I looked up at the central array node and stopped circling the decision I’d been avoiding since the Preserve.

  “I need closer coverage,” I said. “Activate secondary assets.”

  The room responded with a low pulse. Systems shifted. The array tightened.

  I took a deep breath. I had things I needed to do. People I needed to help and loose ends that needed to be dealt with.

  Bonnie was probably still awake. Sarien too—probably pretending she wasn’t worried. Others would feel it soon enough: contacts I didn’t like relying on, favors I’d hoped not to call in, constructs left in the dark.

  There were Forms....left behind because bringing them closer meant admitting something painful, and dark and dangerous. It meant that there was a line...and that line may have been crossed.

  It had. You use children for your plans it means a line has been crossed.

  The Priest was still out there, as were the people who thought it was acceptable to use people as munitions and that mass events were good for business.

  They were trying to harm my world, my place, my foundation and, more importantly, they tired to harm the innocents within it. Now...they were going to find out what lengths I would go to protect that world and those very innocents.

  I closed my eyes and again started cycling my mana.