Chapter 59 #2
David’s tone darkened. “You’re certain? My team has made contact. I’m awaiting intel. Your Highness, this intrusion is extremely unexpected. If this escalates into an aggressive attack… the consequences would be catastrophic. Not just here — nationwide.”
“I won’t allow it to come to that.”
A breathy laugh of relief crackled through the radio. “I was hoping you’d say that. Hold on — I think we have contact.”
Silence fell. Heavy. Suffocating.
Rain glanced at Snow. She was frantically tapping at her Connekt, her energy spiralling. He lowered his shield slightly, focusing solely on her.
Fear gripped her like a vice. Her thoughts flickered between the warnings in her dreams and her uncertainty about whether she could use her powers in real combat. She had never taken a life. She had never been forced to.
Rain hated the idea of her following him into danger. She was soft in ways he had never been allowed to be. He would do anything to keep her from the realities of war.
Unease settled between them like a living thing.
“Your Highness?” David’s voice crackled back through the radio, abrupt and urgent.
Rain stepped closer. “What is it?”
David hesitated. “The Red King has asked us to stand down. He said this war is with you—not Grey Territory, not the Blue Kingdom. You, Your Highness.”
Snow stiffened beside him.
Rain wasn’t surprised. He had suspected this from the moment he saw the smoke.
“Did he make any demands?”
David shuffled papers. “He said—and this is a direct quote—‘Tell the whore prince he has one hour to return what is mine, unharmed, or I will publicly end the traitor who shared his bed and his entire family that are here at my mercy.’ Your Highness, you have our full sup—”
The name detonated inside Rain’s skull.
Thunder roared through him. His jaw locked. Every fear he had suppressed surged up in one violent wave.
Time froze.
Then adrenaline slammed into him.
Snow grabbed his wrist, sensing what was coming but Rain jerked away, too fast for her to hold. He burst out of the booth, power erupting around him in a chaotic vibration that sent nearby civilians stumbling, gasping, clutching at each other for balance.
Faces twisted in horror as he stalked past, raw power radiating off him in waves.
All channels were open. He felt everything. Every fear. Every heartbeat. Every scream.
Anger burned through his veins, fuelling every step.
Snow called after him, pleading but he ignored her.
He would not drag her into this.
This was his battle.
His friend.
His responsibility.
His debt to repay.
Rain tore across the tarmac, the world streaking past in a smear of colour and motion.
His heart hammered against his ribs, each beat syncing with the pounding of his feet as he sprinted over the car park, across the bridge spanning the river, and into the dense wooded boundary at the base of the mountain.
Smoke curled through the trees in thick, choking plumes, swallowing the landscape in a suffocating haze.
He didn’t slow.
His powers surged ahead of him like hunting instincts made tangible; mapping every tree trunk, every jutting rock, every shifting body of energy hidden in the smoke. Sight became irrelevant. Smell, useless. He was all instinct, all predator, all purpose.
The smoke clawed at his lungs, burning with every breath, but he barely registered the coughing fits that tore from his throat. Let them hear him. Let them know he was coming. Let dread be the last thing they felt.
Halfway up the mountain, a wave of sensation slammed into him so hard he stumbled.
Jay.
Alive. Terrified. Surrounded.
Relief hit first; sharp and dizzying but it twisted instantly into something far more volatile. They were holding him hostage. Using him as bait. The realisation ignited something primal in Rain’s chest.
He reached out, sending a pulse of reassurance toward Jay.
I’m coming.
What came back was panic; raw, frantic, overwhelming. Jay wasn’t confused. He wasn’t disoriented.
He was warning him.
It’s a trap.
He pushed harder, muscles burning as he scaled the steep incline. The smoke thickened until it felt like wading through liquid shadow. He dropped low behind a massive root system, drawing in a few precious breaths of cleaner air.
Ahead, four mortals crouched behind the same trunk, tense and alert. Members of Drazier’s smoke battalion. More groups dotted the perimeter; clusters of four, forming a loose ring around the clearing. Beyond them, amongst hundreds of Red troops Rain sensed the unmistakable pulse of aetherials.
And at the centre of it all––Drazier.
Jay and his mother were there too. Their fear hit Rain like a physical blow.
He moved quickly. With a silent step and a precise strike; a soldier dropped to the ground unaware of what descended upon him.
Rain eased him to the ground, slipping his mask over his own face.
The remaining three called out, alert to the disturbance but blinded by the smoke.
When no response came, they huddled together, weapons raised in every direction.
Rain slipped past them like a shadow.
The terrain shifted beneath his feet; the incline levelling out, the soil giving way to soft grass. A picnic bench materialised through the haze, a relic of peaceful hikers who had no idea their lookout point had become a battlefield.
Rain pressed a hand to the table’s edge, steadying himself as he surveyed the clearing.
Over a hundred troops. Close enough that he could hear their masked breathing, the shuffle of boots, the click of weapons being readied.
Eight aetherials.
Rain counted them with the precision of someone who had lived too long on battlefields.
His senses swept through the clearing like a silent tide, cataloguing each signature, each threat, each potential weakness.
The information slotted into place in his mind with cold efficiency; even as his emotions churned violently beneath the surface.
Two smoke wielders; one of them unmistakably Drazier.
Two manipulators; Rain’s attention snapped immediately to the more dangerous of the pair: the one capable of provoking anger.
A muscle in Rain’s jaw ticked.
That one would be a problem.
Facing a horde of recklessly furious adversaries while trying to control his own rage would be catastrophic.
For them. Their amplified fury would feed his, and his would feed theirs, spiralling into something uncontrollable.
He knew himself well enough to recognise the danger; he had spent years being treated as a weapon precisely because of how volatile he could become under emotional pressure.
Those two go first, he decided.
Before anything else.
He continued scanning.
Two heat-marked; hazardous, but predictable.
One whose signature felt eerily similar to Ember’s.
And then—
Rain’s breath stalled.
The last aetherial––the one whose energy he recognised instantly, stoking his already blazing anger–– was the same male who had visited Jay’s home.
A cold ripple slid down Rain’s spine. The tug at his energy felt wrong––Too sharp. Too aware. Too… unpredictable. When Rain’s awareness brushed his, the male reacted instantly, a flicker of recognition sparking through him like a jolt of electricity.
Rain yanked his energy back on instinct, unsettled by the strange, magnetic pull he felt whenever he probed the male. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t get a clean read on him; it was that the male seemed to feel him in return.
That was dangerously unnerving. He regretted not seeing him as a threat last night, perhaps he could have prevented all of this.
Rain’s unease sharpened into suspicion. Something about the male felt off; not just hostile, but anticipatory, as though he had been waiting for Rain to pry.
He observed the signature as the male shifted position, moving away from Jay and toward Drazier. A thrill of excitement radiated from him; unmistakable, sharp, eager. Rain felt it spike through the clearing like a blade.
The male must have whispered something to the Red King.
Drazier jolted.
Rain’s lips curled into a cold, humourless smirk.
Good.
Let him be unsettled.
Let him feel the first tremor of fear.
Drazier recovered quickly, issuing a silent command that rippled through the ranks. The male slipped away into the woods behind them, accompanied by a small squad. Rain tracked him until the smoke swallowed him whole.
His instincts prickled.
Whatever he is planning… it won’t be good.
He forced himself to refocus.
“It’s time,” Drazier’s rough voice boomed across the clearing.
Weapons clattered as soldiers snapped into formation. Drazier positioned himself directly behind Jay—using him as a shield—while the remaining aetherials formed a protective wall in front of their king.
Rain’s pulse hammered.
Jay.
He needed to see Jay.
A strange whirring noise rose from the centre of the clearing. It took Rain a moment to understand; the sound was both dry and wet, like a vacuum dragging through mud. Smoke began to spiral inward, siphoned from the air in a tightening vortex.
Rain’s stomach turned.
The Ember-like aetherial stepped into view—tall, dark, impossibly thin—his jaw unhinged far wider than anatomy should allow. Every tooth was visible as he inhaled the smoke in a grotesque whirlpool.
Rain swallowed hard, fighting the urge to gag. His breakfast threatened to revolt.
As the smoke cleared, every weapon in the clearing swung toward him.
He didn’t flinch.
He removed the stolen mask and set it on the table with deliberate calm. Then he crossed his arms over his chest, adopting a casual, almost bored stance; a calculated display of confidence meant to rattle them.
Only then did he allow himself to look at Jay.
He and his mother were bound to the flagpole like offerings left for a cruel god.