Neuraleth stank of wet rust and stale dreams.
Azriel adjusted the collar of his new coat, eyes scanning the crowded street. Men and women moved like ghosts — heads down, mouths shut, steps in rhythm. Gio walked beside him, newly dressed and newly tired, while Lysara lagged behind, staring at the sky as if it might answer something unspoken.
"So…" Gio said, breaking the silence. "Now what? We find a house? Job? Join a knitting circle?"
Azriel snorted. "We lay low. Maybe blend in. And Lysara…"
She looked at him, surprised.
"About that magic lesson. Let's do it."
She blinked. "You sure?"
He nodded, slowly. "If I'm stuck with whatever this is inside me… I should at least learn how not to blow up."
"Great," Gio muttered. "Let me know when I need to start digging graves."
"I can't tell if I should be amused or disturbed."
Gio's words echoed with a smirk as they stood at the edge of Yspa's crumbling square.
They decided to split up. Azriel and Lysara would explore the city's strange pulse, while Gio — always the pragmatist — went off to find shelter. They agreed to meet again at the same tattered store by 5:00 PM sharp.
As Azriel and Lysara disappeared into the city's vein-like alleys, an eerie stillness accompanied them. Though Yspa looked like any other border city — dust-choked streets, broken signage, faded echoes of civilization — there was something... wrong.
The people walked, but not quite like people. Their eyes wandered without purpose. Faces bore fixed smiles that cracked only when no one watched. A subtle shimmer trailed behind many of them — unmistakable to the magically attuned — like threads connecting them to a single will. Velmira.
The Grace of Senses had turned the city into a stage, and every soul was an actor under her script.
The few who had escaped her control stayed quiet, buried in routine and fear.
Resistance groups existed, but barely — shattered clusters hiding in the gutters of society. They didn't fight because they couldn't.
When Velmira saw you, she knew you.
And when she knew you, you vanished.
Still, the city, as hollow as it was, offered a strange kind of safety. The bandits didn't dare come near, and the Graces rarely clashed on the same turf.
At last, away from watchful eyes and invisible threads, Lysara guided Azriel to a narrow rooftop shaded from the city's sensory net.
"Alright," she said quietly, kneeling. "You're different. You don't use a staff. So we need to see what the Core's given you."
Azriel blinked. "How?"
"We start with your affinity. Lie down. Close your eyes. And think. Not casually — feel. Find whatever stirs the deepest part of you. Let it take shape."
He obeyed.
The world around him faded.
Darkness.
Not empty — silent. Heavy.
Azriel opened his eyes, but nothing was there. No Lysara. No rooftop. No city.
Just void.
Then — something moved.
A figure stood before him: small, childlike. It waved.
Azriel stepped forward cautiously.
The figure mirrored his movements. Perfectly. Step for step, tilt for tilt.
It was him. A perfect mimic — only... off.
He tried to speak. No voice came.
He raised a hand. So did it.
But then it changed.
It shifted — into other versions of him. At different ages. Hurt, scarred, smiling, dead.
Then, it wore the faces of others — people he had known. People he had lost.
The weight of memory crushed his breath. He couldn't look away.
The figure's mouth opened, but the sound was garbled, a mess of languages overrun by static.
Then — it became Lysara, smiling sweetly.
Azriel blinked. The smile widened unnaturally. The ringing began.
First faint, like wind across glass.
Then louder.
And louder.
And louder — until it was a scream tearing through every fiber of him.
Images exploded behind his eyes:
His parents.
Their deaths.
Over and over.
Each time worse than the last.
The sound built into a crescendo like a cannon firing into his soul.
And then — silence.
A light appeared above him, thin and trembling.
A figure descended slowly, cloaked in flame and shadow. It had no face, yet he knew it watched him.
It mouthed a single word.
"Saviour."
The voice echoed again.
That same voice.
The same overwhelming presence that once whispered from the moon in a language not meant for mortals.
(Ref. Ch.2 :3)
"Saviour..."
Azriel's breath caught in his throat.
Saviour? Me?
Azriel... a saviour... of what? Of who?
The thought weighed on him like iron shackles. This figure — this impossible entity wrapped in blinding light — why did it call him that? Why did it feel true even when everything inside him screamed he was nothing of the sort?
And then, just like that — the light consumed everything.
He jolted upright, air escaping him in ragged gasps.
The rooftop returned.
The weight of the vision lingered like a curse.
He was trembling. But he didn't understand why.
Across from him, Lysara stared in stunned silence, her lips parted slightly. Her voice wavered.
"Azriel… your connection—it's... it's not visible, but I can hear it. I've never heard anything like this before. It's... dissonant. Chaotic. What are you carrying? What kind of hopelessness binds you like this?"
For all her strength, Lysara looked shaken. Until now, she had sensed Azriel bore a burden — a heavy one. But she knew nothing of his parents. Nothing of the life that came after.
Azriel finally managed to speak.
"Lysara... I didn't see a thread or a wire like you described. I saw… a figure. It wasn't human. It was me. And then it wasn't. It changed into people I knew. People I lost. It spoke in noise, and then it called me…"
He hesitated.
"...Saviour."
Lysara furrowed her brow. She'd heard of connections to Signo's core revealing threads, shapes, colors — affinities. Hers, for example, swirled like a vortex. It marked her as an Aetheric, gifted in elemental flow and spatial attunement.
But this?
"You saw a figure," she repeated. "Azriel, that's... that's not how it's supposed to work. You should have seen your affinity manifest — some form of elemental reaction. Not a vision. Not a prophecy."
"Can you try again?"
Azriel closed his eyes. Focused. Tried to reach for the void, the light, anything.
But there was only darkness.
No thread. No figure. No voice.
Nothing.
It was like Signo's core had turned its face away from him again — or maybe… it never had one to begin with.
Lysara sighed, disheartened. "It doesn't make sense. You have the presence of a highborn mage — more than me, more than most — and yet… you're unblessed. No affinity. No flow."
She stood up, brushing off the dust from her robe. Her voice dipped into dry sarcasm.
"Well, that's a tragedy. All that raw power — and not a drop of magic to use it."
Azriel managed a weak smile, looking at the cracked pocket watch he stole– kept in his coat.
4:56 PM.
They were almost late.
"We should go. Gio's probably getting impatient."
Without another word, they left the rooftop and made their way back to the store.
Unspoken questions hung in the air like fog.
What was Azriel, if not a mage?
Why was he called Saviour?
And why — even in the silence — did it feel like something else was watching?
The broken clock above the old tailor's store hadn't ticked in years — but Gio still checked it out of habit.
He leaned against the faded wall, arms crossed, eyeing the shadows crawling across Yspa's fractured streets.
5:00 PM.
They weren't late. Not yet.
He exhaled slowly and looked around. This border city was worse than he remembered. Not that he'd ever been inside before — just stories from soldiers who came back with broken limbs and silent mouths. Yspa was a city of watchers, not listeners. Always eyes. Never ears.
A ragged child passed him, wide-eyed and barefoot. She didn't speak. No one here ever did unless they had a death wish.
He scanned the streets again.
Where are they?
He trusted Lysara to keep Azriel alive — at least for a few hours. But Gio had learned a long time ago that bad things didn't need time. Just opportunity.
He reached into his coat and felt the reassuring weight of his sidearm.
"You better not have run into trouble, kid…" he muttered.
The sun dipped lower, brushing the crumbling buildings with crimson light. Shadows deepened. Footsteps echoed behind him — slow, purposeful.
Gio turned fast, hand grazing the grip of his weapon.
But it was only an old man, hunched over, pulling a cart of broken scrap.
Still, something felt... wrong.
Like the street was holding its breath.
Like something knew they were here.
And then, finally, two figures appeared at the far end of the alley — Lysara's white-and-blue coat catching the wind, and Azriel beside her, looking distant. Not tired — haunted.
Gio relaxed, but only a little.
"Took you long enough." He pushed off the wall and walked toward them.
Azriel's eyes flicked up, hollow and unreadable.
"We got a little... sidetracked."
Lysara stayed silent, but her gaze lingered on Azriel. A flicker of worry passed across her face — or was it fear?
Gio stepped forward, eyeing them both.
"Everything alright?"
Azriel didn't respond immediately.
"I saw something," he finally said.
"In the dark. A figure. It called me... Saviour."
The words hung heavy in the air.
Gio's brow furrowed slightly. A beat passed. Then he gave a small, dry chuckle — not out of humor, but recognition.
He glanced at Lysara, then back at Azriel.
"You've always been hard to bury, kid."
Lysara blinked.
"What does that mean?"
Gio shrugged, already turning away.
"Nothing."
Then, over his shoulder,
"I found somewhere to sleep, let's go before this place starts whispering back."
The sun disappeared, and with it, the warmth.
Shadows gathered fast in Yspa — and not all of them belonged to the living.