Darkness. Not the oppressive, despair-laden darkness of the Blasted Wastes, nor the comforting, familiar darkness of sleep. This was a void, absolute and infinite, yet paradoxically, not empty. Alex drifted within it, a disembodied consciousness, a spark of awareness untethered from flesh and bone. He had no senses, yet he perceived. He had no form, yet he was.
He remembered Kaelen, the despair-seed, the cataclysmic release of his power. He remembered the agony, the dissolution, and then… nothing. Was this death? His second death? Or something else entirely?
A flicker. Far in the non-distance, a point of light, impossibly bright, yet not painful to his non-eyes. It grew, expanded, not as a light approaching, but as the void itself receding, coalescing around this singular, incandescent point. The light was blue, a vibrant, electric blue that resonated with a power he knew intimately, a power that was the very essence of his being – the Speed Force.
But this was different. This wasn't the chaotic storm within him, nor the focused beam he was learning to wield. This was… the source. The wellspring. The infinite, thrumming heart of speed itself.
The light resolved into a landscape, if such a term could apply to a place that defied all known geometry and physics. It was a realm of pure, kinetic energy, a constantly shifting panorama of lightning-streaked skies, of pathways forged from solidified motion, of structures that seemed to exist in multiple places at once, their forms blurring and reforming with every perceived instant. The air, if it could be called air, thrummed with an unimaginable power, a symphony of vibrations that resonated deep within Alex's disembodied consciousness. This was the Speed Force, not as an internal power, but as a place. A dimension.
And in the center of this impossible, breathtaking realm, upon a throne seemingly carved from a frozen thunderbolt, sat a figure.
It was humanoid, yet more. Its form was a conduit of the blue Speed Force energy that permeated this place, its outlines shifting, blurring, crackling with captured lightning. Its eyes were twin novas of pure, incandescent blue, holding an intelligence so vast, so ancient, it made Eldest Lyraen seem like a fleeting mayfly. This was not a being of the Speed Force; this was the Speed Force personified.
A name, unbidden, unspoken, yet utterly certain, echoed in Alex's consciousness. Savitar.
The name resonated with a power that dwarfed even the entity he had faced in the despair-seed. This was no mere godling, no void-touched horror. This was… primal. A fundamental force of the multiverse, given form and consciousness. The God of Speed.
Alex felt an instinctual urge to flee, to hide, but he had no body to command, no place to run. He was a mote of dust before a cosmic storm.
Then, a voice, not heard, but felt, a vibration that resonated through the very fabric of his being, a voice that was both thunder and whisper, ancient and immediate.
So, the anomaly arrives. The broken echo. The storm-tossed seed that has taken root in a world not its own.
Alex tried to respond, to form a thought, a question, but his consciousness felt overwhelmed, insignificant before this immense presence.
Savitar – for it could be no other – seemed to perceive his struggle. The incandescent eyes narrowed slightly, and the overwhelming pressure lessened, allowing Alex a sliver of cognitive function.
You have questions, little spark. Your mind, even in its disembodied state, still 'shouts,' as the elf-woman named it. A flicker of something that might have been amusement, or perhaps just a cosmic observation, touched the god's mental voice. You wonder where you are. You wonder who I am. You wonder what has become of your fragile, mortal coil.
"Who… what are you?" Alex managed to project, his thought-voice a trembling whisper in the face of this overwhelming power.
I am the current. I am the motion. I am the blur between instants, the spark that ignites the possible. I am the heart of the storm you carry within you. In your world's crude mythologies, I might be called Savitar. The God of Speed. This place… this is my sanctum. The nexus of all velocities, all momentums, across all the veils of reality.
Alex struggled to comprehend. A god? A dimension of pure speed? It was beyond anything his Earth-born mind, even one now accustomed to elves and magic, could easily grasp. "Why… why am I here?"
You plunged your essence into a wound in the fabric of existence, little spark, Savitar's voice rumbled. You poured your storm into the void-tear Malakor created. A reckless, foolish, and ultimately… effective act. You shattered the Umbral Seed, yes. But in doing so, you brushed against the true void, the unmaking dark between the worlds. And your own storm, your Speed Force, in its desperate bid to preserve its conduit – you – and the one you sought to protect, it… overreached.
Kaelen. The memory of her, her name, was a sharp, sudden ache, even in this disembodied state. "Is she… is she alright?"
The elf-woman lives, Savitar confirmed, a hint of something unreadable in its tone. Your storm, fueled by your… potent emotional resonance… performed an act of restoration that surprised even me. A rare feat, to snatch a soul back from the precipice. It has, however, left its mark upon her. And upon you.
"What mark?" Alex pressed, a new anxiety coiling within him.
You are more deeply connected now, you and the Warden. Your energies have… intertwined. Her Weave now carries an echo of your storm. And your storm… it has tasted the life-giving essence of her Weave. A dangerous, yet potentially… fruitful… symbiosis.
Symbiosis. He remembered Kaelen's words, her observation of the blue tracery on her skin.
But that is not why you are here, little spark, Savitar continued, its incandescent eyes fixing on him with a new intensity. You are here because your act of shattering the Umbral Seed, your cataclysmic release of Speed Force energy, resonated across the veils. It was a beacon. A call. And others… others like you, yet unlike you… have answered.
The other Sky-fallen. The figures Kaelen had seen appearing as he lay unconscious.
"Who are they?" Alex asked.
They are the lost sparks, as the moon-haired one named them, Savitar said. Echoes of other worlds, other realities, other storms. Beings like you, touched by energies that defy the neat categorization of the Weave or the sterile logic of the Technocrats. They, too, are anomalies, adrift in the Unheavens. Your act, your resonance, has drawn them to this nexus point, to Kyanos.
"Why?"
Because you are the Herald, little spark, Savitar's voice was a low, powerful hum. Whether you wished it or not, your arrival, your power, the very nature of your being, has signaled a change. A disruption in the ancient, stagnant patterns of the Unheavens. The Umbral Seed was but one symptom of a deeper corruption, a spreading imbalance. Your storm… it is a catalyst. And catalysts, by their very nature, attract… reactions.
Alex felt a weight of responsibility settle upon his non-existent shoulders, a burden far greater than any he had ever imagined. A Herald? A catalyst? He was just a photographer who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or… was he?
You carry within you a power that is both ancient and new, Savitar continued, its gaze seeming to pierce through the veils of Alex's own fractured memories. The lightning that unmade you on your world… it was no ordinary strike. It was a splinter, a fragment of a force far older, far vaster, than even I. A force that seeks… balance. Or perhaps, a new beginning.
"What force?" Alex asked, his mind reeling.
Savitar was silent for a long moment, the blue lightning of its sanctum crackling around its throne. That, little spark, is a truth you are not yet ready to comprehend. For now, know this: your Speed Force is more than just speed. It is a key. A key to unlocking potentials within yourself, and within others. The phasing you have discovered, the manipulation of temporal perception, the resonance with the Weave… these are but the first, faint echoes of what you might become.
The god's form seemed to lean forward, its incandescent eyes burning into Alex's consciousness. But power, true power, always comes with a price. Your storm can create. It can heal. It can protect. But it can also consume. It can destroy. It can corrupt. The rage you unleashed in the Blasted Wastes… it was a taste of that darkness. A darkness that lurks not just in the void, but within your own mortal heart.
Alex felt a chill, a memory of the cold, exhilarating fury he had experienced, the terrifying ease with which he had taken lives.
You are a Herald, Alex Maxwell, Savitar's voice resonated with a final, undeniable authority. But a herald of what? Of salvation? Or of a new, even greater, annihilation? That choice, little spark, is yours alone to make. The Unheavens watch. The lost sparks gather. And the true storm… is yet to come.
The blue light of the Speed Force sanctum began to intensify, to swirl around Alex, a vortex of pure, kinetic energy. He felt himself being pulled, drawn, his disembodied consciousness spiraling back towards… something.
Go now, Savitar's voice echoed, a fading thunder. Your vessel awaits. Your elf-woman waits. Your destiny waits. Do not disappoint the lightning that chose you.
The light consumed him. And then…
Warmth. Softness. The scent of cedar and dried herbs, and something else, something uniquely, wonderfully Kaelen. He felt a gentle pressure on his forehead, a soft hand stroking his hair. He heard voices, low and concerned, speaking in the melodic, flowing tongue of the Silvanesti, and another, more familiar, more resonant, that he recognized as the moon-haired woman from the group of Sky-fallen.
He forced his eyelids open, the light of Kaelen's healing chamber in the Heartwood (or was it still Kyanos?) a gentle, welcoming glow after the incandescent brilliance of Savitar's sanctum.
Kaelen was there, her beautiful face inches from his, her amber eyes wide with a mixture of relief and unshed tears. He was lying with his head in her lap, her hand gently caressing his cheek. The faint blue tracery on her skin pulsed with a soft, steady light.
"Kaelen…" he whispered, his voice hoarse, his throat dry.
Her eyes, those beautiful amber eyes, filled with an emotion so profound, so tender, it made his heart ache. "Alex," her mental voice was a soft caress. "You are back. By the First Tree, you are back."
He tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness and a profound, bone-deep weariness washed over him. He was weak, so weak. But he was… whole. Anchored.
Beyond Kaelen, he saw other faces. The moon-haired woman from his vision in Kyanos, her expression a mixture of relief and intense curiosity. The man whose form seemed to shift like liquid shadow. The woman wreathed in golden energy. Dozens of them. Sky-fallen. His people? His army? His responsibility?
They were all looking at him, their expressions a mixture of awe, hope, and a shared, unspoken understanding of the strange, perilous path that lay before them all.
Alex looked from their faces back to Kaelen, her hand still warm on his cheek, her love a tangible presence in the quiet chamber. He was no longer alone. He was a Herald. He was a storm. And the Unheavens, it seemed, was about to witness the true meaning of both. The game had indeed changed. And he, Alex Maxwell, the storm-chaser from Earth, was, for better or worse, at the very heart of it.