Very Important
Dear readers,
Joyfully announce that the views for the recent chapters have crossed 1k+. But collections and comments are nearly zero. A veteran writer told me that most of the views come from google bots rather than real readers. So, i really want to know how many of those views are from my real readers instead of google bots.Please leave any word or even just a letter in the chapter comments so i can determine the real count. I'll check for this chapter.
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Vol 02: The Hunt │ Part 03: The deeper call.
1
Dawn came without light.
The Warrens had no suns, no moons, no sky. Time was measured in heartbeats and the slow dimming of mana lamps. Kaelen sat by the warm pool, practicing his new ability.
Void Step.
He focused on a shadow across the chamber—a dark patch where the lamp light did not reach. The void in his chest opened. He stepped.
And appeared in the shadow.
It was getting easier. The first time, he had nearly fallen. The second time, he had stumbled. The third time, he had landed smoothly. Now, on the tenth attempt, he could do it without thinking.
Lyra watched from the edge of the pool, her journal in her hands. You are getting faster.
"I need to be. Solon will not wait forever."
He is still unconscious. Harken checked on him an hour ago.
"He will wake. And when he does, he will find a way out."
Kaelen practiced until his legs trembled, until the void in his chest ached with exhaustion. Then he sat and rested, Fenris beside him.
2
Rook approached him, her arms still bandaged, her face pale. Torrin limped beside her, leaning on a makeshift crutch.
"You saved us," Rook said. "You came back."
"Of course I came back. You are my friends."
Rook sat beside him, wincing as her burns pressed against the stone. "Thorne would be proud of you. He always said you had fire."
Kaelen looked at his hands. "Thorne is still out there. Somewhere. I will find him."
"After Solon?"
"After Solon."
Torrin lowered himself onto a rock nearby. He was watching Kaelen with a curious expression. "Something happened down there. In the tunnels. I felt it. A shift in the air. Like a door opening."
Kaelen glanced at Lyra, who was pretending to write in her journal. Her telepathy had probably shared nothing—she knew better.
"The mark," Kaelen said carefully. "It... evolved. I can do something new now."
Torrin nodded slowly. He did not ask for details. He had learned long ago that some things were better left unspoken.
Rook looked between them, confused but too tired to press. "Whatever you did, it worked. We are alive."
"Yes," Kaelen said. "We are."
3
Harken gathered them in the main chamber.
"Solon is awake," she said. "He is demanding to speak with Kaelen."
"No," Lyra said immediately. "It is a trap."
"Of course it is a trap. But he is bound and gagged. He cannot hurt anyone." Harken looked at Kaelen. "You should hear what he has to say. Sometimes the enemy tells the truth when he has nothing left to lose."
Kaelen stood. "I will go alone."
Kaelen— Lyra's telepathic voice was sharp.
"If he tries anything, I can Void Step away. He cannot touch me."
He walked toward the chamber where Solon was held.
4
Solon sat against the wall, his hands bound, his feet tied. The bandages on his right hand were stained with fresh blood. His grey eyes were tired, but they still burned with hatred.
"Lot 42," he said. "Or should I say Kaelen? I have been thinking about you."
"Thinking about how to kill me?"
"Thinking about how to use you." Solon leaned forward as much as his bonds would allow. "You have completed the diamond. Four Kites. That makes you the most valuable asset in the Rift. The Conclave would give anything to control you."
"I am not a thing to be controlled."
"No. You are a weapon. And weapons belong to those who wield them." Solon's smile was thin, cold. "I could have been your ally, boy. I could have given you power, protection, a place in the Grey Cabinet. But you chose to fight."
"I chose to survive."
"The same thing, in the end."
Kaelen knelt in front of him. The Insight Kite showed him the truth beneath the words. Solon was not bargaining. He was buying time. Waiting for something.
"What are you planning?"
Solon's smile widened. "You will find out soon enough."
5
The communication crystal in Kaelen's pouch pulsed.
He pulled it out. Harken's voice crackled through, urgent and afraid.
"Kaelen. The border squads have found a way into the Warrens. They are coming from the east. Twenty agents, maybe more. You need to get out. Now."
Solon laughed. "I told you. I am always hunting."
Kaelen stood. He looked at the Evaluator, at the man who had destroyed the Haven, who had tortured his friends, who had hunted him across the Rift.
"This is not over," Kaelen said.
"No," Solon agreed. "It is not."
Kaelen stepped into the shadow and vanished.
6
He appeared in the main chamber, startling the Archivists.
"The border squads are in the Warrens," he said. "We need to move. Deeper. To the lower chambers Tamsin found."
Harken shook her head. "There is no deeper. The lower chambers are flooded. Tamsin checked this morning."
Kaelen's blood went cold. "Then we are trapped."
Lyra grabbed his arm. The red stone chamber. The Heart. It is deeper than the flooded tunnels. Tamsin said the path was dangerous, but possible.
Kaelen remembered the red stone, the way it had called to him, the way it had tried to consume him.
"It is dangerous."
Everything is dangerous.
He looked at the Archivists, at Rook and Torrin, at Lyra and Zora, at Harken and Marta and Tamsin. At Fenris, who pressed against his leg.
"We go to the Heart," he said.
7
The path to the Heart was narrow and dark.
Tamsin led the way, her silent feet finding holds that no one else could see. The Archivists followed in single file, their mana lamps casting trembling shadows on the walls. The carvings watched them pass—the tall, thin figures with empty eyes.
Kaelen walked at the rear, Fenris beside him, the twin blades ready. The Insight Kite was open wide, feeling for the Grey Cabinet agents. They were behind them, closer now, their emotions cold and hungry.
Faster, Lyra's voice echoed in his mind. They are gaining.
"I know."
They reached the Heart as the first agents entered the tunnel behind them.
8
The chamber was vast, dark, and cold.
The red stone stood at its center, pulsing with a light that was both beautiful and terrible. Its call was louder than ever, resonating with the four Kites on Kaelen's chest.
"There is no other exit," Tamsin signed. Marta translated. "This is the end."
Kaelen looked at the stone, at the shadows that danced around it, at the door that waited.
"There is one exit," he said. "But I do not know where it leads."
He stepped toward the stone.
"Kaelen!" Lyra grabbed his arm. "What are you doing?"
"The stone showed me a door. The first time I touched it. A door to somewhere else." He looked at her. "If we cannot go back, we go forward."
You do not know what is on the other side.
"No. But I know what is on this side. Solon. The Grey Cabinet. A lifetime of running." He touched her cheek. "Trust me."
Lyra held his gaze. Then she nodded.
Kaelen placed his hand on the red stone.
9
The world exploded into light.
He was back in the vision—the tall beings, the rifts tearing open the sky, the void between worlds. But this time, the stone did not show him the past or the future. It showed him a door.
Open it, the stone whispered. And you will be free.
Kaelen reached for the door.
The four Kites blazed. The diamond on his chest glowed brighter than the sun. The void in his body opened—not to consume, but to release.
The door swung open.
10
Light poured through.
Not the cold light of the Stillness, not the warm light of the twin suns. Something else. Something ancient. Something that felt like home.
Kaelen stepped through.
He was in a field of tall grass, under a sky he did not recognize. Two moons hung above, large and silver. The air was warm, sweet, filled with the scent of flowers.
Behind him, the door was closing.
Lyra stepped through. Then Zora. Then Fenris. Then the Archivists, one by one, carrying Rook and Torrin.
Rook looked back at the shrinking door, her eyes wide. "What was that?"
Kaelen helped Torrin to his feet. "The only way out."
She wanted to ask more. He could see it in her face. But she only nodded. She had learned that Kaelen's mark did things she could not explain. She did not need to understand it. She only needed to trust him.
The last to come was Harken. She looked back at the red stone, at the Warrens, at the world she had known.
"Close it," she said.
Kaelen reached for the door. The void in his chest pulsed. The door vanished.
They were alone in a new world.
11
The Grey Cabinet agents found the Heart an hour later.
The chamber was empty. No Archivists. No boy. No hound. Only the red stone, pulsing with its ancient light.
Solon stood at the center, his bound hands finally free. He had picked the lock with his remaining fingers.
"Where are they?" Captain Renn demanded.
Solon looked at the stone. He could feel the resonance, the echo of the door that had opened and closed.
"They went through," he said. "To the other side."
"The other side of what?"
Solon touched the red stone. It was cold, silent, unresponsive.
"The void," he said. "The place where the Maelstroms come from."
He turned to Renn. "Send a message to First Citizen Orin. Tell him the Progenitor has escaped. But tell him also that I know how to follow."
Renn hesitated. "Evaluator... your hand."
Solon looked at his bandaged stump. Three fingers missing. A mark he would carry forever.
"The boy took my fingers," he said. "I will take his world."
He smiled. It was a terrible smile, full of hatred and hunger.
"The hunt is not over. It has only just begun."