The fire burned low, its orange embers pulsing gently in the dark. The silence in the room had weight, like a held breath. Alex sat on the edge of the couch, a mug cooling in his hands, the scent of bitter tea long since faded. The shadows stretched behind him, soft and long across the floorboards. He hadn’t spoken in minutes. Not since Kai stirred.

  Across the room, Kai lay reclined on a cot, his torso wrapped in fresh bandages, his skin still far too pale. But his eyes were open, catching the low light—watching Alex.

  “You scared the shit out of me,” Alex had said.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Kai had answered.

  But that wasn’t the part that hung between them.

  Now, Kai was the one breaking the silence. His voice was rough with healing, but steady. “If I hadn’t made it out—what would you have done?”

  Alex didn’t answer right away. The fire popped in the hearth, a sharp crack.

  “I would’ve burned the world down,” he said softly, “and I wouldn’t have looked back.”

  Kai swallowed. His eyes didn’t leave Alex’s. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do.”

  “Then you haven’t changed at all.”

  The words weren’t an accusation—but they struck like one.

  Alex stood slowly, setting his mug aside. He crossed the space between them with careful, deliberate steps. Not fast. Not hesitant. Just sure.

  Kai didn’t flinch when Alex crouched beside him.

  “You think I came back just because Mei’s in danger?” Alex asked, voice low.

  Kai didn’t respond.

  “You think this is about the job? The mission? The Ninth Precinct?” Alex leaned in slightly. “I didn’t break half the city running you out of there for duty.”

  Kai’s breath hitched.

  “But you still left,” he said. Quiet. Not angry. Just the truth.

  Alex’s face tightened. “I had to.”

  “You always do.”

  Their eyes locked—years of history compressed into a single, razor-thin silence. A breath. A heartbeat.

  Alex’s hand moved without thinking, brushing lightly against Kai’s wrist. A simple touch—but charged. A thousand unsaid things pressed behind it. A thousand more unraveling beneath the surface.

  Kai’s fingers twitched, like he might reach back.

  And then—

  The floor creaked.

  Both of them flinched.

  A shadow detached from the far wall.

  Duff.

  His presence was quiet, but the look in his eyes wasn’t.

  “I could feel the tension from down the hall,” he said flatly. “If you’re both done having your reunion, one of you still looks like death, and the other smells like it.”

  Alex stood quickly, the shift in his posture sharp—defensive.

  Kai turned his face toward the wall, jaw clenched.

  Duff stepped closer, gaze flicking between them. He didn’t need to say it. The look was enough.

  Keep your focus. Don’t lose it again.

  Alex exhaled through his nose, shoulders tight. “How’s the perimeter?”

  “Wards are holding. But not for long.” Duff’s voice was clipped. “Something followed you through the Veil. Lee’s tracking it.”

  Alex nodded stiffly. “I’ll be ready.”

  Duff gave a final look toward Kai. It wasn’t pity. It wasn’t warmth. Just clinical assessment.

  Then, with a cold breath of air trailing behind him, he vanished back into the hall.

  The door clicked softly shut.

  Silence again.

  But it wasn’t the same.

  Alex stared at the closed door, then down at his hands.

  Kai’s voice broke through, quiet, tired. “You should go.”

  Alex didn’t move. “I’m not leaving you again.”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Kai turned his head slightly. “Then don’t lie to me next time.”

  Alex didn’t reply.

  He sat back down—but this time, he kept the silence to himself.

  Outside, the wind picked up.

  Inside, the fire guttered low.

  And everything else waited to break.

  _____________________________________

  Duff was the first to break the silence, his voice carefully even. “There’s something you need to know.”

  Kai met his gaze, wary.

  Lee’s voice followed, quieter this time, rough around the edges. “Duff doesn’t have much time left.”

  The words landed like a death knell.

  Kai’s breath left him, slow and controlled. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about mortality, Kai,” Duff said, almost amused. “Mine is running out.”

  “No.” The word came before Kai could stop it, as if saying it could make it true.

  Lee’s expression remained impassive, but there was something tired in his eyes. “Necromancers don’t live forever. Not unless they become something else entirely.”

  Duff’s smile was thin, almost resigned. “And I have no intention of becoming something else.”

  Kai felt the weight of it press against his ribs. He had known—of course he had. He wasn’t blind. He had seen the exhaustion in Duff’s movements, the subtle way his magic lingered as though it was costing him more than before. But hearing it spoken aloud made it real in a way he wasn’t prepared for.

  “There’s more,” Lee said.

  Kai turned to him sharply. “More?”

  Lee hesitated for a fraction of a second before exhaling. “I’m bound to him.”

  Kai’s breath stilled.

  Lee pressed forward, his voice quiet but unwavering. “I used an artifact from the Ninth Precinct. A relic designed to tether one life to another. When he goes, so do I.”

  The words hit Kai like a physical blow.

  He shot to his feet, ignoring the pain lancing through his side. “You’re telling me you—what? Linked your damn lifeforce to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Lee met his gaze without flinching. “Because someone has to follow him.”

  Anger surged through Kai, sharp and visceral. “That’s—” He shook his head, jaw tightening. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It’s already done.”

  Kai’s pulse pounded in his ears. “You’re both just accepting this?”

  Duff sighed. “You’re not going to change our minds, Kai.”

  Kai turned to Lee, his frustration mounting. “And you? You’re just going to throw your life away?”

  Lee’s smile was small, but the sadness in it was impossible to miss. “I already left one life behind. I don’t have another to go back to.”

  The words cut deeper than Kai expected, disarming him in a way that left only the hollow ache of inevitability.

  For a long moment, none of them spoke.

  Then, Lee’s gaze flicked toward the doorway, where Alex sat in the living room, silent but watchful.

  His expression hardened. “Don’t tell him.”

  Kai frowned. “What?”

  Lee’s voice remained steady. “Alex doesn’t need to know. Not now.”

  Kai narrowed his eyes. “Why? He hates you.”

  Lee exhaled slowly. “I trained Alex when he was a cadet. He resents me because he doesn’t understand why I walked away. If he finds out I’m dying, he’ll do something reckless.”

  Kai’s gaze flickered toward Alex, watching him sit stiffly in the other room, his presence a heavy weight in the air. Finally, Kai gave a slow, reluctant nod, his expression unreadable.

  “This isn’t fair,” he muttered.

  “No,” Duff agreed softly. “It isn’t.”

  A flicker of defiance crossed Kai’s face. “Maybe I can find a way to reverse it. The Radiant Requiem has archives—entire libraries on how to extend life.” His voice lifted slightly with hope, as if grasping onto the thought like a lifeline.

  Lee’s silence was answer enough.

  Kai swallowed hard.

  The weight of inevitability settled between them.

  His breath came unsteadily as he sank back into his chair, his hands pressing against his knees, fingers curling into the fabric of his pants.

  A cold hand covered his.

  “We still have time,” Duff murmured. “Let’s not waste it.”

  The candlelight flickered, restless shadows stretching along the walls.

  Outside, the island held its breath.

  ___________________________________________________________________________

  The wind on Lazarus Island had teeth tonight. It tore through the trees like something feral, dragging clouds across the moon and turning shadows into phantoms. The ritual site lay silent behind the tree line, its stones still slick with the blood of battles barely won.

  Kai stood alone at the cliff’s edge, where the sea crashed endlessly below. The salt spray stung his eyes, but he didn’t blink. His coat hung open in the wind, the hem frayed, stained, and heavy with the weight of everything he hadn’t been able to save.

  Behind his eyes, the dreams burned.

  Dreams of a garden. Of peace. Of laughter—real, loud, and foolish. He’d wanted a life where he wasn’t fighting. Where Mei could grow up unchained by bloodlines and curses. Where he and Alex could argue over mundane things like food, not war.

  He’d fought for that future.

  And lost.

  His hands trembled at his sides. He looked down. The skin was pale. Too pale. Veins like frost etched just beneath the surface. And in his reflection—barely visible in the shard of obsidian blade he’d tucked in his coat—his eyes were no longer fully his.

  Not human.

  Gold-rimmed. Burning at the edges.

  The transformation had begun.

  “I feel you,” he whispered into the wind. “Watching.”

  The air behind him thickened like oil.

  A voice slithered into his mind. Velvet and fire.

  “You called me.”

  The Soldrinker rose from the shadows, not as flame or sun, but as a shape curled in eclipse. It coalesced into a vaguely humanoid figure—haloed in radiant hunger, eyes two orbs of sun bleeding into void. A predator wearing light like a crown.

  “You doubt again, little heir.”

  Kai didn’t turn. “It’s over. The dreams. The peace. Everything I fought for has been ground down to blood and bones. And I feel you crawling in my veins.”

  The spirit stepped closer, weightless on the earth. Its voice was low, amused. “Of course you do. We are bonded. Bound in blood. Each wound you suffer, each rage you unleash—it feeds me. It changes you.”

  Kai clenched his fists. “I didn’t want this.”

  “You wanted power. You wanted to save them. Power always demands a price.”

  He turned then, eyes blazing. “Then take it all.”

  The Soldrinker tilted its head.

  “I’ve already lost the future I wanted. So here’s the deal—I’m not running anymore. You want blood? You want the fight? Fine. I’ll give you the war.”

  A smile flickered across the spirit’s impossible face.

  Kai stepped forward, every inch of him tense with purpose. “I will burn everything that tries to touch this island. I will carve a wall of corpses around the people I have left. Mei. Alex. Lee. Even Duff.”

  His voice cracked with the fury of broken dreams. “You’re not taking me slowly anymore. You want me? Take me now. Make me your weapon. Just give me the strength to hold the line.”

  The Soldrinker’s form pulsed—an inferno contained. It circled him like a second skin, and Kai felt its fangs dig deeper into his soul.

  “Then become more.”

  The spirit’s voice thundered inside him, not with domination—but with alignment. As if some ancient chord had finally found its second note.

  “Become blade. Become flame. Become wrath.”

  His body surged with heat. His veins lit up. The transformation accelerated—not into some mindless beast, but into something focused. Burnt clear of doubt.

  Kai screamed—half agony, half fury—as power filled the cracks of his grief. His back arched. His hands sparked crimson. The nodachi at his side twitched like a live wire.

  Then—silence.

  He fell to one knee, panting, sweat and blood mingling at his brow. His eyes opened. The gold was still there—but now it burned with purpose.

  Behind him, the spirit faded into the earth. Satisfied.

  He stood.

  He looked toward the ritual circle where it had all begun.

  And then toward the coastline, where enemies would come.

  “I’ll be the last thing they see,” he whispered.

  The next war was coming.

  And this time—Kai wasn’t fighting to survive.

  He was fighting to end it.