The road north no longer felt like an escape.

  Ash drifted across the broken highway like gray snow, clinging to Kael’s coat and settling in Lyra’s hair. Neither of them spoke. The echoes of what had happened—the dead Ascendants, the way Kael’s power had torn through them when something inside him finally broke—still rang in the air behind them.

  Kael walked ahead, fists clenched, shoulders hunched like he was bracing for a blow that never came.

  Lyra watched him carefully.

  She had seen rage before. She had lived inside it since the day her father died. But what Kael unleashed back there wasn’t just anger—it was recognition. As if the Halo had answered something buried deep in him, something he had spent his whole life running from.

  “You didn’t stop,” she finally said.

  Kael didn’t turn. “They wouldn’t let us pass.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  He slowed, then stopped altogether. The wind howled through the hollow remains of an old transit station ahead, its metal skeleton warped by war. When he spoke, his voice was low, almost hollow.

  “I felt…clear,” he said. “For the first time.”

  That scared Lyra more than if he had said he felt nothing.

  The Weight of Power

  They took shelter inside the station as night fell. Fires burned in the distance—Ascendant patrols, rebel sabotage, or something worse. In this world, the difference barely mattered anymore.

  Kael sat alone, back against a cracked pilr, staring at his hands. They still trembled faintly, veins glowing dimly beneath his skin like dying embers.

  “I was a runner,” he said suddenly. “That’s all I ever wanted to be. Fast enough to survive. Invisible enough to matter to no one.”

  Lyra sat across from him. “You were never invisible.”

  He let out a bitter ugh. “My sister saw something else. She always did.”

  The Halo pulsed faintly beneath his coat, as if reacting to the mention of her.

  “She helped build it,” Lyra said carefully. “But she didn’t build this.” She gestured to him. “You’re not a weapon, Kael.”

  “That’s not what Gravehound thinks.”

  The name hung between them like poison.

  Lyra’s jaw tightened. “He’s hunting us. After what happened underground, after what you did today… the Ascendants won’t just send soldiers anymore.”

  “They’ll send him,” Kael said.

  And this time, there was no fear in his voice—only certainty.

  A World Watching

  Unbeknownst to them, far to the south, Ascendant spires fred to life. Screens ignited in dark chambers where masked figures watched recorded footage of Kael’s rampage frame by frame.

  Power readings spiked off the charts.

  “The Halo has chosen,” one voice said.

  Another replied, colder: “Or it’s waking up.”

  In the shadows behind them, a familiar figure adjusted the straps of a newly reforged mask—sleeker, more human, more terrifying.

  Gravehound was smiling beneath it.

  The Choice Ahead

  As dawn approached, Lyra stood and tightened her gear. “The northern rebels won’t follow you blindly,” she said. “They’ll fear you. Some will want to use you.”

  Kael rose as well. “Let them.”

  She searched his face. “You’re changing.”

  “So is the world,” he replied. “I’m done running through it.”

  For a moment, Lyra wondered if she had saved a savior… or unleashed something that would tear what remained of this world apart.

  The Halo fred once—bright, undeniable.

  And far away, something answered.

  END OF ISSUE #7