The wind howled across the Stormspire Plateau, a jagged shelf of stone suspended high in the peaks beyond the Aetheric frontier. Lightning danced across the clouds above, threading between thunderheads like hungry serpents.
Kael stood at the plateau's edge, his cloak shredded by the winds, hair slicked back with rain, eyes gleaming with quiet determination. The Thundercore pulsed within him—unstable, incomplete, barely tamed.
"You sure you want to do this alone?" Alaric had asked him before he left.
"I have to," Kael had replied. "This isn't power I can borrow. It's something I have to become."
Now, the sky screamed its answer.
A bolt of lightning cracked down—not from above, but from within the ground itself. Kael didn't flinch. He stepped forward, planting his feet wide and raising his hands to the sky.
"I'm ready."
A voice, not human but not wholly divine, echoed from the storm.
"Then be unmade."
The clouds descended. Not rain—essence. Liquid thunder. It hit Kael like a battering ram, blowing him back and slamming him into the stone. His spine arched from the impact, muscles locking as his aether flared wild and untamed.
The Trial had begun.
Elsewhere – Calven's Rest, Inner Circle
Alaric paced the long corridor beneath the Council chamber, flanked by Lysera and Warden Thess. The debate had ended in a deadlock. Varen's move had been delayed—barely.
"He's stalling for time," Alaric muttered. "There's something he's not saying."
"He's angling for control of the city's Core Nexus," Thess said. "If he claims it, he could redirect all core-flow in Calven's Rest. That's not just political—it's military."
Lysera exhaled, her fingers brushing the hilt of her crystalline sabre. "We need Kael back. Fast."
Alaric nodded but didn't answer. His bond with Kael had grown beyond friendship—brotherhood forged in battles that left scars deeper than blades could reach. And right now, he could feel Kael's pain like a storm pressing against his soul.
Stormspire Plateau
Kael dragged himself upright. His arms trembled, skin glowing with coursing streaks of blue light. Every heartbeat sounded like thunder.
"You think you're worthy of the Thundercore?" the voice growled again. A figure emerged from the storm—a being formed of cloud and crackling arcs, the embodiment of primal lightning.
"I don't think," Kael coughed, blood at the corner of his lip. "I am."
The Storm Warden raised his arm—and the sky answered. Dozens of bolts surged from the heavens toward Kael like divine judgment.
Kael screamed—not in fear, but in defiance—and raised both hands. Lightning met lightning. His core flared, once unstable, now harmonizing. The Thundercore within him didn't resist—it answered.
The bolts struck, but instead of burning him, they wrapped around him like armor. His hair rose in a corona of static. His veins glowed. The clouds above him split apart.
And then, Kael rose.
Not with wings. With will.
Ascension.
The trial had accepted him.
Kael opened his eyes, now flickering with stormlight, and raised a single arm.
Thunder cracked—not in the sky, but from his soul.
The storm bent around him.
Meanwhile — The Hollow Spire
Maeryn stood before a map of the continent, fingers tracing fault lines of power. Her eyes flared with Titan essence, and her voice was cold.
"The Thundercore is awakening. We'll need to strike before the storm consolidates."
One of her lieutenants hesitated. "Are you certain the Council won't back Alaric?"
"They're too divided. And Varen will see to that."
She smiled. "No... the timing is perfect."
Back at Stormspire
Kael descended from the clouds like a walking tempest. The Trial was complete. Power, once raw and unshaped, now answered his every thought.
And as he looked east toward Calven's Rest, he knew.
It was time to return.