The air always felt heavier before a tragedy.
Silas had learned this as a boy — long before the Montclair name became a whispered curse, long before the Empire turned his family's legacy into a cautionary tale.
He learned it the day the Eshe User came.
It had been a cold morning. The kind where the sky pressed low against the earth, the sun nothing but a pale smudge behind a wall of grey clouds. His mother used to call it "mourning weather" — as if the world itself could sense when something terrible was about to happen. Afterwards, she died of a mystery illness that afflicted his family.
Back then, the Montclair estate still stood tall. Black stone walls lined with silver-trimmed banners, sprawling gardens once vibrant but already beginning to wilt under the weight of time and quiet neglect. Their family was old money — ancient money — but even Silas, a boy of barely ten, could feel the cracks spreading beneath the surface.
He remembered the sound of coughing echoing through the halls. His children — Ryn and Elise — still toddlers then, their small bodies wracked with an illness that the Empire's finest doctors couldn't name. The same one that took his mother.
Their fevers came in waves, violent and unforgiving. Ryn's tiny chest would seize so suddenly it seemed like his heart might simply stop. Elise's lips were often stained with blood from coughing fits so fierce they left her too weak to lift her head. Silas' wife, Alora, never left their bedside, her once-sharp voice reduced to whispered prayers to gods that never answered.
Later, the doctors called it the Sable Rot — a death sentence without a cure.
Until the Eshe User came.
She arrived without warning — a woman cloaked in deep blue, her face hidden beneath a veil of iridescent silk that shimmered when the light touched it. She didn't knock or announce herself to the servants. One moment, the Montclairs were drowning in grief, and the next, she was standing at the foot of the children's bed.
Silas remembered the way the air shifted around her — a quiet hum, like the world itself was holding its breath.
Her Aspect wasEquilibrium.
She didn't heal the children in the way a doctor might. She didn't draw the sickness out of them or mend their damaged lungs. Instead, she balanced the forces within their bodies — stabilizing the rapid fire of their hearts, slowing the violent convulsions, and evening out the delicate systems that the disease had thrown into disarray.
It was like watching a scale tip back into place, every function of their fragile bodies brought into perfect, unnatural harmony.
Within minutes, Ryn's breathing softened. Elise's trembling stopped. The sickness didn't vanish, but it no longer ruled them.
For the first time in weeks, the room fell silent.
Silas never learned the woman's name.
She didn't ask for payment. Didn't offer an explanation. She simply looked at him — a gaze so sharp it felt like she was weighing his very existence — and then spoke only once:
"They will live. For now."
And then she was gone.
The Montclairs never spoke of her again in fear of the Empire catching wind of the situation.
But that didn't mean everyone kept their mouth shut.
It wasn't long before the rumours started — whispers that the Montclairs had harboured an Eshe User, that they had traded favours with outlaws who wielded forbidden power. It didn't matter that Silas had never sought the woman's help — only that they had accepted it.
And so, the Empire made an example of them.
The purge came swiftly — soldiers clad in gold and black storming the Montclair estate under the guise of "investigation." Silas' cousins were dragged into the streets and executed, their crimes never named. The family's business holdings were seized, their wealth funnelled into the Empire's coffers.
His wife, Alora, died not long after — some said of heartbreak, others of poison. Silas never found out the truth.
All he knew was that when the sun rose over the Montclair estate the next morning, the family that had stood for generations was gone — reduced to ashes and whispers.
And Silas — stripped of his title, his land, his bloodline — was left with nothing.
Except his hatred.
He never forgot the way the soldiers had looked at him — not with fury or malice, but indifference. As if his family was already dead long before the executioner's blade ever fell.
And now, as he watched Rhys move — flames flickering black and crimson along his chain, his movements raw but growing sharper with each strike — Silas felt that same imbalance again.
This boy wasn't just an accident of power. He was something dangerous — something uncontrolled.
He was exactly the kind of weapon Silas needed.
The fight unfolded in a storm of gravity-shifts and violent flames, but Silas' gaze never left Rhys. He saw the way the boy adapted, using the changing weight of the air to fuel his momentum instead of fighting against it. The way his flames didn't burn the way normal fire did — clinging to the chain like living serpents, writhing and hungry.
And most of all, he saw the flicker of something in Rhys' eyes.
Not simple rage.
Pure survival instinct.
Silas didn't trust it. Not yet. But trust wasn't what he needed.
He didn't follow Rhys out of loyalty or faith.
He followed him because he saw an ember of something the Empire couldn't control.
And if he could stoke that flame — if he could fan it into a blaze — then maybe, just maybe…
He'd finally burn the Empire to the ground.
***
The blade arced down — a flash of cold steel slicing through the thick, smoke-filled air — and Rhys couldn't move.
The Gravity User's Aspect clung to his legs like invisible chains, rooting him to the spot. His body screamed to dodge, but his bones felt like they were made of lead. The black flames along his chain flared wildly, but his limbs were too slow — too heavy.
Too late.
Ronoah's blade blurred, driving straight for Rhys' throat —
And then the wall exploded.
A deafening roar — deep, guttural, and not remotely human — tore through the hall as the stone wall to Rhys' left collapsed, chunks of debris sent flying like shrapnel.
The blade missed his throat by a hair, slicing a thin line across his collarbone instead. A flash of white-hot pain shot through Rhys' body, but survival instinct roared louder.
Ronoah staggered back, his speed momentarily useless against the storm of debris raining from the broken wall.
The Gravity User's hold on Rhys faltered, the sudden chaos snapping his focus. The weight around Rhys' legs vanished, and he stumbled back — coughing, blood staining his shirt where Ronoah's blade had grazed him.
Out of the dust and crumbling stone, three figures appeared.
Their charred, twisted forms slithered through the rubble — hulking, monstrous things with obsidian skin cracked like cooling magma, their glowing eyes burning a deep molten red.
Marauders.
One let out a distorted shriek, its head jerking unnaturally as drool hissed against the hot stone below.
The air turned suffocating.
For a moment — just a breath — there was silence.
Then the Marauders charged.
The largest of them lunged first, its clawed hand crashing down where Ronoah had just been standing. He blurred to the side, barely avoiding the blow, but the shockwave from the impact shattered the stone floor — cracks spider webbing out in all directions.
"Damn it!" the Gravity User growled, his Aspect flaring violet as he flicked his wrist, pulling a chunk of broken stone into the air and launching it at one of the Marauders. The creature barely flinched — the rock bounced off its charred hide, leaving only a faint scorch mark.
Rhys' chest heaved, adrenaline thundering in his veins.
This was his chance.
He barely registered the burning pain in his shoulder or the throbbing in his legs — the only thing that mattered was the chaos. The Marauders weren't just a threat — they were adistraction.
Before the Eshe Users could regroup, a massive hand clamped down on Rhys' arm.
Goro.
Blood still smeared across his mouth, his breathing ragged, but his grip was strong as ever.
"No more fighting," Goro rumbled, his voice low but fierce. "We run."
Rhys was shocked a bit that Goro could speak but he put that aside.
"No need to tell me twice."
Just then, a Marauder roared, hurling a guard across the room like a ragdoll.
The man hit the wall with a sickening crack — and didn't move.
Rhys' gut twisted.
Silas appeared beside them, his dagger still gripped tight, eyes flicking between the Eshe Users and the Marauders with sharp precision. "We need to leave now before they turn their attention back to us."
The Gravity User tried to regain his footing, his Aspect surging again — the floor around Rhys beginning to pull inward like an invisible whirlpool.
But a Marauder lunged at him before he could finish the technique.
The Eshe User barely managed to shift the gravity around himself — lightening his body to leap back — but the creature's claws still tore a deep gash into his arm.
He cursed, blood splattering onto the floor.
Ronoah blurred to his side, his blade ready, but even his speed couldn't outpace the Marauders.
Looking directly at the gate, Rhys didn't hesitate.
"Let's go!" he barked.
Goro didn't need to be told twice.
The giant grabbed Rhys' uninjured arm and surged forward, ploughing through the crumbling corridor like a living battering ram.
Silas kept pace, his movements quick and calculated — always one step ahead of the chaos.
Behind them, the Marauders tore into the Eshe Users and the remaining guards — the battle devolving into raw carnage.
The last thing Rhys saw before turning the corner was the Gravity User, his hand outstretched, trying to pin them down again — but the weight never came.
A Marauder's claw was already slamming into his ribs.
The Eshe User's shout of pain echoed through the ruined hall as Rhys and his group disappeared through the gate...
