The gates of Volkov City did not close behind Kaelen.

  They remained open.

  That was worse.

  No ceremony.

  No sentence read aloud.

  No crowd.

  Just a signed decree, stamped with the Warlord’s seal.

  EXILE — INDEFINITE

  NO NI USE WITHIN CITY LIMITS

  RETURN ONLY BY WARLORD’S COMMAND

  Kaelen stood at the threshold, pack slung over one shoulder, cloak pulled tight against the wind.

  He felt nothing where power once lived.

  No lightning crawling under his skin.

  No blood-song whispering strength.

  No shadow curling to greet him.

  Only weight.

  Steel, leather, breath.

  Behind him, the city rose—unchanged. Towers sharp against the sky. Banners snapping crimson and black.

  Orion did not come.

  Kaelen had not expected him to.

  A shadow moved to Kaelen’s left.

  “Elara said you’d leave at dawn,” a familiar voice said.

  Kaelen turned.

  Captain Seraphine Holt stood just outside the gates, helm tucked under one arm. The Shield’s insignia glinted faintly.

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  “I didn’t want witnesses,” Kaelen replied.

  “You never did,” Holt said softly.

  She hesitated, then held something out.

  A compact blade. Matte black. Balanced perfectly.

  “Forged by Dorn,” she said. “No Ni channels. Pure alloy. Won’t shatter.”

  Kaelen took it.

  The weight was comforting.

  “Tell Orion…” Kaelen started.

  Holt shook her head. “Say it yourself when you come back.”

  When. Not if.

  She stepped aside.

  The road stretched east—into broken lands, unclaimed territories, places the maps labeled with warnings instead of names.

  Kaelen exhaled once.

  And walked.

  The first night nearly killed him.

  Not from enemies.

  From silence.

  Without Ni, the dark pressed closer. Every sound felt sharper. Every movement slower. His body remembered strength it no longer had and punished him for the absence.

  He dreamed of lightning.

  Woke with empty hands.

  By the third day, he learned something important.

  Pain still answered.

  Steel still cut.

  And shadows—real shadows, cast by fire and moonlight—still hid him if he used them correctly.

  He adapted.

  By the second week, rumors followed him.

  A lone Volkov.

  No aura.

  No signature.

  Just a man who didn’t die when he should have.

  Bandits tried him first.

  They laughed when he didn’t flare Ni.

  They stopped laughing when he broke one’s knee, slit another’s throat, and used the third as a shield against arrows.

  Kaelen moved differently now.

  Cleaner. Meaner. More deliberate.

  No wasted motion.

  No reliance on miracles.

  He reached the Ash Reaches at the end of the month.

  Land scarred by old Purifier weapons. Mutated beasts prowled the glassed plains, their bodies warped by failed dampening tech.

  Kaelen watched one from a ridge.

  Four meters tall. Bone plating. Acid breath.

  Once, he would’ve struck it with lightning from a hundred paces.

  Now?

  He waited.

  Hours.

  Studied its patterns. Its blind spots.

  Then he descended.

  The fight lasted less than a minute.

  He lost blood.

  Gained scars.

  Took its core—still warm—and carved what he needed.

  As he cleaned his blade, Kaelen felt something unfamiliar.

  Not Ni.

  Not power.

  Confidence.

  “If this is what you left me with,” he muttered to the empty land, thinking of his father, of fate, of the gods if they listened,

  “then I’ll sharpen it until it cuts everything.”

  Far away—

  Unseen—

  Eyes watched from the shadows.

  Not Purifiers.

  Not Volkov.

  Something older.

  Something interested.