Kai stood before a mirror of liquid silver.
Black hair fell loosely across his forehead.
Golden eyes stared back at him.
Same as always.
Those two things, at least, weren't changing.
Kai lifted his shirt.
Two pale scars sat beneath his ribs.
He ran a thumb across the first.
The alley returned for half a second.
Wet pavement.
A folding knife.
Blood slipping through his fingers.
Asha's voice breaking through the phone.
Don't you dare. Don't lie to me now.
Kai lowered the shirt.
The scars could stay too.
Everything else was negotiable.
He looked at his reflection.
The body Seraphine had reconstructed was healthy. Months of training had made it stronger than the exhausted body he'd died in.
But now that Kai knew what to feel for, the problem was obvious.
Origin wasn't flowing through him.
His body was surviving around it.
There was a difference.
A very dangerous one.
Kai closed his eyes.
He reached inward.
Origin waited.
Vast.
Silent.
He had touched only tiny portions of it since arriving here, yet even those fractions could reshape land, create matter and bend space.
And all of it was anchored to a body designed for an ordinary twenty-one-year-old man.
Kai opened his eyes.
"Yeah."
He looked down at himself.
"This isn't going to work."
Origin stirred.
The mirror rippled.
Kai immediately raised a finger.
"No."
Everything stopped.
He had learned better than to give vague instructions.
Make me stronger was exactly the sort of command Origin would interpret in a way that left him thirty feet tall and capable of accidentally punching holes through reality.
Kai retrieved his notebook.
He turned to a blank page.
At the top, he wrote:
VESSEL.
Then:
Contain Origin without suppressing it.
Survive travel between realities.
Adapt to foreign environments and powers.
Remain functional without Authority.
Strength. Speed. Endurance. Regeneration.
He paused.
The final requirement mattered most.
Remain Kai Mercer.
Kai stared at the words.
He could make himself beautiful beyond reason.
Indestructible.
Emotionless.
Perfect.
Origin probably wouldn't care.
But perfection had never been the objective.
Asha recognising the man who eventually came home was.
Kai put the notebook down.
"All right."
He looked at the mirror.
"My body."
Origin answered.
Gold flooded the room.
Pain hit first.
Kai's knees struck the floor.
"Fuck!"
His bones felt as though someone had poured molten metal through them.
Origin moved through his skeleton.
Not destroying it.
Rebuilding it.
Kai clenched his jaw.
He could remove the pain.
One thought.
He didn't.
Pain told him something was happening.
He wanted the information.
His skeleton changed first.
Denser.
Stronger.
But Kai stopped Origin before it could simply make every bone indestructible.
"No absolutes."
The transformation slowed.
"Strong enough to survive."
Bone shifted again.
"And capable of getting stronger."
That was important.
Kai didn't want a body frozen at whatever level he imagined tonight.
He wanted growth.
Adaptation.
Potential.
His muscles followed.
Fibres tore.
Reformed.
Tendons strengthened.
His nervous system changed next.
Signals travelled faster.
His senses sharpened.
His lungs expanded.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
Once.
Twice.
The palace shook.
Kai's head snapped upward.
Outside, the lake rose.
Not waves.
The entire lake.
Millions of litres of water climbed into the sky.
"No."
Kai forced himself upright.
"Everything stays exactly where it is."
The water stopped.
His hands shook.
"Down."
The lake descended.
Slowly.
Not a single wave crossed the shore.
Kai breathed through the pain.
That was precisely why he was doing this.
Origin responded to him too easily.
A body capable of carrying it wasn't enough.
He needed one capable of controlling it while everything else went wrong.
Kai returned his attention inward.
Organs.
Muscles.
Bone.
Nerves.
Blood.
All improved.
Still not enough.
Because none of them answered the real problem.
Where did Origin go?
Blood had veins.
Thought had nerves.
Air had lungs.
Origin had nothing.
It simply existed inside him.
Kai pictured pathways.
The response was immediate.
Black lines appeared beneath his skin.
Kai froze.
They spread from the centre of his chest.
Across his shoulders.
Down his arms.
Along his back and ribs.
Some curved.
Some branched.
Others formed strange patterns resembling stars, flames and open doorways.
Kai hadn't designed their appearance.
That bothered him.
He examined them before allowing the transformation to continue.
Understanding came gradually.
Channels.
The markings were the physical expression of pathways being constructed throughout his new body.
Not decoration.
Infrastructure.
Kai exhaled.
"Continue."
Origin entered them.
Every black marking ignited gold.
Kai screamed.
For one impossible second, he felt everything.
The palace beneath him.
The lake.
Forest.
Mountains.
Rivers.
Roads.
Every stone he'd placed.
Every tree he'd repaired.
The entire realm crashed into his awareness.
Kai's hands struck the floor.
"Too much."
The channels narrowed.
Pressure decreased.
"Again."
Origin flowed.
Pain.
Heat.
Control.
"Again."
More.
Again.
Kai adjusted the pathways every time something felt wrong.
Origin wasn't something he needed to imprison.
It needed somewhere to move.
That distinction changed everything.
For months, his body had been a container.
Now it became a conduit.
The pressure disappeared.
Kai gasped.
His heartbeat steadied.
Then another pulse followed.
Not from his chest.
From beneath him.
Kai froze.
A second pulse.
The floor.
The palace.
The realm.
His heartbeat came again.
Then the domain answered.
Not consciously.
There was no voice.
No intelligence reaching toward him.
Only connection.
Kai placed his palm against the floor.
For the first time, the realm didn't feel like something surrounding him.
It felt—
close.
Too close to define.
Kai frowned.
He didn't understand it.
So he didn't touch it.
"Later."
That word had probably saved him more trouble than any power he'd learned.
The transformation continued.
Kai's body stretched.
His bones lengthened.
His shoulders broadened.
His centre of gravity changed.
When it finally stopped, Kai remained kneeling for several minutes.
Sweat dripped from his chin.
His breathing came hard.
Actual exhaustion.
Kai smiled faintly.
Good.
He could still get tired.
He could still hurt.
He was still alive.
Kai stood.
Then frowned.
The mirror seemed smaller.
"No."
He created a measuring line beside himself.
Six feet six inches.
Kai stared.
"Seriously?"
Origin remained silent.
He checked again.
Same answer.
Kai sighed.
"Fine."
At least it hadn't made him seven feet tall.
He stepped toward the mirror.
The man approaching him was unquestionably Kai.
That mattered immediately.
Tan skin.
Black hair, thicker now and falling in loose waves.
Golden eyes.
Same eyes he'd entered the domain with.
But something had changed behind them.
Depth.
The gold looked richer now, almost metallic around the pupils, as though Origin had settled deeper into something that had already belonged to him.
His face had matured slightly.
Sharper jaw.
More defined structure.
The exhaustion that had once lived permanently beneath his eyes was completely gone.
His frame had changed more dramatically.
Broad shoulders.
Long arms.
Powerful chest.
Lean waist.
Dense muscle without unnecessary bulk.
Built to move.
Built to fight.
Built to survive.
Kai turned sideways.
"Could be worse."
Then he noticed the markings properly.
Black lines crossed his arms and shoulders before disappearing beneath his torn shirt.
He pulled it off.
The patterns spread across his upper body.
They weren't random.
Kai could feel different pathways inside them.
Movement.
Creation.
Destruction.
Restoration.
Space.
Others were present too.
Dormant wasn't the right word.
Unexplored.
Kai touched one near his chest.
"How much can you actually do?"
Origin answered the question with sensation.
Kai's smile disappeared.
There was no number.
No list.
No ceiling he could feel.
Only depth.
Every application he'd discovered seemed to sit above another layer.
And another.
And another.
Kai withdrew his awareness.
"Okay."
That was simultaneously exciting and horrifying.
He let a fraction of Origin move through the channels.
Gold travelled across the black markings.
His golden eyes brightened.
The room changed.
Kai stopped breathing.
He could see the wall.
But he could also see what lay beneath it.
Not physically.
Information.
Stone.
Density.
Structure.
The intentions he'd used while creating it.
Old repairs.
Tiny imperfections.
The command maintaining its shape.
Kai looked toward the mirror.
Its structure unfolded before his sight.
Material.
Reflection.
Origin.
Possibility.
Too much information struck him at once.
Kai shut the perception down.
The room returned to normal.
His eyes remained gold, only losing the unnatural brightness.
Kai rubbed his temple.
"Definitely learning that slowly."
He looked into the mirror again.
His reflection looked back.
Black hair.
Golden eyes.
Black markings.
Tan skin.
Six-foot-six frame.
Knife scars still visible beneath his ribs.
Kai nodded.
Still him.
His reflection smiled.
Kai didn't.
He froze.
The reflection remained smiling.
"Of course."
It stepped closer from inside the silver.
"You could be more."
Kai folded his arms.
"You're going to need to be specific."
The reflection changed.
It became taller.
Seven feet.
Then eight.
Kai stared upward.
"Absolutely not."
The image changed again.
Muscle expanded across its frame.
Perfect proportions.
Impossible symmetry.
A face sculpted beyond anything naturally human.
"You could be perfect."
Kai stared.
"That sounds inconvenient."
The reflection changed again.
The scars disappeared.
"No pain."
Another Kai appeared beside it.
His expression was peaceful.
"No fear."
Another.
"No guilt."
Another.
"No grief."
Kai stopped smiling.
The mirror changed.
The training hall vanished.
A kitchen appeared.
His kitchen.
Kai's breath caught.
The old radio sat beside the window.
Their mother's strawberry magnet held a shopping list against the refrigerator.
Curry simmered on the stove.
His father sat at the table.
Alive.
His mother stood beside the cooker.
Alive.
And Asha—
Asha looked up.
"You're late."
Kai couldn't move.
His father glanced toward him.
"Food's getting cold."
His mother smiled.
"Kai?"
His throat closed.
He knew it wasn't real.
That didn't make it hurt less.
Asha pushed a chair out with her foot.
"You going to stand there looking stupid all night?"
Perfect.
Even the insult.
Kai stepped toward the mirror.
His hand rose.
He could make this.
That was the terrible part.
Not an illusion.
Given enough understanding, Origin could create bodies.
Voices.
Memories.
Perhaps even things so convincing that eventually Kai could stop caring about the difference.
His mother smiled again.
"Come home."
Kai's fingers touched the silver.
He closed his eyes.
The real Asha was somewhere on Earth.
Alone.
She didn't have a perfect version of him.
She had an empty hospital room and a brother who'd promised he was okay seconds before dying.
Kai opened his eyes.
"No."
His reflection appeared beside his family.
"Why?"
"Because she isn't mine."
Asha's expression faltered.
Kai's chest tightened.
He continued anyway.
"None of you are."
His mother disappeared.
Then his father.
Asha remained last.
Kai looked at her.
"I'm coming back to the real one."
The mirror shattered.
Silver fragments hung in the air.
Kai stood among them.
Origin immediately offered the simpler answer.
New mirror.
He rejected it.
Every fragment moved.
Slowly.
Carefully.
The original pieces returned.
One after another.
Edges met.
Cracks vanished.
Until the same mirror stood before him again.
Repair.
Not replacement.
Kai looked at himself.
The reflection copied him properly this time.
He touched the scars beneath his ribs.
"Those stay."
Then created clothes.
Black trousers.
Dark boots.
A fitted black shirt.
Kai paused.
A long coat formed over it.
High collar.
He stared.
"Bit much."
He considered changing it.
Didn't.
"One indulgence."
Kai picked up his notebook.
He opened to the first page.
GET HOME TO ASHA.
Underlined twice.
Nothing about that had changed.
He turned to a blank page.
Kai wrote:
Origin has no ceiling I can see.
Then beneath it:
That doesn't mean I know how to use it.
One final line:
Find out.
Kai closed the notebook.
Outside, night had fallen.
He stepped onto the balcony.
Mountains stretched beneath unfamiliar stars.
Kai raised one hand.
Origin moved.
Gold travelled through black markings.
His eyes brightened.
He looked toward a mountain kilometres away.
He wanted to stand there.
Space folded.
Kai disappeared.
Cold wind struck his face.
He stood on the mountain.
Kai looked down.
Then back toward the distant palace.
No dizziness.
No violent landing.
No missing boot.
He smiled.
Again.
The lake.
Again.
The forest.
Again.
Above the palace.
Again.
The highest mountain.
Distance became something he crossed because he chose to.
Kai stood at the summit with the kingdom spread beneath him.
His coat moved in the wind.
Origin flowed quietly through his new body.
No strain.
No pressure.
No feeling that his flesh was barely surviving what lived inside it.
Kai looked at his hands.
For months he'd been asking how powerful Origin was.
That had been the wrong question.
The power was already there.
What Kai lacked was knowledge.
He smiled.
"Let's fix that."