When Vane pushed open the wooden door and stepped inside, the scent of freshly baked bread and hot soup immediately enveloped him. The crackling of firewood in the hearth, the warm, golden light spilling across the room... Everything was far too perfect, far too inviting.
But the moment he took his first step toward the table, his gaze snagged on the wooden floorboards. There, exactly where his mother stood every single morning, lay a massive, dried bloodstain in the shape of a human silhouette. Seeing that stain felt like a thick needle plunging directly into his brain. The fog clouding his eyes slowly began to part.
Vane found himself sitting at the table with his mother, Elara, and Kael. With her usual affectionate eyes, Elara looked at her son, gesturing for him to take another spoonful of his soup. The scent of daisies mingled sickeningly with the metallic stench of blood lingering at the tip of his nose.
"Come on now, Vane," Kael said, letting out his booming, fatherly laugh as he chewed his food. "You didn't do a lick of work in the fields today, at least do justice to the meal!"
Vane stared at the wooden spoon in his hand. He slowly brought it to his lips and swallowed the hot broth. He could feel the heat, but there was absolutely no taste. The pragmatic, calculating side of his mind began to fight back against the numbness. He slowly set the wooden spoon back down on the table.
"Vane? Sweetie, what's wrong?" Elara reached out and gently touched his fingers. "Why aren't you eating?"
Vane lifted his head, looking into his mother's beautiful, worried face. A colossal wave of longing swelled in his chest, but Vane refused to let it drown him. There were no tears in his eyes; only a deep, profound acceptance.
"Because you are dead, Mom," Vane said softly. "You died right there, where that bloodstain is."
The warm smile on Elara's face froze for a fraction of a second. The golden light in the room suddenly flickered. Vane slowly shifted his gaze to Kael. The old man's laughter had long since died, replaced by a hollow, vacant expression. As Vane looked at him, he saw the man who had taught him almost everything he knew since childhood standing right in front of him. The very same man who had taken his mother's life with his own hands.
Vane probed the blinding rage inside him. He felt the pure, unadulterated hatred of being betrayed. But as the misty veil over his mind completely lifted, he saw the bitter truth. Kael wasn't some soulless assassin who killed without blinking. He genuinely cared about them. The old man was just backed into a corner, a noose tied tightly around his neck by the Queen's lethal threats against his own family. A desperate man.
Kael was merely a tool. Vane's true hatred needed to be directed at those holding the leash. At his father, King Vorian, who had failed to protect them, who had promised a falsely secure life only to sacrifice them in a heartbeat. At the Queen, who had threatened Kael's family and meticulously orchestrated this treachery. And at the arrogant Pillars, who turned a blind eye to all this rot, to this machine fueled by the blood of the innocent.
"I forgive you, old man," Vane said, looking straight into Kael's dull eyes. His voice carried an ice-cold clarity. "I know you were forced to sacrifice us... that you were cornered for the sake of your family. I won't waste a single drop of anger on you. I know exactly who my real enemies are now."
The moment those words left his lips, the foundations of the illusion cracked. Neither his mother nor Kael could answer him. The farmhouse, the food on the table, and the light of the hearth began to softly scatter like ashes caught in the wind. Vane closed his eyes and allowed his consciousness to be pulled down into those heavy, dark waters.
The return to reality was heralded by the thick stench of blood filling his lungs and the throat-burning scent of ozone. Every single muscle fiber in his body ached as if a multi-ton stone carriage had just rolled over him. His eyelids were as heavy as lead.
When he forced his eyes open, he found himself sitting on a majestic, terrifying throne made of pure aether, hovering in mid-air. The very millisecond his mind fully anchored back into his body, the aether throne beneath him dissipated like smoke, and Vane crashed hard onto his knees against the freezing, black basalt stones.
"You've finally awakened."
That ancient, arrogant, and predatory voice echoed directly inside his skull. As Vane groaned, trying to straighten up, he could feel the heavy aether residue left in his veins by that dark entity in his mind—Lysandra.
"Your body devoured so much pure aether at once that your mind short-circuited, sending you into a coma," Lysandra continued, her tone slightly bored but brimming with absolute authority. "If I hadn't taken control, you would have been vaporized in a massive explosion along with this entire arena by now. Don't worry, I vented the excess aether."
Gritting his teeth, Vane forced himself to his feet. The colossal Shadow Dome surrounding them and severing their connection to the outside world was trembling, slowly collapsing as it tore at the seams. He only had seconds.
Just a few steps away lay Kravitz, one of the heirs of the Seventh Pillar. Slowly fading purple aether spears pinned the boy's shoulders and legs to the black stones. Kravitz's feral state had been completely wiped away; in its place was a terrified, broken body coughing up blood and wheezing in agony.
Without a single trace of emotion on his face, Vane walked over to Kravitz with heavy steps and crouched beside him.
Kravitz peeled open his half-conscious eyes. Because his mind hadn't been present during that savage fight, he had no idea that the one standing before him just moments ago was an ancient Empress. All he knew was that this weak-looking boy with a rusted dagger had pinned him to the ground with overwhelming force in a matter of seconds.
"Y-You... What are you?" Kravitz rasped. The arrogant heir in his eyes was gone, replaced by a terrified child trembling with the fear of death.
Vane summoned his rusted dagger, pressing its dull tip right against Kravitz's jugular.
"I am someone whose luck you really shouldn't push," Vane said, his voice carrying a lethal calm. He pressed the dagger slightly, and a thin line of blood trickled down Kravitz's neck. "Listen to me closely, Kravitz. This dome is going to collapse any second. Do you know what you're going to tell the people outside when they see you like this? You're going to tell them that you suffered an aether crisis. That you lost control of your own shadow arts and injured yourself."
"Y-You're insane," Kravitz coughed in pain. "I'll tell the Pillars... how dangerous you are..."
"If you tell them," Vane cut him off, "that a 'rusted dagger' skewered you in seconds and left you like this, you know exactly what kind of disgrace you'll become in the eyes of your family and your Pillar. You'll be nothing but a laughingstock to those arrogant heirs."
Vane slowly pulled the dagger back, locking his eyes onto Kravitz's. "What's more... If you open your mouth, the next time we cross paths, I won't drive this dagger into your throat, I'll drive it into your brain. The choice is yours."
Kravitz swallowed hard. To protect his own pride and reputation, he had no choice but to play along with Vane's lie. Seeing the helpless acceptance in the boy's eyes, Vane knew the message had been received.
As the Shadow Dome shattered with one final crack, dissolving into the air as black smoke, the strength in Vane's legs completely vanished. Yielding to the unfathomable, heavy toll taken on his body, he let himself collapse onto the arena's black floor.
Lying on his back, his lungs screaming in protest and every bone in his body aching, his eyes slowly drifted upward. Staring at the sky revealed behind the dissipating dome, Vane whispered.
"I want you to tell me..." he gasped, his voice bleeding with a terminal, bone-deep exhaustion. "I want you to tell me what the hell you just did here, Lysandra."