For a moment, they stood there—Aria and Kael—surrounded by ancient ice and pulsing shadows, each frozen in the gravity of shared blood.
Kael's eyes never wavered. "They told me you died."
"I thought you never existed," Aria replied.
He stepped forward again, slower this time, as if unsure whether to hug her or kill her.
Aria didn't move.
"Do you know what it's like," he murmured, "to live without warmth for so long, you forget what it feels like to be human?"
She met his gaze. "I do. I lived it too."
But something in Kael's expression darkened. "You had them," he said. "Friends. A life. I had glass walls and electric chains."
Aria's throat tightened. "You don't have to keep being their weapon."
"I'm not," Kael said. "I'm becoming something else."
And then the walls screamed—literally screamed—as a wave of unstable energy burst from his body. Aria shielded herself, but the force knocked her back.
"You came down here to find your brother," he said, his voice distorted now. "But the boy you're looking for melted away a long time ago."