The dressing room was quiet—unnaturally so.
Kael stood before the mirror, guitar resting beside the chair, the heavy jacket of his stage costume still slung over the armrest. His breath came steady, but beneath his skin, the ice was restless again.
He gripped the edge of the sink.
The familiar chill started at his spine and crawled outward, blooming in his veins like frost on glass. His fingers trembled—not with fear, but anticipation. Or maybe... warning.
He pulled back his shirt just enough to see the skin over his shoulder.
The tattoo.The one only he could see.The ancient sword, etched in glacial blue.
It pulsed. Once. Like it heard the music already.
Kael's jaw tightened.
"You've been louder lately," he muttered.
A knock snapped him out of it. It was Lyra.
"We're on in five," she said from behind the door.
He exhaled slowly. "Coming."
Throwing on the jacket, Kael slung the guitar back over his shoulder and gave his reflection one last glance. The boy looking back at him didn't feel like a regular singer anymore. Not tonight.
Something else had arrived with the moonlight.
And as he walked down the hallway toward the stage, his boots echoing against the floor, he swore he saw the hallway lights flicker—not from power failure… but from a shift in fate.
The concert hall roared with anticipation. Lights danced across the crowd like fireflies, but all Rhea could focus on was how tightly Elena was gripping her arm.
"I'm dying. I'm literally dying."
"You said that fifteen times," Rhea muttered, eyeing the sleek stage ahead. "You're still breathing."
"Only because Kael hasn't appeared yet. When he does, I might scream loud enough to summon ghosts."
The lights suddenly dipped. A hush swept through the crowd like a shared heartbeat.
Then—A single note.
The kind that buzzed through bone and made silence feel like a choice.
Blue light burst across the stage.
And Kael emerged from the shadow.
Guitar slung low, his presence sharper than any spotlight. Beside him, Lyra glided out in a shimmering white outfit that caught every flicker of light. Their eyes met just before the first lyric, and—
The world cracked open.
Rhea blinked.
It wasn't just music. It was energy—raw, haunting, ancient. Each chord Kael played left trails of frost in the air. Lyra's voice, golden and echoing, danced like threads of light trying to hold it all together.
And suddenly, her chest ached.
Not with fear, but recognition.
She didn't know the song. She'd never heard these lyrics.But her soul remembered.
Images flashed behind her eyes—A blade frozen in time.A hall of shattered stars.And him, always him… eyes of ice, calling her by a name she didn't know.
"Rhea?" Elena nudged her.
But Rhea couldn't speak. She wasn't even sure she was breathing.
Because Kael had turned toward the crowd.
And for one impossible second—his gaze met hers.
The air snapped. Her ears rang. And her heart whispered:
"You've found him."
Deep in the mountain's shadow, where the ruins of a forgotten temple slumbered beneath vines and ash, an old man crouched beside a weathered altar. His breath fogged in the chill, despite the flickering flame in the priest's brass lantern.
The temple priest, younger than the ruin he served, gently unrolled a fragile scroll across the stone surface.
"The signs have started," he whispered. "Unnatural weather. Dreams. Lights in the skies."
The old man's fingers tightened on the edge of the altar. "The Vein of Eternity is waking. The gem must be near."
The priest nodded. "They'll begin to surface now… the gifted ones. Elemental bloodlines, chosen across time. We must find them."
A beat passed in silence as the wind howled through the broken archways.
The old man's voice dropped low. "They think it's myth. But the gem exists. Whoever possesses it—"
"—holds eternal power," the priest finished. "The others want it too. They always have."
The old man's eyes narrowed. "Then we must be faster. Before greed finds it first."
The priest began folding the scroll again, pausing. "And… you're certain that the gem alone is the key?"
The man hesitated—just for a breath. Then, he nodded."That's all there is."
But far behind them, hidden in the mural stone…A carving lay beneath centuries of dust—A sword, etched in shadow beside the gem, long forgotten by all but fate itself.
Rael's pov
The fire curled around him—Silent. Relentless.
He stood in a crumbling throne room, ruined by time and betrayal. Shattered symbols littered the ground, and at the center of it all, the gem hovered midair, glowing a dark crimson.
Alive.
It pulsed, and something inside him clenched. His breath caught.
"Power comes with a price,"whispered the wind."The gem remembers everything."
He stepped forward—and the shadows around the gem screeched, forming twisted, broken faces of people long gone. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
And then he saw it:
His own reflection—chained to frost, eyes burning blue, tattoo across his chest glowing like ice reborn.
He screamed—
And woke up.
Rael gasped, sitting up in bed, sweat streaking his brow. His fingers clutched his shirt—already slipping it aside to stare down at the tattoo etched over his heart.
A jagged sword.Wrapped in swirling frost.Glowing faintly. Alive.
And then—just for a second—it flickered, like it was reaching for someone.
Rhea's pov
She ran barefoot across scorched stone, moonlight reflecting off the dead forest around her. At the edge of it—a sword stood alone.
It wasn't waiting.It was warning.
Ancient runes blazed along its hilt, and as Rhea reached for it, wind rushed around her, whispering:
"One sealed it to protect the world…One broke it to end it."
Her fingers brushed the steel—and pain unlike anything she'd known jolted through her. Behind her eyelids, flames rose. A masked man loomed.
And a whisper came again:
"You carry royal blood. But do you carry the courage?"
Her tattoo—hidden beneath her shoulder—lit up.
A sword encircled by flame and earth.Glowing. Crying out.
And she woke up, gasping.
Rhea sat up in her bed, clutching her shoulder.
The mark was still warm. And somehow…it didn't feel like it was glowing because of her.
It felt like someone else—somewhere—was calling back.