Morning broke over the rebel camp like a quiet storm.
No alarms. No screams.
Just a silence that felt too sharp, like the moment before a blade falls.
Kael had vanished from the rafters before dawn. He needed distance. Time to think. But fate rarely gave him either.
Because she was already waiting.
---
The girl who had once pinned him to the ground stood beneath the dying tree outside the camp wall.
Dark braid. Sharp eyes. A scar down her jaw like a silver thread.
Her arms were crossed, and her expression read one thing clearly:
> "I know what you are."
---
Kael didn't speak. He didn't need to.
She stepped forward, kicking a loose rock aside.
"You don't belong here."
"Neither do you," he replied without looking.
Her brow twitched, but she didn't strike.
She studied him, gaze narrowing like a knife honing on a weakness.
---
"You weren't at the meetings. You weren't assigned. But somehow, you walk through camp like you've always been here."
Silence.
"You're not one of us. But you're not Empire either."
Still, Kael said nothing.
Then—
She reached into her coat and pulled something out.
A shard.
Obsidian black. Cracked and humming.
His eyes widened.
> A fragment of a Shadow Core.
> That's impossible… only Aserion's bound soldiers ever had one.
---
"You dropped this," she said, tossing it to him.
He caught it, but his hand trembled.
That fragment shouldn't exist outside the Empire's black citadel. It meant only one thing.
> She knew.
Or at least suspected.
---
"Who are you?" she asked.
Kael didn't lie.
He just let the wind answer for him.
But then she added, almost gently:
> "Lyra whispered a name in her sleep."
> "Kael."
He froze.
> "She never talks in her sleep. Ever."
> "Who is Kael, and why did she say it like her heart had been broken?"
---
Kael looked away.
But the shadows around him shifted—almost defensively.
"She doesn't remember," he said quietly. "And she shouldn't."
"Why?"
"Because the truth would destroy her."
---
The girl stepped closer. Her eyes, once guarded, now shone with a flicker of understanding… and grief.
"She was different before she died," she whispered. "Kinder. Brighter. Like she believed in something."
Kael flinched.
> I remember that Lyra.
The one who laughed at sunrise and saved me from execution.
The one who said, "You don't have to be what they made you."
---
"You knew her, didn't you?" the girl said.
Kael looked up. "I failed her."
"Then help her now."
"She wouldn't want my help."
"But she needs it."
---
For the first time, Kael saw more than suspicion in the girl's eyes.
He saw… trust.
Unearned. Fragile. But real.
---
"Tell me your name," he said.
She hesitated.
Then answered:
> "Riven."
> "I was Lyra's right hand before the fall."
> "And I've been waiting for someone like you to show up ever since."
---
Kael's voice was low.
"I'm not a savior."
"No," Riven said. "You're worse."
"But people like you are the ones who win wars."
---
[Shadow System Notice]
> New Key Character Identified: Riven Keth
Relationship Status: Watchful Ally
Anchor Link Possibility: [30%]
Role: Guardian of Memory
---
Kael tucked the Shadow Core shard into his cloak.
"If I stay here… I'll put all of you at risk."
Riven nodded. "Too late. You're already in her dreams."
"And when she remembers fully?"
"She'll hate you."
Kael didn't blink. "I can live with that."
---
But in truth?
He didn't know if he could.
---