The head burst—
—and Kael screamed.
“RUN!”
The word tore out of him raw and cracked, barely his own voice, swallowed immediately by noise.
Chaos detonated.
Guards shouted over one another. Someone screamed — high and shrill — and dropped where they stood, hands clamped over their ears. Kids surged in every direction at once, colliding, tripping, clawing past each other in blind terror.
Blood sprayed the dirt where the body fell.
Riven was already moving.
Kael ran with him.
The clearing dissolved into motion — boots pounding, bodies slamming shoulder to shoulder, breath ripping out of chests in panicked gasps. The carts loomed to the left, beasts rearing and screaming as handlers shouted and yanked reins too late to matter.
Christ vanished.
One moment he was there — eyes sharp, jaw set — and the next he wasn’t. No blur. No movement.
Just gone.
Kael registered it distantly, filed it away without understanding, because something else cut through the noise—
BOOM.
The sound was wrong.
Not a shout. Not metal on metal. Not magic.
A flat, concussive crack that punched the air and echoed off the city wall.
Kael twisted mid-stride.
A guard stood near one of the carts, holding something short and dark in both hands. Not a baton. Not a blade. He raised it—
BOOM.
A kid three strides ahead of Kael jerked violently.
There was a wet sound.
The kid collapsed backward, a hole punched clean through his chest, blood misting the air behind him.
Kael stumbled.
“What the fuck is that—?”
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Another crack.
Another body went down.
Kael’s brain struggled to keep up. That wasn’t cursed force. That wasn’t an ability. There was no buildup, no pressure, no warning.
Just death.
“SHOOT THEM!” someone shouted from behind the carts. “SHOOT EVERYONE THAT RUNS! THEY HAVE AN AWAKENED!”
More cracks.
The sound came faster now — staggered, overlapping — each one followed by screams or the sickening thud of bodies hitting dirt.
Kids scattered toward the trees.
Some froze.
Some fell and didn’t get back up.
Riven turned his head mid-run, eyes blazing.
Another guard ahead lifted his weapon—
Riven stared.
Focused.
The man’s head exploded in a spray of red and white, the body collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut.
Riven staggered immediately after, breath tearing from his lungs.
“Go!” he rasped. “GO—!”
Kael ran harder.
The forest was right there.
So close.
The dark line of trees surged toward them, branches clawing at the sky, mist rolling low across the ground. Kael’s lungs burned. His legs screamed. Fifty meters. Maybe sixty.
They could make it.
They could—
“KAEL!”
Denzel.
Kael snapped his head sideways.
Denzel was running parallel to him, face pale, eyes wide, terror etched deep enough it looked permanent. For a heartbeat their eyes met.
Then—
BOOM.
Denzel jerked forward violently.
His back exploded outward in a spray of blood.
He collapsed face-first into the dirt, skidding a full meter before going still.
Kael screamed.
“NO—! DAMMIT! FUCK—RUN! RUN YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!”
His throat shredded itself on the words.
More shots.
More bodies.
The sound of running feet thinned — fewer now. Kael risked a glance.
Ten.
Maybe ten kids still moving.
The rest were down — some screaming, some crawling, some motionless.
Then Riven screamed.
Not a shout.
Pain.
Kael whirled.
Riven stumbled, crashed to one knee, hands scrabbling at the dirt. Blood sprayed from his leg, dark and heavy, soaking his pants.
He’d been hit.
Kael’s heart stopped.
That weapon can hurt him—
The thought barely formed before Kael was moving, sprinting sideways toward Riven as more shots cracked past them, dirt erupting in sharp bursts around his feet.
Lights flared behind the carts.
More guards.
More weapons.
“FUCK—FUCK—”
Kael slid to Riven’s side, grabbed his shoulder—
Another crack.
Something tore past Kael’s ear.
Riven tried to stand and collapsed again, teeth bared in agony.
“Go,” he gasped. “Kael—go—!”
“No,” Kael snarled. “No. No. I’m not—”
The forest was right there.
Twenty meters.
Fifteen.
They were so close.
Another shot.
Another scream.
Kael saw the bullet coming.
He didn’t know how.
He just did.
Time stretched.
The world slowed to something thick and syrupy, sound dropping away until all Kael could hear was his own heartbeat hammering inside his skull.
He felt it then.
Not pressure.
Not pain.
A pull.
Something opened in his chest — not tearing, not breaking — expanding outward in a silent rush, like air flooding into lungs that had never been used before.
The space around him changed.
Ten meters.
Maybe more.
He felt everything inside it.
Movement. Direction. Intent.
The bullets entered it—
—and slowed.
They dragged, like they were pushing through deep water, metal screaming faintly as their speed bled away.
Kael reached out.
Not with his hands.
With will.
The bullets dropped.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
They hit the dirt at his feet, harmless.
Kael gasped.
Something was being pulled into him — not heat, not pain — flow. Energy streaming inward, sharp and cold and alive.
He inhaled hard.
The world surged back toward speed.
Riven was right there.
Three steps away.
Kael moved.
And for the first time since the gate opened—
—the bullets could no longer touch him.
