Chapter 16: Shadows That Protect
The world hadn't decided what Andrew was yet.
Some still called him a threat.
Others, a walking curse.
But in the weeks before the final trial, something strange began to happen.
People started asking for him.
It started with a fire.
A merchant district on the lower side of Caedros had erupted into chaos—an alchemical explosion triggered by smugglers trying to siphon raw mana from beneath the city.
By the time the fire mages arrived, half the ward was already engulfed.
But before they could act, someone was already inside.
A black cloak.
A silver sword.
And shadows that twisted into staircases, shields, and bridges of smoke.
Andrew didn't save everyone.
But he saved enough.
The nobles said nothing.
But the people… they started talking.
"The boy from the Depths."
"He pulled a girl out of the flames with his bare hands."
"He's not a shadow. He's our sword."
And from then on, things shifted.
A week later, he stopped a runaway mana beast in the Midward Market. Not by killing it—but by calming it, using Ashren to anchor its unstable mana. The guards arrived too late.
He'd already left.
Word spread again.
Even his fellow champions noticed.
Kaelira watched him in silence one night, eyes narrowed as he spoke to a child who had asked him to bless a toy sword.
"You could disappear," she said. "Go full shadow. No one would stop you."
Andrew shrugged. "That's what he would've done. The other me."
"And what are you?"
He looked at his reflection in Ashren's blade.
"Trying to be better."
But peace never lasts.
One night, under a moon split by clouds, Mihai found him training alone, surrounded by a circle of slowly dancing shadows—figures shaped like soldiers, flickering echoes of Andrew's past-life army.
They weren't dangerous.
But they were there.
Andrew sat in the middle of them, breathing steady, hands open—not controlling them.
Listening to them.
"Your power's changing," Mihai said. "You're not bending it anymore. It's bending with you."
Andrew nodded. "I think it wants something."
"What?"
"To protect."
That same night, Lysara stood atop the Tower of Chains, watching the city below.
Behind her, a voice spoke:
"He's becoming something else."
Lysara didn't look back.
"No. He's becoming what he always should have been."
And deep in the sealed halls below Caedros, Thal'Ruun's eyes opened fully.
"A hero wears the shadow's crown… and the gods begin to tremble."