The crowd roared in unison, fists raised high, banners fluttering like defiant flames in the breeze. Kael stood on the edges of the makeshift rally, heart pounding as if echoing the thunder of voices around him. He had never been among so many who dared to stand openly against the Syndicate. It was electric. Dangerous. Alive.
The woman on the platform raised her hand and the square fell into silence. Her scarf had been lowered, revealing sharp cheekbones and lips pressed into a hard, determined line. Her eyes swept over the crowd like a blade searching for cracks.
"I am Seris Vey," she declared. "Once a scientist in the Syndicate's Technomagical Division. Now… your voice, your blade, your shield."
A collective murmur stirred. Kael's eyes widened. Seris Vey? That name was whispered like a ghost through back alleys and black markets. The scientist who had vanished after defying the High Council. Rumor had it she tried to merge magic with machine—and was branded a heretic for it.
"I know what they do in their towers," she continued, fire crackling behind her words. "I helped build the machines that shackle your families, the weapons that hunt your children, the spells that silence your cries. I built them… and now I will tear them down."
Kael felt the crystal shard in his pouch grow warmer, almost in agreement with her words. Was it reacting to her? Or to the energy in the crowd?
Seris stepped forward, her voice softer now. "We need more than swords and courage. We need a spark. A new fire. The old ways—of pure magic, or pure machine—have failed. But something new is rising. Something that can break the cycle. We've seen it. Felt it."
Her eyes locked onto Kael.
It wasn't just a glance. It was as if she saw him—through the crowd, past the fear and dirt, into his very soul. For a heartbeat, Kael couldn't breathe.
"You. Boy." Her voice rang out. "Step forward."
The crowd parted like water around him. Kael froze, the shard in his pouch flaring hot. He didn't want attention. He didn't want to be known.
But something inside him moved his feet.
He walked to the base of the platform, heart hammering, senses ablaze. Seris stared down at him with a curious intensity, then gestured for him to climb up. His hands trembled as he grabbed the railing and ascended the steps.
"What's your name?" she asked quietly as he reached her side.
"Kael."
She nodded, eyes flicking to the bulge in his pouch. "You found something, didn't you?"
Kael hesitated. The weight of a thousand watching eyes pressed down on him. "A shard," he murmured. "I don't know what it is… but it speaks to me."
Seris extended her hand. "Show us."
Kael pulled the crystal from the pouch. It pulsed faintly in his palm, glowing with a warm golden-red hue like embers in a dying fire. The crowd murmured in awe. Seris leaned close, her breath catching.
"This…" she whispered, "is Echofire. A fragment of the Source."
"The… Source?"
She nodded. "Not a relic. Not a weapon. A living convergence. Where the last breath of magic meets the first spark of quantum code. You've bonded with it."
Kael blinked. "I didn't mean to."
"No one ever means to find the truth," Seris said. "But it finds us anyway."
The moment stretched thin, taut as a bowstring. Then—a tremor. Kael stumbled, catching himself on Seris's arm.
Screams erupted as a boom echoed through the square. Dust sprayed into the air. From the rooftops and alleyways, black-armored Syndicate Enforcers began to descend.
"Scatter!" Seris shouted. "They found us!"
The crowd broke like shattered glass. Kael barely had time to react before Seris shoved him toward a narrow passage at the back of the platform.
"This way!" she snapped. "You have to get out. You're carrying something they'll kill for!"
Kael turned to run, but froze. A soldier stood at the mouth of the alley, leveling a shock lance at them.
Without thinking, Kael raised the shard.
A surge exploded from his palm.
Not flame. Not lightning. Something stranger—threads of glowing circuitry fused with molten energy, lashing outward like a living whip. The soldier screamed as his lance short-circuited and the walls cracked from the force.
Kael stared at his hand, stunned. The shard was no longer dormant. It had awakened.
Seris grabbed his arm. "You just confirmed everything I feared. You're not just a carrier, Kael. You're a Conduit."
He could barely hear her over the ringing in his ears. "What does that mean?"
"It means the Source chose you. And now the Syndicate will do anything to dissect you."
She pulled him down a flight of steps that led beneath the city. The tunnel was old, lined with broken sigils and rusted rails. They ran through the dark, Seris lighting the way with a device that flickered with unstable energy.
"You said the Source was alive," Kael panted. "What is it really?"
Seris paused in a chamber that looked like a forgotten nexus of the city's ancient roots. Pipes hummed faintly. Symbols of both magic and machine glowed on the walls.
"Before the Divide," she said, "before the Syndicate, before the Towers… there was a civilization that mastered both forces. They didn't separate magic and technology. They unified them. That fusion became the Source. But something went wrong. A war, a rupture… no one remembers exactly. But fragments of that power were lost—scattered. We call those shards Echofire."
Kael touched the crystal. "And now it's in me."
Seris met his eyes. "Yes. And now you're part of something much bigger."
The walls shook again. A rumble rolled through the chamber like the roar of an approaching storm.
"They'll breach the tunnels soon," Seris said. "We need to move."
"Where are we going?"
"To the last safe zone," she said grimly. "And then… to the Vault. If you're going to survive, Kael, you need to learn what you are. What the Echofire truly wants. And what it means to become its wielder."
They vanished into the dark, leaving behind the broken echoes of revolution—and the first true flare of rebellion the Syndicate had feared in decades.
But deep beneath the city, in those long-forgotten tunnels, the fire beneath the ashes had begun to burn.