The photograph haunted Elias all night.
He sat on the edge of his bed, elbows resting on his knees, the city lights outside painting his face in fractured amber. The picture—crisp, recent—lay on the table beside him. Kian.
The boy stood stiffly in front of a weather-worn garage in the southern end of the city, wiping grease from his hands with a torn rag. Nothing about him screamed power. He looked ordinary. Overlooked. Forgotten.
Just like Elias once had.
But the eyes… those silver-flecked eyes told a different story.
Kian Crane, though he didn't yet know it.
Elias reached into his shirt and pressed his fingers to the pendant against his chest. It pulsed—just once—when he thought of the name. That was all the confirmation he needed.
He wasn't the last.
And that changed everything.
The next morning, Elias stood at the edge of a cracked concrete lot in the city's industrial south. A neon sign above the garage flickered, reading "Rex & Son Auto Repair." It was a dying corner of the city—too far from downtown for new investment, too old for developers to bother. The air smelled of oil and heat. Engines rumbled from inside the open bay.
Elias waited.
He didn't barge in. He didn't announce himself.
Instead, he leaned against the wall across the street, watching.
Kian eventually emerged, wiping sweat from his brow. He was lean, wiry, with sleeves rolled up and oil smudged across one cheek. He moved like a man used to working hard with little thanks—cautious but quick, glancing over his shoulder more often than most.
Survival was baked into him.
Good.
Elias watched for another twenty minutes before stepping off the curb and crossing the street.
Kian spotted him immediately. His hand moved toward a wrench on the workbench. Elias raised his hands slightly—non-threatening.
"Not here to hurt you," he said.
Kian's brows furrowed. "Then why are you standing in my shadow?"
"Because I'm not the only one looking for you."
Kian paused. "Who are you?"
Elias didn't answer right away. Instead, he stepped closer and pulled the pendant from under his shirt, letting the light catch the etched crescent moon and flame.
Kian's eyes locked onto it.
Something shifted in his expression. Not understanding—just instinct. A pulse of familiarity.
"What is that?" he asked.
Elias lowered his voice. "A symbol of a name you don't know you carry."
Kian scoffed. "You got the wrong guy. My name's Kian Vance."
"Your blood says otherwise."
Kian stiffened. "What the hell does that mean?"
Elias reached into his pocket and retrieved the scroll Junessa had given him. He held it out.
"This is your family. The name Vance is a cover. Your real name—your true name—is Crane."
Kian didn't take the scroll. He stared at Elias like he was crazy.
"Crane? That's some noble house thing? From what—centuries ago?"
"From a legacy wiped off the map by the same people trying to erase you."
Kian hesitated.
"I don't know who you are, man, but I've survived by not trusting people who show up with weird symbols and history lectures."
Elias nodded slowly. "I was you, once."
That stopped Kian cold.
"I was the forgotten one. Raised with nothing. Mocked by the family I married into. Treated like I didn't belong. But I carried the same fire. The same blood."
Kian's fingers tightened around the rag in his hand.
"You're saying I'm part of… whatever this is?"
"I'm saying you're not alone," Elias said. "And the people who want you erased are already moving."
As if on cue, a sharp pop cracked through the air.
Gunfire.
Elias's body moved before thought. He slammed into Kian, knocking them both behind a rusted workbench as two more shots tore through the garage's front window.
"Back entrance!" Kian shouted.
They ran.
Elias covered the rear, dispatching the first masked attacker with two swift strikes—Crane technique flowing through him like instinct. Kian gawked at the fluid motion, breath ragged, fear and adrenaline lacing his voice.
"Who are you?!"
"Your last chance," Elias muttered.
They burst into the alley and disappeared into the mist, footsteps echoing behind them.
Twenty minutes later, they sat inside a safehouse Elias had prepared in advance—a quiet apartment above an old print shop in the East District.
Kian's hand shook slightly as he drank from a cracked mug.
"They were going to kill me," he whispered.
Elias sat across from him. "They were going to erase you."
"Because of this Crane blood?"
"Yes."
Kian looked up at him. "So what now?"
Elias leaned forward. "Now? You decide. You can walk away, pretend this never happened, and go back to being forgotten…"
He paused.
"Or you can remember who you are—and take back what was stolen from us all."
Kian didn't answer.
But the fire in his eyes… it had begun to burn.