The Imperial Healing Chambers were silent, heavy with enchantments and faint echoes of ancient chants. High above, glowing runes pulsed with slow rhythm, like a slumbering heartbeat.
Lucien Thorne opened his eyes first.
It was morning. Too bright, too warm—but somehow familiar.
His vision flickered, trying to adjust. His body screamed, every fiber burned, and his mana felt like a drained ocean. But he was alive. That was the first surprise.
"…What in the stars—" his voice rasped.
A healer rushed to his side, bowing with trembling reverence. "Your Highness. You've awakened."
He blinked. "How long?"
"Seventeen days, Your Highness."
Lucien let his head fall back. Seventeen days. Seventeen days since the duel that should have ended them both.
"…Kael?"
The healer hesitated. "Still unconscious. But… breathing."
Lucien closed his eyes and let out a small, dry laugh. "He really didn't die, huh…"
He remembered the final moment: the sun erupting in his hand, Kael's slash tearing through space. The meeting of magic and aura—two forces that should never coexist—splintering the world around them.
It hadn't been a duel.
It had been war.
And they were just boys.
Evening fell.
And with it, Kael Riven stirred.
No sunlight. No fanfare. No healers at his bedside.
Only silence—and the faint trace of something warm on his lips. A taste, long gone. Bitter. Ancient. Miraculous.
His eyes opened to shadows.
Pain welcomed him like an old friend, but less cruel this time. His lungs expanded. His heart still beat. The room felt... strange. Not like the forest caves, or slave cages, or the cold wild.
And then, memory crashed into him.
The fight. The fire. The sound of his ribs breaking under the impact. The sting of his own aura fracturing. The moment he knew he had to win—not for glory, not for rage—
But to be seen.
Then… a voice.
Soft. Almost a dream.
"Next time… don't die just to prove a point."
His breath caught.
It hadn't been a hallucination.
Someone had been there. Close enough to touch. To whisper.
Kael stared at the ceiling, unmoving. His aura flickered faintly beneath his skin, searching, reaching.
"…Who are you?" he whispered.
Not to the world. Not to Lucien. Not even to himself.
But to the girl with the voice.
The one who saved him.
The world outside was not so quiet.
News of their simultaneous awakening erupted across the Empire like a divine omen.
Nobles talked in hushed awe. Street bards sang of the duel as if it were prophecy.
But no voice was louder than the question echoing through every kingdom:
Who is Kael Riven?
Seventeen years old. No documented past. No noble lineage. No magic.
And yet—
He awakened Violet Aura, a color unknown in martial records.
He stood against Lucien Thorne, Crown Prince of the Empire, wielder of high-tier fire magic and direct descendant of the Solar Line.
And he didn't fall.
Neither won.
Neither lost.
That kind of battle? That kind of clash? It shouldn't be possible.
Not even veteran Sword Saints or Archmages could've mirrored that duel's scale. Aura and mana weren't supposed to mix.
They didn't. They couldn't. It was common sense.
Yet the duel had proven that rule shattered.
Now the people asked—
Is Kael Riven human?
And if he is… then what is Lucien Thorne?
Selene didn't answer.
She merely walked through the palace garden that night, moonlight catching the edge of her cloak.
She had stolen the elixir. Risked disgrace. And for what?
Because when she saw him—broken, alone, left without even a servant at his side—something twisted in her chest.
She didn't think. She just acted.
"Next time… don't die just to prove a point."
Her whisper had been a selfish one.
And now, knowing he had survived…
She regretted none of it.
Kael didn't know the voice.
But he remembered the warmth in the words.
And he would find her.
Even if he had to tear the Empire apart to match a whisper to a heartbeat.