Zantaru Cliffs had returned to stillness.
Not silence, there was too much tension lingering in the air for that, but the kind of quiet that comes after a storm passes. Smoke curled from singed grass and blackened stone. The air still buzzed faintly with leftover energy, as if the storm was watching, waiting to be summoned again.
Kazi wiped sweat from her brow, the edges of her curls damp with rain and fire. Her arms still glowed faintly with the remnants of her mark's activation. The amber light had dimmed, but the heat in her chest hadn't faded. It sat there now like a coal, smoldering and alert.
Dakarai lowered his hand slowly, lightning fading from his fingertips like mist from morning air. He turned toward Kazi and Rhazir, his expression guarded, his energy sharp.
"Name's Dakarai," he repeated.
Kazi offered a nod, still catching her breath. "Kazi."
"Yeah," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I figured. The mark kind of gives it away."
Now that the lightning had calmed, she could see him more clearly. He was tall and lean, wiry like someone used to climbing and motion. His clothes, once likely a set of city leathers, were worn and ripped at the edges, caked with mud and soot. His Volt Line mark was still visible, etched across his left forearm in jagged arcs, glowing just beneath the skin like faint circuitry.
"How old are you?" she asked.
"Twenty," he replied, glancing at her with a mix of caution and curiosity. "Same as you, right?"
"Almost twenty-one," Kazi said.
Rhazir remained quiet, standing off to the side as if listening to something only he could hear. His Eclipse mark had receded, the shadows that clung to his boots retreating into the folds of his coat. He watched the horizon, not the conversation.
Dakarai finally looked at him. "Who's he?"
"Rhazir," Kazi answered. "He's from the Eclipse Line."
Dakarai gave a slow nod, like he'd heard the name before but couldn't place it.
"And this place, Zantaru," Kazi continued, her eyes sweeping over the charred clearing. "You've been here the whole time?"
"For weeks," Dakarai said. "Ever since the lightning found me."
"The lightning found you?" Kazi repeated.
He looked up at the clouds, now thinning, letting pale blue light through the cracks. "I didn't ask for this. But it came anyway. Hit me like it was aiming. I should've died."
"But you didn't," Rhazir said suddenly, his voice cool. "Which means it chose you."
Dakarai's gaze narrowed. "Chose me for what?"
Kazi stepped forward. "We don't know yet. But you're part of something bigger. Something that started a long time ago."
She recounted everything she had seen since her own awakening: the resonance in Ashano, the Ember girl, the pillar with its glowing map, the Lines she'd never heard of until now.
Dakarai listened without interruption. By the end, the buzz of energy around him had quieted, though his expression remained guarded.
"So this… Mark of Azibo," he said. "It's some kind of legacy?"
"It's more than that," Rhazir replied, walking toward them. "It's a convergence. A key to something older than the cities, older than the Lines themselves."
"And now it's moving again," Kazi added. "Through us."
Dakarai crossed his arms, lightning flickering at his wrists. "Then what do we do next?"
Rhazir gestured toward the northern edge of the valley. A narrow path wound upward, toward higher cliffs and forests beyond.
"We leave Zantaru," he said. "Head to the next resonance site. The Volt Line was only the beginning."
"And what about those shadow things?" Dakarai asked. "They weren't just random. They were looking for me. Probably looking for all of us."
"We'll find out," Rhazir said. "But not here. This place has already given what it was meant to."
Kazi looked around the broken clearing once more. Zantaru felt quieter now, but not empty. The earth here still remembered what had happened.
"Let's go," she said.
As they walked, lightning crackled faintly above them. Not threatening. Just watching.