Thalen awoke to the sharp chill of morning, his body aching as if he had been forged anew in fire and cooled in ice. Ash clung to his skin like second flesh, and a fine mist hung in the crater that had become the Trial Basin. The remnants of yesterday's storm of aura and agony still echoed in the air.
His fingers twitched, reaching instinctively for the blade that had hovered in light just before he lost consciousness. It lay beside him now, still and dormant. But different.
The steel shimmered faintly with veins of crimson and cobalt, a fusion of his two auras Blade and Tyrant etched into the blade's very grain. The hilt felt warmer to the touch, heavier not in weight but in presence, like it now carried part of his soul.
He knelt slowly, grasping the blade with both hands. The moment he touched it, a quiet hum threaded through his bones, like a whisper in a forgotten language. This was no longer just a weapon. It was the first fragment of his becoming.
