The air inside the rebel war room was thick—thicker than the smoke rising from the fire pits or the silence pressing down on the crowd.
Valen stood at the center of the makeshift council chamber, the fractured emblem of the rebellion painted in faded red on the wall behind him. The blood-colored Mark on his arm pulsed under his coat like it had a heartbeat of its own.
They were all staring at him.
Dozens of them—fighters, scouts, engineers. Most had survived horrors few could imagine. Some had lost families, friends, entire hometowns. But what they saw now… wasn't a savior.
It was a threat.
"He's one of them now."
The words came from a tall, broad-shouldered man near the front—Garn. A respected field leader, twice-scarred, and once someone Valen had saved during a Riftborn ambush. His hand now hovered near the handle of a blade.
"I'm not," Valen said calmly.
"Then prove it," Garn snapped. "Explain what happened during that ritual. Your Echo twisted. You changed. You heard voices."
Valen didn't flinch. "I heard a voice. It didn't control me."
Kira, standing to the right of the room, didn't speak yet. Her arms were crossed, eyes unreadable.
Lira stepped up beside Valen. "He saved us. Again. Whatever happened, it didn't break him."
Garn scoffed. "And what if it does tomorrow? Or the next day?"
A ripple of murmurs spread through the room.
Kira finally stepped forward. Her boots echoed across the floor like hammer strikes. "We have a duty to survival. Not blind trust. If Valen's connection to the Echo mutates again and he turns on us, it could mean the end of this resistance."
She turned to face him directly.
"I'm calling a trial by combat."
Valen narrowed his eyes. "You want to fight me."
"No," she said. "I want to see who's still in control."
—
The arena was nothing more than a circle of broken stone between the barricades. An old storm drain curved along one edge, rusted and half-collapsed. The rebels gathered quickly. Word had already spread.
Trial by combat was an old protocol—meant for disputes between leaders when the cause of tension threatened group stability. No one had invoked it in years.
Kira stepped into the ring, drawing her twin blades.
Valen exhaled slowly, tugging the glove from his marked arm. The skin beneath glowed faintly—not hot, not painful. Just… alive. His Echo curled in his chest like a coiled storm.
"You don't want to do this," he said.
She didn't respond. Only lunged.
Fast.
Steel hissed through the air, her first strike arcing toward his side.
Valen raised a shield of shadow just in time—the Echo hardened into a thin wall of dark light. The blades scraped off with a metallic screech.
He rolled back, then countered with a pulse—his Echo surged and shot forward like a whip.
Kira flipped over it, landing low, slicing upward.
Valen barely dodged.
The crowd didn't cheer or boo. They watched in silence. Judging. Measuring.
Kira came at him again—no hesitation, no mercy. She wanted him to lose control. To prove that whatever was speaking inside him had its claws in too deep.
But Valen didn't give in.
Instead of striking with the chaos inside him, he focused it. Compressed it.
He raised one hand, and a single short blade of shadow emerged—clean, efficient, and stable.
She moved to parry—but it was a feint.
He vanished, short-warping behind her with a crack of static air. His newly awakened Echo skill—a blink step.
The moment caught her off-guard. He could've ended it.
He didn't.
Instead, he placed the blade gently at her throat and whispered, "I'm still me."
She froze.
And slowly, stepped back.
The arena remained still for a moment longer—before someone at the back murmured, "He spared her…"
Garn lowered his hand from his weapon, looking less certain now.
Kira looked at Valen. "You didn't hesitate."
"I didn't need to," he replied.
She nodded once, slowly.
And the trial ended.
—
Later that night, as the wind whistled through the upper levels of the ruins, Kira approached Valen where he sat watching the horizon.
"Why didn't you strike?" she asked.
Valen didn't look at her. "Because if I lose myself… it won't be you I hurt. It'll be all of them."
She sat beside him, sighing.
"The council accepts your control. For now."
"That doesn't mean they trust me."
"No," she said. "But they respect what you did."
He nodded, the shadows of the night crawling across his face.
"The voice inside me," he said after a pause, "it didn't speak during the fight. It watched."
"Is that better or worse?"
"I don't know."
The sky above flickered with distant Riftborn lights—fractured lightning bleeding across clouds like a storm trying to tear open reality again.
He turned to her. "But I'm still fighting. And I'm not alone."
Kira stood.
"Then let's make sure they know that."
And with that, she left him in silence—alone, but not abandoned.
Not anymore.