The raven's cry still echoed across the wasteland when Kira's trained eyes caught the movement in the sky above them.
"That's not just a scout," she said sharply, her hand moving instinctively to her weapons. "Look up—behind it!"
Shadow soldiers plummeted from the heavens like falling stars made of malevolent night, their forms coalescing from wisps of darkness into solid, deadly shapes as they dropped toward the camp with terrifying speed.
"Incoming!" Gareth roared, his warrior's instincts kicking in as he registered the coordinated aerial assault. "They're coming from above!"
The shadow soldiers hit the ground around their camp with supernatural grace, their forms writhing and shifting like smoke given malevolent purpose. They moved with unnatural coordination, surrounding the camp in perfect silence, their void-black weapons gleaming with an oily light that hurt to look at directly.
"Defensive positions!" Gareth roared, his voice cutting through the sudden chaos as he drew his sword. The steel rang against the frigid air, a sound of defiance against the encroaching darkness.
The camp erupted into motion. Finnian's hand found the blade's hilt without conscious thought, the weapon practically leaping into his grip. Beside him, Zara's hands began to glow with crackling energy, purple sparks dancing between her fingers as she prepared her battle magic.
"Kira, with me!" Gareth commanded, positioning himself to face the largest concentration of shadow soldiers advancing from the north. "We'll hold the main line!"
On the opposite side of camp, Seraphina and Lyralei stood beside each other, ancient words of power already spilling from their lips as they began weaving protective barriers around their position.
A trio of shadow soldiers flowed toward Finnian like liquid night, their weapons raised to strike. Time seemed to slow as the blade sang in his hands, guiding his movements with supernatural precision. He parried the first attack, spun to deflect the second, and on the third—
Something awakened.
Power erupted from deep within Finnian's core, not the controlled enhancement he'd experienced during training, but something vast and terrible. His eyes blazed with golden fire as magic older than empires surged through his veins. The blade became a conduit for forces that had slumbered since the world was young.
The shadow soldiers didn't just dissolve—they were obliterated, their forms scattered to the cosmic winds by power that felt disturbingly familiar to anyone who had studied the old texts. Divine wrath, untempered by mortal restraint.
"By the Mother's Blood," Gareth breathed, momentarily forgetting his own battle as he witnessed the display. "What is that boy?"
But Finnian wasn't entirely present anymore. Something else looked out through his eyes. His sword movements became inhuman in their perfection, each strike carrying the weight of absolute judgment.
Another wave of shadow soldiers surged toward him, and Finnian raised his free hand. Golden light erupted from his palm. The creatures caught in its path didn't just die—they were unmade, their very essence burned away by power that recognized no earthly limitations.
"Finnian!" Zara shouted, but her voice seemed to come from very far away. She hurled a bolt of purple energy at a shadow soldier that had been flanking him, but even as she fought, her eyes kept returning to her transformed companion. "Something's wrong—he's not himself!"
On the other side of the battlefield, Seraphina felt the surge of divine power like a physical blow. Her celestial nature recognized what was happening, and the recognition filled her with terror.
"Ancient power," Lyralei whispered, her academic mind racing to categorize what she was witnessing. "Pre-Imperial, maybe pre-human. But how—"
Her question was answered as more shadow soldiers materialized, drawn by the massive magical signature Finnian was radiating. They came not to attack, but to test—to measure the extent of this unexpected power source.
Finnian turned toward them, and for a moment, his friends saw something that had never been meant for mortal eyes. Divine wrath in its purest form, untempered by compassion or restraint. He raised his blade, and the weapon itself seemed to recoil from what he had become.
"Enough," Seraphina commanded, her voice carrying the authority of her celestial heritage. She abandoned her own battle and moved toward Finnian. "Finnian, you have to stop—now!"
But the thing looking out through Finnian's eyes barely acknowledged her. It was focused on the shadow soldiers, on the threat they represented, on the need to eliminate that threat with absolute finality. Power continued to build around him, reality itself beginning to warp under the strain.
"If you don't stop," Seraphina said, landing beside him and placing a hand on his shoulder, "you'll burn yourself out from the inside. Whatever's awakening in you—it's too much for you to contain."
For a moment, Finnian's eyes flickered—human awareness struggling against divine possession. "I… I can't control it," he gasped, his voice his own but strained with the effort of containing forces beyond mortal comprehension.
"Then don't try to control it," Seraphina said urgently. "Let it go. Release the power before it consumes you."
The shadow soldiers, sensing the fluctuation in his power, began to retreat. Their test was complete—they had measured what they came to measure. As they melted back into the darkness from which they'd emerged, Finnian finally allowed the golden fire to fade.
He collapsed to his knees in the snow, his blade clattering beside him as exhaustion crashed over him like a physical weight. The divine presence that had possessed him was gone, leaving only echoes of its terrible power.
"What was that?" Kira demanded, approaching cautiously with her weapons still drawn. "That wasn't magic—that was something else entirely."
Seraphina knelt beside Finnian, her celestial senses examining him carefully.
Finnian looked up at everyone, fear and confusion warring in his expression. "I didn't mean for that to happen. Something just… took over."
"That's the danger," Seraphina warned, her voice heavy with the weight of terrible knowledge. "Power without wisdom is chaos incarnate. If you keep channeling that kind of force without learning to control it, it will consume you. You'll become a vessel for something that views mortal life as insignificant."
"I didn't mean for that to happen," Finnian said desperately. "Help me understand what's happening to me."
"This wasn't random," she said, her eyes scanning the now-empty battlefield. "Whoever sent them knew exactly how to trigger you. They came here to test your power, Finnian—to see what you really are."
Finnian's blood ran cold as the implication sank in. "You mean they knew this would happen to me?"
"They were counting on it," Seraphina confirmed grimly. "Which means our enemy knows far more about what you are than i anticipated."
******
The shadow soldiers were gone, but they had accomplished their mission. In the darkness beyond the camp's perimeter, their essence flowed back to their creator like rivers of night returning to the sea.
Miles away, in the ruins of an ancient fortress, Kael Vorthak stood motionless as the shadows whispered their report. His obsidian mask reflected the dim light that entered the room as he absorbed every detail of the encounter—the boy's transformation, the divine fire that had burned his soldiers to nothing, the terrible beauty of power awakening.
Behind the mask, his lips curved in something that might have been a smile.
"So," he murmured to the darkness that surrounded him like a living thing, "the last scion of the Celestial Throne finally reveals himself. How… poetic."
"Did you think you could hide from me forever, young godling?" he asked the wind, knowing his words would carry across the wasteland to where his quarry cowered. "Did you think that sleeping power would remain dormant?"
His chains sang their death-song as he turned toward the north, toward the camp where his target waited.
He had never been more eager for a challenge.