EPILOGUE - Homecoming
1456 Words
EDGAR KAINE - POV
It’s been six months since my rehab.
Six months since the world decided the story was over.
Syl might think I’ve lost. That I broke. That whatever war we were fighting ended the moment he stood in the sun and let them cheer his name.
That’s the problem with people like him.
They believe victory makes things finished.
I don’t know how to lose.
I never learned. I never needed to.
I never trusted Rhykkal either.
Not when he answered my call. Not when he stepped onto Earth with the Vaelcarins behind him like a procession of inevitability. And certainly not when he started speaking less like a conqueror and more like a king.
I didn’t bring him here to rule.
I brought him here to correct an error.
Syl was never meant to survive his awakening. The prophecy was the ultimate tool to e*****e these people. Earth didn’t need a symbol. It needed order. It needed an end.
Rhykkal saw something different the moment he stepped in.
Earth wasn’t a problem to him.
It was an opportunity.
A case arrived with him.
Human-sized. Seamless. Vaelcarin design so refined it felt less manufactured and more… intentional. He never treated it like cargo. Never let it out of sight.
Sometimes he would just stand near it.
Not guarding it.
Considering it.
I asked him once what was inside.
He smiled.
Not the kind of smile men give when they’re amused — the kind they give when they’re certain.
“A solution,” he said.
“A future without weakness.”
He never opened it.
He didn’t need to.
That’s when I understood something important.
Rhykkal didn’t believe in tools.
He believed in outcomes.
He kept talking about the perfect solider, one that was a living embodiment of his teachings.
I watched him drift further from the purpose I summoned him for. Watched him reshape the war into something personal. Watched Earth turn from battlefield to possession.
And still, he spoke about weakness.
About mercy.
About the lie of hesitation.
He preached it like doctrine.
Which is why I stole the case.
Not because I needed what was inside.
But because I needed to know if he did.
When it disappeared, I waited.
I expected fury. Retaliation. At the very least, interest.
There was nothing.
No questions.
No threats.
Not even disappointment.
That was the moment I realized I was no longer dealing with an ally who’d gone rogue.
I was dealing with something that had already moved past me.
So I made my last play.
The dagger was ancient. Precise. Designed for beings who believed themselves untouchable. If anything could end Rhykkal’s occupation of Earth, it was that blade.
I used it without hesitation.
And I failed.
I learned something that day — something painful, something necessary.
I am not always the smartest man in the room.
If Syl hadn’t intervened, I wouldn’t be here to tell this story.
I can live with that.
What I can’t live with is what came after.
Because Syl didn’t just survive.
He was believed.
Barely questioned. Barely examined. Believed.
They crowned him something he never earned. Something he never truly was.
Not because saviors exist — I’ve never believed that myth.
But because this one is wrong.
There I was—laying there barely conscious between the two, hearing every word.
He isn’t the promised one.
He didn’t inherit the mantle.
He took it.
He killed the original fraud and wore his crown.
I just had to be right about him.
And the world cheers louder for him every day.
I watched the broadcasts from a hospital bed.
The banners. The chants. The bowed heads.
A fraud elevated into a symbol.
That’s the thing about reaching the top — there’s nowhere left to go but down.
And someone has to remind the world of gravity.
Rhykkal believed weakness was the enemy.
Syl believes hope is enough.
They’re both wrong.
The real danger has always been what survives when the war is declared over.
And somewhere beneath the surface of all this celebration…
Something Rhykkal considered expendable is still waiting.
Not everything discarded is forgotten.
And not every ending agrees that it’s done.
And now, I pick up where I left off.
꧁༺༒〖°**°〗༒༻꧂
The wind off the cliff was cold, constant.
Edgar Kaine stood with his cane planted firmly in the dirt, coat fluttering behind him, eyes fixed on the endless dark of the ocean below. An earpiece sat snug in his ear, faint static whispering like distant breath. Beside him, Barlow stood rigid, arms folded, unease written plainly across her face.
Far beneath the surface, hundreds of feet down, a submarine cut through black water.
Inside it, three workers moved with careful precision, floodlights carving pale tunnels through the deep. Their voices crackled through Edgar’s earpiece.
“This is deeper than we agreed on,” one of them muttered.
“We’re already past the safe threshold,” another added.
“Pressure’s getting worse.”
Edgar didn’t raise his voice.
“Keep going.”
A pause.
“…Yes, sir.”
The ocean floor emerged slowly — jagged rock, ancient formations untouched by light. Then one of the beams caught something unnatural.
A shape.
Angular. Smooth. Alien.
“There,” the lead worker said, disbelief creeping into his tone. “We’ve got visual. It’s… intact.”
The case rested half-buried between stone ridges, its surface unmarred by time or pressure.
Edgar’s grip tightened subtly around his cane.
“Attach the cables,” he said.
Four mechanical arms extended from the submarine, cables firing outward — one for each side. They latched on with dull metallic thuds.
For a moment, everything was still.
Then—
A spear tore through the darkness.
It struck with impossible speed, severing two cables at once.
“What the hell was that—?”
“Case is tipping—!”
The container lurched, struck a rock, and shuddered.
Lights flickered.
Something inside answered.
“Sir,” the lead worker said urgently, breathing fast. “We’re not alone down here.”
Edgar’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Clarify.”
Figures emerged from the dark — armored silhouettes moving effortlessly through the water. Their designs were elegant, foreign, organic. Spears gleamed in their hands.
“Leryfians,” the worker said. “Water breathers.”
The figures formed a line in front of the case.
One stepped forward.
“You are trespassing,” the Leryfian said, voice distorted but clear. “Leave. This is your only warning.”
The worker swallowed. “Listen, we’re just trying to retrieve something that belongs to us.”
A pause.
“This object rests in Leryfia,” the Leryfian replied. “That makes it Leryfian property.”
Behind them, the case began to shake.
Bubbles seeped from its seams — slow at first, then violent.
“Sir,” the worker whispered. “Something’s happening.”
Edgar leaned forward slightly.
“Proceed,” he said.
The case burst open.
Not with an explosion — but with release.
A figure inside drifted free, hair floating, limbs slack for half a second… then his hand rose.
The water around the Leryfians twisted.
They convulsed.
Water tore itself from their lungs, ripping free in thick streams that spiraled around their heads like living halos. Their mouths opened in silent screams.
They couldn’t breathe air.
They drowned in reverse.
One by one, they went still.
The worker’s voice shook. “Sir… whatever was in that case just killed them. All of them.”
“Retrieve it,” Edgar said calmly.
The submarine lurched.
The water pressure turned hostile.
Metal screamed as the hull buckled inward, seams splitting like broken bones.
“He’s crushing the ship!” another worker cried. “Using the water—!”
Static.
Silence.
Barlow stared at Edgar. “Are they…?”
“Dead,” Edgar said quietly.
His eyes never left the ocean.
“…Water,” he murmured to himself.
The surface erupted.
A column of ocean surged upward, carrying a body within it like a throne. Water slammed down as the figure landed before them, waves crashing outward.
He stood barefoot on soaked stone.
Shirtless. Long brown hair clung to his shoulders. A thick beard framed a face twisted with fury and confusion, eyes wild, unfocused.
Edgar stared.
Then he smiled.
Not wide.
Not kind.
Fascinated.
“…Incredible,” he breathed.
Barlow stepped back. “Who is that?”
Edgar didn’t look away.
“This,” he said softly, reverently, “is an elemental manipulator. A Thryssan.”
The figure lifted his head.
“And the original Saeravyn.”
The anger.
The emptiness.
The broken memory clawing behind his eyes.
Lirael vel’Thryssan.
Alive.
- Writer
