Page 228 of A Reign of Chromes & Shadows

Relief hit first; sharp and dizzying but it twisted instantly into something far more volatile. They were holding him hostage. Using him as bait. The realisation ignited something primal in Rain’s chest.

He reached out, sending a pulse of reassurance toward Jay.

I’m coming.

What came back was panic; raw, frantic, overwhelming. Jay wasn’t confused. He wasn’t disoriented.

He was warning him.

It’s a trap.

He pushed harder, muscles burning as he scaled the steep incline. The smoke thickened until it felt like wading through liquid shadow. He dropped low behind a massive root system, drawing in a few precious breaths of cleaner air.

Ahead, four mortals crouched behind the same trunk, tense and alert. Members of Drazier’s smoke battalion. More groups dotted the perimeter; clusters of four, forming a loose ring around the clearing. Beyond them, amongst hundreds of Red troops Rain sensed the unmistakable pulse of aetherials.

And at the centre of it all––Drazier.

Jay and his mother were there too. Their fear hit Rain like a physical blow.

He moved quickly. With a silent step and a precise strike; a soldier dropped to the ground unaware of what descended upon him. Rain eased him to the ground, slipping his mask over his own face. The remaining three called out, alert to the disturbance but blinded by the smoke. When no response came, they huddled together, weapons raised in every direction.

Rain slipped past them like a shadow.

The terrain shifted beneath his feet; the incline levelling out, the soil giving way to soft grass. A picnic bench materialised through the haze, a relic of peaceful hikers who had no idea their lookout point had become a battlefield.

Rain pressed a hand to the table’s edge, steadying himself as he surveyed the clearing.

Over a hundred troops. Close enough that he could hear their masked breathing, the shuffle of boots, the click of weapons being readied.

Eight aetherials.

Rain counted them with the precision of someone who had lived too long on battlefields. His senses swept through the clearing like a silent tide, cataloguing each signature, each threat, each potential weakness. The information slotted into place in his mind with cold efficiency; even as his emotions churned violently beneath the surface.

Two smoke wielders; one of them unmistakably Drazier.

Two manipulators; Rain’s attention snapped immediately to the more dangerous of the pair: the one capable of provoking anger.

A muscle in Rain’s jaw ticked.

That one would be a problem.

Facing a horde of recklessly furious adversaries while trying to control his own rage would be catastrophic. For them. Their amplified fury would feed his, and his would feed theirs, spiralling into something uncontrollable. He knew himself well enough to recognise the danger; he had spent years being treated as a weapon precisely because of how volatile he could become under emotional pressure.

Those two go first, he decided.

Before anything else.

He continued scanning.

Two heat-marked; hazardous, but predictable.

One whose signature felt eerily similar to Ember’s.

And then—

Rain’s breath stalled.

The last aetherial––the one whose energy he recognised instantly, stoking his already blazing anger–– was the same male who had visited Jay’s home.