The Riyadh sun was a molten coin melting over the horizon when Klevin and Emilia arrived. The air shimmered with heat, and even the glass towers seemed to sweat. The city felt ancient and new at once — skyscrapers rose from ground that had once held nomads' tents, and the desert still whispered underneath the steel.
They took a cab from the airport, the driver quiet except for the soft hum of Qur'anic recitation playing over the radio. It was peaceful and grounding, but Klevin's mind was elsewhere — on the strange signal that had drawn them here. Every Aether reading pointed to Riyadh's underground. And every time he reached out with his Divine Control, it pulsed like something alive, something watching.
Emilia sat beside him, gazing out the window at the endless dunes beyond the city limits. "It feels different here," she murmured. "Like the air is... heavier. More aware."
Klevin nodded. "It's as if the ground itself remembers."
---
That night, from their hotel balcony, the city glittered like starlight trapped in glass. Emilia worked quietly beside him, piecing together energy patterns projected from her wrist device. Threads of light spiraled across the air between them, converging over an old district near the city's edge — a block marked for demolition, hiding something deep beneath.
"The readings spike every time the muezzin calls," she said, brow furrowed. "The sound, the vibration — it resonates perfectly with the Aether waves. It's not just coincidence, Klevin. Faith itself is stabilizing the field."
He turned, watching her face in the soft blue glow. "You mean belief is literally anchoring the power?"
"Or the power is answering belief."
Before he could respond, a soft knock came at the door — slow, rhythmic, deliberate. Klevin's muscles tensed. He felt his artifact stir within him, the faint hum of divine metal in his bones.
When he opened the door, three figures stood outside. The one in front was tall, robed in white, his eyes sharp yet calm. Behind him, two others stood silent, faces half-hidden.
"You are Klevin Klaus," the man said in a tone that carried both certainty and respect. "We've been expecting you."
---
They followed the strangers through narrow alleys where the scent of spice and sand filled the air. The city slowly fell away behind them as they reached the outskirts, where the desert began reclaiming what had once been its own. There, hidden behind a crumbling construction site, was a stairway descending into the earth.
As they went down, the air cooled. Soft golden light lined the walls, illuminating inscriptions that pulsed faintly — not in Arabic, but in an ancient language neither of them recognized. Symbols of crescents and stars interwove with geometric lines, mathematical precision merging with divine art.
When they reached the bottom, the chamber opened like the inside of a forgotten temple fused with a laboratory. Crystals hung suspended in air, orbiting slowly around glowing conduits. Men and women moved among them, some in prayer, others adjusting delicate machines that hummed with sacred rhythm.
"This place…" Emilia whispered. "It's alive."
The robed man smiled. "Welcome to the Crescent Dominion. We are keepers of balance — between the divine and the created."
He led them to the center of the sanctum, where an elderly scholar sat cross-legged on a raised platform. His face was serene, eyes closed as though listening to something distant. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet yet carried to every corner of the chamber.
"You've brought the Divine Control," he said. "And with it, the echo of another."
Klevin frowned. "Another?"
The old man opened his eyes. "Kael."
---
Klevin felt his heart stutter. The name hung in the air like a curse and a prayer all at once.
"You know of him?" he asked carefully.
The scholar nodded. "We know what he is. And what you are not yet ready to see."
Emilia stepped forward. "Then tell us. We've been running from half-truths and ghosts long enough."
The old man gestured toward a crystalline pool beside him. Its surface rippled though no wind touched it. "Look, and see what your father made."
Klevin approached. The pool shimmered, then bloomed with light — an image forming in its depths. A laboratory. Wires. Capsules of glowing fluid. A man — his father — working beside another figure submerged in silver liquid.
It was Kael.
The reflection shifted, showing cells splitting under magnification, strands of DNA laced with radiant energy. Words scrolled in spectral script beside it — Divine Genome: Fragment 02-B. Subject viability: unstable.
Emilia gasped. "He's… a failed version?"
The scholar's voice echoed softly, "Not failed. Incomplete. Where Klevin carries the vessel of divine order, Kael carries the seed of divine chaos. Two halves of a system that should never have been divided."
Klevin's fists clenched. "So he's my… brother?"
"Not by blood," the old man said. "By creation. Your father sought to control what cannot be owned. The Divine Control was meant to balance them both — but he did not foresee the soul."
---
The air grew colder. Around them, the floating crystals pulsed erratically. Klevin could feel the energy thrumming in his chest, answering something unseen.
"Kael survived," the scholar continued. "His body decayed, yet his essence did not. It drifted into the Aether — learning, reshaping, waiting. What you sense now across the world… those surges, those anomalies… they are his echoes."
Emilia stepped closer, her eyes wide. "Then the Obsidian Choir—"
"—seeks to awaken him," the man finished. "They believe Kael is divine wrath given form. But we know better. He is imbalance. A soul without anchor."
Klevin's voice was low. "And what do you want from me?"
The old man studied him. "We want you to remember who you are meant to be. You wield the Divine Control, yes — but that is not power, Klevin. It is responsibility. You were never its master, only its keeper."
For a long moment, silence filled the chamber. Klevin felt the weight of the words settle deep in his bones.
Finally, he whispered, "How do I stop him?"
The scholar's gaze darkened. "You don't stop what is half of you. You reconcile with it."
---
That night, Klevin and Emilia stood outside the sanctum, the desert wind whispering across the dunes. Above them, Riyadh shimmered in the distance — a city pulsing with life, unaware that beneath its foundations, ancient forces stirred.
Emilia looked at him. "You're quiet."
He stared at the horizon. "If Kael is part of me… then maybe I was never meant to destroy him. Maybe I was meant to understand him."
"Understanding chaos doesn't mean letting it win," she said gently.
He smiled faintly. "No. But if I'm part of the same creation, then his fall could be my reflection."
The sound of a distant explosion interrupted them — faint, far off, but unmistakable. Both turned toward the city, where a column of smoke began to rise.
Klevin's wrist flared with light — his Divine Sigil reacting violently. Emilia's device blinked with sudden alerts. Energy readings were spiking again — across every Aether channel.
"Kael's presence," Emilia whispered. "He's moving again."
The air seemed to pulse, and for a split second, Klevin saw something behind the horizon — a silhouette, tall and indistinct, watching them through the veil of the Aether. Then it was gone.
He exhaled, steady but shaken. "It's starting."
Emilia turned toward their vehicle, determination hardening her features. "Then we move before the city burns."
As they drove back toward Riyadh, the desert winds howled behind them like the breath of something ancient awakening.
Klevin glanced at the horizon one last time, the stars flickering like eyes in the sand.
Somewhere out there, Kael waited — not as an enemy, not as a brother, but as the unanswered question of creation itself.
And for the first time, Klevin wasn't sure whether he feared the truth — or needed it.