Davrin woke to someone kicking his mattress.
"Up," Seraph said, standing over him with two cups of something that smelled like burnt mud. "Training starts now."
He groaned, every muscle protesting. The absorptions had healed his injuries but his body still remembered the beating he'd taken. "What time is it?"
"Five in the morning. Drink this." She shoved one of the cups at him.
Davrin took it, sniffed, and grimaced. "What is this?"
"Coffee. Real coffee, not that synthetic garbage." Seraph moved to the center of the room, setting her cup on the table. "Expensive as hell, but you'll need the energy."
He took a sip and immediately regretted it. Bitter didn't even begin to cover it. But it was warm, and after a moment his body started waking up properly. "You're serious about starting right now."
"The Empire knows you exist. They found the empty armor last night, ran analysis on the residual essence." Seraph's gold eye caught the dim light. "By now every Soul Reaper in the city has your description. We don't have time to waste."
Davrin forced down more coffee and stood, stretching. The power inside him stirred, responding to his movement. It felt stronger than last night, more settled. "So what's the first lesson?"
"Control." Seraph held out her hand. Light gathered in her palm, coalescing into a blade made of pure silver energy. Soul weapon, manifested from her own essence. "Right now your power is raw instinct. Useful for survival, useless for actual combat. You need to learn how to shape it, direct it, control when it activates and when it doesn't."
"And if I can't?"
"Then the first time you face multiple opponents, you'll burn yourself out trying to absorb too many souls at once and die screaming." She said it matter-of-factly, like discussing the weather. "So let's make sure that doesn't happen."
The next hour was torture.
Seraph made him try to manifest his power without actually absorbing anything, just pulling it to the surface and holding it there. Sounds simple. Wasn't.
The first attempt, nothing happened. The second, his whole body lit up like he'd stuck his finger in a socket and he collapsed gasping. The third through tenth attempts varied between those two extremes.
"You're fighting it," Seraph observed, watching him struggle. "Stop trying to control the power like it's separate from you. It's not. It's part of your soul now."
"Easy for you to say," Davrin panted, hands on his knees. Sweat dripped onto the concrete floor. "You didn't get this power by ripping it out of someone else."
"No, I awakened naturally. Watched my entire family burn to death while the Emperor's Reapers stood by and did nothing." Her voice went flat, emotionless. "Took me six months to manifest my first soul weapon. You've had your power for less than twelve hours. So stop whining and try again."
Davrin straightened, anger flaring. Good. Anger he could use. He focused on that feeling, on the rage he carried for Mira, for every injustice the Empire had inflicted. The power responded, warming his chest.
This time when he reached for it, he didn't try to grab or control. He just let it flow.
Light erupted from his hands, dark red shot through with black veins. Not a weapon, not yet, but visible power crackling around his fingers like miniature lightning.
"Better," Seraph said. "Hold it. Don't let it fade."
Holding it was harder than manifesting it. The power wanted to either explode outward or collapse inward, nothing in between. Davrin gritted his teeth, sweat pouring down his face, trying to maintain that impossible balance.
Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.
At forty-five seconds the power slipped his control and discharged, blasting a fist-sized crater in the concrete wall.
"Shit!" Davrin stumbled back. "I didn't mean—"
"Relax, the wards will repair it." Seraph didn't look concerned. "Forty-five seconds is decent for a first manifestation. We'll build your endurance."
They practiced for another two hours. Manifest, hold, release. Over and over until Davrin's soul felt raw, scraped thin from the constant use. But by the end he could hold the power for almost three minutes, and the discharge was controllable enough that he could aim it.
"Good enough for now," Seraph finally said. "Rest. Eat something."
Davrin collapsed on the mattress while Seraph pulled food from the storage box. Dried meat, hard bread, some kind of fruit he didn't recognize. Not fancy, but real food, not the synthetic paste most slum dwellers survived on.
"Where did you learn all this?" he asked between bites. "The training, the safe houses, how to fight the Empire."
"The Ember Coalition. I was part of their inner circle for three years." Seraph sat across from him, eating mechanically. "They taught me combat, infiltration, how to survive when the whole world wants you dead."
"Was?"
"I left. Philosophical differences." Her silver eye glinted. "The Phoenix wants to dismantle the Empire slowly, build popular support, minimize casualties. Noble goals. Also completely useless."
"So you decided to just kill the Emperor instead."
"Fast, efficient, sends a message." Seraph smiled that sharp smile. "Plus it's more satisfying than political organizing."
Davrin couldn't argue with that. "The Coalition, they know about me?"
"No. And they won't, unless you want them to." Seraph's expression turned serious. "The Phoenix would try to recruit you, use your power for their cause. I'm offering you a choice instead. Help me, and you get what you want. Your sister, your revenge, your freedom."
"Freedom." Davrin laughed bitterly. "I've never been free. None of us have."
"Then take it." Seraph leaned forward. "That's what power means, Davrin. The ability to choose your own path, damn the consequences."
Before he could respond, Seraph's eyes widened. She moved faster than he could track, crossing the room and pressing her hand against the wall. "Quiet."
Davrin froze. "What—"
"Reapers. Three of them, two blocks away." Her voice was barely a whisper. "The wards just detected their scanning equipment."
His heart hammered. "They found us?"
"Not yet. They're doing a grid search, systematic." Seraph's hand glowed against the wall, feeding power into the ward network. "But they're getting close."
"We need to leave."
"No. Running draws attention. We stay quiet, let the wards mask our signatures." But Seraph's jaw was tight, her other hand already forming that silver blade. "Unless they get lucky."
The minutes crawled by. Davrin could feel his own power stirring, responding to the adrenaline flooding his system. The hungry thing inside him wanted to fight, to absorb more souls, grow stronger.
He forced it down. Control, like Seraph taught him.
Footsteps echoed from outside, heavy boots on concrete. Close. Too close.
Seraph's blade solidified completely. Davrin's hands began to glow before he could stop them.
The footsteps paused right outside their door.
Davrin held his breath. Three feet of wall and a locked door between them and death. The wards were good, Seraph had said. Good enough to fool Reaper scanners.
Hopefully.
The door handle rattled.
Seraph's eyes met his across the room. Ready?
He wasn't. But he nodded anyway.
The handle turned. The locks, all of them, were still engaged. Whoever was outside would need to break through, which meant noise, which meant—
The footsteps moved away. Down the hall, growing fainter.
Davrin didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until his lungs screamed for air. He gasped, quiet as he could manage.
Seraph held up one finger. Wait.
Five more minutes of silence. Then her hand left the wall and the blade dispersed. "They're gone. Moved to the next building."
"That was too close." Davrin's hands were shaking. The power inside him was still coiled tight, ready to explode.
"It'll happen again. Probably multiple times." Seraph moved back to the table, but she didn't sit. "We need to move safe houses tomorrow. This one's compromised enough."
"And then what? Keep hiding, keep running?" Davrin stood, frustration boiling over. "My sister's out there. Every day we waste is another day she's suffering."
"Your sister's been wherever she is for five years. Another few weeks won't—"
"Don't." Davrin's power flared, red light crackling around his clenched fists. "Don't tell me she can wait. You have no idea—"
"I know exactly." Seraph's voice cut like a blade. "I watched my family die and couldn't do anything because I was too weak. That's why I spent seven years getting stronger before I even tried to strike back at the Empire. Revenge without power is just suicide."
The red light around Davrin's hands flickered, faded. She was right. He knew she was right. But knowing didn't make it hurt less.
"How long?" he asked quietly. "How long before I'm strong enough to find her?"
Seraph studied him for a long moment. "There's a Soul Reaper outpost in the Merchant's Rise district. Small facility, only four Reapers stationed there. If we hit it right, you could absorb all four."
"That's not what I asked."
"I'm answering anyway." Seraph pulled out a small data pad from her jacket, tapping through screens. "Four Reapers worth of essence, plus what you've already absorbed, would put you at low Kindled class. Strong enough to survive encounters with average opponents. Strong enough to start asking dangerous questions about where your sister is."
Davrin's pulse quickened. "When?"
"Three days. I need time to map their patrol patterns, find the vulnerability." Seraph's gold eye gleamed. "And you need time to get better at not accidentally blowing holes in walls when you're stressed."
"Three days." He could manage three days. Probably.
"Three days," Seraph confirmed. She pulled up an image on the data pad. A building, squat and reinforced, with the Empire's seal on the front. "Then we paint that place red."
She turned the pad toward him. "Oh, and Davrin? One more thing."
"What?"
Her expression went carefully neutral. "I ran analysis on the Reaper essence you absorbed last night. Found something interesting in the residual memories."
Ice water down his spine. "What kind of something?"
"That Reaper was assigned to Project Synthesis six months ago." Seraph's voice softened. "It has memories of the facility. Including recent test subjects."
The world tilted. "Mira. You saw Mira."
"I saw a girl who matches her description." Seraph pulled up another image. Grainy, security footage, but unmistakable. A young woman with dark hair and Davrin's eyes, strapped to a table in a white room, surrounded by instruments he didn't recognize.
Alive. His sister was alive.
"Where?" The word came out strangled. "Where is that facility?"
Seraph's finger hovered over the data pad. Then she closed the image.
"That's the problem," she said quietly. "The facility's location was redacted from the Reaper's memories. Deliberately scrubbed. But there was one fragment left intact."
She met his eyes.
"The last time that Reaper saw your sister, she was being prepped for integration with something called Synthesis-7." Seraph paused. "And the integration was scheduled for two weeks from yesterday."
Davrin's blood turned to ice.
Thirteen days.
He had thirteen days to find Mira before the Empire turned her into whatever Project Synthesis created.
End of Chapter 3