Three months.

  That’s how long Kael had been here. Long enough to slip into routine.

  He sat at the edge of his bunk, elbows on his knees, staring through the narrow dorm window. Beyond the rain-slicked glass, the city lights blurred into the storm. Somewhere past the barrier walls, buried deep like a spear driven into the earth, the Anchor pulsed. A massive crystal formation, jagged with power. It hummed low, a sound you didn’t hear so much as feel in your bones.

  One of only six in the world.

  Kael watched it flicker in the distance—a heartbeat in stone.

  The Anchor didn’t scare him. It was dangerous, sure—untouchable, wild, the kind of thing that could level a city if it surged. But it was also protected. Locked down. No one got close without clearance. And it was a lifeline too—the only way into, and more importantly, out of, the Fused World.

  The academy had been built around it like armor.

  There were others like it—facilities scattered across the remnants of civilization. The World Government ran them all. No nations anymore. Just strongholds. Outposts where people trained, fought, and hoped to survive.

  It wasn’t luxury. It was survival. Free training, food, shelter, structure. A place for people like Kael to get their shot, even if they didn’t belong.

  He didn’t complain. Not out loud.

  He scratched at the back of his neck, still sore from drills. His reflection hovered faintly in the window—pale skin, somewhere between ash and sun; brown hair streaked darker near the roots, perpetually messy. Not much to look at. Not intimidating. Just worn. Just tired.

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  Only his eyes stood out.

  Sharp. Hardened. Not hopeless, but familiar with pain.

  He hadn’t come from much. Had no one to teach him. Learned how to survive the only way anyone did when the world didn’t care if you did or didn’t.

  And he was still here. Still breathing.

  Still not seventeen.

  That was the number. Seventeen to nineteen—that’s when it happened. The Dive. Always in your sleep. Always without warning.

  Kael exhaled and leaned back onto the cot. The frame creaked faintly beneath him, familiar in its discomfort. Rain tapped steadily at the window, a dull rhythm that echoed in his bones. He let the sound fill the room, let it drown out the ache in his shoulders, the tension in his jaw.

  His eyelids grew heavy. Thoughts dulled.

  The storm outside blurred into the background, fading into something distant—just motion and noise, slow and constant.

  His breathing slowed.

  Sleep came quietly, pulling him under like a tide.

  … And then the world tore open.

  He slammed into wet pavement, breath punched clean from his lungs. Rain hit like gravel, sharp and immediate, soaking through him in seconds. The sky overhead twisted—black clouds convulsing with electric veins, thunder rattling the broken towers looming above.

  Kael gasped. Coughed. Lightning seared through the dark, casting the ruins in flashes of white.

  The buildings were shattered. Dead steel bent at strange angles. Vines of Arcane crystal crawled across the concrete like they were growing.

  And the air—gods, the air—was thick with Arcane pressure. Not just heavy. Alive.

  His head throbbed.

  Kael pushed himself up on trembling arms, soaked to the bone.

  This wasn’t Earth.

  The Dive had taken him.

  And it had come far too soon.