The night tasted like iron.
Jarol clutched his cloak tighter as the wind sliced across the deserted port-town road, carrying with it the scent of rust and the distant crash of waves. Lanterns flickered weakly, their flames trembling as though afraid of the dark themselves.
Footsteps echoed behind him — steady, patient, unhurried. The sound of hunters who knew their prey had few places left to run.
Jarol's breath clouded before him in small silver puffs. He wasn't supposed to be alive this long. Not after what the Collectors had done to others who owed the Dominion.
But he was different. He didn't feel different, but the whispers said his bloodline was.
His mother died protecting him. His father vanished under "official circumstances."Now only the debt remained — heavy, ancient, hungry.
A shadow rippled across the cobblestones.
Jarol froze.
From behind a broken wagon wheel, a figure stepped out — tall, wrapped in a long coat stitched with sigils that pulsed like living veins. His mask was porcelain-white, carved into a gentle smile that did nothing to hide the killing intent beneath it.
"Jarol Vey," the Collector said, voice smooth as oiled steel. "Your family's repayment is overdue."
Jarol's pulse hammered. "I don't have anything—"
"Oh, you do." The mask tilted. "Your very existence is collateral."
The air around them shivered. The Collector raised his hand, and space writhed like it was being wrung out by an invisible force. A pale sphere formed above his palm, swirling with screaming faces.
A Strata Art. Concept: Imprisonment.
Jarol stumbled back, heart clawing at his chest. The sphere lunged—
And the mark on Jarol's sternum flared.
A cold, celestial burn shot through him, as if the universe had opened a single golden eye inside his soul.
The world slowed.
The Collector's attack froze mid-air, caught in threads of shimmering eclipse-light that burst from Jarol's chest. His veins glowed dark silver. His pupils split like a crescent moon.
The Collector stepped back, shock fracturing his mask's calm. "Astral… Eclipse?"
Jarol didn't know how he moved. His body reacted before fear could.
A wave of eclipse-force erupted from him, silent yet roaring, and the ground cracked in a perfect crescent arc. The Collector was thrown back, skidding across stone, coat smoldering.
Jarol gasped, collapsing to one knee as the light faded.
The footsteps behind him began again — but no longer patient.
Now desperate.
Now afraid.
Jarol stared at his trembling hands."What… was that?"
Far above, the clouds parted as if something massive brushed them aside.A single star flickered awake — black at its core, burning at its rim.
The same symbol that now pulsed faintly beneath Jarol's skin.
And in that moment, the boy realized something terrifying:
He wasn't just being hunted for a debt.He was being hunted for what he could become.