The Atlantic didn't just feel like water to Kael; it felt like home.
For the past year, Kael had served as an ordinary seaman aboard the USNS Aegis. It was a grueling job, but at twenty-two, the $4,500 a month he cleared—most of which he sent straight back home to his parents and younger sister—made every blister worth it.
"Hey, Kael! Stop daydreaming and check the tension on those winch cables!" barked Miller, the veteran Boatswain's Mate. Miller was a man who looked like he'd been carved out of a piece of driftwood, smelling eternally of tobacco and diesel.
"On it, Boats!" Kael shouted back, flashing a grin. He loved the way the ocean looked at twilight, even when a storm was brewing. "Just admiring the view. You don't get silver water like this in the city."
"The view's gonna drown us if you don't secure that gear," Miller grumbled, though his eyes softened. "Go on, get below deck after that. Captain says the 'Special Cargo' is making the sensors go haywire. The whole ship feels like it's pressurized."
Kael nodded, but as he moved toward the hatch, the air suddenly turned cold. The rhythmic thrum of the engines was drowned out by a sharp crack—the sound of a suppressed firearm.
"Security's down! Breach on Level 4!" a voice screamed over the comms, followed by a burst of static.
Kael ducked behind a stack of shipping containers. Through the rain and shadows, he saw them. Six figures in high-tech tactical gear moved across the deck with predatory grace.
"Package is secured," one of the robbers said, his voice distorted by a comms-mask. "The Trident is heavier than the intel suggested. It feels... vibrating."
"Shut up and move, Ghost-Two," a rasping voice replied. This was the leader. He was taller, with a jagged scar visible through a cracked visor. "The extraction chopper is five minutes out. If the Navy realizes what we've taken, they'll sink this ship with us on it."
"Boss, look at the color," Ghost-Two muttered, pointing at the weapon. It was wrapped in heavy dampening cloth, but the cloth was slipping. Beneath it, the three-pronged pole pulsed with an eerie, dried-blood crimson color. "I thought this was supposed to be a relic, not some rusted piece of junk."
"It's not rust, you idiot," the leader hissed. "The legends say it's been stained since the Fall. It doesn't matter what color it is, it's worth more than this entire fleet."
Kael's foot slipped on the wet deck, a loud clack of metal on metal.
The leader spun around instantly. His cold, piercing eye locked onto Kael's hiding spot. "Witness. Terminate him."
"Wait, he's just a deckhand—" Ghost-Two started, but the leader didn't use his gun.
With a grunt of supernatural effort, the leader hoisted the heavy, crimson Trident and launched it like a javelin. It was a blur of red steel. Kael tried to dive, but the weapon was too fast. The central tine tore through his chest, pinning him against the steel bulkhead of the ship's mast.
"Aargh!" Kael's world exploded into white-hot agony. He hung there, skewered, his own blood mixing with the ancient, dried crimson crust on the weapon.
THOOM.
At that exact microsecond, the heavens split. A bolt of pure, white-violet lightning—larger than any natural storm should produce—descended from the eye of the cyclone. It hit the Trident.
The strike should have vaporized Kael. Instead, the lightning acted like a catalyst. The "red paint" on the Trident—the ancient, dormant Blood of Zeus—wasn't paint at all. It was divine essence that needed a spark to wake up.
As the electricity surged through the metal and into Kael's open wound, the crimson crust burned away in a flash of gold. The blood didn't wash off; it boiled, turned into liquid light, and raced into Kael's veins.
"The hell was that?!" Ghost-Two yelled, falling back as sparks danced across the deck. "Did the kid just get hit by lightning?"
The leader ran forward, dodging the electrical arcs, and wrenched the weapon out of the mast. Kael slumped to the deck, his chest a smoking ruin.
"Look at this," the leader whispered, his voice trembling with greed. The Trident was stripped of its red grime, shining with a blinding, regal gold. "The red 'paint' just burned off. Guess the museum guys tried to hide its value with a cheap coat of rust. It's solid gold!"
"Boss, the kid... his skin is glowing," Ghost-Two whispered, backing away.
"Forget him, he's dead ten times over," the leader barked. "The chopper is hovering! Move!"
They vanished into the storm, leaving Kael lying in a pool of rainwater and golden sparks. Inside his body, his heart had stopped—only to be jump-started by a rhythmic, booming thud that sounded like a drum made of thunder. The golden Ichor was rebuilding him, cell by cell.
Kael's eyes snapped open. They weren't brown anymore. They were the color of a storm cloud lit by a thousand volts.The rain lashed against Kael's face, but for the first time in his life, he didn't feel the cold.
He stayed still for a long time, listening to the fading thwump-thwump-thwump of the thieves' helicopter as it disappeared into the storm. His chest felt tight, like a coiled spring made of high-tension wire. Slowly, with a trembling hand, Kael reached up to touch his shirt—the place where the Trident had pinned him to the mast.
His fingers met shredded fabric. The heavy-duty canvas of his uniform was torn in a jagged, fist-sized hole, soaked through with a mixture of seawater and what should have been his life's blood.
"I... I should be dead," he whispered. His voice sounded different—deeper, with a slight metallic resonance that hummed in the back of his throat.
Holding his breath, he peeled back the ruined fabric to inspect the wound. He expected to see shattered bone and his own lungs. Instead, his skin was smooth. Not just smooth, but flawless—like polished marble. Where the Trident had pierced him, there wasn't even a scar. Instead, faint, glowing gold veins branched out from the center of his chest, pulsing with a soft, rhythmic light that faded and reappeared with every heartbeat.
He pressed his palm against his sternum. There was no pain. Instead, a jolt of static electricity snapped between his hand and his chest, bright enough to illuminate the dark deck for a split second.
Kael stood up. Usually, after a double shift, his knees ached and his back felt stiff. Now, he felt light—as if gravity had lost its grip on him. He gripped the metal railing of the ship to steady himself, and the thick steel groaned. Under his touch, the reinforced railing began to dent and twist like it was made of warm wax.
He pulled his hand back in horror, staring at the deep imprints of his fingers in the steel.
"What did they do to me?"
He looked out at the churning Atlantic. The storm was still raging, but to Kael's eyes, the lightning in the clouds didn't look scary anymore. It looked like a path. It looked like kin.
Inside his mind, a single word echoed, that he has: Awakened.