The girl in the mask did not return. Not in the following days or nights. But something in Kael had changed since that apparition.
The fire in his chest was no longer a murmur, but a steady beat, like a drum marking the rhythm of his transformation. His body still trembled with hunger, but his gaze... his gaze was no longer that of a child.
It was that of someone who had seen the face of the world behind the veil. And he had survived.
The guards had relaxed. They believed that the previous riot, that wild outburst in which Kael had unleashed his power, had been an accident. An act of madness. They didn't imagine he was watching. Waiting.
Every day he memorized his steps. He counted the seconds it took to walk the corridors, made a mental note of the keys in their belts, the poorly locked doors, the unguarded corners.
And one night, as the rats squeaked in the corners and the other children slept in whispers of fear, Kael got up.
His feet moved with terrifying precision. It was not strength that guided him, but a strange, ancient will that seemed to whisper the movements to him, as if it had done so before, in another life.
He slipped into the shadows, crossed the gate of rusty bars, passed by the body of a guard asleep from drunkenness, and stole his key ring without his breathing altering. His hand, once trembling, was now steady. Almost cold.
-It's now," he whispered to himself.
The exit door was not just a physical barrier. It was the threshold between what had been and what was destined to be. As he turned the key, he heard a metallic, almost ritualistic click. As if the world itself recognized him.
But he did not escape alone.
Behind him, soft footsteps shuffled. A small, mute girl, who had been his only silent companion in the past weeks, looked up at him with large, pleading eyes. Kael hesitated.
and took her by the hand.
They ran.
They ran through corridors stained with old blood, down dank tunnels that reeked of death and stale magic, dodged traps that had ended others before. Kael didn't know how he did it, but every move he executed took him right where he needed to go.
Behind, the shouts began.
-Escape! The children escape!
Lights danced like fatuous fires. Ancient spells and curses churned in the darkness.
Kael ran faster.
A creature emerged from around a corner: one of the guards who were not human. Eyes like burning coals, skin made of solid smoke. It opened a huge mouth.
But Kael did not stop. The fire inside him roared.
His arm ignited. Not with visible flames, but with a golden energy that gushed from his veins. He struck the creature with his fist, and the impact blew it apart like ashes blown by the wind.
It did not even turn to look back.
The final tunnel took them to a trapdoor covered by roots and stone. He pushed it with his whole body and, at last, saw the moon.
The night seemed beautiful to him.
She dropped to her knees in the wet earth, shivering, breathing for the first time air that didn't smell of confinement. The girl curled up beside him, clinging to his arm.
They had made it. They were out.
But something in Kael was gone.
The innocence.
The doubt.
The weakness.
The child that had gone into that place never came out.
What escaped... was something else.
A being with fire in his soul, scars in his heart, and a shadow of destiny following in his footsteps.
And as he gazed at the stars for the first time without bars, a certainty took hold of him:
It was time to reclaim his place in the world.