Warmth.
That was the first thing Klaus noticed.
But not the warmth of comfort.
It was blistering. It clawed through his flesh, licked at his nerves, boiled in his blood like molten lightning. Every muscle screamed. Every breath rattled like cracked glass.
It was the warmth of life—returning by force.
"Still you resist," said a voice. Distant. Echoing. "Even in healing, you fight."
Klaus opened his eyes.
No light welcomed him.
Only shifting winds.
He floated—no, hovered—suspended inches above a surface that wasn't truly solid. Vapor. Condensed wind shaped into a platform that glowed faintly beneath him like the translucent petals of a dying flower.
Stormlight crackled faintly under his skin, dancing along the etched scars across his chest. Violet bolts flared and vanished, flickering in rhythm with a heartbeat he could barely feel. His arms trembled at his sides, fingers twitching like dying roots.
He sucked in a breath.
Pain lanced through his ribs.
"Fuck…"
"You are alive," the voice said again. "Barely. But alive."
Klaus turned his head. The motion felt like dragging a mountain. His vision blurred, doubled, then settled.
A figure stood at the edge of the mist—neither man nor beast. Its form shimmered with flowing robes made of spiraling gusts and dust motes. Its face was a blurred reflection of many—human, divine, monstrous, and forgotten. A halo of wind crowned its head.
The Echo of the First Wind.
"You…" Klaus rasped. "You're not real."
"I am older than your empire," the Echo replied. "Older than the fire in your blood. Older than your pain."
Klaus groaned as his body shifted. "Where am I…?"
"You stand in the Tempest's Veil. A sanctum between seconds. A place born from the edge of death and the whisper of wind." The Echo stepped closer, voice as calm as distant thunder. "Your body lies broken. But here, your soul crawls forward, refusing to die."
Klaus's fists clenched. "I didn't crawl here. The wind took me."
"It answered your scream. Your pain. Your fury. You wielded it like a blade—but you know nothing of its edge."
The mist beneath him pulsed.
And then—Klaus remembered.
The battle.
The Monarchs.
Sofie's scream.
Lightning had poured from him in torrents, lighting the heavens with violet fire. His bones had shattered under the strain. His lungs torn. And then—
The storm came.
It had taken him. Lifted him.
Ripped him from death.
"…You're healing me," Klaus said, wincing.
"I allow the storm to bind what you would have gladly torn apart," the Echo replied. "But make no mistake—healing is not mercy. It is the price you pay for surviving."
A wind-thread coiled around Klaus's abdomen and seared into an open wound. He screamed—a raw, guttural roar that echoed through the veil like thunder tearing open the sky.
"You dare scream now," the Echo said softly. "After what you have already endured?"
Klaus panted, face soaked in sweat and blood. "Even storms bleed…"
"Then bleed with purpose."
Silence fell—until Klaus spoke again.
"How long?"
"Time here bends," the Echo replied. "Your heart beats still—but your body is on the brink. A little longer, and there would have been nothing left to save."
Klaus lowered his head, breathing ragged. "Then why save me?"
"You carry the Aetherion bloodline," the Echo answered. "A storm in waiting. But your rage blinded you. And yet—beneath the fury—there was honesty."
"What honesty?"
"Loss," the Echo said. "The wind does not stir for wrath. It stirs for truth. And your soul… is wounded."
Klaus didn't respond.
Instead, he stared upward at the vortex above—a sky made of whirling clouds and crackling light. The heavens here were alive, watching. Judging.
And then—like lightning to the spine—he remembered.
Sofie. Her face. Her scream. Her eyes locked on his as the Monarchs took her.
"I saw her," he murmured. "They dragged her through the gate… and I couldn't move. I couldn't fucking move—"
The wind howled around him as if in shared pain.
"I was broken. And she screamed for me. And I couldn't—" Klaus's voice cracked. "—I couldn't reach her."
The Echo was silent.
Then, gently, it reached out and placed a hand of condensed wind over Klaus's heart.
"You were not weak," it said. "You were human. But in that moment—your soul screamed louder than your body."
Klaus's head fell back, eyes burning. "It wasn't control. It wasn't planned. The wind—it just came."
"It didn't come," the Echo corrected. "It returned."
Klaus's brow furrowed.
"The storm has always lived within you," the Echo whispered. "Buried beneath centuries of silence. Buried beneath pain. You were never meant to command it like a master. You were meant to awaken it like a storm does the sky."
Klaus's breath caught.
"You're saying this power… isn't new?"
The Echo stepped back. "No. It is ancient. As old as the first breath of defiance. And now—it is awake again."
The storm above answered with a deep rumble.
"And it chose me?"
"It didn't choose," the Echo said. "It recognized."
Klaus rose slightly, legs trembling. The mist below began to swirl faster.
"So what now?" he asked. "What does it want from me?"
"To decide," the Echo said. "To decide what you will become. You have seen what the Monarchs will do. You have seen what nobility hides behind masks of flame and law."
The winds roared louder.
"You were forged by suffering. But if you remain a blade, you will be wielded."
Klaus stared forward.
"I don't want to be a weapon," he said. "I want to be the hand that ends them."
The Echo smiled faintly—a flicker of wind curling at its lips.
"Then become the storm."
The chamber began to shudder.
Klaus's body glowed—veins sparking with violet lightning as the wind surged beneath his skin. Bones realigned. Flesh sealed. His eyes lit with raw fury.
His voice, hoarse but unyielding, echoed across the veil:
"I'm not done with them."
A pause.
"I'm not done with Ignar. With the Monarchs. With the chains they wrapped around Sofie."
The storm screamed with him.
"They think I fell. They think I'm dead."
Lightning exploded around him.
"Let them believe it."
He opened his hand.
"Because when I return—"
The winds spiraled into his palm.
"—I won't come back as a man."
His voice became the storm.
"I'll come back as the reckoning they begged the gods to never wake."
And then—
He vanished in a burst of wind and violet fire.