The Gifted Divide

"Is Cade a criminal, a sinner, or a biblical purveyor of justice? Your answer is your own. I cannot say whether or not you made the correct choice." - John M. Vermillion (Awful Reckoning: A Cade Chase and Simon Pack Novel)

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Zalfari's sun hung low and golden, its rays glittering like fractured glass over the slow-moving river. It was a beautiful day—the sort of serene illusion that made it dangerously easy to forget the world was on the brink of tearing itself apart.

The boathouse that Aegis called home swayed gently with the water, docked at one of Zalfari's quieter wharves. Its wood groaned gently as the tide shifted. The soft lapping of the river outside was the only true rhythm that remained constant.

Inside, the light filtered through dust-specked windows, illuminating beams and floorboards that had seen more sorrow than celebration.

Letha Joyner sat cross-legged on an old faded couch by the corner of the first storey, her back against a rotted support pillar as she absently scrolled through her phone. Her thumb glided over a stream of articles, feeds, independent blogs, and encrypted forums. The news was chaos. Words like "catastrophe," "unprecedented breach," and "suspicious explosion" riddled every headline.

Hunter Headquarters suffers internal collapse…

Several elite agents unaccounted for… denies casualties…

Anonymous sources claim Gifted involvement… unconfirmed…

Whistleblowers claim drugging… truth buried…

The headlines spun into a chorus of anxious suspicion and unspoken truths.

Surprisingly, Nicolosi and the hunters didn't say that it was Aegis and Blade who have attacked them, and Letha thinks she understood why.

It would have been a big blow to their pride and even their reputation if the hunters admitted that Blade and Aegis have managed to infiltrate hunters' headquarters, and not only managed to kill so many of their own, but also destroy half of their headquarters.

But people were asking questions, especially some of the more prominent and independent reporters. The fact that hunters were currently getting doped up on Blue Pandora haven't made it out to the civilian populace yet, but it is only a matter of time, considering that Team Alpha and Team Delta were there that night.

Letha lowered the phone and stared at it in her lap for a moment. Her pale blue eyes, usually sharp with mischief or sarcasm, were tired. Hollowed.

That night at Blackpool—nearly a week ago, still echoed in her bones. Claudia's smile and Ness's grin before they detonated the explosives within Claudia's wind barrier.

Letha had seen so much death in her life, but not like this. Not people she'd built a home with. A future with.

None in Aegis were still able to accept the reality that Claudia and Ness were really…gone. They've spent four years together, and for some of them, nearly five years. They weren't just comrades tied together by a singular purpose. They were friends. Family.

And now, Claudia and Ness are gone.

Tatius, especially, is finding it hard to accept, with Claudia being his older sister and Ness being his twin. Aegis were letting him grieve in his own way, with them all showing that they were there for him. Neil, who is the closest to him, had been keeping an eye on Tatius since.

Aegis was quieter since that day. More distant. Everyone grieved in their own way. Tatius had gone nearly silent.

Which was why Letha wasn't surprised when she heard the hesitant steps coming down from upstairs, the familiar shuffle of boots dragging just slightly too slow. She didn't look up until he was beside her.

Tatius Black stood there, awkwardly, his hands tucked into the pockets of his black jeans. His jade green eyes, once always full of sardonic sparks and dry humour, were dulled, a strange fog drifting in them.

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"Something you need, Tatius?" Letha asked softly, her voice breaking the still air like a whisper of wind through dying leaves.

He didn't speak for a long time. "Yeah," he said at last, almost inaudible. "I need a favour."

Letha sat up straighter, her body attentive now, and her spine instinctively rigid. "Alright," she said gently. "What kind?"

Tatius inhaled slowly, as though gathering courage. "Letha… You can talk to the dead, right? Not just reanimate corpses or open gates—like, actually talk to them."

Letha nodded, but cautiously. "Within limits," she said, her voice careful. "If their souls have already moved on… If they have already reincarnated, or even faded, I can't reach them. If they're in torment, I tread very lightly. And if they were…bad people in life, I don't dare touch their essence. Too dangerous. Too volatile."

Tatius nodded again, eyes staring somewhere just over her shoulder. "There's…two souls I want to get in contact with."

Letha's gaze softened. "You don't need to say it," she said. "I know." She sighed. "To be honest, I was fully expecting you to approach me at some point. This is about Claudia and Ness, isn't it?"

Tatius blinked. "How?"

Letha sighed, setting her phone aside. "Because I've been where you are. Anyone who's lost someone important and knows what I can do… They always come to me eventually. I was honestly surprised Sera didn't when Karl died. But… I think she made her peace with it. Closure. You didn't."

A raw silence stretched between them, fragile as glass.

"I just wanted to say goodbye," Tatius whispered. "To tell them what I didn't get to say. What I should've said."

Letha didn't interrupt. She let Tatius talk.

"Before the Blackpool mission," he said, his voice thickening, "before we went off to help Sera and the rest of Blade, and save Wes… Ness and I had a fight." His mouth twisted into something between a laugh and a sob. "I don't even remember what it was about anymore. Something stupid. It always is. We fought about who forgot to fix the comms. Who took the last damn ration pack. We always fought over the dumbest things. Claudia was always mad with us about it, especially when we tried to get her to take sides."

Letha nodded. "All siblings fight," she said. "You think Neil and Kailey don't fight? They do. They just don't let it affect the others."

Tatius swallowed, hard. "I just wanted to talk to Ness. And Claudia. One last time. To tell them it wasn't their fault. To say I'm sorry. That I love them. I never got to say it. Not out loud."

His voice broke.

"It was so sudden, Letha," he said, his tears rising unbidden now. "One second, they were there. Fighting. Laughing. Living. And the next…" He choked, dragging a sleeve across his eyes. "They were gone." He choked. "All of us were prepared to die the moment we started Aegis. We knew what we're in for. Especially after this entire madness begun, and we saw what we did at Veridale. We were all prepared. But…"

Letha's throat tightened. Her fingers curled slightly against her knees. "I get it," she said quietly. "I really do. When Whirlwind was attacked… Back before Aegis… I lost everyone. We were a gang. We were family. Hunters came for me. Killed all of them just to get to me. Burned down our safehouse. Sacked Zalfari. Laughed while they did it."

Tatius looked at her, slowly, his grief softening into quiet sympathy.

"I accepted it eventually," Letha said quietly. "Because I was born underground. I knew death. I danced with it. But just because we understand what we've signed up for doesn't mean we stop feeling it." She sighed, brushing back a stray strand of silvery-blonde hair. "Sera. Raul. Laura. Even the Zalfari people… They all know this life comes with a cost. But we still grieve. We have to." She exhaled. "Knowing it, however, is one thing. Accepting it is another. It isn't any easier when the Premier asked Leroy and Alisa to be Zalfari's guardians, I assure you. But they revived Zalfari. Made it better. Turned it into a home for those of the underground that remained on the surface. And for that, I couldn't be any more thankful."

Tatius's shoulders hunched. "I'll keep fighting," he said, his voice low. "For them. For Aegis. But I…" He looked up at her. "I need to say goodbye."

Letha stood up. Her pale blue eyes gleamed with something unreadable. She didn't hesitate. "Come on," she said. "There's a place. Still within Zalfari. Old. Quiet. Connected. I use it for spirit-channeling when I need clarity. But I won't promise they'll come. It's up to them."

Tatius nodded, his eyes raw but resolute.

As they left the boathouse, the wind picked up slightly, carrying distant sounds from Zalfari's streets. The once-sleepy underground haven had become a defiant stronghold. A home to the forgotten, the hunted, and even for the Gifted who'd refused to vanish.

But tensions buzzed in every corner. Armed mercenaries could be seen every corner they turn. On the roofs. Watchtowers.

Letha recalled the few towns they've passed through before coming to Zalfari to seek refuge. In those other towns, Gifted have long been run out or hunted down.

Murals on their brick walls showed Gifted with halos of power. Others were defaced with red spray paint: "They're not human." "Purge the witches."

Nicolosi's face had appeared on posters around those towns. "Security through sacrifice." "We protect Eldario."

It made Letha want to spit.

Security? The man orchestrated death like it was a song. He ordered the creation of Blue Pandora—a drug distilled from the blood of Gifted. He brought back that nightmare that they all thought they'd buried. Perfected that damn drug. It gave power to Normals. Killed them, too. Drove them mad. Turned them into monsters.

And the world still didn't know. Not fully.

But the truth was surfacing. One scream, one leak, one fire at a time.

They walked in silence until they reached the outskirts of Zalfari, at the hill overlooking the town where there was a large weeping, willow tree. The same place where Aegis had first found Letha, Tatius realised, recognising the tree.

The tree is special, Tatius recalled Letha telling him once. The tree had been here since before Zalfari's founding. It is where Letha go whenever she needs to think or feel safe. And it is also why she'd ended up there when the hunters have attacked.

There were wind-chimes hanging from the lower boughs of the tree. And around the tree roots was sweet-smelling grass filled with wildflowers. Around the tree was a circle of smooth stones.

Even without Letha's abilities, Tatius can already feel something spiritual from the tree. Letha knelt before the tree, motioning for Tatius to sit next to her.

"Close your eyes," she said. "Breathe. Think of them. Picture them not as they died, but as they lived. Let their energy come to you."

Tatius obeyed.

Letha closed her own eyes. The air around her shifted subtly. The ground trembled with an unnatural stillness, like the world had held its breath. A faint glow rose from her fingertips as she extended her arms, whispering words in a long-forgotten tongue.

The stones around the tree began to shimmer, with faint blue light rising like mist.

And then, there was nothing but silence.

Letha's eyes opened, glowing pale-blue. "They're listening," she said softly.

Tatius's breath caught in his throat.

And for the first time in a week, he felt them. Not just memories, but their presence.

Claudia's laughter, bold and unflinching.

Ness's calm, sarcastic smile.

And though the world was falling apart outside Zalfari, though Eldario boiled with hate and fear and war, in this moment, beneath the sky, before this tree, there was a stillness.

A sacred pause.

Tatius closed his eyes.

And finally, he began to speak.