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The water of the bath was filthy now. He’d tried to bear the shower at first, tried to scrub off some of the grime that had been caked onto him for months now, but it wasn’t budging, and he couldn’t withstand the weight on his leg any longer.
Jayce hadn’t been in this bath since he was a much younger boy. Since back when he’d have to promise his mother that he wouldn’t get his fantasy books and figurines wet if he brought them with him to the bathroom. He’d stopped fitting into it properly before he even turned sixteen, but he sat here now well into his thirties with his body folded into itself, watching with dead eyes as his blood mixed with the water. The press of the tub walls against his hips and thighs was almost comforting, a physical representation of the security that came from being in this house.
He listened for his mother in the kitchen, heating water on the stove to pour into the bath in order to keep it warm for him. He’s not sure that he would feel it anyway; his skin had been as numb as his mind for months now, but he didn’t protest. Didn’t say much of anything since he got here. Since he collapsed outside his mother’s apartment, crying feebly on her doorstep because he felt too weak to reach up and knock. She found him still, alerted by the thud of his hammer slipping from his grip, tugged him inside, pressed kisses all over his disgusting face and matted hair, and led him to the bathroom.
He felt a presence at the door and fought the urge to twitch, to jump into the self-defence mode his body had been developing, but he tried to quash the impulse. His pulse spiked despite his restraint, and he tried to pretend like it didn’t feel like he was having a heart attack as he felt the water being poured into the tub behind him. Jayce did not turn, but he focused on the sound of a stool being pulled up beside him and on the feeling of small hands hovering in hesitation before moving to brush his hair off of his forehead. His mother pressed a hand under his chin to lean his head back with a gentleness he could barely remember. She poured clean water from a cup over the crown of his head, the pads of her fingers causing the strangest sensation as they massaged his scalp and temples. It was like his nerves had forgotten how to register someone else’s touch. It scorched where their skin connected like she was scrubbing his skin raw rather than skating barely-there grazes over him.
Jayce couldn’t think of a time this apartment had felt so quiet.
It wasn’t just that there was no sound save for trickles and plashes of water, but the quiet was a physical sensation. Oppressive and heavy, thick in his throat. There was no record playing softly in the living room, and there was no hum under his mother’s breath like there used to be when she washed his hair. Just choked little breaths and shaky hands.
He couldn’t look at her.
The guilt from… everything was mixing with a different culpability that came from forcing this experience on one of the most important people in his life. He knew how he looked, and he had forced the most tender-hearted, sympathetic woman in the world to see him like this. To take care of him even. He couldn’t look at her because if he did, she really would cry. Jayce thought about how his mother gasped when she was helping him into the bath at the sight of his leg. Mangled. Infected. His leg barely looked like a limb anymore, a disgusting mottle of bloody purples and corroded teals spattering the surface above the ruined bone. If there was any chance that he survived a final battle, he imagined his leg would have to go entirely. There was no looking at it and believing it was the type of injury one could heal from. He was sure she felt similarly about the rest of him, and he was scared that his mom couldn’t recognise her son anymore because of it.
Suds of over-emulsified shampoo slid down his neck as she rinsed his hair for the last time, but she didn’t stop touching him. She raked her manicured fingernails over his scalp in the way he always used to like, combing through the months-old knots and tangles, and he felt like a kid. It wasn’t a good feeling. It wasn’t like the childlike wonder he experienced in those early days of Hextech, living out the dreams he’d been planning for in crayon drawings and diary scribbles. Wasn’t even like the pleasant thrum of nostalgia that usually came when he visited his mom here in his free time, every wall and bookshelf and table covered with hints that he had grown up here, every seat in the house was worn in by just the two of them. No, the way he felt now was more like the feeling that rotted him from the inside out whenever he got overwhelmed by the snow in winter. He felt small and sick and scared. He crawled back to his mommy after killing the man he loved, feeling small and sick and scared. She must think he looked pathetic.
The scrape of the stool being knocked over startled both him and the silence of the room, and he turned finally, worried his mother had slipped. Though, when his eyes found her, he saw that she had fallen to her knees. Weeping. Her hands tugged helplessly at the hair at the base of his neck, the sensation so foreign that it unsettled him. He’s sure that a few months ago he would’ve been able to handle this.
For his entire life, Jayce had prided himself on being good at comforting people, but his mind now was barely functioning, barely recalled comfort. There was a sort of punched-out feeling settling so deep in his chest that it made him nauseous. His brain conjured a vision of himself leaning over the tub and sweeping his mother up into his arms, kissing her temple, and convincing her that he was okay, but he couldn’t move. He sat stock still as she sobbed into her rolled-up sleeves, listened as she tripped over her words to apologise for crying, and he still didn’t move. The need to reassure her tickled at the bottom of his spine, but it was a dampened feeling. Everything was still so numb.
Wet, brown eyes peered up at him, hidden behind stray strands of greying hair. He fumbled for a memory of where she looked at him like this so that he could try to remind his body of the proper way to react, but he didn’t find one.
His mother was getting older much faster than he could consciously cope with, but right now she looked like a little girl. The corners of her mouth tugged downwards, lips puffy from pressing them together the same way he knew his own did when he cried, and the pout of it made her seem juvenile. She made an odd expression, eyebrows drawing in, and one delicate hand dragged from the back of his neck to his cheek, stroking a thumb under his eye. The slickness of the movement was Jayce’s only indication that he had been crying too.
“Oh, baby,” she whimpered then. “My baby… What happened?”
He choked. Swallowed a sob so violent that it felt like he was shoving glass into his mouth. He hung his head.
The crack of her voice, her running nose, those tired eyes, had Jayce regretting every decision he had ever made in his life. It was always understood by him, even if never said aloud, that his mother had a life in her head that she wanted for her son. She would’ve been happy for Jayce to grow into the space his father left, take over the family business, settle down, and mature past those childhood dreams of magic. From a young age, he had already decided that he would never be satisfied with that. There was this pulsating need festering inside of him to change the world. It felt like he had been chosen all those years ago; it felt like it was his responsibility to usher in a new era. Miracles were so rare, he thought, but a miracle saved his life, and there must have been a reason for it. He was so hungry, so certain that he had a duty to make a difference that it didn’t matter if he disappointed his mother for a time. Because someday, he would make her proud in a way she couldn’t now comprehend. He wasn’t going to be the son that she quietly hoped for, but he would be better, and he would change the world, and he would take care of his mother.
But now… he wished she had gotten what she wanted. Wished that he had made peace with never having enough. That he hadn’t gotten so greedy and drunk on power and pride. That he had been exiled from Piltover and left the city with his mother, making a living selling hammers. That he could physically stand to live an unfulfilled life.
It was much too late for that now.
He may have blasted a hole through Viktor’s chest, but he knew it wasn’t over, and failure was not an option. The slosh of water sounded impossibly loud to his ears, and he startled before realising that he was the one to cause the sound. A still dripping hand cupped his mother’s cheek, almost fully covering the side of her head. His vision was jumpy and unfocused, but he tried to look her in the eyes. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry that I couldn’t make you proud, but I swear to you that I’ll do anything to protect you.”
His throat stung as he forced himself to speak, each word grating roughly against his vocal cords, but he needed to make sure she understood. His thumb jumped against her cheekbone as he tried to connect the pounding thoughts in his head to soothe her to his body. He felt the tremor under her skin.
“Proud,” she breathed raggedly, incredulous. “I have always been proud of you. But you never had to make me proud; you just had to be alive.”
With a staggering amount of strength for her little body, his mother tugged him down into her chest. The scent of her perfume, the one he had bought for the last birthday he had been here for, invaded his senses, and he went lax in her grip. Her breath rattled in her chest, and he felt her clearing her throat right against his forehead before he heard it. She pulled back, looking over him determinedly. As his mother pulled away, Jayce felt the loss of her warmth like a memory, the feeling of a fire he had desperately stoked blowing out. She rose slowly, her knees audibly cracking as she got to her feet, and reached for the towel she had draped over the sink cabinet. Her hands, small but steady, helped him stand, a thin arm wrapped securely around his waist to try and support his weight. He let her, despite the humiliation burning at the edges of his numbness. He was too tired to argue. Too tired to do anything but stumble out of the tub and collapse onto the stool she’d been sitting on.
She rubbed the towel over his shoulders, her movements practiced and gentle; muscle memory. The towel was wrapped around his waist where he sat. Jayce blinked at the mirror across from him, startled by the gaunt, hollow-eyed man staring back. The reflection didn’t feel like him at first. It felt like someone else entirely, someone broken and alien. He looked away for now.
His mother moved behind him, her hand smoothing over his damp hair. “I think you need a trim,” she murmured, still shaky, reaching for the scissors she kept in the bathroom cabinet. The familiarity of it—the soft scrape of the stool against the tiles, the faint metallic click of the scissors—pulled at something deep inside him. “What do you think? Should I shave it like I used to?” she asked, a note of forced levity in her voice. A warm cheek pressed against his temple affectionately. “Maybe a star on the side, like when you were twelve?”
Jayce huffed a weak laugh, the sound of it feeling bizarre in his mouth and to his ears. He shook his head. “Just clean it up,” he rasped. “Please.” His voice was raw, barely audible; he had spoken more than he had in months already, the effort draining him.
She paused, her hands resting lightly on his shoulders. “The beard?”
He shook his head again. “Leave it.” He swallowed, his throat tight. It was… too strange a concept to describe, but he felt like he had to keep the physical reminders of his time in the Arcane. No, he didn't have to; he wanted to. Even with his mind as scrambled as it was, it felt like he truly understood now. Truly knew what had been eating at his partner for his whole life. Jayce did not want to forget what happened to him; he did not want to compartmentalise and try to convince himself that he’s not the same person. He is changed, and he is imperfect, but he hopes there comes a time in this mess where he gets to tell Viktor that those imperfections, flaws, physical and intangible alike, were what made life worth it. It would be an insult to everything he had learnt to try and change himself now.
His mother started her work without comment, the soft snip of scissors filling the silence. She combed through his hair with her fingers, trimming away the jagged, snapped edges and months of neglect, shaping it into something new. A version of himself with all of what had happened to him intact but touched by love and care.
When she finished, she stepped back to admire her work, her fingers brushing lightly over his temple. “There,” she said softly. “All cleaned up.”
Jayce met her gaze in the mirror, and this time he didn’t look away. Her reflection was a comfort he didn’t deserve, but one he clung to nonetheless. “Thank you,” he said, the words carrying a weight he couldn’t fully express. Thank you didn’t cover all she had done for him. She had taken care of him alone for almost his whole life; she defended him when his dream had come crashing down, and she had been there for every milestone with Hextech. She held him tight when he had lost himself, defying nature as he was so egotistically used to, in order to bring Viktor back from the dead, and she had brought the blanket from his childhood room to the lab to drape over him when he collapsed from exhaustion.
He couldn’t stay here. Not for long. But for this moment, he let himself lean into the safety she offered, even as the fire of his responsibility inside him burnt brighter.
The silence lingered between them, heavy still but not so empty, as his mother kissed his head. Her presence grounded him, but his thoughts pulled him elsewhere—into the uncertain void of what lay ahead. There was so much to do, so much to handle. There were so many people to keep safe, not just his family but all of Runeterra. It was impossibly overwhelming, but a soft voice tugged at his thoughts. He shivered at the memory of when he was given his mission, and he swallowed, absentmindedly thumbing the rune embedded in his wrist. There would have been no use in giving Jayce a task he couldn’t complete, he thought, so there was no excuse to give up.
Though, where was he to go from here?
His thoughts jumped to Mel first. God, Mel. His feelings about her as of late had been best described as tumultuous. There was almost nothing he wouldn’t give to hold her close to him again, lay his head on her lap, and find sanctity in her arms. He wanted to take care of her, but… did she need him to? He’d been doing a lot of thinking lately, not really having another thing to do, trapped and incapacitated in a cave. There was this sickness infecting every fibre of his being, this twisted idea that all the people in his life had never needed him, not truly. That they had used him for his ideas, for his easily given affection. It wasn’t just Mel; the whole council had chewed him up and spat him out. He was thrown into the memory of being elected to the council more often than not, the claw of anxiety up his throat as he watched himself being used like a pawn, like a tool, was a feeling that sat under his skin even now. Mel had called him an investment; he remembered that with clarity, but he couldn’t remember her tone, couldn’t remember if the lilt of her voice was playful like a cat toying with its prey or if she had been genuine. Isolation had convinced him that she hadn’t. She was brilliant, decisive, and always three steps ahead. What was he to her but a means to an end? He felt himself flinch at nothing; he’d been doing that a lot recently. The cogs of his mind felt oxidised, the teeth of them worn down after countless nights spent wide awake with them churning.
He wanted to believe differently. He wanted to believe she loved him. But now, all he could do was focus on what came next, on his mission, on ensuring that if he couldn’t survive, at least they could. No matter how she felt about him, he would protect her.
Caitlyn came to his mind next. The thought brought a tangle of emotions—warmth and guilt, pride and worry. He’d always thought of her as a little sister; having grown up as an only child, it was hard to parse what that meant, but even after all these years, he imagined her still as the bright-eyed girl who used to sit cross-legged on the floor of his workshop, watching with rapt attention as he explained the intricacies of his projects. She had been curious, clever, and supportive in the way only children could be. Back then, she was all questions and ambition; even if she wasn’t to be a scientist, she still built plans of her future centred around progress, and they bonded over that more than anything. Jayce remembered the afternoons he would spend “babysitting” her (she hated when he called it that), laughing as she tried to help with his projects, her tiny hands fumbling with tools too big for her to handle. He had watched her grow, always with the same determination in her eyes.
Though, he did wonder what she had been up to all this time. The Caitlyn he knew had always wanted to make Piltover better, to protect people. Was that still who she was? Or had the weight of the duties thrust upon her in the wake of her mother’s death, the pressure of it all, twisted her too? The thought chilled him. The last time he saw her, he had been too frazzled in his own grief to comfort her sufficiently over Cassandra. He tried to picture her as she was now, but he was clinging to the memory of the little girl she used to be. It wasn’t fair, he knew. People grew, changed, and adapted to survive. But still, he felt the urge to protect her, to shield her from the cruelties of the world, even if that world had made her someone unrecognisable to him. He wasn’t the same person anymore either; what could she possibly do that wouldn’t make him a hypocrite to reject her for?
Jayce swayed a little on the stool, his face damp with tears, and he turned slowly to find his mother’s real eyes instead of just their reflection in the mirror.
“When this is all over…” he began haltingly, tongue heavy in his mouth, “you should… you should go see Cait. And Mel. I think… She’d like to meet you.”
His mother’s expression softened, a tentative smile breaking through the tension. “We’ll have a big dinner,” she said, her voice warm but tinged with uncertainty, as though afraid to push too hard. “All of us together. You’ll bring them, and—”
Jayce’s eyes darted away. The words felt like an open wound. He didn’t respond, but the quickness of the movement stilled his mother into silence. The words he couldn’t say loomed in the air in front of his eyes. I won’t be there, but you’ll have each other. And that could be enough.
His mother cupped his face.
“We’ll get through this,” she said firmly, her conviction almost enough to make him believe it. But Jayce didn’t answer this time.
She stepped back then, hands lingering briefly on his shoulders before she turned toward the door. "Stay here," she said softly, her voice steady but still struggling under the weight of everything unsaid. She was a smart woman; he was sure she had noticed the implications of him pressing her to go visit the women he loved; he was certain she hadn’t missed the lack of a we in those staggered sentences.
Jayce nodded, his throat too tight for words. He sat still as she left, the silence stretching thin and taut around him. When she returned, she held a neatly folded pile of clothes—pants he recognised as his own, but the shirt was unmistakably his father’s.
“I thought this might be more comfortable,” she said, her tone carefully neutral. Jayce reached for the clothes and hesitated, his hand brushing against the fabric of the shirt. It had been way too many years for any scent of his father to linger, but memories of the smell of old cedar and burnt brass permeating his every sense in the all-encompassing hugs his dad would give after work warmed him from the inside out.
“Thanks,” he murmured, voice hoarse.
His mother’s expression softened again, her lips parting as though she wanted to say something more. But she stopped herself, simply nodding before stepping out to give him privacy.
Changing slowly, Jayce could admit that the feel of fresh clothes on clean skin was deeply satisfying even in his benumbed state. He winced, pulling his pants over his leg, and it reminded him of the shoddily made brace leaning against the tub.
He grimaced and snatched it off the ground.
Jayce felt his joints stiffen and his leg ache as he limped out of the bathroom toward his childhood room. Each step sent a dull throb up his leg, the uneven rhythm of his gait matching the low hum of pain in his body. The hallway was smaller than he remembered, or maybe he was just taller now; it was hard to tell. He hesitated for a moment before gripping the doorknob, the cool metal pressing into his palm. Pushing the door open felt like stepping into a memory he wasn’t sure he wanted to relive.
The faint scent of old wood and something floral—his mother’s lingering preference for sachets of lavender—hit him first, and he was momentarily stunned by how familiar it was. The walls were the same pale shade of blue they had always been, a colour that once reminded him of open skies and endless possibilities. Now, it felt almost stifling, like the weight of his childhood had been preserved just to confront him. The space was decorated floor to ceiling with corny posters of the magicians he had idolised as a child. Brightly coloured drawings were taped beside them, crayon imitations of the mysterious mage who had saved him and his mother all those years ago. His stomach churned at the sight, the realisation of everything still too fresh to process fully, but he felt the pounding of his heart speed up palpably. Affection swirled through his bloodstream.
Jayce swallowed hard. The posters and drawings blurred in his vision as his thoughts shifted. How strange it was that the same figure who had set him on this path had also been the one to walk it with him—and now, perhaps, to stand in his way.
The thought hit him like a blow, leaving him standing there, staring at the room of his childhood and feeling Viktor’s presence in every corner of it despite the fact that the man himself had never been there.
Jayce blinked, realising he’d been standing frozen in the doorway. He shook his head to try and force his train of thought back on track.
The brace in his hand was flawed, and the thought of improving it sparked a flicker of determination, faint but enough to push him to move. Jayce rummaged through the scattered remnants of his childhood workshop, his hands finding old belt straps, mismatched gears, and thin metal rods that he could remember hoarding as a kid. It wasn’t much, but it was more than he’d had in the cave.
Slumping heavily into the much too small desk chair, he worked with mechanical precision, his hands moving faster than his thoughts. The movements were almost involuntary, his body settling into a rhythm it had followed countless times before. Replacing the straps, tweaking the gears, and recalibrating the fit—each adjustment felt like a tiny reclamation of control.
Even in his battered state, the intricacy of the process fascinated him. His fingers, now used to wielding his hammer, handled the delicate components with the care of someone far more accustomed to tools of precision than weapons of destruction. His mind began to wander as he worked, recalling how he had designed a brace for Viktor years ago, the same one he had modelled his own after, and how meticulously he’d shaped it to fit the contours of Viktor’s leg. It had been a labour of love, born not just of necessity but of admiration. Viktor’s exacting standards had pushed him to create something more than functional—something beautiful in its efficiency.
Jayce glanced at the crude approximation on the table and huffed. He hadn’t gotten all the details right in creating his own; how could he have? It was a pale imitation, poorly suited for his body. Too heavy. Too unwieldy. It dug into his skin when he leaned on it, but he didn’t have the luxury of time when he had made it or now for draughting or prototyping, even if he yearned for it.
For a fleeting moment, he imagined himself at his old workstation, the hum of the lab filling the surrounding space. Blueprints sprawled across the desk, ink smudging his fingers as he sketched and scribbled. His mind raced with ideas to improve, to invent. Half-formed thoughts of an alloy that could withstand stress without adding too much weight, a hinge design that mimicked the natural movement of a joint.
This was who he was at his core; he understood that more than anything now. He was not a warrior but a scientist who sought answers in complexity and elegance. It was in these moments, with gears and tools in hand, that he remembered what had begun all of this in the first place. Not the need for glory or recognition, but for the pursuit of innovation. His fingers twitched over a gear.
And yet, even as the scientist in him found solace in the work, a darker thought lingered at the edges of his mind, the idea that it didn’t really matter how comfortable or efficient the brace was. He wasn’t exactly confident he’d be needing it much longer.
Still, his hands didn’t stop.
The soft knock at his door barely registered over the faint clinking of gears in his hand. Jayce looked up as his mother stepped inside, carrying a steaming cup of tea. She placed it on the desk beside him, her movements gentle and measured, as though afraid to break the fragile peace.
“I thought you might like this,” she said softly.
Jayce muttered a quiet thanks and reached for the cup, the warmth seeping into his palm. He took a tentative sip, the familiar taste of the tea catching him off guard. For a moment, his mind flashed to Viktor, hunched over his desk in the lab with a mug perpetually within reach. He could almost hear the soft clink of ceramic as Viktor brewed tea with the same meticulous care he gave to his experiments. The taste in his mouth turned bitter fast. He set the cup down a little harder than he meant to.
“Do you want me to make you something to eat?” his mom asked, fiddling with the joints of her prosthetic fingers.
Jayce shook his head. “No, I—” He hesitated, his words catching as an odd sort of humourless smile tugged at his lips. “I think I’ve lost my appetite for good. Six months of raw salmon will do that to a guy.”
His mother winced at the remark, her hand instinctively clutching her shirt near her heart. Jayce immediately regretted the flippancy, guilt smacking him upside the head. He didn’t mean to upset her, but he was too tired to think of how he would’ve responded when he was a semi-well-adjusted person.
“I’m not hungry,” he said more gently this time. “And anyway, I don’t have the time.”
He tightened the last screw at the knee joint of the brace before pushing back in the chair and moving to strap it on. His mother startled forward and kneeled on the floor next to him to help, and his heart ached. He was going to miss her so much. She fastened the strap at his ankle, at his knee, but paused over his thigh. The puff of her breath blew a strand of hair out of her face, and suddenly her eyes were wide. Jayce could hardly look as she hesitated to move, as her eyebrows drew in so taut that it must have hurt. It had hit her, only half a second after it had hit him, that when she was done taking care of him here, he was going to leave. Briefly, he looked up to the ceiling, inhaled a shaky breath, squeezed his eyes shut tightly. He looked back down at her, still hovering over his leg, teeth worrying her lip, and he grabbed her hand. Her gaze snapped up to him, and she let her hand be moved. They secured the last straps of his brace together.
The brace groaned faintly under his weight as he stood, pulling his mom up with him. It still wasn’t perfect, but it would hold long enough.
“Surely you can rest for just one day,” she implored, her voice tight with a mother’s concern as she stepped forward, reaching out to catch his arm. “Jayce, you’ve barely—”
He turned to her slowly, his heart constricting in his chest. He took her hands in his, committing the coolness of her palms to memory. His thumb brushed over the faint wrinkles on her knuckles, grip firm but tender, full of wonder, the way he used to hold the crystals he’d collected as a kid. In thick hands, both then and now, he held what was most valuable, precious beyond words.
“I love you,” he said, his voice low but fervent, as if the words were a promise he needed her to believe. These were words he had said to her countless times, but there was a finality to them now. He wasn’t just saying it to comfort her; he was comforting himself too. This was something he could control. These would be the last words he spoke to his mother. This is how he wanted her to remember him.
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead, lingering there for a moment, breathing her in. Every part of him wanted to hold on, to freeze this moment and never let go, but the world had a different plan. Slowly, reverently, she cupped his face, her fingers soft against his skin. She was trembling. Then, in one fluid motion, she pressed one last kiss to his cheek, her lips warm and familiar, the gentleness of her touch a contrast to the weight of the moment. Her fingers threaded through his hair for just a brief instant, and he knew she was trying to memorise the feel of him too.
“Please be careful,” she whispered. There was a strange inflection to her plea, likely because she knew better than anyone that Jayce had rarely been careful about anything in his life.
Jayce nodded anyway, pulling back. The space between them suddenly unbearable. He stood for a moment, just looking at her, at the woman who had given him everything, who had held him in the midst of every storm.
He took in the sight of his room for the last time, every detail of it so painfully familiar. His eyes lingered on the bookshelves, the worn chair by the window, the desk covered in childish blueprints and half-finished ideas. Without a word, he turned and let his mother trail behind him wobbly. She was fidgeting at his back, hands trembling as she walked behind him, every movement as if trying to hold on to something she couldn’t. She wasn’t going to stop him; she never would, but they both knew this was the last time she would ever follow him like this.
He grabbed his hammer, the weight of it physically and mentally grounding him as he turned toward the door. With a final glance over his shoulder, he met her eyes, a flicker of gratitude breaking through the exhaustion in his gaze. She tried for a smile, just for him. He reached for the door handle.
Jayce stepped into the hallway, the door closing behind him with a soft click that felt much louder than it should have. The quiet stretched around him, broken only by the faint hum of distant machinery. A prickling sensation crawled up his spine, setting his nerves alight.
Something was watching him.
His grip on the hammer tightened as his gaze flicked around the dimly lit corridor. The shadows pooled unnaturally in the corners, thick and heavy like ink. Jayce’s pulse quickened, though he kept his expression steady. There was no sound to indicate an actual presence, and for all intents and purposes he might have been hallucinating; it wouldn’t be necessarily out of character for him recently. Though… something about this felt different; something deep in his soul would always recognise that specific energy, no matter how distorted.
Jayce exhaled, a sound that was almost a laugh, dry as it was. “Don’t worry, I’ll see you soon enough.”
For a moment, he thought he caught a now all-too-familiar sound, the creaks and clicks of those things; he thought he felt a much too smug aura purring behind his back. But nothing answered him. The silence reclaimed the space, leaving Jayce alone once more.
He didn’t linger.
Turning on his heel, he started down the corridor, each step a deliberate march out of the apartment building and off toward the council chamber. The echo of his footsteps filled the emptiness, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of unseen eyes trailing after him.
Whatever waited for him ahead, Jayce would be ready. He squared his shoulders and moved forward, the weight of his hammer and the faint warmth of his mother’s parting kiss his only armor. He still had a duty.