The flight to the Outer Anchor was unnervingly smooth.
Martin spent most of it sprawled across his seat like a lounging cat, eyes half-lidded, watching the skies darken from indigo to deep violet as they ascended past the breathable atmosphere. The stars, sharp and silent above Gaia, winked in strange constellations. No moon—just the sky, impossibly vast, and the slow heartbeat of arcane energy vibrating beneath their carriage.
Ahead, a pulsing glimmer took shape.
The Outer Anchor.
Not a structure, so much as an event. A waystation wrapped around itself like a Mobius strip, orbiting Gaia like a silver ghost caught in perpetual stasis. Ancient rune-cages laced the station's frame, etched with primordial sigils that pulsed like restrained heartbeats. The air shimmered where realspace bent against the ley current feeding the construct.
Martin sat upright for the first time since takeoff.
The full form of the anchor came into view: a half-cathedral, half-engine of godlike engineering, suspended by nothing but laws rewritten. Its walkways spun in slow concentric rings, drifting on impossible pivots. Carriages of all shapes darted to and from docking points—each glowing with regulation wards and purpose-marked glyphs.
Martin exhaled. "It's bigger than I thought."
"Expecting a door in the clouds?" Roen smirked from across the cabin.
"Something less… showy," Martin said, watching a flying barge twist sideways through a rotating corridor.
"Nothing about Varncrest is humble," Belisarius said, his voice as dry as the air outside.
As the carriage docked at the anchor's third-tier ring, they were met by a gate mage—her robes were a deep cobalt marked with the sigils of the Waywardens. Her eyes shimmered with spatial attunement, and a long scroll hovered beside her, marked with red and gold glyphs cataloguing travel authorizations.
"Warden Belisarius," she said with a formal nod. "We weren't expecting a Rift jump this late."
"Expedited travel," Belisarius said curtly. "We need the southern ring gate—quietly."
The gate mage blinked. "Unusual, but not impossible. Identity markers?"
Belisarius passed her two small glyph-discs. One bore his own sigil, the other Roen's. When the mage turned to Martin, he only smiled faintly, saying nothing.
Belisarius gestured toward him. "Treat him as off-grid and volatile. Temporary classification: Black Trace."
The Waywarden stiffened. "Acknowledged," she said, her tone suddenly much more careful.
They moved.
The interior of the Outer Anchor was an impossible blend of architecture and arcana: basalt stairs floated mid-air, turning with the motion of the station's inner rings. Rotating glyph platforms hovered over abyssal drops, each marked for specific destinations. Halls stitched with gravity inversion spells flickered and clicked as they passed. The ambient mana density was enough to leave Martin's skin tingling, like the entire structure was alive and holding its breath.
They passed a chamber lined with reflection runes—mirrors of shifting memory and surveillance, showing other points on Gaia and beyond. Martin slowed as one caught his attention.
It showed a smoldering crater, its edges bound by flickering red wards, the land itself blackened and cracking from the inside. Something writhed just beneath the surface.
"That one," Martin said, pointing. "Where's that?"
Roen glanced over. "Ashfall. Failed soul-binding experiment. They tried to make a synthetic archlich using seven merged animus cores."
Martin whistled. "How many casualties?"
"Trillions, if you count the things still trying to crawl out."
"Lovely," Martin murmured. "Maybe I'll go vacationing there if Varncrest disappoints."
Belisarius stepped onto a rune platform near the southern gate. Roen followed. Martin lingered for just a second longer.
"This is a one-way trip, right?" he asked.
"You were never planning to go back," Belisarius replied.
"True." Martin grinned. "Still fun to ask."
He stepped onto the platform.
The Waywarden called out from her post: "Anchor confirmed. Priority slot reserved. Rift Gate to Varncrest intake—ready on mark."
Then it happened.
Reality flexed.
There was no light, no thunderclap. Just the sensation of being unmade and rewoven, like thread pulled through the eye of a multidimensional needle. Martin didn't scream. He didn't panic. He simply existed in between, and then didn't.
And then—he arrived.
The air bit him first.
It was sharp and cold, thin enough to sting the lungs, yet dense with magic so thick it coated his tongue. He exhaled, and his breath misted.
He stood in a wide stone circle atop a mountain plateau. Around him, arcane wards shimmered in the floor—runic channels pulsing quietly as they realigned his matter to this new space.
But what truly held his attention was above.
Varncrest.
It floated overhead—not a single structure, but a sprawl of connected islands suspended in impossible formation. Towering spires rose into the sky like spears, carved from black stone and inlaid with glowing silver veins. Bridges of woven mana linked platforms suspended in air, held not by cables or force, but will.
Waterfalls cascaded upward from lower islands to higher ones in arcs of glittering mist. Birds—if they were birds—darted through spatial loops, vanishing and reappearing in bursts of light. Some had feathers; others shimmered like equations in motion.
The sky itself bent around the islands, refracting in slow spirals. Stars shifted subtly, orbiting the campus like obedient satellites.
Floating artifacts hovered near the edge of the plateaus—sentient constructs of stone and metal, pulsing faintly with thought.
Martin took a slow step forward, breath shallow.
This wasn't a school. This was a declaration.
Power lived here. Power, and the audacity to shape the laws of reality around curiosity alone.
Belisarius stepped off the platform beside him, cloak billowing in the cold air. "Welcome to Varncrest."
Roen followed, rubbing his arms. "Still hate Rift jumps."
Martin didn't respond. His gaze was locked upward, tracing the structure, eyes dancing with calculations.
"I assume the orientation speech comes next?" he asked after a long pause.
"No speech," Belisarius said. "You'll be processed tomorrow. Until then, keep your head down."
Martin smiled faintly. "Not my specialty."
"I'm aware."
A low chime echoed from the intake ring. A glide-disc, shaped like a spinning plate of blackened silver, floated toward them—meant to carry travelers upward toward the next bridge.
Martin stepped onto it, still staring at the floating monolith above.
"This place," he murmured, almost to himself, "is far more fun than I expected."
And somewhere in the halls of the floating academy, wards whispered. Systems blinked awake. Old sensors registered a presence that didn't fit.
Not a student.
Not a visitor.
Something in between.
Something disruptive.
Something dangerous.
To Be Continued…