The first thing I learned at Obsidian Academy was this:
They don't teach you how to survive.
They teach you how to win.
If you don't, you disappear. Quietly. Without legacy or funeral.
The second thing I learned?
I wasn't supposed to be here either.
Not just because I was Ravianne Everdusk's "nephew," and not because of the power boiling inside me like it was learning how to breathe. No, the real reason they didn't want me here was simple.
I wasn't afraid of them.
That made me dangerous.
—
The academy was carved into the spine of the Duskfall Mountains, its towers jutting like knives into the sky. Everything was sharp here—words, hallways, even the air. Magic hung thick in the atmosphere, too ancient to be clean, too heavy to ignore.
I arrived with no escort.
Lady Ravianne made a show of it. Sent me off alone. No guards. No carriage. Just her insignia pinned to my chest and a smile on her lips that promised chaos.
Power speaks louder when it walks in unguarded.
They made me kneel on the first day.
Not physically.
But tradition demanded "acknowledgment."
Each new student had to bow before the banner of the Crown, recite the oath of obedience, and touch the stone of binding—a relic said to sear traitors and expose liars.
I stepped forward when my name was called.
"Ael," the Herald intoned. "Of House Everdusk. Step forth and kneel."
I didn't move.
The hall fell silent.
My classmates were already bowed, heads lowered, hands trembling against the cold marble.
"Ael," the Herald repeated, now louder. "Kneel before the realm."
I looked up at the obsidian banner, embroidered with gold thread and the sigil of the royal phoenix.
Then I looked at the stone.
Then back at the Herald.
And I laughed.
Not loud. Not manic. Just quiet enough to hurt their pride.
"No," I said.
Just that.
One syllable.
One line of rebellion.
Gasps echoed. Whispers slithered between rows.
The Herald's face darkened. "You will kneel, boy."
"No," I said again, louder this time. "You don't want me touching that stone."
He raised his hand, magic coiling around his wrist. "You dishonor the Crown."
"I'm protecting it."
And then I turned my back.
That was the third thing I learned.
When you act like a monster, the real ones start watching.
—
They didn't expel me.
Of course not.
They studied me instead.
Whispers followed me down every corridor. People flinched when I passed. Professors took notes behind illusion spells. Even the walls seemed to memorize my steps.
I wasn't enrolled.
I was quarantined.
Tested. Prodded. Feared.
Exactly how Ravianne wanted.
My schedule was tailored to keep me isolated. No roommates. No dorms. I lived in one of the spires, far above the rest. Cold stone, no firewood, no enchantments to keep out the frost. They thought it was punishment.
I thought it was peace.
My first real class was something called "Magia Primalis"—ancient forms of channeling. Most students used rods or enchanted rings. Some summoned spirits.
I used my hand.
The moment I raised it, the spell circle cracked.
Professor Maltren—the old corpse pretending to be alive—stared at me like I was a riddle written in blood.
"Again," he said, voice brittle.
I obliged.
Dark energy sparked. Not black. Not red. Something in between. Something that pulsed with rhythm, like it had a heartbeat.
The other students shifted away.
Except one.
Caidros.
He stood at the far end, sword sheathed but eyes sharp.
He didn't flinch.
Didn't blink.
I nodded at him.
He didn't return it.
Respect isn't always loud.
—
At night, I trained.
Not spells. Not forms.
Instinct.
The Fallen inside me—it wasn't silent anymore.
It didn't speak in words. It breathed through dreams. Sometimes I saw wings made of smoke, feathers like blades. Sometimes I saw fire raining from cathedrals made of bone.
But most nights?
I saw him.
Me.
The version of me that burned in a skyscraper on Earth. Drenched in soot and regret. Reaching for someone I couldn't save.
He always asked the same thing.
"Are you going to waste this life too?"
And I never had the answer.
—
The nightmares stopped after I bled.
It wasn't intentional.
A test in Rune Combat went sideways. One of the students—Hollen Darvane, second son of a merchant duke—decided to make an example of me.
"Too proud to kneel," he said, cracking his knuckles. "Let's see how proud you are with your jaw broken."
I didn't respond.
I just waited.
He struck first.
And last.
Because the moment his fist grazed my cheek, something snapped inside me.
Not anger.
Not pain.
Something older.
A thread unraveling.
A lock opening.
The world tilted.
Light exploded behind my eyes.
I grabbed his arm mid-punch.
And the shadows responded.
They didn't just wrap around him—they invaded.
Ink-black tendrils shot from the cracks beneath us, pierced the floor, coiled up his limbs like serpents starved of heat.
He screamed.
They didn't just hold him down.
They drank.
The instructors rushed in seconds later.
They shattered the bindings.
Dragged me back.
My hands were covered in shadow-blood. Not his. Mine.
It vanished before I could wipe it away.
Again.
—
After that, they gave me a title.
Not officially.
But it stuck.
The Anomaly.
Fitting.
Even the Headmaster requested a meeting.
They sent a raven with the summons. Gilded. Formal.
It burned up before I could read it.
The flame didn't come from the letter.
It came from me.
Ravianne found out, of course.
She wrote back using her own blood as ink.
"Tell your master to speak like a ruler, not a vulture."
Her words, not mine.
She was proud of me.
I think.
—
By the end of my first week, I'd earned three things:
• A suspension from combat classes
• A mandatory escort in magical theory lectures
• And a personal mentor from the Tower's upper faculty
His name was Seravin.
A ghost in all but title.
Tall, skeletal, dressed in robes that shimmered between black and blue. He didn't speak often. When he did, it was in a language I almost understood.
He didn't bow. Didn't lecture.
He just said:
"You are not what you seem. But you are exactly what we deserve."
And somehow, that felt like the truest compliment I'd ever received.
—
Later that night, I returned to my tower room.
No fire. No warmth. Just the stars outside my window and the cold inside my bones.
I stood there for a long time.
Then I whispered a poem.
The first I'd spoken since Earth.
"In light I fell, in dark I rose,
Where silence sings and shadow knows.
A blade once dulled now carves again,
Not bound by gods. Not ruled by men."
The words didn't spark magic.
But they did something else.
The shadows near my feet stirred.
Listened.
And smiled.