They didn't even bother to escort him.
After the Awakening, students were swept into groupings based on their element and rank, huddled by colored banners, calling out to friends, and rushing off to feast halls and dormitories that shimmered with welcome enchantments. Marek stood alone in the middle of it all, invisible.
Until someone pointed.
"Hey. That's the one. The Null."
The word moved like a wind through the crowd, swift and biting.
Marek lowered his head and walked the path assigned to him. No magical guidance glyph lit the way for him, and no helpful steward appeared. Only his reflection in the cold academy windows followed him, long and silent.
The West Wing Dormitory lay at the edge of Drexis grounds, past a collapsed training yard and through a narrow path of mossy stones. Once part of the main school complex, it had long since been isolated—forgotten except for administrative necessity. A building reserved for the invisible.
The door screeched open with a groan.
Inside, the air was stale with old dust and half-spent mana. The hallway was lined with dorm rooms that looked like they hadn't been touched in years. Walls had cracks spiderwebbing through the stone. One of the overhead light crystals flickered sporadically, struggling to hold charge.
Marek found his room at the end of the corridor.
It didn't lock.
The mattress was missing. There was no heating rune. The window was stuck shut and stained yellow by years of neglect.
He dropped his satchel and sat on the bare bedframe, shoulders still carrying the cold of the Awakening Chamber.
The words still echoed in his head:
"You may step down."
No element. No rank. No path.
Just… Null.
Marek lay back on the bedframe, eyes open, staring at the cracked ceiling.
He didn't feel broken.
He felt unread.
That difference mattered.
A quiet knock rapped on his door.
He sat up quickly. For a moment, his mind jumped to the idea of staff coming to expel him, or worse, send him to some research lab.
But instead, a girl peeked in, silver-haired and smirking.
"You look worse than I did my first day," she said.
He blinked. "…I doubt that."
"I was ranked seventy-two. Everyone said I'd drop below two hundred by midterm."
"And did you? "
"Nope," she said, stepping inside. "I just stayed seventy-two. Which, by the way, is apparently worse than falling. Means I've 'stagnated.' That's the official word."
She offered a lopsided smile and a wrapped bar of dried mana-grain. "Eat this. The dining hall won't let you through the rune gate. West Wing students have to beg or starve."
Marek took the bar. It was cold and dense.
"Arden," she added. "Liora. I used to live down here too."
Marek studied her. She didn't flinch like the others. Didn't seem to see him as something broken.
"Marek," he said simply. "Vales."
"Right. The Null."
He didn't answer.
She walked to the cracked runeplate beside the door and banged it with her palm. It sparked once, and the overhead light flickered brighter for a few seconds.
"That'll give you about ten minutes of heat. Do it every hour or so or you'll freeze tonight."
"Thanks."
She leaned against the wall. "I saw what happened in the Chamber."
Marek stiffened.
"It wasn't just silence," she said. "The beacon didn't reject you. It paused."
He met her eyes. "You were watching that closely? "
"I watch things when they're interesting. And I've never seen the grid hesitate."
He wanted to ask her what she thought it meant. But she was already moving toward the door.
"Get some rest, ghost," she said over her shoulder. "This place doesn't wait for you to catch your breath."
And then she was gone….
Later that night, Marek sat on the floor beside the window. The light crystal above him had finally burned out.
Outside, the main dormitories glowed bright with enchantments. Laughter echoed across the courtyard.
He was a Null.
And they feared what that meant.
He closed his eyes.
That strange pressure in his chest returned. A presence without shape. Something waiting.
Not asleep.
Just waiting to be called.
He was still half awake when the second visitor arrived.
No knock this time.
Just silence, followed by the soft shift of air.
Marek opened his eyes.
A boy stood in the doorway. Tall, angular. A strip of silver-threaded cloth covered his eyes. Despite the blindfold, he turned his head to look directly at Marek.
"You broke something," the boy said.
"Not on purpose."
"No," the boy agreed. "But it still happened."
He stepped forward. The floor didn't creak. His presence felt quiet and unassuming—and yet, deliberate. Controlled.
"I'm Junic Tal," he said. "Rank two hundred twenty-three. Echomancer. I hear mana. Feel vibrations. Echoes. The grid hums when it activates."
"And?"
"And when you stepped in, the hum stopped."
Marek frowned. "I didn't cast anything. I don't even know what affinity I'm supposed to have."
"That's the point," Junic said. "You didn't cast. You didn't resist. You just stood there… and the grid paused."
A long silence passed between them.
Junic walked over to the cracked runeplate, touching it lightly with two fingers. "You don't cancel magic, Marek. You interfere with it. That's worse."
"Worse how?"
"Because even broken things can be understood. Repaired. But you?" Junic tilted his head. "You're not broken. You're something else. The system didn't fail. It choked."
Marek didn't know what to say.
Junic turned toward the door again. "I'll be watching. And so will others."
"Should I be afraid?"
"Yes," Junic said with a calm smile. "But not of us."
He paused in the doorway.
"You should be afraid of what happens if you're ever forced to use what's inside you."
That night, Marek didn't sleep.
He sat on the floor beneath the dark window, arms resting on his knees, staring at the faint glow of Drexis beyond the hill.
He was a Null.
And that didn't mean powerless.
It meant unreadable.
It meant… uncontrollable.
It meant they had no way to predict what he could become.
And that?
That was exactly what scared them.