"There's a kind of silence that feels heavier than shouting.Like the world's holding its breath… waiting for you to break it."
The Academy always felt different after midnight.
The heat died down. The bells stopped ringing. Even the flame pillars along the walkways dimmed, flickering with half-hearted embers like they, too, were exhausted by the day's expectations.
Kael liked it.
No one watched him at night.
No professors waiting to scowl. No students tossing elemental chants like they were fireworks. No whispers about his "brand failure" or his cursed status.
Just stillness.
And lately, stillness had started to feel like company.
He moved across the back courtyard, boots soft on the stone, his breath misting slightly even though Emberhold was supposed to be fire-warmed at all times.
That was probably a bad sign.
Or just another symptom of whatever was living inside his soul these days.
He turned sharply into one of the broken meditation yards—an open-air ruin of cracked stone tiles and forgotten training glyphs. Long abandoned. No active wards. No lights.
Perfect.
He tossed down his satchel, rolled his shoulders, and took a stance.
There wasn't a proper training routine for someone like him.
Ashbound didn't get instruction.
So he made it up.
Breathe in. Focus.
Try to feel the energy in the air.
Try to reach into the flow of fire or wind or—
Nothing.
As always.
The elemental essence ignored him completely. No pull. No push. Just a void. Like trying to grasp water with gloved hands.
Kael lowered his arms, frustration gnawing at the edge of his composure.
"I'd summon a spark just to feel something," he muttered, "but the last time I tried, the wall blinked and I heard a choir of dead whispers, so… maybe not today."
He sat cross-legged on the cold tile and stared at his hands.
Calloused. Cracked.
Ordinary.
Except… they weren't.
Not anymore.
That mark. The one that burned into his palm during the Mirror Trial. It wasn't visible under daylight, but here—in the shadows—he could feel it. Not on his skin. Beneath it. Like a symbol written into bone.
He exhaled, closed his eyes.
And reached inward.
The moment he did—
The ground trembled.
Just slightly.
Kael's eyes flew open.
A faint shimmer cracked the air around him like heat distortion, but colder—reverse flame.
A shadow peeled off his back and coiled around him like a scarf made of smoke.
His breath hitched.
Not out of fear.
Out of clarity.
This wasn't chaos.
This was him.
The power didn't flare. It didn't roar.
It whispered.
Soft. Absolute.
And for a moment, he felt everything. Every breath in the courtyard. Every heartbeat from the beast dorms across the campus. Every flicker of torchlight along the upper walls.
It overwhelmed him.
He snapped out of it with a sharp inhale, sweat clinging to his neck.
"What… the hell was that?"
He reached out again—carefully.
The shadow moved.
A ripple in space. A line traced across the floor, jagged and uneven.
Then it solidified.
A shape.
A glyph.
But not one he recognized. Not from any elemental text. Older. Angular. More like a brand than a casting mark.
Kael crouched, tracing its edges with his fingers.
The moment his skin touched the final curve—
The glyph pulsed.
And a blast of pressure slammed outward.
Tiles cracked beneath him.
The air bent.
Lights from the main halls flickered.
And then—silence.
No alarms.
No flames.
No fallout.
Just Kael, panting in the center of the courtyard, now etched with a glowing black rune.
A voice echoed behind him.
"Impressive. For someone who isn't supposed to exist."
He froze.
Turned slowly.
A man stood at the far edge of the yard, robes heavy, face hidden beneath a hood stitched with silver thread.
Not a professor.
Not a student.
Something older.
Kael instinctively took a step back.
"Who are you?"
The man didn't answer.
Instead, he stepped forward—and the shadows around him parted.
Not because of light.
Because they recognized him.
Kael's stomach turned.
"What… are you?"
The man stopped two paces away.
And smiled faintly.
"I'm someone who remembers what you are. Even if you don't yet."
Kael opened his mouth to speak—but the man raised a single finger.
And the world tilted.
Kael hit the ground hard.
The courtyard spun. Not literally—but spiritually. Something had shifted. Reality leaned in the wrong direction.
And just before Kael's vision went dark, the man's voice echoed again.
"When you wake… you'll remember the first gate."
Darkness.