The laughter still echoed. Not in Arin's ears, but somewhere deeper. Beneath the ribs, where dignity used to live.
He didn't cry. Not because it didn't hurt. But because tears felt… useless now.
He limped through the winding alleys of the lower city, each step a jolt of pain along his ribs. His satchel weighed heavy with scraps of boar meat, but not nearly as heavy as the bruises painted across his body. Dirt clung to him like a second skin. He passed drunken beggars, broken lanterns, and flickering rune posts whose magic had long since faded.
Finally, in the shadow of a collapsed shrine, he found silence.
A cracked puddle reflected his bloodied lip and swollen cheek. He stared at it for a long time.
"They think I'm weak," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "Let them."
His fingers traced the lightning-shaped scar beneath his shirt — the one from that night. The one that hadn't stopped itching.
"I'll be the whisper that haunts them in the dark."
The image of Karl's smug face flared in his mind, followed by Lyselle's eyes — not pitying, but burdened. Maybe she wasn't like the rest. Maybe.
He looked up at the stars between cracks in the ruined ceiling.
"I sold my seat," he said to no one. "Not because I was weak. Because I had no choice. I chose my parents over power. But now…"
He clenched his fists. The pain grounded him.
He thought of the wilds: the RedHorn rabbit, the black lightning, the fried snake, and the taste of desperation. He had faced death more times than any of those pampered nobles.
I'm not like them, he thought. I'm something else. Something they can't predict.
In the back of his mind, a voice from the past echoed. An old merchant he'd once bartered pelts with, years ago:
"If you can pass the Awakening Threshold Test, even a rat has the right to be a lion. No law can stop awakened mana."
There were other paths into Dorothrel. Harder ones. Dangerous ones. But they existed. He'd find them.
That night, he curled up beside the dying embers of a trash fire, pulling his coat tight around him. His body screamed. His pride bled. But his eyes never shut.
And just before dawn, something stirred.
The scar on his chest burned. Not like pain — like heat. Like power.
His dream had been chaos: golden eyes staring from a void, runes swirling like a storm, and a throne of black stone that pulsed with heartbeat-like rhythm. The snake skin in his dream had burst into flame.
He gasped awake.
His palms glowed faintly — barely noticeable — then faded.
Not magic. Not yet.
But something was responding.
He looked up at the horizon where Dorothrel's towers pierced the clouds.
"I'm not done," he whispered to the wind. "I've barely started."
And the ashes beneath him shifted.
From the academy towers, they looked down and forgot him.
But in the alleyways of the city, the ashes stirred.
And somewhere beneath, the fire remembered its name.