The message was brief, pinned to Kaelen's door at sunrise.
Assignment: Relic Recovery – Outer Ruins (Sector 3)Participants: Initiate Kaelen Ardyn, Initiate Seraphine Vale, Initiate Dareth Solas.Report to Gatehouse 3 at first bell.
He stared at the paper for a long moment.
He had no idea who Dareth was, but the second name…
Kaelen folded the page and slipped it into his coat. The stone corridors hummed with morning energy—students rushing to practice halls, mentors discussing wards and glyphs. But his thoughts were elsewhere.
Outside the Academy.
Finally.
A real mission.
The Tower was sending him into the world.
He wasn't sure if that thrilled or terrified him.
Gatehouse 3
Seraphine was already there, of course.
She stood beneath the cold morning light with her arms tucked into a traveling cloak, her expression unreadable as usual. Her hood was drawn up, the violet shimmer of her sigil faint against the skin of her collarbone.
"You're late," she said as Kaelen approached.
"I'm on time," he replied. "You're just early."
"That's what late people say."
He opened his mouth, then closed it. A smirk played on her lips.
She was teasing him. Again.
Before he could answer, a third figure emerged from the archway.
A tall boy with short dark hair and sun-tanned skin. His cloak was unfastened, revealing a suit of field armor already scuffed with use. His eyes were bright and alert—but not kind.
"Dareth Solas," the boy said, not offering a hand. "Top of my class in evocation, second in glyph interpretation. Don't get in my way."
Kaelen blinked. "Nice to meet you?"
Seraphine simply rolled her eyes and started walking.
Outer Ruins – Midday
Their journey led through a scorched woodland and down into the ancient valleys where the forgotten towers of old magic slept. The air was thick with latent energy. Glyphs sparked faintly on moss-covered stone.
The ruins themselves were buried beneath a collapsed bridge. Just visible beneath the rubble was a steel door, half-sunken, its sigils blinking like an eye half-awake.
"We're supposed to retrieve the relic and document the warding patterns," Dareth said, examining a slate. "No tampering, no triggering, and no stepping into unknown magic zones."
"Sounds boring," Kaelen muttered.
"It sounds safe," Seraphine corrected.
Kaelen crouched near the stone and placed his hand over the glyphs. They pulsed beneath his palm.
Not just pulsed—responded.
As if they knew him.
A memory flashed—the Mirror Hall, that mark of Veritas burning bright.
He pulled his hand back.
"The wards here… they're not standard. Something's still active."
Seraphine knelt beside him, her breath close to his ear as she leaned in.
"Let me see."
He could smell her—wild sage, the kind she rubbed into her gloves after combat. Her presence sent a strange flicker through him. It wasn't distracting. It was anchoring.
They analyzed the glyphs together in silence for a moment. Kaelen watched the way her eyes moved, sharp and focused. There was no wasted motion in her thoughts. She studied the world like it was a puzzle that had personally offended her.
"We should go around back," she murmured. "There's a fault line in the cliff. Could be a collapsed passage."
Dareth snorted. "Or a death trap."
"I'll take death over boredom," Kaelen said, and Seraphine actually chuckled under her breath.
Cliffside Fault – Ruins Interior
The narrow crawlspace they found was tight and jagged, leading to a forgotten corridor filled with dust and old runes etched along the walls. Torchlight flickered off black stone.
The deeper they went, the more the air changed.
Kaelen felt it like a pressure against his ribs. A pulling in his core.
Then they reached it.
The chamber was circular, hollow, and empty—save for a pedestal at its center, and atop that: a crystalline shard humming with raw sigil energy.
Seraphine stepped forward. "That's not just a relic. That's a seal."
Kaelen narrowed his eyes. "A seal for what?"
Dareth stepped beside them. "Only one way to find out."
Before either of them could stop him, he reached for the shard.
The room screamed.
A soundless, violent shift in the magic around them—glyphs erupting from the walls, threads of light slicing through the floor.
"Back!" Seraphine shouted, pulling Kaelen down as a barrier shattered above them.
Dareth was flung backwards into the wall, unconscious.
Kaelen's ears rang. Blood dripped down the side of his face. But Seraphine was on her feet, her hands glowing with ward sigils already forming into counter-runes.
He forced himself to his knees. "I think we tripped something old."
"No. We unlocked something old."
From the pedestal, the shard cracked—and the glyph it bore released itself into the air, spinning slowly like a forgotten truth come home.
It hovered in front of Kaelen.
Then flew straight into his chest.
He didn't scream—but the light inside him exploded.
Short Scene – Memory / Vision Flash
He stood in a field of mirrors, dozens of reflections stretching infinitely.
Each one a version of himself. Some older. Some broken. Some burning.
One stepped forward.
"You are the seal," the reflection said. "You were never meant to live past the Gate."
"Then why am I still alive?" Kaelen asked.
The reflection smiled, cruel and kind all at once.
"Because someone chose you. And you haven't remembered their name yet."
Back in the Ruins
Kaelen awoke to warmth pressed against him.
Seraphine's hand was on his chest, her other wrapped tightly around his wrist. Her eyes were wide—relieved and furious.
"Don't ever do that again."
"I didn't—"
"I don't care," she snapped. "Next time, choose not to."
Their faces were close. He saw the flicker in her eyes—the wall she always held up, cracking slightly.
He swallowed. "Are you worried about me?"
"I'm worried about the mission," she said, too fast.
Kaelen smirked, even through the pain. "Right."
But when she didn't move away, when she stayed close for another beat too long, her silence said more than her words ever could.