Dreamspace – Unknown Realm
Kaelen stood in a field of ink.
The sky above him was a canvas smeared with stars—bright, too bright—and the ground beneath was slick, like wet glass. But there was no reflection. Not of him. Not of anything.
He reached up. His fingers trembled.
From the darkness above, a glyph began to form. Not ink, not light—but something in between. Its shape was angular, sharp, and familiar.
The Sigil of Veritas.
As it descended, he felt the pull—not like a whisper but a command.
"Name the lie," a voice said. No gender. No tone. Just certainty.
Kaelen opened his mouth… and said nothing.
The world pulsed.
The stars flickered—and then fell.
Library of the Third Spire – Morning
Kaelen awoke gasping, hand over his chest. The glyph hadn't just pulsed. It hurt. A slow throb, like someone had carved a truth too deep to unlearn.
He didn't tell anyone. Not yet.
Instead, he descended into the Third Spire—one of the library towers rarely visited by students, let alone initiates. A place of musty scrolls, un-indexed tomes, and cobwebs no mage bothered to banish.
Seraphine found him there.
She didn't say his name right away. She just walked up beside him, plucked the dust off a spine of a heavy book, and said:
"You look like hell."
"Thank you. Always a pleasure."
She smirked, then became serious. "That glyph. It's not lying dormant. You've felt it again, haven't you?"
Kaelen closed the book. "Last night. I think it was trying to test me."
"Test?"
"There was a question… about lies. But I didn't answer. I couldn't. It felt… too big. Like it wanted something real. Not just words."
She was silent for a long time.
Then, softly: "That's part of what I came to tell you."
Kaelen looked up.
Seraphine reached into her coat and pulled out a worn leather folio. It was unmarked—except for a faint green embossing on the spine. A gate, stylized in thorns and spiral leaves.
"I stole this from a restricted archive," she said, voice matter-of-fact. "Don't thank me. You wouldn't have had the clearance."
Kaelen stared at it. "Is that—?"
She nodded. "Everything the Tower has on the Verdant Gate. Not much. Mostly theory. Some accounts that were erased from public record."
He opened it carefully. Inside were transcribed journals, diagrams of soul runes, notes from forgotten mages.
"They believed the Gate wasn't just symbolic," Seraphine said quietly. "It's a rite. A soul-passage. Those who reach it either transform—or die."
"And this is linked to me how?" he asked.
She looked at him like the answer was obvious. "Because the glyph chose you. And because the Gate may be the only thing that determines whether you remain yourself."
Elsewhere – Observatory Garden
Selene stood among the wind-chimes of enchanted glass, her hands behind her back.
She wasn't alone.
Instructor Maris, her mentor in Enchantment and Espionage, stood beside her, hair bound tightly in obsidian cords.
"You're close to him now," Maris said. "Closer than anyone."
Selene kept her eyes on the sky. "He trusts me."
"And you trust him?"
A pause.
"…He doesn't lie easily," Selene murmured. "Not about the important things."
Maris narrowed her eyes. "And the girl? Seraphine?"
"I think she's a threat only if he becomes one."
Maris studied her apprentice. "You were given an order, Selene. Observe. And when the time comes… act."
Selene nodded once.
But her grip on her cloak tightened.
Kaelen's Room – Night
Kaelen sat cross-legged, folio spread before him, glyph on his chest faintly glowing beneath his shirt.
Each entry was stranger than the last.
"The Gate is not real in the way stone is real. It is real like memory. Like guilt. It manifests where the soul fractures—where the truth is too heavy to carry."
"Veritas burns away the false self. It does not make you stronger. It makes you more you. That's the danger."
He read the last entry again and again.
"More me."
He looked in the mirror. His own reflection looked uncertain. Pale. Too thin.
Then came a knock.
Seraphine leaned in the doorway.
"I thought you might need company," she said. "Or silence. I can do both."
Kaelen gestured her in.
She sat at the edge of the desk, one leg swinging lightly.
"I don't know if I'm ready to face what this glyph is showing me," he admitted. "What if it's all just... truth I don't want?"
She tilted her head. "The truth we don't want is often the only kind that matters."
He looked up at her.
And for the first time, he reached for her hand—not as a thank you, or apology.
Just to hold it.
She didn't pull away.
Her fingers closed around his gently, and in the quiet hum of the candlelit room, something unspoken passed between them.
A connection that wasn't forged by battle or panic.
But by presence.
By choice.