The hall was far too quiet for a lesson on forbidden glyphwork.
Kaelen sat stiff-backed near the middle row, still uneasy. The stone shard Seraphine had given him last night was wrapped in linen inside his coat pocket—warm, pulsing every so often like a second heartbeat.
He barely registered the hushed chatter of other students around him. His thoughts churned with visions: the Tower's birth, the Watchers, the whisper of "We are not gods, only mirrors."
What does it mean… that I heard my own voice back then?
A hush fell across the room.
Footsteps echoed, measured and deliberate.
Then she entered.
She wore crimson robes with silver embroidery, her long dark hair swept back like a waterfall. Her presence wasn't loud—but total. The room seemed to tilt toward her, drawn in by the quiet command in her gaze.
"Good morning," she said, her voice low and deliberate. "I am Professor Lyra Elowen. You may call me Professor Elowen… or, if you're daring, just 'Professor.'"
A few students chuckled.
Kaelen didn't. He couldn't.
Because the moment her eyes swept past him—he felt it.
Pressure. Recognition. Power.
She stopped.
Looked directly at him.
And smiled.
"Let's begin with a truth," she said. "Magic is a lie—until you survive it."
Elowen's chalk scraped across the old slate wall, drawing a sigil none had seen before—fluid, foreign, and older than any school-kept glyph.
"Most of what you know," she said, "was sanitized for your protection. But there are layers to truth, and you—are at the beginning of the third layer."
Murmurs sparked.
"This," she gestured to the glyph, "is a Binding Sigil. One of the first. It does not control the elements. It controls the memory of power."
Kaelen felt his pulse spike.
Memory of power... just like what the Witness glyph showed me.
Across the hall, Seraphine and Selene exchanged a glance—uneasy. Both noticed the change in Kaelen's expression.
Elowen turned again. "Any questions?"
Kaelen opened his mouth.
Stopped.
Then said softly, "What happens if you inherit the memory of magic... without knowing who gave it to you?"
The room went dead silent.
Elowen looked at him. Really looked.
"You don't inherit, boy. You're chosen."
After class, Selene stormed out.
"Of course she looks right at him," she muttered.
Seraphine followed, arms crossed. "Maybe because he asked a question that mattered."
"Or maybe because he's being baited."
"You're angry he got attention?"
"I'm angry," Selene snapped, "because you look at him like you already know how the story ends."
Seraphine flinched. Just barely. But Selene saw it.
Before either could say more, a magicked scroll unfolded in the air between them. Both read it at the same time.
Reconnaissance Assignment – Southvale Ruins
Operatives: Selene Vale, Seraphine Draeven
Objective: Recovery of anomaly crystal (Type: Echo Sigil Residue)
Time: Departing within the hour.
Their gazes snapped to each other.
"You have got to be joking," Selene muttered.
Seraphine sighed. "This'll be fun."
Kaelen wandered the garden beneath the dorms, fingers tracing a glyph on the side of a fountain.
It lit under his touch.
You are being watched.
Not by eyes.
By memory.
He clenched his fist. The shard in his coat pulsed once—warm. Insistent.
He sat down, face tilted to the gray clouds above. He didn't know what tomorrow brought. What Elowen wanted. Or what the Tower expected.
But he knew this:
If magic was memory… then maybe the glyph wasn't just choosing him.
Maybe it was reminding him.
The wind whipped against the open trail as Selene and Seraphine rode south, tension thick enough to cut.
"You always act like you're better than me," Selene muttered.
"No. I act like I've seen more than you. Because I have."
"You've seen Kaelen's glyph. I've seen him."
Seraphine's jaw tightened.
They rode in silence after that—until twilight cast red across the ruins ahead.
Seraphine finally said, "I don't hate you."
Selene blinked.
"I just hate that we both care about the same boy. And only one of us gets to keep pretending we don't."
They arrived at the ruins, finding the sigil crystal half-buried in a crater.
But as Seraphine reached for it, the earth trembled.
From the shadows rose a creature made of shattered glyphs and echo magic—its eyes hollow, its voice whispering truths not meant for mortals.
And it spoke Kaelen's name.
"The Tower has chosen. The price is one heart… or one soul."