Kaelen hadn't slept.
The feather still burned where it lay on his desk — not physically, but in some part of him deeper than skin. Since he touched it, a flicker of something old had awakened within.
Every time he blinked, he saw fire.Not red, not orange. White. Blinding. Cold.
He stood now in the courtyard, empty before dawn. Breathing slow, trying to focus. The glyph on his palm was glowing faintly, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
"You came," a voice said.
Selene.
She stepped from the shadows in her midnight robes, carrying a satchel of reagents. Her white-blonde hair was braided tight, face grim with unspoken worry.
"I saw the light from your room," she said, quietly. "It woke me up."
Kaelen didn't answer immediately.
"Selene... have you ever felt like something inside you isn't yours? But it's been there so long, it feels like you?"
Selene paused, then nodded.
"Magic does that. Especially old magic. It doesn't ask. It roots itself. Changes how you see the world."
"This isn't just magic," Kaelen said. "It's a memory. But not mine."
Selene stepped closer. Not touching, but near enough he felt the warmth from her body in the chill morning air.
"Then let's find out whose it is."
They used the old circle, beneath the Academy's lower levels — long abandoned and locked away. Selene had broken the seal herself.
"This was where they tested hybrid glyphs. Pre-Tower."
"Is this safe?" Kaelen asked.
"No," she said. "But it's honest."
She handed him a sliver of obsidian.
"Cut your palm. The same hand where the glyph first appeared."
He hesitated.
"I'll do it if you can't," she offered, too quickly.
"I can."
The blade whispered through his skin.Blood fell, red on stone. The glyph flared.
Selene began to chant, her voice lower than usual, carrying a tremor she rarely let slip. The circle reacted — not to the incantation, but to Kaelen himself.
The stone split, light pouring from beneath it.
Visions struck:
A Tower on fire.A child screaming.A girl — silver hair, burning eyes — holding back a gate alone.Feathers raining upward. A name spoken like a curse:
"Veritas."
Kaelen staggered.
"What did you see?" Selene asked.
"A gate. A child. A… guardian."
He gasped, gripping the edge of the altar.
"It's not just magic. It's a memory. Someone else's. Bound to mine. Someone who died in me."
Selene reached forward, holding his wrist gently now.
"You're not a vessel, Kaelen. You're a spark. And something's trying to reignite."
Later, after the ritual and the collapse, Kaelen was walking the outer corridor near the library when he found Seraphine waiting for him.
She looked pissed.
"You used forbidden magic," she said. "There are wards screaming in every tower."
"I had to know what it was—"
"So you trusted Selene?"
The question hit sharp. Not just jealousy. Real, visceral fear beneath her voice.
"You could have died."
Kaelen stepped closer.
"You're angry because I'm reckless, or because I didn't ask you?"
Seraphine didn't answer. Just looked away, jaw tight.
"You always keep things close," she whispered. "But if you burn out chasing answers, none of this matters."
"You don't get to decide what matters to me."
"No," she said. "But I still care."
He saw it then — the hurt, deep behind her mask of precision and coldness.
Kaelen nodded, softer now.
"Next time… I'll tell you first."
Seraphine didn't smile. But she didn't leave either.
"Good," she said. "Because the next time might kill you."
That night, Kaelen stood alone at the edge of the eastern boundary wall.
The feather was gone. The glyph no longer glowed. But something in him had shifted.
He could feel heat in his veins.His magic — once wild, Ember-tier — now burned with structure. Intent.Spark-tier.
Behind him, in the trees just beyond the wall, a second pair of eyes blinked open.
A creature cloaked in flame and ash. Watching.
Waiting.