The sky over Ardentspire bled copper as twilight crept over the city. Bells chimed from the Academy's western spires, their resonance laced with illusion magic. On this night, even the ancient stone wore its finest mask. Lanterns danced along walkways, glimmering with enchantments—whisper-lights that hummed fragments of old songs when brushed.
The Grand Courtyard had transformed. Marble columns stood wreathed in silvervine, and an opalescent dome shimmered overhead, warping the starlight into constellations that hadn't existed in centuries.
Kaelen adjusted the half-mask across his face. It was carved from polished obsidian, unadorned save for the faintest etching at the edge—an echo of his sigil, barely perceptible unless you already knew what to look for.
He tugged at his collar and muttered, "Why am I here again?"
"Because someone told you to stop hiding," came Mira's voice from behind him, laced with amusement.
He turned, and for a moment, forgot his question entirely.
Mira wore a gown woven from thread-of-night, her long braid laced with glowing runes that shimmered each time she moved. Her mask was sculpted from iridescent crystal, catching the light like dewdrops on spider silk.
"You clean up," he said, "worryingly well."
She smiled, but something in her eyes said she was watching him the same way a scholar studies an unpredictable glyph.
"I'm not here for compliments. I'm here to make sure you don't vanish again." Her tone softened. "You've been different lately, Kaelen. Quiet. Distant."
He shrugged. "A lot's been happening."
"Too much for you to carry alone," she said, then paused. "Is it… about Selene?"
Kaelen hesitated.
He wasn't sure what he could say. That he kept seeing visions of her face not entirely her own? That when they trained, something older stirred beneath his skin, answering to her presence like a half-remembered oath?
"It's not just Selene," he said finally. "There's… something pulling at the edges of everything. Like I've stepped into a story that already knows how it ends."
Mira tilted her head, eyes sharp. "Then rewrite it."
He looked at her, surprised.
"I've seen the way you hesitate," she continued. "Like you're waiting for permission to be something more than a shadow. But you're not that boy in the woods anymore, Kaelen. You're becoming something else."
He didn't answer—couldn't.
A hush fell over the courtyard as the orchestra shifted into something slow and haunting. The first dance began.
To Kaelen's surprise, Mira offered her hand.
"No riddles this time," she said. "Just a dance."
He took it.
As they moved across the glimmering floor, the music pulling them in gentle circles, Kaelen felt something settle. Not calm, not exactly, but a brief stillness. A breath between storms.
Their steps slowed as the music faded. Mira looked up at him, her face unreadable behind her mask.
"Whoever you're becoming… don't forget who you were first."
Then she released his hand and walked away into the crowd.
Kaelen turned—just in time to see a figure watching him from the edge of the masquerade. Not dancing. Not moving.
Selene.
She wore a mask of carved moonstone, the shape elegant and slightly sharp at the edges—like her. Her dress was a muted violet that shimmered like a thundercloud caught in starlight. But it wasn't her attire that caught his breath.
It was her eyes.
Even across the distance, he felt it—that silent thread pulling tight between them.
She didn't come closer. She didn't need to.
Their gaze held. That was enough.
And then someone brushed past Kaelen, disrupting the moment.
A man. Tall, formal. Wearing the robes of a visiting academic. A mask of plain ivory and gloves that looked too clean to be ceremonial.
Kaelen turned back toward Selene—but she was already gone.
And when he looked again at the stranger, he found the man was watching him. Not with curiosity, but with precision.
Like a scribe measuring the final lines of a prophecy.
Kaelen's pulse spiked. He didn't know the man's name—but he knew the feeling.
Tower.
Elsewhere…
In a quiet hall lined with sigil-etched mirrors, Seraphine adjusted the mask at her temple. She hadn't meant to attend. But when she'd felt the glyph shift in Kaelen's aura across the distance—like a chord struck in resonance—she couldn't stay away.
She turned, only to find herself face to face with Selene.
Both women paused.
Both wore masks.
Neither flinched.
"You came," Selene said quietly.
Seraphine didn't blink. "So did you."
A long silence followed.
"He looked at you like he already knew the ending," Seraphine murmured.
Selene's lips curved—wry, soft, sad. "He looked at you like he hoped for a different one."
Their masks didn't crack.
But something else did.