The silence in the training hall pressed down like a second ceiling.
Riven had stopped bleeding. Either through magic or sheer force of will, the smear of red on his lip was gone—though the bruise on his ego still pulsed in the air.
Aria sat cross-legged now, in the middle of the scorched training ring. Fingers steepled. Golden eyes half-lidded.
The glowing sphere—the spell that wasn't a spell—lingered only in memory. But its aftertaste still tingled in her veins.
She had felt something crack open.
Something vast.
Something… watching.
"I want the truth," she said, breaking the silence.
Riven stood near the far wall, arms folded. "That's a luxury. Want lessons instead?"
"I want both."
He raised a brow. "Greedy."
"I was born greedy." She paused. "Twice, apparently."
He smirked faintly at that, then walked toward her. Not hostile. Not warm. Measured.
"Your magic is ancient," he said, crouching down beside her. "Older than these walls. Older than this kingdom. You've noticed the runes don't come from me."
"They just happen."
"Not just. Something's pulling them from the dark."
She looked up at him. "And you still don't know what I am?"
"Oh, I know what you could be." His voice lowered. "That's why I agreed to teach you."
She held his gaze. "Then tell me."
Riven hesitated. For the first time, his mask cracked—just enough. Not fear. Something deeper.
Reverence.
"You're not supposed to be here," he said. "Not just this place. This era. This cycle."
"Cycle?"
He didn't answer. Just stood and turned toward the doorway. "Follow me."
She rose, boots crunching over shards of stone. Her footsteps were calm, but the storm in her blood hadn't stilled. That sphere—the way it sang to her, the way her body obeyed without her mind—it haunted her.
He led her past the training hall, down winding stone corridors that twisted like old tree roots, into parts of the estate she'd never seen.
A locked iron door barred their way. Riven placed a single hand on it. Whispered something.
The door melted.
Behind it: a vault.
No gold. No jewels.
Just a pedestal.
Upon it, a book bound in chains that shimmered gold and bled smoke. Its cover was etched in the same runes that had spiraled up her arms during the fight.
Aria's breath caught.
"It's reacting to you," Riven said. "It hasn't done that in over two hundred years."
"What is it?"
"A record of magic… before magic."
She blinked. "That's not ominous at all."
"Good. You're learning tone."
She stepped closer. The chains rattled. The book pulsed once.
And then, it opened.
A single page flipped forward, blank. Then words wrote themselves in shimmering gold.
She awakens. And the chains remember.
She stared. Her skin crawled.
"Do you still think I'm just a prodigy?" she asked.
Riven looked at her.
"No," he said. "You're the storm they buried."
A silence stretched between them.
Then she laughed, dryly. "So… what now? We do more sparring? Train until I sprout wings?"
Riven's smirk returned. "No. We run."
"What?"
"There are people who felt that spell you cast earlier. And they're not fond of things that break the world's rules."
"You said I was the storm."
"Yes," he said. "And storms attract lightning."
Far above the vault, hidden beyond stone and magic, clouds began to gather—unnatural, slow-turning, heavy with magic.
And somewhere in the capital, a cloaked figure opened his eyes.
"The girl's awakened," he whispered.
"She's here."