Chapter 4: Something Woke Up
The candles burned in silence.
Inside the forgotten shrine, the glow from the wall pulsed like a heartbeat—slow, steady, alive. The mark carved into the stone—old, foreign, and yet strangely familiar—shone with a golden-red hue, bathing Kiel and Anna in its strange warmth.
Anna stood beside him, her wand still drawn, ready for anything. But Kiel wasn't moving.
His eyes were fixed on the glowing rune, his thoughts racing.
He didn't know how, but something about this place—this symbol—felt like it had been waiting for him. Not in a way he could explain. More like the way a house feels familiar the moment you walk through the door, even if you've never seen it before.
"Kiel," Anna said again, gently. "Talk to me. What's going on?"
He swallowed hard. "I don't know. But this... it's not just magic. It's not like the things they teach at the academy."
Anna took a cautious step forward, lowering her wand slightly.
"Okay. Then what is it?"
Kiel stepped closer to the wall. As he moved, the symbol flared brighter, reacting to him. It wasn't hostile. It wasn't even threatening. It was... welcoming.
He reached out, slowly, fingers brushing the carved edges.
As soon as he touched it, the light vanished.
The candles went out.
The air dropped ten degrees in a breath.
Anna gasped as the entire shrine seemed to breathe, like the stone walls had suddenly come alive. Then, from the altar, a soft humming sound began—a slow, rhythmic vibration that filled the silence like a whisper under the skin.
Kiel staggered back.
A vision hit him. Not a memory exactly, but something close—like pieces of a story someone had tried to erase.
He saw flashes:
A city built into a mountain, burning.
A man with eyes like his, standing over a shattered seal.
A woman screaming in a forgotten tongue.
And that same symbol—glowing in firelight—branded onto a stone blade.
"Kiel!" Anna grabbed his arm. "You blacked out for a second. Are you okay?"
He nodded, though his head was spinning. "Yeah... yeah, I'm fine. Just—something showed me things. I think this place is part of who I am."
Anna looked around nervously. "We should go. This isn't some broken-down ruin. This is a sealed site. Ancient. Maybe dangerous."
Kiel didn't argue.
They left the shrine without looking back.
The journey back to Zephyr Academy was quiet. The forest felt different—heavier, like something was watching them now. The birds hadn't returned. The wind carried no sound.
By the time they reached the academy gates, the sun was setting behind the snow-peaked mountains. Students passed them by, laughing and chatting, carrying books and spell scrolls, unaware of what had changed.
Anna didn't speak until they were walking up the dormitory stairs.
"I saw something when you touched that wall," she said softly. "Just for a second. Your eyes... they glowed."
Kiel looked at her. "Like magic?"
"No. Not like mage magic. Something older. Something I don't understand."
She hesitated at the top step. "You're not just an assassin or a swordsman, are you?"
Kiel didn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
Meanwhile…
In the academy's upper tower, Roger Valor stood by his office window, watching the moon rise.
The door opened behind him.
"Anna's returned," his steward reported.
Roger turned, his face unreadable.
"And the boy?"
"He was with her."
Roger said nothing for a moment, then picked up an old book from his shelf—a leather-bound tome wrapped in iron chains. The lock on the cover pulsed with a dim glow as he placed his hand on it. The chains unlatched with a soft click.
He opened to a bookmarked page.
There, drawn in ancient ink, was the same symbol Kiel had seen in the shrine.
Roger Valor frowned.
"He doesn't know what he is yet," he said to no one. "But soon… others will."
That night, Kiel couldn't sleep.
He sat by his window, the moonlight pouring in over his desk. His swords lay beside him, untouched. His thoughts were far from blades.
That glowing rune still burned behind his eyes.
He kept seeing the city in flames. The branded blade. The man with eyes like his.
And then—just as he was finally starting to drift off—he heard something outside.
A soft knock.
He opened the window and saw Anna, standing in the courtyard, waving him down with a tired smile and a lantern in hand.
"You can't sleep either?" he asked as he walked out.
She shook her head. "Thought we could sit under the tree."
They made their way to the hill behind the academy, to the same skywood tree where they'd made their promise weeks ago. The stars were out—sharp and bright, scattered like sparks across the sky.
"I think we've started something we weren't supposed to," she said.
"Probably."
"I think the seal we broke wasn't meant to be touched."
"Definitely."
She looked over at him. "But I'm glad I wasn't alone when it happened."
He nodded, quietly.
Anna looked up at the stars. "So… what do we do now?"
Kiel leaned back against the trunk of the tree. "We keep going."
"Even if the past starts coming after us?"
"Especially then."
And in that moment, under the stars, with everything uncertain and something ancient stirring in the dark, they were just two people again—two adventurers trying to find their place in the world.
Even if the world wasn't ready.