Kale Virein never overslept
Not because he feared punishment, or because the academy had expectations. He simply never needed to.
His eyes opened precisely three minutes before the sun reached the edge of his bedroom window — the time when its pale gold light slid across the marble sill and brushed the bottom edges of his bookshelves. It was the same every morning, as if his body knew the rhythm of the world better than a clock.
The air was cool, scented fairly of Gardenias and machine oil — the automated air filtration gently humming behind the walls. Karl lay still for a moment, his gaze tracing the slow rotation of the mechanical ceiling fan, half-lost in thought. Not dreams. He didn't dream. Never did.
He rose without hesitation, no fear of the morning cold
His bed sheets fell away in crisp folds, untouched by the restlessness. The floor beneath his feet was warm, the solar-heated stones adjusting with a soft pulse of light as he stepped onto them. His uniform now as a senior — deep navy with silver trim — was folded in a perfect square at the foot of his bed, freshly laundered and lightly pressed. Everything in Karl's room was arranged to ideal balance — not minimalism, not clutter — precision. Shelves of books, their spines arranged by the theme and hue. A cabinet of medals and commendations from the Academy's trials. A single, untouched painting above his desk: a dark forest under the light of a bleeding moon, the only object not aligned with the rest of the room. No one had asked why it was there. He wouldn't have answered. He dressed methodically: first the inner layer, then the silver shoulder clasp, then the Virein house insignia — a stylized star enclosed in a circle, stitched near his collarbone.
By the time the city bell chimed First Rise, Karl was seated at his desk eating breakfast.
Sweetbread. Sliced crystalfruit. Tea, steeped four minutes and eleven seconds — no more, no less. The tray had arrived via the pneumatic delivery shaft five minutes before he awoke. The system was perfect. His life was perfect.
Too perfect.
Kale ate in silence. He didn't enjoy the food nor enjoyed the time spent eating but he acknowledged its value. Everything served to a function. Fuel for the day. Fuel for thought. That was how he lived.
And yet—
Something gnawed at him.
It wasn't loud. Quiet, deafeningly quiet. And that was the problem. A silence too heavy. A hollow that lived behind his ribs, where emotion was meant to be. A presence that whispered questions he never answered. Not like he could.
He stared at his reflection in the warm surface of the tea. Calm. Composed. A boy of seventeen with high-standing parents, flawless grades and a future written on the stars and a gift from the heavens. Everything the world expected him to be.
So why did he feel like he wasn't real?
Like he was just watching someone else live?
He finished the tea, stood, and stepped into his boots.
…
Outside, the city of Varethiel unfurled beneath a silver blue sky, brushed with the faint shimmer of drifting clouds that never quite touched the horizon. Built across the steep cliffs of the Alenward Range, the city spiraled downward in elegant deliberate layers of four — a cascade of civilization carved into the bones of stone and light..
Each tier of the city reflected a different purpose: the upper levels gleamed with administrative towers and learning halls of pearly-white glass marble, while the mid-levels bloomed with terraced gardens, quiet markets, and academies cradled by climbing ivy. Far below, the lower tiers pulsed with quiet industry and winding streets of shadowed stone, where the scent of metal and earth lingered heavily in the air.
Slender bridge arched between the cliffs, high and narrow, guarded by faceless statues etched with forgotten runes. They whispered in the wind when no one was near. Silver-tracked rails twisted above it all, suspended on invisible currents that shimmered in the light. Sky-trams — sleek and whisper-silent — slid through the air, casting fleeting shadows across the rooftops. Floating towers drifted on magnetic pulses, anchored to nothing but laws only the Yorythial's engineers understood.
The city itself seemed both alive and asleep — humming with quiet purposeful movement, yet touched by something unspoken. There was peace but not stillness. Harmony but yet not serene.
On the second tier of the city the banners of the Stellar Academies streamed from their peaks — constellations embroiled in threads of starlight.
Karl descended from the Virein estate, his stride measured and light. Citizens bowed as he passed — a young courier offered a respectful nod, a professor tilted his head in greeting. Karl responded with the slightest acknowledgment. Enough to satisfy politeness. Not enough to invite closeness. Whispers followed him. They always did.
"That's Karl Virein… top marks in four fields…"
"His mother's on the Prime Council, right?"
"I heard he solved the Astral Logic Puzzle in under ten minutes."
He heard it all. He felt none of it. His cloak billowed behind him as he passed the skyway gate and stepped into the elevated tram bound for Academy Tier IV — the division of the Stellar Academies, reserved for those marked by excellence, legacy, or brilliance.
Karl had all three.
And yet… he stared out the tram window as Varethiel passed below, and again thought
"Strange how the world looks most alive when you're not a part of it"
The wind shimmered against the glass as the tram glided forward, high above the city's spiraling tiers. Down below people walked in miniature — students, traders, gardeners brushing the petals from sunlight balconies. Life moved on quietly, almost rhythmically.
The tram turned a bend, revealing the distant silver leaks of the Alenward Range. Far below, the city's Forbidden Quarter was just visible — walled off, silent, cloaked in creeping moss and towers long since decommissioned. It want on any modern map. People pretended it wasn't there.
A flicker caught his eye.
Across the tram, a student in the row ahead had left their satchel half-open. A small square envelope had slipped out and was now pressed awkwardly under the edge of the seat. Kael wouldn't have noticed it, except it was made of vellum — the old kind, pale and crisp, etched with the faint insignia of the Council Archives.
It wasn't addressed. No name. No seal
He hesitated. Looked around. No one else seemed to see it.
He reached down and picked it up, intending to hand it off but the texture was strange — impossibly smooth. Too smooth.
He opened it.
Inside was a single folded page. No introduction, no topic, just one single line:
"You've forgotten what you were never meant to remember."
No context, no signature.
Karl's brow furrowed, but not out of alarm. It felt…out of place. Like an unfinished sentence someone had meant to throw away and forgot.
The tram neared its stop. He looked up, expecting someone to reach for the note. No one did. The student whose bag it had slipped from — he didn't even glance Kael's way as he stepped off the tram.
Kael looked at the page once more. Then folded it, tucked it into his coat and stepped out into the Academy Tier IV.
…
The bell rang for the first lesson.
The world moved on, like it always did