The train ride out of the city was uneventful, except for Kael nearly falling asleep and drooling on Delra's jacket. She said nothing. But the glance she gave him said: Do that again, and I'll sigil-punch you into orbit.
He straightened up fast.
"Where are we going again?" Kael asked for the third time.
Delra didn't look up from her phone. "To where Sparks learn not to accidentally explode buildings."
"Well, that's comforting."
She finally looked at him, raising a brow. "You triggered a sigil flare that pinged three city monitors. If they'd flagged it as hostile, you'd be cuffed to a slab right now with a nice, friendly Enforcer grilling you with a suppression shard."
Kael winced. "Okay, point taken."
The train screeched to a halt. Delra stood.
Kael followed her into the countryside.
The facility was hidden behind a burned-out vineyard, masked by illusion runes and buried underground. A steel door disguised as a rusted old shed opened when Delra pressed her palm to the wall. The air inside buzzed—thick with sigil feedback.
The first thing Kael noticed?
The pressure.
It wasn't physical, but it was real. Like the air had been replaced by memory. Every breath tasted of ash and echoes.
"Welcome to the Ash Veil," Delra said.
A tall man in black training gear stepped into view. His face was weathered, marked with three curved sigil scars across his jaw. "So this is the flaring rookie."
Delra smirked. "Kael, meet Sarn. Sigil grade: Awakened. He's your babysitter for today."
Kael raised a hand. "Hey. So uh… please don't kill me."
Sarn didn't laugh. He just gestured. "Step into the field."
The main chamber was enormous. A coliseum-like pit carved from black stone, with glowing sigil markings etched along the walls. Training dummies stood in rows—some humanoid, others shaped like creatures Kael couldn't even name.
Sarn pointed to the center circle.
"Channel your sigil. Push to threshold. Show me what you've got."
Kael swallowed.
He stepped into the ring.
The moment he activated the shard, he felt it—like a wire plugged into his spine.
Symbols flickered in his mind. Half-formed. Fluid.
He reached out—not with his hand, but with whatever strange instinct the sigil had gifted him.
One symbol pulsed: a curved arch within a square.
He focused.
The air warped.
A faint pulse of force burst outward in a five-meter radius, knocking over three dummies.
Sarn didn't blink. "Too unfocused. Again."
Kael gritted his teeth.
He pulled again—this time with more control.
The light inside the shard darkened to a deep red, and a new symbol formed in his head—more intricate, shaped like a spiral piercing downward.
As he summoned it, a shockwave blasted outward, rippling through the room like a sonic quake.
The floor cracked.
Kael dropped to one knee, breath ragged. His vision blurred. The sigil inside his chest pulsed painfully, like it was punishing him.
Sarn gave a nod. "Better."
"Better?" Kael gasped. "I think I just gave my soul a hernia."
Delra chuckled. "Welcome to Burn territory."
Sarn leaned forward. "You need to understand—each time you draw from your sigil, you tap into layers deeper than you. They remember. And they don't forget misuse."
Kael nodded weakly. "Is that supposed to motivate me or haunt my nightmares?"
"Both."
After training, Kael collapsed on a bench near the exit. His muscles felt like jelly. His head was a ringing bell of pain.
Delra sat beside him.
"You did better than I expected," she said.
"I nearly passed out twice."
"Most people do."
Kael leaned back, staring at the flickering lights in the ceiling. "There was a moment… right before I lost control. I saw something."
Delra glanced at him. "Define something."
"A shape. No—a place. It felt like I was seeing through the sigil. Like it was showing me where it came from."
Delra went still.
"That doesn't usually happen until Flare."
Kael turned toward her. "You ever seen it?"
She hesitated. Then nodded. "Once. In a dream. A sky that wasn't a sky. Cities made of light. People that weren't… people. I don't know if it was real or just the sigil messing with my head."
Kael swallowed. "It didn't feel like a dream."
"Then you're closer than I thought."
He didn't respond. The implications were too big.
That night, Kael lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, mind spinning.
He thought about the ladder Delra had drawn.
Spark. Burn. Flare. Awakened. Ascend. Transcend. Origin.
He was a Spark—but the things he was seeing, the whispers, the visions—they were too soon.
Unless…
Unless his sigil was different.
Or older.
He opened his drawer and pulled out the notebook he'd started.
In it, he drew the symbols he could remember.
Each had a rhythm, a structure. Not random.
He realized something then—sigils weren't just symbols.
They were language.
Not spoken. Not written.
Felt.
Each sigil wasn't just a power source—it was an expression. A thought. A concept.
He jotted down what he'd felt for each one:
with a slash – Judgment
Spiral pierce – Descent
Arch in square – Force Release
He stared at them.
Something itched at the edge of his thoughts.
What if they weren't just fragments of a system?
What if they were memories?
Memories from… what?
The library from the vision.
The glass tower.
The city without sky.
Places that didn't exist on any map.
Unless they were from… before.
A civilization that had created the sigils.
Or worse—became them.
Somewhere far away, in a chamber carved from obsidian and mirrored steel, a figure stirred.
His eyes opened.
He felt the flare.
A signature he hadn't sensed in years.
Something familiar.
Too familiar.
He whispered a name into the void.
"Kael…"
And in that whisper… was sorrow.
And something deeper.
Regret.