The wind howled as Kael stood atop the eastern battlements, watching storm clouds coil above the Academy like angry serpents. The air tasted of static and old secrets, and somewhere beneath the thunder, something called his name—not aloud, but through the sigil, like an itch in his bones.
He was being watched.
"Do you ever sleep?" Rin's voice interrupted the silence.
Kael didn't turn. "I nap when people stop trying to kill me. So… not lately."
She stepped beside him, rain dampening her cloak. "I read more of the scroll. The Sigilbearers weren't just thieves. They broke something—something ancient. Some scholars think that's why the world is fractured. Why power always demands a price."
Kael rubbed his arms. "And we're all paying the debt."
"Exactly."
He turned to her. "Do you believe we're just part of a system someone else built? Or broke?"
"I think," Rin said slowly, "that we're more than that. And I think you're the key to proving it."
Kael laughed. "Please. I'm a walking sarcasm factory with parental trauma and bad luck. I'm the key?"
She smirked. "You say that like it disqualifies you."
Later that day, a summons arrived.
Not from the Academy council. Not from the Circle.
From Headmistress Elvara herself.
The note bore no sigil, no wax seal—just a single phrase scrawled in ink darker than shadow:
"Bring your truth."
The Tower of Echoes was off-limits to students, but Kael found himself at its door anyway, heart pounding.
He stepped inside.
No guards.
No wards.
Only a spiral staircase winding downward into silence.
He descended, past walls lined with broken mirrors and faded murals of figures with burning marks on their skin—sigils, twisted and monstrous.
At the bottom, a circular chamber waited.
Elvara stood at its center, facing a pool of still, black water.
Without turning, she said, "Do you know why the sigils choose who they choose?"
Kael frowned. "They don't. We're just… born with them."
"That's the lie," she said quietly. "The comforting story. The truth is more cruel."
Kael approached slowly. "Then what is it?"
Elvara turned. Her eyes shimmered—not with power, but with memory. "The sigils are echoes. Imprints. And those who carry them have touched the source… before they were even born."
He stared. "The source of the sigils?"
"No," she whispered. "The source of the bond. The thing that binds power to soul. That ties sacrifice to growth. The thing that once tried to burn this world into a shape it could control."
Kael's mouth went dry. "You're saying this… thing… is still out there?"
Elvara smiled. "Not out there. In here. In every sigil. In every fight. In every cost we pay to grow stronger."
She raised her hand, and Kael's sigil ignited.
But this time, it wasn't just heat.
He saw flashes.
A city made of glass and flame.
People screaming, sigils exploding from their bodies.
A throne carved from bones, empty and waiting.
Then—a name.
A name that burned into his mind.
Not a word he could speak. Not a sound meant for mortals.
But a truth.
The sigils weren't gifts.
They were scars.
He fell to his knees, gasping.
"What was that?" he whispered.
Elvara kneeled beside him, her voice soft. "Your first glimpse of the Deep Bond. You are awakening, Kael. Not to more power—but to more meaning. And meaning always hurts."
He clenched his fists. "What do you want from me?"
She rose. "I want nothing. But the sigil does. It always has."
That night, Kael sat in the student garden, sketching again.
Rin found him there.
Without a word, she sat beside him and looked at the page.
It was the throne.
Twisted, jagged, impossible.
"What is that?" she asked.
"Something I saw," he said quietly. "Something waiting. I don't think this is about power anymore."
"What, then?"
He turned to her, eyes shadowed.
"It's about control."
Meanwhile, far to the north, in a ruined city buried under ice and dust, a man stood in front of a broken gate.
His armor was scorched.
His sigil flickered with dark light.
He touched the gate—and whispered Kael's name.
Not in hatred.
But in longing.
"I'm coming, little brother."