The Capital, Inner Sanctum
Soundproofed by history, not runes or crystal, this chamber held only four speakers in the last century.
Two stood before a low black-stone obsidian table, hands folded behind their backs. The Crown Prince of Ardentia, heir to the imperial seat, watched the woman across from him.
She wore the crest of Aetherion Academy, one of the four floating pillars of arcane authority. Her robes shimmered with enchantments, but her unsettled posture spoke more.
"The Null stirred," she said.
"Not trembled, not flickered. It stirred," he replied.
"What did the children say?" he asked.
"They don't remember."
"Good. That means it worked."
She turned sharply at him.
"You knew this could happen."
He didn't confirm.
"This boy, Kalel D. Ashborn. Publicly unawakened. No records of academy applications or realm registrations. Yet he passed through the Null unmarked, unbroken."
"You're not asking if he's dangerous. You're asking if he's what the prophecies warned us about."
Silence swirled between them.
The Crown Prince turned, stepping toward the unsealed scroll on the table.
Its old seal, older than his reign and the six empires, held a condition: "When the Veil stirs not by spell nor blood… but by breath… The Veil shall rise."
He looked back at her, "Send the others quietly to observe."
"And if he becomes more than prophecy?"
The Crown Prince's silver eyes narrowed, "Then we remember that prophecy is only dangerous when it stops being useful."
⸻
Kalel
The capital felt different after the trial lighter, but not freer. It felt like the tension before a storm, where every leaf stills.
I felt it the attention, not fear or danger. It weighed me down in silence.
I left the Sanctum without ceremony, my feet against stone, my breath tight. The faint resonance of the Veil trailed behind me.
Something changed in me not in strength, but in mentality.
"They felt it," I whispered, "but they don't understand it."
They'd try to define it, name it, fit me into some prophecy or myth that gave them control. But that was the problem. You can't categorize what exists outside the pattern.
⸻
The carriage they offered was simple dark, unmarked, lined in silence. I sat with my back to the wall, watching the capital shrink behind me.
A part of me knew this was a beginning, another part knew the game had already started.
I should've known they wouldn't let me leave clean.
The capital blurred behind me, swallowed by mist and distance, but the silent tension lingered a decision made about me without consent.
When the carriage stopped too early and smoothly, I didn't flinch or ask. I stepped out and saw her waiting.
She wore the robes of Virellia Academy, their insignia curled in silver across her shoulder: a single eye wreathed in twelve stars.
Observation, isolation, and control a subtle warning disguised as prestige.
"Kalel D. Ashborn," she said without bowing. "I am Arch-Dean Velari. You've been summoned."
Not invited, not honored, but summoned.
I met her cold gray eyes, tired, intelligent.
"To study under protective containment," she added.
I said nothing, and she continued.
"You'll have a private residence, a mana basin, a training ring, and access to restricted starpath vaults. Even empire-class heirs would envy."
She smiled, but it didn't touch her eyes.
"And if none of that interests you, know that your family has received compensation. Significant enough that they didn't object."
The truth wrapped in diplomacy. It wasn't about me learning; it was about containing something they didn't understand. And worse about buying my silence without asking.
"Why the offer?" I asked.
Velari tilted her head.
"Because you touched something no one else has, even our Arcanum couldn't map. You stirred the Veil. That makes you valuable or dangerous, possibly both."
I wanted to reject her. Not because I feared containment; I knew the cage was real now, even if they padded it in velvet and filled it with scrolls.
I knew the truth, but I lacked the strength to refuse.
A coldness gripped me, not grief or rage, but a quieter, sharper clarity of powerlessness.
"Fine," I said.
She handed me the seal of transfer, folded, gilded, sanctioned. "You leave at dawn."
"I leave when I choose."
This time, her smile flickered. She turned and left.
Alone, I stood.
Inside, something crystallized.
For the first time, I wanted power not for survival, freedom, or pride, but for dominion.
Now, I understood what it meant to be claimed by those with reach.
The next time, I wouldn't be a boy they summoned. I'd be the force they regretted inviting.