The scroll lay open on the table, but no one dared to look at it again.
Its seal, stamped with the imperial crest and lined in silver thread, gleamed faintly in the solar chamber, mocking the silence.
Lord Caelum Ashborn stood with his back to the window, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the horizon as if he could undo what had happened.
Kalel had accepted without protest, without hesitation, without a farewell.
"He's gone," Caelum said flatly.
Elowen sat rigidly, expression carved from stone. She hadn't spoken since the courier departed with the family's silent consent.
"They bought him?" Rowen asked, voice colder than usual.
"They offered compensation," Caelum replied.
"They offered everything," Elowen added softly. "And we accepted."
The words tasted like ash.
⸻
Virellia Academy, under imperial directive, offered a generous arrangement:
• A lifetime decree of resource priority across three central trade channels.
• Exclusive access to high-tier cultivation vaults restricted to the Council families.
• A private realmsteel vein untouched and freshly discovered.
And political absolution.
No empire official would question the Ashborns for Kalel's transfer. It was sanctioned, dignified, polished, and irreversible.
⸻
Rowen leaned against the wall, arms crossed. His posture was casual, but his eyes were sharp.
"He didn't hesitate," Rowen said. "He didn't ask for a blessing. He didn't demand anything."
"He made a decision, one we didn't expect," Elowen murmured.
"No," Caelum corrected. "One we underestimated."
Silence settled.
Deep down, they all felt it.
Kalel hadn't just accepted. He'd escaped them.
And for the first time in years, they didn't know what he was becoming.
Kalel
They brought me to the academy at dawn.
The carriage rose through clouds, slicing the morning open with chilled silence.
Virellia Academy, one of the four sacred islands above the continent, appeared divine and untouchable from below. But I felt no awe as I stepped onto the polished black stone landing.
Only calculation.
The air smelled like memory and containment.
The Arch-Dean, Velari, stood waiting. She was still unreadable and composed.
"Welcome, Kalel D. Ashborn," she said with no warmth.
Two masked attendants held a folded document and a crystal band.
"This is your containment directive. You may move freely within the sigil grid. You're not a prisoner, but under observation."
"And if I decline?"
"Then your family forfeits the agreement's remaining terms," she said, voice like glass.
Of course, the price had already been paid.
I skimmed the runes on the document and didn't answer.
My quarters were on the academy's eastern spire, a tier reserved for nobility or arcane prodigies. It was spacious, with vaulted ceilings, realm-forged meditation circles, tiered study platforms, and a basin of purified starwater.
I ran my fingers along the mana resonance channel, which purred faintly beneath my touch.
Luxury, isolation, a gilded cage.
You've bought me time, I thought, but not me.
I examined the titles on the archive shelf: rare, ancient, restricted. Tomes of star resonance, forbidden architecture, whispers of collapsed constellations.
Power they thought would satisfy me, keep me.
That night, I stood in the training ring, letting my mind still. I breathed in, drawing nothing but quiet into my chest.
And the Origin stirred.
No light, no aura, just pressure.
A silent acknowledgment of my fury.
For the first time, I realized I didn't belong to myself.
That revelation didn't make me afraid; it made me cold.
A knock. Not soft measured.
I opened the door.
A tall, dark-haired girl stood there, her robes marked with the seal of the Observation Wing.
"You're not required to speak," she said. "I'm your first watch."
"How many are there?"
"Enough."
"To keep me contained?"
"To keep the world safe."
She smiled, not out of cruelty, but out of pity.
"You moved the Veil," she whispered. "Even the Dean doesn't know what that means."
She handed me a coded, formal, brief scroll.
My first "lesson" would begin in the morning not in spellcasting or warfare, but in compliance.
I closed the door slowly, sat on the edge of the meditation dais, and let the fury rise.
They'd study me like a prophecy torn from a page. They'd observe, map, constrain.
But every moment I remained under their thumb, my fury would sharpen.