Chapter 19: Embers in the Halls
The war drums had faded, the firestorms calmed, but the world still bore its scars. Ajay stood at the gates of his old college, where his story had once begun—just a boy mocked by peers, his potential invisible to those who only saw weakness. The red-bricked building, partially rebuilt after the chaos of Amarika's last shadow, looked the same, yet entirely changed.
Mira walked beside him, her eyes scanning the campus. Students laughed in the courtyard, oblivious to the cosmic wars waged beyond their textbooks and club meetings. It was almost jarring, this sudden return to normalcy.
"They don't know," she whispered.
Ajay nodded. "They don't need to. Not yet."
He had come back not to relive the past, but to protect the future. With the Veil weakened and monolith fragments buried across the land, even this place—this bastion of ignorance and youth—was vulnerable.
Ajay walked the same path he used to take between lectures, the same cafeteria where food once came with mockery and cruel laughter. A few students paused and looked at him now, confused. Wasn't that the boy who vanished during the blackout weeks? Who disappeared after the car crash? Rumors followed his name like smoke.
But no one dared approach. Not yet.
Professor Nirmal, once Ajay's sternest critic, nearly dropped his books when Ajay entered his office.
"Ajay?"
Ajay smiled softly. "I was never gone. Just... elsewhere."
Nirmal squinted. "You... look older. Heavier. Not in the body. In the eyes."
"I've seen too much. But I came back because something's wrong here. I can feel it."
Professor Nirmal sat slowly, wary. "You were always... insightful. But now you speak like you've touched the stars."
Ajay dropped a map on his desk. A shimmer pulsed faintly over the ink—runes only those with flame-touched vision could see. "There's a monolith shard beneath the old lecture hall. One that calls to the Chained One."
"Ajay, that's insane."
"No. That's prophecy."
At night, Mira, Kael, and Selene arrived through one of the Veil-gates carved near the dormitory tunnels. The group reunited in the shadows of the old chemistry wing.
"We're going underground," Ajay explained. "The shard has started to awaken. It's affecting students' dreams. Feeding rage. Confusion. A few attacks already happened—chalked up to mental health breakdowns."
Selene checked her daggers. "It won't be dreams for long."
They descended into the maintenance shafts, where whispers curled along the metal pipes and the scent of burning chalk lingered.
Ajay led them to the hidden door beneath Lecture Hall B2. It was sealed with a lock that looked human—but the mechanism pulsed with residual flame.
He placed his palm against it.
The lock evaporated.
Behind it, the tunnel sloped down, lined with bone-smooth stone. As they descended, heat grew—but not fire's warmth. A corrupted heat. Stale. Twisting.
In the chamber below, the shard floated like a beating heart, hovering above a pedestal carved from obsidian veins. Around it, shadows danced with mouths but no faces. Echoes of forgotten students called out.
Ajay stepped forward. "You don't belong here."
The shadows hissed.
He raised his hand, igniting flame not from fury, but balance—dark and light intertwined. The coal from the Source flickered in his chest.
As the fire touched the shard, a scream burst across the chamber. The monolith cracked.
Selene leapt forward, slicing through the shadows. Kael summoned a dome of emberlight to shield the group. Mira spoke words of containment, her voice layering protective glyphs in the air.
Ajay pushed harder. The coal in his chest pulsed.
The shard split in two.
With a thunderous shatter, the shadows evaporated.
The air stilled.
Ajay collapsed to one knee, breathing hard. Mira helped him up.
"It's starting again," he murmured.
Selene narrowed her eyes. "The monoliths are waking. Not just in distant lands. Here."
Ajay stood. "Then we protect both realms. This world and the next. And we start with this college."
In the days that followed, strange events slowed. The shard pieces were locked away in Veil-sealed vaults. Students resumed their classes, unaware that their nightmares had almost become reality.
Ajay sat on the old stone steps outside the dormitory, watching them file by.
A few of the same bullies who once tormented him passed him quietly. One paused. "Ajay? Is that really you?"
Ajay looked up, no anger in his eyes. Just a tired kind of peace.
"Yes. But I'm not the same."
The student hesitated. "We were... kind of assholes."
Ajay smiled. "And I was weak. But we've both changed. That's enough."
The student left, confused but moved.
Mira joined him. "You're different here. Softer."
"I remember who I was. And I know who I have to be."
Ajay looked toward the sky, where the sun and moon hung like twin eyes—one watching the world, the other watching what came next.
The war was still coming.
But now, Ajay had reclaimed the place where his journey began.
And from its halls, new flames would rise.