---
The academy had a strange kind of quiet when night fell.
It wasn't the peaceful hush of sleep or the distant murmur of wind through ancient stone—it was the stillness of something missing. A single string, plucked days ago, that still hadn't stopped humming.
In the library, Sylara Ashveil turned a page with slow, deliberate fingers.
She wasn't reading anymore. Her eyes moved over the lines of old poetry, but her mind was elsewhere—caught in the echo of a recent memory. The boy with messy hair and half-lidded eyes who always sat two tables away. The one who never spoke unless spoken to. Who never asked questions—but always listened.
Kael Varian.
She hadn't seen him in days.
It shouldn't have mattered. People came and went all the time. But her eyes had flicked toward that empty seat more often than she wanted to admit. Not because she cared.
Of course not.
It was just… she had grown used to his silence.
Used to someone who didn't feel the need to fill the air with words or noise or expectation. Someone who sat quietly beside her and made the world feel less heavy—without trying.
Sylara closed the book. Her fingers lingered on the worn leather cover.
There was something deep in that boy. Not obvious power. Not charm. Something older. Like a song she'd heard in a dream but couldn't remember.
She shook her head.
Pointless thoughts.
---
Down in the training yard, the clang of practice swords had faded into memory.
Sirian Eldan stood alone beneath the torches, his arms crossed, watching the empty rows of dummies. His training partners had long since retired for the evening, but he remained—scowling faintly.
He remembered Kael.
Sleeping in class. Slouching in posture. Completely uninterested in his surroundings.
And yet… answering high-level tactical theory questions with calm precision. As if the knowledge wasn't learned, but simply recalled.
Sirian had fought Kael once during a spar. It wasn't even a real match—barely three exchanged blows. But for a moment, when their blades had clashed, he'd seen it.
A flicker in Kael's eyes.
A pause. The way his hand moved to correct a stance Sirian hadn't even realized was flawed until the instant after.
Not arrogance.
Awareness.
Sirian turned and threw his blade against the wooden post hard enough to split it.
He told himself it was nothing.
Still, something in him watched the shadows, waiting for the boy to reappear.
---
In the upper tower, Professor Elren leaned over his desk, candlelight flickering across parchment.
He should have been grading.
Instead, his thoughts returned to a quiet afternoon just a week ago. The first time Kael spoke up in class, answering a question on the socio-political fallout of the Eclipse Wars.
Not only did he answer correctly—he mentioned dates, military orders, and realignment edicts that weren't even part of the syllabus. Details that had taken Elren a decade of personal study to find in lost records.
And Kael had yawned halfway through explaining it.
It had unsettled him.
Students often feigned intelligence. Some memorized. Others bluffed. But Kael?
Kael spoke like he'd lived it.
The professor reached for his tea. Cold.
He pushed it away and stared out the window toward the west wing, where the infirmary lights had dimmed.
He'd checked the file. Kael had been transferred there three days ago.
No explanation.
No visitors.
But the pulse of something ancient stirred in that boy—and Elren could feel it like static in the air.
History wasn't just being studied anymore.
It was waking up.
---
Lira Velna had lit a single lantern in the infirmary, her duties done for the night.
She sat on the edge of the cot, reading a journal on beast wound recovery, her fingers absentmindedly curling a lock of auburn hair around one finger.
Every few minutes, her eyes drifted to the closed door down the hall.
The one marked Observation Room 3.
She'd seen him brought in—half-conscious, body wrecked, aura sparking like shattered lightning. No injuries on the surface, yet his heartbeat pulsed like someone who'd just finished fighting death.
She had laid her hands on his chest to monitor vitals. And what she felt in that moment...
Not chaos.
Not agony.
But restraint.
Like a forge smothered under stone, waiting to breathe.
She told herself she was just curious. That's all.
She looked down at the notes she hadn't been reading for a while now.
---
Cain Valen cleaned his blade in silence.
He wasn't one for chatter. Most of the academy bored him. The sons of nobles, the pretend prodigies, the loudmouths with enchanted gear and no instincts.
But Kael… something about that boy had Cain's attention.
The way he moved.
Didn't move.
He watched things the way hunters did. Quietly. Waiting. Calculating paths and exit points without being told.
Cain had once flicked a blade toward him, a test, just to see if the boy flinched.
Kael didn't flinch.
He caught it. Lazily. With two fingers. Like it was part of his dream.
Cain respected that.
More than that… it unsettled him.
People who moved like that had buried things. Fights. Regrets. Lives.
You don't learn that kind of calm in one lifetime.
---
Outside the library, Sylara remained seated on the cold bench under the moon.
The stars flickered, reflected in the surface of the quiet courtyard pond. Her book lay closed beside her.
She hadn't gone back to her dorm yet.
Her fingers drummed lightly on the wood beneath her as she stared at the moon's silver halo.
Still no sign of him.
She didn't know why that mattered.
It just did.
She picked up the book, but didn't open it.
Instead, she looked at the empty seat beside her.
And in the silence, found herself hoping he'd return to fill it again.
---