Chapter 31
The sanctity of Sanctum Astrae was held by more than angels and rules. Beneath the sprawling towers and sky-glass halls, buried deep in the planet's crust, lay the Sanctum Core—a place sealed since the academy's founding. Only a handful of high officials even knew of its existence.
Now, it was waking up.
Cracks laced the edges of the containment glyphs. Invisible to the eye, but not to those attuned to essence. And as the seal fractured, something seeped upward—an ancient pulse of memory, warning, and unrest.
---
Astern didn't sleep that night.
He stood by his window, Whispersteel lying across his knees, watching the stars wheel overhead. They blinked like tired gods.
Something was pulling him.
Not a call. A resonance.
"Restless again?" Kaela asked, her voice soft from across the room. She hadn't even lifted her head from her pillow.
He gave a quiet nod. "Something's wrong."
Lunaria sat up from her corner. "I felt it too. A hum. Like the ground's… breathing."
They shared a silence.
"Something's coming," Astern said.
---
The next day, the academy announced a temporary pause in combat exercises. Official reason: arcane grid recalibration.
But whispers filled the halls.
Unconfirmed sightings of masked individuals in robes.
A faint darkness on the west wing's highest floor.
Even some upperclassmen were whispering about the Core.
That night, Astern snuck out.
He didn't mean to bring Lunaria and Kaela, but they followed anyway.
"Next time you vanish," Kaela said, "try not to leave your boots by the door."
They made their way through unused wings and collapsed stairwells. Past a broken mural of the founding angels. Past a gate marked with a fading sigil of balance.
Below.
Below.
Until they found it.
A door of crystal and iron, shaped like a closed eye.
Kaela reached for it.
"Wait," Lunaria warned. "It's humming."
But the eye blinked.
It opened on its own.
A gust of cold wind blew from the darkness beyond.
Inside, they stepped into a massive chamber shaped like a hollowed-out star. Floating in its center: a broken glyph circle—and a cocoon of obsidian, wrapped in chains of fading light.
From within, something moved.
A whisper—not in sound, but in thought.
"…You… finally…"
Astern's chest tightened.
Lunaria gripped his shoulder. "We should go."
Kaela backed away, eyes wide. "Now."
But Astern couldn't move. He was frozen.
Because deep inside the cocoon… something recognized him.
And he—
He recognized it.