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Chapter 33 - Letters in Ash

Chapter 33

The dawn following the descent into the Core came gray and silent. Even the academy bells rang duller that morning, as if the great towers themselves sensed the stirring beneath their foundations.

Astern sat alone on the roof of Dorm D, legs crossed, Whispersteel resting across his knees like a calm predator. His eyes remained on the distant horizon, where the clouds bled soft gold into silver. But his thoughts were buried—buried beneath chains, whispers, and a truth that refused to stay hidden.

Kaela joined him, uncharacteristically quiet. She sat without a word, legs dangling over the edge.

A minute passed.

Then she asked, "You're not going to tell the instructors, are you?"

"No," Astern replied. "They already know."

Kaela raised a brow. "And they're doing nothing?"

Astern shook his head. "They're waiting. For what, I don't know. But that cocoon… it was meant to be found eventually. I was just the first to hear it call."

Lunaria appeared moments later, holding a folded parchment in hand. "This came for you. Delivered by courier crow. No seal, no name."

Astern opened it carefully. The paper was old—edges brittle, scent faintly like char.

One sentence was scrawled in clean, sharp ink:

'When the blade begins to whisper, follow the ash to where the sun does not rise.'

No signature. Just a faint fingerprint at the bottom, smudged in gray dust.

Kaela frowned. "That's not ominous at all."

Lunaria leaned over his shoulder, eyes scanning the words again. "You think it's from… the one who left you at the orphanage?"

"Maybe," Astern said. "Or someone who knows what I am."

He turned Whispersteel in his hands. The blade's surface darkened slightly, pulsing once.

It had begun to whisper again.

---

That day, classes resumed, but a strange atmosphere clung to the halls. Professors looked tenser. Third-years were summoned repeatedly to inner towers. Rumors swirled of unauthorized border shifts along the Demonfront.

At lunch, Rylen sat beside Astern for the first time unannounced.

"Have you seen the sky lately?" he asked casually.

Astern glanced upward. "It's clear."

"Exactly," Rylen muttered. "It's too clear. No aether winds for three days. No migration above the Dome. Something's pressing down."

Faye, quiet as always, joined them. She didn't speak, but she set down a book in front of Astern. A treatise on divine seals.

A page was dog-eared.

Chapter 13: Bound Spirits and Forgotten Stars.

Astern understood without asking.

They were watching, too.

---

That night, Astern returned to the message. He set it on the floor beside his bed, lit a candle, and studied the ash smudge at its corner.

It wasn't normal soot.

It shimmered faintly in the flame's light, almost like powdered starlight.

And as the candle flickered… a faint mark revealed itself in the corner of the parchment.

An emblem.

Half angelic sigil. Half ghoul rune.

The same mark hidden inside his golden crest.

He wasn't just being watched.

He was being guided.

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