The instant the barrier sealed, the world shrank.Sound, smell, even the faint vibration of the mana conduits outside fell away. The air inside shimmered with green-gold motes that hung like fireflies caught in amber.
Headmaster Eldric Vaelor regarded me across the desk, and for a heartbeat I could have sworn the light itself bent toward him.
"Now we may speak plainly," he said. His voice was almost kind, and that made it worse. "What remains in you, Adrian Ravenshade, is not a wound. It is an imprint."
He gestured lazily. A thin stream of mana coiled from his fingertip, tracing symbols in the air—sigils older than the Academy, older perhaps than the Empire. They pulsed once and dissolved, leaving faint echoes that rippled through my chest.
The runes carved into my chair flared in answer.
I felt the pulse beneath my ribs—the alien rhythm that had haunted me since the ritual chamber. It throbbed once, twice, matching the frequency of the Headmaster's mana.
He watched me carefully. "It reacts to strength, not intent," he murmured. "It hides when you are weak. When you are certain, it listens."
I swallowed. "You know what it is."
Eldric's eyes gleamed. "I know enough to be cautious."
He turned again toward the window, his hands clasped behind his back. Mana streamed from his shoulders like faint mist, threading through the air until it touched the barrier and slid along its surface in quiet arcs. The room pulsed with contained power.
"What you encountered below was not a demon," he said. "Not a spirit, nor a god the Church would name. It was something that predates the Concord itself. Something that remembers."
His reflection met mine in the glass. "It looked at you and saw you. That should be impossible."
My mouth went dry. "Then tell me what it means."
He turned slowly, and the weight of centuries looked down upon me.
"You are not strong enough to bear that truth yet."
The words struck harder than any spell.
I forced myself to hold his gaze. "You think I'm afraid of it?"
"I think," he said, "that you misunderstand it. Strength is not fury, Adrian. It is clarity. Until you can stand before what you are without breaking, knowledge will only devour you."
For a moment, the silence between us was alive. The motes of mana circling him swelled brighter, their rhythm syncing to the beat under my skin. It was as if his power and the thing inside me recognized one another.
"What happens if I keep searching?" I asked.
"Then it will find you before you are ready."
His tone remained calm, but a faint distortion ran through the barrier—like glass under pressure.
He released a quiet sigh. "There are forces that shape history from beneath the skin of the world. You have brushed against one. That alone would have killed most men."
He moved closer, the hem of his robe whispering across the floor. When he stopped before me, the smell of old paper and ozone clung to him.
"Do you trust me, Adrian?"
The question unsettled me more than any accusation could have.
"I want to," I said at last.
"That will suffice."
Eldric extended a hand. A single thread of mana rose from his palm, bright as molten glass. It hovered between us, vibrating gently. "This is a resonance seal. It will keep the fragment within you dormant until you are strong enough to face it."
I hesitated. "And if I refuse?"
He smiled—a small, weary curve of lips that carried neither threat nor comfort. "Then we will both discover what happens next."
The thread quivered, waiting. Against every instinct, I reached out. The moment my fingers brushed the light, a wave of heat surged through me—searing, pure, blinding. Symbols flashed behind my eyelids, too fast to grasp, too vast to name.
Then it was gone.
Eldric's hand lowered. "It is done. The imprint sleeps."
I realized I was trembling. The pulse in my chest had quieted, but a deeper ache spread through my arms as though every nerve remembered the touch.
"Rest," he said. "And listen to what it tells you when it wakes."
He turned away, already dismissing me with the graceful finality of a man who has carried too many secrets for too long.
I rose, but my legs felt heavy. "Headmaster… will it wake soon?"
His back remained to me. "Everything does."
The barrier shimmered and collapsed. Sound returned—the distant murmur of corridors, the faint whir of mana conduits, the rhythm of a world that had gone on pretending nothing had changed.
I bowed instinctively, though he no longer watched, and left the office.
The hallway outside felt colder.
Carmila was gone. Only the two sentinels remained, their armor reflecting the pale lamplight. One of them looked at me, perhaps expecting some expression of relief or triumph. I gave none.
As I walked, the runes along the corridor flickered faintly. Each pulse of light seemed to echo the phantom beat beneath my ribs.
He said I wasn't strong enough.
But the thing inside me had stirred when he approached. It had recognized him. And for the briefest instant, I had seen something in Eldric Vaelor's eyes—an echo of that same endless void that had stared at me in the ritual chamber.
Did he know it because he had fought it… or because he had been touched by it once?
I stepped out into the open courtyard. Twilight had fallen over Ashbourne; repair wards glowed along the spires, and the sky shimmered with drifting embers of mana released by the reconstruction engines. Students crossed the grounds in silence, their voices low, their faces drawn.
The city still healed. So did I.
A breeze moved through the arches, carrying the scent of wet stone and copper. Somewhere far above, an airship's horn wailed—a long, mournful note that shivered through the fading light.
I pressed a hand to my chest. The seal the Headmaster had placed there was cool, steady. For now, the alien pulse slept beneath it.
But I could still feel it watching.
Not strong enough.
Perhaps. But strength could be forged. And the truth—whatever it was—would not remain hidden forever.
I turned toward the dormitory halls, the city's hum in my ears and the faintest tremor of power under my skin.
Far behind me, in the Headmaster's office, green light flared once against the windowpane before fading into shadow.
Eldric Vaelor watched the skyline for a long time. Then he whispered to the empty room, so softly that even the wards did not catch the words:
"Not yet… but soon."