The ocean never slept around Nova Island.
Even at night, its pulse hummed beneath the academy's cliffs—a slow, ancient rhythm that made the very air vibrate. Mana drifted off the waves in thin veils of light, trailing through the forested ridges and up into the towers like mist drawn toward flame.
I walked that path long after midnight, the stone beneath my boots still warm from the day's enchantments. The lamps lining the path shimmered faintly blue, each one resonating to the leyline that ran beneath the island's heart.
Everything here was alive with magic. Even silence breathed.
I could still feel the residue of the Headmaster's seal beneath my skin. It wasn't a wound. It wasn't even pain. It was an echo—something vast and sleeping, pressing faintly against the edges of my consciousness.
It felt like standing beside the ocean and knowing the waves could swallow you at any moment.
The dormitories were quiet when I passed them. A few windows glowed faintly, students whispering, studying, pretending that the world beyond their books was still sane.
Mine was dark. I didn't go in.
Instead, I followed the path up toward the cliffs that overlooked the eastern sea. The night breeze carried the scent of salt and iron. Clouds moved like shadows across the twin moons, and the sea below shone with that strange, spectral radiance that only Nova's waters ever knew.
I stopped near the edge, looking down at the abyss below.
For a long while, I just stood there—listening.
The island's mana currents always made a faint hum, a kind of background song you only noticed when you tried not to. Tonight, though, there was another rhythm beneath it—a heartbeat not quite my own.
Once… twice…Then it vanished.
I touched my chest. The seal pulsed faintly, cold at first, then warm, like the shift of tidewater.
"Still sleeping," I murmured.
But it was a lie. I could feel it listening.
The wind shifted.
For a moment, I thought I saw shapes in the air—threads of golden light curling around my hand where it rested on the railing. They pulsed in time with my breathing, faint but deliberate, as though the mana itself had begun to mirror me.
No… not mirror.Respond.
When I closed my eyes, the world stretched outward—senses unfolding beyond their limits. I could taste the mana in the air, trace the ley currents as they wove through the earth beneath me, feel the vibration of every rune in the towers behind.
The seal wasn't blocking my perception. It was amplifying it—shaping it, guiding it.
And deep beneath that, something stirred.
A voice—not words, but the suggestion of them—passed through my mind like the whisper of distant thunder.
You listen well for one so small.
The air froze.
My eyes snapped open. The cliffs were empty, the sea unbroken, but the sound—or thought—had been real.
I drew a breath that tasted of iron and ozone. "Who are you?"
Silence. Then, faintly, like a current slipping through cracks in the world—
You have forgotten. That is mercy.
My knees weakened. The mana threads coiled tighter, dancing around my arm, then vanished as the seal flared briefly—an invisible pulse that shook the air.
The next breath came ragged. Whatever that presence was, the seal had cut it off.
And yet… in that instant before it withdrew, I had felt it—not as something within me, but around me. As if I was the shadow, and it the substance.
I sank onto a low stone bench near the cliff's edge. My hands trembled. The moons hung high above, veiled behind moving clouds, and their pale light fell across the sea like a path leading into darkness.
The Headmaster's words echoed back to me.
"You are not strong enough to bear that truth yet."
But what if strength had nothing to do with it? What if the truth itself refused to be held?
The seal thrummed again, a low, harmonic resonance that rippled through the ground. I pressed a hand against it instinctively, and for an instant, a thousand images flickered behind my eyes—too fast to catch.
A sky torn open, spilling light that devoured color.A throne of glass and fire.A voice saying Let there be— and a universe answering.
Then it was gone.
I gasped, half-blind from the afterimage. The air smelled faintly of rain, though the sky was clear.
Something inside me was older than this world.
That much I knew now—not from words, but from instinct. The way the seal hummed when I stood near ley currents. The way mana bent subtly around me, like iron dust around a magnet.
This wasn't simple containment.It was camouflage.
Eldric hadn't sealed it to protect me.He had sealed it so others wouldn't find it.
The realization hit cold and sharp. If that thing was hidden… then someone, or something, might be looking.
I stared toward the sea again. The horizon was dark, but the waves gleamed faintly where they broke—silver veins under the moonslight. For a heartbeat, I thought I saw patterns there, like runes written in motion, vanishing as soon as I focused.
The air felt heavier. Denser.
I rose, unsteady. "What are you?" I whispered to the silence.
This time, no answer came—only that subtle pulse, steady and patient.
You will remember when the veil cracks.
The clouds shifted again, and moonlight swept the cliffs in cold brilliance. I could see the academy towers behind me—tall, spined silhouettes against the stars.
Somewhere within those towers, the Headmaster would still be awake. Watching. Waiting.
He knew. He had to. The way his eyes had flickered—not with fear, but recognition—when the seal touched me.
What had he seen before? What could make a man like Eldric Vaelor cautious?
I made my way back down from the cliffs, following the narrow path that wound between rune-lit trees. The forest around the academy was ancient, its roots tangled with old enchantments. Mana seeped through the bark in faint lines, lighting the ground with soft green veins.
Every so often, I caught a flicker in the corner of my vision—a distortion, like heat haze. The seal resonated each time, a quiet hum under my ribs.
I couldn't tell if it was warning me or reassuring me.
When I finally reached the courtyard, dawn was beginning to smudge the horizon. The academy's spires gleamed faintly gold where the first light caught them.
The world looked unchanged. Peaceful.
But the pulse beneath my skin told me otherwise.
I stood there until the first bell rang, eyes on the rising sun, and whispered into the morning air:
"Who were you before me?"
No answer came—only the faint rhythm of something immense, waiting beneath the surface of my thoughts.
Eldric Vaelor
Far above, in the Headmaster's tower, Eldric Vaelor stood by the window, the dawn light catching in his white beard and casting long shadows across his desk.
He had felt the seal stir hours ago—the faint tremor running through the academy's wards as the entity inside Adrian Ravenshade brushed against the waking world.
He had strengthened the barrier, of course. No trace of its signature could leave Nova's boundaries. Not yet.
His gaze drifted toward the eastern sea, where the boy had gone walking. The horizon still shimmered faintly, ripples of residual mana rising and falling like breath.
"So it begins," he murmured.
A faint whisper answered from the shadows of the room—not a voice, but the echo of something vast and distant.
Eldric inclined his head, as if in acknowledgment. "He does not know yet. Let him grow."
The light shifted, and for an instant, the reflection in the glass was not his own—a figure of endless radiance, crowned in flame and silence.
Then it was gone, leaving only an old man and a quiet sunrise over an island that slept atop a secret older than the stars.