The academy felt wrong.
It wasn't the darkness — Eldara had always been veiled in twilight, its corridors lit by floating runes and dim mana torches — but tonight, something was missing. The air felt hollow, sound refused to echo, and even Umbra's presence dimmed like a candle in fog.
Lyn walked through the northern dormitory wing, the so-called Silent Dorm. It had once been used for visiting summoners before a mana incident sealed it off. The door still bore faint sigils of restriction, now cracked and fading.
He stepped inside.
Dust lay thick over the floor. The torches here had long burned out, but faint luminescent threads traced the walls like veins. Umbra followed, his form half-dissolved, blending into the shadows.
"Her scent is faint," the wolf murmured. "But it's here. Old fear… and something else."
Lyn's grip tightened on the gold-etched crest hanging from his belt — a fragment of Umbra's original seal. He could feel it pulse faintly in sync with his heartbeat."I don't like this," he whispered.
He moved deeper into the hallway. Doors lined both sides — each marked with a student's name, now faded. The third one on the left stood slightly ajar.
Inside, the air was colder. A summoning circle covered the floor — not drawn with chalk, but burned into the stone itself. At its center, a faint shimmer of violet mist lingered, swirling like smoke around an invisible object.
Umbra crouched low. "A trace of calling magic… but corrupted. Whoever did this wasn't summoning — they were binding."
Lyn knelt beside it. "Mira?"
No answer. Only the soft crackle of mana residue. He reached toward the center — and pain shot up his arm like fire.
A symbol flared briefly beneath his palm — a dark rune shaped like an eye, ringed in shifting lines. Then it vanished, leaving behind the faint scent of ash.
Umbra's form shuddered. "That mark…"
"You recognize it?"
"Yes. It's the same that once branded the rebels of the First War — the Marked Choir. They used souls as conduits for forbidden bonds."
Lyn's blood ran cold. "You're saying someone's reviving it?"
"Not someone," Umbra growled. "Something."
Before Lyn could reply, a faint sound drifted from the far end of the hall — footsteps, soft and uneven. He turned sharply, crest glowing faintly.
"Mira?"
The footsteps stopped. Then, slowly, a figure emerged from the shadows — a girl in tattered robes, her eyes dull and distant, her veins glowing faintly violet.
"Mira!" Lyn rushed forward — but Umbra's growl stopped him.
"Not her. Not anymore."
The girl's mouth opened slightly — and from within came not a voice, but a whispering chorus. Dozens of layered tones, murmuring the same word over and over:"Awaken."
The torches along the hall flared violet. The summoning circle reignited — and before Lyn's eyes, Mira's body dissolved into threads of mana that spiraled toward him, vanishing into the crest on his belt.
Lyn staggered back, gasping, as Umbra howled — his form flashing between solid and spectral.
The silence returned, heavier than before. Only one phrase echoed in Lyn's mind, whispered by that impossible voice:"The Marked have returned."