Zaire's POV
The runes scattered across the forest floor wouldn't quit pulsing. Even burned and battered, they still glimmered, like dying stars refusing to let go. The air felt off, thick with that weird, electric silence you get right before a storm tears the sky apart.
Sylen crouched next to one of the glowing sigils, his fingers barely brushing its edges. "This isn't the work of some local hedge mage," he said, voice low.
"No way," I muttered back. "This is looks like something ancient. Way too old for that."
Dusken stood behind us, so still he might as well have been a statue left behind by time itself.
Suddenly, the sigils flickered. Not once, but three times in quick succession.
Then, out of nowhere, a fourth light ripped through the darkness, spiraling up like someone had torn a hole in the night sky. The whole forest groaned. Branches bent low, and this heavy, familiar pressure settled over us, thick enough to taste.
My jaw tightened. "They're testing us."
Sylen straightened up, slow and deliberate. "Then let's stop whispering in the dark."
Dusken let out a sharp breath. "Finally."
In that split second, everything changed. We dropped the act. There was no more hiding.
Our mortal disguises just… unraveled.
Starlight split my skin, tracing new constellations across my body. My eyes burned gold-white, like twin eclipses, and suddenly I felt bigger, not taller or wider, just more. Like gravity itself had picked me out of the crowd. The Aetherbound.
Dusken's shadow shattered and reformed in black flame. He rose up, not flesh and bone anymore, but smoke and silence. Wings, if you could call them that, flickered behind him, like someone had stitched the night sky back together with threads of darkness. The Hollow Flame.
And Sylen—
He just laughed.
His smile stretched wide, sharp and otherworldly. His whole form exploded outward in a burst of shimmering color, runes spinning around him like tiny moons. When he spoke, his voice echoed with layers, like a whole choir was hiding inside him. The Veilborne Trickster.
"Let's see if they're still watching," Sylen said, his eyes flickering between silver and violet. "Let's remind them why they used to be afraid of us."
The woods screamed. Wind ripped through the branches. The ground shook beneath our feet.
The sigils blazed one last time, then went out, just like that. It was like the magic itself had bowed its head.
Someone, or something, had been calling out to us.
Now, it was their turn to answer.
Because we weren't hiding anymore.
And the world had just remembered our names.
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