Auretria opened her mouth, but the words tangled into a knot.
How was she supposed to explain something that didn't want to be explained?
"I… didn't cause a disturbance," she said finally. "The chamber did. There's something down there. Something that keeps calling me."
Malien snorted.
The Headmaster did not.
Ravel watched her with the calmness of someone sorting through invisible pages of her soul.
"Auretria," he said, "you've been found near restricted areas three times this month. You claim secret rooms appear and vanish. You insist something is 'calling' you. Yet every search turns up nothing. No chambers. No voice. No trace. Only you."
His voice wasn't accusing.
It was worse — it was controlled disappointment.
Auretria felt heat rise under her skin, not anger but something more dangerous: that unstable churn of Aether she could never fully contain.
Her Aether Veins — half-formed and still fragile — pulsed in her wrists.
"I'm not lying," she whispered.
"I know," Ravel said quietly.
Her head lifted in surprise.
Malien stiffened.
"Headmaster—"
"Enough," Ravel said, raising one finger.
A soft pressure spread through the room — Flux. The basic manipulation of weight and force. Ravel controlled it effortlessly, grounding the room in silence.
"Auretria," he continued, "your Aether has been reacting unpredictably all month. It's possible you're sensing… something the rest of us cannot."
Auretria blinked.
That was the closest anyone had come to believing her.
But then Ravel's eyes narrowed.
"What concerns me is that your energy is evolving faster than your training. Your Veins are awakening on their own. If this continues, you will either ascend—"
"Or break," Malien muttered.
Auretria's stomach lurched.
She didn't want to ascend early.
She didn't want to break either.
She just wanted the voice to stop whispering her name in the dark.
Ravel continued, "For now, you will be placed under observation—"
But he didn't finish the sentence.
Because something cracked.
The Shattering
It wasn't a normal crack.
It wasn't wood or stone.
It sounded like reality splitting a little too sharply.
The lanterns flickered, shadows warped, and the whole tower groaned like a giant exhaling.
Auretria felt a jolt inside her chest — not pain, but recognition.
The voice.
Finally, it breathed.
Her knees weakened.
"No," she whispered. "Not here—not now—"
The floor beneath her shimmered.
Not again.
Ravel reacted instantly, spreading Flux through the room, anchoring the space.
"What is happening?" Malien barked.
A rippling glow spiraled beneath Auretria's feet — the exact pattern she had seen in the hidden chamber, the one that sealed itself the moment she escaped.
She wasn't hallucinating.
It was here.
It had followed her.
Ravel raised a barrier of Flux around the pattern.
But the glow pierced straight through it like water through cloth.
Impossible.
Even the Headmaster looked shaken.
"Auretria," he warned, "step back—"
"I can't," she said. Her legs wouldn't move. Her Aether was being pulled, threads unraveling from her chest like someone was winding her up.
The lanterns burst one by one.
Darkness swallowed the room.
And then —
Something stepped through the floor.
The Visitor
It wasn't a creature.
It wasn't a person.
It was a silhouette made of shifting light — tall, wrong, almost human but not quite. Its edges flickered like a reflection in broken water.
Auretria didn't breathe.
Malien tried to cast a suppression spell, but it fizzled like a dying spark.
The thing spoke.
Not with a mouth.
Directly into her mind.
Little Aether-bearer.
Auretria staggered.
She knew that voice.
It was the same one from the chamber.
From her dreams.
From the nights she woke choking on her own heartbeat.
"Who are you?" she forced out.
Ravel stepped in front of her — a gesture so sudden she barely processed it. His silhouette blocked the shifting light.
"You will not touch my student," he said coldly.
The entity tilted its head, amused.
Headmaster of borrowed strength… you cannot stop what has already begun.
A ring of pressure exploded outward, knocking books and ink jars off the shelves. Ravel held his stance, Flux flaring around him, layers of invisible weight bending the air.
But the entity ignored him entirely.
Its voice curled back to Auretria.
You opened the path twice. You will open it fully soon.
Auretria's heart hammered.
"I didn't open anything—!"
Not yet.
And then it raised a hand-shaped blur of light
and pressed its glow to her forehead.
Her Aether Veins ignited like fire.
She screamed.
Ravel lunged.
Malien shouted.
The tower shook.
And the entity whispered one final word into her mind:
Awaken.
Collapse
The light burst.
Walls cracked.
Glass shattered.
Auretria's body jolted with a surge of raw Aether — too much, too fast, slamming through her fragile channels.
Someone grabbed her — Ravel, pulling her toward him.
But the floor beneath them unspooled into darkness.
Auretria felt the world tilt.
Her vision blurred into white and silver.
Her ears rang with a single note that didn't stop.
Then —
Everything snapped.
Silence
When the world reformed,
Auretria was on the cold ground.
Her body throbbed,
her Aether roared like a river trying to burst its banks,
and the tower…
The tower was gone.
Not destroyed.
Just gone.
A circular crater of stone dust marked where it had stood.
Students screamed from balconies and walkways. Instructors rushed across the courtyard. Alarms sounded throughout the academy.
Ravel leaned over Auretria, his expression a mixture of fear and fury.
Malien stood frozen, pale as a ghost.
Auretria tried to sit up — and pain shot through her chest like a blade.
Her Aether Veins, once faint and thin,
were glowing.
Not dimly.
Not softly.
They were fully awakened.
Too early.
Too violently.
Too wrong.
"What… what did it do to me?" she rasped.
Ravel didn't answer right away.
Because he didn't know.
He only whispered:
"Auretria… something just forced you into First Ascension."
Her blood ran cold.
This wasn't a gift.
It was a countdown.
And somewhere beneath the academy,
in the place only she could reach,
something had finally opened its eyes.
---