The experiments did not escalate all at once.
They tightened.
Like a noose drawn slowly, patiently, until the subject stopped noticing the pressure and only realized too late that breathing had become difficult.
At first, the changes were subtle. Longer sessions. Fewer breaks. New runes etched into the stone that hummed at frequencies the boy could feel in his teeth. The men stopped calling him subject and began referring to him by a number. It was easier that way—for them.
For the boy, numbers blurred together.
Pain no longer startled him. Hunger no longer frightened him. Sleep came and went like an unreliable visitor, sometimes absent for days at a time.
What remained sharp was awareness.
And fear—not of suffering, but of change.
The man with the book returned one night with two others. One carried a metal frame etched with rotating glyphs. The other carried a crystal sphere that pulsed faintly, as if breathing.
"Prepare for mana provocation," the man said calmly.
The boy's head lifted.
That word—mana—had always hovered just beyond reach in this place. Suppressed. Crushed. Choked before it could form. The runes in the walls were designed to deny it entirely.
This was different.
This was deliberate contradiction.
Mana provocation was exactly what it sounded like.
It was the forced stimulation of a mana core—whether the subject was ready or not.
Normally, mana awakened naturally, slowly, guided by affinity and training. Provocation bypassed all of that. It flooded the body with external mana while selectively weakening suppression fields, forcing the core to respond or collapse.
It was illegal. Dangerous. Often fatal.
And that was precisely why the cult used it.
"To see what breaks," one of the assistants muttered.
The boy was strapped into the metal frame. Cold bands locked around his limbs, chest, neck. The suppression collar remained—but its runes were adjusted, loosened in carefully controlled increments.
The crystal sphere was placed above his chest.
It began to glow.
Immediately, the boy felt it.
A pressure beneath his ribs—deep, old, and sealed—reacted violently. His breath hitched. His vision blurred. Every nerve in his body screamed as something long dormant was prodded awake by force.
Pain unlike any before tore through him.
This wasn't impact or heat or cold.
This was invasion.
Mana poured into him—not gently, not guided—but shoved, compressed, forced into pathways that were never meant to open this early. His body convulsed against restraints as instinct screamed for release.
The runes on the floor flared.
The crystal sphere brightened.
And for one brief, catastrophic moment—
The seal cracked.
Not fully.
Just enough.
The boy screamed.
Grey hair at his temples lightened rapidly, strands flashing white before dulling again. His eyelashes bleached pale. Veins beneath his skin pulsed with faint violet light.
His eyes—normally lifeless grey—flickered.
Purple.
Royal purple.
Just for a heartbeat.
Then the suppression collar surged.
The seal slammed back into place.
The light vanished.
The boy went limp.
"Did you see that?" one assistant whispered sharply.
"No," the man with the book replied immediately. "I saw convulsions. That's all."
Another voice spoke from the edge of the room.
A quieter one.
"Stop."
Everyone turned.
The speaker was older than the rest—grey-haired, shoulders stooped not with weakness but with years of weight. His robes were less ornate, his posture less arrogant. He had not touched the instruments. He had not taken notes.
He had only watched.
His eyes were fixed on the boy.
"Enough for today," the older man said, voice controlled but tight. "Any further stimulation risks permanent collapse."
The man with the book frowned. "We were just beginning to get results."
"And you will get nothing if he dies," the older man snapped. "Do you want the overseers asking why your promising subject burned out?"
Silence followed.
Reluctantly, the crystal was dimmed. The frame unlocked. The boy's body slid to the floor, barely conscious, breath shallow and uneven.
The others left.
The older man stayed.
He knelt beside the boy slowly, as though afraid of startling him—even though the child could barely move.
White hair.
Purple eyes.
He had seen it.
Clear as memory.
Guilt twisted in his chest so violently it almost hurt to breathe.
Lucien, he thought.
Elenora.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, though the boy couldn't hear him. "I should have never left."
His name—once—had been Kael.
A swordsman. A scholar. A man who had laughed in academy courtyards and sworn brotherhood over cheap wine and training bruises.
A man who had chosen safety when things grew dangerous.
He reached out, hesitated, then placed a careful hand over the boy's chest—not to provoke, not to test.
Just to feel.
A faint, stubborn pulse answered.
Alive.
Kael exhaled shakily.
"They think you're adopted," he murmured. "They think the real child died."
His jaw tightened.
"I won't correct them."
He adjusted the collar subtly—so subtly no rune-reader would notice. A fraction more suppression. A fraction more concealment.
Enough to keep the seal from reacting again.
Enough to buy time.
Then, as he stood to leave, memory ambushed him.
The academy courtyard had been warm that day.
Sunlight filtered through tall white spires, casting clean shadows across polished stone. Students lounged on steps and benches, laughter echoing freely in a way that felt impossible now.
Lucien had been younger then. Less scarred. White hair pulled back loosely, blue eyes sharp but amused.
Elenora sat beside him, black hair catching the light, purple eyes bright with mischief rather than exhaustion. She leaned against Lucien's shoulder, fingers laced with his.
And Kael—younger Kael—stood before them, arms crossed, scowling.
"You can't just name a child like that," he said.
Lucien grinned. "I can. I will."
Elenora laughed softly. "It suits him."
Kael shook his head. "It's pretentious."
Lucien leaned back, stretching. "He's our son. He can be pretentious."
Elenora tilted her head thoughtfully. "Besides… names have weight. Meaning."
Kael sighed. "Fine. What is it, then?"
Lucien glanced at Elenora.
She nodded.
"He'll be called Aurelian," Elenora said gently. "It means golden dawn. A beginning."
Kael blinked. "That's—"
"Hopeful?" Lucien supplied.
Kael huffed, then smiled despite himself. "You two are unbearable."
They fell into easy silence after that, watching clouds drift overhead.
Kael remembered thinking—This is what peace looks like.
The memory shattered as Kael stepped back into the present.
Into stone.
Into blood.
Into the quiet, breathing body of a boy who had never seen the sun.
"Aurelian," Kael whispered.
The name felt like a confession.
He straightened, forcing his expression back into neutrality before the guards returned. Before he became Scientist Kael again instead of a friend who had failed.
As he left the chamber, he glanced back once more.
The boy lay still, scarred, small, alive.
The seal held.
For now.
But mana had answered the call.
And once awakened—even briefly—it never truly forgot.