Kael was used to the quiet hours of night, but the stillness of the academy was different from the forge. It wasn't filled with the gentle creak of cooling metal or Old Man Heron's sleepy muttering. Here, the silence felt deeper—like the walls were listening.
He sat at the edge of his bed, the soft glow of a candle dancing across the notes he'd taken that day. Professor Varra's lecture on magical resonance had ended with a cryptic assignment: Map the flow of mana between glyphs, then break it deliberately. Most students were still trying to understand what that even meant.
Kael, though, felt a strange pull toward it—like the answer was buried in a memory he hadn't yet uncovered.
He leaned back, eyes drifting toward the ceiling. His mind wasn't on class. It was on what Lyria had said earlier that evening.
"I found your name in the registry," she had whispered while they studied in the Grand Athenaeum. "You weren't on the original enrollment list. You were added… late."
He'd acted surprised, but the truth disturbed him too. Old Man Heron had said the application was accepted, but Kael now wondered who had truly opened the door for him.
He shook the thought away. No use chasing ghosts without proof.
Outside, the bell tower chimed once. Midnight.
Kael sighed, stood, and crossed to the desk. His fingers brushed against the surface, where he'd begun sketching the three glyphs Varra had shown. Amplification, conduit, stabilizer. They shimmered faintly in his mind—no ink required.
He let his mana flow. The glyphs lit up, reacting. Then he reached inward… deeper than before.
A gust of wind circled the room. Not from outside.
Kael clenched his jaw. The storm within stirred again, but this time it didn't feel like chaos. It felt… expectant.
Then something changed.
The glyphs on the page twisted. The lines blurred and then realigned, forming a shape he hadn't drawn—one he shouldn't have known.
It wasn't a first-year glyph. It wasn't even academy-sanctioned.
It was a seal of binding. Ancient. Forbidden.
Kael stepped back instinctively as the paper smoked around the edges. The candle flickered violently.
And then it stopped.
The glyph faded as if it had never existed.
Kael stared at the page. His heart pounded—not with fear, but with the gnawing sense that something was waking up inside him. Something old. Something powerful.
But the questions it brought were heavier than the answers.
The next morning arrived too quickly.
Students shuffled into their Mana Control and Meditation class, most of them still bleary-eyed from late-night studying. Kael sat near the back, trying not to draw attention. His glyph incident still lingered in his thoughts like a shadow he couldn't shake.
Professor Elrik, a squat man with robes too long for his frame, stepped onto the dais and clapped his hands.
"Meditation isn't napping," he barked. "It's communion. Control. Intention. Sit properly. Empty your thoughts."
The room settled into quiet hums of focus as students closed their eyes.
Kael tried to do the same, but his thoughts refused to still. The memory of that altered glyph hovered just out of reach. He inhaled slowly, exhaled, and reached inward.
As before, he felt the gentle flow of mana.
But then it spiraled.
He wasn't alone in the current. He felt it again—that deeper presence inside him. Not hostile, not foreign. It was him. Just older. Wiser. Caged.
Aric Vaelith.
The name echoed like a whisper through stone.
Kael's breath caught.
For the briefest second, the walls of the meditation chamber faded. He saw pillars of light, ancient runes suspended in air, and a circle of mages standing in silence—cloaks fluttering in an unseen wind.
One of them turned.
A face like his, older. Stern. Crowned in flame.
Then it vanished.
Kael gasped. His eyes snapped open.
"Control, Mr. Arvandor," Professor Elrik said sharply. "Unless you'd prefer to meditate in detention."
A few students chuckled. Kael forced a nod, but his hands trembled beneath the desk.
Something was breaking loose. Slowly. And he didn't know if he could stop it.
Later that afternoon, Kael found himself back in the Grand Athenaeum, this time not for studying—but searching.
He climbed to the upper tiers where the older tomes were kept, shelves creaking under their weight. No other students lingered this high. Even the enchanted lanterns seemed dimmer.
He wasn't sure what he was looking for. Only that the glyph he'd drawn last night—it had felt familiar. Like something he'd once studied deeply.
Half an hour passed. Then an hour.
Finally, he spotted a cracked leather volume tucked behind a loose panel. Binding Glyphs of the First Age.
He pried it open carefully.
Inside were diagrams nearly identical to the one he'd drawn by accident. Complex. Layered. Beautiful in their precision.
He skimmed the first few pages, heart racing.
"Kael?"
He jumped, nearly dropping the book. It was Lyria.
She stepped closer, a furrow in her brow. "What are you doing up here? This level's restricted to second-years and up."
"I—I was just looking for something," he said quickly.
She peered at the book in his hands. Her eyes narrowed. "That's not something. That's First Age material. Where did you even find it?"
Kael hesitated. "I didn't mean to draw it. It just… happened."
Her expression softened, but only slightly. "You're not just some commoner with a knack for theory, are you?"
He met her eyes. "Does it matter?"
Lyria didn't answer right away. Then she closed the book and handed it back to him.
"It does," she said quietly. "Because if anyone else sees you with this, they won't ask questions. They'll assume you're dangerous."
He nodded, the weight of her words settling heavy in his chest.
She added, more gently, "Whatever this is… be careful, Kael."
That night, Kael returned to his dorm and locked the door.
The seal glyph still burned in his memory. The vision during meditation. The whispered name. Aric Vaelith.
He no longer doubted it.
He was remembering.
And the storm wasn't something to be feared.
It was him.
Buried. Forgotten. But now waking.
Kael stood by the window, the night wind brushing through the cracked pane.
He had come to the academy to learn magic.
But now he knew—he had once taught it.
And before long, the world would remember that too.
Chapter End