The snow outside Crescent Academy had stopped by dawn, but an eerie stillness lingered in its place. The kind of silence before something breaks.
Lucien Thorne stood in the center of the abandoned eastern tower chamber—his private sanctum now, hidden behind layered illusion runes he'd created and rewritten himself. Ancient sigils marked the stone floor beneath his boots, forming a circle that pulsed with a low hum.
The experiment had succeeded.
The spell etched onto his palm—the Glyph of Systemic Overturn—had not only rewritten the structure of his core but heightened his sensitivity to all magic around him. He could now see the internal glyph systems of other mages like veins of living light.
It wasn't just an upgrade.
It was transcendence.
Yet he was not ready to celebrate. Not yet.
He needed a second trial.
His thoughts drifted to the perfect target—Prince Alaric Ravion, third in line to the eastern throne and Crescent's most arrogant noble student. Alaric's spellwork was elite, but his arrogance made him predictable. If Lucien wanted a test subject with a traceable pattern and public presence, Alaric was ideal.
It wasn't personal.
Only necessary.
---
The dueling arena bustled with students. Crescent's weekly exhibitions were not mandatory, but no one skipped them—not when it meant watching highbloods clash, magic explode, and reputations ascend or fall in front of nobles and instructors.
Lucien arrived alone, eyes sharp. He wore standard black apprentice robes, subtly modified with containment threads—his own design. No crest, no alliance.
Just a shadow among lions.
Alaric, draped in gold and emerald robes, smirked as he stepped into the ring.
"You look lost, Thorne. Did someone mistake the servant's door again?"
Laughter rang out from his faction—House Ravion sycophants, elite by blood but not by brain.
Lucien gave a small bow. "Apologies, your highness. I thought I'd test a theory."
"Oh? That dust tricks still count as magic?" Alaric laughed. "Let's make this quick, shall we?"
The bell tolled. The match began.
Alaric wasted no time—he summoned a barrage of mirrored spears of light, casting them into the air and controlling them like a puppeteer.
Lucien's eyes glowed violet.
His fingers moved faster than a spellcaster should.
A thin glyph shimmered in the air: Reversal—Class C.
Alaric's spears stuttered mid-air.
Turned.
And shot back toward him.
The crowd gasped as Alaric stumbled, deflecting his own spellwork with panicked barriers. Lucien was already moving. Another glyph, this time: Structural Rewrite—Containment Vein.
Invisible chains of magic wrapped around Alaric's legs, then his chest. His crest—an elite sigil burned into his skin at age ten—flickered.
Lucien's final glyph hovered in the air, beautiful and deadly.
Crest Nullification.
Alaric's magic dimmed.
A pause. Horror on his face.
"You—! What did you do?!"
Lucien smiled, cold and precise. "Rewrote your foundations. Temporarily, of course."
The duel bell rang again—interrupted by a surge of magic from the judges.
Match canceled.
Instructors stormed in, led by Dean Vaelryn, a woman feared for her neutral stance and ruthless logic. Her eyes locked on Lucien like daggers.
"That spell," she said. "It is forbidden."
Lucien bowed again. "I was unaware."
She didn't buy the lie.
But she didn't challenge him either.
Instead, she turned to the crowd. "The match is void. No victor. No duel logs will be entered."
Alaric shouted, "This is insane! He's using archaic magic!"
But the Dean silenced him with a glance. "You lost. Try not to embarrass your bloodline further."
Lucien walked out calmly, every eye tracking his retreating figure. Half hatred. Half fear.
---
Later that night, as he sat in the sanctum again, a note appeared through the air. No one had touched the wards. No one should've known the location.
The paper bore no seal, only six words:
"We see you, Thorned Prince."
His breath caught.
He unfolded the parchment fully.
Beneath the words was a crest—burnt into the paper with dark red ink.
A rose of knives.
The Rebel Circle.
They had noticed him.
And they knew.
Lucien stared into the flame-lit shadows and smiled.