Twelve years old.
Orien had always felt different from his family. His hair was dark, not the fiery auburn his siblings shared. He was taller too, growing faster than them, with limbs that felt too long for his body. He never quite fit in.
Now, he was something else entirely.
He came from the Dawncrest family famous across the realm for generations of powerful light mages. This day, his twelfth birthday, was supposed to be his awakening. The moment he'd join that legacy. He stepped up to the obelisk in the center of the chamber and placed his hand on the smooth stone.
It should've turned white for light magic or at least some other color. If someone didn't have magic, it just stayed clear.
But this wasn't either of those.
Instead, it darkened slowly, completely like it was sucking in the light around it. It turned pitch black.
"It turned black," someone whispered, and just like that, the room exploded into murmurs.
Orien turned to look at his father and saw nothing but rage. He remembered his sister's ceremony just last year. The obelisk had glowed so bright it nearly blinded people. Everyone had cheered.
No one had ever seen it go black.
"Alright," the priest said, awkwardly stepping onto the platform. "This is… unusual. Please return to the celebration while we look into it."
And the celebration went on like nothing had happened. It didn't need to be joyful; the Dawncrests were experts at keeping up appearances. They smiled for the crowd, even as the storm built behind their eyes.
At home, the storm finally hit.
The moment they stepped through the door, his father struck his mother so hard she hit the ground.
"Whose son is he?" he shouted, his face red, veins bulging in his neck.
She stayed where she'd fallen, one hand pressed to her cheek, eyes wide with shock. "What are you talking about?" she whispered, her voice shaking. "He's your son."
His brother and sister had already gone upstairs. This wasn't something new. His father's temper. His mother's silence. But Orien stayed frozen in place.
He didn't understand what had happened but he knew one thing for sure. He wasn't a light mage. And that alone was enough to make his father this furious.
His father stepped closer, crouching down and grabbing a fistful of his mother's hair. "I let the dark hair slide," he snarled. "Any child with Dawncrest blood should awaken as a light mage."
Orien dropped to his knees beside her. "It's not her fault," he blurted out. "It's mine."
That made his father pause.
For a long moment, he just stared at Orien. Then the disgust came flooding in.
"From this day forward, you are not my son," he said, voice flat and final. "You can stay here. But don't expect to be treated like a Dawncrest ever again."
Then he turned and walked away, leaving only silence behind.
Five years later — the present.
The quiet corner of the library Orien's last refuge was shattered by a sudden SPLASH.
Ice-cold water drenched his uniform, clinging to his skin. His textbooks curled and warped, pages soaking into a ruined mess.
The third time this month.
And it wasn't even the worst they'd done.
A bitter knot tightened in his chest as laughter rang out behind him. Slowly, he looked up, water dripping from his chin.
There they were Elias' shadows. Grinning and laughing. Malfoy wasn't here and he had never bothered orien personaly. He didn't need to. His silence said enough: Go ahead.
Elias was everything Orien used to dream of being brilliant, admired, top of the class, and a light mage. He would be perfect as a Dawncrest.
And Orien? He wasn't dull. He worked hard, scored well on theory… but when it came to practicals, he couldn't cast any spells.
He stood without a word, refusing to give them the satisfaction. No glare. No outburst. Just quiet resignation.
He was so damn tired.
Tired of the whispers.
Tired of the stares.
He just wanted to be left alone.
He walked out, soaked and leaving a trail of water through the halls. Murmurs followed him. No one even bothered to hide them anymore.
Not the students.
Not the teachers.
No one at the academy respected him.
He was stopped by one of the professors Ms. Beldrich, the one who taught Basic History.
"Orien! Why are you dripping all over the halls?" she snapped, her lip curled in disgust.
He rolled his eyes. "I took a shower. Forgot to take off my clothes."
"You cloakless bastard," she spat. "I still don't know why this school admitted you. Come see me for punishment after your last class."
She turned sharply and walked off.
"Cloakless, huh…" he muttered with a bitter laugh.
Everyone else had their cloak by thirteen a dark mantle with a sash the color of their magical affinity, proof that the Obelisk had accepted them.
He dropped his ruined books into the nearest bin. One wouldn't fit jammed between two slats. He yanked at it, and something else came loose.
A thin, leather-bound journal tumbled out and hit the floor with a dull thump.
It wasn't one of his.
The cover was nearly black, worn soft at the edges. When he touched it, a chill crept up his fingers.
He flipped it open. No title. No name. No words at all.
A notebook?
He hesitated, then shrugged. His old one was soaked anyway. He'd just slap a cover on this one and use it until he could scrounge up a new one.
He tucked the strange journal under his arm and turned down the hall toward the dormitories. The squelch of his shoes echoed with every step, drawing more stares.
He didn't care anymore.
By the time he reached his room, Orien was shivering. His uniform clung to him, damp and cold. He peeled it off and tossed it into the hamper with a tired sigh.
His textbooks were gone. Probably ruined. And what was he supposed to do ask for replacements? As if anyone would care.
He pulled on his spare uniform. The fabric was faded, the trousers a little too short, but at least it was dry. As he buttoned the shirt, his eyes landed on the notebook lying on his bed. He must've dropped it there earlier.
Under the dorm's dull overhead light, it looked even older than he remembered. The leather cover was worn smooth at the edges, like it had passed through a hundred hands before his.
He hesitated.
Then, slowly, he opened it.
Still blank.
Reaching into his drawer, he pulled out a battered quill and a bottle of cheap ink. The kind that always smudged.
He dipped the nib and wrote carefully:
'Orien Dawncrest'
He was about to close the book when the letters began to fade.
One by one, they sank into the page like drops of water soaking into dry sand.
Then, new words surfaced in their place. A neat, curling script that definitely wasn't his:
'Is that your name?'
Orien froze.
The ink was darker now, the handwriting precise, elegant. Too elegant. The kind of script that belonged to someone with perfect posture and had spent all his time writing.
He hadn't written it.
He hadn't imagined it either.
His fingers hovered over the page. Every instinct told him to get rid of it. This wasn't normal. It wasn't safe.
But then again, nothing about his life had been safe lately.
And part of him the part that had been laughed at, shoved aside, ignored unless someone needed a target grabbed onto the idea that maybe, just maybe… someone out there was actually paying attention.
He dipped the quill again.
'Yes. Why?'
The ink shimmered faintly, then disappeared.
More words appeared almost instantly:
'So, Orien, for what reason do you write in my pages?'
His heart kicked against his ribs. He hadn't expected a reply.
He could throw the book under the bed, pretend it had never happened. But the words didn't feel threatening just curious. Calm.
That made it worse, somehow.
He dipped the quill again, paused, then finally wrote:
'My notebook was ruined. I needed a new one.'
The page went still.
Then, slowly, the ink reformed:
'You brat. I am an ancient source of knowledge, and you want to use me as a freaking notebook?'
Orien blinked.
That… was not the response he'd expected.
For a moment, he just stared at the page. His heart thudded in his chest. Then, almost without thinking, he picked up the quill again.
There was a question that had haunted him for five years one no one had ever answered.
He dipped the nib, hand trembling slightly, and wrote:
'What does it mean when the Obelisk turns black?'
The page gave a faint pulse.
Then new words unfurled in that same elegant, looping script:
'It's simple, really. Think of it like physics black absorbs, white reflects. Most mages have an innate pool of mana. But you? Your magic draws from everything around you. It doesn't behave like theirs. That also means the contracts your spells form will be... different.'
Orien read it once. Then again. Each word sank deeper than the last.
So that was it.
After all these years after the shame, the whispers, the silence he finally had an answer.
A flicker of something lit in his chest. Not quite belief. Not yet. But close.
He swallowed hard and wrote, carefully:
'Does that mean I can learn magic?'
The ink shimmered.
Then, without hesitation, came the reply:
'Yes, Orien. You can. Would you like me to teach you?'