The silence was wrong.
Elias Veyne knew it before he'd even opened his eyes. The Tower of the Arcanum was never silent. Even at the deepest hour of night, the air thrummed with the low, constant pulse of the mana core—a sound so familiar most mages forgot to hear it. Until it was gone.
He sat up, his hand going to the silver pendant at his throat. The metal was cold.
That was the second warning.
The pendant had been warm to the touch since the day his father clasped it around his neck twelve years ago, its magic intertwined with his own. Now, it felt like any other piece of jewelry. Dead weight.
Elias swung his legs over the edge of the bed, his bare feet pressing against the smooth obsidian floor. The dim glow of the mana conduits lining the walls flickered weakly, casting erratic shadows across his quarters. Another impossibility. The Tower's magic didn't falter.
He whispered the old invocation, the one his grandmother had taught him—the one that predated the Arcanum's standardized spells.
Nothing.
Not even a spark.
A chill crawled up his spine.
The hallway outside was deserted.
That alone wasn't unusual—Elias's quarters were on the higher floors, reserved for senior mages, most of whom kept nocturnal hours. But the absence of the Tower's heartbeat, the lack of distant voices or footsteps, turned the familiar corridor into something alien.
He moved quickly, his boots silent against the polished stone. The lifts were useless without magic, so he took the spiral staircase, descending toward the atrium. His fingers trailed along the wall, the carved runes there dull and lifeless.
Halfway down, he froze.
A body lay sprawled across the steps.
Councilman Dain.
Elias dropped to his knees beside him. The older mage's face was slack, his eyes open and unseeing. No blood. No visible wounds. His skin was cold, but not yet stiff—he hadn't been dead long.
Elias's throat tightened. Dain had been one of the few on the Council who'd voted against his father's exile.
The dead man's fingers were clenched around something. Elias pried them open carefully.
A slip of paper, crumpled and damp with sweat. Three words, scrawled in a shaky hand:
*They're killing us.*
A shout echoed from below.
Elias shoved the note into his pocket and ran.
The atrium was a graveyard.
Bodies lay where they'd fallen—mages slumped over desks, apprentices collapsed mid-stride, scholars with their faces pressed into open books. No signs of struggle. No wounds. Just stillness.
Elias's breath came too fast. His hands shook.
This wasn't an attack. Attacks left traces—shattered wards, scorch marks, the acrid stench of spent magic. This was something else. Something quiet. Something deliberate.
A footstep scraped against stone behind him.
Elias turned.
A figure stood at the far end of the hall, silhouetted against the dim light filtering through the stained-glass windows. Tall. Cloaked. Face hidden in shadow.
The way they moved—smooth, precise, utterly silent—sent a jolt of recognition through him.
Council enforcers.
But why would they be here? Unless—
The figure raised a hand.
Elias didn't wait to see what came next. He bolted for the nearest corridor.
The lower archives were the only safe place left.
Elias slammed the heavy doors shut behind him, the sound echoing through the cavernous room. The archives were a maze of towering shelves, the air thick with the scent of old parchment and ink. No magic worked here—the wards suppressed it—which meant whatever had killed the others couldn't reach him.
At least, that was the hope.
He pressed his back against the wall, straining to hear over the pounding of his own heart.
Silence.
Then—
"Elias."
The whisper came from deep within the archives.
He spun, reaching instinctively for magic that wasn't there.
A woman stood between the shelves, her dark hair streaked with silver, her robes the deep blue of the High Council. Master Ilyra. Alive.
Her face was grim. "You shouldn't be here."
"What happened?" Elias demanded. "Who did this?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she reached into her robes and pulled out a small, ornate box. "Take this. Go to the Undercity. Find Kael."
"Kael?" Elias stared at her. "The heretic?"
"The only one who can tell you the truth." She pressed the box into his hands. It was heavier than it looked, the metal cold against his palms. "And whatever you do—don't use magic."
A crash echoed from the doors.
Ilyra's eyes hardened. "Go. Now."
The service tunnels beneath the Tower were narrow and damp, the air thick with the scent of mildew and old stone. Elias moved quickly, his fingers brushing the walls to guide him in the darkness. The box weighed heavily in his pocket.
*Don't use magic.*
But why? What had happened to the Tower? To the mages?
And why Kael?
The man had been exiled years ago for claiming the Arcanum's magic was a lie—that the spells they cast were nothing more than borrowed power, siphoned from something older and far more dangerous. The Council had called him mad. Elias had called him worse.
The tunnel ended at a rusted grate. Elias kicked it open, the metal screeching in protest. He emerged into the Undercity, the stench of rotting fish and sewage thick in the air. Above him, the Tower loomed, its spires piercing the dawn sky.
Silent.
Dead.
His hand went to the pendant again.
This time, it burned.
The pendant burned like a coal against Elias's throat.
He tore it away, his fingers blistering as the silver chain snapped. The metal hit the cobblestones with a hiss, sending up tendrils of acrid smoke. For a heartbeat, the engraved runes along its edge glowed crimson—then darkened to black.
Elias stared at it, his pulse hammering.
Magic wasn't *gone*.
It was *poisoned*.
A shout echoed from the alley behind him. Boots pounded against wet stone. The enforcers had followed him into the Undercity.
He scooped up the ruined pendant and ran, ducking under sagging laundry lines and leaping over piles of rotting fish guts. The Undercity was a labyrinth of crumbling tenements and rusted catwalks, its streets choked with mist from the river below. Perfect for disappearing.
If he could reach the Bitter Root tavern before the enforcers cut him off, he might live long enough to ask Kael why the hell the Arcanum wanted them both dead.
The tavern stank of cheap gin and unwashed bodies.
Elias shoved through the crowd, his hood pulled low. The Bitter Root was a known haven for smugglers and oathbreakers—the kind of place where a man could buy a dagger between sips of ale. Or sell secrets.
He spotted Kael in the back corner.
The heretic looked nothing like the fanatic from Council portraits. No wild eyes, no frothing rants. Just a gaunt man in a patched coat, methodically dissecting a roasted pigeon with a bone-handled knife. His hands were scarred—old burns from spellwork gone wrong.
Elias slid into the seat across from him. "You're hard to find."
Kael didn't look up. "Yet here you are, Veyne." His voice was rougher than Elias remembered. "With Tower enforcers on your tail. How flattering."
A glass shattered near the door. Elias tensed, but it was just a drunk.
"They killed everyone," he said quietly. "The entire Tower. No wounds. Just… gone."
Kael's knife stilled. "And you lived because…?"
"I don't *know*." Elias slammed Ilyra's box onto the table. "She gave me this. Told me to find you."
For the first time, Kael looked at him. His left eye was milky white—a necrotic side effect of forbidden magic. "Open it."
The box contained three things:
1. A vial of mercury that moved against gravity when shaken.
2. A lock of hair tied with red string—Elias's father's.
3. A bone key etched with the same runes as his pendant.
Kael exhaled sharply. "They finally did it."
"Did *what*?"
"Burned through the Source." He grabbed Elias's wrist, turning his palm up. "Try casting. Right now."
Elias hesitated, then whispered the simplest spell he knew—a light cantrip.
Instead of the usual golden glow, a sickly green flame sputtered to life in his palm. It *hurt*, like holding broken glass. The flame pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
Kael's grip tightened. "Your magic's still tied to the old ways. That's why you survived."
"That's impossible. The Arcanum purged—"
"The *lies*?" Kael smirked. "Tell me, boy. Did your precious Council ever explain why modern spells need conduits? Why mages can't channel raw power anymore?"
Outside, a whistle blew—the enforcers' signal.
Kael stood, tucking the box into his coat. "Time to go."
They fled through the Undercity's underbelly—through flooded tunnels where pale, blind fish nibbled at their boots, past shrines to forgotten gods where the air smelled of lightning.
Kael moved like a man who'd spent years being hunted.
"The Arcanum didn't invent magic," he said as they climbed a rusted ladder. "They *stole* it. The Towers are just leeches, sucking the land dry."
Elias's burned hand throbbed. "Then what killed the mages?"
"The Well ran dry." Kael shouldered open a trapdoor. "When the Source dies, so does every spell tied to it."
Moonlight flooded in. They'd reached the rooftops.
Below, the Tower stood dark against the skyline. No glowing spires. No hum of power. Just stone.
Kael pointed east, toward the mountains. "There's another Well. Deeper. Older. Your father found it before the Council exiled him."
Elias's breath caught. "You're saying he was *right*?"
A crossbow bolt embedded itself in the wood beside Kael's head.
"Oh, he was right," Kael said, yanking Elias down as another bolt whizzed past. "But I'll bet he never told you what the Wells *really* are."
The enforcers cornered them at the clocktower.
There were five—more than enough to take one disgraced scholar and a half-trained mage. Their leader removed his helm, revealing a face Elias knew:
Riven, his former sparring partner.
"Come quietly, Veyne," Riven said. "The Archmage just wants to talk."
Elias laughed bitterly. "That why he murdered three hundred people?"
Riven's gaze flicked to the bone key around Elias's neck. "You don't understand what's at stake."
Kael stepped forward. "Neither do you, boy."
Then he *changed*.
His scars glowed. His milky eye cleared to black. The air crackled with the scent of burning copper—the old magic, the *true* magic, raw and unfiltered.
The enforcers staggered back.
Riven looked at Elias, horrified. "You've allied with a *Hollow*?"
Elias had no idea what that meant.
But when Kael's power surged, peeling the flesh from Riven's bones like overcooked meat, he understood one thing:
The Tower's lies ran deeper than he'd ever imagined.