Kyle left Counselor Idris' office with thoughts heavier than when he'd entered. The words stuck with him—not because they hurt, but because they felt dangerously close to truths he hadn't yet dared to say aloud.
He passed down the corridor of the inner sanctum, where students filtered between classes and courtyard breaks. The ambient hum of enchantments buzzed faintly in the stone walls, and the enchanted torches flickered like breath held too long.
He felt the stares. Not directly—just the sensation of being watched, measured. Like something in the building itself was curious.
He didn't like that feeling.
Somewhere deeper—beneath lecture halls and history rooms, beneath even the Arcane Vaults—
Luwen Wick stood beside Professor Tepes again, only this time, it wasn't just a report.
The chamber was different.
Still warded, still hidden, but darker—older. The walls were not smooth stone but raw mineral, black-veined and moist with dew, as if the cave itself breathed. An altar stood at the center, made not of marble but of fused bones, melted and reshaped with spells too old to name.
Tepes raised a crystal orb and crushed it with one hand. Red sparks spiraled upward before vanishing.
"There's a weakness growing in the wards," he said, pacing. "Not just from intrusion. From pressure—old energies moving. Things we buried scratching at their boxes."
Luwen's arms were folded. He wasn't fazed by the surroundings.
"You think it's the boy?" he asked.
Tepes stopped walking. "I think too many threads are weaving too tightly. Him. The east wing. The Malloran girl. And you."
Luwen's brow furrowed.
"I haven't faltered in my duties."
"No, you haven't. But you were marked. The world called you hero. Chosen. And that kind of light draws things out of shadow." Tepes stepped close, voice quiet. "You've seen it, haven't you? The mirror not always showing your face. The echoes when no one speaks."
Luwen didn't respond.
Tepes continued. "It's waking up. That which crowned you. And I don't know if it still sees us as allies."
Back on the surface, Kyle entered the dorm courtyard.
Students lounged in the late afternoon sun, some weaving mana ribbons in the air for practice, others studying with tomes that blinked when you turned away.
Kyle spotted Chris Malloran near the east-facing tower, chatting with two other nobles. He looked perfectly composed—dressed well, laughing easily.
It made Kyle's jaw clench.
Before he could turn away, Chris noticed him and raised a hand lazily.
Kyle didn't return the gesture.
Instead, he walked the other way, into the garden paths that circled the Sanctum. His boots crunched against gravel as he took a turn toward a disused archway at the garden's edge—shaded by old trees and rarely visited.
A whisper reached him there.
Not a voice. Just… pressure. Like a murmur inside the bones of the earth.
He paused.
The shadows cast by the archway didn't shift with the light. They stayed still. Unnatural.
Kyle reached out, fingers brushing the edge of the stone—and flinched.
The air turned cold. Not wind—just the memory of it. His breath fogged.
Something stirred in the shadow. Not seen—felt. Like a weight leaning toward him.
Then it was gone.
The warmth returned. The path behind him was normal.
He stepped back, heart hammering.
Whatever that was… it had been watching.
That evening, Luwen walked the upper balcony of the Sanctum alone.
He moved like someone familiar with being followed—and unfazed by it.
His thoughts weren't on his footsteps but on the dream from the night before.
A mirror. But not his own face.
It was a crown. But it floated above a skull.
Words had been whispered to him, not in voice but in meaning: "The hero is not always the savior. Sometimes, he is the knife."
He had awoken with blood on his palms. Not wounds—just blood.
Tepes told him not to worry. Said phenomena leave traces. But Luwen was beginning to wonder what kind of trace had been left on him.
He looked down from the balcony—past the towers and gardens—to the east wing.
Something was buried there. Something that trembled when Kyle walked by.
The next day, Kyle returned to Void Studies.
He was the first to arrive. The classroom felt emptier than usual. Even the shifting runes on the lectern were slower, as if drowsy.
Professor Iskra entered minutes later, her presence cutting through the stillness like a knife through silk. She raised her voice as the door opened again.
"Vera. Cynric. Find your seats."
The two upper-year students nodded and entered without question. Vera, tall and poised with an angular braid of silver hair, took a seat near the center. Cynric, broad-shouldered and silent, seated himself toward the back, shadows already clinging to the hem of his robe like smoke.
Kyle sat near the front. He could feel their eyes occasionally shift toward him.
Iskra stood behind her obsidian post and raised a chalkless hand to the board. Symbols began etching themselves into the stone, glowing with pale violet light.
"Today, we discuss phenomena."
She paused, letting the silence hang.
"Not spells. Not incantations. Phenomena are ruptures in expectation. Moments where the world bends—not by command, but by convergence. A moment of pure will or trauma where reality itself shudders."
Kyle leaned in slightly.
Iskra continued, her voice steady.
"Some manifest in the form of ancient glyphs appearing midair. Others may result in storms of memory, walking nightmares, or conjurations no one cast. Most phenomena occur during critical turning points in a mage's psyche. A wound. A grief. A truth revealed too quickly. Some call them echoes of the soul's scream."
She glanced toward the seniors.
"Cynric once survived a temporal distortion during his second year. A moment where time looped upon itself. It lasted ten seconds for him. For us, it was two days."
Cynric gave a subtle nod.
"Vera experienced a soul bloom—rare. She sang a spell in her sleep and the surrounding dormitory awoke with a memory that wasn't theirs. Entire conversations in languages no one had learned."
Vera didn't meet anyone's eyes.
Kyle noticed these small reactions, they were natural and he saw that Vera seemed quite uncomfortable remembering her "phenomenon".
Professor Iskra turned to Kyle. "Phenomena are dangerous. Not because they're evil. But because they're honest. They show what is buried. They echo what you truly are."
The chalk-runes shifted again, forming a spiral that bent into itself, then flared outward.
"Some phenomena become marks. Traces that remain. In the air. In the mind. In the soul. These traces may attract entities, artifacts, or even change the bearer in ways slow and subtle."
Kyle stared at the board, heart knocking unevenly.
"Class dismissed. Kyle, stay after. The rest of you—prepare reflections. We'll speak again in three days."
The others filed out, Vera pausing briefly as if to say something before thinking better of it. Cynric left without a glance.
Iskra approached Kyle and handed him a folded parchment.
"Give this to Luwen Wick. You'll find him on the upper terrace at dusk."
Kyle blinked. "Why me?"
"Because he'll speak to you. Because whatever's stirring here, he's close to it."
He hesitated. "I still have to go back to Idris, after this."
She nodded. "Then do so. But don't delay too long. It's not labelled as such but I want you to treat the visits as mandatory until I say otherwise."
Kyle tucked the parchment into his sleeve as he gave his professor a curt nod.
As he left, Iskra whispered—barely loud enough to be heard—"And Kyle… not all heroes are rescuers."
_____
That evening approached with slow, eerie calm. Something unseen shifted in Sanctum Magna's air—like a great door creaking open just slightly.