The next morning arrived cloaked in tension.
Rumors had spread like wildfire through Crescent Academy's student ranks—something had triggered the emergency wards. Magical detection sigils were sharpened, instructors on edge, and duels in the courtyard were suspended.
Lucien Thorne walked into Advanced Sigil Theory like he always did—quietly, precisely on time, notebook in hand.
Except today, Professor Aldros watched him with narrowed eyes.
"Thorne," he called, his voice like cracked glass, "stay after class."
Lucien nodded once. He didn't need to fake calm; his nerves rarely frayed. Still, beneath the desk, his fingers traced an invisible rune of reversal, ready to dispel any truth enchantments.
The lecture dragged through constructs of multidimensional logic and the limitations of spell permanence. Lucien barely listened. His mind was elsewhere—on the Codex fragment folded inside the lining of his coat, now fused with his magical core. Its runes whispered to him in his dreams.
When the last student shuffled out, Aldros turned to him, brushing silver strands from his weathered brow.
"You felt it too, didn't you?" the professor asked.
Lucien paused. "Felt what?"
"The rupture," Aldros replied, voice low. "An old seal was broken last night. Something buried deep."
Lucien played ignorant. "I wouldn't know. I was studying."
"You always are," the professor said with a half-smile, then leaned in. "Be careful. There are magics in this place that predate kings. The last person who thought they could outsmart the system vanished."
Lucien returned the smile with a politeness that didn't reach his eyes. "Thank you, Professor. I'll keep that in mind."
Outside the classroom, snow had begun to fall—unnatural for the season. Crescent was reacting. The academy itself was sentient in strange, arcane ways. Lucien could feel its heartbeat growing erratic.
He passed students whispering in corners. Most wore the silver-lined robes of Highblood Houses, symbols stitched onto their sleeves—Phoenixcrest, Damaros, Valerius.
At the center of the Academy's garden walk stood a figure radiant as the morning star.
Caelum Valerius.
Golden-blond hair swept by windless air. Silver-blue eyes like piercing ice. His white-gold armor robes shimmered with woven celestial sigils. Wherever he stood, the path cleared. Not by command—by reverence.
Caelum's gaze caught Lucien's.
A pause. A moment stretched.
Lucien gave a courteous nod.
Caelum returned it with one of equal measure—but the corners of his mouth twitched.
The heir to the throne had noticed him.
"Don't get in his way," a cold voice warned from behind.
Lucien turned to see Selara Velmire, noble prodigy of elemental discipline and Crescent's top duelist. She wore crimson and blue robes laced with frost-runes, her hair like braided flame.
"I wasn't in anyone's way," Lucien replied calmly.
"You're always in someone's way," she said. "Careful, Thorne. You're not the only one who can bend magic."
That night, Lucien returned to his chambers and laid out his notes.
The Codex fragment showed him a new path: Glyph of Systemic Overturn.
A spell not of destruction, but restructuring.
It would allow him to rewrite the way magic worked—inside people. Rebuild their glyphs, reverse bloodline binds, shatter the false hierarchy.
But it required a test subject.
He glanced at the mirror. No volunteers would come.
So he lifted his hand, etched the glyph onto his palm, and let the magic seep inward.
The pain was exquisite. His vision blurred. His heart seized, then unlocked.
When he opened his eyes, glowing runes drifted like snowflakes before his vision. The Academy's very walls spoke to him in threads of magical syntax.
He laughed softly.
"I just became the thing they fear most."
Far away, in the royal observatory, an elder magister watched the stars and frowned.
"The Seal of the Thorns has cracked," he whispered. "Balance trembles."
But Lucien didn't care for omens.
He was no prince. No chosen one.
He was the rewrite.
And history… would burn before it caged him.