The academy returned to routine.
Or at least, it pretended to.
The halls were still polished. Classes resumed. Students gossiped about which nobles were secretly dating or which professor had grown a third eye from alchemy backlash.
But beneath it all...
A current of fear lingered.
Not spoken. Not acknowledged.
But present.
Like a word stuck in the throat of the world.
---
Kairo stood at the edge of the Wellspring Library, gazing up at the ancient tree that grew through its center.
Its bark was etched with names—not carved, but grown into the wood. Some glowed faintly. Others were nearly erased.
Each name was a soul that had once resonated with the Wellspring of Magic.
> "It records those who've been changed," Lyra said, approaching quietly. "Those touched by something greater."
Kairo didn't reply.
He didn't need to look to know his name wasn't there.
He wasn't "changed."
He was the thing that changed others.
---
Lyra sat beside him on the marble bench.
> "You didn't report what happened with the masked agent."
> "Didn't see the point," he said.
> "They might send more."
> "Let them."
She frowned, watching him. "You're not afraid?"
Kairo leaned back.
> "I am. That's why I whisper."
---
Meanwhile, deep beneath Elythera, in a sealed chamber lit by nothing but floating script...
An old man stirred.
His robes were crimson and gold, trimmed with chains of silence. He held no staff, no book—only a glass vial.
Inside the vial floated a sliver of Kairo's whisper.
> "He spoke the Word of Remembrance," the old man said softly.
A voice echoed from the darkness.
> "Impossible. That Word is forgotten."
> "And yet he remembered it."
Another voice: "Should we act?"
The old man turned toward a stone statue of a faceless god.
> "We do nothing."
"The moment we speak his name… he will hear us."
---
Back at the library...
Kairo reached out to the tree and touched a faded name near the roots.
It pulsed faintly beneath his fingers.
> "Who was this?" he asked.
Lyra leaned forward. "That's a forgotten one. No one remembers their spell, not even their name. But the tree refuses to let them go."
Kairo's eyes narrowed.
He mouthed the name softly.
And the world winced.
Wind rushed through the open windows. The branches shook. The tree glowed—not softly, but violently.
A name blazed onto the bark:
KAIRO.
Lyra jumped back. "That's not supposed to happen—!"
Kairo stood slowly.
A whisper curled around his feet like mist.
> Seal Three... has cracked.
Somewhere in the divine realm, a god screamed.