The whisper hadn't left him.
Not since the Aether Bloom.
Even days later, as Caelum walked between classes and sparred under the cloudy sky, he could still feel it like a soft pull at the edge of his thoughts. A current in the wind that tugged toward the forest behind Umbra's dorm.
Toward the place where the black flower bloomed.
---
At dusk, with the academy distracted by exam drills and festival cleanup, Caelum slipped away.
He didn't tell Lira. Didn't ask Ardyn to come. He wasn't sure why.
He just had to know.
The path behind House Umbra faded quickly into thickets and old root webs. The woods here felt older than the rest of the academy twisted trees with bark like scabbed skin, and the scent of damp stone and forgotten rain.
The wind grew still.
Too still.
---
He found it just before twilight.
A shallow slope hidden behind thick ivy. A fallen arch, mostly swallowed by dirt. Half-buried symbols carved into old black stone.
A shrine, or what was left of one.
The moment he stepped near it, the runes pulsed faintly.
His fingers brushed the stone and the world lurched.
Wind howled, but only in his ears. His vision went dark, then lit with flashes.
A tower falling. A sword piercing light. A chained door deep below the academy's roots.
He stumbled back, heart racing. The wind around him swirled, alive, agitated. Then, a voice not from memory, not from the wind but from something older.
"You are not sealed. You are not ready. Yet still… you came."
---
Behind the ivy-covered arch, part of the earth gave way.
Caelum cleared the vines and dirt, revealing a narrow stone tunnel, long collapsed but recently disturbed as if the ground itself shifted to let him through.
He crawled inside.
The air was thick, not with dust, but with silence. The wind did not follow him here.
The tunnel opened into a small circular chamber.
And at the far end
A door.
Black metal. Runes inlaid with faint red glow. Chains crisscrossed its surface, rusted and humming faintly with magical containment.
At its center was a carving.
A serpent coiled around a broken mask.
"Umbra's symbol," Caelum whispered. "But… older."
He reached out.
The instant his hand neared the door, the red runes pulsed. Something on the other side moved not physically, but through the Veil. A presence. Watching.
Waiting.
Then it spoke.
"Child of wind. Vessel of echo. You are marked."
"Return… or release."
---
The door shook;just slightly.
But that was enough.
Caelum yanked his hand back and ran, heart pounding, scrambling through the tunnel. Behind him, the wind returned, pushing him forward, urging him to flee.
He burst out of the brush, face scraped, chest heaving.
And standing near the tree line
Ardyn.
Expression unreadable.
"You followed it," Ardyn said quietly. "Didn't you?"
Caelum nodded, too breathless to speak.
Ardyn looked toward the forest, jaw clenched. "That place… isn't supposed to open."
He walked past Caelum, toward the trees. Paused.
"Next time," he said without looking back, "take someone with you."
---
That night Caelum lay in bed, staring at the ceiling again.
His wind magic was quiet. Not asleep just...watchful.
And in his mind, the door remained.
Chained.
Waiting.