POV: Arthur Starlight
The uniform clung like something trying to contain me.
Its threads itched—not against the skin, but against whatever I was becoming. As if the weave remembered what it was made for, and feared it wasn't enough.
I stood alone near the edge of the observation terrace, staring down into the open training grounds below. White stone. Sigil-rings. Students already forming dueling circles. Laughter echoed in the wind, but it never reached me.
Thirteen.
That was my age now.
Taller than most grown men. My jawline sharp as a god-forged blade, shoulders broad with quiet threat. I didn't train for this form. It grew on its own, like the world tried to armor me from something it hadn't named yet.
No one looked at me directly.
Not the scholars. Not the guards. Not even the other students. They all felt something. Even when they didn't understand what it was.
Evolvanth.
That word would be explained today.
The headmaster, Velmira Arcainé, strode into the lecture dome like thunder wearing heels. Half-fae, full legend. Her voice could silence spells and shame tyrants. Today, it lectured.
"Evolvanth," she said, "is not a gift. Not a curse. Not a bloodline."
She let the silence hold.
"It is what remains when survival isn't enough."
Images swirled in the air above us—projected through crystal: people caught mid-transformation. A child turning their skin into lightning. A woman walking through flame without burning. A man bending distance like it was thread.
"Evolvanth is adaptation," she continued. "Not learned. Not trained. But awakened. When your soul is pressed against a wall the world didn't think you could survive… it answers. Uniquely. Individually."
"No one has the same Evolvanth. Not ever."
She turned, slowly. And the air in the room got heavier. Not colder. Not louder. Just… expectant. Like the space itself remembered something it shouldn't.
Then:
"Arthur Starlight," she said.
Every head turned.
I didn't move.
Her eyes narrowed, not unkindly. More like she was trying to translate me.
"Would you care to explain yours?" she asked.
My hand twitched—barely. Not from nerves. From something beneath the skin that stirred when my name was said aloud by someone who meant it.
I opened my mouth.
Then closed it.
Because even now, I wasn't sure I could answer. Not fully.
The sword had appeared in my hand again last night.
No trigger. No summoning. No control.
Only intent.
A weapon from a story that didn't exist… until I dreamed it. And still, it obeyed.
My Evolvanth didn't feel like power.
It felt like narrative memory—fiction echoing backward through time. I wasn't evolving to survive. I was being… remembered.
The class stared. Velmira waited.
I gave no answer.
And still—
The mark beneath my ribs pulsed once. A slow, radiant heat. Like the story inside me had heard its name again.
And whatever wrote me into this world…
Hadn't stopped writing.
Then he came.
He didn't knock.
Didn't look up, either. Just slipped through the door like he'd been doing it for years, like the space had already agreed to let him in before he arrived.
Vanitar.
That was the name on the roll sheet. Third column. No clan marker. No house symbol. Just five quiet letters like someone whispering through frost.
He walked with care, but not hesitation. Like someone used to passing unnoticed through important places. His uniform fit properly, but still hung loose in strange places—too tight at the throat, too long at the wrists. His steps made no sound, yet every footfall landed as if measured by some inner ruler none of us could see.
He moved like silence had taught him how.
His hair looked like white ash that had once burned clean—cut short, uneven, like it had never been meant to impress anyone. And those eyes—sapphire-gray, not bright, not dull, just… hushed. Like they'd seen things they didn't want to remember but couldn't quite forget.
He didn't look at anyone. Not really. Just enough to avoid rudeness. But not enough to invite return.
Like he'd learned how to shrink without moving.
He scanned the room once, slow and small, then spotted the seat next to me.
He didn't ask.
He just sat.
And when he did, something shifted.
Not loud. Not grand. But the kind of shift you feel in your ribs and can't explain. The air around him settled deeper into itself. As if it, too, had been holding its breath.
Like the seat had been waiting for him, quietly.
I tried not to stare. But the weight of him wasn't physical—it was narrative. Like something old had curled up inside that small frame and whispered, "Don't notice me yet."
He didn't pull out his books. Didn't fidget. Didn't smile.
He just sat.
Still. Present. Like silence had found a body and borrowed it.
And I felt, for the first time since this class began, like the story wasn't about me anymore.