The school map was useless.
Kiria stood in the middle of a hallway lined with windows that looked out into a forest she hadn't seen the day before. She could have sworn her dorm had been next to a garden… not whatever this fog-wrapped woodland was. She turned the map upside down, then sideways.
Still no clue.
The parchment shimmered faintly in her hands, the lines glowing and shifting whenever she looked away. One moment, the West Wing was two turns left and one staircase down. The next, it was… gone. Replaced by something called "The Observatory of Red Names," which she was reasonably certain had not existed ten seconds ago.
She groaned and leaned against the wall, ignoring the pointed looks of two passing students in tailored navy robes. They walked with purpose, with wands tucked into sheaths like sidearms and eyes that said: we belong here.
Kiria didn't.
She was wearing the student robes now, sure—baggy and a bit too short in the arms—but it felt like the cloth was trying to crawl off her body, rejecting her by sheer spiritual instinct.
She tried to follow a trio of first-years down a spiral stairwell, thinking maybe they'd lead her toward something familiar. Instead, the stairs unfolded like paper into a sideways hallway. She watched them walk away at a 90-degree angle to gravity while she remained stuck at the top, blinking.
"What," she muttered.
The wall near her hissed and rippled like water. A doorway opened, and a small orb of light floated out.
A gentle voice echoed from nowhere:
> "Class: Elemental Sigilcraft. Location: East-Ascended Chamber, Sub-Axis Two. Tardiness will be recorded."
"Sub… Axis two?" Kiria repeated. "That's not a real direction."
The orb bounced impatiently.
Kiria ran after it.
She was breathless by the time she reached a set of silver-trimmed doors that pulsed with a low hum. The orb vanished through them. She skidded to a halt, straightened her robes, tried to tuck her hair behind her ears, and pushed them open.
The room went quiet.
It was tiered like an amphitheater, all pale stone and blue-light glyphs etched into the curved walls. Students sat in rising rows, all with open sigil books and little trays of glass markers in front of them. At the center stood a man in a long charcoal robe, eyes half-lidded, clearly mid-lecture.
His gaze slid to her.
Kiria took one step inside.
He clicked a piece of chalk against his desk. A glowing line appeared in the air behind him.
> Kiria Lane – LATE
First Tardy
The room snickered.
"Find a seat," the professor said, voice like cold honey. "Try not to interrupt again."
Kiria slid into an empty spot near the back. Her hands were sweating. Her map had disappeared.
No one said a word to her. But every student in the row leaned ever-so-slightly away.
She kept her eyes forward, jaw tight.
So far, so good. She was only completely lost, already marked as late, and didn't even know what the lesson was.
Whatever. No big deal.
She could survive this. One class. One day.
Right?
The professor didn't waste time.
"Sigilcraft," he said, with a flick of his wrist, "is the language of intent carved into form. A primitive tool by ancient standards, yet still foundational for all structured spellcasting."
Lines of light appeared midair as he spoke—perfect geometric glyphs drawn with invisible chalk. They rotated in front of the class, glowing gently.
"All of you," he continued, "have inherited channels strong enough to cast with mental precision. But first-year curriculum demands mastery of this archaic base."
He tapped a wand against his palm. The air above him formed a symbol: a triangle intersected by two half-curves.
"This is the sigil for heat."
The students leaned forward, murmuring with interest. Some were already sketching in their spellbooks—calligraphy pens gliding over parchment laced with threadbare charmwork. Their hands moved with confidence and elegance.
Kiria had… nothing.
No wand. No spellbook. Not even a pen.
She glanced down at her desk. A piece of charcoal had been left for her, rolling slightly in a shallow groove beside a blank slate board. She picked it up awkwardly.
The girl beside her—sleek black braids, a golden earring in the shape of a flame—snorted.
"She's going to try to draw magic," the girl whispered to her friend. "With charcoal."
The other girl laughed behind a gloved hand. "Maybe it's enchanted. Charcoal of Pathetic Intent."
Kiria's ears went hot. She hunched lower, focusing on copying the triangle, though her lines were shaky and uneven.
"Each stroke must be deliberate," the professor intoned. "Intent and line must align. Fail to focus, and the spell fractures."
He walked the aisles slowly, examining each sigil drawn.
Kiria had no intent. Just survival.
Still, she tried.
Line. Curve. Second curve. Triangle enclosed.
Her fingers smudged the side. She winced. The mark flickered faintly—not with any light she could see, but with a sensation. Like static. Like being watched.
She looked around.
No one else had noticed.
She set the charcoal down.
The glyph glowed.
Not brightly. Not like the others. But a faint, pale blue shimmer bloomed around the edges of her mark like frost on glass.
The student beside her gasped. "What did you—"
"I didn't do anything!" Kiria hissed.
The sigil let out a soft pop—and the ink pot on the other girl's desk shattered with a crack. Black liquid splashed across her robes.
Shrieking, she jumped back.
The classroom froze.
The professor turned around slowly.
Kiria's hand hovered above the slate, fingers trembling.
The professor walked to her desk.
He stared down at the smudged sigil still glowing faintly in the dust.
"You cast this?" he asked, voice unreadable.
Kiria shook her head. "I—I didn't mean to."
The professor stared at her a moment longer, then gave a short nod.
"No more drawing for today," he said. "You'll observe from now on. I'll have your station reset."
He turned back to the class as if nothing had happened.
No one else did.
All around her, eyes followed her like she'd grown horns.
And worse—some of them weren't angry.
They looked afraid.
The rest of the class passed in a low, humming tension.
No one spoke to Kiria. They didn't have to. The way they stared—sideways, cautious, like she might crack again—said enough.
She kept her eyes on the desk, hands clenched in her lap.
The professor didn't ask her to participate again. He continued the lesson—motioning students to test their sigils, giving quiet notes, correcting hand placement. But his gaze flicked to her more often than it should have. Even when he wasn't looking directly at her, Kiria felt watched.
When the dismissal chime rang—three clear tones that floated down from the ceiling like bells in water—everyone stood.
Except Kiria.
Her knees didn't want to.
She gathered her things slowly—what little she had—and waited until the room had nearly emptied before slipping out.
No one stopped her.
No one offered help.
No one asked how a girl with no wand, no training, and no bloodline had drawn a sigil that responded.
---
Far above the student towers, in a part of the academy few ever saw, a room flickered to life.
It was round, windowless, and silent—except for the constant ticking of a dozen magical instruments stacked like organ pipes along the wall. Floating in the center of the room was a glass sphere the size of a melon, covered in runes that slowly spun in opposite directions.
A small light blinked within the orb. It pulsed blue. Then again. Then steadied.
Behind the orb stood Professor Iralen, arms crossed, hair tied back, gaze locked onto the glow.
"She activated something," said a voice from behind her.
The headmistress stepped into the room, robes trailing like shadowed silk. Her gold-ringed eyes studied the orb.
"No spell signature?" she asked.
"None recorded. Not by wand, not by vocal command, not even by emotion-triggering. The sigil responded anyway."
The headmistress walked in a slow arc around the orb. "It responded to her."
"She didn't craft it correctly. Her lines were flawed."
"And yet something answered."
Iralen hesitated. "Should we scan her again?"
"No. That would alert the others. The students are watching her already. Let them. Peer pressure is as useful as any truth serum."
The orb blinked again. This time, the runes on its surface shifted. One line turned silver.
Iralen frowned. "That's a resonance mark."
"Not a local one," the headmistress said. "That rune is older than Velryth."
"Then where did it come from?"
The headmistress didn't answer.
She only raised her hand and extinguished the orb's glow with a flick of her fingers.
"Continue observing. Quietly. If she manifests again, I want it documented in full."
Iralen glanced at the mark still fading from the orb. "You think she's a risk."
"I think," said the headmistress, "the gates don't open for nothing."
The hallway back to the dorm was quieter now. Lanterns glowed a gentle amber against the walls, and the towering stained glass windows—once alive with floating images—had gone still. Kiria's footsteps echoed, soft and uncertain.
She wanted to cry.
Not because of what happened in class. Not even because of the whispers. But because for the first time in her life, she felt like she might truly be invisible—and somehow still too noticeable.
She reached Room 17B and eased the door open.
Selwyn looked up from her desk, where she was carefully polishing her wand and reviewing notes that glowed faintly on a slate.
Kiria stepped in.
No words were exchanged.
She dropped her satchel onto the desk, peeled off the itchy robe, and collapsed onto the mattress on her side of the room. Her legs were sore from walking what felt like miles. Her hands were still lightly dusted with sigil ash, and the tips of her fingers tingled.
A reminder.
Whatever she'd done in class—it had happened. She wasn't imagining it.
She curled onto her side and stared at the ceiling.
Selwyn's voice broke the silence after a long stretch of stillness. "You'll be dismissed by next week."
Kiria blinked. "Thanks."
Selwyn didn't respond.
Kiria rolled over to face the wall.
---
That night, long after Selwyn's ward lamp dimmed, and the quiet breathing of the dormitory settled into a rhythm, Kiria sat up.
She couldn't sleep.
Something in her chest… pulsed.
Not like a heartbeat.
Like a pull.
She slid out of bed and padded quietly to her desk. The slate still lay there—the one she'd drawn the sigil on earlier.
Her charcoal had rolled into the groove at the top.
She hesitated. Then picked it up.
She drew a small circle.
Then a line.
Then the same triangle.
Nothing.
She leaned closer, hand hovering above it.
Then, from the window behind her, a breeze stirred.
Her drawn glyph—faint as breath—glowed for just a heartbeat.
Kiria froze.
The window wasn't open.
She turned around.
There, on the glass, her reflection stared back.
But the eyes weren't hers.
They were brighter. White-hot. Like twin sigils burning through frost.
Kiria stepped back. Blinked.
Gone.
Only her tired, pale face remained.
She dropped the charcoal and backed toward her bed.
Maybe it was a trick of the light.
Maybe she was too tired.
But as she slipped under the thin sheets and turned toward the wall, the tingling in her fingers returned—this time stronger. Sharper.
Like a key was being turned in a lock that had been closed her entire life.
And something was listening now.