The morning arrived with a cold, cutting edge.
Sunlight spilled through the tall, arched windows of the lecture hall, pale and sharp as broken glass. It scattered against the dust motes drifting lazily in the still air, turning each speck into a fleeting spark.
The walls seemed to lean inward that day, closer than usual—like the hall itself was listening. Every sound carried too far: the scratch of quills, the creak of polished benches, the shuffle of boots on stone.
Erevan Vale slipped quietly into his usual seat near the far edge, cloak wrapped tight around him. His hands still tingled from last night—
from that rune,
from that moment.
He could still feel it in his veins: the heat, the pressure, the wild, pulsing rhythm of real power. The faint hum of the warding circle at the center of the hall echoed that same heartbeat, taunting him, daring him to reach again.
Then came the whisper.
Smooth. Coaxing. Dark.
"They give you scraps, boy."
Harrax's voice curled through Erevan's mind, soft as silk and cold as steel.
"Plaything runes. Hollow lessons. Why bow to them when you have touched the true weave? Do you still feel it? The cage humming beneath your fingers?"
Erevan's fists clenched under the cloak, nails biting into his palms. The voice was like smoke—impossible to hold, impossible to ignore.
It shouldn't have comforted him, but it did.
And that made it worse.
His pulse quickened, a low hunger stirring in his chest. He hated it—how alive it made him feel. How wrong that aliveness was.
"Vale."
Mistress Kaelen's voice cracked across the hall like a whip. Sharp. Icy. Unforgiving.
Erevan froze. His stomach dropped.
She stood before the class, her silver-trimmed robes catching the morning light, eyes keen as twin blades.
"You will demonstrate first."
The murmurs began instantly.
Students straightened, exchanged sly looks, whispered behind gloved hands.
Of course she'd choose him.
Of course.
The rumors about the cracked wards. The faint burn still etched into the walls of his dormitory. She wasn't testing him—she was exposing him.
Erevan rose slowly, every muscle trembling. His cloak trailed after him like a shadow that refused to leave. The air in the center of the hall shimmered faintly around the crystalline pedestal where the practice ward floated—
a delicate lattice of glowing circles, interwoven runes pulsing softly like a living heartbeat.
Mistress Kaelen's hand lifted, fingers cutting through the air.
"Stabilize it."
Erevan swallowed. Hard.
He'd done this a hundred times before. Easy. Simple.
But his hands… wouldn't stop shaking.
That pulse in his veins—the one from last night—thrummed again, stronger now.
Harrax's voice followed, low and dangerous:
"Why restrain yourself? Why bend when you could break? The cage remembers you, Vale. The weave waits for you."
Erevan's breath hitched.
He raised his hands over the projection, his lips tracing the familiar words of the incantation. Threads of light trembled beneath his focus. For a heartbeat, they steadied.
Hope sparked in his chest—
and then everything unraveled.
The ward twisted, its perfect circles bending out of shape. The runes warped under his will, pulsing violently. Gasps rippled through the room as the lattice cracked—a thin, jagged line of blinding blue slicing across it.
"Vale!"
Mistress Kaelen's voice was sharp enough to slice through stone.
Erevan jerked his hands back, chest heaving. The projection flickered wildly. Kaelen's own spellwork surged outward, stabilizing it again, sealing the fracture—but a faint scar remained, glimmering faintly beneath the surface.
Silence pressed down like a weight.
Every eye in the room was on him.
Every whisper burned against his skin.
Humiliation crawled up his throat, thick and choking.
He could still feel the pulse of energy inside him, humming and hungry, desperate to be used. He pressed his hands to his knees, trying to steady his breath.
"They fear you," Harrax whispered, a purr sliding through his mind. "See how they stare? How their voices tremble? That is power, boy. Drink it."
Erevan's teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached. Shame and fear twisted in his stomach, but behind them… something darker flickered.
Something thrilling.
Something that made his heartbeat quicken in a way it shouldn't.
Mistress Kaelen's gaze didn't waver.
Her voice came out quiet—but it struck like iron.
"Again."
Erevan's breath caught in his throat. His hands were trembling so badly that his fingers brushed against each other.
"Mistress, I—"
"Again," she said.
Cold. Unyielding. Like stone grinding against stone.
His pulse thundered in his ears.
He lifted his hands, palms slick with sweat. The ward still hovered in front of him, its faint glow pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. The air felt too heavy, thick with expectation.
He began the incantation again, voice barely above a whisper. The syllables tasted wrong on his tongue, like ash and electricity.
And then—Harrax was there again.
Closer. Louder.
"Push. Break. Taste it. Let them see you."
The whisper filled his skull, every word thrumming in his veins like a drumbeat.
The air around the ward trembled. Light flickered, bending in strange, beautiful ways. Erevan's hands shook, and his chest tightened—part terror, part something far more dangerous.
Power surged beneath his skin, wild and alive.
His body tensed as the energy built higher, straining against his control. His breath came in ragged pulls.
Then—
the rune fractured.
A sharp crack split the silence, and the ward shattered like glass under pressure. Shards of glowing light scattered outward, slicing through the air before fading into nothing.
Students gasped and ducked. Someone yelped.
For a heartbeat, the entire hall glowed with that wild, broken light—
and then it was gone.
Mistress Kaelen's spell hit the remnants instantly, pulling the threads of the projection back together. The air snapped tight again, shimmering as the ward reformed.
When it was done, her gaze found him—
cold, sharp, and filled with something that felt like both fury and disappointment.
Erevan stumbled back a step, breathing hard. His vision blurred for a moment; the edges of the world seemed to ripple, like heat off stone.
The whispers started again.
Low. Relentless. Poisonous.
Dangerous.
Broken.
Cursed.
Each word cut deeper than the last.
Erevan climbed the steps back to his seat, every movement heavy with shame. His cloak brushed against the wood, his footsteps echoing in the too-quiet hall.
He could feel their stares—burning into his back, into his skin, into the part of him that still pulsed with unstable energy.
And then came Harrax again, his voice sweeter now, purring like smoke and honey.
"They fear you now. Do you feel it? Their silence? Their awe? This is not shame, boy… this is what power feels like."
Erevan pressed his fists into his knees, hard enough to hurt. His heart was a hammer in his chest. His breath trembled.
He wanted to scream. To disappear.
And yet—beneath the fear, beneath the shame—something in him thrummed.
That moment of control, however fleeting, still burned bright in his memory.
That intoxicating pull.
That feeling of being seen.
He hated it.
He loved it.
He didn't know which terrified him more.
Mistress Kaelen stood silently at the front of the room, her expression unreadable. Her spell had mended the ward, but faint fissures still lingered across the projection like ghost scars.
No one spoke.
Not until Erevan had almost reached the top of the steps.
"Keep cracking wards, Vale," a low voice murmured near the doorway.
Erevan froze.
Cassian leaned against the archway, arms crossed, his expression carved in smug amusement. His uniform was perfect, as always, his hair gleaming like polished gold in the sunlight.
The Academy's golden boy.
He tilted his head, smile sharp. "Soon enough, the Council won't need rumors to throw you out."
The words sliced clean through him.
Erevan's jaw tightened, breath shallow. He could feel his pulse race—hot, fast, reckless. The air around him shimmered faintly, just for an instant.
Cassian's smirk faltered, barely, before he masked it again with a laugh.
"Careful," he added, voice low enough for only Erevan to hear. "You're starting to sound like one of them."
Then he turned away, the sound of his boots echoing as he strode off, his friends trailing after him with smug, brittle laughter that clung to the air like shards of glass.
Erevan stood frozen, his chest heaving, his hands trembling. The echoes of their laughter seemed to crawl up his spine.
Harrax's chuckle followed, low and dark.
"Soon, they will push too far. And when they do… will you bow? Or will you show them what shadows truly are?"
The voice faded, leaving silence in its wake.
But that silence wasn't peace.
It was a hum—deep and restless—like the air itself was waiting for his answer.
Across the hall, someone hadn't moved.
Aria stood near the benches, half-hidden by the fading light from the high windows. Her face was pale, eyes wide, the kind of wide that held both fear and something heartbreakingly human.
She didn't speak.
Didn't move.
Just watched him.
Erevan met her gaze for a fleeting moment, and it was enough. There was no accusation there—just sorrow. Quiet, heavy sorrow that seemed to reach out to him without a single word.
And for a heartbeat, he wanted to say something.
Anything.
But he couldn't.
His throat was tight, and his chest hurt in that strange, bruised way that shame does when it mixes with exhaustion. So he looked away, pulling his cloak around himself like armor, and left.
The corridors buzzed with whispers.
They followed him like insects made of sound—small, stinging, impossible to swat away.
Every cluster of students he passed seemed to pause mid-conversation, eyes darting toward him, words lowering to conspiratorial murmurs.
Dangerous.
Unstable.
Broken.
Each word pressed harder against his ribs. The air itself seemed to carry their voices, threading through the marble halls like smoke.
By the time he reached his chamber, Erevan felt hollow. His hands still trembled as he closed the door behind him and leaned against the cold stone.
Silence settled. Heavy.
Too heavy.
But beneath it—there it was again.
The rune.
Faintly glowing in the dim light, carved into the floor like a scar that refused to heal. It pulsed softly, the same rhythm as his heartbeat, as if it were calling him home.
He stared at it for a long moment.
He could still see the ward shattering in his mind, the light splintering, the fear in everyone's eyes.
And yet…
the memory didn't just frighten him.
It thrilled him.
His hand rose on its own, trembling slightly as it hovered over the rune. The warmth from it brushed against his fingertips like a whisper.
He should walk away.
He knew he should.
But the hum beneath his skin wouldn't quiet. The longing, the ache—it was still there, clawing softly at his insides.
Slowly, he pressed his palm to the rune.
It was warm.
A soft vibration ran up his arm, spreading through his chest until every breath felt alive with it. The air around him trembled, shadows rippling across the walls like liquid.
The rune's glow deepened, responding to his touch. It began to sing, low and resonant, a sound that wasn't quite sound—more a feeling that filled the bones.
Erevan shuddered, eyes closing as the energy flooded him. Shame twisted in his gut, but so did something dangerously close to joy.
It was too much.
It was everything.
Then came that voice again—smooth as smoke, sharp as silk.
"Yes, Vale."
Harrax's presence slid through him, wrapping around his thoughts like coiling mist.
"Remember this feeling. Remember it always. You are no longer a boy pressing against a cage."
The air pulsed, a faint shimmer crawling over the walls.
"You are the force that bends it."
Erevan's breath hitched. His lips curved into a trembling, involuntary smile, though his chest ached with exhaustion. The glow of the rune painted his face in flickering light, tracing every line of fear and defiance.
He knew this was dangerous. He knew what this was doing to him.
But gods help him—he felt alive.
The danger.
The power.
The way the world itself seemed to bend around his heartbeat.
It terrified him.
And he couldn't stop wanting it.
As the glow dimmed and the rune quieted, Erevan stood in the dark, the echo of Harrax's voice still lingering in his mind.
He touched his palm, feeling the faint warmth still there, and whispered into the silence, barely audible:
"...I know."
The shadows around him shifted, silent and waiting.
And deep down—beneath the fear, beneath the guilt—he knew the truth.
The day he lost control was coming.
And a part of him… couldn't wait.