The walk down felt endless.
Erevan had been led down stairwells before — to disciplinary wings, to dusty archives, even the training cellars — but never this deep. Never through stone that seemed to breathe cold into his bones.
Each step of the spiral staircase whispered underfoot. The scrape of boots against age-worn stone echoed too loudly, reverberating in his chest. The air grew heavier as they descended, first cool, then damp, then sharp with the taste of old metal biting the back of his throat.
The torches along the walls shifted color halfway down. Gold faded into a ghostly blue. Their flames burned narrow, stubbornly still, as if they had learned to fear movement in this place.
His escorts said nothing.
Two acolytes flanked him, masked and austere in the gray veils of the containment order. Faces hidden, grips iron on his arms. Their silence pressed against him harder than their hands.
Erevan tried not to stumble, but his legs felt foreign — stiff, trembling from exhaustion. The Tribunal's verdict still rang in his head, every word sharp enough to cut frost through his chest: Not a student. A subject.
He replayed the moment endlessly: Kaelen's eyes — controlled but not unreadable. The chains clamping around his wrists, glowing faintly with sigils. The students in the upper tiers, whispering, watching. No one had spoken for him. No one.
Now, that silence followed him down the spirals.
The stairway opened into a narrow corridor carved from solid bedrock. Smooth walls, not rough like the academy halls above, polished until light skimmed along their edges. A place built not to crumble, not to let sound escape.
Runes lined the walls, spaced with meticulous precision. They glowed faintly, azure light pulsing like a heartbeat. The hum they made — if it could be called sound — vibrated through his jaw, shivering into his teeth.
Containment sigils. Hundreds of them.
Erevan slowed, eyes tracing the intricate markings. They weren't simple wards. These had depth, etched so deeply that shadow clung to them even in their own light. Some pulsed faster as he passed, as though they sensed him.
He shivered. The air here carried a presence — not emptiness, but a weight.
They built this place for monsters. And now… I'm walking into it.
At the corridor's end waited a door.
Not wood. Not ordinary metal. A single slab of blackened steel, nearly a foot thick, smooth enough to reflect torchlight in warped shadows. No handles. No hinges. Only a cluster of sigils centered like a heart.
One acolyte pressed a gloved palm against the runes. The markings flared white. The hum rose in pitch, a whisper screaming through his skull. The door groaned, deep enough to rattle his bones, then slowly moved aside.
Light spilled out — not warm, not welcoming, but sterile. Cold. Harsh and clinical.
They shoved him forward.
The door slammed behind him, echoing through his ribs, sealing him in.
The chamber was smaller than he had expected. Bare stone walls, faintly damp. A cot rested in the corner, a table bolted to the floor, a single torch flickering weakly. The floor was layered with runes — concentric circles and interlocking lines forming a spiderweb of power.
Erevan stepped forward, and the runes beneath his boots pulsed faintly, reacting.
The air pressed in on him, dense, suffocating, thick with restrained power. It felt like stepping into a heartbeat that didn't belong to him.
He turned to the door. No seam, no latch. No acolytes. Only silence.
And then it hit him: he was alone.
The stillness roared in his ears.
Erevan sank onto the cot, body stiff with exhaustion. His wrists burned faintly where the Tribunal's chains had left their marks — red, raw, a reminder that the world above had judged him. He ran a thumb over one, absentmindedly, as if touching it might erase the weight of the day.
His breath came shallow. His mind wouldn't stop.
He thought of the hall — the students' eyes, the fear in Aria's, the satisfaction in Cassian's. The light shattering, the shadow stretching behind him, the laughter curling from somewhere not his own.
And above it all… the voice.
[Harrax.]
Low, terrible amusement that hadn't left him since the ward had shattered.
He pressed his palms over his eyes until the vision behind his lids pulsed red.
Just stop. Please stop.
But the silence had shape here. It wasn't empty. It waited.
It waited until he dared to think the ordeal might finally be over.
Then it came.
[You see now. You are not theirs.]
Erevan jerked his head up. "No," he rasped, voice cracking, thin in the echoing chamber. "Not again."
[You were never theirs. They dress you in their colors, bind you in their circles, but they smell it on you. The difference. The power. The truth.]
He shook his head violently, forcing himself to his feet. "You're in my head. That's all. You're not real."
[Oh, I am real enough. Real enough to be the only one who speaks to you here.]
His throat closed. Heart drummed painfully. The torch flickered. Shadows stretched across the corners.
[Do you know why they brought you here? Why the runes hum so loud they drown your dreams? Because they are afraid. They will study you until you're empty. They will call it salvation. You will call it silence.]
Erevan sank back onto the cot, voice a whisper. "I just… wanted to learn. To belong."
[Belong? To them? No, child. You belong nowhere but with me.]
The chamber seemed to inhale, then exhale. The shadows near the floor rippled just enough to make his skin crawl.
He pressed his palms to the cot to steady himself. His fingers trembled, heart still hammering.
You're tired. You're imagining this. Just breathe.
But even as he tried, the hum of the runes seemed to thrum in tandem with his own pulse.
The walls pressed closer. The air felt heavier.
[You wanted it, little vessel. You've felt it. You will again.]
Erevan buried his face in his hands, and the weight of the Lower Ward pressed in on him like stone.
The cot was harder than he expected. Cold stone pressed beneath the thin mattress, and even through the blanket, he could feel the chill biting into his shoulders.
Erevan curled tighter, knees drawn to his chest, fingers brushing against the raw marks on his wrists. The chains from the Tribunal were gone, but their memory lingered — hot, heavy, an invisible pressure that refused to fade.
Silence stretched, thick and suffocating. He tried to tell himself he was alone. Tried to tell himself that what he was hearing, feeling, imagining, was just fatigue.
[Alone?]
The whisper slid into his skull before he could blink. Close enough that he could feel the words curling over his spine. [You are never alone.]
Erevan's breath hitched. His eyes shot open. The torch flickered, casting the runes on the floor into brief, lurching life. Patterns danced along the edges, faintly trembling, reacting to something he couldn't name.
[Do you feel it?]
"Yes," he whispered, though no sound seemed to carry in the cold chamber. His voice was a ghost, swallowed by stone. "I feel it."
[Good. That is the first step.]
Tremors ran through his fingers, through his arms, his legs. Fatigue weighed every muscle down, but underneath it, something thrummed — quiet at first, a pulse at the back of his skull.
[The power is here. You cannot hide it. You've never hidden it. Stop pretending.]
He shook his head violently. "Stop… please stop."
[Stop what? Feeling? Knowing? You do not choose, little vessel. It is already yours.]
Erevan buried his face in his knees. The blanket itched, the cot was stone-hard, and still, the whisper continued. It was patient, coaxing, almost tender: [They fear you because they smell it. They sense the currents moving beneath your skin. You are not their toy. You never were.]
He bit back a whimper. The tug inside him was growing, subtle but insistent — a memory of the surge when the ward shattered, of the shadow curling along the wall, of every eye in the Tribunal chamber turning toward him.
[You remember, don't you? The release. The clarity. The sight.]
Erevan pressed his palms against his temples. I didn't want this. I didn't mean to.
[And yet you did. Every heartbeat carries it. Every pulse whispers it.]
His body trembled, involuntarily. Exhaustion sat heavy in his bones, but beneath that, beneath even the weight of fear, he felt it — a stirring, a pull, a hunger that was not hunger at all. Something wild, delicate, dangerous. Something that whispered it belonged to him, and him alone.
The torchlight danced along the runes again. Each pulse seemed to synchronize with the uneven hammer of his heart.
[Do you see? They cannot touch it. Not yet. They will not see. But you… you are awakening.]
Erevan's breath came in shallow bursts. Sweat prickled along his brow despite the cold. He wanted to push away the sensation, wanted to force himself to think of mundane things, of lessons and study, anything that wasn't this creeping realization of his own capability.
[Do not resist it.]
He shook his head, but even as he did, a fraction of him thrilled at the thought. Thrilled and terrified at once.
Time passed. Or maybe it didn't. He had stopped counting hours long ago. The torch flickered. Shadows stretched unnaturally across the walls. The hum of the sigils underfoot thrummed against his feet, up his legs, into his chest.
[It is patient. It waits. And so do I.]
He pressed his cheek to the cold cot, trying to ground himself. Trying to ignore the tremors in his hands, the fluttering of his heart, the whisper that seemed to slither along his nerves.
[Listen. Feel. Understand. Do not mistake silence for peace. You are not small. You never were.]
Erevan's eyelids drooped. Every muscle screamed for rest. But even in the moments of near-sleep, the whisper persisted, curling around him like smoke, threading itself into his thoughts.
[Sleep, if you must. But you will wake. And when you do, little vessel, you will not be the same.]
He shivered, half from cold, half from the knowledge that the voice was right. Somewhere beneath the exhaustion, beneath the trembling, beneath the fear, something had already shifted.
Something had already begun.
Erevan's hands flexed against the cot. The faint burn in his wrists flared, then softened again. His pulse throbbed in his ears. The chamber was silent, yet alive. [Alive because of you. Alive because you carry it.]
He could feel Harrax's presence curling around him, patient, coaxing, claiming. Not cruel — yet not safe. A tether, invisible but palpable, linking him to something darker, something he was only beginning to understand.
Erevan buried his face in the cot again. Exhaustion and fear wove together, heavy, hollow. Sleep finally came — but shallow, broken, laced with whispers, and the faint hum of power beneath his skin, reminding him that even in darkness, he was no longer alone.
The light that crept into the Lower Ward wasn't warm. It was thin, pale, seeping through the cracks in the stone like the ghost of dawn. Erevan stirred slowly, every muscle stiff, every joint protesting the motion.
The tray from last night still leaned against the wall, crumbs and bitter water crusted around it. He rubbed at his eyes and tried to remember sleep — fleeting fragments of whispers, of shadows, of [him], twisted and broken, teasing the edge of memory.
A knock broke the quiet. Hard, deliberate.
"Up," a clipped voice said. Familiar, commanding. Captain Taren. Kaelen's adjutant.
The slot in the door slid open, and a tray was shoved in, though Erevan barely looked. The scent of iron lingered, mingling with the cold stone and faint dust of old runes.
"You're to report to the training ward. Don't make me repeat myself," the voice added, leaving before he could answer.
Erevan exhaled, a low, ragged sound. His body felt hollow, weighed down by the night's tremors, by the whispers, by the subtle pull of something beneath his skin. Yet even beneath exhaustion, he felt it — that humming current, that heartbeat of power that had begun to stir.
He rose slowly. Hands still shaking, he closed his fists and felt the faint warmth beneath his palms, a heartbeat that was not quite his own. [It waits.]
The corridor smelled of cold stone and the residue of magic. Wardens flanked him, silent, their gauntlets humming faintly with suppression sigils. Every step echoed in the tunnel, the sound unnervingly precise, a dirge of control.
By the time they reached the upper levels, the brightness of the wards made his eyes ache. Kaelen was waiting, her posture straight, hair bound tight, face careful and unreadable. Not the commanding figure from the Tribunal, not the distant instructor from the classroom — just her, watching.
"Erevan," she said simply. "Walk with me."
He obeyed, silent. The ward stretched before him, sterile, lined with containment rings and pillars etched with sigils. At the center, a single circle glowed faintly, golden, layered with delicate runes like veins of light.
Kaelen stopped beside it. "This is a controlled resonance field," she said. Voice even, though a faint tremor betrayed her concern. "You will attempt to stabilize it under supervision. You will not draw on the source."
Erevan swallowed. "What if it reacts?"
"Then we observe," she replied. "And if it consumes you… we end it."
Her hands folded behind her back, trembling slightly despite her calm tone. He stepped into the circle. The air thickened immediately, the weight of restrained current pressing against his chest. The sigils flickered at his approach, testing, waiting.
"Begin," Kaelen said.
He extended a hand, whispering the control incantation he had practiced endlessly. For a heartbeat, the pattern held. The circle pulsed steadily, almost timidly. Relief fluttered in his chest, fragile and fleeting.
Then the whisper — low, coaxing, familiar: [You're holding back.]
Erevan froze. Kaelen's eyes remained calm, unreadable, but Harrax's voice slithered around him. [Show them.]
He shook his head slightly. "No," he breathed, barely audible. "Not again."
The energy beneath his hand didn't care. It surged, brightening the circle, warmth and heat blooming against his skin. His pulse raced, the thrill sharp as ice, the fear sharper.
"Erevan!" Kaelen's voice cut through, sharp as steel. "Release—"
He couldn't. Couldn't stop the surge. Not this time. The ward pulsed, singing through the room, vibrating against his bones. For a fleeting moment, everything cleared — every pattern of power, every thread of energy, every subtle line that connected the world. It was beauty, it was terror, it was him.
[This is what you are.]
Erevan gasped, breath ragged. He wasn't afraid. Not fully. Not yet.
"Stop it!" Kaelen's voice thundered, and he tore his hand back. The light collapsed into silence, leaving only the faint burn across his palm, the whisper of residual heat threading through his veins.
He looked at Kaelen, trembling, unsure whether to apologize or deny what had just happened.
"You touched it," she said softly, but the words carried weight, not accusation, not relief — just acknowledgment.
"I— I didn't mean to," he whispered.
Kaelen's expression was impossible to read. Fury, pity, concern — all tangled in her gaze. "Meaning won't save you," she said, voice firm. "Control will. If you cannot hold yourself at the edge, you'll drown."
He glanced down at his hands. The faint burn still pulsed beneath the skin. Something alive, whispering.
"It felt… alive," he admitted.
"It is," she said softly. "And that's what makes it dangerous."
The room fell silent, fragile, suspended between power and fear.
Kaelen finally stepped back. "You'll remain under supervision. No unsanctioned exercises. No meditation. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Instructor," he murmured.
Her gaze lingered for a moment longer. "You're walking a line most never survive, Erevan. Pray you learn to stop before it stops you."
When she left, the wardens followed, and he was alone again, the hum of the sigils beneath him thrumming softly, a subtle reminder that nothing in this place obeyed ordinary rules.
He flexed his fingers slowly. The burn was faint, the power muted, but it pulsed. [Do you feel it?]
Yes, he thought. I feel it.
And something else, sharp and cold and electric. Something that whispered of possibility.
Not fear. Not yet. Not fully.
[Soon, child. Soon you will know.]
Erevan clenched his fist. A heartbeat. A pulse. And beneath it, something darker — something that already demanded to be heard.