The storm didn't rest that night.
Lightning flared beyond the dorm windows in brief, silent flashes — silver veins across the dark sky — followed by the low, distant growl of thunder. Rain lashed against the glass in uneven rhythms, like a heartbeat trying to find its pace.
Inside the west wing dormitory, most students had long since gone quiet. But in one corner room, light still burned beneath the door.
Rynna sat cross-legged on her bed, a book open but unread on her lap. Her gaze kept drifting toward the rain-smeared window. Every time thunder rolled, she half expected to see fire reflected against the clouds again — not lightning, but him.
Kael.
She could still see the wings in her mind — not imagined, not illusion, but real. Controlled. Living flame shaped by will alone.
And the way he had looked at her afterward — shaken, but still standing — burned deeper than she wanted to admit.
A knock at the door startled her.
"Rynna?" came Eren's voice. "You still awake?"
She sighed, closing the book. "Come in."
Eren entered first, hair still damp, a half-empty mug of tea in his hand. Liran followed, quieter, expression drawn tight the way it always was when he was thinking too much.
Eren frowned at her. "You look like you haven't blinked in an hour."
"I could say the same about you," she muttered.
He grinned faintly. "Yeah, well, I wasn't the one standing next to a walking inferno earlier.
Liran gave him a look. "Eren."
"What? It's true," Eren said, setting his mug on the table. "We all saw it. Flames. Wings. The ground literally hissed. If that's normal, someone needs to update the student handbook."
Rynna closed her eyes. "You shouldn't have seen that."
"We didn't mean to," Liran said. "But it's too late to unsee it."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "What happened out there?"
She hesitated. The truth felt like a fragile thing — one wrong word and it might shatter completely.
"He said the Codex wasn't just history," she finally murmured. "It's a warning."
Liran crossed his arms. "A warning about what?"
Rynna's gaze drifted to the rain again. "About what comes after the gods."
Eren blinked. "That's not ominous at all."
But Liran didn't move. His eyes narrowed slightly, thinking, connecting pieces she couldn't even see. "The flame didn't consume him," he said. "It obeyed him. That's not human magic."
"No," she whispered. "It isn't."
Thunder cracked again, closer this time, rattling the glass. The lights flickered — once, twice — then steadied.
Eren looked between them, unease finally seeping into his tone. "Okay, but… what are we supposed to do? Pretend none of this happened? Because I don't think I can just go to class tomorrow and listen to Jerem talk about sigils after that."
Liran didn't answer. He moved to the table, brushed his fingers over one of Rynna's open notes — a sketch of the sigil from class, the Seal of Ascendancy.
"This symbol," he said. "It's connected to him somehow."
Rynna nodded. "He reacted to it. Like it remembered him."
Eren groaned. "Great. So now symbols have memories. Fantastic."
Liran ignored him. "If that's true, then maybe the Codex isn't just prophecy — maybe it's record. Of vessels."
Rynna looked up sharply. "Vessels?"
"The ones Jerem mentioned," he said. "Those who carried fragments of the divine."
A silence settled between them. Rain whispered against the windows like static.
Eren finally spoke, quieter now. "You think Kael is one of them?"
Rynna's heart pounded. The question wasn't new — it had been clawing at her since the Spire. But hearing it aloud made it real.
"I don't know," she said. "But if he is… then something's waking up inside him. And I don't think he can control it for long."
⸻
The clock struck midnight.
Kael sat alone in his dorm across the hall, the room dark except for the dim pulse of emberlight slipping through his fingers. He had tried to suppress it — bury it deep — but every time he breathed, the heat stirred again, alive beneath his skin.
He opened his palm. Tiny flickers rose, dancing like fireflies. They should have burned, but they didn't. They felt… familiar.
For a fleeting instant, he saw something in the reflection of the window — a towering silhouette made of fire and shadow, wings stretching across the horizon. It wasn't him, not fully, but it was.
"Why now?" he whispered to the empty room.
The storm answered with a flash of white and a roar that shook the walls.
Kael stood abruptly, the flickers dying from his palm. He felt the hum again — faint, like a vibration beneath the floor. The same hum from the Spire, from the courtyard. It wasn't outside. It was below.
He grabbed his coat and left the room.
⸻
Back in Rynna's dorm, Eren had dozed off at the foot of her bed, muttering half-formed jokes even in sleep. Liran sat by the window, still watching the rain.
Rynna leaned against the wall, exhaustion finally dragging at her. "You're not leaving, are you?" she asked softly.
Liran shook his head. "Not tonight."
She smiled faintly. "You think he's all right?"
His expression darkened. "No. And that's what worries me."
Lightning flared again, and for a heartbeat, the reflection in the window shifted — not their faces, but something else. A sigil, glowing faintly beneath the surface of the glass. The same one from the lecture hall.
Both of them froze.
Then, just as quickly, it faded — leaving nothing but their reflections and the storm beyond.
"What was that?" Rynna whispered.
Liran exhaled slowly. "A sign."
⸻
Meanwhile, Kael descended the western stairwell, following the hum that grew stronger with each step. The air grew warmer, the shadows denser.
He reached a sealed archway at the end of the hall — one he'd never noticed before. Its surface was carved with faint glyphs, now glowing faint orange.
When he touched it, the light flared brighter, responding to him. The hum turned into a pulse.
Behind the arch, he heard whispers — not words, but memories. The same ones that haunted his dreams: fire falling from the sky, the Celestials burning, a voice screaming his name in a language older than time.
The wall trembled. For a moment, he thought it would open. But then, something else moved — a presence vast and ancient, pressing from the other side.
Kael staggered back, clutching his head as pain seared behind his eyes. The whispers turned to a single word, echoing through his mind:
Remember.
He gasped — and the light vanished.
When he opened his eyes, the arch was just stone again. The hum was gone. But the warmth under his skin lingered, faint but real.
He turned toward the stairwell — and froze.
Rynna stood there, rain-damp and wide-eyed. Behind her, Liran lingered in the shadows, hand on the hilt of his blade, unsure whether to fight or run.
"Kael," Rynna breathed. "What did you do?"
He didn't answer. The air rippled faintly between them — heat without flame, light bending as if the corridor itself were exhaling. Beneath his ribs, the hum pulsed again, syncing with his heartbeat.
"It's not me," he said quietly. "It's calling."
Rynna frowned. "What is?"
Before he could speak, the floor trembled — a deep, muffled quake that rolled through the walls. Dust sifted from the ceiling. The glyphs on the sealed arch blazed to life, symbols twisting faster than sight could follow.
Liran stepped forward. "Kael, step away from it—"
But the arch answered first. A low, resonant thrum filled the corridor — half sound, half voice. It wasn't speech, not exactly, yet it knew them.
Rynna staggered, clutching her head. "Do you hear that?"
Kael did. It wasn't a sound; it was inside him. A whisper threading through his pulse, saying something he almost remembered. His hand lifted before he could stop it — and fire slid across his skin like liquid light, crawling toward the arch.
"Kael!" Liran's voice cut through the noise, but it was too late.
The arch flared — white, searing — and for one impossible instant, Kael saw a vision:
Flame spilling across a broken sky. Wings the size of cities. And a shadowed figure standing in the heart of it all, whispering his name.
Then — silence.
The light collapsed. The hum died.
All that remained was darkness… and a single, slow heartbeat echoing from somewhere deep beneath the Academy.
Kael's eyes snapped open. He looked at Rynna and Liran — both pale, both shaking.
"It's awake," he said.
Before either could move, lightning ripped across the window behind them — and the corridor was empty.
⸻
The storm outside didn't sleep.
And neither did the flame.