The council chamber smelled of incense and old iron. Shadows moved across the walls like silent judges as the Inquisitors gathered, their robes whispering against the marble floor.
High Inquisitor Serath sat at the head of the obsidian table, fingers steepled beneath the light of a single suspended flame. The fire did not flicker. It listened.
"You've all seen the reports," Serath began, voice calm and sharp enough to cut. "The disturbances last night. Energy fluctuations. Witness statements. The tremors beneath the east wing."
One of the younger Inquisitors shifted uneasily. "Could it have been another equipment failure, sir? The storm may have—"
"Storms do not sing," Serath interrupted quietly. The room went still. "And they do not make the lamps flicker in rhythm."
An uneasy silence followed.
On the far side of the table, Sister Maerin slid a crystal tablet across the surface. It projected a faint, ghostly recording — fragments from the security wards. Faint echoes, distorted whispers… and one, clearer than the rest:
"They're not gone."
Serath's gaze narrowed. "Who spoke those words?"
Maerin hesitated. "The voice matches a student. Kael Verrin. Transferred from the southern settlements three months ago."
A murmur rippled through the table. One of them — a lean, silver-haired inquisitor — exhaled slowly. "The boy from the wastelands… the one who failed the luminal screening."
Serath nodded. "And yet, the flame reacts to him. Even the wards sense it."
For a long time, no one spoke. The suspended fire above the table pulsed once — as if approving of the silence.
Finally, Serath rose. "Monitor him. Quietly. No alarm, no interference. If he is touched by what came before…" His voice dropped, the faintest tremor of reverence — or fear — slipping through.
"…then we must learn whether he is a vessel… or a threat."
The flame dimmed.
Outside the chamber, two apprentices waited with bowed heads. As the doors opened, the heat from the council room spilled out — searing and cold all at once. One of the apprentices looked up just long enough to glimpse the High Inquisitor's eyes.
They burned faintly gold.
Far above them, in the dawn-lit courtyard, Kael stood watching the spire's bells shimmer in the wind — unaware that the same light touching his skin had just marked him for observation.
And far below, in the locked archives beneath the Academy, a sealed chamber stirred.
Something ancient had heard his words.
And it was beginning to wake.