The Sage hadn't slept since the nightmare.
Dark circles framed his sharp eyes as candlelight flickered across a table littered with old scrolls and rune-covered journals.
"The signs are aligning again…" he muttered, flipping through a cracked volume.
"A divine presence… sealed once before… resurging now."
His quill scratched against the parchment, tracing a name he'd hoped to never write again:
The Forgotten God.
He paused. A faint tremor shook his fingers.
"If that shadow returns, it means the seal…"
"…or the one who carried it…"
His thoughts froze. Mila. The strange new teacher who bent flame to her will like breathing.
He stood, his robe brushing the floor. "No, impossible. She's too young… too human."
Yet the memory of her fiery tornado the black-and-red flare hidden inside her flames gnawed at him.
He sighed, looking toward the horizon beyond the window. "I'll observe her. Quietly."
Morning sunlight poured through the academy courtyard, golden and gentle the kind that made worries feel small.
Milly stretched her arms, her silver-haired disguise catching the light.
"Alright, Class F! Ten laps around the field!"
Groans erupted.
"T-Ten laps, Miss Mila?!"
"Do you want us dead before lunch?!"
She smirked. "If you die from ten laps, then your enemies won't even need to try. Move!"
The students scattered with panicked yelps, running in chaotic circles. Milly chuckled, hands on her hips, the warmth of the sun easing her mind.
For a brief moment, she forgot everything the pain, the strange powers, the headaches.
Then a faint whisper brushed the back of her mind.
Control it…
She flinched, eyes darting around nothing but students panting in the distance.
"Get it together, Milly…" she whispered under her breath. "You're just hearing things."
But the warmth in her chest pulsed again, almost like a heartbeat that wasn't hers.
Across the field, on the second-floor balcony of the academy, the Sage watched in silence. His injured arm still ached from their previous duel, the skin faintly scarred with red lines.
He muttered, "Her control… it's improving too fast."
A nearby teacher approached.
"Master Sage, you've been staring at Miss Mila all morning. Something wrong?"
"No," he said quickly, forcing a calm smile. "Just… studying talent."
But in his heart, the same question echoed again and again:
"Who are you, really?"
Later that day, when Milly sat under a tree to rest, the wind carried faint voices laughter, fragments of names she didn't know yet somehow recognized.
Her hand drifted to her chest as she whispered,
"Why does it feel like… I've lost something important?"
The sea breeze from the distant coast brushed past, and for a split second, her reflection in a puddle showed black hair streaked with red.
Then, it was gone.