nly light. Endless, merciless light pressing against my eyelids, flooding through my skull, searing the inside of me until I couldn't tell where it ended and I began.
I turned my head and the brightness followed, unbroken and infinite.
Then, I could feel the warmth.
Not fire. Not the burning from that last impossible moment. This was softer.
It slid across my skin like sunlight filtered through water. My lungs ached with the urge to breathe, and when I finally did, I froze.
For seven years, every breath had hurt, the air in our world was cold, thin, stale with smoke and dust. Every inhale was a scrape, a reminder that the world was dying and we were dying with it.
But this... this air was sweet. Sweet and clean, like rain after a storm. Like spring used to smell in my mother's garden, before everything fell apart.
My palms pressed against something cool and smooth. Marble. I blinked hard until the world began to take shape, soft outlines sharpening into focus.
White.
Gold.
The floor beneath me gleamed, veined delicately with threads of light. My hands left faint, damp prints when I tried to push myself upright. My limbs trembled, I was shaking, but I couldn't tell if it was from weakness or fear.
When I finally stood, the room rose around me, vast and bright, like a cathedral carved from light.
Sunlight streamed through arched windows that stretched almost to the ceiling. The glass was so clear it felt alive, like a film of water between worlds. Beyond it lay a sea of green, trees, gardens, colour, life, shimmering under a golden haze that went on forever.
The walls curved upward in smooth white stone, alive with veins of gold that pulsed softly, like they were breathing. Between them, vines crept upward, their leaves a deep emerald, their blossoms almost translucent. They curled around pillars and beams, blooming lazily in the warmth.
It was too perfect. Too still. No footsteps. No hum of power. No breath but mine. I wrapped my arms around myself. My heart was still beating, wrong, heavy and too deep in my chest.
I turned in a slow circle, trying to understand. The beauty of the place was almost suffocating. Every corner gleamed. Every inch of it untouched and too clean.
"Eli?" My voice cracked, too small for a room this enormous.
The echo came back faintly and then it disappeared into the light.
No answer.
"Eli?" I tried again, louder this time, but it broke halfway through his name.
I took a shaky step forward. My knees buckled. "No, no, no—"
Something moved.
Click. Click. Click. Click.
The sharp, deliberate sound of heels against marble.
I froze; breath caught in my throat.
At the far end of the hall stood a counter, white and glassy, carved from something like ice. Behind it, a door opened, and a woman stepped through.
She moved with perfect composure, smooth, like gravity itself bent politely to her will. Her uniform shimmered faintly in the golden light; crisp white trimmed with violet. A braid of honey hair coiled over one shoulder, not a single strand out of place. For a moment, I thought she wasn't real, a statue, maybe, come to life.
Then she looked up. Her eyes were a pale blue, with faint purple around the edges of her pupil. They found mine and held, and then she smiled. It was the kind of smile that had been practiced a thousand times, gentle, inoffensive and perfectly empty.
"Welcome to Velanor," she said softly. Her voice was melodic, almost lulling. "We'll be with you shortly."
I stared at her. My throat ached. Words clawed their way up but came out cracked and small.
"I—I don't understand," I managed. "My brother — he's — where am I?"
The woman's smile didn't falter. She lowered her gaze, the light catching on her lashes, and made a note on a paper I hadn't seen before. The soft, deliberate scratch of her pen filled the silence, impossibly loud.
"Please," she said evenly, without looking up. "Take a seat. Someone will come for you soon."
"I don't—" My breath hitched, panic bubbling through my ribs. "Am I... am I dead?"
She laughed, soft and entirely intimidating.
"No, child," she said, still writing. "This is the Academy of Velanor."
Her tone was gentle, but there was no warmth in it. It was the voice of someone reading lines they didn't believe.
My pulse thundered in my ears. Velanor. The word felt foreign and heavy, like it didn't belong in the same world as mine.
"What does that even mean?" I whispered. "What—what's happening to me?"
She didn't answer. Her hand kept moving, pen scratching like clockwork.
Something in me snapped. "Look at me!" I shouted.
The woman's hand stilled. Slowly, she lifted her gaze, eyes still calm, still distant.
She didn't scold. She didn't blink. She just raised one perfectly manicured hand and made a small motion, a delicate flick toward the far wall.
The woman inclined her head politely, as if dismissing me from a queue. "She'll see you now," she said.
She motioned toward a wall at the far end of the marble hall. No handles. No hinges. Just smooth, pale stone, seamless with the wall. But when I got closer the air shifted. It thickened, humming like static before a storm.
Before I could reach out, the surface rippled.
The stone stirred like the surface of water touched by wind. The air filled with the faint scent of rain, clean, sharp and electric. Then the entire door dissolved in a breath of gold, peeling away like sunlight breaking through fog. I hesitated. Then, because there was nothing else, I could do, I stepped through.
The new room was circular. The walls rising into a dome so high I couldn't see where it ended. Shelves lined the curved walls, glowing faintly from within. Books floated a few inches from their perches, slow and silent, as if gravity had forgotten them. Their covers turned lazily, spines marked with symbols that shimmered like embers.
At the heart of the room sat a desk carved from dark glass, smooth and seamless. Behind it, a woman.
She looked up the moment I stepped inside, not startled, but expectant, like she'd been waiting for this exact moment to happen. She was beautiful in the way statues were beautiful, perfect and untouchable.
"Serra," she said. My name, spoken with perfect calm. "Please, come in."
Her voice was softer than the woman at the desk, but it carried. It filled the room effortlessly. Making every visitor aware of the most dominant person in the room.
Her hair was silver-white, the colour of frost before sunrise. It caught the light like spun glass, falling in even waves around her shoulders. Her eyes, soft blue threaded with gold, glowed faintly, as if something beneath them breathed with its own rhythm.
"Sit," she said, motioning to the chair before her desk.
I didn't move. My pulse thudded painfully in my ears.
My throat was raw. "Where's my brother?" The words tore out before I could stop them.
"Eli. He was with me — there was a gunshot — I turned, and—" My throat closed. "He was right behind me. You have to tell me where he is."
She studied me for a long moment, then motioned gently toward a chair. "Please, sit."
"No!" My voice cracked. "Tell me where he is!"
She didn't answer me right away. Finally, she inclined her head. "You were alone when the transfer occurred," she said softly. "No one else crossed with you."
The words didn't land at first. They just hung there, meaningless shapes in the air.
Then they broke something open.
Alone.
I stumbled back a step, shaking my head. "That's not true. He was right there." My voice was breaking again, sharp at the edges. "I have to go back!"
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "That isn't possible."
Something broke in me then — not the way it had before, when the world exploded, but smaller. Like a thin crack down the centre of who I was. I pressed my hands to my face, but the tears didn't come, just the pressure behind them.
"You're lying," I whispered. "This can't be real."
"You're safe now."
"Safe?" I laughed, a raw, ugly sound. "Safe where? I don't even know what this place is!"
Her expression didn't waver, but her tone softened, not kind, exactly, but less like marble. "You're at the Academy of Velanor. I am Headmistress Anira. I oversee the training of young Core bearers."
"Core... bearers?" The phrase felt foreign in my mouth.
She rose from behind the desk, the folds of her pale robe whispering against the floor. "When your Core ignited, it tore a hole between worlds," she said. "That surge brought you here. To us."
"My what?"
"Your Core." She raised her hand slowly, the air shimmering around her fingers.
Threads of gold and white light spiralled up her palm, weaving through one another like ribbons in slow motion. They gathered, expanded, then split apart, forming shapes: a bird in mid-flight, a flower blooming and fading in the same heartbeat, a thousand tiny suns that pulsed and folded in on themselves.
The warmth reached me before the light did. It touched my face, my hands. The scent of rain, spring grass, and something ancient filled the air. I felt my shoulders drop, my breath steadying without my permission.
"This," she said, her voice low and even, "is a Core. The essence of emotion itself. Every person here carries one. Each Core is born from a single emotion; Hope, Rage, Fear, Grief, Desire. It binds itself to the one most dominant in you. That bond defines your power. And your limits."
The sphere floated above her palm, rotating slowly. I couldn't look away. The light felt alive. I could feel it, humming faintly beneath my skin, like a sound I recognized without understanding.
"You have one too," she said. "It's powerful, Serra — powerful enough to bridge realms."
The words slid through me, cold and unbelievable.
"Powerful," I repeated. The word tasted unreal.
Anira's gaze sharpened. "Serra, an uncontrolled core is very dangerous. A Core without balance burns its bearer from within or consumes what's around it. It must be mastered — or it kills." The light in her hand pulsed once, then dimmed as she closed her fingers around it.
"It's rare, almost unheard of, for a Core bearer to come from another realm."
Her gaze softened, though her voice stayed calm. "But you are here now, and the Academy will take care of you. You'll find your footing — your home — in time."
"What if I don't want it?" The words left my mouth, before I even realised it.
She regarded me quietly. "Your core doesn't care what you want. Once awakened, it's bound to you. You can't silence it — only learn to live with it."
She stepped closer, her presence calm but undeniably commanding. "If you hadn't come here, the energy building inside you would have burned you alive. Or worse — it would have torn through everything around you. A Core without control is like a wildfire... It consumes until there's nothing left."
"Mine is Hope," she said. "It restores what has been broken. It gives strength where there is none. But even hope can be dangerous, when used wrong. That's why we learn to control it"
I swallowed. "What's in my core?"
Her expression softened but behind the softness, I could sense some calculation. "That is what we must discover."
"How?"
"There's a test," she said. "The Unveiling... It shows which emotion has claimed your Core. Once we know, we can begin teaching you control."
I wanted to argue. To scream. To tell her I didn't believe any of it. But when I looked down, I could still see the faint shimmer under my skin, pulsing gently in rhythm with my heart. The memory of that light tearing through the house. The sound of my brother's voice before everything went silent.
Something inside me broke. My knees gave out, and I sank into the chair. "You're sure he's gone?"
Anira hesitated, just for a heartbeat, then said, softly, "I am very sorry.".
The words hung in the stillness between us. The room blurred. For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she reached across the space between us, resting her hand lightly on my shoulder. The gold light flickered again softer this time, a heartbeat against my skin. I felt the warmth spreading through my arm and down my body. "You need to rest" she said. "Lyla?"
The far wall rippled, its marble surface shifting like water catching sunlight. From it stepped a girl. Her hair caught the glow immediately, a tumble of strawberry-blonde curls that seemed to hold their own light. Beneath the crisp white of her uniform, faint violet shimmered at her collarbone, a slow, pulsing rhythm that looked almost alive.
"Headmistress?" she said, her voice soft, almost musical.
"This is Serra," Anira said. "She'll be staying in the east wing for now. See that she has what she needs."
Lyla's eyes, wide, bright and a with a shade of blue I had never seen before, found mine and didn't look away. There was no polite restraint, no hesitation like everyone else here seemed to carry. Her smile was immediate and real, and despite myself, I couldn't help but smile back.
"Yes, Headmistress," she said, a little too quickly, her voice like laughter waiting for permission to escape.