The cart ride back to Westminster was a blur of grey mist and the rhythmic clatter of wheels. Kaden sat hunched between Leonhard and a snoring student, his body aching from the cold and exertion, his mind a battlefield. The tarnished silver ring felt like a brand against his thigh, safely hidden in a separate pocket from Professor von Heller's coins. Each bump in the road seemed to drive its inscription deeper into his flesh. Welcome.
Welcome to what? A game of cat and mouse? A trial by a hidden master? It mocked him, that word. It implied a plan, an audience, a purpose to his suffering that was far grander than simple revenge. The thought was paralyzing.
And yet, cutting through the terror like a shaft of desperate sunlight, was the thought of Silas's study. Of the quiet, of the understanding. The professor was his only tether to a world that made sense—a world of knowledge, not of blood and cryptic rings. The urge to go to him, to lay the awful truth of his mother's murder and this twisted legacy at the feet of a competent, kind adult, was almost overwhelming. Surely, a scholar of Thaumaturgical Theory, a man versed in the soul's mysteries, would have some insight. He might even be able to help Kaden control the damnable humming in his veins.
But what if…
The darker thought, the one from the alley, tried to surface. He stamped it down, a mental fist slamming shut. No. That was the paranoia talking. The master was a shadow, a monster. Silas von Heller was real, solid. He had given him coin, not a curse. Kaden needed that distinction to be true. He clung to it.
Back at the college, he endured the routine: handing in his meager jar of moss and single bog-iron nodule to a disappointed Professor Brindle, trudging to the baths to scrub the swamp's indelible stench from his skin. The black mud was gone, but a deeper grime felt settled in his bones.
As night fell, the silence of the dormitory became a cacophony of his own thoughts. The ring's weight was magnetic, pulling his focus away from his textbooks. He found himself staring at the wall, seeing not stone, but the milky eyes in the black pool, the elegant script inside the band.
He couldn't do this alone.
Decision crystallized into action, fueled by a need for salvation more than strategy. He waited until the deep watch of the night, then slipped from his bed. He didn't take the ring. That felt too dangerous, too final. But he took the story. Or a carefully pruned version of it.
The faculty quarters were in the older, more serene wing of the college, hallways lined with dark oak and portraits of long-dead archmages. Kaden's soft-soled shoes were soundless on the runner carpets. His heart, however, drummed a frantic rhythm against his ribs. Outside Professor von Heller's door, he hesitated. A sliver of warm light glowed from beneath it.
He raised a hand, knuckles poised to knock, when the door opened inward.
Silas stood there, not in his formal robes, but in a deep green dressing gown over a linen shirt. He held a heavy book in one hand and a pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses in the other. He looked… tired, and human. There was no mask of authority, only the quiet weariness of a scholar up late.
"Kaden?" Surprise, then immediate concern smoothed his features. "What is it? Is something wrong?" He stepped back, opening the door wider in a clear invitation. "Come in, come in. You're white as a sheet."
The warmth of the study enveloped Kaden, a physical comfort after the swamp's chill. A fire crackled low in the grate. The air smelled of leather, old paper, and the faint, clean scent of the professor's bergamot soap. It was the antithesis of everything dark and muddy and bloody.
"I… I'm sorry to disturb you so late, Professor," Kaden stammered, suddenly feeling foolish, a child bringing nightmares to an adult.
"Nonsense." Silas placed his book and glasses on a cluttered desk and gestured to a worn but comfortable armchair by the fire. He took the one opposite. "Sit. You are clearly disturbed. Tell me."
And so, under the gentle, expectant gaze of the only man who had ever shown him genuine academic faith, Kaden broke. He didn't speak of the Legacy, not directly. He spoke of his mother's murder—the break-in, the blood, the mysterious attacker. He spoke of the overwhelming grief, the confusion. He spoke of feeling lost, of a strange, persistent anxiety that felt like being watched. He edited the alley, the master, the ring, the humming power. He presented himself as a scared, grieving boy, which was not entirely a lie.
"…and sometimes," he finished, his voice barely a whisper, staring into the flames, "I feel like it's not over. Like he's still out there. Or… or that there's something else I should be doing, but I don't know what. I just feel… hunted."
He dared a glance up. Silas's face was a portrait of pained empathy. He had listened without interruption, his hands steepled under his chin. Now, he leaned forward, the firelight catching the flecks of gold in his grey eyes.
"Oh, my boy," Silas breathed, the term of endearment striking Kaden with the force of a physical embrace. "To carry such a burden alone… It is a miracle you are functioning at all." He sighed, a sound of genuine sorrow. "What you describe—the lingering fear, the sense of a looming presence—it is a common trauma of violent loss. The mind seeks patterns, threats, in the absence of closure."
He spoke calmly, rationally, applying the balm of scholarship to Kaden's raw wounds. "The feeling of being watched is a psychic echo, Kaden. Your subconscious, trying to protect you by maintaining a state of vigilance. It is exhausting, I know."
"But what if it's real?" Kaden burst out, the question containing all the truths he couldn't voice. "What if… someone is really watching?"
Silas was silent for a long moment, his gaze thoughtful. "The world is not without its shadows," he said at last, his voice low and serious. "There are those who covet power, who trace bloodlines and old magics. Your mother… she was a private woman. It is not impossible that she had knowledge, or something else, that others desired." He paused, weighing his words. "If there is a threat, it would explain the brutality. But to target you now…?" He shook his head slowly. "You are a student. You have shown talent, yes, but you possess nothing of obvious value. Unless…"
"Unless what?" Kaden's throat was tight.
"Unless the value is in your potential," Silas said, his eyes locking onto Kaden's. "Or in your blood. Your connection to her." He leaned back, steepling his fingers again. "If that is the case, then the college is likely the safest place for you. Our wards are strong. And you are not without friends here."
The words were a shelter. They made sense. They framed his terror as a recognizable, almost academic problem. And they came from a man who called him 'my boy' and saw potential where others saw failure.
"What should I do?" Kaden asked, the plea naked in his voice.
"First," Silas said, his tone becoming gentle but firm, "you will stop blaming yourself for surviving. Second, you will focus on your studies. Magic is not just power; it is discipline. It is structure for a chaotic mind. I will give you some exercises—meditations to quiet the psychic noise, to help you discern between real danger and the echoes of trauma." He offered a small, kind smile. "And third, you will consider this room a sanctuary. Whenever the world feels too large or too dark, you may come here. No questions asked."
The generosity was so complete, so utterly fatherly, that it brought a hot prickle to Kaden's eyes. He looked down, ashamed and profoundly grateful. This was what he had needed. An anchor. A guide.
"Thank you, Professor," he mumbled.
"Silas," the professor corrected softly. "In here, when it is just us, you may call me Silas."
The permission was a gift more precious than silver. Kaden could only nod.
"Now," Silas said, clapping his hands lightly on his knees and rising. "It is late, and you need rest more than counsel." He walked Kaden to the door. As Kaden stepped into the cooler hallway, Silas placed a hand on his shoulder. The grip was firm, warm, steadying.
"Remember, Kaden," he said, his voice barely above a whisper, yet carrying immense weight. "You are not what happened to you. You are what you choose to become. And I see a formidable man in the making. Do not let the shadows convince you otherwise."
Kaden walked back to his dormitory in a daze, the professor's words—Silas's words—a glowing coal in his chest, holding the encroaching darkness at bay. The master, the ring, the swamp—they all seemed slightly less real, slightly further away, framed now as the machinations of distant, greedy men, not as an intimate horror. He had a protector. He had a path.
He fell into a deep, dreamless sleep for the first time since his mother's death.
He never saw the way Silas von Heller's expression shifted the moment the door closed. The gentle concern melted away, leaving a face of complex, calculating intensity. The professor did not return to his armchair. He went to his desk, opened a hidden drawer, and withdrew not a book, but a flat, polished disc of obsidian.
He passed his hand over it. The surface shimmered, then showed an image: a bird's-eye view of the Blackwater Marshes, focusing on a specific, inky pool. As he watched, a tiny, schematic figure—Kaden—struggled, then performed the expert mud-crawl towards the roots.
A faint, proud smile touched Silas's lips. "So soon," he murmured to the empty room. "The instinct is strong. Stronger than I hoped."
His finger traced the edge of the disc, and the image changed. It showed the exterior of the dormitory, then zoomed with impossible clarity to the window of Kaden's room, where the boy now slept peacefully.
"Sleep well, my son," Silas whispered, the endearment now carrying a different, hungrier resonance. "Grow strong. The darkness you fear…" He let the sentence hang, his eyes reflecting the cold fire of the obsidian.
"…is only the soil I have prepared for you."