The decision to investigate beneath the ridge junction was made without ceremony, and in a way that reminded Kael of how real authority moved in the field. There was no vote among students, no announcement meant to calm nerves. The instructors spoke privately, compared notes, and then began preparations as if the plan had always existed and merely waited for the right moment.
By midday, a controlled descent group was assembled. Kaldor and Marrow led, accompanied by two other staff members and a small number of students chosen more for steadiness than brilliance. Kael's team was included again, though with strict constraints: remain within sight, assist only when asked, and retreat the moment ordered.
Lyra accepted those rules with visible effort.
Darian accepted them with relief.
Seraphine accepted them as if she had expected nothing else.
Kael accepted them because he didn't trust himself not to look too deeply.
They climbed the ridge path again, the air thinning as they rose. The plateau and its ancient rune pillar greeted them in cold sunlight, its carvings silent yet heavy with meaning. The cracked ground near the base looked worse than it had the day before, the fractures widened enough that light caught their edges sharply.
Kaldor knelt, pressing a palm against the stone without touching the runes. "The hollow expanded overnight," he said. "Whatever is feeding beneath isn't slowing."
Marrow's expression tightened. "Then we confirm the source."
A staff member placed anchor spikes around the crack, threading a stabilizing enchantment through them to prevent sudden collapse. Another traced a containment circle, not for the pillar itself but for the opening they intended to create.
The work was careful and slow. Kael watched the runes and the ground, feeling the pull like a constant tide beneath his feet.
When the opening was ready, Kaldor lowered a small light charm into the crack. It drifted down, illuminating rough stone walls and a shallow descent into darkness.
"It's a passage," Lyra whispered, unable to hide it.
Marrow's gaze flicked to her. "It might be. Or it might be a wound."
They descended in pairs. The passage wasn't deep at first, slanting downward through rock that looked naturally formed, yet marked by occasional rune etchings that suggested the stone had been shaped around an existing structure rather than carved from scratch.
The air grew cooler, and the mana density thickened. Kael felt it like humidity, clinging to his skin.
Lyra's breathing quickened. "This isn't just high mana," she murmured. "It's concentrated. Like it's collecting."
Seraphine's voice remained steady. "Then something is holding it."
They reached a wider chamber where the rock opened into a cavern. Old rune lines traced the walls in faded patterns, some nearly erased by time, others still faintly glowing as if remembering their purpose. The ground was uneven, scattered with broken stone and fragments of something that might once have been a constructed pathway.
Kaldor stopped, scanning the chamber. "No movement," he said quietly. "But we don't assume safety."
Marrow raised a hand and spoke a short phrase, activating a detection spell. Light rippled outward and returned, showing no living bodies nearby, but the way it warped slightly in the air told Kael there was instability ahead.
Kael activated Law Observation, careful to keep it narrow.
The cavern's mana structure was not natural. It was contained in layers, like water held behind a dam, and those layers were fraying. Threads pulled toward a deeper passage, feeding something below. The rune lines on the wall weren't decorative; they were part of a containment system. Some had been broken, not by time, but by something that had scraped them clean.
Kael released the skill before the ache grew, but his stomach felt tight.
This place had been built to hold something.
It was failing.
Lyra stepped close to one wall, keeping her hands to herself. "These runes," she said softly, voice reverent, "they're older than the empire's academy system. They're not even the same language."
Seraphine's gaze remained on the passage ahead. "Then whatever is beneath was a problem long before we arrived."
They moved deeper. The cavern narrowed into a corridor, rune lines becoming more frequent as though the builders had reinforced the most dangerous sections. The air grew heavier with every step.
Kael noticed something else as they walked: small fractures in the stone where mana had leaked and crystallized into thin, glassy deposits. They glowed faintly, and when he looked closely he saw the deposits were aligned, pointing toward the same direction as the pull.
The source was ahead.
They reached another chamber, smaller and lower than the first, where a circular structure was embedded in the floor. It looked like an old seal—multiple rings of runes layered over each other, some shattered, some still intact. At the center, a crack ran through the seal like a wound that refused to heal.
Kaldor crouched near the edge, eyes narrowing. "This is it."
Marrow's gaze moved over the seal. "This is what the junction above feeds into," he said quietly. "A containment core."
Lyra looked pale. "Containment for what."
Marrow didn't answer immediately. He looked, as if weighing whether a guess would be more dangerous than silence.
Kael felt the pull stronger here than anywhere else. It wasn't just drawing mana. It was drawing attention, like the world itself wanted eyes on this crack.
He activated Law Observation again, reluctantly.
The seal's lattice was immense. Layers upon layers, each designed to reinforce the next, and each now fraying. The crack wasn't merely breaking the seal; it was acting like a mouth, pulling in mana through thin threads that stretched upward toward the pillar and outward toward the ward ring. Something below the crack was feeding.
Kael released the skill with a sharp breath, the ache behind his eyes flaring.
Seraphine noticed. "Kael," she said quietly, not asking directly but acknowledging the change.
He kept his face neutral. "It's worse than it looks," he said, because anything less would be dishonest.
Marrow's expression tightened further. "We do not open it," he said, voice firm. "We reinforce. We assess. We stabilize enough to stop the draw while we determine cause."
A staff member began preparing a reinforcement array, placing temporary runes around the seal to support its structure. Kaldor watched the corridor behind them as if expecting something to notice their presence.
For several minutes, it was quiet work. The kind of careful magic Kael respected, because it treated the world's structure as something to be preserved rather than dominated.
Then the air shifted.
A faint vibration passed through the seal, like a heartbeat out of rhythm. The crack glowed briefly, and the mana deposits along the wall brightened, responding as if pulled.
Lyra swallowed. "It's reacting."
Marrow's voice remained calm, but his eyes sharpened. "Hold your positions. Do not panic. Stabilizers now."
The staff continued their work, faster but still controlled. The vibration passed, leaving the chamber uneasy but intact.
They did not stay long after that. Once the reinforcement array was placed, Marrow ordered a return to the surface. Whatever they had found, it was not something to linger around without full preparation.
The ascent felt lighter in air but heavier in mind. Edrin Hollow waited below, unaware of the precise shape of the danger beneath its ridge.
When they returned to the settlement, the instructors spoke privately again, and the atmosphere among students shifted. Word spread quickly, even without anyone speaking loudly. People knew something had been found, and they filled silence with speculation.
Kael's team returned to their quarters, each carrying their own version of what they had seen.
Lyra wrote until her hands cramped, stopping only to stare at the page as if she could force a solution into existence. Darian sat with his back against the wall, jaw tight, eyes unfocused in the way of someone imagining worst possibilities. Seraphine remained composed, but Kael noticed how often her gaze drifted toward the west.
Kael lay back on his bedroll, letting the faint ache behind his eyes settle. He could still see the seal's crack in his mind, could still feel the pull like a tide.
Whatever was beneath was not interested in staying contained.
And whatever the instructors decided next, Kael suspected the days of minor flickers and manageable breaches were nearly over.