The city of Myrian did not sing.
It murmured, whispered, and sometimes growled like a cornered beast, but song? That was a luxury reserved for the high towers of the Domini, for the noble-born children whose lullabies were written in arcane runes and gold-lined prophecy. In the lower quarters—where soot clung to windows and cobblestone streets buckled like broken teeth—there were no lullabies. Only silence and the occasional scream.
But even in that hush, nestled between the broken ribs of a forgotten alleyway, there stood a library. No sign above the door, no ornate welcome, just a rusting bronze gargoyle above the threshold and the faint smell of ink and parchment that clung to its doorway like incense.
It was here that Aelric lived.
Not as a patron.
Not even as a student.
But as the librarian's boy.
He was not born of magic, nor legacy, nor prophecy. At least, not one that anyone knew. He had been left in a basket on the steps of the House of Silent Verses, a library built atop an older ruin, abandoned by a mother who never knocked and a father who never named him.
"Your lineage is ink and dust, boy," old Master Veynar would often grumble as he handed Aelric yet another tome to scrub clean of mould or blood, depending on which section it had come from.
Veynar was the closest thing Aelric had to a father. A retired scholar who had once lectured at the Arcane Academy before retreating from the public eye, he spoke little of his past, but much of magic. He taught Aelric how to read before he could walk properly. Not just Common, but Elder Sigil, Celestine Script, and even the jagged glyphs of the extinct Yllari tongue.
And yet… despite all this… Aelric remained ordinary.
Painfully, hauntingly ordinary.
No spark ever came when he touched a wand. No glyphs shimmered at his fingertips. No ancient bloodline stirred in his veins.
And yet, when the world was asleep and Veynar's snoring echoed through the winding halls of the library, Aelric would sit in the moonlight-drenched atrium and open the forbidden tomes—books bound in dragonhide, sealed in iron cages, or written in ink that pulsed like a heartbeat—and whisper to them.
"Tell me… what makes a mage?"
None ever answered.
But he kept reading.
One day, everything changed.
It was the 13th day of the Month of Blades, and Myrian's skies were streaked with smoke from the annual Ascension Trials at the Arcane Academy. Carriages roared down the main avenues carrying hopeful scions from the Five Dominions—children clothed in velvet and silk, bearing names long enough to be spells themselves.
Aelric watched them from the rooftop of the library, where pigeons nested in the stone gargoyle's open mouth.
"They don't even know how lucky they are," he murmured.
"Luck is the word fools use to explain structure they don't understand," Veynar said behind him. The old man was holding a parchment scroll tied with black silk. "But you… You don't need luck."
Aelric blinked. "I don't?"
"No. You need this."
He handed the scroll over.
Aelric unrolled it and gasped.
It was a summons.
From the Arcane Academy.
But it made no sense. He hadn't applied. Couldn't apply. There was no record of his family. No sponsorship. No spellborn gift to earn him a seat.
"I… I don't understand," he said, voice cracking like old parchment.
Veynar smiled—but not with his mouth. Only his eyes.
"They've decided to hold an Open Trial," the librarian said. "For the first time in a hundred years."
Aelric's heart raced. "But I have no magic—"
"Not yet."
"But—"
"Do you think magic only belongs to those who inherit it?" Veynar leaned in. "The world is changing. The ley-lines are fracturing. The Eclipse Codex has awakened. And I'd bet every cursed tome in this library that someone is meddling with the balance of dominions."
Aelric stared at the scroll, fingers trembling.
"You want to see the world, don't you?" Veynar asked softly. "Not just read about it."
"Yes," Aelric whispered.
"Then go."
The Academy loomed like a myth cast in stone.
Built into the cliffs of the Inner Vale, it spiralled upward in impossibly delicate arches and sharp spires, glowing faintly with runes that never dimmed. To the nobles, it was sacred ground. To Aelric, it was a storm—beautiful, vast, and terrifying.
Hundreds of candidates gathered in the lower courtyard. Most wore house crests. Aelric wore a hand-stitched coat with patches and ink stains.
Eyes turned to him.
Sneers followed.
But he walked with his head high, the parchment scroll in hand.
He'd slept with it under his pillow for three nights. Still half-convinced it would vanish.
The Trial Master, a woman with gold-threaded robes and a blindfold woven from silver mist, addressed the crowd.
"This is not a test of power," she announced, her voice a bell made of thunder. "This is a test of will. Of truth. There are no scores. No grades. Only the passage through the Crucible. If you survive… You are chosen."
Aelric swallowed hard.
He didn't feel chosen.
He felt like an impostor.
But when the doors of the Crucible opened, he stepped inside.
The Crucible was not a room.
It was a world.
An illusion. A realm folded between dimensions. Inside, reality warped. The stone floor became a shifting maze of memory and magic.
Aelric walked alone.
At first, the path was simple: follow the golden threads, answer riddles from talking stones, dodge illusions of flame and wind.
But then it turned… personal.
He saw the library. Empty.
He saw Veynar's body on the floor, blood pooling around torn pages.
He saw himself—older, bitter, eyes hollow.
"You are nothing," the vision sneered. "A page-turner. A mimic. A fraud."
Aelric fell to his knees.
The Crucible whispered:
"If you cannot create, you are not worthy."
"I…" His breath shook. "I have nothing to give."
"Then die."
A wall of fire surged toward him.
But just before it consumed him—
He screamed.
Not in fear. But in defiance.
"I am worthy! Not because I was born to power, but because I chose it! Every night I studied. Every word I memorised. Every scar, every whisper, every ache—I bled for it!"
He reached forward and touched the fire.
It didn't burn.
It bloomed.
The flames turned to pages. The pages to light.
And in that moment, a voice not his own whispered through the folds of reality.
"You are seen."
When he awoke, he was lying in the courtyard.
The others had not returned.
Some never would.
The Trial Master stood over him, silver blindfold gleaming like moonlight.
"You touched the source," she murmured. "You should not have survived."
"I know," Aelric croaked.
"What are you?"
He blinked. "A librarian's boy."
She smiled.
"No. You're something else now."
She held out her hand.
And in it—a ring. Black stone, veined with silver. The mark of a First Year Initiate.
Aelric took it with shaking hands.
In the distance, thunder cracked.
But it did not frighten him.
It sounded like a beginning.