Names are powerful.
This was the first he was ever told by Master Veynar.
The wrong name can be fatal. The right one is capable of building empires.
Then Aelric faced the Mirror of Recognition without either.
The Mirror of Recognition was amongst the oldest relics in the Arcane Academy. Made in the Third Age from a dying prophet's tears and rimmed in raw aetherstone, it contained a singular purpose—to authenticate that whoever stepped in front of it was who they said they were. Not merely in body. But in the soul.
And Aelric
Aelric left no legacy. No confirmed bloodline. No traceable line of nobility.
He was a Nullborn.
If it gazed too intently, it would undress him.
And then, he would burn.
This is why Aelric died.
And then must rise Elaric Dawnveil.
The title was received in a dream.
Perhaps it was made or provided.
The Codex would neither deny nor confirm.
But when he said it out loud—Elaric Dawnveil—the Mirror didn't break. The walls didn't pull back. The name was real in a manner that was chilling.
And when those forged documents were eventually put into the hands of the registrar of the Academy—a blind scribe whose veins were silver—he hardened inside.
This was survival no more.
It was infiltration.
Three weeks were spent forging the identity. Three weeks of dodging around in half-shadows and bribing officials and falsifying documents and breaking enchants. He'd pilfered hair from a deceased noble in an ossuary, replicated an antique family crest onto a relic binding covenant, and—most critical of all—used the Memory Weaving function of the Codex to install a falsified bloodline trace into one of the school's older ley line directories.
It was risky. Illegal. Impossible.
And it worked.
Elaric Dawnveil.
Fifth-born scion of the Dawnveil line—purged during the Shadow Plague but rumored to have survived through a secret ward in the outlands.
Newly attuned after a long dormancy of mana.
Exempt from recent trials due to "ritual stasis."
The perfect phantom legacy.
A lie so believable that the Academy didn't question it.
At least… not yet.
The voice of the registrar was sharp as a blade. "Your sigil. Present it."
Aelric—Elaric—reached into his coat and pulled out a medallion etched with the Dawnveil crest: a rising sun pierced by seven rays.
The Codex had helped shape it—crystallized memory given form.
The registrar examined it through blind eyes, fingers brushing the symbol for confirmation.
It shimmered.
Approved.
She nodded. "Your mark is registered. Your rooms are in Tower Six, upper apprentice level. Spellcraft rotation begins at dawn."
And just like that, he was in.
The Arcane Academy, once the dream of a boy who read by candlelight, was now the hunting ground of a weapon forged in silence.
And no one knew.
The apprentice dorms were carved into one of the oldest spires—Narrowfang Tower, rumoured to have been a prison before it became a place of learning. Its windows were arrow-slit narrow. The air is always cold. The walls hummed with latent magic that twisted sleep and memory.
Elaric's new quarters were small, but functional: a stone desk, a single bed with fresh linens, a rune-stamped trunk.
He placed the Codex beneath the pillow. It had taken a more dormant form lately, appearing as a leather-bound grimoire with ever-changing pages.
It no longer needed to speak aloud.
Its presence in his mind was enough.
His first day as Elaric Dawnveil began with a lecture in Rune Theory.
There, among other students—real scions of powerful houses—he walked as a ghost in noble skin.
Some glanced his way, curious but disinterested.
Only one looked twice.
Professor Thane Morrix.
Tall. Gaunt. Covered in robes that shimmered like ink under sunlight.
His gaze lingered. Not with suspicion, but recognition.
Aelric stiffened.
"He sees something."
"Yes," the Codex murmured in his mind. "But not you. Not fully."
Aelric lowered his eyes.
Played the part.
The day passed with barely a ripple. Spell diagrams. Theory lectures. Mana pool assessments—which, of course, he skillfully avoided.
He'd studied the schedules. Found gaps. Timed restroom breaks to bypass the screening rituals. Even mimicked a small spark using an illusion charm copied from the Codex.
Everything was calculated.
Everything was veiled.
That night, he wandered the dorm corridors in silence. Shadows curled like ribbons around his boots.
He passed doors marked with names he recognised from history books: Valeryn, Dreth, Orinox.
He was walking among the future rulers of the world.
And yet he carried something none of them did—A system older than kingdoms.A memory the world feared.
"Elaric, right?"
He froze.
A girl stood in the corridor just ahead—maybe sixteen, with storm-grey eyes and a voice that felt like steel wrapped in silk.
"You're the Dawnveil boy. Late addition."
She didn't say it with malice.
She said it like she was testing the name.
"I am," he replied smoothly.
"You don't carry the mana signature of a stasis heir," she said, narrowing her eyes. "But I suppose nothing about this place makes sense anymore."
"You are?"
"Calys Arenhart. Of the Moonfold Arenharts."
He recognised the name.
Blood mages. Memory binders. Dangerous.
She studied him a moment longer, then nodded and stepped aside.
A warning in her eyes.
A test passed.
That night, the Codex pulsed again.
"The mask holds."
"But beware. Every lie echoes. And someone is listening."
"Professor Morrix?"
"Not yet. But soon. He is not what he seems."
Aelric closed his eyes.
He knew this was only the beginning.
Forging a name was survival.
Keeping it?
That would take a war.