The whispers were louder again. They came when the academy fell quiet, when the corridors emptied and the candles burned down to stubs. Kael sat on the edge of his bed, his fingers pressed against his temples. The air around him felt too thick to breathe. Every sound came to him warped, stretched, as if the world were speaking through water.
His pulse had started to echo in his ears, slow and heavy. He could count it, feel it in the floorboards. The hum was buried inside it now, no longer separate. It had merged with him, a constant vibration in the blood. He thought if he stayed still long enough, he could almost hear words forming between the beats.
He hadn't been outside all day. His books lay open, the ink blurred where sweat had dripped onto the page. The candlelight flickered, each shadow on the wall crawling just a little too long before it stilled. He told himself it was exhaustion, but exhaustion didn't whisper his name.
He pressed his hand against the scar on his forearm. It throbbed faintly, like a second heart. His breath came uneven now. The air around him shimmered faintly. He had learned that magic leaves traces when overused, lingering in the body like static. He had also learned that too much exposure could bend a mind until it broke.
He was beginning to wonder if he was already broken.
The door creaked. For a moment he thought someone was there. He turned, but the room was empty. The sound came again, this time from the corner. He leaned forward. The candle guttered, casting the far wall into darkness.
Something moved. A flicker, nothing more, but it drew his eyes. A shape that didn't belong in the geometry of the room. The corners looked too deep. He blinked, and for a heartbeat he saw fingers sliding along the stone, long and pale, vanishing when he blinked again.
He whispered to himself, "Not real."
The voice replied, soft, inside his skull. "You keep saying that."
He froze. His reflection in the window smiled at him, though he had not.
The glass rattled, faintly, as if touched from the outside. The whisper crawled through his mind again, gentle, coaxing. "You carry me still. You never let go. You made a home for me."
He tried to stand, but his body felt slow, as though the air had turned to syrup. His breath came ragged. "I burned you out. You died with them."
"Nothing dies. It only sleeps."
The shadows rippled. He stumbled back, catching the edge of the desk. His papers scattered to the floor. The candle died. For a long moment there was only darkness, then the faintest pulse of red light from the markings under his skin.
It pulsed once. Twice. Then faster. His vision swam. He felt a pressure in his skull, building until it hurt to think. The air itself began to move, slow at first, then violent, whirling around him. The sound of wind filled the room, though nothing outside stirred.
Kael gasped and dropped to his knees. His hands slammed against the floor, and a circle of faint runes appeared beneath him, burned into the wood by the sheer pressure of magic. His blood dripped onto the circle and hissed.
The voice purred, close now, almost loving. "There you are."
His teeth clenched. He wanted to scream, but the air was gone. His breath hitched, his vision dimmed, and the light inside his chest flared. Images flickered in front of his eyes, the cult's chambers, the chants, the blood-soaked floors, the faces of the dead who never stayed buried.
Then he saw the altar again, the one he had tried to forget. The place where he had first touched the thing that whispered now. The runes carved into his flesh had bled that night, and he had felt the cold touch of something vast slip inside him.
It had never left.
The voice deepened, resonant, like a second set of lungs breathing through his own. "You were chosen. Not by the crown, not by blood, but by truth. You carry me because you wanted to. You called me."
He slammed his fist into the floor. "I was a child."
"And you begged for power even then."
The words made him sick. He curled in on himself, the pressure mounting until the room seemed to tilt. The furniture shook. Dust fell from the ceiling. His head filled with a roar, a thousand overlapping murmurs, every one of them speaking his name.
He could feel something trying to rise through him. Not from the ground, but from within. The sensation was wrong, a weight pressing outward, pushing through his skin. He choked, clawing at his chest as if to tear it out. Light burst from his fingertips again, violent and raw.
The energy lashed out, striking the walls, scorching them. The window shattered, shards scattering into the night. He fell forward, hands burning, eyes unfocused. For a heartbeat, he thought he saw movement in the debris. Shapes crawling, forming.
The whisper shifted, now a chorus. "We are not separate. You are my hand, and I am your shadow."
He screamed. The sound was cut short when the magic collapsed. The pressure vanished all at once, leaving only stillness and the stench of ozone.
Kael lay on the floor, shaking. The room was wrecked, his body trembling from head to toe. He lifted his arm weakly and saw the runes pulsing faintly under his skin, fading slowly until they were only faint scars again.
He sat there for what felt like hours. When he finally stood, dawn was creeping through the broken window. He could see the courtyard outside, students beginning to gather for morning lessons. He looked down at his hands, at the blood on his knuckles, and exhaled.
No one would believe him if he told them.
He cleaned the blood, straightened his desk, and wrapped his forearm in fresh cloth. His reflection in the glass still lingered a moment longer than it should have, smiling faintly before disappearing.