The morning sun bled red across the stained-glass windows of Crescent Academy Grand Hall, casting fragmented light onto the floor like shattered rubies. Caelum Solmere stood at the center of it, hands clasped behind his back, his expression unreadable.
The Crest Council had convened in haste—an emergency session for the first time in decades. Every major noble house had sent a representative: House Alcaris of Stormrun, House Virellis of the Southern Reach, House Marbrandt of Icehold. And of course, the central seat—House Solmere—was occupied by Caelum himself, not his aging father.
The council chamber buzzed with unrest.
"This is treason!" bellowed Lord Virellis. "A former student infiltrating the vaults, tampering with crest bindings—this is not an act of rebellion, it is war!"
"War against whom?" Caelum asked coldly. "The council? The system? Or the lies we've all helped maintain?"
Murmurs broke out. Some heads turned in disbelief. Others, in curiosity.
Lady Alcaris narrowed her eyes. "You speak as if there is truth to this Riven Vale cause. Do you sympathize with him?"
Caelum looked toward the floating projection at the center of the chamber. It showed a glowing crest—a reverse-etched sigil that pulsed not with gold, but with violet. Around it, smaller glyphs spun like moons around a sun.
"I sympathize with no one," he said. "But I understand the consequences of ignoring threats we helped create. Riven Vale didn't rise in a vacuum. He rose in the cracks we refused to seal."
---
Far from the Academy, hidden beneath the ruins of the Old Shard Sanctum, Riven stood within a temple etched in obsidian and veined with light. Before him knelt the first twelve of his new order—the Veil-Borne. Each had once been a dropout, a castaway, or a noble's bastard. Now they bore reversed crests seared into their palm—glyphs that hummed with reconstructed mana.
Virelle Astin stood to his right, robed in mourning vines and fire-thorns. Her voice was sharp as ever.
"The scouts confirmed Caelum spoke against the Council. He's beginning to question them."
Riven gave a faint smile. "Of course he is. The system is failing. It will rot from within long before we burn it down."
One of the kneeling Veil-Borne, a girl with a scarred face and glowing violet eyes, lifted her head. "Master Riven, when do we strike?"
"Soon," he said. "But not with blade or fire. With meaning. We will reclaim a relic lost in myth—the Word of Origin. The first spell, the first crest. It is hidden beneath the Temple of Aelvara, locked by seven schools of thought. Once we hold it, all magic is ours to rewrite."
---
Back in Crescent, Seren Elowyn led Caelum through the vault annexes of the Eastern Tower. She was uncharacteristically silent, and her grip on her staff tight.
"You're still thinking about what he said, aren't you?" she asked, finally.
Caelum didn't answer immediately.
"He was my friend, Seren. We trained together. We dreamed together. And then... the system rejected him. And I stayed."
"You stayed because you had to. Because this place would never allow you to leave."
He turned to her, eyes searching. "But what if staying made me a warden of the very chains he wants to break?"
Seren's gaze softened. "Then maybe your role is not to guard the old, but to reshape the new."
---
That night, deep beneath the Academy, something ancient stirred.
A glyph that had not pulsed in centuries flared to life—drawn by the presence of reversed sigils and the echo of the Word of Origin. A voice whispered through the stone:
"The Age of Inheritance ends. The Era of Intent begins."
Caelum woke in a cold sweat, the glyph burned into his mind.
He whispered the name of the only one who could understand it.
"Riven..."