Sylara woke in silence.
The dream clung to her like smoke—thick, sacred, choking. She sat up slowly, back damp with sweat, chest rising and falling with the lingering burn of memory. In the mirror across the room, the flame-crowned version of herself still hovered in the ghostlight of her mind. It was not the first time she had dreamt of fire, but never like this. Never with Nyx formed—not as shadow, but as she truly was.
Silver eyes, deep and unblinking, stared at her.
"You saw it too," Sylara whispered aloud, more to herself than to Nyx.
"Yes," Nyx's voice stirred in her mind, low and sure. "I was real in that place."
Nyx's consciousness, once distant and wordless, had since grown keener—closer. Protective. And something else. Restless.
Sylara moved to the basin in the corner and washed her face with cold water.
Even now, brushing cold water across her face, Sylara could feel the tremble in her bones. Her reflection in the steel basin bore little resemblance to the child she once was. The angles of her face had sharpened. Her eyes, amethyst and slow to trust, held knowledge far too old for someone barely past nine turns.
And deep inside her ribcage, where the soul-thread curled between her and Nyx, she felt it pull.
She dressed swiftly in her slate-grey sparring tunic, braiding her hair back with callused fingers.The dormitory outside was already stirring with low conversation, scuffling boots, and the tang of morning broth thick in the air.
---
Later that morning, a ripple passed through the gathered apprentices. A Watcher was speaking , his name Veylan.
The same Watcher who had visited Sylara the gleam before. His pale face was as cold as ever, voice edged like wind through iron.
"You have all trained your bodies and minds," he said, tone flat. "But power does not only reside in control. It also reveals itself in moments of clash."
His head turned subtly, as if acknowledging Sylara without ever meeting her eyes.
"Today, you spar. Magic if you must. Runes if you dare. No death—but pain will teach more than lectures ever could."
Tension coiled around the courtyard like a serpent.
They were brought outside, into the bone-dry sparring field under Riftkeep's pale skies. Dust clung to their boots, and the ring was lined by observing instructors. Sylara's palms felt strangely warm, but not from nerves.
The courtyard was not built for mercy.
It sprawled wide and hard beneath Riftkeep's eastern battlements, its ground paved in rough-hewn obsidian tiles, scorched from decades of rune-testing and spellfire drills. The air shimmered faintly, as if it remembered every scream, clash, and flare that had ever graced its cracked stones.
When the match-ups were called, Sylara found herself opposite Vienna—a thin-lipped, hawk-eyed apprentice with a jagged smile and too much to prove. She was eleven turns old, two turns older than her and known for being quick with a blade.
"We begin now," Veylan called out, his voice firm. "This is not a duel to death, nor a punishment. It is a demonstration of reaction, resilience, and restraint."
The moment the signal sounded, Vienna lunged. Steel flashed, sand flew.
But Sylara didn't draw her weapon.
She sidestepped, body fluid, movements clean.
Vienna snarled. "Scared to fight, Shadowborn?"
Sylara said nothing.
"Let her bait you," Nyx said calmly inside her mind, "and she'll never see what's coming."
And then Vienna struck again—harder.
Instinct took over. Sylara's foot pivoted, her stance widened—and the earth beneath her trembled. Not visibly. Not to them. But she felt it.
A heat surged beneath her bare foot.
A light.
A rune flared into existence in the dirt. Circular, jagged, angular—like lightning trapped in glass.
The air snapped.
Vienna froze, eyes widening.
The rune beneath Sylara's foot pulsed—once.
The sound that came was not a sound. It was resonance.
Nyx growled low within her soul.
Vienna's attack faltered.
In the stunned moment that followed, Elian stepped forward from the instructors' line, eyes locked on the mark.
"Enough."
His voice didn't rise, but it cut cleanly through the air. Vienna backed away.
The rune beneath Sylara faded—but not without a final glimmer of silver fire.
Whispers surged through the gathered apprentices.
The Watcher didn't speak. But Sylara could feel his eyes fixed upon her.
Later, Elian pulled her aside. "That rune," he said softly. "Do you know what it is?"
She shook her head.
"It's ancient. Older than Riftkeep. You didn't cast it. You are it."
She stared at him.
He didn't explain further.
Nyx, however, whispered
" It's begun."