Sleep was a luxury Kael could no longer afford.
The duel with Lira had awakened something—not just in his sigil, but in himself. A hunger. A spark. Something he couldn't fully trust, but also couldn't ignore. That night, as he sat at his desk sketching fractured glyphs into a worn notebook, the patterns twisted on the page, almost alive.
He didn't notice Rin enter his room until she cleared her throat.
"You ever sleep?"
"Not recently," Kael muttered, not looking up.
She eyed the diagrams. "You're drawing them again. The ones from your dreams?"
"Dreams. Ruins. Nightmares. Not sure what to call them anymore."
Rin walked to his side, her arms folded. "You used one of those against Lira."
Kael hesitated. "Half of one. And even that felt like… cheating."
"It wasn't cheating. It was creative. And dangerous." She pointed at a symbol that resembled a twisting spiral with breaks in its structure. "This one—it showed up in my sigil when I trained with Malric yesterday."
Kael turned, surprised. "It changed again?"
She nodded. "It's like it's… watching. Learning from us. Adapting."
Kael leaned back, exhaling. "And we're not the only ones, are we?"
Rin shook her head. "There are others."
That night, under the veil of darkness, Kael followed Rin into the old tunnels beneath the Academy.
These weren't part of any curriculum. They were ancient, dug long before the current structure was even built. Forgotten by most—except the ones who kept secrets.
Rin led him to a half-buried gate, marked with the crest of a broken crown and a spiraling star—the same symbol that had flickered in Kael's vision during his last sigil surge.
"How do you know about this?" he asked.
She shrugged. "I've been exploring. You're not the only one with insomnia, you know."
The passage beyond was narrow, the walls slick with condensation and time. Their footsteps echoed, eerily out of sync.
At the end of the hall, a chamber opened—carved in obsidian and marked with old sigils, ones Kael had never seen before. Not etched by hand. Burned into the stone.
Three people stood waiting.
Kael tensed. His hand twitched toward his sigil.
Rin placed a calming hand on his arm. "They're like us."
The first figure stepped forward. A boy barely older than Kael, tall and thin with dusky skin and a gaze like steel. "You must be Kael."
"Depends. Who's asking?"
"I'm Caleus," he said. "And this is the Circle."
The others inclined their heads—one, a short girl with chalk-white hair and a ruined left eye. The other, a broad-shouldered boy whose aura hummed with restrained force.
"We've been watching you," Caleus continued. "Your fight with Lira confirmed it. Your sigil is evolving."
Kael crossed his arms. "So what? We're in the same boat."
"Not quite," the white-haired girl rasped. "Most sigils grow along a path. Yours breaks it."
Kael frowned. "That's not a compliment, is it?"
"No," Caleus said. "It's a warning."
Caleus led them to the heart of the chamber—an altar ringed in ancient stone, pulsing with low energy. In the center was an orb of translucent crystal, filled with writhing threads of sigil-light.
"This is a fragment," Caleus said. "From the Precursor Vaults. Civilization before the current Cycle. Their sigils weren't given. They were built."
Kael stared. "And they're gone now?"
"They broke themselves trying to master it."
The white-haired girl spoke softly. "They didn't understand the cost. Power without a purpose turns inward."
Kael looked between them. "So why tell me this?"
"Because," Caleus said, "you're already halfway there."
Later, as Kael and Rin climbed back toward the surface, Kael spoke.
"Do you believe them?"
Rin nodded. "I believe something is watching. And I think we've only scratched the surface."
Kael's thoughts spun.
The sigils were tools, yes—but also signals. Beacons. And every use pulled something closer. Not just power.
Attention.
"What do we do?" Rin asked.
Kael's answer was quiet. Firm.
"We find the truth before it finds us."
Elsewhere…
In the deep, beneath the crust of the continent, something old stirred. It felt the pulse of a sigil breaking its cage. Not once, but twice.
A ripple passed through the empty halls of a forgotten ruin.
Where eyes should have been, sigils glowed.
And they watched.