The knock came at sunrise, deliberate and heavy enough to echo through stone, yet light enough to be polite.
The gate guards exchanged confused glances, for there had been no scheduled delegation, no rider, no bird sent with notice.
Only a lone figure hooded, cloaked in worn gray, face hidden beneath a ceremonial mask made of blackwood and etched silver. The mask bore no crest, yet the magic woven into its grain whispered of something old and dangerous.
Lord Caelum Ashborn watched from the balcony of the estate's second level as the guest was ushered into the outer courtyard. His expression remained unreadable, but one hand gripped the banister slightly harder than usual. Elowen stood beside him, quiet as ever, eyes narrowed.
"No insignia," she murmured. "Yet the gate let him through."
"It didn't let him through," Caelum said coldly. "He walked past the barrier."
Her gaze sharpened. "That's not possible."
"No," he said. "It isn't."
The guest stopped before the central fountain, where stars had been carved into the surrounding marble rim centuries ago. He said nothing, waiting with expectation.
I watched from the far alcove near the observatory tower, the one no one visited since it began to collapse along the northern frame. The man didn't move like a noble, a warrior, or a wandering court seer. He stood like a storm that had simply paused to decide where it would fall.
Rowen was the first of my siblings to arrive. He walked with confidence, armor gleaming, posture sharp, lips already curled into disdain.
"Identify yourself," he barked, hand resting on his weapon.
The masked man tilted his head slightly, said nothing, and stepped forward.
Rowen was foolish. "I said—"
The wind shifted, and Rowen stopped mid-stride, frozen, not in fear.
In suspension, his body shimmered for half a second, as if light doubted his reality. Then it passed.
Rowen stumbled back, instinctively dropping his weapon.
The man remained silent.
"He's not here to kill us," I thought. "But he wants us to think he could."
That was strategy.
Lady Elowen descended the main stairway, her steps slow and deliberate.
At the courtyard's edge, the masked visitor inclined his head slightly, not in deference, but in acknowledgment.
"You know who I am," he said, his voice smooth and cultured.
"I know what you are," Elowen replied.
Tension cracked like thunder, but no one moved.
"Then let's not waste ceremony," he said, removing a small scroll from his sleeve.
"What is that?" Lord Caelum asked, breaking the silence.
The man turned his masked face upward.
"An imperial summons," he said. "For your youngest."
The courtyard fell silent, even the wind paused.
Lord Caelum remained silent, his expression unreadable. Lady Elowen caught his right hand twitch, an almost imperceptible reaction. She turned, narrowing her eyes.
"A summons for Kalel?" she repeated, as though the name were foreign.
The visitor didn't blink. "Correct."
Lady Elowen stepped forward, confused and proud. "On what basis? There are no records—he has no star, no advancement. The boy hasn't even—"
"You assume the empire's summons operate on records," the visitor interrupted, his voice cutting. "I don't answer to Veyra's bureaucrats."
Lady Elowen's posture shifted—recognition, alarm. The visitor wasn't local, bound by the Ashborn jurisdiction. Only two possibilities: he answered to a floating academy or acted under imperial arcana, above local power.
"You speak as if the council's eyes aren't required," Caelum said, his voice calm but iron.
"Because they aren't," the masked man replied, producing the scroll.
He unrolled it, and the air dimmed.
A seal burned across the top black wax, laced with imperial runes that pulsed with temporal binding. Caelum recognized it instantly he had seen it once before, decades ago, when the empire summoned someone for a rare, extreme Null-Tier Trial, a test for those of noble blood with blank cores.
⸻
They didn't understand yet, but I did. Even from the shadowed corner of the upper gallery, I felt the Origin pulsing in response to the scroll's resonance. This wasn't an invitation.
Someone, not here or in this province, detected my hidden ripple. Now, the world is adjusting to include me.
The most dangerous part? Not the trial, not the risk, but the attention. They're seeing the crack.
Caelum remained silent. He couldn't reject the summons it would invite scrutiny. But accepting it would mean acknowledging me, the son they buried in silence, the "talentless" one, the myth made flesh.
"Why now?" Elowen asked softly.
The masked man answered without hesitation. "Because the veil stirred. When it does, the old ways awaken."
The masked man placed the scroll on the pedestal. "He has three days to respond. If not, the empire will assume the Ashborns rejected the call. The consequences are never symmetrical."
He vanished, no step, no portal, just gone.
I stood alone for a long time after the courtyard cleared. I felt alignment, the world moving finally. The stars, watching from above, shifted in their orbits. For the first time, they looked down instead of away.
I waited three hours before moving, allowing Father to debrief the guards, Mother to retreat, and Rowen to craft a story of relevance.
The great hall was half-lit, the sconces flickering as I passed. I stood in the center, opposite two figures I'd watched my entire life from behind a mask of silence.
I let that mask slip, saying, "You knew."
Lord Caelum looked up from his scroll, his expression tightening. "What?"
"That someone would come. Not today, not from there, but eventually."
He said nothing.
Elowen watched from the corner, still.
"You've trained your children to represent the house: Cassandra the soldier, Rowen the heir, and Sylen the diplomat."
"You've hidden me, buried me beneath protocol and indifference."
"That made sense when I was unformed, needing your validation."
Caelum stood slowly.
"You presume much for a boy who hasn't completed the second realm."
"I surpassed it two nights ago."
His eyes flickered, not with surprise, but with recalculation.
"You lie."
I stepped forward into the dim light.
"Do I?"
He studied me, and I met his gaze, not defiantly, but precisely.
I didn't scream for recognition. That's why you all missed it. Why you needed to miss it.
I turned my head slightly.
"To preserve the illusion of control."
Silence.
Mother remained silent, but her hands gripped her robe tightly, not out of fear, but out of memory. She knew something she always had.
"I'll answer the summons in three days," I said.
Caelum exhaled slowly. "Do you understand what that means?"
"It means I'm no longer a secret. You'll be marked, watched, and there will be no return to silence."
"I don't intend to return. I only want to rise."
He didn't dismiss me or speak. That was his last grasp at authority silence. But silence belonged to me now. I turned and walked out, never looking back.
Later, in Private Chambers, the stars rose, and a storm brewed in the far north.
I sat alone again, but this time, it wasn't meditation. It was alignment and preparation.
I opened the summons, my fingers trembling not from fear, but from the strange script. The words weren't written; they were threaded onto the scroll like veins to muscle.
"They'll test me for something they don't even believe in," I whispered.
I set the scroll aside and pulled a new page from my hidden journal. At the top, I wrote:
Projection: Null Trial Response Strategy
⸻
Beneath it:
• Three days: Observe estate movements, log patterns, and anticipate eavesdropping.
• Two days: Accelerate internal threading and attempt third realm entry point if safe.
• One day: Craft a false aura, imitating Water, Light,Shadow or Gravity and let them watch the wrong star.
• Departure: Say nothing.
⸻
The last line didn't feel cold; it felt honest. They buried me, silenced me, and underestimated me. Let them. Let everyone. Because when I step forward, the world will remember what it forgot to fear.