The high sun blazed overhead, casting its white heat upon the marble of the Grand Circle like judgment from above.
Kael Virelle stood at the center of the Awakening Dais, cloaked in ceremonial indigo, every inch of him rigid with purpose. The silence of the courtyard was thick, sacred, humming with old magic. Above him, carved spires clawed at the heavens. All around, dozens of noble heirs waited in hushed rows, whispering behind jeweled cuffs and polished masks.
The Awakening Ceremony happened only once a year. One by one, chosen youths stood atop the Circle's sigil-laced platform, where the great elemental staff — the Oculus — would draw forth their true nature. Fire. Wind. Earth. Water. Shadow. Light.
Everyone awakened to something.
Everyone but failures.
Kael's pulse pounded like a drumbeat in his ears. This was the moment. The turning point. For himself. For the Virelle name. For the future he'd worked toward all his life.
He could still hear his father's words from that morning: "You carry centuries on your shoulders, boy. Do not stumble."
I won't, Kael thought, swallowing. I can't.
He tried not to look at the tiers of nobility encircling him — the High Magi, their gemstone-crowned apprentices, and the gilded gallery of aristocrats. But his gaze caught on two familiar faces.
Arden Merrow, standing off to the side in deep crimson robes, met his gaze briefly and gave a tight nod. He looked nervous, but supportive. His closest friend since childhood.
And beside him stood Lyra Caledrin.
Her ceremonial gown shimmered like sunlit ocean glass, pale green with silver threading. Her honey-brown hair was pulled into an elegant braid that draped across her shoulder. Her face was unreadable, but Kael clung to the fact that she was there. Watching. Believing.
After this, he thought, I'll ask her to be mine. Truly. Finally.
He looked away before his resolve could weaken.
The High Magus stepped forward, the Oculus in his hands — a twisted staff of blackened rootwood laced with quartz veins. Its tip glowed faintly, as if waiting. A hush fell across the courtyard.
"Kael Virelle," the Magus intoned. "Step forward and present yourself."
Kael's boots echoed softly on the etched stone. He knelt, as tradition demanded, placing both hands on the binding glyphs carved into the dais floor. Cold surged into his palms like frostbite. He gritted his teeth.
The staff was raised above him.
"I call upon the elements," the Magus intoned. "Reveal his truth. Let the world see what power sleeps within his blood."
A pulse of light burst from the Oculus.
The glyphs beneath Kael ignited in a circle of white flame. Air rushed around him. Power surged through the platform — raw, ancient, probing.
Kael closed his eyes.
Please. Anything. Fire. Wind. Even shadow. Please, just something.
But then… the light faltered.
The air stilled. The heat faded.
And the runes under his hands went dark.
Gasps erupted from the noble tiers. One by one, the attending Magi turned to look at each other.
"No," Kael whispered. "Wait. No, try again—"
But the staff dimmed. The glow was gone.
The High Magus lowered the Oculus slowly, his expression carved from stone.
"No elemental resonance," he said, voice like cold iron. "The boy is voidborn."
Kael's stomach hollowed. His hands trembled.
"I—I studied. I passed every sigil exam, I can cast minor spells, I—"
"Enough," snapped Archmage Thalor from the dais. "This is not a test of scholarship. This is a summoning of your essence. You have no affinity."
Laughter sparked in the gallery, small at first, then swelling. A noble heir covered his mouth and snorted. Another whispered behind his fan, "A Virelle? Voidborn? Poetic."
Kael's heart beat too fast. The world tilted.
He looked toward the side — toward Arden, who stood frozen.
And Lyra.
She looked away.
Not in horror.
Not in sympathy.
But in something else.
Shame.
Kael stumbled back from the dais. "There must be a mistake. My bloodline—my mother—she was a fire-tier—"
"And yet you are nothing," Thalor said flatly.
"His mother consorted with shadow priests," someone murmured in the crowd. "It was always cursed blood."
Thalor raised his voice.
"The Virelle line is severed. This disgrace shall not stand. Kael Virelle is hereby stripped of rank and title. Henceforth, he is banished to the Outlands."
The crowd erupted.
"No!" Kael shouted. "You can't—my father—my house—!"
His voice was drowned beneath scorn and jeers.
A pair of guards stepped forward, gauntlets gleaming. One grabbed Kael by the arm.
Then, through the noise, Kael heard a voice — soft, private, piercing.
"I'm sorry."
Lyra's lips.
She mouthed it without sound. Not for anyone else. Not for Arden. Just him.
But she didn't move.
Didn't fight.
Didn't speak.
Kael's knees buckled, and the guards dragged him away from the Awakening Dais as the Oculus went dark once more.
He didn't know how long he was held.
The sun had long since dipped below the walls when the guards finally dumped him in the northern servant corridor — robes torn, crest removed, bruises on his ribs and arms.
He wandered, dazed, through the night halls of the academy one last time.
The ancient banners. The smell of wax and dust and incense. The voices behind doors, rising and falling in laughter and spell recitation. His world, now denied to him.
He found himself outside Lyra's chambers without meaning to.
Her tower was always open to him before. When they were children. When she cried after her mother's death. When they snuck wine during solstice feasts.
The door was slightly ajar.
Light flickered inside. Candlelight. Movement. Breathing.
Kael stepped forward, numb.
"Lyra?" he whispered.
No answer.
He pushed the door open.
And froze.
There, amidst a tangle of green silk sheets and discarded robes, were two bodies. Skin against skin. Her soft gasp. His voice.
Arden.
His hand in her hair. Her leg wrapped around his waist.
Kael couldn't move. Couldn't blink.
His vision tunneled.
He stepped back once. The floor creaked. Lyra's head turned.
Her eyes locked with his.
Wide. Shocked.
But not surprised.
She didn't scream.
Didn't cover herself.
She just watched him.
And Kael—Kael turned and ran.
He fled into the lower halls, heart in his throat, blood roaring in his ears. He didn't stop until he collapsed behind the burned stables at the academy edge.
He vomited until there was nothing left.
Then screamed into the dirt until his throat bled.
At sunrise, he was dragged to the eastern gates.
A branding mage pressed a searing rune into his collarbone — a glowing sigil that suppressed magical contact.
"Nullborn," the mage sneered.
He was handed a torn cloak. A cracked staff.
And tossed beyond the wall.
The Outlands sprawled before him — dark, gnarled forests stretching beneath a sky like shattered slate. Rumors said beasts wandered there. Cursed remnants of the old wars. Failed mages. Flesh-eaters. Madness.
Kael stared into the wind, his body broken, his soul hollow.
Everything — the Circle, his house, Lyra, Arden — had crumbled in a single day.
He was twenty.
And utterly, irrevocably alone.