The halls of Blackstone weren't just quiet — they were suffocating.
A magical lockdown silenced even the wind. Wards shimmered over every archway, red and humming, pulsing in tune with the heartbeat of the academy itself. From the windows of the dorm towers, students watched patrol drones sweep the skies, their crystal cores glowing with a sickly white heat. The whispers had grown sharper:
"Someone awakened the Vein."
"The Circle Keepers are here."
"He was supposed to be just Mark Wilde."
But Mark Wilde no longer had the luxury of pretending.
He and Elira moved like ghosts through the forgotten levels of the Academy — places where no student ventured, where time itself seemed uncertain. Each staircase led them lower, where the air grew colder, and the architecture older. Not polished and magi-tech enhanced like the upper floors, but ancient, hand-carved, and half-consumed by roots and faded runes.
They moved in silence, and yet the world around them pulsed louder with every step — as if the earth was remembering him.
"You said your mother vanished," Mark said finally, breaking the silence as they reached a circular chamber layered with vines and dust-covered sigils. "But you never said why."
Elira paused, tracing one rune on the wall that sparked faintly at her touch. "She was a cryptomancer. Not just a spellcaster — she studied the root of spell structures, the way language and emotion intersect with mana."
Mark stared at her. "Runic cognition. That's old magic."
She nodded. "And she believed the Forbidden Tier wasn't forbidden because it was dangerous... but because it was misunderstood. Misaligned. She called it a 'Vein of the First Will.' A source that predates all Circles and schools."
"Do you believe her?" Mark asked.
Elira turned toward him, eyes sharp. "I saw her vanish mid-word. The runes around her folded like a dying sun. She looked... scared. Not of death. But of being erased."
Mark's jaw clenched. That same fear had been dancing at the edge of his own thoughts since the Crucible.
Above them, the Circle Keepers moved like smoke.
You couldn't track their footsteps. You didn't hear their robes rustle. Their presence wasn't detected — it was felt, like a drop in atmospheric pressure. Like a coming storm.
In the council chamber, Headmaster Kirian stood alone before the Maw — the leader of the Keepers, whose mask bore the jagged rune of silence, cracked like the maw of a screaming god.
"You let it awaken," the Maw said.
Kirian held his ground. "I guided him. I gave him access to the Archives. That was deliberate."
"You opened a gate," Maw said. "And now it pulses."
The Maw raised his hand, and a circle of floating runes shimmered — each a glyph containing the entire magical profile of Mark Wilde.
"Rogue Tier. Unstable Signature. Predicted Cascade Event: Class Black."
"Do you even understand what he is?" Kirian said.
"Yes," said Maw. "He's what we were made to kill."
Down in the Observatory, Mark sat cross-legged on the floor, the forbidden tome open before him. The runes no longer looked alien. They whispered. They moved like instinct.
"They're rewriting themselves," Elira whispered, watching over his shoulder.
"No," Mark murmured. "They're reacting to me. Or maybe… remembering me."
He raised his hand. The inked rune floated off the page and hovered over his palm. It burned blue, then darkened into black fire.
This wasn't like mana. It was not cast — it was called. A force summoned not from within, but from below. From beneath the layers of language and structure modern magic had piled on for centuries.
"You ever hear of the First Language?" Mark asked, still watching the rune.
"Only in legends," Elira said cautiously. "A language that wasn't spoken, but lived. Magic that changed reality because it already was."
Mark's eyes narrowed.
"These runes don't spell anything. They are something."
Suddenly, the rune flared and sank into his skin.
He hissed — not in pain, but from a shock of memory.
Not his.
He was in a city of stone towers, under a violet sky.
He saw a crowd of robed figures chanting in a circle.
He stood at the center — older, taller, cloaked in shadow and flame.
A name burned through his soul. Not "Mark." Not "Maximilian." Something older.
Then it was gone.
He collapsed back, panting.
"Mark!" Elira knelt by him. "What did you see?"
He stared at the ceiling. "My name... isn't new here."
She looked down at the tome.
Its final page had filled itself.
A single phrase, written in ancient ink:
"The one who woke the Vein must choose: Remember or Burn."
The stone wall behind them cracked.
A spiral glyph shimmered into being.
A Circle Keeper stepped through, moving like a shadow given shape. His voice was deep, and strangely calm.
"Mark Wilde. By decree of the Binding Accord, I offer you one chance to submit. Come with me. Be sealed. Live."
Mark stood slowly, wiping blood from under his nose.
"And if I don't?"
The Keeper raised his hand. The wall behind him warped, peeling into a mass of red glyphs, forming a construct of judgment — a spell designed not to kill, but erase. Wipe memory, body, soul.
Elira gasped. "Mark—run!"
But Mark didn't move.
He stared at the erasure spell forming behind the Keeper — and then, without a gesture, without a word, he let the Forbidden Tier pulse from his chest.
The Keeper faltered.
The construct cracked.
Then shattered.
Mark's voice was low. Cold. Ancient.
"You think I was born yesterday. But I was buried here before this school had a name."
The Keeper took one step back.
Then another.
Mark advanced, his presence warping the floor beneath him.
"Tell your Maw I'm done hiding."
He raised his hand, and black runes circled his wrist.
"I'm not the threat you fear," he said.
"I'm the proof you were wrong."
Far below the school, the Vein pulsed again.
And across the ley-lines of the world, one by one, ancient structures flickered online.
Dormant ruins.
Forgotten machines.
Untranslated runes.
And buried deep beneath the world's most sacred prison, a sigil cracked — and something inside began to stir.
It whispered the name Wilde like it was a curse... or a homecoming.