It began with a list.
Kael's name was on it.
He read it three times to be sure. The scroll was nailed to the Trials Pavilion door, its ink still fresh and faintly shimmering with System authorization glyphs. Thirty-seven names. Thirty-seven students selected for the Gatewalk.
His was the last name on the list.
Kael Fell Ashwin.
He stood in silence, the world behind him buzzing with whispers. Students gathered in huddled knots, glancing toward the list, toward him. Some with curiosity. Others with confusion. A few with unease.
The Gatewalk was not a right.
It was a reckoning.
In its simplest terms, the Gatewalk was a test—a controlled descent into a fragment of reality split from the System's core, sealed behind something ancient and dangerous. A dimensional wound dressed up as opportunity.
Gatewalks weren't for just anyone. They were for candidates marked by divergence—those who didn't fit cleanly into the System's branches. The flawed. The unstable. The unresolved.
For years, the Academy had used it to identify potential anomalies and either elevate them—or eliminate them.
Out of every hundred candidates, maybe ten were selected.
Out of every ten selected, maybe three returned.
And not always intact.
The world didn't speak openly about the cost.
Kael had read about it only in footnotes and censored archives. He hadn't even considered he'd be chosen. He didn't have a Path. Didn't even have a functioning Core.
But the System had spoken.
And the Gate had answered.
They assembled in the lower courtyard that night, under the pale glow of the twin moons. All thirty-seven students stood in silence as a group of instructors watched from the balcony above. Among them, Kael recognized faces: Cassiel Vaeron, Lyra Telm, Veyra Dorne, Thorn Revek.
And then there were others—unfamiliar, quiet, perhaps even more dangerous.
One of them stood out.
A boy around Kael's age, broad-shouldered, with a burn scar that crept up one side of his neck and stopped just beneath his jaw. His eyes were the color of old iron—dull and quiet, but deeply anchored. He carried himself like someone who had bled before.
When Kael's eyes passed over him, the boy nodded once.
"Elias," he said. "You're Ashwin, right?"
Kael gave a slow nod. "Kael."
"I heard the name before. Didn't think they'd put a Pathless in a Gatewalk."
Kael didn't reply.
"Don't worry," Elias added. "You're not the only one they're testing."
There was no arrogance in his tone. Just understanding. And something else Kael couldn't place. Weariness, maybe. Or resignation.
Elias would be the one, Kael thought. The one who mattered—who would matter—before this was over.
At midnight, the Gate arrived.
It didn't come with fanfare. No crackling thunder, no shaking of the world. Just a subtle hum as the central stone of the courtyard fractured, and from it, a shimmering structure rose—two obsidian pillars, tall and thin, encircling a void that bent the air around it.
It was black—not with absence, but with too much presence.
The Grand Adjudicator stepped forward.
"You stand at the edge of a threshold," he said. His voice echoed through the courtyard, not amplified by magic but by memory. "The Gatewalk is not a test of strength. It is not a battle. It is a confrontation—with what you are, and what the System cannot define."
Several students shifted uncomfortably.
"You will be sent to a Shard Realm," the Adjudicator continued. "A broken reflection of reality carved from a pre-System echo. You will remain there until the Gate reopens—either through completion… or collapse."
A few glanced around. No one spoke.
"You will be monitored. Not guided. You may receive assistance, but only once. Use it wisely."
The Gate pulsed once. A low hum, like breath held too long.
"Enter."
Kael stepped through second.
Cassiel went first, of course—eager and proud.
But Kael stepped forward with purpose. Not bravery. Not fear. Just inevitability.
The moment he passed through the veil, the world broke.
He fell—not through space, but through meaning. Through noise and color and silence and memory. His mind screamed without sound as light twisted around him, reshaping thought and shape into something unspeakable.
And then—
He landed.
Not hard. Not physically.
But landed.
He opened his eyes and saw nothing.
At first.
Then, shapes began to take form. Trees—jagged, bone-white things rising from crimson soil. The sky was the wrong color. Not red, not purple—shifting, as though light itself couldn't decide what it wanted to be.
He turned.
Others were there. Fifteen, maybe twenty.
Some groaned. Others gasped. Cassiel cursed, staggering upright. Lyra stood perfectly still, already watching the trees.
And Elias?
Elias was breathing hard, eyes shut, sweat dripping down his temple.
"This isn't a realm," he muttered. "It's a memory."
Kael stared at him.
"A memory of what?" he asked.
Elias opened his eyes. "Of something that died screaming."
Far above them, invisible and silent, a System prompt flickered in and out of existence:
[GATEWALK ENGAGED]
Shard Realm: [Unnamed: Echo-915a]
Cohort Integrity: 37/37
Mission Objective: Survive.]
Secondary Objective: Undefined.]
Observation Priority: HIGH – Kael Fell Ashwin.
Storm Protocol Flag: ACTIVE.]