There were no stars that night.
The sky above Academia Mutae hung heavy with clouds — not of storm or moonlight, but something older. A stillness that pressed against the world like a held breath. The kind of night where even shadows refused to move.
Sorin wandered the outer edge of the eastern gardens. He didn't walk for peace — for there was no peace in being forgotten — nor to think, for his thoughts had worn themselves into numbness. Each step echoed the cold rain he once felt behind the western wing of the academy, where his canvas was burned and his name erased. The ache of that silence still pressed against his chest like a memory refusing to die. He walked to feel the stone beneath his feet. The only thing left that did not lie.
All around the academy, lights glowed in celebration or dimmed in mourning. Students had faced the Trials. Some awakened. Some failed.
Sorin? He wasn't even listed.
No one celebrated his name. No one mourned his silence.
But absence, like silence, had weight — a weight that pressed into the edges of thought, shaping the emptiness with meaning. It was a silence Sorin had known all his life, and now, the world was beginning to feel it too.
He knelt beside the broken fountain at the garden's edge — a relic from a time before most remembered. Moss curled like secrets around the basin, and carved beneath its rim were sigils older than language.
Here, he let his fingers trace the stone. Circles. Lines. Spirals.
Not the glyphs of the Logic Path. Not the dreamscapes of the Mind. Something else. Something untouched by recognition.
He didn't know when he first started seeing them — the patterns etched in forgotten cracks, the symmetry of leaves, the tilt of moonlight.
Now, beneath a sky that refused to shine, the world no longer mocked him.
It watched.
Earlier that day, within the stone-ringed arena known as the Ember Circle, the students of Academia Mutae gathered for the post-Trials exhibition — a long-held tradition where chosen initiates demonstrated flashes of their awakening before peers and instructors.
Toven was first.
He stepped into the arena like he was born there. Flames curled around his arms in sharp arcs, dancing as he drew sigils midair. The crowd roared as he split the flame into twin whips, spinning them into a double helix that licked the sky.
"Path of Dominion," the announcer called, "Flame-tier Initiate: Toven Ferros."
Toven turned to the crowd and smirked — then locked eyes with Sorin in the shadows.
Next came Zira.
She floated an inch above the marble, her eyes glassy with dreamlight. Symbols shimmered behind her, not drawn but imagined, taking form in soft hues. One by one, illusionary figures emerged, acting out scenes of battles past — until they all bowed to a lone figure wreathed in moonlight.
"Path of Mind," the announcer intoned. "Dream-tier Initiate: Zira Velore."
The crowd murmured in awe. Even the archmasters leaned forward.
In the far shadows of the coliseum, Sorin watched — not with envy, but with something deeper: stillness. He studied the way their energies flared, the cracks in their illusions, the imbalance in their glyph symmetry. He saw the patterns beneath their performance.
Then the mock-fight was announced.
An old rite to test resonance under pressure — where students paired off in sparring duels. The pairing was random. At least, it was supposed to be.
Sorin's name was called.
Everyone turned.
Toven stepped forward, already grinning.
Gasps rippled through the arena. Some laughed, thinking it a mistake. Others whispered — wasn't he the boy who couldn't even cast a spark?
But the match was allowed.
Toven approached. Flames flickered from his fists. "Don't worry, ghost. I won't break you too quickly."
Sorin stood still. He didn't posture. Didn't move.
The duel began.
Toven lunged, flames lashing forward.
Sorin dodged — barely. Not with skill, but instinct. He felt the heat lick past him, heard the hiss in his bones. Toven struck again, laughter laced in fire.
And Sorin fell.
The flames grazed his shoulder, searing his robes.
The crowd jeered. The instructors said nothing.
Then something changed.
As Toven raised his arm for a finishing blow, Sorin's eyes widened — not in fear, but in focus.
He saw it again.
The pattern behind Toven's flame.
A fracture.
The vibration was wrong.
Sorin raised his hand — not to block, but to trace.
A spiral. A broken line. The glyph of unmaking.
The flame stopped.
It collapsed in on itself — not snuffed, but silenced.
The arena went dead quiet.
Toven stumbled back. "What... what did you do?"
Sorin didn't answer. He didn't need to.
He felt it in his chest — that echo.
Stage I — Spark.
The world had noticed him.
A ringing filled his ears.
Not imagined. Not dreamt.
Sound.
Real.
Sharp and trembling — like a string pulled tight for the first time.
Sorin gasped.
The crowd's roar became more than movement. It became thunder.
He stumbled, hands clutching his ears.
And then — for the first time in his life — he heard his own voice.
"What… is this?" he whispered.
His voice was hoarse, rusted by years of silence.
But it was real.
He could hear. He could speak.
And something deep within the world had responded.
That night, Sorin returned to the garden. The stone pulsed beneath his fingers. The spiral etched into moss now glowed faintly.
He sat beside the juniper near the cliffs.
He remembered the ash in Zira's fingers. Toven's sneer. His cot marked "ghost."
He remembered his mother's lullabies — not sung, but traced across his skin like warmth. Her face in the flames. Her eyes in his dreams.
And in that memory — something cracked.
A gust of wind brushed his cheek. He turned — but no one was there.
Only the stone. Only the silence.
Above, in a crumbling watchtower, the robed figure watched again. But now, his grip on the scroll tightened. A single tear rolled down the figure's cheek — not sorrow, but awe.
The boy had passed the first Gate.
The Silence had spoken.
And the Sovereign had begun to stir.
But others would come.
And not all would welcome what woke.