The air in the Hall of Confluence was so thick with potential it was hard to breathe. It tasted of ozone and old stone, of incense and the sharp, metallic tang of raw mana being drawn from the world's ley lines. Five pillars of polished obsidian formed a perfect circle, each one humming with a different frequency of power. This was the neutral ground, the sacred space where once a year, the rival academies set aside their enmity for a ritual of unity and shared strength. It was supposed to be symbolic. A formality.
Kaelen, the vessel, stood motionless in the center. He was a young man chosen not for his own power—he had none to speak of—but for his perfect neutrality and a rare spiritual permeability noted by the seers. His mind was a quiet lake, ready to reflect the five forces that would flow through him. His job was to stand there, to feel, and to remember. He was the cup, not the wine.
Upon each pillar stood a representative, the best and brightest of their generation.
From the ashen spires of the Necropolis, Silas offered a grim, focused smile. His fingers, pale and long, traced patterns in the air, pulling tendrils of faint, mournful energy from the veil between life and death. He found beauty in the silence that followed all things.
On the opposite pillar, Lyra of the Pyreheart Academy cracked her knuckles, a spark jumping from her thumb to her forefinger. Her red hair was a wild mane tied back hastily, her eyes gleaming with competitive fire. She was here to prove Pyromancy was the purest, most potent form of magic, all subtlety be damned.
To her left, Bren of the Terran Covenant stood like a statue himself, his boots seemingly fused to the obsidian. His power was a patient, grinding force, the slow and immense weight of the earth. He watched the others with a calm, unmovable skepticism.
To Silas's right, Elara of the Azure College moved with a liquid grace, a faint shimmer of humidity clinging to her robes. She summoned a single, perfect orb of water that danced between her palms, her expression one of serene concentration. Hydromancy was about flow, adaptation, and finding the path of least resistance—a philosophy that irked Lyra to no end.
And finally, there was Corvin from the Zephyr Spire. He barely seemed to be taking the ritual seriously, a faint, mischievous smile playing on his lips as he juggled three motes of compressed air above his palm. Aeromancy was the magic of freedom, of unpredictability, and he embodied it completely.
The Archmage, an ancient man from a neutral order, raised his hands. His voice boomed through the hall, resonating in their bones. "Let the Conflux begin! Draw upon your elements, but remember the purpose: harmony. Weave your powers together through the vessel. Create a tapestry of unity!"
The five young mages began their incantations. Five streams of pure, elemental energy—emerald death, crimson fire, umber stone, cerulean water, and argent wind—lanced out from their fingertips and struck Kaelen in the chest.
For a single, breathtaking moment, it worked. Kaelen gasped, his back arching as a kaleidoscope of power flooded his senses. He saw the heat death of stars and the patient growth of mountains, the relentless push of the tide and the silent whisper of the crypt, the joyous chaos of a gale-force wind. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. It was everything.
Then, the harmony shattered.
It started with a discordant note, a vibration that was wrong. A spike of corrosive, black energy—not Silas's clean necromancy, but something vile and parasitic—shot from the base of the Necropolis pillar and twisted the stream of magic. The carefully balanced forces revolted.
Lyra's fire, never gentle, raged out of control. Bren's earth magic hardened defensively, blocking the flows. Elara's water surged to douse the fire, flash-boiling into scalding steam. Corvin's air, startled, whipped into a cutting vortex.
The five streams of power, now weaponized, knotted around Kaelen into a screaming vortex of conflicting energy. The Archmage cried out, his voice lost in the roar. The obsidian pillars shrieked as cracks spiderwebbed across their surfaces.
Kaelen's world dissolved into pure, unadulterated agony. It felt as if his soul were being pulled in five directions simultaneously, stretched on a rack of elemental torment. He heard, or perhaps felt, five other screams join his own—the voices of the mages, torn from their own bodies as the ritual reversed, sucking them inward.
There was a sound like the world tearing in half.
Then, silence.
Kaelen awoke.
His head was a cathedral of pain, a thousand different bells all ringing at once, each with a unique, awful tone. He was lying on the cold, cracked floor of the hall. Dust and the smell of lightning hung heavy in the air. Groaning, he pushed himself up onto his elbows.
What a wretched noise. And this vessel... it feels like a poorly fitted glove.
The thought was not his own. It was crisp, cold, and carried an aristocratic disdain. It echoed in the space behind his eyes.
"Vessel"? Is that what you call him? Show some respect, you grave-robber. He's holding us together, barely. And someone shut that wind-boy up, his panic is giving me a migraine.
That voice was all heat and sharp edges, a familiar fire. Lyra.
I am not panicking! I'm... conducting a rapid atmospheric analysis. It's very complex. You wouldn't understand. This voice was light, quick, and laced with a fear it was trying to mask. Corvin.
Kaelen clutched his head. "Stop," he whispered, his voice raw.
The Pyromancer is correct, for once. We must have quiet. Geomancy teaches us that stability begins with a firm foundation. We must assess the situation. A new voice, slow, deliberate, and grounding. Bren.
Assessment: our souls are no longer in our bodies. They are here. In his. The ritual feedback was catastrophic. We are... shardbound. This final voice was calm, analytical, and carried the chilling finality of a closed tomb. Silas.
A wave of nausea worse than any pain washed over Kaelen. He wasn't just hearing voices. He was feeling them. A flicker of anger that wasn't his, a spike of fear, a cold calculation, a stubborn calm. They were in him. All of them.
Oh, this is just perfect, Lyra's thought spat. Trapped in a nobody with a bunch of rivals. And a necromancer. I'd rather be dead.
The feeling is mutual, I assure you, Silas retorted coldly.
"Stop talking!" Kaelen said aloud, staggering to his feet. His body felt alien. He looked down at his hands—his hands—but the urge to snap his fingers and summon a flame warred with the desire to feel the soil beneath his feet. He took a step and felt oddly light, as if a breeze could carry him away.
He was a puppet with five puppeteers, each fighting for the strings.
Across the ruined hall, he saw them. Five bodies, crumpled and lifeless at the base of their respective pillars. Their chests were still. Empty.
The horror of it was a cold knife in his gut. This was real.
The great doors to the hall burst open. Guards and mages from all five academies flooded in, their faces a mask of shock and confusion. Their eyes scanned the room, finding the five dead apprentices. Then their gaze landed on him. The only one left standing. The neutral vessel, unharmed amidst the wreckage.
The Archmage, pale and supported by two aides, pointed a trembling finger at Kaelen.
"Seize him!" the old man croaked, his voice filled with grief and fury. "He... he has consumed them! That thing is no longer human! Seize the abomination!"
Kaelen—or the collective that was now Kaelen—took a stumbling step back. Five instincts, five sets of knowledge, five wills flooded into him at the threat.
Run! Screamed Corvin's instinct.
Fight! Roared Lyra's.
Stand your ground! Bren's will asserted.
Analyze the exits, Silas commanded coolly.
This is a catastrophe, Elara's voice finally joined, wringing with despair.
Overwhelmed, Kaelen's body didn't know what to do. It simply froze.
But as the guards advanced, weapons drawn, a single impulse overrode the chaos. It was a base, survival instinct shared by all five of them, channeled through the one who understood movement best.
Without his conscious thought, Kaelen's body dropped into a low stance. The air around him shimmered, compressed, and then—
WHOOM.
He shot backwards faster than an arrow, a blast of wind propelling him straight out of the shattered stained-glass window behind him, into the open air beyond the hall. He was flying. Or falling. He wasn't sure.
The last thing he heard from the hall was the stunned roar of the crowd, and five very different voices screaming in unison inside his own head.