Headmaster Veyron's office smelled of old ink and polished wood, the windows open to a courtyard that had once felt like a different world.
He folded the papers with a gentleness that belonged more to a librarian than a headmaster, then set them on the desk between them.
"You're free to go," he said, plain as a statement of fact. "No escorts. No wards stationed at your door. No formal watch."
His eyes were steady, not triumphal but tired in a way that meant he'd argued with more than paperwork to reach this decision. "Over the past weeks, I've watched you temper it. The awakenings were violent, unforgiving at first, but you learned to breathe with the echo. You've not mastered the full depth of it yet, Aurelia, but you can control it. That will keep you and those you love safe."
Aurelia's mouth went dry. "You mean…this is true? You'll let me walk without guards?"
Veyron nodded once. "Yes. I've seen the restraint. Trust yourself now as I've begun to trust you."
Is it relief or a new kind of fear? She felt the odd double-thrum of both in her chest. If I fail, it will be my fault alone. If I succeed, it will be my proof.
She knuckled the crease of her sleeve, a small, human reflex.
"I can do it," she said, the words steadier than they felt.
Veyron's mouth loosened into what passed for a smile on him. He rose and opened the door, stepping aside as if clearing the world for her. "Then go. Walk the grounds. Live, Aurelia."
The parchment had been stamped and sealed that morning, and she let the sunlight from the courtyard wash over her, bright and ordinary, and for a sliver of a moment, entirely believable.
By midday, the corridors hummed with the ordinary insistence of the Academy: footfalls, the soft scrape of robes, idle conversations about exams and texts.
No tutor walked the line with her, no escort trailed at a polite distance. She was simply free.
Marble opened before her in long, cool planes, and the air tasted faintly of dust and ink and the metallic tang of Aether from students making practice in side rooms.
When she passed the carved runes set into the corridor walls, they answered as if to a familiar song, fiber-light at first, then a pale lunar flicker that slid along their grooves.
It should have felt like a warning. Instead, it felt like a sigh of recognition, the stone remembered the moon in the way she did.
She tried to fold her attention into a small ball. Smiles are practiced as much as parries, and she wore one for the students who turned to stare, some curious, some cautious, and for the tutors who offered polite nods.
Lysandra burst into her path as if the world could not possibly be obeying the rules of distance that day.
She wrapped Aurelia in a hug that smelled of pastry and too-sweet tea, and the pressure of the other girl's arms made something warm and fierce bloom beneath Aurelia's ribs, "You're free!"
Kael met her eyes and gave the slight, private nod he always gave.
It was the same acknowledgment that had been between them in training yards and late-night practice, a little island of steadiness.
Two syllables of approval without a word, and it steadied her more than she expected.
Still, beneath the careful happiness, the moonlight moved under her skin like a remembered tide.
A small pulse of memory pushed against the inside of her skull, a laugh that wasn't hers, the scrape of a desk, the ghost of a lullaby.
She felt it as one feels a heartbeat in a sleeping room, impossible to ignore, yet not yet an alarm.
Her training rose like a hand: Edda's breath-counting, Corin's little rule to call one sense and no more.
Aurelia breathed in, pulled Aether to her sternum like a thin rope, and let the recollection fall away to the margin where she had learned to keep things tidy.
She kept walking. Freedom, she decided as the corridor opened into sunlight, did not mean forgetting the ledger in her pocket, it meant knowing when to set the pen down.
The runes stilled as she left them behind, their lunar gleam shrinking to something polite and ordinary.
Around her, the Academy spun on, with students, gossip, and the slow, small violence of exams.
Aurelia let herself be one of them, her hands steady, her face composed, a quiet, practiced promise folded into the hollow of her palm: keep the key.
They walked the marble corridor side by side, the academy's hush folding around them like a familiar cloak.
Kael's voice cut the quiet first. "Are the voices… the visions, are they fading at all?"
Aurelia glanced between them and let a small, weary smile form. "A little. Not gone. Just thinner, like rain that used to drown the street but now only taps the eaves."
It's better than last week, at least. I can breathe between the tides of memory.
"I've been seeing graduates," she added. "Not just nameless faces, students and teachers who walked these halls decades ago. I saw Marlec and Seris as students once, arguing over a rune table."
Lysandra's mouth fell open. "Wait, Professor Marlec as a student? No way."
"It looked like them," Aurelia said. "You could see the same scowl and the same impatient hands." She met Lysandra's stunned grin and let the moment warm her.
It's strange, seeing them younger. Humanizes them. Terrifies me less and intrigues me more.
Lysandra hopped a little on her toes. "So it has no limit? You can just…see anything?"
"Not exactly." Aurelia's voice softened. "It's limited. The past reaches toward me in pieces, not whole movies. I'd prefer not to keep living in replay. I want the present. I want this"—she touched both their hands—"to be real, not filtered through ghosts."
The sincerity in her tone was honest and small, Kael and Lysandra answered it with the same quiet.
"You should've told us sooner," Lysandra said, pouting suddenly. "We could've helped."
Kael shrugged, pragmatic as ever. "Would that have been wise? Try telling people you hear voices and see impossible things, then ask them not to call the healer or the wardens." He glanced at Aurelia sideways. "You don't get 'sympathy' — you get a diagnosis."
Lysandra bristled. "I would've believed her. I would've—"
Aurelia cut in before she could mount a dramatic defense.
With a teasing lift of her chin, she said, "I already know your past life, by the way."
Lysandra squealed and stamped a pretend glare. "Don't scare me," she squeaked.
Kael put a steady hand on Aurelia's shoulder. "Don't freak her out," he said to her softly, then to Lysandra, "and don't be dramatic. You'd have believed her, sure, but most people wouldn't."
Aurelia let that land. "I didn't tell you because I feared two things," she admitted, the words slow and careful. "One: that you'd think I'd gone mad. Two: that the visions can…spill. Not always, but sometimes, when I'm not careful, the echoes touch others. I didn't want this bleeding into you."
I couldn't risk infecting the ones I care about with whatever this is.
Lysandra's eyes glistened, and emotion came in a rush. She stepped forward and wrapped Aurelia in a sudden, fierce hug. "I don't care if the world thinks you're mad," she said into Aurelia's shoulder. "I love you. I'll believe you and fight with you."
Aurelia's throat tightened. She means it. She returned the hug with both arms, surprised by how much steadiness it gave her.
Kael let out a soft laugh to break the hush. "Headmaster did say you can learn to temper it," he said, more gently. "And control is control, day by day." He looked at Aurelia with that quiet, pragmatic warmth. "You'll learn where the edges are."
Aurelia nodded. "Usually, it depends on how I'm feeling. If I'm calm… It's a whisper. If I panic—" She stopped, meeting their faces. "I don't want to make anyone carry my storms."
Lysandra straightened, eyes fierce. "Then I'll be your weather. I'll make you feel happy." She grinned, ridiculous and earnest. "It's my official promise."
Aurelia laughed, soft and real, "I'll hold you to it."
As they walked into the classroom, what greeted them was Professor's Marlec's smile, a rare sight.
"Aurelia," he said, voice warm. "Good to see you back in class as a student."
She inclined her head. Good to be back.
Marlec's expression softened and grew a little rueful. "Headmaster Veyron told me. He believes you've learned to steady it." He glanced around the room as if to stage-manage the moment. "I've informed the students. I told them there's nothing to fear, and that they should treat you like every other student."
A murmur moved across the desks, part wonder, part something sharper.
Aurelia felt it like a breeze along the back of her neck. Eyes. Always the eyes.
Lysandra's hand found hers, and Kael gave a glare towards the students.
Marlec caught the ripple of attention, and his face hardened to teacher mode. "Enough gawking."
His glare cleared the room like a bell. Students hunched into proper attentiveness quickly. "If anyone here thinks of staring, you'll read two weeks of runic theory and then practice it until you dream in sigils. Understood?"
Silence tightened. Aurelia allowed herself a small, private smile at the theatrics, but she could feel Marlec's concern at the edges of it.
When the class had settled, he stepped closer and, more quietly, addressed her.
"You shouldn't have carried that alone," he said, as if offering both apology and counsel. "When I touched your shoulder that day, during the incident. I heard what you've been hearing. I saw what you've been seeing. I failed as a teacher for not asking. Please tell me if anything changes. If you feel that echo or see something you can't explain, tell someone. Promise me."
Aurelia met his eyes. You saw it. You know. The relief in that recognition was oddly sharp. "I will," she said.
Marlec folded his hands and turned to the blackboard. "Today, we move from the mechanics of Aether to its music. "Harmonization is not puppetry," he announced, the chalk scratching across the board as he wrote the words in three deliberate strokes: Harmonization — Rhythm, Resonance, and Echo.
"It is listening. Stage Two—Harmonic Flow—teaches you to align your inner rhythm with the world's current, so your work doesn't fight the stream. Stage Three—Echocraft—teaches you to leave an echo that the Aether will answer."
He began pacing, hands expressive. "Control is not suppression. Control is giving Aether a part to play: steady breath, measured tone, and a clear intention. Today's exercise is simple and public: we'll practice breath-sync with the room's ambient current, then apply a small echo to a gentle conjuration."
Aurelia focused. Listen. Breathe. Match. Do not let it surprise you.
She set her jaw, drew a slow, deliberate breath, and tuned herself inward, feeling for the faint silver thread that had been quieter in recent weeks, listening for the world's pulse beneath her skin.
Lysandra cocked her head, all bright curiosity. "So you're not cheating, right? You've already—what, seen Stage Three? That's like peeking at the answers."
Aurelia gave a small, wry smile. "No. I can read echoes, see where the Aether has left a memory in the air. That's not the same as making one."
She folded her hands in her lap, choosing her words. "Echocraft is about giving the world a fingerprint. You don't hear an echo, you leave one. You see the Aether with an intention, with a feeling so precise it repeats itself. Then the current answers, not because it must, but because you taught it to."
It's one thing to listen. It's another to be loud enough that the world remembers you.
She set her palm flat on the desk and closed her eyes. Around her, the classroom buzzed in ordinary ways, a page turning, a distant scrap of laughter.
Aurelia breathed slowly, letting the rhythm of her pulse set the metronome.
Her fingers drew a tiny arc through the air, a motion almost too small to notice.
The Aether answered like a held breath giving out. A pale glow gathered where her fingertip had passed, a faint lunar shimmer that hung for a heartbeat and then folded in on itself.
Then, after a beat, the shimmer returned on its own, obedient as a second heartbeat.
Lysandra's mouth fell open. Kael straightened from his notes, eyebrows raised.
Aurelia smiled, startled and steady. "That is Echocraft," she said softly. "Not because the effect was beautiful, it was a simple ghost of light, but because I made the world remember that motion. I left a small signature, and the Aether echoed it back." She tapped again, and the light replied. Twice. A rule obeyed.
Echocraft, as she now understood, was much like finally tasting a word, which reveals the essence of a spice, and was the art of shaping identity in the present moment.
It involves crafting rhythm, genuine emotion, and precise form so that the Aether continues to respond to the same call.
This process requires authenticity, a false note won't resonate, and disciplin, echoes that linger invite scrutiny if they aren't properly nurtured.
Lysandra clapped, delighted. "So you did it! You made the Aether do a trick!"
Aurelia laughed, quieter than Lysandra's cheer, and let the small light die on her palm. "Not a trick," she corrected, but her voice held a warmth that surprised her. "A tool. And tools need practice."
With enough practice, I may be able to shape more than what I find.
Lysandra's grin faltered into curiosity. "Okay, fine, that was very showy. But why is your Aether that pale lunar white, Aurelia? I mean, we draw from the world's current. It shouldn't… have a color like that."
Aurelia hesitated. "It didn't before. Ever since I awakened my Aspect, it's been like this. Even when I cast simple spells—fire, water, light—they all have that same pale, faded, pearlescent hue. I thought it was just me."
Professor Marlec looked up from his notes nearby and stepped closer with the faint creak of his boots. "No, not just you," he said, even and patient."
Marlec gestured around the classroom, where drifting threads of Aether still shimmered faintly from the students' exercises.
"Aether," he began, "is not intrinsically colorless, though it may appear so at first. It's the current of the world, a living tide. When we draw from it, that current passes through us and takes on the stamp of our soul."
He turned his hand, summoning a slow pale thread from the air. "Most people's Aether looks blue or white because their soul's resonance is unremarkable, balanced, and calm. But when something extraordinary shapes a soul, the current changes color as it passes through."
He looked at Aurelia. "Your Aether is lunar-white because your soul's resonance shifted when your Aspect awakened. It's luminous, like moonlight made tangible, pearly and soft, with a faint, cool wash of blue-gray at the edges. The sheen is not the world's alone, it's your imprint on it."
Aurelia raised a small sphere of light in her palm. The glow was pale and opalescent, and the edges seemed to drink color from the air and return it paler still. Soft, not sharp. Cool to the touch.
Marlec continued, "Internally, Aether flows through what we call the Spiral Veins—the channels behind the heart and eyes, the pulse that moves through breath and focus. You feel it as clarity, calm, and precision. Aura, by contrast, burns through the body through muscle and blood. Aura is warmth, instinct, life. Aether is harmony, thought, and will."
He studied her hand. "Yours feels clearer than most. That lunar tint means your connection to the current reflects something reflective and resonant in you. The moonlight quality implies recall, resonance, and a reflective clarity, a tendency to mirror and hold echoes."
Lysandra's eyes widened. "So that's why even her light spells look like moonlit water!"
Marlec nodded. "Yes. It's a sign of alignment with reflection itself. In your case, the moon: remembrance, rhythm, renewal."
Lysandra leaned in, grinning. "See? You're literally moonlit."
Aurelia laughed, quiet and real. "That's one way to put it."
As the last trace of lunar light faded into her skin, she thought, if the moonlight chose me, maybe I can learn to answer it in kind.
Kael leaned in, squinting at her. "You know," he said, "your eyes look different. Paler. Like the colors fading into moonlight."
Aurelia blinked, alarm tightening in her chest. "It affects the body, too?! Not just Aether?!"
Lysandra gasped dramatically, leaning in so close their foreheads nearly touched. "Oh no, he's right!" she said, nodding with theatrical seriousness. "They're glowing a little. Moon-eyes! That's how it starts!"
Aurelia froze, her hands flying to her face. "What do you mean that's how it starts—?!"
Before the panic could spiral, a familiar voice cut through, smooth, amused, and annoyingly sure of itself. "Honestly," Lucien said from behind them, arms crossed and a smirk playing at his lips, "you're all too easy. Aurelia's gullible, and you two are terrible influences."
Kael hid a grin. "You broke the illusion," he said flatly.
Aurelia exhaled, half a sigh, half a groan. "So you were joking?"
Lysandra laughed, holding up her hands in mock surrender. "Yeah, until this prince decided to ruin it."
Lucien only smiled, tilting his head. "I suppose someone had to be the voice of reason. Besides," he added lightly, "I should be asking when I'll unlock my own Aspect. We can't have you being the only one, Aurelia."
Kael shrugged, voice even. "Yours will probably be something to do with leadership. During the second trial of the Convergence Tournament, it was your strategy that carried us through. That kind of presence isn't ordinary."
Lucien's expression faltered just a little, the faintest hint of color rising to his cheeks. "That's—hardly—" he began, but Aurelia cut him off with a grin.
"Oh, the great prince can't handle a compliment now?" she teased, leaning on her desk.
Lucien gave her a look that could have melted steel, if it weren't for the embarrassment behind it. "Shut up," he muttered, though his tone carried more warmth than annoyance.
Kael chuckled under his breath, Lysandra giggled openly, and Aurelia smiled in the small moment of Lucien's embarrassment.