Chapter 1: An Error in the Registry
The Aetherium Ceremony Hall hummed with a light, airy magic that made Silas Vale's teeth ache. It was the sound of old money and older bloodlines, of destiny being purchased with generations of wealth. All around him, his new classmates were bonding with their familiars in showers of opulent sparkles and soft, celestial chimes. A girl in a dress that cost more than his tuition was now cradling a kitten woven from literal starlight.
Of course she was.
"Silas Vale."
The voice of the officiant, robed in gold-stitched white, was bored. It was the last name on the list, the one that didn't belong.
Silas stepped forward, his worn shoes silent on the polished marble. His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs, but his face was a mask of calm. This was it. The Basic Bonding Package—the bottom-shelf, budget-grade spiritual connection his scholarship covered. He wasn't hoping for a phoenix or a storm dragon. He'd have taken a dust-bunny spirit that could clean his dorm room, or a glow-mote to read by at night. Anything practical. Anything that could help him survive this gilded cage and secure a stable, unremarkable future.
He placed his hand on the smooth, cool surface of the Aetherial Orb. The magic flowed into him, a searching, gentle light. It felt like warm water, rifling through the dusty corners of his soul, looking for a compatible spark from the Approved Celestial Registry.
And then he felt it *snag*.
Not on something small and safe. It was like a fishing line catching on a sunken battleship. The orb under his palm didn't glow with a soft light. It *voided*. The luminescence around his hand was consumed, devoured by a perfect, silent blackness that drank the very light from the air.
The officiant frowned, tapping the crystalline plinth. "An error? The system's never—"
*Pain.*
It wasn't physical. It was the pain of infinity. The sensation of scales the size of continents brushing against the fragile eggshell of his mind. He saw geometries that defied understanding, in colors that murdered their own names. A knowledge so vast and terrible it would have vaporized him on the spot if not for the thin, fragile barrier of his own insignificance.
And then, a *voice*. It wasn't in his ears. It was in the silence between his heartbeats, in the cracks between his neurons.
*[Query: Designation?]*
The words were not words. They were the grinding of dead stars, the hiss of entropy, the concept of a question given form. Silas couldn't speak. His mind, screaming in its primal cage, could only form a single, frantic thought: *What are you?*
*[Designation: Inapplicable. Concept: He Who Lurks Behind The Stars. Status: Fragmented. Dormant. Agreement: Symbiosis?]*
The world snapped back into focus with the violence of a slammed door. Silas was on his knees, gasping, his hand torn from the orb. The orb was normal again, inert and gleaming. The officiant was staring, his mouth slightly agape. A hushed, nervous whisper had rippled through the remaining students.
And coiled around his shadow on the flawless floor was a wisp of deeper darkness. It was a serpentine suggestion, a patch of non-light that held the vague impression of too many eyes that opened and closed in a discordant rhythm. To everyone else, it probably just looked like a trick of the light. A strange, perhaps slightly unsettling, shadow.
But Silas could *feel* it. The profound cold that had nothing to do with temperature. The impossible weight, as if a galaxy was resting on his shoulders. The raw, thrumming power that lay just beneath his skin, whispering promises of everything he'd never had for a price he couldn't yet comprehend.
*[Assessment: Vessel Viability - 68.4%. Probability of Systemic Annihilation Upon Discovery: 99.9%. Conclusion: We Must Remain... Unregistered.]*
The officiant finally coughed, composing himself. "Ahem. A rare… shadow-type manifestation. Unlisted. We'll… update the registry." He looked at Silas with a mixture of pity and unease. "Congratulations, son. You may take your familiar and go."
As Silas stood on legs that felt like water, a man at the very back of the hall made a note on a crystal tablet. He was dressed in a perfectly pressed, stark white suit, his hair impeccably neat, his expression neutral. He hadn't looked bored. He had looked… interested.
And Silas knew, with a certainty that came from the thing now nestled in his soul, that the man in white was not here to offer congratulations.
His name was Agent Corvus. And he was the reason their probability of survival was less than one percent.
*[Directive: Establish Designation for Vessel,]* the voice whispered, a new thread of curiosity woven into its cosmic indifference.
Still staring at the man in white, Silas thought a single, grim, and fitting word.
*Lurk. I'll call you Lurk.*
*[Acknowledged. Designation 'Lurk' is stored. Commencing symbiotic integration.]*
The shadow at his feet seemed to ripple in what might have been amusement. The academy, Silas realized, was about to become the least of his problems.