Petrus woke with his heart racing.
Or rather.
With both of them.
The sensation came before awareness: a weight in his chest, a deep rhythmic pulse that did not match the silence of the room. He opened his eyes abruptly, expecting to see the cramped apartment ceiling from before, to hear horns, rain, sirens.
But there was only stone.
And blue light softly pulsing through the runes on the wall.
He sat up sharply in bed, breathing fast.
For a second, he thought it had all been an overly vivid dream.
Then he felt it.
The iron.
The nails in the bed's frame.
The door hinges.
Like invisible veins connected to his chest.
Not a dream.
A knock echoed at the door.
Three light taps.
"Lord Petrus?" a small voice called. "Grandfather said it's time to wake up."
He blinked several times, trying to reorganize his thoughts.
"You may come in."
The door opened carefully, and Luminelle Vaelor entered, balancing a tray too large for her small hands. Rustic bread, sliced fruit, and a bowl of something that looked like warm porridge.
"Good morning," she said, stepping carefully inside. "You were shouting in your sleep."
He ran a hand over his face.
"I was?"
"A little. It sounded like you were arguing with someone invisible."
Petrus sighed.
"Maybe I was."
Lumi set the tray down on the small table.
"Today is an important lesson."
His eyes gleamed slightly.
"Important?"
"Mhm!" she nodded enthusiastically. "Grandfather said you'll discover what you truly are."
The fatigue nearly vanished.
Magic.
Finally.
He ate quickly, almost childishly excited. Perhaps this would be the day he learned to cast something impressive. A floating blade of metal. Armor forming around his body.
Something grand.
When he left the room, already dressed, he found Eldric waiting in the circular corridor.
"Did you sleep well?" the master asked.
"More or less." Petrus hesitated. "This… second heart… it doesn't stop."
Eldric nodded.
"It never stops. You will simply learn to ignore it."
They began walking through the spiraled corridors of the tower. Morning light streamed through high slits, illuminating dust particles in the air.
"Master Eldric," Petrus began, "your surname is Vaelor, correct?"
"Correct."
"Is it connected to the tower?"
"Yes. The Vaelors have been guardians of Lynthar for eight generations. We do not fully live within the tower, but we are responsible for it."
"How many like me appear?"
Eldric took a few seconds before answering.
"Between one and two per year. Depending on the tower. Sometimes none. Sometimes three."
"And all of them… stay?"
The silence that followed was heavier.
"No."
Petrus frowned.
"Some cannot adapt. Others die early. This world is not kind to the unprepared."
His excitement diminished slightly.
"They die… how?"
"As anyone dies here. War. Monsters. Their own ambition."
Petrus swallowed.
It was not a game.
Not a world waiting for him to shine.
It was a world that could crush him.
—
They arrived at the central hall.
The ceiling was even higher there. At the center, suspended by nothing visible, floated a crystal the size of a human head. Translucent, pulsing with inner light.
The air felt denser.
"Today we will perform the formal affinity test," Eldric said.
"Don't we already know it's metal?"
"We know the initial reaction. But we must confirm the exact nature of your connection."
Lumi ran in from the side corridor and sat on the steps, hugging her knees.
"Will he shine?" she asked eagerly.
"Perhaps," Eldric replied.
Petrus approached the crystal.
The second heart beat harder.
"Touch it," the master instructed.
He extended his hand.
The moment his fingers touched the crystal's cold surface, the world responded.
A deep sound vibrated through the hall.
The iron lanterns along the walls trembled.
The hinges creaked.
Petrus felt as though thousands of invisible threads were pulled at once.
Metal fragments embedded in the stone began to move.
Not violently.
But toward him.
The crystal glowed with an intense silver hue.
Eldric watched in absolute silence.
"Affinity confirmed," he murmured. "Metal."
The word echoed.
Petrus struggled to breathe.
But there was something beyond confirmation.
He did not merely feel that metal obeyed him.
He felt that he understood it.
As if each piece held memory.
As if each nail carried history.
"Most metal users become blacksmiths or craftsmen," Eldric explained calmly. "It is a practical affinity. Structural. Unlike Fire or Thunder, which are ideal for war."
Petrus frowned slightly.
A blacksmith?
Was that it?
But then the crystal intensified its glow.
A small iron bar was brought by a tower assistant.
"Try to shape it."
He held the object.
Closed his eyes.
Focused.
He felt the iron.
Felt its impurities.
Its rigidity.
He applied his will.
The bar trembled.
Resisted.
Then… bent.
Slowly.
The effort was brutal.
Like trying to bend something inside his own chest.
When he managed to curve it nearly ninety degrees, a wave of exhaustion struck him.
His knees almost gave out.
The crystal dimmed.
He dropped the bar, panting.
Lumi's eyes were wide.
"He made it sing!" she exclaimed.
Eldric was not smiling.
He watched with concern.
"Your raw power is far too high for a newly Awakened."
Petrus was still breathing heavily.
"I don't feel like I'm moving it," he murmured. "I feel like I'm ordering it."
The silence that followed was dense.
Metal can build.
Or destroy.
—
Unfortunately for his expectations, the next lesson did not involve offensive magic.
It involved history.
Petrus once again sat at a desk.
Eldric opened an ancient tome.
"To survive here, you must understand the continent."
He spoke of the four towers.
Of the human kingdoms once fragmented.
And then he spoke the name:
"Aranthor I, the Veiled Unifier."
Petrus looked up.
The story was almost mythical.
A man who appeared from nowhere.
No recorded childhood.
No lineage.
Who unified seven kingdoms in twenty years.
Established guardians of the towers.
Created the Alvoran Council.
And decreed that all Awakened would abandon their former surnames.
"'Children of the Dawn,'" Petrus murmured.
"Exactly," Eldric said. "Alvoran is not a title. It is a system."
Petrus rested his elbows on the table.
"Were humans and elves allies?"
Eldric gently closed the book.
"Enemies."
The word fell dry.
"They still are," he added.
Petrus felt something tighten in his chest.
"And the half-elves?"
"They belong to neither side."
Eldric then explained the Decree of the Sworn Union. The law that granted freedom through marriage to a recognized human.
Freedom and demographic strategy.
Petrus absorbed every word.
The world that had seemed mystical was beginning to show political fractures.
"Master…" he hesitated. "Is there any theory… that Aranthor was like me?"
Eldric's gaze shifted.
Cautious.
"That is a forbidden hypothesis."
"Forbidden?"
"Because the Emperor is a sacred figure. Questioning his origin is seen as disrespect."
"But is it possible?"
Eldric took time before answering.
"There are rare documents suggesting he appeared near the Imperial Tower."
Silence.
"If he was an Awakened…" Petrus murmured, "then he created the system to control others like him."
Eldric did not confirm.
But neither did he deny it.
The second heart pulsed stronger.
Metal was not merely a tool.
It was structure.
And structures upheld empires.
When the lesson ended, Petrus remained seated for a few seconds.
He was not merely in another world.
He was inside a system possibly created by someone who had once stood where he stood.
And for the first time since crossing the portal, a different thought arose.
Perhaps he was not there by accident.
Perhaps metal had chosen him.
Or perhaps…
He had been chosen to bend something far greater than iron.