Chapter I
Year 798 B.F. — Before the Fall
Hidenheim, The Mages' Realm—Study Hall
The study hall held about ten young mages. They were young, considering the war had thinned their numbers. The survivors had become so isolated that the world had nearly forgotten Hidenheim existed.
Mage Celei's long teaching rod tapped the edge of the table in a slow, patient rhythm.
She was a narrow woman, lean from years of hard work. Her grey-streaked hair was pulled back tightly, and her deep-set eyes were framed by wire-rimmed glasses.
Her dark teaching robes hung straight and plain. Everything about her showed a clear refusal of distraction.
"A mage stands between the realms and ruin," she said. Her voice was quiet, but it carried. "So tell me: when the balance frays and the beasts come howling through the veil, what must we do?"
A girl near the front shot her hand into the air. This was Zara: small, sharp-featured, a tangle of red hair that had clearly lost an argument with a comb that morning. Her collar sat crooked, like she'd dressed at a dead sprint.
"Protect the realm!" she announced, adding a small growl for flair.
Celei's expression didn't change. "From what, Zara?"
"Beasts, reapers, demons all the same obviously."
A few students snickered. Celei let the sound die before continuing her slow circuit of the room.
"Protecting the realm is part of it. But a mage's duty runs deeper. Our loyalty belongs to the realm above all else—our service, our marks, even our lives if the balance demands it. Without us, the realms fracture. And when they fracture..."
"...humanity falls," Liora said quietly from the back of the hall.
She had arrived late, her silver hair still messy from the wind. She ignored the curious looks that followed her and folded her hands on the desk.
Celei paused for a moment, then met her eyes.
A low murmur passed through the room.
In the corner, Mage Jeze looked up from the stack of slates she was correcting. At the sound of Liora's voice, her expression hardened.
Jeze was older than Celei, lean and pale, with tired eyes and a face that rarely softened. Her robes were no different from the others, though the silver trim at her cuffs had dulled with age and wear.
"Some of you have already awakened your marks," Celei said. "The rest will soon enough."
She walked slowly between the rows of desks.
"A mark is more than a symbol. It is the path through which mana flows with greater strength. Every mark appears in a different place. No two mages bear them alike. Without one, a mage has little power beyond that of an ordinary person."
She stopped beside a student who had fallen asleep and gave the desk a light tap with her knuckles.
The student startled awake.
"But remember this," Celei said, continuing as if nothing had happened. "Every mark demands a price."
"The east wing remains off-limits. Read the accounts of Mage Arventis before our next session."
The hall stirred. Chairs scraped as young mages filed toward the door.
In the cathedral, the prayers began.
"Old gods, grant stability to the realm..."
The words rolled through the kneeling rows. At the front, Liora bowed her head and spoke to them quietly.
When the prayers ended, she rose and headed for the door.
"Liora."
Zara caught up with her outside, slipping through the crowd with an easy grin.
She nudged Liora's shoulder. "Come on. Old Berta still owes me a favor. If we hurry, we can steal some fresh bread, hide in your dorm, and argue about which beast is the scariest. Or finally find out what's lurking in the East Tower."
The answer came to Liora as naturally as breathing. They had done it countless times.
"I can't today," she said instead. "I told Martha I'd help sort the herb stores."
Zara's smile didn't fall exactly. It just held very still for a second too long. "Right. Sure. Herb stores."
"Tomorrow," Liora said.
"Tomorrow," Zara agreed, in the voice of someone filing something away rather than believing it.
✦
"Liora," Martha's voice came from the back of the hall, low and familiar. "Walk with me."
Martha was tall and dark-skinned, and her hair covered. Her robes were deeper in colour than the students, edged with a silver thread at the cuffs that marked her rank as Völva.
Outside, the half-moon hung bright and full above the courtyard. They fell into step on the path, breath visible in the cold air.
"How are your studies?"
"Not what I expected."
Martha smiled faintly. "Do you remember—when you were very little—what you told me you would become?"
"A Völva", Liora said without hesitation. "Like you. I'd climb to the very top, whatever it took."
"Do you still mean it?"
A smile broke through despite everything. "Watch me."
"To the herb garden, then," Liora said, stepping ahead of Martha as they descended the stone steps.
"I have a gift for you," Martha replied. Liora came to a halt and turned to face her.
Martha raised one finger and made a small motion in the air. Something dropped from the darkness above, landing softly in Liora's outstretched arms.
A cat. Black as soot, blinking with supreme indifference.
"A cat!" Liora's whole face changed. She held it up, examining it from every angle. "He's beautiful—she's beautiful—"
"He", Martha corrected. "And he's yours."
Liora hugged the animal to her chest. Then, slowly, the warmth in her face softened into something quieter.
"Martha, the others got their marks months ago. Some even before the year turned." She looked down. "What if mine never comes?"
Martha stopped walking. She turned to face her and waited until Liora looked up.
"It will come. These things take the time they take, and not a moment less. You are not behind—you are becoming." She pulled her into a brief, firm embrace. "Your mother would be so proud of who you've become."
"Thank you."
"Now go. Before he escapes."
The cat had already jumped from her arms and was padding purposefully away into the dark. Liora went after it.
The hour passed, Liora sank into the cool grass with a weary sigh and tilted her head toward the moon. It hung high above, pale and watchful against a sea of stars.
Young mages drifted past her in small groups, their laughter growing fainter as they made their way toward the dormitories. Night had settled over Hidenheim. The breeze carried a sharp chill now, rustling the trees and whispering through the empty courtyards.
The cat was gone.
She had searched everywhere—the herb garden, the outer walls, the training grounds—but there was no sign of him.
With a tired sigh, she lifted her hand toward the sky, stretching her fingers across the face of the moon. It was a habit she'd had since childhood, measuring its impossible size against the palm of her hand, somehow it made the world feel a little less overwhelming.
"Meow."
Her eyes snapped open.
Another echoed through the silence.
Liora sprang to her feet and followed the sound.
It led her across the courtyard until she stopped beneath the eastern tower.
She looked up.
The cat sat at the tower's base, staring back at her with infuriating calm. Then, without the slightest hint of urgency, it turned and began climbing the ancient stone wall as though it had done so a hundred times before.
"Come back, kitty!"
The cat ignored her.
"Come back!" she shouted again, breaking into a run as it scaled the tower with effortless grace.
"No... no, no, no..."
Liora froze beneath the towering wall.
The eastern tower.
The forbidden tower.
She hesitated.
For the first time, Liora truly looked at the eastern tower.
From a distance, it had always been just another part of the academy's skyline. But standing beneath it now, she could finally see its age.
The stone was ancient, worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain.
The tower looked as though it had stood since the beginning of Hidenheim itself.
Liora stepped toward the heavy wooden doors and pressed against them with all her strength.
They didn't budge.
She tried again.
Nothing.
The doors were firmly locked.
Liora stared up at the towering wall, following it all the way to the narrow window high above.
She let out a slow, uneasy sigh.
"I really don't have another choice..."
If she wanted to catch the cat.
She would have to climb.
The cat stopped halfway up, glanced down at her as if waiting, then continued climbing.
Liora groaned, dragging a hand across her face.
Taking a deep breath, she jumped for the lowest handhold.
Cold stone scraped against her fingers as she hauled herself upward, climbing higher and higher until her muscles burned. At last, she reached the narrow window.
With one final heave, she tumbled through the opening and landed in an undignified heap on the chamber floor.
Groaning, she pushed herself onto her elbows.
The room was dim, lit by a single stub of a candle on the sill. A narrow bed. A small window.
And a boy—sitting bolt upright on the mattress, staring at her.
He was young, perhaps fourteen, with black hair grown out in all directions, unkempt, like he had more pressing things to think about than appearance.
He wore rough, nondescript clothing—a scavenger's layers, practical and worn, the kind assembled from whatever was available rather than chosen. His eyes were dark and careful and currently very wide.
The black cat sat on the windowsill behind him, licking its paw with total serenity.
"Who are you?" the boy asked, pressing back against the headboard.
Liora stood and dusted off her habit and then actually looked at him for the first time.
"What—!"
"What—!"
They both shouted at once.
"You're a boy."
"How are you here?"
"I don't know," the boy said.
Liora blinked. Composed herself. The cat, apparently satisfied with proceedings, descended from the windowsill and settled onto the boy's head as though it had always intended to sleep there.
"You're him, aren't you?" Liora said, more quietly. "I've heard whispers. I may have listened at a few doors." She tilted her head. "You're him. The demon spawn."
"What does that mean?" His expression was unreadable, and careful.
The chamber door clicked open.
"Liora." Martha's voice was controlled, which was somehow more serious than if it had been sharp. "What are you doing here?"
Martha sat with Liora for a long time that night—not in the boy's chamber but in the small anteroom below, where the candles burnt low and the cold came in through the stone. She told her what she needed to know and not more than that: who the boy was, why he was here, and why the secrecy mattered.
"Promise me," Martha said, when she was done.
"I promise."
"And don't come back here."
"I understand."
She understood. That didn't change what she felt—the pull of a question she hadn't finished asking, the sense that the boy in the tower was a story whose first page she'd only just turned.
Liora came back, of course—Martha had known she would.
And slowly, carefully, the two of them began to know each other: the boy who had no name and the girl who had too many questions, meeting in the small hours in a chamber no one was supposed to enter, with a cat asleep between them and the moon making its nightly transit past the window.
"Don't suppose you have anything up here." She asked
"I have a candle and a cat."
She'd gone and come back minutes later with her habit sleeves suspiciously full, dropping a small avalanche of stolen bread, a wedge of hard cheese, and – triumphantly – half a jar of honey onto the blanket between them.
"You stole this."
"I didn't steal it," she said with a mischievous grin. "I liberated it... from the kitchens. Shh—Martha's probably still in the tower."
She tore the bread in half and handed him the bigger piece before he could argue. "Berta counts the loaves twice a night. I've had to get creative."
"You're going to get caught," he said, promptly taking another bite. Considering how fast he was making the stolen bread disappear, his concern sounded distinctly unconvincing.
She dipped a crust in the honey and held it up like a trophy. "This is the best thing I've had in weeks."
He watched her lick honey off her thumb with the particular suspicion of someone who had never been allowed to enjoy anything and wasn't sure the rules had actually changed.
"Eat," she said. "Before Ser Rick decides the cheese is his."
The cat, hearing his name, opened one eye with immediate and specific interest in the cheese.
After that, it became routine — a smuggled roll here, a stolen apple there, the two of them sitting on the floor with their backs against the bed frame.
Liora would sit beside him, reading from one of the old library books until the candle burned down to nothing and he had fallen asleep against the wall. Even then, she would linger a little longer, never in any hurry to leave.
Other nights became a tradition.
Liora would sneak him out through forgotten corridors to a quiet rooftop overlooking the academy, where they watched the mages celebrate the Festival of Embers. Ribbons of light danced through the sky as elder mages painted the heavens with bursts of fire and shimmering sparks.
"They do this every festival?" he asked, his eyes fixed on the lights.
"It's beautiful," he'd whisper.
"It is."
They stayed until the final sparks faded into the night, then quietly slipped back to the tower before anyone noticed.
The weeks passed quickly, turning to a month, since they first met.
Liora dropped a book on his lap and settled cross-legged beside him.
"Gyl… fa… gin… ning," he tried, frowning at the title.
"Gylfaginning," she said gently. "You're getting better."
"I can't take this. It's yours."
"I've read it six times. You need it more than I do." She leaned back on her hands. "How does anyone stay sane up here without going completely mad from boredom?"
"I have you." he'd say smiling as Liora was quite caught of gaurd by it and she smiled to.
The cat—Ser Rick, as Liora had named him—climbed from the floor onto the boy's lap and arranged himself with great ceremony.
"He's grown fond of you," Liora said, turning a page.
"He sits on my face."
Liora laughed, as she flipped a page, then noticed him watching her.
"What?"
"You read that same passage every time you open it. Why?"
Her eyes came up from the page, and something in them was already decided—had been decided for a long time.
"Because I'm going to be a great mage. Not merely good—great. Known across every realm." She gave a small, theatrical bow from where she sat as he clapped eagerly. "First, though, I have to awaken my mark. Until then, I'm essentially useless."
"You'll do it," he said, with a certainty that surprised even him. "I know you will."
"What about you? Have you thought about what you want?"
He looked at his hands for a long moment. "I can barely remember my own name. What's the point of wanting things?" His voice dropped. "All I have are the nightmares. And what Martha told me—that I came back from somewhere I wasn't supposed to come back from."
Liora closed the book with a soft, deliberate sound.
"Then I'm giving you a better name than 'boy'." She looked at him. "From now on, you're Dot. Dot the Risen."
"Dot?"
"Settled", she grinned. "Now start deciding what you're going to do with a second chance."
"A second chance," he repeated. Quietly. As though he were holding it up to see if it had weight.
Liora's expression shifted—the grin softening into something more careful, more considered. She reached out and rested her hand lightly on his arm.
"Someone once told me: there will come a time when hope feels like the cruellest joke and living feels like something done to you rather than something done by you. That's exactly when you have to hold onto it hardest." She held his gaze. "That's when you have to choose to stay."
The evening bell rolled across the whole of Hidenheim, calling the mages to prayer.
"I have to go," Liora said, already moving to the window. She swung one leg over the sill and looked back at him.
"Bye, Liora."
"Bye, Dot."
Zara noticed before anyone else did, because Zara was the one being left behind.
It happened in small increments, the way most losses do. Liora skipped the bread run, then skipped it again. She stopped waiting after prayer. When Zara knocked on her door at night to complain about Jeze's grading, the room was empty and the window was, oddly, unlatched.
"Where do you keep disappearing to?" Zara finally asked her, cornering her outside the dining hall.
"Nowhere. I've been busy."
"Busy?."
"Zara—"
"Forget it." Zara held up both hands, stepping back before her voice could crack in a way she'd have hated. "Forget I asked."
She told herself she'd let it go. She did not.
Two nights later, on the thin excuse of returning a borrowed shawl, she followed the sound of Liora's footsteps across the courtyard – and watched, from behind the well, as she climbed the east tower wall like she'd done it a hundred times before and vanished through the high window.
Zara stood in the cold for a long time afterward, staring up at the tower everyone had been told, since childhood, to leave alone.
She did not go to Liora with what she'd seen.
She went to Mage Jeze.
✦
— To Be Continued —