Evercrest didn’t finish his sentence.
Because the mont he turned toward the bookshelf, a rune flared beneath his feet.
Not one of mine.
Not one of the Academy’s, either.
Just an echo. A pulse from sothing that recognized him.
He paused.
And in that instant, I saw it—not the man, not the legend, but the creature beneath the flesh. The ghost of an age so old it could only wear mortality like a borrowed cloak.
"...It’s begun," he murmured.
I didn’t ask what.
I didn’t need to.
The air in my quarters was shifting. Heavy. tallic. Like the breath before a lightning strike.
"Prepare your class," Evercrest said. "No more gas. No more secrets."
He turned.
"And keep Cassandra close."
Then he vanished.
Not teleported.
Just... ceased to be here.
As if he had never knocked at all.
Two hours later, I found Felix in the hallway outside the infirmary.
His eyes were red.
"She’s awake," he said quietly.
I entered without knocking.
Cassandra sat cross-legged on the bed, staring at the ceiling like it had whispered sothing obscene. Her eyes tracked before her head did.
"Professor," she said, calm. Too calm. "I saw you."
I didn’t move. "When?"
"In the mory field," she replied. "You were screaming."
That wasn’t what I expected.
I walked to her bedside. "Do you rember what else you saw?"
She frowned, then shook her head—slow, deliberate. "Only threads. Symbols. A child made of clay. A na with too many syllables and no vowels."
"...Charming."
"I think I died," she added.
That made two of us.
We gathered in the war hall that evening. I didn’t wait for them to settle.
"We’re leaving the campus."
Half of them looked ready to bolt. The other half already had their hands up.
Mira was the first to speak. "Field trip?"
"To the Veins," I said. "Specifically, a ruin five miles beneath the eastern ridge. The Grimoire thinks it’s important. So do I."
Julien whistled. "You want us to go into a pre-Akaran labyrinth with that thing flaring up again?" He pointed at the Grimoire, now wrapped in three containnt seals and still pulsing like it wanted to bite soone.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it’s already coming to us," Cassandra answered, voice flat. "Sothing is bleeding through the seams."
The others turned.
And for once, no one argued.
That night, I stood on the edge of the teleportation gate, wards humming behind , the Grimoire clutched tight.
Lysaria hadn’t returned.
Evercrest hadn’t sent word.
But the nursery was only the first thread.
And if I didn’t follow the rest—
Soone else would.
Soone who didn’t care who got torn apart in the process.
I looked back at my students. My class.
They looked terrified.
Good.
Terror ant they hadn’t been consud yet.
"Stay close," I told them.
Then I activated the gate.
The world unraveled.
And the ruin opened its mouth.
He turned toward my bookshelf, gazing over the arranged volus without touching them. A flick of his fingers, and one of the tos—Principia Runestra—floated down, opening midair with a rustle of aged parchnt.
"You still read this?" he asked, voice almost curious.
"It’s a decent prir," I said. "Useful for teaching students who aren’t born with starlight in their veins."
He smiled then. Faint. Distant. The kind of smile soone wore while rembering sothing long buried under layers of dust and regret.
"I wrote this," he said.
I blinked.
"...What?"
"Under a different na, in another age. Before the Collapse. Before the Reweaving. Before we chose order over understanding."
He let the book close gently. It hovered for a second longer, then returned to its place on the shelf without a whisper.
"What you saw," he said, turning back to , "was never ant for your eyes."
"I didn’t ask for it."
"No," he agreed. "The Grimoire did."
That silenced .
Because he was right.
He walked deeper into the room, brushing past one of my etched wards. It fizzled—wavered—then allowed him through. Of course it did. He was older than most of the laws that governed this world. The runes knew to fear him.
"The nursery," he continued, almost conversational now. "Was a cradle of potential. A place where spellforms were gestated—not written, not taught, but grown. That pillar... it holds echoes of minds that dread in runes."
"And now it’s bleeding."
He gave a slow nod. "Sothing cracked it. Or soone. We are trying to determine how."
I hesitated. "You’re not... blaming Cassandra?"
"Not yet." His gaze pinned again. "But she’s the variable. And the Grimoire—the one bonded to her professor—is the trigger."
I t his stare. "She’s still a child."
"She’s a vector," he said softly. "And so are you."
My hands clenched. "Then what do you want, Headmaster?"
"I want you to keep doing exactly what you’re doing," he said, surprising .
"...You’re not removing ?"
"Lucian," he said, using my na like a knife, "you’re the only faculty mber insane enough to probe ancient magic without imdiately trying to weaponize it."
"That feels like a complint and a death sentence wrapped in one."
He almost chuckled. "Perceptive."
He walked to the center of the room, where the floor runes still glowed in their faint ring—flickering like sothing half-asleep.
"They’re learning," he murmured. "Your students. More quickly than expected."
"They don’t have a choice."
"No," he said. "They don’t."
He looked back at . "The Vault you entered wasn’t supposed to exist. It manifested because your Grimoire resonated with a rupture in the Pattern."
"That’s supposed to make sense?"
"To you? Eventually."
He let silence hang for a mont, studying like one might a particularly stubborn spell that refused to crack.
Then: "You’re walking a thread, Professor Drelmont. One that runs across forgotten history, buried gods, and things far older than magic."
"Any tips?"
"Don’t fall off."
He turned to leave.
Then paused at the threshold.
"When the Grimoire calls again," he said without looking back, "follow it."
I frowned. "I thought you said I wasn’t supposed to see what’s under the Academy."
He didn’t answer directly.
Instead, he said, "I said it wasn’t ant for you. That doesn’t an you’re not needed."
And with that, he vanished—no flash, no fanfare.
Just... gone.
The runes flared once in his wake.
Then faded.
That night, the Grimoire didn’t stay silent.
It whimpered.
A low, shifting pulse of ink and light that breathed beneath my fingertips.
When I opened it, there were no words.
Only a symbol.
A new rune.
Scrawled in the center of the page, bleeding into the margins, repeating like a mantra—
Listen. Listen. Listen.
Beneath that, a map.
But this one wasn’t underground.
It was in the sky.
And at the center of it...
...a tower I had never seen.
Yet sohow, rembered.
To the east of Noctis Ardentis. Beyond the veil of normal routes. Beyond even the barrier forests.
The Grimoire pulsed again.
And in the next room, Cassandra began to hum in her sleep.
Not a lullaby.
A warning.
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