Roan Veyr had made several bad decisions in his life.
Most of them were small. But as he stood in the middle of a burned quarry with Neris kneeling beside Eiden’s half-dead body, Roan decided that tonight had probably earned a special place somewhere near the top of the list.
Eiden lay on the blackened stone. His clothes were almost completely gone. His skin was burned black in wide patches, cracked with faint red lines where heat still glowed underneath. Smoke rose from him in thin streams. His red-black hair was singed and spread over the ash-covered ground like the only part of him that had refused to give up.
Neris was shaking so badly Roan could see it from where he stood.
“We need to take him to the academy,” Neris said, voice breaking. “The healers—”
“No,” Roan said immediately.
Neris looked at him like he had just suggested throwing Eiden into the nearest ditch. “What do you mean no?”
“I mean it,” Roan repeated, forcing his mind to work. “If we take him to the academy like this, the first thing they’ll ask is what happened. Then they’ll ask where it happened. Then they’ll ask why three first-years were outside the city, fighting unknown creatures in an abandoned quarry. Then it gets reported up the chain, and we end up trapped in some room answering questions until the sun burns out—questions we don’t even have answers to.”
“He’s dying!”
“No, he’s okay,” Roan said, and hated how cold that sounded. He crouched beside Eiden and carefully held two fingers near his nose. Heat brushed his skin. A weak breath followed it. “Barely. But breathing.”
Neris swallowed hard. “Then where?”
“My family estate,” Roan said.
Neris blinked through the ash on his face. “Why would that be better?”
“Because my family has private physicians,” Roan said. “The kind who know how to keep their mouths shut when a young master does something stupid.”
Neris stared at Eiden, then at Roan. “Is this something stupid?”
Roan looked down at Eiden’s burned body.
“Yes. And it’s also the only option I trust.”
Neris opened his mouth, then nodded instead of speaking.
Roan took a breath and wiped his palms on his coat. “Okay. I need you to help me hold him. Carefully. Do not touch the glowing cracks.”
“Why?”
“Because I do not know if they are hot enough to burn you, and I don’t want to learn by watching your fingers melt.”
Neris went pale. “Right.”
They lifted Eiden as carefully as they could, which was not carefully enough. Eiden made a sound when they moved him. Just a broken breath that made Neris flinch like he had been stabbed.
“Sorry,” Neris whispered. “Sorry, sorry…”
“He can’t hear you,” Roan said.
“I’m not saying it for him.”
He raised one hand and drew a silver circle in the air. It was harder than usual. The silver circle opened.
The world folded.
Roan’s boots struck smooth stone, slid, and he nearly fell. Neris dropped to one knee but kept his grip on Eiden. The fountain beside them splashed softly, completely unaware that three ruined first-years had just appeared in the middle of one of the most expensive private gardens in Valdenmoor.
Above them, Veyr Manor rose against the night sky.
It was not the largest noble estate in the capital, but Roan had always thought it tried very hard to look like it was. Tall windows, silver-black roofs, pale stone walls, and too many balconies. Brass telescopes stood on the upper terraces, all pointed toward the sky. Star charts were carved into the garden paths. The central dome of the observatory rose behind the main building, its roof half-open, revealing the massive lens his father loved more than most living people.
Neris looked up at the manor with wide eyes.
“You live here?”
“Sometimes,” Roan said. “Try not to sound impressed. Please don’t be impressed. It makes me hate this place.”
Before Neris could answer, three servants came running from the side entrance. They must have felt the spatial distortion or seen the flash. The first was a tall woman in a dark servant uniform with her grey hair tied tightly behind her head. The second carried a lantern. The third stopped dead when she saw Eiden.
“Master Roan?” the grey-haired woman said, her eyes moving from Roan’s ash-covered clothes to Neris, then to the burned body between them. Her face did not change much, but her hand tightened around the edge of her sleeve. “What happened?”
“An accident, Mrs. Halwen,” Roan said.
The woman looked at Eiden again. “That must have been a very bad accident. We should inform Lord Veyr.”
“No,” Roan said, too fast.
Roan forced himself to lower his voice. Mrs. Halwen had known him since he was born. She’d seen him fall off roofs, steal sugared pears, and once—by accident—teleport his tutor into the middle of a lake, nearly drowning him. If he snapped at her like some spoiled noble, she would obey, but he didn’t want to do that. He loved and respected her; he didn’t want to order around someone older than him.
Which was why he didn’t like his father’s teachings.
He took a breath. “Please. Not yet. My father will turn this into a family matter before we even know whether my friend will live. I need Doctor Havel first. Quietly, please. I don’t want to answer any questions for now.”
Mrs. Halwen looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded once. “Bring him inside. East recovery room.”
Roan almost sagged with relief. “Thank you.”
She turned to the lantern servant. “Wake Doctor Havel. Tell him severe burns, mana trauma, possible channel rupture. Tell him to bring the blue case and the silver needles.”
The servant ran.
Neris blinked. “Silver needles?”
Roan adjusted his grip on Eiden. “Try not to think about it.”
They carried Eiden through the side entrance, down a short corridor, and into the east recovery room. The room was warm, clean, and far too nice for what they were bringing into it. White curtains hung beside tall windows. A wide bed stood in the center, already being stripped and covered with fresh linen by two more servants. Shelves along one wall held glass bottles, bandages, carved tools, and small metal instruments that made Neris look like he might faint.
“On the bed,” Mrs. Halwen said.
They placed Eiden down.
His burned skin stuck slightly to Roan’s sleeve.
Roan swallowed and pulled away carefully.
For several minutes, servants carried in water, clean cloths, jars of salve, copper bowls, and a small basin of pale blue liquid. Someone cut away what was left of Eiden’s robe. Someone cracked the windows just enough to let the smoke escape without chilling the room. Mrs. Halwen directed it all with the calm of a general commanding troops.
Then Doctor Havel arrived.
He was old enough that Roan had once believed he had been born old. Thin, narrow-shouldered, with silver hair around a bald crown and a face full of lines. He wore a dark night robe under a long medical coat, and he carried a blue leather case in one hand.
He stopped at the foot of the bed.
For the first time since entering, his expression changed.
“Well,” Doctor Havel said. “That is not a kitchen burn.”
Roan rubbed his face. “Can you help him?”
“I can be sarcastic and useful at the same time, boy.” The old doctor set his case on a side table and snapped it open. “Move aside.”
Roan moved.
The doctor rolled up his sleeves, and thin green light gathered around his fingers. It was soft, almost watery, flowing under the doctor’s skin in steady lines. He placed two fingers against Eiden’s throat, then his chest, then his wrist.
“Pulse is weak,” he muttered. “Breath shallow. External burns severe but not as deep as they should be. Interesting. Very interesting.”
“Interesting?” Neris repeated, horrified.
“In medicine,” Doctor Havel said without looking at him, “interesting is usually bad.”
The doctor placed both palms over Eiden’s chest. Green light spread from his hands, sinking into the burned body. Eiden’s back arched slightly, and a thin line of smoke rose from his mouth.
Roan took half a step forward. “Is that normal?”
“No.”
“Should we worry?”
“Yes.”
Roan stopped.
Doctor Havel closed his eyes. The green light became thinner, more precise. “His mana channels are scorched. Not broken, thankfully. Burned from the inside. His outer veins are damaged, but the deeper channels held.”
Neris frowned despite himself. “Outer veins?”
The doctor opened one eye. “You are a student?”
“Yes?”
“The body has blood vessels, nerves, organs, bones. Everyone knows that. But mages also use mana channels. They are not separate tubes floating magically in the body.” He tapped Eiden’s wrist gently. “They follow living structures. Around nerves. Along blood vessels. Through muscle layers. Around organs. Mana prefers paths the body already uses for movement, heat, breath, and sensation.”
Neris listened with wide eyes now.
Doctor Havel continued working as he spoke. “The heart pushes blood. The lungs regulate breath. The nervous system carries signal. Mana flow borrows from all three. A spell begins as intention in the mind, travels through the nerves, takes shape through the channels, and exits where the caster has trained it to exit. Hands, eyes, mouth, weapon, focus.”
The old man opened his case and took out several silver needles. Each one was thin as a hair and etched with tiny blue markings. He pressed one near Eiden’s shoulder, one at the wrist, one below the ribs, and one near the sternum. They did not pierce deeply. They settled into the skin and began to glow faintly.
“These needles map flow pressure,” the doctor said. “If a channel is ruptured, the light turns black. If it is blocked, it turns white. If it is burned but still open, it turns red.”
All four needles slowly glowed red.
Neris swallowed. “That’s… bad?”
“It is better than black.”
Roan stood near the wall, arms crossed tightly.
Doctor Havel placed one hand over Eiden’s abdomen, then his brow furrowed.
He went very still.
Roan noticed.
“What?”
The doctor did not answer. His fingers moved slightly, tracing something over Eiden’s sternum. The green healing light dimmed, then changed. For half a second, a small amber glow answered from deep inside Eiden’s chest. A small ember-like pulse, hidden behind the ribs.
Doctor Havel’s eyes narrowed.
Roan stepped closer. “Doctor?”
“Nothing,” Doctor Havel said.
Roan did not believe him.
Doctor Havel withdrew his hand and opened a jar of pale gold salve. “His body is overheated. His mana channels are inflamed. His nerves are reacting badly. The organs are stressed, but not failing. That is the important part.” He began applying the salve with careful, practiced motions. “I will stabilize the channel inflammation tonight. After that, I will apply restorative magic every six hours and drain his mana slowly, making sure it never fully recharges. Too much healing mana will overload him again.”
“Overload him again?” Neris asked.
The doctor looked at him. “This boy did not simply burn. He filled his body with more mana than it could safely process.”
Roan asked the question he did not want to ask. “Will he live?”
Doctor Havel worked in silence for several seconds.
Then he said, “Yes.”
Neris let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped in his chest for hours.
Roan closed his eyes for a moment.
“He is stable now,” Doctor Havel continued. “He will look worse before he looks better. Burns like this always do. But with treatment every few hours, he should wake within a day. Walking will take longer. Full recovery, if he behaves, perhaps several days.”
The doctor wrapped Eiden’s torso in a soft bandage that glowed faintly green where it touched the worst burns.
Doctor Havel pointed a sharp finger at him. “And you—no spatial transport for the patient. His channels are already strained. Folding space around an unstable mana system is a good way to leave the body unable to process mana ever again.”
Neris stared at Roan.
Roan lifted both hands. “I didn’t know.”
Doctor Havel shut his case. “Of course you didn’t.” The doctor turned to Mrs. Halwen. “Keep the room warm. Clean cloth every hour. No visitors except these two and yourself. If he convulses, call me. If the needles turn black, call me faster.”
Mrs. Halwen nodded.
Roan stepped closer to her. His voice dropped. “Mrs. Halwen.”
“I know,” she said.
“Please don’t tell mom and dad. Not yet.”
Her eyes softened a little. “Master Roan—”
“I will tell them if I have to,” Roan said. “I need quiet for one day. Please.”
Mrs. Halwen looked from Roan to Eiden.
Then she said, “Okay.”
Roan’s shoulders loosened. “Thank you.”
Neris sat in a chair beside the bed, eyes fixed on Eiden’s face. The burns had been cleaned enough that he no longer looked like a smoking corpse, but that almost made it worse. Now he looked like a mummy, wrapped in layers of bandages.
Roan sat near the window.
The room was quiet except for Eiden’s shallow breathing and the soft ticking of some clock hidden inside the wall.
The night dragged on. Roan and Neris passed the hours reading while they kept watch beside Eiden.
Doctor Havel returned twice. Each time he placed his hands over Eiden’s chest and abdomen, sending gentle green light into the burned channels. The silver needles pulsed red, then slowly softened toward orange. Apparently orange was good, or at least better.
Near dawn, Eiden finally moved.
It started with his fingers.
Neris straightened immediately. “Eiden?”
Roan stood so fast his chair scraped against the floor.
Eiden’s face twitched. His eyelids fluttered. For a second, he seemed trapped somewhere between sleep and pain, breathing unevenly through cracked lips.
Then he opened his eyes.
He stared at the ceiling.
The painted constellations stared back.
Eiden blinked slowly.
“What the fuck…” he whispered.
Roan let out a breath. “He’s back.”
Eiden turned his head a little. The movement made him wince so hard his whole body tightened.
“Don’t move,” Neris said immediately. “Please don’t move.”
Eiden looked at him, then at the bandages and the green-glowing salve on his arms.
His voice came out rough. “Did we win?”
“No,” Roan said. “I mean—yes…”
Neris leaned forward. “How do you feel?”
Eiden cracked one eye open. “Like… I’m too out of it to be sarcastic right now.”
Roan smiled despite himself. “Finally! A good sign.”
Eiden tried to lift his hand. It moved about two centimeters before pain slapped the idea out of him.
“Ah,” he breathed. “Nope… Where are we?”
“My family estate,” Roan said.
Eiden looked around again, slower this time. His gaze found the painted stars, the silver instruments on the shelf, the telescope visible through the half-open balcony door.
“You live in an astrology museum?”
“Astronomy,” Roan corrected automatically, then paused. “Also astrology. Depends which relative you ask.”
Eiden stared at him for a second. “Rich people are weird.”
“Yes,” Roan said. “But rich people also have private doctors, so be grateful.”
Eiden breathed out a weak laugh.
A panel appeared in front of him.
Wave Cleared.
All detected Swarm entities eliminated.
Recovery Status:
Severe mana channel burns
Ember Core overload trauma
Physical condition: Stable
Recommended: Do not cast spells until recovery improves.
Rewards:
+3 Skill Upgrade Points
Max Mana +40
Swarm Detection I unlocked
Lesser Swarming Alpha Core x1
Monster Essence (lesser) x20
Emergency Clothing Set generated
Emergency Clothing Set:
Simple Hooded Robe
Plain T-Shirt
Simple Pants
Plain Boots
Basic Underwear x3
Eiden stared at the panel.
Then he looked at Roan and Neris.
“How bad was it?”
Neris looked away.
Roan answered instead. “You exploded.”
Eiden was silent for a moment.
Then he whispered, “Did it look cool?”
Neris covered his face with both hands.
Roan stared at him.
Eiden’s cracked lips tried to form a smile.
Roan sighed. “Unfortunately, yes.”
Eiden closed his eyes again, satisfied for exactly two seconds before pain dragged his expression back into misery.
“Worth it,” he muttered.
“No,” Neris said immediately.
“Absolutely not,” Roan added.
His face softened just a little.
Then he fell asleep again.
Three days passed.
Eiden learned several things during those three days.
First, rich people beds were dangerously comfortable. Second, Doctor Havel’s healing magic smelled faintly like bitter herbs and old rain.
By the fourth morning, Eiden could sit up without feeling like his spine was going to shatter. His burns no longer hurt the way they had before. His skin had healed. Doctor Havel’s magic had done its job, rebuilding the damaged layers and soothing the worst of the mana-channel inflammation. The green bandages were gone now, and the silver needles had been removed.
There was only one small problem.
Eiden’s skin was still black.
Eiden stood before the tall mirror in the recovery room, looking at his reflection.
Roan leaned against the wall beside the window, arms crossed, clearly trying not to smile.
Neris sat in a chair near the bed, pretending to read a book and failing because he kept glancing up every few seconds.
Eiden slowly turned his head toward them. “Say it.”
Roan blinked innocently. “Say what?”
“You’ve been looking at me like that for ten minutes.”
“I am simply happy for your recovery.”
Neris coughed into his fist.
Eiden pointed at him. “You too?”
“I didn’t say anything,” Neris said quickly.
Roan finally lost the fight and smiled. “Look, on the bright side, you’ve finally got a properly mysterious look: red-black hair, dark skin, tragic eyes. You look like you’re about to appear in a painting titled The Scorched One.”
Neris finally muttered, “It does suit you a little.”
Eiden looked betrayed. “Neris.”
“I’m sorry,” Neris said, immediately panicking. “I mean—not that your old skin was bad! I mean this one is also fine! Both are fine! Skin is skin! That sounded terrible. I should stop speaking.”
Roan nodded. “Good call.”
The door opened.
Doctor Havel entered carrying his blue case. Mrs. Halwen followed behind him with a tray of tea.
Doctor Havel looked Eiden up and down. “Standing already?”
“Barely,” Eiden said. “But yes.”
“Sit down.”
Eiden sat.
Doctor Havel placed the blue case on the table and took out a small crystal disk, two silver measuring rods, and needle.
“No,” Eiden said.
The doctor did not look at him. “I haven’t done anything yet.”
“You brought out a needle.”
“It is for checking mana pressure.”
Doctor Havel placed the crystal disk against Eiden’s sternum. The disk glowed pale green, then orange, then settled into a soft gold. He pressed two fingers to Eiden’s wrist and closed his eyes. After several seconds, he moved his hand to Eiden’s throat, then to the side of his ribs, then to the center of his chest.
“Breathing is steady,” the doctor said. “Heart rhythm normal. Nerve reaction still sensitive, but acceptable. Mana channels are inflamed but no longer raw. Outer channel tissue has regenerated. Deeper channels are scarred but open.”
The doctor continued. “You have what we call channel scorch. Your mana channels survived a severe overload, but the inner lining is damaged. Think of it like a road after a fire. You can still travel through it, but if you send too much traffic too quickly, it breaks apart again.”
“So I can’t cast?”
“You can cast small spells if you enjoy living young,” Doctor Havel said. “For the next several days, do not use anything larger than a simple utility spell. No battle magic. No complex spells. No strange experiments. No whatever nonsense caused this.”
Roan looked at Eiden. “He means you.”
“I got that.”
Neris raised a hand slightly. “Will it heal completely?”
“With rest and controlled mana flow, yes,” Doctor Havel said. “The body is stubborn. Young bodies are even worse. It will repair itself. I will give him a stabilizing draught for the next week and a channel-cooling ointment if the burning sensation returns.”
Eiden looked at his hands. They were dark, whole, and still not the color he remembered. “What about my skin?”
Doctor Havel stopped putting tools back into his case.
Roan suddenly became very interested in the ceiling.
Neris looked at his book like the answer might be written there.
Eiden narrowed his eyes. “What?”
Doctor Havel closed the case. “What about it?”
“It’s black.”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t black before.”
“How would I know that?”
Eiden slowly leaned forward. “Can you fix it?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Eiden’s eye twitched. “You can?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t?”
Doctor Havel looked at Roan and Neris. “To be honest, your friends were very insistent that I didn’t.”
Eiden turned his head slowly toward them.
Roan lifted both hands. “In our defense, you were very dead-looking.”
Neris nodded quickly. “We thought skin color could wait.”
Eiden stared at them for a long moment.
Then he looked back at Doctor Havel. “So you could have fixed this days ago?”
“Yes.”
Eiden rubbed his face with both hands, then immediately regretted it because his skin was still sensitive. “Fix it, please,” he said.
Doctor Havel raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? As your friend said, it suits you.”
He placed two fingers against Eiden’s forehead and one palm over his chest. Green light spread over Eiden’s skin, soft at first, then warmer. It shifted gradually, as if the skin remembered what shade it was supposed to be and slowly returned to it. Dark became brown, brown became tan, tan became pale. Within a minute, Eiden’s skin looked almost exactly as it had before the quarry, though a little healthier than he expected.
He looked at his hands.
Roan tilted his head. “I kind of miss the other look.”
Eiden blinked. “That’s it?”
“Yes. You are stable. Not healed completely, but stable enough to stop taking up my recovery room.”
Mrs. Halwen placed the tea tray on the table. “Doctor.”
Doctor Havel sighed. “Fine. Stable enough to leave after breakfast.”
Mrs. Halwen nodded, satisfied.
Eiden looked at Roan. “Does everyone in this house outrank everyone else?”
“Yes,” Roan said. “It is very confusing.”
After breakfast, Roan spread his hands. “We survived the ‘Wave’ as Eiden calls it, yes, very impressive, wonderful team effort, emotionally meaningful. But we are also students, and the academy does not wait.”
Neris looked horrified. “I missed Mana Theory.”
“You like Mana Theory?”
“No.”
Roan straightened his coat and drew a small silver circle in the air. “We go back, we pretend we were sick, we catch up on lessons, and for at least one day, nobody fights anything from another reality.”
Eiden raised a finger. “I make no promises.”
Doctor Havel’s voice came from behind them. “If you cast battle magic today, I will find you and sedate you.”
Eiden lowered his finger. “I make one promise.”
Roan smiled. “Good.”
They said goodbye to Mrs. Halwen in the garden. She gave Roan a look that said this conversation was not over, then gave Eiden a folded packet of medicine and told him to drink one vial every morning. Eiden accepted it with both hands because she looked like someone who could defeat him without magic.
Roan opened the spatial path in the same receiving garden where they had arrived.
They appeared behind one of the side halls of The Open Gate, near a quiet stone path lined with trimmed hedges. Morning classes had already started, so the campus was less crowded than usual. The main towers rose in the distance, silver patterns shining under the daylight. Everything looked normal.
Neris let out a relieved breath. “I’m going back to my room. I should study,” he said. Neris glanced at Eiden, hesitated, then added, “Don’t cast anything.”
Eiden placed one hand over his chest. “Why does everyone keep saying that like I’m a danger to myself?”
Roan and Neris stared at him.
Eiden sighed. “Fine.”
Neris gave a small nod and walked toward the dormitory wing, still clutching his notebook.
Roan watched him go, then turned to Eiden. “I’m going back to the room. I need to see whether Pax has let Brisket eat my pillow yet.”
“That sounds possible.”
“It is not only possible. It is likely.” Roan started walking, then stopped when he noticed Eiden was not following. “You coming?”
Eiden looked across the campus.
Students moved between buildings. A few older students crossed the bridge toward the practice wing. Somewhere far away, a bell rang.
“I’ll walk for a bit,” Eiden said.
“Sure.”
Roan turned and headed toward the dormitory.
Eiden walked without a destination for about three minutes.
“Man, I’ve got so much to think about. I need to check my inventory—spells…”
The silver badge on his pocket warmed.
At first he ignored it. Then the badge pulsed again, stronger this time, and a calm voice came from it.
“Eiden Flareheart. Report to the Principal’s Office.”
Eiden stopped in the middle of the path.
A student carrying books walked around him without looking up.
Eiden looked down at the badge. “What?”
The badge did not answer.
A thin silver line appeared on the stone path in front of him, glowing softly. It curved away between the hedges and toward the inner part of the campus.
Eiden swallowed.
The Principal’s Office was not the kind of place a student got summoned to because of good news.
He followed the line.
It led him away from the dormitories and the practice wings, past gardens and quiet side halls, toward the older part of The Open Gate. The buildings here looked less shiny than the main campus but somehow more important. The white stone was darker with age, the silver patterns were thinner, and the windows were tall and narrow. Students became rarer the farther he walked. Then there were no students at all.
The silver line ended before a set of dark wooden doors.
There was a plaque beside them.
Principal’s Office
The doors opened on their own.
Eiden hesitated for half a second before stepping inside.
The waiting room was too quiet.
The walls were dark wood, polished so cleanly that they reflected the soft light from floating glass lamps. Several portraits hung along the wall, each one showing a serious-looking mage. There was a long bench, a low table, and a clock on the wall.
Behind a desk near the inner door sat a woman with silver-rimmed glasses and black hair tied neatly behind her head. She looked up when he entered, checked something on a paper in front of her, then nodded.
“Eiden Flareheart.”
“Yes,” Eiden said.
“Please sit.”
Eiden almost said he would rather stand, but the words died before they reached his mouth.
“Yes,” he said instead, and sat down.
The bench was comfortable, which somehow made the room worse. He placed both hands on his knees and looked at the silent clock.
Somehow, sitting in this room made his stomach feel worse.
The secretary turned a page.
Eiden cleared his throat. “Am I in trouble?”
The secretary didn’t look at him.
One minute passed.
Then five.
Then maybe ten, though the silent clock made time feel fake. Nobody came in. Nobody left. The secretary wrote something with a pen.
Finally, the inner door opened.
The secretary stood. “Headmaster Asterwake will see you now.”
Eiden stood too fast, which made his ribs hurt.
He hid the wince badly.
The secretary noticed, said nothing, and gestured toward the door.
Eiden stepped inside.
The office was large. There were shelves of books, but not enough to look like someone was trying to prove they read. There were maps on the walls, a wide desk near the center, and several strange instruments arranged on stands. Some looked like telescopes. Some looked like metal rings caught halfway through turning. One whole wall was glass, looking out over The Open Gate’s campus and the city beyond it.
A man stood in front of that window with his hands clasped behind his back.
He looked middle-aged. Not old, not young. His hair was dark with silver at the temples, and he wore a simple black robe with no heavy decoration, only a thin silver line around the collar. He was not tall in a dramatic way. He did not look like someone who needed to raise his voice. That was probably why Eiden immediately disliked how calm he seemed.
Then the man turned.
Eiden saw his eyes.
They were blue, but not normal blue. His pupils were wrong. Each one looked like a tiny chain link, a small loop of deep blue inside brighter blue.
The man smiled faintly.
“Eiden Flareheart,” he said. His voice was quiet and easy. “Thank you for coming. I am Theron Asterwake, Principal of The Open Gate.”
Eiden nodded awkwardly. “Sir.”
Theron’s expression did not change. “You have missed several days of class.”
Eiden’s shoulders tightened. “I was sick.”
Theron walked slowly toward the desk, but did not sit. “Your provisional enrollment has been revoked.”
For a second, Eiden thought he had misheard.
“Sorry,” Eiden said. “What?”
“Your provisional enrollment has been revoked,” Theron repeated, still calm.
Eiden stared at him. “I’m being expelled?”
“Yes.”
“That’s—wait, no, hold on.” Eiden took a step forward before remembering he was talking to the principal of the academy. He stopped. “I missed a few days because I was injured. I didn’t just skip class because I wanted to sleep.”
Theron listened.
Eiden kept going because silence felt like a hole he had to fill. “I passed the entrance exam. Barely, maybe, but I passed. I trained. I was in the practice rooms. I was improving. Ask Neris. Ask Roan. I want to learn.”
Theron’s chain-link pupils stayed on him.
Eiden hated how hard it was to tell what the man was thinking.
“I know I missed classes,” Eiden said, faster now. “But I can catch up. I’ll take extra lessons. I’ll do whatever assignments you want. I’m not trying to waste anyone’s time.”
Theron let him finish.
Then he said, “No.”
Eiden waited for more.
There was no more.
“That’s it?” Eiden asked, quieter than he meant to.
“Yes.”
Eiden’s mouth opened, then closed. He looked around the office like maybe the real answer was hiding under a chair. Panic crawled up his ribs, hot and ugly.
“Please,” he said. “I know it looks bad, but I can fix it. I can catch up.”
“I understand.”
Eiden’s hands curled into fists. He forced them open before Theron could notice. “Then why?”
“Because The Open Gate has limited space, limited instructors, limited materials, and many applicants who would cut off their own fingers for the seat you currently occupy. A student who disappears during the first week, misses classes, submits no explanation, and shows no visible commitment to structured learning is not a student I can justify keeping.”
“I was unconscious!”
Theron looked back out the window for a moment. “However, I am willing to offer you one chance.”
Eiden’s anger paused. “I’m listening.”
“For the past week, I’ve felt that something is wrong.” Theron’s voice remained calm, but the room seemed to grow quieter around him. “It’s… hard to put into words. A pressure beneath reality—like a door being pushed from the other side.”
Eiden went still.
Theron turned his head slightly. “I did not know what it was. I could not know. Then tears began appearing.”
Eiden’s mouth went dry.
“Tears?” he repeated.
“Small ruptures,” Theron said. “Brief openings. Some in remote areas. Some near roads. One inside a village granary three kingdoms east. The reports are confused, but similar enough. Black insects. Hard shells. Unnatural coordination. Rapid violence. Places that were prepared for attacks survived. Places that were not suffered badly.”
Eiden said nothing.
“Valdenmoor was lucky,” Theron continued. “Our rupture opened in an abandoned quarry. And you were there.”
Eiden felt his pulse in his throat.
Theron’s gaze returned fully to him. “A few days ago, I sensed the rupture from here. Ten minutes later, I sensed a high concentration of Fire-aspected mana large enough to make every fire ward in this building react. It was your mana.”
Eiden swallowed.
“The same signature that nearly destroyed my resonance array during the entrance assessment,” Theron said. “Difficult to forget.”
Eiden winced. “That was not entirely my fault.”
“No,” Theron said. “It was mostly the array’s fault for assuming you fit inside normal measurements.”
Eiden blinked, surprised despite himself. “Oh.”
Theron walked around the desk slowly. “You knew to go there. You knew enough to prepare. You knew enough to keep it away from the city. So I will ask plainly.”
His voice did not become louder.
It became softer.
“How did you know?”
Eiden broke eye contact.
The word rose in his throat.
Swarm.
The moment he tried to reach for it, something inside him tightened. His tongue felt heavy. His throat locked around the shape of the word before it could become sound.
Theron noticed immediately.
“Can’t,” Eiden said.
The word came out rough.
Theron’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Can’t, or won’t?”
Eiden looked at him. “Can’t.”
Something in Theron’s expression shifted. For the first time, the calm felt less like politeness and more like a door closing.
“What can you say?”
Eiden took a slow breath. He chose each word carefully, feeling around the invisible pressure in his mind. “Something is attached to me. I don’t fully understand it. The tears… happen near me, or because of me, or follow me somehow. I knew one was coming because something told me. I moved away from civilians because if even one of those things survives, it spreads.”
Theron listened without interrupting.
“I can’t say what they are,” Eiden continued. “I can’t say the name. I don’t know why. I don’t know what rules I’m breaking by trying. But I know they’re dangerous. More dangerous than they look. The quarry was the first time I was ready.”
“And the other tears?”
“I don’t know,” Eiden said. “I only know mine.”
Theron was silent for a long moment.
Eiden wanted to say more—to explain the dead world, the black sea, the thing that had chosen him, and the moment he’d woken in another world. But every time his thoughts drifted too close, the pressure returned.
Theron finally stepped closer.
Eiden forced himself not to step back.
“If I expel you,” Theron said, “I lose sight of you. If I imprison you, I lose whatever makes you useful. If I ignore you, I risk Valdenmoor. None of those choices are acceptable.”
Eiden stared at him.
A few minutes ago, those options would have made his stomach drop. They still did, but the way Theron said them was not cruel. It was practical. Cold, maybe, but not eager.
“What’s the acceptable one?” Eiden asked.
Theron looked at him with those strange blue chain-link pupils.
“I hire you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Officially, you will remain a student of The Open Gate,” Theron said. “Unofficially, you will work for me.”
“That sounds illegal.”
“It is not.” Theron’s mouth curved slightly. “You will be my Silent Hand.”
Eiden stared at him. “That sounds even more illegal.”
“It is an old designation,” Theron said. “Rarely used. It refers to someone who acts quietly where ordinary authority would arrive too late.”
“So a disposable problem-solver.”
“No,” Theron said. “Disposable people are easy to replace.”
Eiden did not know what to do with that answer.
Theron continued. “The creatures from the tears are not yet publicly classified. Reports call them rupture-born insects, rift vermin, black-shell entities, and several less useful names. I do not care what they are called. I care that they are found, contained, and removed before they spread.”
“You want me to hunt them.”
“When necessary. You will also investigate signs they leave behind, recover materials, identify possible surviving organisms, and report anything you are capable of reporting.”
Eiden’s eyes narrowed. “And if I refuse?”
“Then your enrollment remains revoked.”
“Right. Very fair.”
“It is fairer than most offers you will receive.”
Eiden hated that too, because it was probably true.
“What do I get?” he asked.
Theron looked almost amused. “You remain a student. You receive access to field reports related to tears within Valdenmoor territory. You are permitted to take supervised or restricted field assignments without standard first-year limitations. You will be paid for completed work. And while you remain within Valdenmoor territory, you will be under my protection.”
Eiden’s ears caught one word immediately. “Paid?”
“Yes.”
“You should have said that earlier.”
Theron walked to the desk and picked up a thin black folder. “This protection is not unlimited. If you commit crimes, I will not hide them. If you endanger the academy, I will stop you. If you lie to me about a rupture, I will assume you have become a threat.”
Eiden swallowed, then looked at the folder. “Do Roan and Neris get dragged into this?”
“That depends,” Theron said. “How much do they know?”
“Enough to be useful. Not enough to answer your questions.”
“Do you trust them?”
Eiden did not answer immediately.
Then he said, “Yes.”
Theron nodded once. “They may serve as approved support when needed. They will not receive full information unless I decide otherwise.”
Theron opened the folder. Inside was a single dark page marked with a silver gate symbol and words he couldn’t understand, written in such painfully formal language that it made his head ache.
“Very official.”
The silver badge on Eiden’s chest warmed again. The gate symbol on it briefly darkened, then a tiny black line appeared beneath the silver flame. It was so subtle that most people would never notice.
Theron moved back toward the window. “You will attend classes when you are able. You will catch up on missed material. You will not use your condition as an excuse to avoid learning.”
Theron clasped his hands behind his back and gazed out over the campus. “Your first assignment won’t be today. I’ll have the reports prepared. When you’re cleared for fieldwork, you’ll be called.”
Eiden nodded slowly.
The whole thing felt unreal. Ten minutes ago, he had been walking alone. Then he was expelled. Now he was a secret employee of the principal of The Open Gate, protected by a man with chain-shaped pupils.
Normal student life had died very quickly.
Theron spoke without turning. “One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Welcome back to The Open Gate, Eiden Flareheart.”
He had a feeling he had just survived one disaster by walking into a larger one.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll try not to get expelled again.”