Veridia’s ancient halls understood one truth: belonging wasn’t forged in affection, but in shared lineage, in the echoing cadences of old money and older power. Like truly attracted like, here. To deny it was to invite a slow, agonizing disillusionment. I had been a clever child, dissecting Veridia’s unseen currents, learning to navigate the intricate eddies of its social arcane. This, I knew, was the only passage to even a semblance of peace.
Then, in the year I turned seventeen, I encountered a phenomenon that defied my careful logic. A raw, destabilizing energy, a pull so profound it felt like a distortion in the very fabric of my being. It was Lyraeus Thorne, of course. I dismissed it, then, as a mere fascination with a senior magus, an intellectual curiosity regarding his formidable aptitude for elemental composition. My pride demanded I remain rational, detached. I was Caspian Elara, quiet and meticulous, not some star-struck neophyte.
Still, the feelings, tight and coiling like a serpent within my ribs, began to constrict. They choked the air from my lungs.
A single glyph, cool and argent, flared on my palm. It pulsed, a silent summons. Not a request, never a request, from Lyraeus. Only an imperative. “Aethel Wing. First Solstice Suite.”
I watched the dawn mist cling to the gothic spires outside my window, silvering the dark stone. The glyph vanished, leaving behind a phantom chill. A low curse rasped from my throat. Lyraeus Thorne had stolen my early morning peace, again. Sliding from my bed, I moved with practiced quiet. The dormitories were still. No other students would stir for hours, certainly not the House Prefects. No one would notice my absence. I decided to go.
Passing the old training grounds, I noticed it. A gnarled stone plinth, half-buried beneath encroaching ivy, stood forgotten in a neglected corner. It wasn’t on any formal Conservatory map. Yet, a faint hum resonated from its weathered surface, a raw, untamed arcane current, vibrating just beneath my perception. It felt… abandoned. Untended. Full of immense, volatile potential, humming with a neglected power that echoed a familiar ache within my own chest. A quick glance, then I walked on.
My steps echoed on the flagstones. The Conservatory’s breath was cold and damp, smelling of old parchment and the metallic tang of latent magic. I kept my gaze fixed ahead, on the spectral quality of the mist that wreathed the statuary. Already, my stomach churned, a familiar unease. For the past year, ever since Lyraeus had so casually entangled me in his orbit, my constitution had rebelled. Digestion was a chore, food a mere pretense. A sigh escaped me, thin as the rising fog.
I tried to ease the tightness lodged beneath my sternum. Ignoring emotions that unsettled me had become my art form. With enough effort, a meticulously crafted composed façade was possible. I maintained it now, traversing the silent, watchful halls, until the heavy, carved oak door of the Aethel Wing’s Solstice Suite loomed before me. The glyph’s memory had been precise.
Inside, I bit my lip, then released it, focusing instead on the faint, residual shimmer where the summons had been. That same exact address had appeared there. My fist clenched, then unclenched. Three precise knocks. Soft, but firm.
Silence. Thick and absolute, pressing against the heavy wood. My arcane senses, usually so attuned to the whispers of power, found only a vast, casual indifference behind the door. Perhaps a faint, lingering trace of a departure, cool as an untended ember.
Irritation, sharp and sudden, flared. My breath hitched. I pounded again, harder this time, the sound dull against the heavy door.
“Lyraeus Thorne! Open the damnable door!”
This situation—it was utterly repulsive. To imagine Lyraeus, cloistered away in his private domain, engaged in whatever fleeting, self-indulgent caprice had occupied his night. To picture him oblivious, or worse, deliberately ignoring my presence. It made my skin crawl. But I couldn’t leave. He had demanded I come. And I endured this demeaning charade because he was the one who had infected me, with that first, insidious 'illness.'
“Why the hell summon me if you’re indulging in some worthless whim, you arrogant bastard?!”
Gods, this was unbearable.
The life of an eighteen-year-old in Veridia.