The great doors of the dining hall shut behind him with a whispering echo.

Thorne exhaled and shoved his hands in his pockets, boots scuffing against polished stone as he descended the wide steps into the courtyard. The night air was crisp, flecked with drifting aether motes that shimmered in the faint glow of lantern orbs lining the path. Somewhere behind him, laughter echoed from a high balcony, probably Isadora, still tangled in conversation with a few golden-robed upperclassmen.

Dinner had been... uncomfortable.

Elias had chosen a seat with a group of silver-haired elves from Aegis House, and though he had tossed Thorne a sheepish smile, he'd made no attempt to join him. Rowenna, for her part, had taken her place at the end of the Aegis table like a soldier accepting a battlefield post. She hadn't even glanced his way. Regal. Distant. Ready to wage war.

Thorne had eaten alone.

He poked at a roasted leg of something unidentifiable, forced down some stale bread, and left before dessert arrived. The rest of the Caledris students were scattered across their house tables, and while no one had said anything overt, the distance between them and him felt like a chasm.

Even Lucien hadn't made an appearance.

He sighed, gaze drifting upward to the starlit sky overhead full of shimmering rivers of aether. At least that never changed.

Tomorrow marked their second Arcane Fundamentals class. And despite everything, duels, lectures, mysterious professors, and explosive magical mishaps, he had yet to properly train.

His illumination spell still flickered out before forming. His sigils lacked the tight structure needed for consistency. And the ambient aether... gods, it clung to him like smoke, eager to twist everything into a spectacle.

I need to get control of it, he thought. Before it makes a mistake I can't pull back.

His eyes turned toward the far side of the courtyard, where the gleaming silhouette of Marian's tower usually loomed.

Gone.

He stopped walking.

The tower wasn't there.

No spiral of glowing sigils. No crystalline structure that shimmered with embedded spellwork. Just open air and the faint ripple of distorted space where it should have been.

Marian was gone.

He stood there for a long moment, frustration prickling beneath his skin.

Of course she was gone. Why wouldn't she be?

He ran a hand through his hair, jaw tightening.

I should just go to bed. The thought came tired, limp. A part of him wanted nothing more than to collapse onto his narrow mattress and forget the day had ever happened.

But the memory of class returned, of sitting in silence while the others cast faint glowing orbs into the air, their laughter light and proud while he kept his hands clenched and his eyes lowered.

He wasn't going to let that happen again.

I have to find a place to practice.

Preferably somewhere quiet. Unoccupied. With no ancient tapestries or priceless artifacts he might accidentally incinerate.

His eyes scanned the courtyard, then the massive castle that rose behind him in sweeping towers and spires. Aetherhold had more hidden spaces than he could count. There had to be somewhere, some forgotten room, tucked-away hall, or dusty corner he could claim for himself.

He adjusted the strap of his bag over his shoulder, the weight of his wand holster familiar against his side.

Let's find a place before I talk myself out of it.

He started walking.

The castle loomed in the night, silent and ancient. Aetherhold had a way of feeling alive even when no one was watching, its stones breathed, its staircases sighed, and its corridors whispered with old magic.

Thorne passed through the archway beneath the main gate, feet echoing across polished floors as he turned away from the main staircases and the glowing sigils that pointed to popular wings of study. He didn't want popular. He didn't want anything well-traveled.

He wanted forgotten.

Low levels, he thought. No light. No students. No interruptions.

He followed instinct more than memory, taking a sharp turn down a side hallway lined with shuttered doors, descending a tight spiral staircase until the air grew colder and damper. The stone underfoot changed texture. Smoother. Older. Less polished. No lanterns hovered here. Only the faint glow of moss and the pulsing veins of aether embedded in the walls like quiet lifelines.

He passed classrooms with sealed iron doors, labs that smelled faintly of sulfur and sage, a library that seemed to have been swallowed by vines that grew upside down from the ceiling. His hand trailed along the walls, fingers brushing over dust that hadn't been disturbed in years.

Eventually, he reached a narrow corridor, one that opened into a wide chamber built almost entirely of crystal.

He stopped.

The room was breathtaking.

It had a domed ceiling of seamless quartz, refracting pale violet light through its many facets. A cluster of jagged, sky-blue crystal growths formed a half-ring at the far end, like frozen lightning trapped in stone. Beyond them, a wide window stretched from floor to ceiling, revealing the gardens or something close to them. Not the kind with flowers or fountains, but gardens made of luminous crystal trees and floating blossoms that pulsed with aether.

It was… peaceful.

And empty.

Perfect.

He stepped inside, boots clicking softly against the obsidian floor tiles. His eyes flicked to the side, no chairs, no tapestries, no bookshelves. Only silence and space.

"This'll do," he muttered.

Thorne dropped his bag, unfastened the wand holster from his side, and pulled the Ashthorn wand free. It pulsed once in his grip, eager, aware.

He exhaled.

The silence wasn't silent here, not really. It hummed. Not with sound, but with presence. With aether.

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Right, he thought, rolling his shoulders and planting his feet. Let's try this again.

He raised his wand.

And began.

The room was silent, save for the soft rustle of a page turning.

Thorne sat cross-legged in the center of the chamber, his spellbook open on the floor before him. The text glowed faintly in the soft violet reflection of the quartz dome above. A breeze of ambient aether occasionally stirred the edges of the page, as if the world itself were curious about what he was doing.

His wand rested across his knees. Ashthorn. Hungry. Patient.

He inhaled slowly, letting the quiet seep into him, and read again:

"To shape Lux, begin with internal flow. Tap the core. Speak the word with intent. Let the gesture bind the structure, and the sigils finalize the spellform."

Beneath the instructions, a diagram of sigil spirals arced in delicate runes, each line curling like vines over unseen frameworks.

"Right," Thorne muttered.

He sat straighter, braced his arm, and moved the wand in the shape outlined on the page. A simple loop, anchored by a countercurve. His lips moved silently, shaping the Aetheric word, but he didn't cast, not yet.

His core pulsed.

Then, in one movement, he drew the full arc of the sigils, let the energy rise from within...

"Lux."

The wand flared.

The spell fizzled.

It sparked, blinked, and then sputtered out like a dying candle. A single thread of white light drifted upward and popped like a soap bubble.

Thorne scowled and glanced at his book.

Wrong sigil.

He adjusted, muttered under his breath, rechecked the path of the wand stroke, and tried again.

Aether surged, brighter this time.

The sigil formed but his focus was so centered on getting the shape right that he forgot to regulate the ambient aether pooling hungrily around him.

The moment the spell latched, it drank deep from the atmosphere.

The ball of light flared to life. Not a soft, floating orb like Vorr had demonstrated, but a roiling sphere of brilliant silver-white radiance, nearly a meter wide. It spun slowly, trembling with built-up tension.

Thorne flinched but didn't cut the flow.

Instead, he stared.

The light rippled.

It wasn't dangerous. Not this time. Not yet. It just… was. Massive and luminous, casting wild, overlapping shadows across the crystal walls. His hand rose, hesitant, until his fingers grazed the edge of the light.

Warmth met his skin, not scorching, but gentle. Like sunlight filtered through deep forest leaves.

It was flawed, yes. Overpowered. Sloppy in shape. Unstable in its structure.

But it was his.

This is magic, he thought, breath catching. This is real. This is mine.

He withdrew his aether. The orb collapsed into itself, sighing into darkness with a faint shimmer.

He sat there in silence, awestruck.

For the first time in his life, he hadn't stolen power. He hadn't borrowed it. Hadn't been told who to kill, what to burn, what to fear.

This was something he made. Something he called.

He picked up the wand again, posture resetting.

"Again," he whispered.

The sigil sparked to life. A line twisted slightly too sharp, the spell failed.

He didn't curse. He just tried again.

Another flicker. This time too weak. Too little fuel.

Again.

The orb flared large again. This time, he cut the ambient feed mid-cast and watched the entire structure shrink into a more refined size before it stabilized.

The light was clean. Whole. He held it in his palm like a captured star.

He smiled.

Then it exploded, softly, and he was momentarily blind, shielding his eyes with a grunt.

He laughed.

For the next hour, he did nothing but cast and recast. Shaping. Refining. Letting failure teach him what success wouldn't.

Sometimes the light sputtered out immediately.

Other times, it bloomed massive and uncontrolled, pulsing so brightly that even the crystal garden beyond the window dimmed in comparison.

His hand ached. His core pulsed steadily, slower now, as his aether reserves began to thin.

But still, he tried.

Because he had to.

Because no one else could do this for him.

Because even here, alone, he was becoming.

He had just finished his latest attempt, one that left a pale, clean orb of light floating like a slow moon in the center of the chamber when something shifted.

Not in the aether.

In the silence.

His Veil Sense flared.

It came like a cold ripple over his skin. An intuition beyond sight or hearing, a presence slipping through the layers of reality, not concealed by shadow, but by sheer subtlety.

Someone was watching him.

Thorne didn't move. He let the orb of light float gently upward, casting its radiance against the crystal ceiling.

His fingers slid under his uniform sleeve, brushing the hidden dagger strapped along his forearm. He exhaled slowly.

There... Footsteps. Light. Soft. Like someone who didn't want to be heard… but didn't care if they were.

A figure stood at the edge of the arched doorway. Hooded. Cloaked in layered grey, too tall to be a student. Too still to be afraid.

Thorne stood, hand dropping to his side, one foot shifting subtly into a combat-ready stance.

"I suggest you announce yourself," he said coolly.

The hooded figure didn't move.

Thorne stepped closer. "You've been watching for a while. That's either extremely bold... or very stupid."

A low chuckle.

The figure raised their hands, empty. "Neither, I hope."

The voice was smooth. Masculine. Educated. No clear accent. "I only wanted to observe."

"Observe what?" Thorne's voice was sharp, clipped.

"You." The man tilted his head. "You shine brighter than the rest. Hard not to notice."

Thorne's grip tightened around the dagger hilt beneath his sleeve. "You're not a professor."

"No."

"You're not a student."

"No," the man agreed again. "But I used to be. Long ago."

Thorne's gaze narrowed. "Then you know breaking into student training areas is frowned upon."

The figure chuckled again. "If I'd broken in, they'd have noticed. I didn't."

A beat.

"Interesting spellwork, by the way," the man continued. "Messy but promising. You're trying to separate ambient aether from core flow mid-cast. That's not something most first-years attempt."

Thorne didn't answer. He didn't ask how the man knew that. The fact that he did was answer enough.

He was being watched. Not just now.

Before.

The figure took a step forward. Not hostile. But deliberate.

"I didn't come to fight you, Thorne."

Thorne's body tensed, but the man's name on his lips froze him harder than any spell.

He never introduced himself.

But Thorne didn't panic. He didn't stiffen like a startled boy caught in the dark.

This wasn't the first time he'd been watched. Assessed. Threatened.

He'd lived his life under a microscope of blades and whispers, Uncle's eyes in every corner, the Lost Ones' tests of loyalty and pain. And before that? Trial after trial, each more cruel than the last, just to see if he would break.

He hadn't.

This was familiar. The gaze of a predator, not to kill, but to measure. To gauge.

Just like the old days, when his trainers in the Lost Ones would suddenly turn on him during sparring. One moment a lesson, the next a flurry of blades, testing his instincts, his reflexes, his will.

And like back then, he knew the truth: He wasn't in danger.

Not yet.

This wasn't a threat. It was a scouting.

And Thorne? He'd passed these trials before. He would pass them again.

The figure stopped, half-shrouded in the pale glow of the still-hovering Lux orb. His face was hidden, but the light caught the edge of his jaw, the faintest gleam of silver at his collar.

"I only wanted to see if the stories were true," the man murmured.

Thorne said nothing.

The silence thickened.

Then, just as suddenly, the figure stepped back into the darkness beyond the arch.

"We'll speak again. When you're ready." His voice echoed faintly, impossibly distant for how close he still seemed.

And then he was gone.

Not walked away. Gone.

Thorne stood still for a long moment, the remnants of his Lux spell gently dimming above him.

He looked down at his hand.

It still glowed faintly with residual aether.

The dagger beneath his sleeve hadn't moved.

Who the hell was that?

And more importantly...

Why did he sound like he knew what Thorne would become?

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