Thorne packed his books with more force than necessary, the leather spines slapping against each other like an accusation. His fingers trembled slightly as he scooped up his vials, glowing liquids of cerulean, amber, and poisonous green, each sealed with a precise rune and a heavy price tag.

Elias, lounging beside him, eyed the row of expensive ingredients with an impressed whistle. "Trying to summon a demon or just blow up the classroom again?"

Thorne didn't answer. He double-checked his notes, folded them with care, and tucked them into the inner flap of his satchel. The bag was already heavy, but the weight on his shoulders had little to do with books.

Elias frowned and nudged him gently with his elbow. "Alright, moody. Spill it. You've been glaring at your flask like it owes you money. And your eyes, seriously, you're glowing. Like, seriously. You know what? I bet my grandma could really use you. She is always complaining about her poor eyesight, always searching for something in her hut. You could be her very own aether lamp or something!"

Thorne gave a vague grunt in reply.

Down the alchemical workbench, Rowenna was fumbling through a strained conversation with two other Aegis girls. She sounded polite, guarded. Awkward. Her wand tapped nervously against the metal rim of her cauldron, drawing odd glances.

Elsewhere in the glasshouse, the Caledris students lingered in their own clusters, laughing, trading ingredients, boasting quietly about upcoming exams. Thorne barely registered them. His world had shrunk to the tight coil of frustration wound in his chest.

Professor Sorrell, sharp-eyed and unnervingly perceptive, had been watching him all class. Thorne could feel it. The man had said nothing, but his silence said plenty.

The aether in Thorne's core pulsed erratically. Too bright. Too loud. Even Ashthorn, strapped to his thigh, felt heavier than usual.

The professor cleared his throat. "A reminder, your assignment on catalyzed transmutation reactions is due next week. I suggest you begin immediately. Those of you too lazy to take notes, I expect a miracle."

Thorne didn't even glance up. He was already standing. Shouldering his bag. Walking out.

"Mr. Silverbane..." Professor Sorrell started, but Thorne was gone.

Elias scrambled up behind him, hurrying to match his pace. "Hey! Where are you going? I had a really solid joke about cauldron sizes I wanted to test..."

"I need space," Thorne muttered without turning around. "Go back."

Elias slowed, confused and clearly hurt, but didn't argue. "Fine. Don't explode or anything."

The class had been held in one of the alchemical courtyards, a domed series of enchanted glass structures outside the main castle. Everything here sparkled, beakers floated, runes shimmered, wards buzzed in the air like invisible insects. And beyond the shimmering labs and protective walls… the edge.

The floating mountain that held Aetherhold ended in a sheer drop, and Thorne found himself walking toward it.

The wind picked up the farther he went, tugging at his uniform, lifting his hair. Voices echoed behind him, students laughing, chattering, discussing transmutation ratios.

Then he saw them.

A group of older students ahead. Lounging against one of the animated benches. And among them, Percy Veyne. His sneering mouth. His pale, punchable face.

Thorne veered off the path with a scowl. He had no energy for petty hatred. Not today.

He slipped between two jutting rocks, the polished path giving way to wild stone. With each step, the noises behind him faded. The glass-green of the courtyard vanished. He clambered down a narrow slope, his polished uniform catching dust and snagging on thorny vines that curled along the edge. He didn't stop.

Even when the cliff opened up below him, even when the clouds parted and Evermist shimmered far, far beneath… he kept moving until he could no longer hear anyone.

Only then did he stop.

His hands rested on something cool, smooth.

A statue.

A creature, half-forgotten, carved from dark stone and aether-bound metal. Its wings curled in tension, talons buried into the rock, beak hooked like a crescent moon. A guardian of sorts. A relic.

Thorne exhaled and slumped against it.

Above him, the sky danced with rivers of aether. Streams of pulsing light exploded in soft bursts, violet and blue and the palest gold, painting the air in transient wonder.

And for a moment, it was quiet.

Not peaceful, never that. But still.

Thorne tilted his head back and watched the skies ripple like a wounded god's heartbeat.

He didn't know what the next days would bring. Or how long before the Empire closed its hand around his throat.

But here, clinging to the cliff's edge, leaning against a forgotten beast, with Evermist far below and fire in his veins… he was still free.

And that counted for something.

Thorne didn't know how long he stayed there.

The wind pulled at his uniform. The skies continued their silent orchestra above him. And he sat still, legs dangling over the edge, his hand absentmindedly weaving wild aether motes around his fingers like drifting sparks.

They shimmered with that familiar gentle glow, blue and violet, red and green with occasional bursts of silver.

He twirled them, nudged them into spirals, bent them into patterns. They responded like loyal birds, fluttering at the edges of his consciousness. It was comforting in the strangest, most absurd way.

They were trying to soothe him.

He almost laughed. "You lot are ridiculous," he whispered.

But there was warmth in his chest that hadn't been there a moment ago. A fragile thread of connection.

With a tired sigh, he pushed himself to his feet. The aether motes clung to his hand like fog reluctant to dissipate. Still holding them, he turned back toward the stone beast, placing his hand once again on the smooth, cold surface of its hooked beak.

The moment his fingers made contact, when the motes brushed stone, the statue's eyes lit up.

A sharp pulse. A flicker of radiant white-blue. Thorne froze, eye-level with the creature's sculpted gaze.

"…Huh," he muttered, tilting his head.

Curious now, he reached deeper. Called more aether from the ambient streams, coaxing them toward the statue. They flocked to him, eager as always, curling in spirals through his fingers and seeping into the carved veins of the creature.

The light behind its stone eyes flared again, brighter this time. Familiar. Unmistakable.

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Not unlike his own glow.

"Well, I'll be damned," he whispered in awe.

More.

He let the motes flow, a stream rather than a trickle. The statue responded like a beast stirring from slumber. Wings, massive, jagged, and cracked with age, unfurled with a grinding noise like tectonic plates shifting.

It loomed larger now. Alive. Vibrating with power. Every inch of it pulsed with the aether he poured into it.

"Just how much can you take?" Thorne murmured, voice trembling between caution and wonder.

Then he felt it.

A tipping point. The overflow.

The statue's wings snapped rigid. The light behind its eyes turned blinding. Energy throbbed in its core, he could see the aether motes fusing, reshaping, turning volatile.

Thorne stepped back instinctively.

The statue froze.

Then it opened its beak.

A deep, ancient hum rippled from its core, like a charging sigil.

"Oh, that's not good..."

The blast came before he could finish the thought.

A burst of raw aether, concentrated and uncontrolled, erupted from its maw like a thunderbolt of pure force.

It hit him square in the chest.

Thorne flew back.

No time to scream. No time to shield. Just pain, pressure, and wind tearing at his limbs as he sailed backward off the edge of the mountain.

The sky became a blur. The cliff edge vanished.

Clouds and wind and rivers of glowing aether rushed past as the world flipped upside down.

Then...

Nothing but the void below.

Thorne's heart thundered like a war hammer in his chest.

He braced for impact, for the spiraling, stomach-wrenching plunge that would splatter him somewhere in the fog-veiled valley below. But it never came. The air held him, not like falling, but like sailing, like he'd been hurled into an invisible current and was now gliding effortlessly through it.

His hair whipped around his face, his uniform snapping loudly in the rushing wind. He was weightless, suspended by something unseen yet undeniably present. Panic clawed at his chest for a moment longer before he realized… he wasn't dropping.

He was flying.

No, more than that. He was being carried.

The mountain, Aetherhold itself, began to shrink behind him. Its jagged silhouette loomed above, but he was being drawn away, fast. He twisted in the air, trying to get his bearings, and froze.

To his left, cascading down from the base of Aetherhold's rocky cliffs, was a waterfall of aether. Not water, pure aether, flowing like silk and lightning, falling endlessly down toward Evermist far below. It shimmered with impossible colors, splitting into strands, then rejoining in slow pulses, like a heartbeat of the world.

And still, Thorne sailed forward, faster now.

He gritted his teeth, forced his racing heart to slow, and blinked away the wind-wrought tears. Then, with a quiet exhale, he relaxed his focus, let his eyes shift into that deeper state of seeing.

The world changed.

The air lit up in spirals.

He gasped. His breath caught.

All around him were tunnels, veins of aether arcing through the sky, curling and dancing like celestial roots. The one he was in, his tunnel, glowed softly, guiding him forward like a stream of invisible power. There were dozens, hundreds, all crisscrossing the sky above and below Aetherhold.

So this is how they move power, he thought, awe-struck. Not just with runes and artifacts. With these... natural paths.

He let himself be carried. He floated, weightless and dazed, riding the current. For a minute, maybe more, he simply existed, part of something larger than himself.

Then the tunnel dipped.

It tilted downward, pulling him with it. The wind roared louder, the ground rising in the distance. Thorne craned his neck, squinting past the rushing clouds and glowing strands.

He could see Evermist now.

And beyond it, the thick, unending canopy of the forest, the ancient woodland that bordered the academy's safe perimeter. There were protective wards there, woven deep into the roots of the academy's magic.

He swallowed hard. "This... this shouldn't be happening."

Still, the tunnel curved down, slicing past the mountain's base. He braced himself as the glowing strands of the barrier loomed closer. He knew what those wards could do, repel, redirect, even eviscerate unauthorized magic.

But then something strange happened.

As the tunnel met the forest's edge, he felt it, barely more than a breath.

A whisper of power.

The wards didn't block him. They parted, bending ever so slightly as the tunnel pierced straight through. He didn't even slow.

Thorne's fingers dug into his palms. "Okay… that's new."

Then came the trees.

Massive oaks, their trunks wide as towers, their branches thick as siege engines. Leaves like green fire blurred past. He ducked instinctively, though the tunnel seemed to curve around the larger limbs. Light spilled through the canopy in flashes, sunlight interspersed with aether-glow.

The tunnel twisted again, sharper this time. Thorne's stomach lurched. He was heading down. Fast.

His eyes widened.

Below him, the forest floor surged upward. Trees thick as stone columns passed in a blur. Moss and leaves and undergrowth rushed closer and closer.

And then he saw it.

An identical statue.

Perched at the base of a ring of twisted trees, it looked just like the one he'd activated up top, same hooked beak, same wings poised for flight, same hollow stone eyes.

"Oh no."

The tunnel was aiming him directly at it.

He flailed slightly. "Oh nonononono...."

He hit the point of impact.

The statue's eyes flared bright.

And then...

He stopped.

Just... stopped.

All motion vanished in an instant. His body jerked forward, weightless again, then slowly, gently, drifted downward. The tunnel of aether unraveled behind him like mist caught in the wind.

He touched down softly, knees bending as his boots met the forest floor.

A heartbeat passed.

He blinked. Looked at his hands. His limbs. No pain. No impact. Just the adrenaline still pounding through his body.

"Well," he wheezed, breath coming in short bursts, "that was unexpected."

He glanced up at the statue, now dormant once more. Its eyes dimmed. The forest was quiet. Birds chirped in the distance. Wind rustled through the ancient leaves.

Thorne stood very still, his mind catching up to what had just happened.

"…The hell was that?"

Thorne exhaled, wiping his clammy palms on his pants.

His gaze flicked back to the statue, the strange, silent sentinel that had just saved his life. Or... maybe launched him into the most dangerous part of the continent. It was hard to tell the difference, lately.

"How the hell do I get back?" he muttered.

There was no visible tunnel now. No glowing aether currents to ride. Just a stone creature nestled between roots and moss, half-swallowed by time.

Still, it was identical to the one atop Aetherhold's cliffs. He narrowed his eyes, raised his hand, and let a sliver of aether slip from his core, just a taste.

The motes pulsed toward the statue. Its eyes flared to life instantly.

Thorne yanked the flow back, heart pounding.

The glow faded.

He let out a slow breath, chest easing.

"Okay. Good. Not stranded. That's something."

He turned from the statue and looked out into the woods.

The forest stretched in all directions, an endless sprawl of ancient trees and shimmering light. The canopy above was thick, but not oppressive. Sunlight slanted through in golden shafts, painting the mossy ground in soft glows. Strange blooms pulsed with faint light, opening slowly to the sky. In the distance, something howled, not close, not yet.

Thorne adjusted the strap of his satchel and stepped forward.

The air was thick with power. Aether motes danced lazily in the gaps between trees, more numerous than in any place he'd been outside Aetherhold. And different. Wary. Wild.

He brushed one with his fingers, it sparked, wriggled like a living thing, and zipped away.

"I'll take that as a welcome," he muttered.

The trees themselves seemed impossibly old. Their bark bore runes, some faded, others fresh. He paused to inspect one carved into a low trunk. It glowed faintly beneath his touch, like the tree remembered the magic etched into it.

He stepped around it and continued deeper.

The forest floor was layered with twisted roots, stone outcroppings, and glowing mushrooms. Small insects flitted about, some mechanical-looking, others clearly magical. One had too many wings. Another blinked out of existence and reappeared five feet to the left.

Aetherwild, he realized. This wasn't just forest, it was enchanted land, grown wild and ungoverned by human hands. If there were paths here once, they'd long been devoured by the forest.

He stopped near a patch of purple-leafed bushes and crouched, brushing a hand against the leaves.

They purred.

He pulled his hand back quickly. "Alright, noted. Don't touch the whisperberries."

A faint chime echoed ahead.

He followed it instinctively, weaving between trees, brushing aside hanging vines that buzzed with static energy. Birds flitted above, except they weren't birds. At least, not any kind he recognized. Feathered, sure, but translucent, with tails of trailing spark-light and songs that left echoes in the air.

The further he walked, the more surreal it became.

A great root bridge arched overhead, held aloft by trees on either side that seemed to breathe. Beneath it, a pond glowed with luminous fish, each of them casting trails of aether behind them as they darted in lazy loops. Flowers opened as he passed, tracking him. Watching.

He stopped again when he reached a clearing. In its center stood an obelisk.

It was cracked, ancient, covered in glyphs so old they didn't even register as language. At its base was a pool, but not of water, aether itself, pooled like quicksilver and humming low, like a sleeping beast.

Thorne stepped to the edge and knelt.

He didn't dare touch it.

Instead, he just stared. "What is this place…"

The forest rustled behind him.

He froze.

Then slowly, very slowly, turned around.

Nothing there.

But the wind had changed. It blew colder now. Sharper.

He stood and backed away from the pool.

Maybe this was far enough for one day.

He was just starting back toward the statue when a deep, resonating roar shattered the quiet.

It echoed through the forest, low, primal, and impossibly far... yet loud enough to rattle his bones.

Thorne stopped dead in his tracks.

His eyes narrowed. The hairs on his neck stood.

Then, slowly, his lips curled into a grin. Not cautious. Not fearful. Wicked.

His heart pounded, not from panic, but anticipation.

"Did I just find the one place in Aetherhold where I can use my magic unchecked?"

Without another word, he turned away from the statue.

And ran toward the sound.

His speed picked up. The wild aether chased him like a flock of eager birds.

He was grinning like a madman as he vanished between the trees.

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