Kael stepped back, instinctively brushing the hilt of the charm blade at his waist. "That god is dead."
As Kael finished speaking, Eldric replied,
"Gods don't die — not truly. They can't die unless they pass on their legacy… or are devoured by others.
But the one we're speaking of — he devours. He is not one to be devoured."
There was silence for a moment — thick, uncomfortable.
After a moment of silence, Eldric spoke again," Bloodlines are awakening not with just powers," Eldric continued but with memory. Dreams that do not belong to them. Instincts that speak language they've never learned.
A few students were caught casting magic last week — markings even our archive couldn't translate.
"What did you do with them?" Kael asked.
Eldric's expression darkened.
"We observed. For now."
He moved closer to the glass, his eyes falling once more to the city below.
"You were a soldier once, weren't you, Kael?"
Kael hesitated.
"I served in the Wilderness Army. Ten years ago."
"And you saw what happens when something ancient stirs in the wrong place," Eldric said.
Kael didn't answer. He didn't need to. The scars along his hands — burned into his skin from flame runes overloaded in desperation — answered for him.
"We are not ready," Eldric said quietly. "The Empire plays its political games. The nobles train their sons to duel over land and legacy. But what's coming..." He paused, choosing the words like a man selecting the cleanest blade.
"What's coming does not care for crowns or conquests. It cares only for return."
"Its purpose is to return — and to devour everything we hold dear."
Kael swallowed, suddenly feeling the heat of his own fire pulsing beneath his skin — like it, too, had gone alert.
"What do we do, then?"
Eldric turned toward him again — and for a moment, Kael saw not a headmaster, but a war general reborn.
"We watch. We prepare. And we pray… that the children we train grow into warriors — not heirs."
"Because if that god is returning…" Eldric's voice dropped to a near-whisper.
"Then we will not be fighting for victory. We will be fighting to survive."
As Eldric reached to the table he take out a scroll.
Kael frowned,"Is it a relic"?"
Elric's voice dropped to a murmur. "It's a prophecy."
He unrolled the scroll with solemn reverence, and a hush seemed to fall over the room. The parchment glowed faintly, as though lit from within by a gentle, golden light. The glyphs shimmered in radiant ink, shifting like sunlight on water, each stroke humming with divine grace. These were not mere markings — they were echoes of a higher will, etched by a hand no mortal could name. At the bottom, one symbol gleamed brighter than the rest: a spiral wreathed in celestial fire, encircled by delicate shapes like wings or light. Though beautiful, it held a power that stirred the soul — a reminder that even the divine can command fear as much as wonder.
Elric read aloud, each word colder than the last:
"When the star bleeds black and the moon turns its face,
The chains shall loosen, the silence shall break.
The Devourer shall wake where death first wept,
And from his hunger, the sky shall be swept.
One marked by blood, one born of ash,
Shall stand at the gate 'between the begining and the end.
The world will burn, the gods shall fall—
Unless the flame answers the shadow's call.
Kael exhaled slowly. "That… that's a death sentence."
"It's a warning," Elric said, rolling the scroll back up. "One we've ignored for too long."
"And the part about the flame?" Kael asked. "Is that us?"
Elric looked out the window again, down toward the training fields where dozens of young students sparred under the banners of noble houses.
"No," he said.
"But one of them might be."