Classes at Velmora began with more confusion than magic.
Liara sat in the Theory of Arcane History classroom, surrounded by floating scrolls and students who stared just a bit too long. The professor—a tiny woman with white braids and glowing spectacles—snapped her fingers, and the scrolls dropped neatly onto desks.
"Today," she said, "we discuss the Founders. Not the sugar-coated version. The real one."
The room hushed.
"There were six Founders," she continued. "Each wielded a primal branch of magic—light, shadow, fire, storm, nature, and void. They united to create Velmora as a sanctuary after the first war fractured the realms."
Liara sat straighter. The names on the blackboard pulsed as if alive.
"But one of them disappeared," a student whispered. "Didn't she?"
The professor didn't confirm. She only said, "History is a spell. And some spells were meant to be broken."
Later, during Spellwork Training, Liara stood across from a practice dummy with a wand made of polished ash wood. The spell she was supposed to learn was Lumen Ignis—a basic fire-lighting charm.
Everyone else summoned sparks or flames.
Liara?
She raised her wand, whispered the incantation… and summoned a gust of ice.
The flames of nearby torches flickered out. A frost pattern crawled up the stone wall.
The instructor froze, wide-eyed. "You... you said Lumen Ignis, yes?"
Liara nodded.
The instructor turned to another professor nearby and murmured something urgently. A few students stepped back.
Suddenly, a voice cut through the tension.
"Impressive," said Cassian, stepping forward. "Rare for someone to invert an element without even trying."
She smiled shyly. "It wasn't on purpose."
He offered his hand. "Then maybe your magic knows you better than you know it."
Liara took his hand—and felt a spark, not magical, but real.
That night, back in her room, she noticed something strange on her collarbone as she changed.
A symbol.
It hadn't been there before.
A small crescent moon wrapped in ivy—the same one that had sealed her letter.
It shimmered faintly when she touched it, and warmth spread through her fingers.
The mark.
The one from her dreams.
Tamsin spotted it and dropped her hairbrush. "That's... that's the Founder's Sigil. The one they erased from all the books."
Before Liara could ask more, a knock came at the door.
A note slid under it.
She picked it up.
The parchment was black. The ink;deep crimson. Meet me in the Clocktower at midnight. Come alone
_ A