The wind tore through the jagged spires of Elraen Academy like a warning unheeded.
It howled between towers of ivory stone and whispered through the cracks of forgotten archways, carrying the scent of frost, ink, and something older—something watching.
Below those hallowed halls of marble and sigil, past the gleaming dormitories of nobles and the gilded statues of founders long dead, the shadows stretched thin across the servant's lane.
And from that shadow… emerged Raen Liora.
His boots were soaked through. One sole flapped with every step.
But his walk held no hesitation.
Today was Testing Day.
Not his first. Not his second.
His seventh.
Raen's cloak—patched and fraying at the seams—offered little warmth against the winter wind. But it wasn't the cold that coiled inside his chest. It was the silence of expectation. The weight of all the times he had hoped.
And all the times hope had failed him.
> "Seventeen. Still nothing."
The words came low, dry—like he was trying to spit them out before they sank deeper.
Every year since his tenth name-day, he had stood before the Marking Stone.
Every year, it stayed cold beneath his hand while others lit it aflame.
Now, even the instructors barely glanced at him.
They'd stopped waiting.
Stopped believing.
To them, he was a ghost in borrowed robes.
A stray who hadn't learned when to die.
The courtyard shimmered with breath and light as students gathered.
Some wore silken uniforms woven with house crests—dragons, suns, silver thorns. Magic flickered like lazy fireflies around them. Whispered power. Entitlement.
Raen stood among them, silent.
He had no sigils. No family name worth speaking.
Only scars. Only questions.
A familiar voice broke the morning calm.
> "Move, rat."
Raen turned.
Veylan Marren stood tall in a burnished breastplate, the Marren crest blazing red on his shoulder. Sparks danced around him, coiling like playful vipers.
> "Still pretending you belong here?"
Others chuckled. Raen said nothing. He stepped aside.
Let them speak. Let them laugh.
He hadn't come for them.
The Testing Hall loomed like a cathedral of shadows. Blackstone walls etched with forgotten languages pulsed faintly—like they breathed.
At the center stood the Marking Stone.
A monolith of obsidian. Silent. Patient. Waiting.
One by one, students stepped forward.
Palms pressed to stone.
Light bloomed.
Colors shifted—blue for elemental, gold for mind-born, silver for seers.
Raen waited.
When his name was called, the room hushed.
Not in anticipation.
But resignation.
He stepped forward. Placed his palm.
Cold.
Still.
Dead.
The silence held for one breath… then another.
And then—laughter.
Not cruel. Not loud.
Worse.
Pitying.
One instructor scribbled without looking up.
> "Seventeen. That's enough. Go find a trade, boy. Some of us are born to greatness. Others to serve it."
Raen didn't flinch. Didn't reply.
He simply turned—
and walked away.
That night, when the dorms quieted and the sigil wards dimmed, Raen slipped through the cracks.
Out. Beyond the lights. Past the forest's edge where the ruins slept beneath root and stone.
They called it forbidden ground.
Whispered of ghosts.
Of curses.
Of blood.
Raen didn't care.
Something had pulled him there. A whisper beneath his bones.
A feeling that the world had forgotten something—and he was meant to find it.
Among the crumbled statues and ivy-choked stones, he found it.
Not a blade. Not a scroll.
A ring.
Dark silver. Etched in sigils that shimmered like a memory trying to be remembered.
At its center: a blood-red gem, pulsing like a heart.
Raen knelt. Touched it.
Pain struck like lightning.
> Not physical.
Soul-deep.
Visions screamed through him—wars drowned in flame, cities torn from the sky, voices crying in a language he didn't know but somehow understood.
He collapsed. The ring latched to his finger.
And the world changed.
> [RELIC IDENTIFIED: Vael'Thar – Dormant Echo Stage]
[NEW HOST ACCEPTED]
[WARNING: Power Detected – Suppression Protocols Failing]
Raen's body convulsed. The air thickened. His veins burned. Not with fire—
But remembrance.
The ring pulsed again.
And then a voice—impossibly old, impossibly near—echoed inside him.
> "You are the last. The cycle begins again."
He gasped, but no air came.
The ruins trembled.
The sigils in the stone flared to life for the first time in centuries.
And deep in the dark—
something watched.
Eyes opened behind the veil.
A presence ancient enough to remember the first lie.
Raen lay in the ruins, shaking. Marked. Chosen.
Not by fate.
But by something far older.
Something that had waited a long, long time.
And it had found him.
[End of Chapter 1]