Ezra stumbled away, his thoughts a storm of broken glass.
The image of Silas—golden and terrible, flowers blooming at his command—burned behind his eyelids. He wasn't the only one with secrets. The realization sat heavy in his gut, sour as spoiled wine.
Blackspire's corridors twisted around him, shadows stretching long fingers across his path. He turned a corner—
—and froze.
There, on the stairwell, Soren leaned heavily against the stone, his shirt soaked through with blood. The young man who'd stopped the fight—Dain, with his sharp spectacles and sharper tongue—stood close, their faces inches apart. They spoke in hushed, urgent tones, the words too low to catch.
Soren winced, his hand pressing against the wound at his abdomen. A groan slipped through his teeth.
Atlas's expression darkened. He reached out—not to heal, but to grip Soren's chin, forcing their eyes to meet. His lips moved, shaping words that made Soren stiffen.
A beat.
Then—
Soren laughed, the sound wet and pained. "Since when do you care?"
Dain's grip tightened. "Since always."
The admission hung between them, fragile as a spider's web.
Ezra took a step back.
The stair creaked.
Two heads snapped toward him—Soren's eyes black-violet and burning, Atlas's cold and calculating behind his glasses.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then Atlas smiled—a thin, dangerous thing. "Lost, first-year?"
Ezra's throat went dry.
Once again, he'd wandered where he didn't belong.
Ezra's pulse hammered in his throat as they fixed him in their sights. Soren leaned against the blood-slicked stone like a king on a ruined throne, his violet-black eyes burning with banked fury. The other young man—Atlas —stood poised like a knife balanced on its edge, his spectacles flashing opaque in the dim light.
For a breathless moment, Ezra considered turning tail.
Then—
Be useful.
The thought came unbidden, sharp as a knife between ribs. He took a halting step forward. "You're—you're bleeding."
Soren's lips peeled back from his teeth in something too vicious to be called a smile. Blood dripped from his fingers to patter against the steps like the first drops of a coming storm.
Atlas's gaze flickered between them, calculating. Then—with a final, warning glance at Ezra—he turned on his heel and vanished into the shadows, his footsteps silent as a grave's whisper.
Soren exhaled through his nose, a wet, ragged sound. "Anything else you'd like to say?"His voice was gravel and broken glass, the kind of tone that scraped raw everything it touched.
Ezra swallowed. He knew that voice. Had heard it in District Five alleyways right before bones snapped. This wasn't just anger—this was the quiet, terrible rage of something that had been cornered too many times.
"I can help,"Ezra managed, the words ash in his mouth.
Soren laughed then—a sound like a sword being drawn. "Can you?" He pushed off the wall, looming despite the wound weeping at his side. "What makes you think I want your help, gutter rat?"
The insult landed like a blow. Ezra flinched, but held his ground.
Soren's nostrils flared. He took a step closer. Then another. The air between them thickened with the scent of iron and something darker—something like the moment before lightning strikes.
"Tell me,"Soren murmured, his breath hot against Ezra's cheek, "do you make a habit of sticking your nose where it doesn't belong?"
Ezra's mouth went dry.
This close, he could see the madness swimming in Soren's violet gaze—the same barely-leashed fury that had made him both legend and cautionary tale. The kind of rage that burned cities and left only bones in its wake.
And yet—
And yet, the blood kept coming.
Ezra reached into his pocket and pulled out a ragged strip of cloth. "You'll stain the stairs,"he said, offering it.
A beat.
Two.
Soren's fingers closed around Ezra's wrist like a manacle. For a heart-stopping moment, Ezra thought he'd snap the bones.
Then—
The pressure eased. Soren took the cloth and pressed it to his side with a grunt. "Next time," he said, turning away, "keep walking."
The dismissal stung more than the grip had.
Ezra watched as Soren climbed the stairs—each step deliberate, each movement calculated to show no weakness—until the shadows swallowed him whole.
Only then did Ezra breathe again.
Only then did he realize—
His hands were shaking.
He turned away, his heart still hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. The corridor stretched empty before him, shadows pooling where torchlight failed to reach. He took a step. Then another.
A flicker of movement at the edge of his vision.
Asli stood half-hidden in an alcove, her dark eyes fixed on the spot where Soren had vanished. His hands—usually so still, so controlled—were clenched into white-knuckled fists, the tendons standing stark against his skin. Slowly, deliberately, he uncurled them. The motion spoke of something raw. Something hungry.
Ezra froze.
For a heartbeat, Asli remained perfectly still, his gaze locked on empty air. Then—as if sensing his presence—he turned his head just enough to meet his eyes.
No words passed between them. None were needed.
And then—like smoke—he was gone, leaving only the echo of her footsteps and the scent of iron lingering in the air.
Ezra exhaled.
Blackspire's walls seemed to press closer, the stones whispering secrets he wasn't sure he wanted to hear.
Some obsessions, he realized, were more dangerous than others.
And Soren?
Soren was the kind of man who turned watchers into worshippers.
Or corpses.
The library's ancient shelves loomed like sentinels in the lamplight as Ezra traced his fingers along cracked leather spines. Dust motes swirled in the air, catching the dim glow like fading stars. He'd spent hours here since the encounter with Soren, scouring texts for anything that might give him an edge—anything to stop his hands from shaking when he remembered the wildfire in that violet-black gaze.
A bottle clattered to the floor.
"My beautiful, young, amazing child,"came a voice like gravel soaked in wine. "Took your time off to visit me again, didn't you?"
Theodore slumped against a bookshelf, his robes hanging askew, his wild beard flecked with what smelled like cheap gin. The scent of alcohol rolled off him in waves—sharp and sour, with an undercurrent of something herbal that made Ezra's eyes water. The professor's cheeks were flushed, his spectacles perched crookedly on his nose as he grinned with the loose, unfocused joy of the profoundly drunk.
Ezra stiffened. "Professor. I was just—"
"Looking for secrets?" Theodore interrupted, wagging a finger that missed Ezra's nose by inches. "Knowledge? Power?" He hiccuped, then leaned in conspiratorially. "Or perhaps a way to survive the monsters in our midst?"
The words landed like a slap.
Ezra's breath caught.
Theodore's grin widened, but there was something sharp in his bloodshot eyes—something too aware for a man who could barely stand. "Oh, don't look so surprised, boy. You've been digging through these tombs like a grave robber since the incident." A pause. A belch. "Tell me, what do you think of our dear Soren?"
The name hung between them, heavy as a hangman's noose.
Ezra opened his mouth—
Theodore laughed, the sound wet and wheezing. "No, no, don't answer. I can see it in your face. That mix of fear and fascination." He swayed, catching himself on a shelf. "He's special, isn't he? Like a wildfire in human skin. Beautiful until he burns you alive."
"Duskborns," he repeated, the word slithering from his tongue. He reached out, his stained fingers brushing the ancient text before Ezra could react. "You won't find the truth in these books, boy. The Academy makes sure of that."
Ezra's pulse quickened. The lamplight flickered, casting Theodore's face in jagged shadows, making his bloodshot eyes gleam like dull coins.
The professor leaned closer, his breath reeking of juniper and something fouler—something like old blood. "Violet eyes. Black veins. Shadows that move when they shouldn't." A chuckle, low and humorless. "Oh yes, they're special alright. Special enough that the Empire made sure to burn most of them out generations ago."
Ezra's throat went dry. "What do you mean?"
Theodore's grin returned, but there was no joy in it now—only the bared teeth of a cornered animal. "The Isle of Noctis wasn't always an island, boy. It was a grave." He tapped the book with one cracked fingernail. "They called it purification. The Duskborn bloodline was too dangerous. Too unpredictable. So the nations banded together and—" He made a gesture like wringing a neck.
Silence.
Then—
"Except some lines don't stay buried." Theodore's gaze drifted to the darkened window, where moonlight painted the courtyard silver. "Soren's not the first. Won't be the last. But he's the only one arrogant enough to flaunt it."
" Wiped out ?" Ezra questioned .
Theodore's laughter came out as a wet cough, his stained teeth gleaming in the lamplight. "Wiped out?" He repeated Ezra's question with a drunken sneer. "Oh, my naive little gutter rat, they didn't just kill them."
He leaned in close enough for Ezra to count the broken blood vessels in his eyes.
"They burned their homes. Poisoned their wells. Hunted their children through the streets like dogs."Theodore's finger jabbed at the ancient text, nails black with ink and something darker. "The nations made sure every last Duskborn soul was erased from history - until no one even remembered what color their eyes used to be."
A bottle clattered to the floor between them.
"Except Soren," Theodore whispered, suddenly sober despite the alcohol thick on his breath. "One stubborn ember that refused to go out." His chuckle sent spiders crawling down Ezra's spine. "And what can one man do against an empire?"
The silence that followed was heavier than the books surrounding them.
Then Theodore lurched upright, swaying like a hanged man cut from the noose. "Nothing," he answered himself. "Absolutely nothing."
But as the professor staggered into the shadows, his final words curled through the stacks like smoke:
"Until he remembers what they took from him."
And Ezra -
Ezra sat very still, staring at the ancient text, wondering why the hair on his arms stood straight up.
Wondering why Soren's eyes looked so much like the violet dusk just before a storm.
And wondering, most of all, what happened when a lone ember finally caught flame.
Outside, the moon bled silver across the courtyard stones.
And somewhere in the dark—
A lone ember waited.
For wind.
For kindling.
For war.