After the Verdant Echoes incident, the trio returned to the Primordial Academy without fanfare. Their robes were clean, their expressions measured—but something in their presence had shifted. Dawn moved like someone who had heard the world's heartbeat—and hadn't forgotten it.
They'd been gone nearly a week.
Questions followed them like shadows. Instructors glanced their way with veiled scrutiny. Students whispered behind sleeves. Ingrid gave the same excuse each time: they'd gone on a private outing. Nothing more.
No one believed it.
No one pressed further.
Not out of courtesy—out of unease.
Still, not everyone kept their distance.
Cedric Thorne, all muscle and menace, had always been a blunt instrument around the Academy. But now, his usual grumbling disdain for them had hardened into something more pointed.
It started at breakfast.
Dawn, Gary, and Ingrid sat at a corner table, halfway through bread, fruit, and tea when Cedric barreled past with the grace of a landslide.
Dawn's tray toppled. Tea soaked his robe. Gary's toast hit the floor with a greasy slap.
Cedric didn't pause. "Watch where you sit," he muttered, striding toward the opposite side of the hall.
"Watch where you walk, you overgrown lummox," Gary shouted back.
Ingrid leaned in, gently blotting Gary's sleeve. "Don't. Not here."
Garygave a small nod, having calmed down. He noticed Dawn hadlifted the tray, unfazed.
Sensing Gary's inquisitive gaze, Dawn replied,"Can't throw away food just because a random bull charged through here now, can we?"
His funny words made Ingrid laugh. Gary had a small smile at the corner of his lips too, but there was something more hidden in his eyes.
---
The next time came days later. They were walking a quiet path near the east wing gardens, sun filtering soft through the branches. Then—splash.
A bucket of water dropped from an upper ledge, dousing all three of them.
A second-year student leaned over, wide-eyed and stammering. "I—I was cleaning! Didn't see you there!"
He fled too fast for the lie to hold.
"That was no accident," Gary said, wringing water from his collar.
"Coward," Ingrid spat, glaring upward.
Dawn's gaze lingered on the ledge. His eyes narrowed, unreadable.
It was no longer coincidence. It was deliberate.
Gary noticed the small things. Dawn's reflexes—it had been already too sharp previously. Now while it seemed to have dulled, in actual fact it had sharpened.
When the water fell, Dawn had already shifted but then remained motionless as if controlling his relfexes. At breakfast, his hand had reached to steady the tray before Cedric even made contact but he still refrained himself.
Barely noticeable. But Gary had known him too long to miss it. He said nothing. Not yet. But it was clear:
Dawn wasn't the same.
Only Ingrid and Gary knew the truth—Dawn had ascended. Verdant Echoes hadn't merely cleansed him. It had remade him. He had crossed the threshold. Touched the resonant layer.
Outwardly, he still looked like the same quiet, lean boy. But something deeper pulsed beneath his skin. A rhythm too vast to fake, too exact to ignore.
Isodora Valcrest may have suspected. She'd lingered too long at the falls. But nobles like her rarely spoke without motive.
Unknown to almost everyone, another figure had sensed the change: the Grand Instructor. Hidden from sight, cloaked in the layers of the Academy's forgotten lore, they had felt the ripple in the harmonics the moment Dawn stepped back on Academy grounds. Still, they watched from afar. For now.
One night, as their dorm lantern flickered low, Gary sat silent, recalling a moment from before everything changed.
A meeting. Back when things were simpler.
---
The library annex. Quiet. Dim.
Elias Dunheart had appeared as if summoned by tension. Cedric was there too, looming at his side like a mute statue.
Elias approached with a smirk sharp enough to draw blood. His first jab was casual—aimed at Gary, dressed as observation.
"Strolling with the lower courts again, Lord Amberson? You nobles and your indulgences."
Gary ignored the bait.
Elias stepped closer, eyes shifting to Dawn.
"Enjoying the fresh air, are we? Better make the most of it while it's still yours."
Gary's jaw tensed. Ingrid opened her mouth, but Elias cut her off with a glance that dismissed her like an insect.
Then Elias spoke again, voice low, almost pleasant.
"Careful, Gary. You play among commoners long enough, you forget which game you're in. The Academy doesn't reward sentiment. It rewards alignment."
Gary met his gaze, steady and cold. "And it punishes hubris. You'd do well to remember that."
The conversation had ended there—but the tension had lingered.
---
Elias hadn't crossed any lines—publicly. But the timing of Cedric's petty hostilities since then wasn't lost on Gary. Elias had influence. And Cedric was a perfect cudgel.
But Elias wouldn't move openly. Not against Gary.
The Amberson name carried too much weight. His house outclassed both Elias's and Cedric's. Even at the Academy, there were lines.
So Elias struck at the other two.
Dawn. Ingrid.
Now, whispers curled through the corridors—not about the trio. About Elias.
He hadn't approached them since. But Cedric had started showing up far too often.
One night, as the three of them sat together in the study room, Gary finally said it.
"You think Elias is still behind all this?"
Ingrid folded her arms. "Cedric doesn't have the brains to start this on his own. He's a hammer. Someone's swinging him."
"And Elias has reason," Gary added. "Dawn ascending outside the Academy's permission? That's heresy in their eyes."
Dawn sat by the window, fingers drumming a quiet rhythm against the wood—steady, layered, deliberate. The same rhythm he'd picked up after the waterfall. Something only he could hear in full.
"He hasn't made a move directly," Dawn said at last.
"Not his style," Ingrid replied.
"He doesn't need to. If we retaliate, we get disciplined. If we ignore it, they keep testing."
"So what do we do?" Gary asked.
Dawn turned. His eyes caught the lantern light—calm, unreadable, and impossibly deep.
"We let them test."
A pause.
"And we watch who steps closer."
Because this wasn't about retaliation.
This was about patience.
And drawing out the ones who still thought they were in control.
Elias Dunheart had made his move in the shadows.
The ripples had only begun.