The Arcadium settled into a rhythm like a living thing.
Caelum's days were consumed by theory, spell refinement, and elemental resonance exercises. He was invited to a closed-circuit duel club by Teyla, and spent late evenings with Rowan debating the ethics of spellbinding in long-forgotten nations. He seemed to glow more with each passing day—not just with power, but with comfort.
Darian, meanwhile, grew stronger in silence.
The Bladeward Corps respected him now. Not openly, not loudly—but they stopped scoffing when he entered the training ring. Bryn challenged him daily. Eilo sat beside him during lectures, mumbling observations under his breath. The weight he carried as a Makaras hadn't vanished, but the blade he carried balanced it, little by little.
One gray morning, Darian and Caelum found themselves together in a rare break between sessions.
They sat on a stretch of stone overhang overlooking a swirling mana fall. It sparkled as it descended—raw elemental energy channeled into controlled cascades, used to fuel the Academy's lower platforms.
"I never thought I'd get used to this," Darian said.
"To the mana everywhere?" Caelum asked.
"No. To not hating it."
Caelum didn't answer right away. He pulled a pendant from under his tunic—a silver ring etched with a spiral. A quiet ward, nothing more. But he held it like it meant something.
"Do you think we're still the same?" he asked.
"As when?"
"As when we left Valmere."
Darian thought for a moment. "We're more tired."
They both laughed.
"But yeah," Caelum said after a beat. "We're still us. Just... with new pieces."
In the southern training yard, Darian's unit was tested against unstable elementals—half-formed magical beasts conjured by senior mages for live practice. They were unpredictable, and despite safety wards, dangerous.
Darian's group stood tense before a snarling Flamejaw—fire leaking between its fangs.
Bryn circled left while Eilo tried to keep it distracted with an enchanted shield. Darian found the right opening and struck just beneath the chest-plate of its ethereal armor. It dissipated into smoke.
"Nice," Eilo breathed.
Bryn wiped soot off her arm. "If we survive this year, first round's on me."
Darian smirked. "That's fair."
Later that day, while patching a tear in his training tunic, he found a note tucked beneath his cot.
"Makaras or not—you're one of us. Don't forget it."
No signature.
Just ink.
It made something in him shift.
That evening, in the spellcrafters' amphitheater, Caelum watched a dual-element test. Teyla cast a wide arc of flame while a boy from the Hydrotrack wove a defensive shell of swirling mist. The two spells collided—then merged—and a new effect formed: steam that crystallized into glowing ice flowers midair.
"Beautiful," Rowan whispered.
"Powerful," Caelum murmured.
He closed his eyes and tried to imagine combining all the elements at once—no gesture, no chant, just feeling. Just harmony.
The thought lingered with him as he walked back to his dorm under moonlight, thoughts clouded with questions he didn't know how to ask.
Far from the floating towers and spellwoven skies, the forest near Valmere darkened unnaturally early.
The trees that had once whispered calmly now creaked, and the animals had gone silent.
A woodcutter named Gerren Harth walked the trail with a blade slung over his back and a rune-chisel at his side. He was well into his forties, with arms like braided rope and a temper dulled by years of solitude.
He stopped when he saw the shadows twitch.
A sound—like flapping, wet cloth—broke the silence.
Then he saw it.
A creature hunched at the edge of the clearing.
It had the rough silhouette of a stag, but it was wrong—its fur black and oily, its antlers jagged like blades. Its chest glowed faintly red, like embers inside a cracked furnace. Its legs were longer than they should've been. Its head jerked in small, twitchy movements.
Its eyes burned with unnatural light.
Gerren stepped back. "You're no forest beast."
The creature snarled.
And charged.
Gerren didn't hesitate. He slammed a palm into the ground and shouted a word in Old Terash. Vines erupted from the soil, twisting into sharp thorns. Branches surged upward, slashing toward the creature's throat.
The beast screeched—
Then shed its skin.
The outer hide peeled back, falling like wet silk. Beneath was something leaner. Smoother. Almost humanoid.
The beast moved like smoke and bone.
And it struck.
Gerren didn't scream.
He barely had time to blink.
A moment later, the clearing was still.
The vines slowly lowered.
The ground stopped pulsing.
The creature knelt over Gerren's body, hands of black bone pressing into his chest. The glow from the beast's ribs spread over the woodcutter's form. Slowly, he dissolved—absorbed, bone and blood and memory, into the thing that ended him.
It stood.
Taller now. More upright. Less beast. More man.
But not human.
A line of red light traced from its forehead to its chest. Its fingers split into claws. Its antlers had fused into a crown of jagged bone.
It turned toward the horizon.
Toward the distant lights of the Arcadium, far away beyond the trees and the mountain line.
And in a voice stitched from ash and blood, it whispered one word.
"Might."