Caelus awoke in the dim haze of a dream half-remembered. His body ached with the familiar burn of overdrawn blood magic, but it was the weight in his chest that truly woke him. Not pain, but tension. A pressure, like the breath held before a scream. His eyes flicked to the corner of the room. Empty. The stranger was gone. But the envelope remained.
It sat where the figure had left it, its wax seal unbroken, catching the pale morning light filtering in through the slitted stone window. The sigil was no common emblem; it shimmered faintly with spell-forged curves, a fusion of ancient and forbidden styles. A coiled serpent biting its own tail, wrapped around a crescent moon pierced by a blade.
He hadn't opened it. Wouldn't. Not yet.
He rose from the stiff mattress with a groan, running a hand through his hair. He dressed in the academy's field-day uniform: a dark linen tunic belted at the waist with a braided cord, high boots, and the house-sigil of Blackspire emblazoned over his heart. His fingers lingered a moment on the emblem.
A deep breath. A grounding breath. Then he tucked the envelope and the cursed books from the Archivum Nocturnis into his desk drawer. He didn't know any minor ward sigils, not even the simplest protective circles. All he could do was push the drawer shut and hope the shadows within remained quiet.
The walk to the dining hall was brief. Cold corridors, polished to a dull obsidian sheen, led to a domed chamber aglow with warm lanternlight and filtered sun. Chandeliers enchanted with fireflies hovered above the long wooden tables, and students were already gathering in groups, voices a soft roar.
Caelus, tray in hand, found himself staring at the morning offerings in a daze. Smoked boar slices, honeyed barley porridge, thick crusted rye bread, roasted apples glistening with cinnamon glaze, and dark, fragrant tea brewed with thyme and rosemary. A feast. His stomach rumbled in delight.
He took a little of each, though guilt twitched in him at the abundance. Back in the gutters of Varnstead, he'd scraped crusts from trash bins and learned to chew slowly to make them last. Now he sat at the far end of a bench, alone, the food warm in his hands but the weight of the decision left behind in his room still dragging at him.
He tore off a piece of bread, dipped it into the stew of beans and chopped greens, and stared at nothing. Every flavor exploded on his tongue; sweet, spiced, unfamiliar and his stomach clenched with confusion. It was too much. Too good. He chewed slowly, reverently, not out of manners, but from a place of mourning. The boy who had stolen scraps from gutters wouldn't recognize the one seated here.
"You look like you're about to duel your breakfast," came a voice, soft and familiar.
Dren.
Caelus glanced up. The wiry boy with slate eyes and nervous hands stood beside him, bowl in hand.
"Mind if I join?"
Caelus gestured at the empty bench.
Dren sat quickly, then nodded toward Caelus's tray. "You're eating like someone expecting their last meal."
"Maybe I am," Caelus muttered, eyes flicking briefly toward the middle distance. He quickly changed the subject. "You know anything about field day?"
"Verdancy of Virell," Dren said. "Botanomancy, mostly. Sounds relaxing until you realize the plants might try to eat you."
Before Caelus could respond, two figures approached. Identical in height and build, though one bore a jagged scar across her jaw and the other had a streak of silver in his dark hair.
They slid into place with effortless grace. Their tunics were cut from richer cloth than most, their boots laced with silver thread.
"I'm Selene Thorne," said the girl, nodding once. "This is my twin, Cyran."
"You're Caelus Vire, right?" Cyran asked, voice smooth and vaguely amused.
"Word travels," Selene added. "Especially when someone blood-duels an heir and wins."
Caelus stiffened. "It wasn't a duel. Not officially."
"Official or not," Cyran said, "it rattled the noble nests. We enjoyed it."
Selene took a bite of bread. "Our family's... rising. The old guards hate it. So we have no love for the old bloodlines."
"And you look like someone who'll make their lives difficult," Cyran said with a grin.
Dren chuckled nervously. Caelus just stared.
"Why sit with me, then?" he asked.
Selene met his gaze. "Because you don't flinch. That's rare."
The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable. For the first time since arriving at Blackspire, Caelus didn't feel entirely alone.
But beneath it all, the weight of what he'd left behind pulsed. The envelope. The mission. The Veiled One's promise.
Why me?
Because you're already dying to know what lies beneath Blackspire.
They met at the East Courtyard after the first bell. Sunlight poured in from above the shattered dome, and the air buzzed with the scent of soil, root, and strange florals. Ahead stood the Verdancy of Virell; a sprawling greenhouse of glass and wrought iron, shaped like a cathedral but breathing like a beast.
Mist clung to the base of the walls. Vines rustled against the glass. Inside, the lesson awaited.
Instructor Thaleen Vos met them at the threshold, her bare feet leaving faint bioluminescent impressions on the mossy stones that faded like dying breath. The tattoos winding up her legs weren't mere decoration; they pulsed in time with the greenhouse's respiration, a symbiotic ink forged from the very plants she tended.
"Enter respectfully," she said, her voice carrying the weight of centuries of cultivated secrets. "The Verdancy is alive, and it remembers rudeness."
They filed in. The air inside was thick, fragrant, and warm; not the comforting warmth of a hearth, but the digestive heat of something slowly consuming. Rows of magical flora stretched across raised stone beds, their roots visibly throbbing beneath translucent planters filled with enchanted aqua vitae instead of soil. Floating orbs of light drifted lazily above, their glow occasionally dimming when passing particularly voracious specimens.
"Today," Thaleen began, plucking a single glowing spore from the air and crushing it between her fingers to command attention, "we study three foundational flora: the Emberthorn Vine, the Virellian Bloom, and the Mirrorcap Fungus. Each reflects a principle of natural magicka: aggression, deception, and reflection; the three pillars upon which the Verdancy was built after the Fall of the Green Lords."
She gestured to the first plant, its barbed tendrils coiling like serpents sensing prey. "The Emberthorn Vine was engineered, not evolved. During the Pyretic Schism, the Burned Clerics needed weapons that could pierce fire-resistant flesh. They crossbred razorvine with the still-beating heart of a volcano spirit." A tendril lashed out at her extended finger, only to recoil when her tattoo flared green. "Modern alchemists pay in blood for cuttings; one mature vine can produce exactly thirty-three drops of liquid fire per lunar cycle, enough to melt through castle walls... or foolish students who touch without permission."
Selene raised an eyebrow. "And if someone does get stung?"
Thaleen smiled grimly, gesturing to a nearby plant with translucent leaves filled with swirling silver fluid. "Moondew only grows where Emberthorn burns the earth clean. Its sap contains memories of every fire it's ever quenched. Apply it wrong though..." She tapped a glass case containing a hand-shaped crystal. "This was Archmagister Keldrin. He thought himself immune."
The Virellian Bloom shimmered like glass, its petals warping reality at the edges where light passed through. "This specimen descends from the last flower to grow in the Hall of Broken Mirrors before the Fae abandoned it," Thaleen whispered, her breath making the bloom tremble. "Its pollen doesn't just cause hallucinations; it steals them. Every student who inhales it donates a secret to the Verdancy's collective memory." She stroked a leaf that curled around her finger.
"The antidote requires three ingredients: powdered moonstone, the drinker's tears... and one truth they've never told another living soul."
Caelus felt the bloom's gaze like physical pressure between his shoulder blades. It knew about the envelope. It knew about the voice in his dreams. He stepped back so sharply he nearly collided with Cyran.
Then the Mirrorcap; a deceptively plain gray fungus that smelled of old parchment and iron. "These grow only where powerful magic users died weeping," Thaleen explained, tracing a sigil that made the cap's surface ripple like mercury. "Not just any death; the spores activate only when exposed to blood spilled in genuine remorse. The older the cap, the deeper it sees." She nodded to a massive specimen in a wrought iron cage. "That one consumed an entire battalion of repentant war-mages. It shows not just your magic, but every spell your bloodline has ever cast."
Dren's reflection flickered like a guttering candle. "Yours is... storm-touched," he murmured to Caelus. "But there's something else beneath the lightning."
One student stared at their reflection, turned pale, and refused to speak. Their cap had shown only emptiness.
Another, a boy with crimson robes and cruel eyes, sneered at his mirror-self with pride. His reflection wore a crown of screaming faces.
A girl who'd been whispering to the plants suddenly gasped. Her cap had grown three new rings during the viewing. Thaleen swiftly placed a bell jar over it, whatever truth it had consumed needed time to digest.
By the end of the two-hour lesson, the greenhouse hummed with stolen secrets and half-digested truths. The plants had feasted well today. Caelus felt hollowed out, his veins buzzing with residual pollen and the unsettling sense that the Verdancy now knew him better than he knew himself.
And yet; when they stepped out into the open air again, blinking under the sudden sky, he smiled. A small, rare smile.
He was not alone.
The stone corridors felt unnaturally cold after the Verdancy's humid embrace. Caelus's boots echoed hollowly as he climbed the spiral stairs to the dormitories, his borrowed botany texts heavy in his arms. The leather bindings stuck to his sweat-damp palms, their mundane weight a constant reminder of what separated him from the nobleborn students with their enchanted satchels and pocket dimensions. Each step upward made the books slip; one nearly tumbling before he caught it against his chest. The embossed title dug into his palm: Viridian Toxins and Their Antidotes. He wondered if the chapter on dreamvine poisoning might explain why his fingers still tingled where the pollen had grazed him.
His room smelled of ink and old paper when he entered. Sunlight through the narrow window illuminated motes of dust dancing above his desk; and the faint crimson glow still pulsing from the drawer where the envelope lay. He dropped the books with a thud that shook the fragile desk, then hesitated. The drawer handle felt colder than the surrounding air. Three rapid heartbeats passed before he forced himself to turn away.
Three sharp raps on the doorframe.
Dren leaned against the corridor wall when Caelus emerged, his fingers worrying the frayed edge of his sleeve. Up close, Caelus noticed the shadows beneath his friend's eyes had deepened to bruises, the left one bisected by that pale scar he'd never explained.
"You look like the plants tried to read your soul," Dren said, pushing off the wall.
"They did," Caelus muttered, locking the door. The iron key left a metallic tang on his tongue; he'd taken to chewing it absently when anxious. A gutterborn habit, one the nobles would sneer at. But Dren just reached over and gently pried it from between his teeth, handing it back without comment.
They walked in silence for a dozen paces before Dren spoke again, voice low. "The Mirrorcap showed me my grandmother's face. She died before I was born." A muscle jumped in his jaw. "It had her eyes; exactly. Even the cataract in the left one."
Caelus watched their distorted reflections ripple across a rain puddle as they crossed the courtyard. The water showed Dren's face wavering like a half-remembered dream. "Maybe it thinks you need to mourn."
Dren's laugh was all sharp edges. "Or maybe it knows I'm the one who killed her."
Caelus stopped walking.
"Not directly." Dren plucked a withered leaf from a passing hedge, crushing it to dust between his fingers. "But blood magic works differently in my family. Our curses skip generations. She took mine when I was born."
A first confession. Caelus recognized the weight of it; the unspoken trust. He matched it with his own. "The Emberthorn vine burned me during the demonstration." He rolled up his sleeve to show the livid mark circling his wrist like a shackle. "On purpose."
Dren inhaled sharply. "You wanted to see if your blood could neutralize fire."
"It can't." Caelus let the fabric fall back. "But it hungered for the flame. Like recognizing like."
They reached an arched bridge spanning the koi ponds. Below, the academy's prized fish swirled in patterns that mirrored the constellations; another enchantment for the nobles' amusement. Dren leaned against the railing, his next words barely audible over the splashing water. "The Bloom showed me a library. Endless shelves with no doors. I think… I think it was showing me your desire, not mine."
Caelus's throat tightened. "What else did you see?"
"A book bound in black leather. The title kept changing, but one version stayed longest: The Hollow King's Lament." Dren turned to face him fully. "You've been researching him. Why?"
Wind rattled the willow branches above them. Somewhere in the distance, a bell began to toll. Caelus weighed his answer carefully. "Because someone left me a letter sealed with his sigil."
Dren went very still. "The Ouroboros Crescent."
"You know it?"
"Everyone in my family does. It's the mark of…" A shout cut him off. Across the courtyard, a group of upperclassmen emerged from the alchemy wing. Dren grabbed Caelus's arm, yanking him behind a marble pillar. His fingers were ice-cold. "Not here," he breathed. "The walls have ears."
They detoured through the hedge maze, taking the long way to the Mission Hall. Dren kept glancing over his shoulder until they reached the cover of the thornapple bushes, their narcotic scent masking conversation. "The Ouroboros Crescent has gone extinct for a long time now," he said at last. "Whoever sent you that letter isn't just dangerous; they're old. Older than Blackspire."
Caelus touched the hidden scar on his wrist. "Then why approach me?"
Dren's smile held no joy. "Because you're the first student here with death in your blood and no family to avenge you." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a twisted piece of iron. "Take this. It's a ward-key from my grandmother's collection. Won't stop whatever's coming, but it'll give you three seconds of warning."
The metal burned against Caelus's palm; not with heat, but with the same unnatural cold as his drawer handle. "You're giving me an heirloom."
"I'm giving you a fighting chance." Dren's eyes flicked to something over Caelus's shoulder. "We're being watched."
Caelus didn't turn. He'd felt it too; the prickle between his shoulder blades, the same sensation as when the Virellian Bloom had studied him. "How long?"
"Since we left the dormitory." Dren pressed the key firmly into his hand. "Meet me at the moon pool after midnight. There's something you need to see."
Then he was gone, melting into the shadows with the ease of someone who'd spent a lifetime hiding. Caelus clenched the ward-key until its edges drew blood. The drops sizzled where they hit the cobblestones; tiny embers flaring and dying in quick succession.
Above him, a raven perched on a gargoyle's head. Its eyes reflected the sunset in shades of crimson, watching. Waiting.
The Mission Hall's doors loomed ahead, but Caelus no longer cared about the postings. Whatever mission he chose now would just be cover for the real hunt.
From above, cloaked in darkness, Lord Malrec of the Bloodwing Club watched.
He touched the chained pendant beneath his robes, feeling the blood cores thrumming like hearts. All but one.
The rarest one, he thought. Blood unrefined, power untapped.
And he knew exactly where it pulsed.
Caelus Vire.
The final key.
He smiled.
Then turned away. And vanished into shadow.