The moment Aeren stepped out of the vault, the alarms finally screamed.
Magical sigils blazed red along the walls, and the temperature dropped as the air thickened. Three armored enforcers appeared, faces masked, staffs raised and glowing with containment runes.
"There's a mark on him!" one shouted. "The Forbidden Eye!"
Aeren didn't wait to ask questions.
He ran.
Through the twisting halls of the Elvaron estate, where portraits whispered spells and floors shifted like puzzle pieces, Aeren fled as spells exploded around him. Walls cracked, fire lashed at his heels. He ducked beneath a shield of falling glass summoned by a panicked defensive spell. He didn't know how he was alive—just that the orb had changed something.
Somehow, the wards didn't strike him. Somehow, the gates parted for him.
He burst into the night air, lungs heaving, and didn't stop running until the estate was a silhouette behind him.
But safety wasn't waiting beyond the walls.
The Emberwild Forest stood before him—a cursed woodland of living trees and shifting paths. Mages said only fools and the mad entered it at night. Aeren, at that moment, was both.
He plunged into the undergrowth, thorns biting at his arms. The forest whispered his name—mocking, eerie, or perhaps guiding. A shadow darted past him. Then another.
He was not alone.
Suddenly, a beast lunged from the underbrush—six-legged, eyes glowing like hot coals, jaws lined with curved fangs. A hunter of the Emberwild.
Aeren backed away, tripping over a root.
The beast pounced.
Then—
BOOM.
A blinding flash of silver light burst from Aeren's hands, knocking the creature back as if slammed by a storm. The tree behind it split with a crack. The mark on his palm blazed.
Silence followed.
The beast growled once more, then turned and vanished into the woods.
Aeren stared at his trembling hands. "What… was that?"
A voice came from behind a tree. Low, dry, and amused.
"Raw power," it said. "Untrained. Dangerous. And now… mine to deal with."
A hooded figure stepped into the moonlight—staff in one hand, a curved dagger in the other, and a half-smile like they'd just found a puzzle worth solving.
"Welcome to the Emberwild, boy. You just made your first mistake… and maybe your first step toward real magic."