Kaelen stood alone in South Spire Hall.
The lecture room was too quiet. No students. No murmured glyph recitals. Just the cold echo of boots on polished stone.
He checked the schedule again.
"Glyph History – Compulsory Review: Room 9 – Dawn."
This was Room 9. And it was dawn.
Then—
A voice, calm and old, floated through the air like dust motes caught in morning light.
"You're late."
Kaelen spun.
At the far end of the room, seated cross-legged atop the professor's desk, was a man. Older. Thin. Cloaked in faded blue robes, the kind not worn in the current era. He didn't blink.
"Sit," he said.
Kaelen hesitated—but obeyed.
"Names are curious things," the man said, idly drawing glowing lines in the air. "They can be buried. Burned. Even stolen."
He turned his pale eyes to Kaelen.
"But glyphs? Glyphs remember."
Kaelen swallowed. "Who are you?"
The man ignored him.
Instead, he traced a shape in the air—a symbol Kaelen had never seen in any textbook. But somehow knew.
It was the same one from the side of his bunk.
The man smiled faintly. "You're dreaming this, of course. But dreams… can teach."
He flicked his fingers. The room bent inward. Walls faded into starlight.
"Lesson one," the man said. "You are not the first Veritas-bearer to lie."
Elsewhere in the academy, Seraphine sat before a shimmering mirror, one hand pressed to its surface. A projection of her mind flickered across the glass.
"Subject: Seraphine D'Arvel," said the examiner behind her. "Observation: Increased anomaly alignment with Kaelen Vey."
"Suspect," she corrected.
"Noted. Continue, please."
The mirror asked questions now. In her voice.
"Would you betray him if he lied?""Would you protect him if he fell?""Would you forgive him if he chose her?"
Each answer was a glyph that etched into the glass.
When she stood, the mirror cracked—but held.
Selene sat on a rooftop near the east wing, arms around her knees, wind tugging her silver-blonde hair.
Master Virel appeared beside her, robes rustling like dry parchment.
"You're getting attached."
"I'm getting smarter," Selene said.
He chuckled. "You think you're protecting him?"
"I know I am."
Virel's smile didn't reach his eyes.
"Then let me tell you the future."
He held out a stone shard. A broken glyph-sigil, ancient and bloodstained.
"This is from the last person who tried to love a Veritas-bearer."
Selene stared at it.
Then clenched it in her fist.
"I'm not her," she said.
Back in the echo-classroom, the ghost-professor paced.
"The Tower gave you the truth glyph. That doesn't mean you own the truth."
He flicked his wrist again. A window opened in the air—revealing an old battle. A man stood alone atop a wall, bleeding, facing down the same glyph-creature Kaelen had seen in Southvale.
"He had the glyph of truth too. But he lied to protect his friends."
Kaelen watched.
The man died alone.
"You're showing me all this because… what? I'm like him?"
"No," the professor said softly.
"Because you might be. And next time, you'll have to choose who dies."
Kaelen awoke gasping in bed.
His hand burned.
He threw back the covers.
On his palm, where the glyph shimmered faintly, a second sigil had started to form beside it. Smaller. Curved. Emotional in shape.
A memory glyph?
No.
A bond glyph.
And it pulsed in time with two separate rhythms.Two heartbeats.
One: calm and measured. Seraphine.The other: erratic, fiery. Selene.
Kaelen sat with a bowl of lukewarm broth, eyes haunted.
Selene slid into the seat across from him. Her fingers brushed his without looking.
"You okay?"
"No."
She paused, then leaned in.
"You ever want to disappear?" he asked quietly.
Selene stared at him, then smiled softly.
"Every day. But then I remember—if I go, someone else gets hurt instead."
He looked at her. Something heavy in his chest lightened.
Across the hall, Seraphine watched them.
She said nothing.
But her tray shook ever so slightly in her hands.
🔹 End Hook:
As Kaelen walks to class, a black envelope is slipped into his pocket by unseen hands.
Inside is a single line written in silver ink:
"They found you. Do not trust Elowen."