The stars watched in silence as the winds whispered secrets through the twisted trees outside the Southern Orchid Pavilion. Neither Sylas nor Alira spoke after the serpent's ashes faded into the pond. Words felt brittle in the wake of silver flame.
Finally, Alira broke the quiet.
"That wasn't flame," she said. "Not normal flame. Not even Forbidden Fire. It didn't burn—it erased."
Sylas didn't correct her. Because she was right.
"It's called Palefire," he said.
Her brows knit. "Impossible. That's just a myth. No one survived contact with Palefire, let alone controlled it."
"Not controlled," Sylas murmured. "Survived, barely."
Alira stared at him. He looked the same—calm, precise, cold—but now there was a crack in his mask. Not fear. Not shame. Something deeper.
Worn guilt.
And beneath it, something darker. Regret.
"How long have you had it?" she asked.
"Since I was twelve."
Alira nearly stepped back. "Twelve?"
He nodded. "It woke during the Night of Silent Bells."
Her blood chilled.
That was the night the Drevin estate was attacked. Forty-seven guards vanished. Only Sylas survived. The official story blamed a rogue mercenary sect. But the report had been vague, and the bodies had… melted.
Now she understood why.
"You destroyed them all."
"I didn't mean to," Sylas said softly. "I didn't even know what it was. One moment they were there—shadows, blades, breath on my neck—and the next…"
He looked down at his gloved hand.
"They were gone. Like smoke."
Alira's mind raced.
Palefire wasn't a spell. It wasn't even magic in the usual sense. It was a manifestation of a pact—a bond between soul and something beyond the arcane veil.
The last known wielder of Palefire had been executed four hundred years ago after reducing an entire coastal city to ash in a single night.
And now Sylas held it. Alone. Undocumented. Undetected.
"Why tell me this?" she asked.
He gave a hollow laugh.
"I didn't plan to. But the Wraith Serpent wasn't sent by you. And I needed to see how far the game had gone."
Her eyes narrowed. "You think someone else is playing with us?"
"I know they are."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a small obsidian coin, etched with seven lines on one side.
Alira froze.
"That's a mark of the Sevenfold Veil. They've been extinct for centuries."
"Clearly not," Sylas said.
She took the coin, inspecting it. Cold. Far colder than it should have been.
"When did you find this?"
"Two nights ago. Slipped under my door. No one saw who."
Alira's heart pounded.
The Sevenfold Veil was older than most empires. A cult that had once bargained with eldritch forces in exchange for forgotten power. They had been purged in fire and steel—but rumors persisted.
Rumors that they'd never truly died.
If they were resurfacing now—and targeting Sylas…
"This goes beyond you, or House Thorne," Alira whispered. "This is systemic."
Sylas met her gaze.
"I need access to the Black Archive."
She raised an eyebrow. "You just admitted to manifesting one of the deadliest forces in history, and you think I'll give you direct access to the deepest vault of my House?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because if I'm right, you'll need me more than I need you."
Her jaw clenched. She hated that he wasn't wrong.
Before she could respond, a low tremor rolled through the earth beneath their feet. The pond shivered. The trees groaned. Somewhere far in the city, a bell tolled once—then cracked.
Sylas's expression darkened.
"They've begun."
That night, in the upper tiers of the city, the Veiled Eye convened in the Cathedral of Silence. Twelve figures stood in a circle, their faces masked in silver and black.
Alira arrived late. Myra Thorne was already at the center.
"We have a problem," Myra said. "Someone triggered a resonance in the Southern Wards."
Another Elder whispered, "The seal?"
"Intact," Myra replied. "But fractured."
Murmurs.
Alira stepped forward. "It wasn't natural. It was Palefire."
That silenced the room.
One of the Elders hissed, "Impossible."
Alira tossed the obsidian coin to the center. It skidded to a stop. The room dimmed as if the coin itself drank the light.
"No longer," she said. "We have to assume the Sevenfold Veil is active again. And they're testing our wards."
Myra's eyes met hers sharply.
"And the source?"
Alira hesitated.
Then: "Sylas Drevin."
The council erupted. Some shouted for immediate execution. Others demanded containment. Only Myra remained silent.
She finally spoke, cold and precise.
"We watch him. If he becomes unstable, we eliminate him."
Alira didn't argue. But something in her heart resisted.
She'd seen unstable mages. Broken pact-bearers. Tainted summoners.
Sylas wasn't any of them.
Back at the Drevin estate, Sylas knelt in a hidden chamber beneath his study. The Palefire had left a mark—an old one—embedded beneath his ribs. A web of faint lines glowed silver-blue when he touched it.
"You said you'd stay silent," he whispered to the air.
A presence stirred.
You awakened me. The pact stands.
The voice was not sound, but thought pressed into form. Cold, distant. Yet somehow… familiar.
"I never agreed."
You bled. You burned. You survived. That is agreement.
Sylas clenched his fists.
"What do you want?"
Balance.
"Whose balance?"
Yours. The world's. Ours.
He rose, breathing hard. The voice always came after the Palefire stirred. It was ancient, older than words, but bound to him now like a second spine.
The Veil tears. The past awakens. You were forged to stand at the rift.
Sylas didn't answer. He climbed the stairs, his fingers still tingling from the Palefire's echo.
Outside, the bells of the city began to toll.
But this time, they didn't stop.