Selene sat alone beneath the silver trees in the secluded courtyard behind the Arcantian Wing.
Wind drifted between their crystalline branches, causing the leaves—delicate and translucent as frost—to chime faintly as they fell. The courtyard was built for meditation, far from the dueling halls and dormitories. Few came here. Tonight, that solitude was a blessing.
She needed silence.
Not from the Academy.
From herself.
She hadn't meant to say it.
Nyss-varek.
The word had slipped through her lips in the middle of the trial, like a whisper pressed to her mouth by invisible fingers. The moment she spoke it, everything had changed—the shadows bent toward her, the world slowed, and her opponent's lightning had simply… vanished. Absorbed. Undone. The crowd had gone silent, even the adjudicators stunned.
Selene had walked out of the arena alone. No applause. Just silence and stares. And beneath it all, a sensation she couldn't shake.
Something had awakened.
She flexed her hand, watching faint traces of dark violet energy flicker between her fingertips—like ink bleeding through water. Her magic had always been precise. Structured. Learned through theory, repetition, and control.
But this? This was not learned.
This was remembered.
As if something ancient inside her had peeled open a window and stared through her eyes.
Her heartbeat quickened.
She pulled her coat tighter, the wind turning sharp against her skin. The courtyard pool reflected the stars, but as she leaned forward, her reflection was… wrong. Not misaligned—but subtly different. Her eyes darker, more hollow. A faint shimmer of runes glowed along her cheek for an instant, then disappeared like breath on glass.
She reached out and touched the surface of the water.
The ripples warped her reflection—and something else, for just a moment, appeared behind her.
A shadow.
Too tall to be human.
Gone as soon as it came.
She jerked back.
No. No one's here. Just nerves. That's all.
But the sense of being watched didn't leave her.
It burrowed deeper.
She stood slowly and walked along the edge of the courtyard, hands tucked behind her back, eyes scanning the stonework absently—until she saw it.
A symbol.
Etched faintly into the rim of the fountain, half-hidden by moss.
A broken eye.
Her breath caught in her throat. She knelt.
The carving pulsed—just once—with a dull, violet sheen.
Selene hesitated, then slowly extended her fingers toward it.
The moment her skin grazed the rune, a chill raced up her arm.
A soundless hum vibrated through her bones, threading through muscle, blood, memory. Images flickered in her mind—tall spires of a ruined city, stars swirling in impossible constellations, and a voice whispering in a language her conscious mind didn't know.
But her soul did.
She staggered back, breath shallow, heart hammering.
The shadows shifted around her.
"The First Tongue remembers."
The voice was not her own.
It was inside her.
She swallowed hard and turned her gaze toward the silver branches above. The stars pulsed in strange rhythm, like a heartbeat woven into the sky.
Selene clenched her fists.
This is real.
Whatever had happened in the arena, whatever word she had spoken—it had marked her. Not with fame or victory, but with resonance. The Codex wasn't just waking up.
It was looking at her.
Hours Later – Selene's Dormitory, North Tower
Rain whispered against the tall glass windows of her tower chamber. Outside, the spires of the Academy flickered with dim wardlights. Inside, only the dim golden glow of a candle lit her desk.
Her journal lay open, the page smeared with hurried sketches.
Symbols. Runes. Fragments of shapes she'd seen in the moment the word escaped her.
She turned to a blank page and let her hand move.
She didn't know what she was drawing. It came like instinct—like a memory passed down through ink instead of blood.
When she finished, she stared at it.
The broken eye.
The same one from the fountain. The same one she had drawn in a dozen dreams over the past year, never understanding why.
The ink on the page darkened.
No.
It wasn't just ink.
It pulsed.
As if the page itself were breathing.
The candle beside her flickered violently. Shadows stretched across the walls, long and unnatural. They didn't flicker with the flame. They moved with something else.
With her heartbeat.
She stood, the journal falling shut behind her. Cold sweat prickled along her spine. She crossed the room to the mirror.
Her reflection stared back at her—same silver eyes, same braid falling loose over one shoulder. But as she stared longer, the image flickered.
Once.
Twice.
And then, in the space between blinks, her face… changed.
Not completely.
Just enough to make her breath catch.
Her skin bore faintly glowing glyphs beneath the surface, like a star map tattooed into her veins. Her eyes burned with faint violet light. Her shadow—warped.
Then, it was gone.
She stepped back from the mirror, hands trembling.
But it wasn't fear anymore.
It was understanding.
And something else.
Recognition.
Whatever had been buried inside her wasn't dormant anymore.
It had been waiting.
And now, it was awake.
Moments Later
She opened the window, letting the cold rain mist her face. Across the distant courtyard, she could see the Arena's spires still glowing faintly with residual magic.
She thought of Eryndor—how he had stared at her after she uttered the word. Not like she was an opponent.
Like she was a gate.
Like he'd seen something inside her he wasn't supposed to.
Selene closed her eyes.
"I need answers," she whispered.
The shadows whispered back—not with words, but intent. A gentle pressure behind her ribcage, pulsing in time with that impossible voice.
She opened her journal again. Beneath the rune, she wrote only four words:
"I remember the gate."
Then she turned out the candle, let the shadows return to their natural shape, and laid down, eyes wide open.
Sleep did not come.
Only silence.
And the steady beat of something ancient pressing against the seams of her soul.