The sun hadn't yet risen over the spiral towers of Celestia Academia when Lynchie stepped into the heart of the training atrium, its marbled floor etched with luminous Spiral Wards. The glyphs pulsed gently, echoing her arrival like breath held too long. The room, vast and haloed by golden arches, felt both sacred and volatile—a threshold where knowledge became power.
She should have been alone.
But Zev was already there.
Leaning against a pillar, arms crossed, he watched her with an expression too unreadable to be entirely dismissive. The light caught the edge of his silver-pierced ear, his academy robes half-buttoned in his usual studied defiance. He didn't say a word at first.
"Early, aren't you?" Lynchie asked, her voice cool, hiding the subtle knot in her chest.
Zev shrugged, pushing off the pillar. "Or maybe you're late."
She rolled her eyes. "You don't even believe in punctuality."
He tilted his head. "No, but I believe in watching when someone's about to light up an entire warding field by accident."
Her breath caught. He had noticed it, too—the wards responding to her presence more intensely than ever before. She turned away, pretending to adjust the collar of her uniform, but her fingers trembled.
"Don't touch the center glyph," he warned, stepping closer.
Too late. Her fingers brushed the innermost Spiral Ward.
A faint pulse surged up her arm, not painful, but intimate—like the memory of a promise she'd never made. The glyphs shimmered in rhythm with her heartbeat. Something ancient stirred, not in the room, but inside her. The parchment beneath her hand glowed, heatless but searing in its resonance.
Zev's hand shot out, catching her wrist before she could stumble back.
For a breathless moment, their eyes locked. Lynchie felt the warmth of his hand against her skin, and beneath his usual smugness, a flicker of something unsure passed across his face—just as quickly buried.
"You always rush into things," he muttered, not letting go.
"I don't need saving."
"No," he said, voice quieter now. "But maybe you need someone to notice."
Lynchie didn't know what to say. Her throat tightened. Around them, the Spiral Wards began to hum.
Glyphs shimmered to life not just on the floor, but in the air—hovering threads of golden script. She felt them brush her skin like threads of silk, whispering in a language she almost understood. One glyph flared brighter than the rest.
Zev let go.
"I've seen that one before," he said, jaw tense.
Lynchie turned toward it. The glyph resembled a blooming star curled in upon itself—"Sha-Ur-Vael," the Archivists called it. A forgotten syllable. A glyph not catalogued in any public scroll.
The air had changed. Thicker. Sharper.
"You should step away from it," Zev said.
She didn't.
The glyph pulsed once—and vanished.
Lynchie's vision darkened at the edges. In its place stood the outline of a face.
It wasn't human.
Nor was it monstrous.
It was beautiful and wrong, eyes like collapsing stars. Her pulse quickened. Her knees buckled—but she didn't fall.
"Did you see it?" she whispered.
Zev's voice was tight. "That wasn't a glyph."
"I think it was watching us."
Behind them, the warded doors creaked open.
"Step back, both of you," came Archivist Vyen's voice, tight with alarm.
But it was too late.
The Spiral Wards were awake.