The Ashen District smelled of rot and regret.
Eryk Thorn limped through its labyrinth of crumbling alleyways, his body a map of fresh bruises and old wounds. The burn on his arm—courtesy of Mael's cruel little flame—throbbed beneath the tattered remains of his sleeve. The girl's healing salve had dulled the pain, but the skin remained an angry, blistered red, a brand of his failure, a constant reminder that he had been cast aside. Not just from the Academy, but from the world he thought he belonged to. That seared skin was no longer simply an injury; it was a declaration. The world had spoken. And it had no place for him.
He didn't know where he was going. Only that he couldn't stop. Stopping meant thinking and remembering and feeling. All things he couldn't afford to do. All things that cut deeper than any flame or blade.
The streets twisted like serpents, choked with refuse and the stench of unwashed bodies. Shadows clung to the walls, living things that skittered and curled in the flickering light of dying lanterns. Voices slithered from doorways; haggling, cursing, and weeping. The district was alive in the way a corpse twitched under a necromancer's spell: unnatural, desperate. Here, the light came not from magic but from things set ablaze in barrels and broken windows. Desperation etched every brick.
Eryk's stomach growled, a hollow ache that mirrored the void in his chest. He hadn't eaten since the day of the trial. Since the day the world spat him out. His body trembled not just from hunger, but from the sheer exhaustion of being unwanted.
A hand shot out from a darkened alcove, seizing his wrist.
"Spare a coin, stranger?"
The voice was raspy, broken by thirst and rot. Eryk turned to see a gaunt face with eyes sunken deep into a skeletal mask. The man's teeth were yellow stumps, his breath a noxious mix of death, gin, and something that had long since given up.
Eryk pulled back. "I-I don't have anything."
The man's grin cracked wider. "Then you're as good as dead."
He lunged.
Eryk staggered back, and a blade sliced through his side. The pain was bright, immediate, and real. The kind of pain that punctures thought. He stumbled eith his breath catching, adrenaline drowning the dull aches that had become his constant companions.
Instinct roared. Not the refined, clean movements taught in the marble halls of the Academy. This was different. This was teeth and claws. This was the survival of rats in the gutter.
He swung. His fist connected with the man's jaw, cracking bone. The man grunted but laughed, blood bubbling from a split lip.
"Oh, you'll bleed pretty, boy!"
Eryk's chest heaved. His hands trembled. His legs were jelly. He was going to die in a gutter. Alone and powerless. Forgotten. A boy who once dared to dream.
Then he heard a whisper, not in his ears. But in his bones.
Something stirred inside him. Alien. Cold. Coiled deep within him like a snake waiting to strike. It had no voice, but it had presence. Hunger. It was ancient, older than spells and stones, and it knew him.
The man lunged again.
Eryk didn't move because he couldn't let himself move the way his body betraying him now. But something else did.
The knife froze mid-air.
The attacker's eyes bulged, his arms trembling as though caught by invisible chains. His body stiffened, confusion etched into his features.
"Wha—what is this?"
Eryk didn't know. But he felt it. The pull inside his body. The craving. A deep, insatiable emptiness reaching out from within.
He reached out, his fingers closing around the man's wrist.
Devouring.
The man's magic turned to be weak, barely more than a trickle of street-sorcery, and it rushed into Eryk. It was like drinking sunlight after drowning in shadow. It didn't fill him. It fed something else inside. Something that had always been there.
The man collapsed. He twitched on the ground, gasping through the air.
Eryk stared at his hands.
What had he just done?
The shadows twisted. The alley seemed to warp. Nausea churned in his gut, but beneath it was hunger.
He turned with his staggered face. He had to get away. From the man. From himself.
He needed answers.
There was only one place in the Ashen District where forbidden knowledge might live.
~○~
The Shattered Scroll was a corpse of a bookstore, a skeletal echo of its former self. Its wooden sign creaked in the wind, the paint flaking like peeling flesh. Inside, the air reeked of mildew, old ink, and despair. Books were piled in towers, precarious and forgotten. Shelves sagged under the weight of time.
A bell above the door gave a pitiful chime as Eryk entered.
Behind the counter sat a man made of paper and bone. His skin was parchment, his hair white mist. Cataract-clouded eyes lifted slowly as Eryk stepped inside.
"If you're here to steal, don't bother," the old man said without looking up. "Everything valuable's been stolen already."
"I'm looking for something."
The man snorted. "Aren't we all?"
Eryk hesitated. His pulse thundered. "I need to know about Null Magic."
The air changed. It thickened in the silence.
The man set his quill down. "That's a fast way to get your throat slit."
"I don't..." he stopped telling words for a moment. Eryk looked at him without flinching. "...care."
A long pause. Then the old man rose and shuffled through a curtain of bead and thread, motioning for Eryk to follow.
"You sure, philistine? You should've find more valuable books than that one."
Eryk didn't even startled after the man told him about that. What else are valuable things apart from the Null Magic book?
The man looked at him, but Eryk didn't even flinch.
"Yeah."
The man led him somewhere until they descended into darkness.
The basement was another world. Stone walls, shelves lined with grimoires, some bound in leather that twitched. Candles flickered, casting long, uncertain shadows. The air tasted of iron and secrets.
The old man pulled a black tome from a high shelf. No title. No markings. The cover seemed to absorb the light.
"This," he said, placing it in Eryk's hands, "is the Grimoire of the Hollow Vein. One of the last relics of true Null Magic."
Eryk staggered into it.
Eryk didn't even know why he heard some voices now. They are not speech.
"You are empty. You are perfect."
When he looked at the man, he was just as quiet as the dark, lingering around them. The man was curious, though.
"What's with the eyes, philistine?" asked the man.
But Eryk removed his gazed through him.
His fingers turned pages he didn't even see. Words glowed. Symbols crawled.
One sentence shone brighter than the rest.
"To wield nothing is to devour everything."
Pain erupted behind his eyes. Visions flooded in.
A black sun. Cities turned to salt. A boy screaming as the void kissed his soul.
Then silence.
Eryk fell to his knees.
The old man didn't move but the horror on his face could be seen there, as if he saw a ghost. "It's... it's chosen you."
"What is it?"
"A key," the old man said. "And a curse." The man held Eryk's arm, pushing him through the stairs so hard. "You should go, boy. Take that book with you and don't ever come back here. That will curse my shop!"