The dream began with fire.
Kael stood in a field of ash, the sky above him burning, the ground splitting beneath his feet. Shadows moved through the blaze, tall and inhuman, cloaked in smoke. They whispered in a language that shook his bones.
He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
One of the figures turned to him, and its voice crackled like a collapsing star.
"You are the flame they buried. But fire never forgets."
Then came the scream—the same scream every time. High, keening, and inhuman.
Kael shot upright in his bunk, chest heaving, sweat dripping from his jaw. The dorm room was dark. The curtains swayed as if wind had passed through—though the windows were shut.
He stared at his hands. The mark on his palm still glowed faintly.
The dreams were getting worse.
Later that morning, Kael drifted through his classes in a haze. Elemental Theory, Rune Construction, History of the Ninefold Accord. The instructors spoke like glass—sharp and clear—but none of it stuck.
He couldn't shake the dream.
By midday, he'd retreated to a quiet corner in the upper gardens, away from the clang of dueling students and the rustle of spellscrolls.
Lira found him there, again, as if she'd been following him.
"You look worse than usual," she said.
"Didn't sleep."
"Same dream?"
He nodded.
She didn't press.
Instead, she handed him a small stone wrapped in twine. "Here. Enchanted sleep charm. Won't stop the dreams, but it'll keep your body from reacting."
Kael blinked. "Why do you have this?"
"I took it from the alchemy lab. You looked like you needed it more than the shelves."
He raised a brow. "You steal from the academy?"
"I prefer the term 'reallocate.'"
Kael cracked a smile. Just a small one. But it stayed.
That night, sleep came easier with the charm under his pillow.
But this time, the dream was different.
No fire. No screaming. Just silence.
Kael stood in a cavern of polished obsidian. Torches flickered along the walls, each one guttering blue. In the center stood a massive gate, ancient and sealed by nine rotating rings. Each bore a different symbol.
One of them—the central ring—was marked with the same 𝚲 rune as his palm.
As Kael approached, the air grew colder. The torches dimmed.
Then a voice spoke. Not from the gate—but from within Kael himself.
"You are not ready."
Kael reached for the seal.
"You will break more than stone."
He touched the gate.
The cavern shattered like glass.
He woke gasping, the stone charm glowing white-hot beneath his pillow.
And on his palm, the mark had changed.
No longer a single rune, but two.
𝚲 — and now beneath it, a second symbol: Ϟ.
The next day, everything felt… off.
The walls of the academy seemed to lean in. Whispers filled the halls even when no one spoke. His fingers sparked with heat every time he closed his hand.
And in class, when the instructor tried to draw a basic containment ward, Kael's rune circle began to spin on its own. Uncontrolled. Wild. It burst into violet fire and incinerated the chalk from the floor.
The room went dead silent.
The instructor stared at him.
"I want you in Archive Hall. Now."
The archives were colder than usual.
The same ancient librarian greeted him without a word, waving him toward a smaller side tunnel: The Annex of Forgotten Things.
It smelled of ink and dust and something darker.
"I'm not supposed to be here," Kael muttered.
"Precisely," said the librarian. "Yet here you are."
Kael walked deeper into the annex.
Shelves loomed high. The walls were covered in black cloth, marked with red wax seals. Old things. Forbidden.
He moved toward a section marked SEALS & RELICS. Something hummed behind one of the covered shelves.
Drawn by instinct, Kael reached for a book wrapped in grey parchment. As his fingers touched it, the seal broke. Light flared.
And suddenly he wasn't in the annex anymore.
He stood in a circular room filled with light. Runes carved in flame circled overhead. In the center was a pedestal—and on it, a stone fragment wrapped in chains.
A voice echoed through the room.
"This seal was never meant to break."
Kael backed away. "I didn't mean to—"
"You carry the mark of the Gateborn. You are the key. You are the danger."
The chains rattled. One snapped.
A gust of air slammed Kael backward.
He hit the floor of the annex hard, gasping, the book dropped and glowing at his side.
The librarian was already there. Furious.
"You touched a sealed relic."
"I—I didn't know—"
"You never do."
Kael's mark was blazing now. Both runes pulsing with heat.
Something had been unbound.
That night, in the shadows of the empty dormitory, Kael stared at the stone fragment he'd somehow taken with him. It shimmered with inner fire. It pulsed when he drew near.
And it whispered.
Faint. Just at the edge of hearing.
…Kael…
He dropped it. It rolled across the floor and stopped at Lira's foot.
"You're getting good at breaking rules," she said, picking it up.
Kael opened his mouth to explain.
She stopped him. "Don't. I believe you. That's what worries me."
She handed the fragment back carefully, eyes unreadable.
"There's something in this academy that wants you awake. That wants you dangerous."
Kael looked at her. "Then maybe I shouldn't be here."
She shook her head. "No. You should. Because whatever it is—it's already started."
A pause.
"Don't you feel it?" she whispered. "The cracks forming?"
And later, when sleep finally came, Kael didn't dream of fire.
He dreamed of a city beneath the earth. Of chains cracking in ancient halls. And of a voice—his own, but older—whispering words in a language lost to time.
"The seal is broken."
"The flame will return."
End of Chapter 4.