Finnian's expectations for the training room under the sanctuary were completely wrong. The stone walls had complicated markings on them that glowed with a faint silver light, and the air itself looked to be full with power. Ancient symbols engraved deep into the floor made complicated patterns that hurt his eyes to look at directly.
"Focus," Seraphina said, her voice bouncing off the high ceiling. She stood in the middle of the room, and her emerald robes swayed even though there was no wind.
Finnian wiped the sweat from his forehead. His arms hurt after being in the same posture for what felt like hours. He held a plain wooden staff in his hand and tried—and failed—to get even the smallest spark of light to come from its tip. Scorch marks on the walls around him told the story of more successful students, whose successes made fun of his recurrent failures.
"I'm trying," he said through gritted teeth. "Nothing's happening."
"Because you're *trying.*" Seraphina's tone grew sharp with impatience. "You're thinking like a mundane human. You need to accept what you are."
"And what exactly am I?" The question burst out of him with more force than intended. "Because honestly, I have no idea."
Seraphina studied him with those unsettling eyes, seeming to weigh her words carefully.
She began to pace around him, her footsteps silent on the stone. "Your ancestors were among the first to bind their souls to the raw forces of creation. They didn't just use magic—they *were* magic, in ways that would terrify lesser mages."
Finnian's grip tightened on the staff. "Then why can't I do anything?
"Because you're fighting it!" Seraphina stopped directly in front of him, her eyes blazing. "You've spent your whole life running from what you are, denying your heritage, pretending to be normal. Magic doesn't flow through someone who rejects it."
The criticism stung worse than a physical blow. "I didn't even know I had a heritage to reject until a few days ago!"
"Ignorance is no excuse." Seraphina's voice turned cold.
Finnian frowned. "What do you mean?"
The staff felt suddenly heavy in his hands. "Mother never said—"
"Of course she didn't. She's been protecting you from the truth." Seraphina's laugh held no warmth. "She has sacrificed everything—her freedom, her chance at a normal life—all to become to be your shield. And what have you done in return? You've remained weak, vulnerable, a burden she'll have to carry until one of you dies."
Each word hit like a physical blow. Images flashed through Finnian's mind: His mother throwing herself between him and danger, her face pale with exhaustion after using Saving him, the way she sometimes looked at him when she thought he wasn't watching—with something that might have been pity.
"That's not—she chose to help me. I never asked her to—"
"To what? To care about you? To waste her considerable talents keeping you alive?" Seraphina's voice rose. "You're right. You never asked. You just let her do it, over and over, without ever becoming strong enough to stand beside her instead of cowering behind her."
The training chamber seemed to spin around him. Every time he failed, every time he felt useless, and every time his mother put herself in danger for him hit him like a wave. The weight of her sacrifice and the magnitude of what she had given up made it hard for him to breathe.
"She could have been anything," Seraphina continued relentlessly. "Instead, she's bound herself to a boy who can't even light a candle."
"Stop." The word came out as barely a whisper.
"She'll keep throwing herself into danger for you, you know. Keep pushing herself harder and harder, taking bigger risks, because she believes you're worth saving. And eventually—"
"Stop!"
"—it will kill her. And it will be your fault, because you were too weak, too stubborn, too *pathetic* to—"
"ENOUGH!"
The word tore from Finnian's throat with such force that it seemed to shake the very foundations of the chamber. But it wasn't just his voice—something else erupted with it, something vast and primal that had been locked away in the deepest parts of his soul.
Power exploded outward from him like a dam bursting. The wooden staff in his hands didn't just splinter—it disintegrated into sawdust. The carefully carved runes on the walls flared brilliant white before cracking and going dark. Ancient stones, held in place for centuries, began to crumble.
But the magic didn't stop there. It poured out of him in waves, raw and unfocused, turning the air itself into a visible distortion that rippled like heat haze. The complex patterns carved into the floor started to shine, but not in their typical silver light. Instead, they glowed with something deeper and darker, with veins of gold that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Seraphina staggered backward, her eyes wide with what looked like shock—or perhaps fear. She raised her hands, weaving defensive spells, but the magic flowing from Finnian seemed to bend around her protections without touching them, as if it had no interest in harming her.
The chamber shook. Dust rained from the ceiling as cracks spread across the stones above. Somewhere in the distance, glass shattered—windows in the sanctuary above, perhaps, or delicate instruments in Lyra's workshop.
And through it all, Finnian stood at the center of the chaos, his eyes blazing with power he'd never known he possessed. The magic felt like recognition, like coming home, like finally being allowed to breathe after holding his breath his entire life.
But with the power came something else—visions that flashed behind his eyes too quickly to fully grasp. Towering figures wreathed in shadow and flame. A great tree whose roots stretched through dimensions. Words in a language he'd never learned but somehow understood:
*"The last of the line awakens. The binding grows weak. Soon."*
"No," he gasped, staggering backward. The magic continued to pour out of him, but now it felt wrong, too much, like his body was trying to contain an ocean. "This isn't—I can't—"
The power that had felt like coming home now felt like drowning. His knees hit the stone floor hard enough to crack it, sending fresh tremors through the chamber. The golden veins in the floor patterns pulsed brighter, responding to his distress.
"This isn't real," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the sound of crumbling stone. "I'm not—I can't be—"
But even as he spoke the words, he knew they were lies. The power flowing through him carried the weight of absolute truth. This was what he was. This was what he'd always been, locked away behind barriers he'd built himself.
The realization was too much. His vision blurred, darkness creeping in at the edges.
The last thing he saw before consciousness fled was Seraphina's face, no longer cold or mocking, but filled with something that looked almost like awe. Her lips moved, forming words he couldn't hear over the roaring in his ears, but he thought she might have said:
"Now they'll know. They'll all know you've awakened."
Finnian's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed onto the cracked stone floor. The moment his body went limp, the wild magic cut off as abruptly as it had begun, leaving only silence and the scent of ozone in the air.
But the damage was done. Far above the ruined training chamber, beyond the sanctuary walls, something rippled outward through the fabric of reality itself—a magical signature so powerful and distinct that it would be felt by every sensitive for hundreds of miles.