The crypt beneath the Royal Academy's eastern archive was a place few dared to enter, let alone awaken. Dust clung to the air like ghosts of forgotten ages, and the oppressive silence made every step echo like a threat. Kaelian stood at the center of the ancient chamber, the stolen grimoire held tightly in his hands.
The tome pulsed faintly with dark energy. Its cover was made of stitched leather that seemed almost... alive, and its pages were inked with blood-like pigment that shimmered when exposed to magic. This was no ordinary book. It was a relic of forbidden power, hidden for centuries, possibly millennia.
Kaelian, however, was no ordinary student.
Born a genius strategist in a different life and now reborn in the body of a royal bastard, he had clawed his way up through courtly intrigue, magical examinations, and assassination attempts. The Academy was merely the next battlefield. And this book—this grimoire—was his secret weapon.
He knelt and drew a summoning circle in black chalk, interlaced with crimson powder. Runes, long lost to the sanctioned world of magic, flared faintly as he infused them with a drop of his blood. His eyes were sharp, precise, every motion measured and intentional.
"Invocation Sequence: Variant Three," he whispered, voice echoing slightly against the cold stone.
The circle reacted immediately. A low hum built in the floor beneath him as red tendrils of light slithered from rune to rune. Energy gathered in the center, swirling like a living mist. Kaelian's hand hovered over the sigil.
Pain shot up his arm the instant he made contact. Black veins flashed along his skin as the magic resisted his will. The circle vibrated violently, then imploded with a concussive force that threw Kaelian back against a pillar.
He crumpled to the floor, breath ragged, arms trembling. Smoke lingered in the air, and his blood still glowed on the stones.
"Too unstable... too much blood," he muttered, wiping his mouth.
But there had been progress. For a split second, the circle had responded. Something—someone—had listened.
**
In the days that followed, Kaelian's nights were consumed by experimentation. He tested smaller glyph sets, altered the order of incantations, calibrated blood-to-energy ratios. The pain lessened. Control increased. Still, each success came with whispers. Echoes. Dreams.
And consequences.
His spells at the Academy began to sharpen unnaturally. His fire conjurations burned hotter. His light illusions were unnervingly perfect. Some instructors whispered about his rapid growth. Others, like Master Elgorn, simply watched.
One evening, Kaelian successfully activated a soul-detection spell. The mist that formed was violet and cold, hovering above the circle in wisps. He narrowed his eyes.
"Reveal soul-tethers," he commanded.
The mist changed, forming ghostly threads that led through walls and floors. Each strand represented a connection—friendships, loyalties, secrets.
He followed one.
Lyssa's.
His only true companion. Kind. Loyal. Selfless.
But there, attached to her soul, was a second thread—thin, barely perceptible, yet unmistakably present. It pulsed faintly with a different energy. Not hers. Not Kaelian's. Someone else was watching her. Or using her.
His expression darkened.
**
During a class on elemental combat, Kaelian outperformed every other student. When Prince Théor's favored protégé challenged him, Kaelian countered each spell with elegance and crushing precision. Murmurs grew in the crowd. Applause followed. But Master Elgorn remained silent, lips pressed into a tight line.
That night, Kaelian descended once more into the crypt. He attempted a second-tier forbidden ritual, one designed to manipulate memory pathways. If it worked, he could mask his magical signature permanently.
The invocation required more blood. More focus. More pain.
This time, the circle didn't explode. Instead, it opened—a rift of silvery darkness. Not a portal, but a window into something beyond.
Kaelian saw flashes. Faces. Histories. Choices. He saw Théor as a child, crying alone in the shadow of his father. He saw the Queen ordering poison for a handmaid. He saw Lyssa… hesitating over a letter sealed with the sigil of House Valek.
When the rift closed, Kaelian stumbled to his knees, mind spinning. The ritual hadn't merely altered memory. It had shown truth. Raw, unfiltered. Dangerous.
**
Two days later, Kaelian noticed someone had been in the crypt.
There were new footprints in the dust—recent, cautious. And worse: the circle had been redrawn, not by him, but using a blue-etched chalk, not black. It was a refinement. A modification.
He hid in the shadows.
An unknown figure in dark robes entered moments later, lighting the circle with a glyph-powered crystal. They placed a medallion—imperial, elite—into the center and chanted a version of the incantation Kaelian had used days before. But this version was… clean. Official. Institutional.
The circle activated with sterile precision, conjuring a blue specter that obeyed perfectly. Not chaotic. Not forbidden.
It was state-sanctioned forbidden magic.
Kaelian's blood ran cold.
The Empire wasn't simply forbidding ancient magic. It was refining it in secret. And if they caught him, not only would he be punished—he'd be silenced.
He retreated quietly, heartbeat thundering in his chest.
**
Kaelian's mental sharpness didn't go unnoticed.
During a group strategy exam, he was appointed commander of a simulated fortress defense. His opponents launched coordinated magical assaults. Kaelian divided his team into asymmetric cells, used misdirection illusions, triggered terrain traps, and even baited a rival into casting on his own side. His victory was not just total—it was surgical.
But when he used a time-delay enchantment that hadn't been taught at the Academy, alarm bells rang.
— "That spell… isn't in the curriculum," a senior instructor said warily.
— "A theoretical expansion of standard chrono-hold. Just extrapolation," Kaelian replied with a disarming smile.
Elgorn, watching from the gallery, narrowed his eyes.
He didn't speak.
But Kaelian knew. He suspects me.
**
That night, as Kaelian prepared to test a memory-wipe sequence from the grimoire, a silver butterfly—a magical messenger—fluttered into his chamber.
Its wings bore the seal of Counselor Dorn Valek.
Kaelian caught it carefully and read the message attached.
Young Prince, I know what you've been experimenting with. And I can offer you more than half-buried scraps and unstable rituals. If you're ready to talk…
We can trade knowledge. Quietly.
Kaelian froze.
The court was waking up.
The question was: Would he be the hunted… or the hunter?
**
End of Chapter 34
Next: Chapter 35 – First Successes and First Failures
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