The evening haze softened the edges of the training fields behind the eastern wing. A sharp wind stirred the branches of the high ironwood trees as Kaelen stood at the farthest corner, alone, palms resting on his knees, chest rising and falling with quiet effort.
He hadn't meant to push his glyph that hard.
The spell hadn't fractured. It had responded—but too easily, like the glyph remembered a thousand castings his mind couldn't recall. It had shimmered, flared, and echoed with something else.
Something ancient.
The echoes still hummed faintly beneath his skin.
Resonance memory, the professor had called it once. Glyphs that evolved by drawing on emotional anchors—memories, loss, longing. Things Kaelen didn't even know he was carrying.
He swallowed and sat back on the stone edge behind him. The stars blinked into the early dusk, and the cold edge of silence settled around him. A peace he usually welcomed. But now it felt hollow.
Not long after, soft footsteps approached, and he didn't need to turn to know who it was.
"Sulking already?" Seraphine's voice cut through the quiet like a flame through parchment. Light, but with a heat hidden beneath it.
He turned just enough to catch her silhouette. She wasn't wearing her uniform. Simple grey tunic, a short capelet for the cold, her hair braided and pinned back, a rare softness replacing her usual sharp poise.
Kaelen offered a small shrug. "More like… thinking."
"Oh, gods." She gave a theatrical sigh and sat beside him. "That's always dangerous."
He didn't laugh. Just exhaled and looked at his hands. "It's happening too fast."
Seraphine glanced sideways. "The glyph?"
He nodded.
She said nothing at first. The wind pulled a strand of her braid loose. She didn't fix it.
"You're scared it'll burn you up," she finally said. Not a question.
Kaelen looked up sharply.
She didn't meet his eyes. "I've seen it happen before. A girl in my cohort. Spark tier, like you. Her glyph lit faster than she could train it. Started flaring without her control. The last time it activated, it set fire to half the south courtyard."
He stilled.
Seraphine's voice softened. "She woke up a week later and couldn't remember her own name. The glyph consumed what she was."
The silence returned, heavier this time.
"Why are you telling me this?" Kaelen asked quietly.
"Because you're not her." She turned toward him now, something raw flickering behind her usual guarded gaze. "Because you think like someone who already knows what's coming."
Kaelen couldn't meet her eyes for long. "That's the part that scares me most."
A moment passed. Then she shifted, leaned in slightly—just enough for the warmth of her shoulder to press against his. It wasn't much. Barely more than a brush.
But he felt it like a bolt of light across the dark.
"You don't have to carry all of it," she said, almost a whisper. "Even if you think you're supposed to."
Kaelen swallowed. "You sound like Selene."
That made her stiffen slightly—but not pull away.
"I'm not her," Seraphine said after a beat, voice steadier than he expected. "But maybe I understand some of the weight she carries."
The words hung in the air, suspended between memory and emotion. Kaelen shifted, about to speak—but something in her gaze stopped him.
She didn't want comfort.
She wanted truth.
"You scare me," he said instead.
Her eyes widened a fraction. "I—what?"
"Not like that," he added quickly. "It's just… when you're around, I forget to pretend."
Seraphine blinked once.
He forced himself to hold the silence.
Then, unexpectedly, she smiled. Not the sarcastic kind. Not the calculating one. It was smaller, uncertain—real.
"You're a strange one, Kaelen," she said softly.
"You're not the first to say that."
"Maybe I'll be the last." The joke was light, but it lingered strangely. She looked down. "You know… when I first saw you, I thought you were too quiet for your own good."
"Let me guess," he said, "You were right."
"No," Seraphine said, voice low. "I was wrong."
A long pause. Then she pushed herself up.
"You should rest," she said, brushing dust from her cloak. "Tomorrow's match will be hard. Lorien's favored to win."
Kaelen stared up at her. "You think I can't?"
"I think…" She hesitated. "You're still holding back. And if you keep doing that, you'll lose."
She started to walk off.
"Seraphine," he called after her.
She stopped, just on the edge of shadow.
"Why do you care?" he asked.
She didn't answer for a moment.
Then, without turning around, she said, "Because you're more dangerous than any of them realize. And because I'd rather be near the fire… than burned by it later."
And then she was gone.
That night, Kaelen sat at his window. The moons were high, casting silver over the academy rooftops.
He tried to sketch the glyph again.
But this time, the lines moved before he touched the paper.
The ink shimmered, and something beneath the surface—older than even his dreams—echoed back.
You are remembering.We are not broken. Only buried.
The whisper wasn't real. But it felt real.
And for the first time since coming to the Academy, Kaelen felt something stranger than fear stir in his chest.
Hope.