✦ Underroot - Day 2

I didn't sleep.

Not really.

My eyes shut for a few hours, but my mind wandered back to fire, blood, black oil, and the weight of silence.

The silence after screams.

The silence of being the last one left.

Lyenne was still asleep beside the fire, one hand curled near the dagger on her hip, the other clutched loosely around a gemstone pulsing with faint blue light. A binding crystal. Meant for mid-tier Shades.

She didn't seem like someone who played by the rules.

Neither did I.

"You'll never sleep again," Aethros whispered inside me. "Not like before. That peace is dead."

I ignored him.

Stepping outside the hollow, I looked at the sky-or what was left of it. The Underroot's fog had cleared slightly, revealing veins of violet light snaking across the canopy like capillaries. Magic lived here. Breathed here.

And it knew we were intruders.

Crunch.

I turned sharply.

A figure stood between the trees. Alone. Covered in bark-armor etched with burnt sigils. His face painted with Shade ash, his eyes golden.

"Riven Noax," he said flatly. "You're being summoned."

"By who?" I asked.

"By what," he corrected. "The Academy Crest."

The Spire called.

And you didn't ignore the Crest Spire if you wanted to live long in Drelven.

✦ Crest Spire - Summit Chamber

By midday, Lyenne and I stood on a floating glyph-lift, spiraling upward through ancient walls carved with battles long forgotten.

As we ascended, students stood on balconies, whispering. Watching.

Not me.

Her.

"That's the Shadeborn girl, isn't it?" "She's supposed to be a Half-Rift." "What's she doing with him?"

I didn't flinch.

Lyenne didn't look at them.

She just whispered, "They don't matter. Not when what's coming is bigger than this tower."

The Headmaster's chamber was silent.

Too silent.

Until he spoke.

"Riven Noax," Veylen began, his voice low and calm. "Do you know why you're here?"

"Because I survived." "Many survived." "Then I must've done something you didn't expect."

That made him smirk.

Barely.

"We've reviewed your behavior in the Underroot. Your restraint. Your movement. Your refusal to contract a Shade." He paused. "It suggests training beyond your age."

"Maybe I was trained. Maybe I wasn't." "No records of your early education. No documentation of lineage. And yet-" he lifted a rune-stone and let it pulse, "-you scored in the Sovereign percentile on resonance scans."

That silenced the room.

Even Lyenne's eyes flicked to me in shock.

"Impossible," she whispered. "That's not even..." "Real," I said. "I know."

But the truth sat between us all, heavy.

I wasn't from this world.

And whatever they measured in me-wasn't from here either.

✦ Veylen's Warning

"You are not an ordinary student," Veylen continued. "And this world does not treat anomalies with kindness. We don't reward prodigies. We watch them. We hunt them. Sometimes, we erase them."

I stood my ground.

"If that's what you wanted, you would've done it already."

He smiled again. More amused this time.

"True. You're not the only one who's arrived recently." "...What?"

He waved his hand and a new glyph lit up in the air behind him.

A list of names.

Dozens.

All glowing in red.

"We've seen a drift-a ripple in the flow of Riftborne arrivals. People who don't belong. From places no scryer can trace. All arriving in waves, like thrown stones from a distant world."

He looked directly into me.

"You're not alone, Riven. You're part of something bigger. Something dangerous."

My mind froze.

Was he talking about Jay?

About... the others?

"What do you want from me?" "I want to see how deep your origin runs. And I want you to live long enough to find out what you're capable of."

✦ As We Left

Lyenne walked beside me in silence for most of the descent. But as we reached the courtyard, she finally spoke.

"You're not the first Riftborn I've met," she said softly. "But I'm guessing I'll be the last one left."

She didn't argue.

Instead, she placed something in my hand.

A map.

But it was unlike any I'd seen-drawn in glowing ink, ink that reacted to Shade aura.

"This is Nyros territory. Off-limits to students." "Why show me?" "Because you'll need allies if you're going to survive what's coming. And not all of them wear a uniform."

✦ Distant Shadows Stir

Far below the world, in a place where screams never escaped, a massive creature stirred in the black.

It opened its eyes.

Abyssal-tier.

Its mark glowed in forgotten tongues:

"Falseborn... Riftchild... Broken Flame..."

It spoke a single word.

"Riven."

And smiled.