The ruins beneath the old tower weren't just forgotten—they were sealed. And yet the barrier had been broken recently. Elira knelt near the shattered threshold, fingers hovering above the singed runes scorched into the floor.
"This isn't normal magic," Serena murmured, kneeling beside her. "It's blood-linked. Binding-grade."
Elira nodded. The ash still shimmered faintly with residual energy, reacting to her presence.
"Something was bound here," Elira said. "Something... or someone."
She traced one of the runes, and it sparked—reacting not just to her magic, but to her intent.
A pulse answered from the stone, low and mournful.
"They didn't just hide it," Elira whispered. "They sacrificed something to keep it hidden."
Serena unrolled a map taken from the sealed archive. It showed leyline nodes beneath the academy, with one now missing. Entirely erased.
"That's not possible unless—" Elira began.
"—the node was consumed," Serena finished.
Elira stood, spine rigid. "Which means the ledger wasn't the only thing burned that night."
From her satchel, Elira drew a crystal filament—a memory thread, woven from spellbound quartz. She held it over the ashes.
The thread flared.
Then: a flash of images—screaming flame, a face twisted in agony, a rune igniting crimson before being forcibly overwritten.
Elira nearly dropped the crystal.
"Was that a summoning?" Serena asked.
"No," Elira said. "That was... containment."
They looked at each other.
Because if someone had gone to these lengths to seal something with both blood and leylines—
Then whatever had been trapped here was not just knowledge.
It had teeth.