Riftkeep Citadel – One Drift After the Duel
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There's a whisper in the Veinstone Hall.
Not the kind that carries across rooms or cracks through marble.
This one curls behind your teeth and breathes through your bones.
It doesn't speak in words, exactly.
But I hear it.
And it's starting to sound like my name.
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"You're doing it again."
Kiva plops beside me in Incantations Class, ignoring the two disapproving instructors glaring from behind stacks of bonebound tomes.
"Doing what?" I murmur.
"Brooding. With extra flair. It's impressive. I mean, I sulk professionally, but you make it art."
I glance at her sideways.
["She's not wrong,"] Nyx muses, stretching through my ribcage like a shadow yawn. ["Your glowering might burn the paint off these walls."]
I ignore them both.
We're copying aether-path diagrams. Mine keep smudging. Not because I'm careless—but because the ink recoils from my touch. Or maybe it knows something I don't.
"I think the ink is afraid of me," I mutter.
Kiva tilts her head. "Well, yeah. So is everyone else. You nearly turned the Spiregrounds into molten soup last drift."
"I didn't mean to."
"You still did."
I pause. "And you're still here."
She smiles. "I'm stubborn. And you're interesting."
---
Later, the Ash Mother called Vael, intercepts me in the rune corridor.
She doesn't speak at first. Just places one paper-thin hand against the obsidian wall, where faint silver runes pulse beneath her fingers.
"You feel it, don't you?" she finally says.
I don't answer.
"You shouldn't be able to. Not yet."
I lift my chin. "Then maybe you brought me here too late."
She studies me. Her eyes are sharp and still—like the wind before a storm.
"You're unraveling early," she murmurs.
"I'm not unraveling," I say. "I'm waking up."
She smiles thinly. "Same thing, child."
When I walk away, I feel her gaze press between my shoulder blades like a second spine.
["They know something," Nyx growls inside me. "And they're watching for cracks."]
Then let them watch, I think back.
---
That night, Kiva convinces me to sneak into the Forbidden Stacks.
Well—convinces is a strong word. She makes it look like an accident, and I don't fight her too hard.
The books there are old. Older than Riftkeep. Bound in creatures I don't recognize. Some of them whisper. Some breathe.
One calls me by name.
"Sylara."
The voice is faint. Genderless. Not Nyx. Not myself.
It comes from a tome sealed with molten sigils, cold as grave-ice.
I reach toward it.
["Don't,"] Nyx hisses. ["That book looks suspicious."]
Kiva peers over my shoulder. "What's that?"
I pull my hand back. "Nothing."
"Uh-huh," she mutters. "Nothing's glowing like a dead god's eye."
---
Two days later, the Ash Mothers receive a raven.
It's silver-feathered, branded with the Sigil of the Thorned Crown—the ruling royal house.
No one tells me what it says. But the Ash Mother Vael watches me for a long time that evening, her fingers steepled beneath her chin.
And that night, I dream of fire thrones and eyes made of stars.
---
In class, I snap a crystal just by touching it.
In the halls, I hear whispers when no one speaks.
In the bathhouse, the water shimmers with runes when I close my eyes.
And in my chest, Nyx grows restless.
"Something's waking," she tells me. "Something old. And it knows your name like a memory."
I press my hand to my sternum, where the Binding scar glows faint beneath my skin.
I'm not just a girl with strange magic.
I am the lock and the key both.
---
And Far Away…
In the Ivory Keep, deep in the High Realms, a masked figure in royal gold reads the letter from Riftkeep.
"A girl of fire and soulshadow," he murmurs. "And a wolf not yet born."
He sets the letter down beside a ring—ancient, coiled with flame-shaped obsidian.
"Call the governors. The gods are stirring."
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