They said blood remembers.
I didn't know what that meant until the crystal touched my skin.
The moment I placed the pendant around my neck, something inside me cracked. Not painfully. Not violently. Just… deep. Like a vault being unlocked from within. My heartbeat echoed louder, slower, and for a moment, I wasn't standing in the solar chamber anymore.
I was falling.
But not downward.
Inward.
I saw fire. Not the kind that kills. The kind that breathes. Golden and white and ancient, coiling through veins like a second soul. I saw wings made of light, bones dipped in ash, halos rusted by time. And somewhere, behind it all, a voice.
Not a whisper.
A presence.
Watching.
It didn't speak. It didn't need to.
Because I understood.
Something was waiting inside me.
Something that had been sealed until now.
Fallen. Forgotten. But not gone.
I staggered back as reality snapped into place, my breathing ragged. The crystal around my neck glowed faintly, pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat.
Ravianne's expression was unreadable. But I saw the way her fingers curled slightly, as if ready to summon magic at the first sign of danger.
"You felt it," she said.
I nodded. "What is it?"
"A curse. Or a gift. Depending on how you use it." She circled me, her crimson hair swaying like fire. "You are not ordinary. Not anymore. And this world will know it soon enough."
I looked down at the pendant. "This came from my mother?"
"She was stronger than anyone knew. She hid what she was to protect you." Ravianne paused. "She knew what would come for you, if they ever sensed your blood."
"What am I?"
She stepped closer, leaned in. "Not human. Not entirely. You carry the blood of something older. Something celestial. A fallen line, once divine."
Fallen. That word again.
The presence I felt inside didn't feel divine. It felt… broken. But strong.
"What happens now?" I asked.
She reached out, brushing a strand of my hair back. Her hand lingered a moment longer than it needed to.
"Now?" she whispered. "You survive. Grow. Learn to control it before it controls you."
Then she stepped away.
"This world fears what it does not understand," she said, voice suddenly colder. "And you, my dear nephew, are something it has never understood."
—
That night, I couldn't sleep.
The pendant throbbed against my chest with every breath, like a second heartbeat that wasn't mine. I tossed the blankets aside, sat at the window, and stared at the moon.
The stars here were different.
Brighter. Angrier.
Like they watched back.
I didn't dream. Not exactly. But I did see flashes. Wings shattering. Chains binding a form made of light. A battlefield buried beneath clouds. And through it all, a voice I didn't know how to forget.
It didn't speak in words.
It hummed.
Like a melody I'd once known, now out of reach.
—
Morning came in silence.
I was dressed before Lysette even knocked. She blinked when she saw me already prepared, but didn't comment.
"Your schedule is full," she said, walking beside me through the corridor. "Sword training. Then elemental theory. After lunch, etiquette with Lady Miravel."
"Is that the one with the stick up her—"
"Yes," she interrupted. "She's also the headmistress of social conduct for all noble heirs. You will be expected to impress her."
"I'm twelve."
"You're twelve with an unknown lineage and the attention of the most powerful woman in the western provinces. You don't get to be twelve."
Fair.
We passed servants who bowed so deeply I thought their spines might snap. Most didn't meet my eyes. A few glanced at the pendant with barely hidden unease.
Word traveled fast.
I arrived at the training yard just in time to see Sir Aldric split a stone dummy in half with a single strike. His blade didn't even spark.
"Morning, boy," he called out, tossing me a practice blade. "Ready to break your fingers again?"
"Can't wait."
We started with forms.
Slower today. More controlled.
He didn't correct me as much. Just watched, nodding slightly now and then.
After an hour, he threw a second blade at me.
"Catch."
I did.
"Dual wield."
"What?"
"Let's see if the blood in you is worth the whispers."
So we fought.
He didn't hold back.
Neither did I.
Wooden blades clashed. My arms ached. My breath turned to fire in my lungs. But I kept moving. My body remembered pain. It learned quickly.
Halfway through, something shifted.
Time slowed.
Just a little.
A fraction of a second, but enough.
His blade came down, and I moved without thinking. Stepped inside his guard. Drove both my swords into the dummy behind him instead of him.
Crack.
The wooden frame exploded into splinters.
Aldric froze.
So did I.
The training yard went silent.
Then he grinned.
"Now you're interesting."
—
By noon, I couldn't feel my arms.
Lysette practically dragged me to the study hall, where a mage in gold-trimmed robes was already waiting. He introduced himself as Scholar Nerith and didn't waste time.
"Elemental theory is the foundation of civilized society," he began, voice nasal. "All known magic stems from elemental root forces. Fire, water, wind, earth. Subtypes include shadow, light, storm, void, and more. We do not touch necromancy. Not without clearance."
He passed me a glowing tome. The letters rearranged themselves as I looked at them, settling into language I could read.
Magic literacy.
Useful.
"Affinity can be tested with resonance stones," he explained, holding up a box of small crystals. "Most glow in the presence of their kind. But some—rare ones—respond differently."
He motioned for me to touch them.
One by one, I did.
Nothing.
Fire? No glow.
Water? Still nothing.
Air, earth, shadow, light.
Dead.
Nerith frowned. "Strange. I expected at least a flicker. Unless…"
He hesitated, then pulled out a crystal that looked… wrong.
It was black. But not in the color sense.
It absorbed light. Sound. Attention.
The moment I touched it, the room trembled.
Not visibly. Not loudly.
But in the way pressure changes before a storm.
The crystal didn't glow.
It cracked.
And from the fracture, golden light leaked out.
Nerith dropped it like it burned him.
Lysette stepped between us without hesitation, hand on her dagger.
"What was that?" I asked.
Nerith's face was pale. "You… You should not exist."
I stood. "Too late."
—
Later that evening, Ravianne summoned me again.
This time, we met in a tower chamber filled with books, scrolls, and swords older than memory. She stood beside a window overlooking the entire estate, a wineglass untouched in her hand.
"You broke a resonance crystal," she said, not turning.
"He gave me the weird one."
She chuckled. "That wasn't a resonance crystal. That was a seal stone. It's meant to contain high magic, not measure it."
"Well, it cracked."
She finally looked at me.
There was pride in her eyes.
And fear.
"You are awakening faster than I anticipated," she said. "Too fast. It won't be long before others notice."
"Others like… who?"
"The Ascendancy. The Oracle Circle. And worst of all, the Crown."
I frowned. "Should I be worried?"
"No," she said, voice hardening. "They should."
She walked toward me, placed her hand over the pendant still pulsing at my chest.
"This world was written without you," she whispered. "And that is your greatest strength."
Then she leaned close, eyes glowing faintly.
"Break its script."