The sun rose without color.
Clouds covered the sky, pale and flat like someone had painted over the morning. A cold breeze moved through the capital streets, and even the birds seemed to avoid the windows.
Inside the Academy, things had shifted.
Students whispered less.
Professors carried sealed scrolls like they were made of glass.
Even the guards posted at the main gates didn't talk anymore. Not when Alaric walked by. Not when Kaelion passed either.
Whatever line had separated "student business" from real politics had vanished.
Everyone knew it.
---
Alaric stood in the Headmaster's private office, arms folded as Gaelin paced in slow, tight circles. A sealed letter sat untouched on the desk.
"Say it again," Alaric said quietly.
Gaelin stopped pacing. His jaw clenched.
"She's gone."
"No signs?"
"No signs. No struggle. No broken spells. The guards say she left quietly. Walked straight out of the manor just before midnight."
Alaric looked down at the letter again.
Seraphine had been resting at a neutral estate after her rescue. Protected. Watched by royal agents.
This time, she was supposed to be safe.
She was finally supposed to be safe.
---
He picked up the letter.
It wasn't sealed with a family crest. Just wax. Smooth. Plain.
He broke it open.
A single piece of parchment slid out.
Five words:
> I'm going to fix it.
No signature.
No location.
No instructions.
Just her handwriting—clear, careful, and slightly crooked at the end like she'd written it too quickly.
Alaric stared at the paper for a long time.
Gaelin lowered his voice.
"She thinks it's her fault."
"She's wrong."
"She doesn't care."
---
That night, Alaric sat on the roof of the old alchemy wing.
The stars were out.
He didn't look at them.
Just the folded letter in his hand.
"She never even liked that estate," he muttered. "Too clean. Too quiet."
Kaelion stepped beside him without a sound.
"You read the second part?" he asked.
Alaric frowned. "There was a second part?"
Kaelion held up a strip of paper—half-burnt, half-torn, psychic thread still clinging to the edge like webbing.
> "If something happens to me…"
That was all that remained.
---
"I traced the writing ink," Kaelion said quietly. "It was alchemical. Meant to vanish after exposure to certain ambient heat spells."
Alaric raised an eyebrow. "Clever."
"Too clever for a girl who just wanted to disappear."
---
They didn't speak again for several minutes.
Finally, Alaric stood.
"What do you want me to do?" Kaelion asked.
"Nothing," Alaric said. "This isn't your job."
Kaelion gave a dry laugh. "Everything's my job."
---
Alaric turned toward the southern wall of the Academy.
He could feel it.
Like a line in his chest pulling taut.
Not magic.
Not sound.
Just something else.
Mind Trace
— Followed the faint emotional residue of her presence. A flicker here. A ripple there.
It led southeast.
Toward the city.
And past that…
Into old territory.
Territory that once belonged to House Veyron.
---
The city of Arvium slept beneath flickering lanterns.
Not that Alaric cared for the glow.
He didn't need it.
What he followed wasn't visible. It wasn't a trail of footprints or torn cloth or even magic. It was something quieter, lighter—like someone had breathed a memory into the air and forgotten to erase it.
Mind Trace
— Tracked the faint echo of psychic emotion. Weak but real. Like a thread tugging at the base of his mind.
Seraphine had passed this way.
She wasn't trying to be found.
But she also hadn't covered her steps as well as she thought.
---
Alaric's boots clicked softly against the cobblestones as he crossed a side street in the lower quarter. The shops here were closed. Their signs swayed gently in the wind. No guards patrolled this far down.
Too quiet.
Too forgotten.
Just the way old families liked it.
He stopped at the edge of a narrow alley and tilted his head.
The thread led down a set of stairs—barely visible between two storage sheds.
Most would miss it.
He didn't.
---
The stairs led beneath the city.
Not into sewers—into something older.
Stone bricks shifted from modern cuts to ancient ones. The air changed, growing cooler. The psychic trail thickened.
She'd been afraid here.
Not in panic. Not fleeing.
> Hesitation.
> Regret.
---
He moved slowly now.
One step at a time.
The walls were lined with faded carvings, symbols worn down by age. Nothing magical. Just architecture from a different time.
At the bottom of the stairwell, he found it.
A door. Heavy. Oak. Iron hinges.
And next to it, on the wall:
A sigil.
Simple. Clean. Subtle.
But he knew the design.
It was the original crest of House Veyron—used before the royal registry even existed. From a time before they bowed to crowns.
He ran his hand along the carved line.
The trail ended here.
But the sense of pressure didn't.
Something—no, someone—was still inside.
---
He didn't kick the door.
Didn't break it open.
He simply pressed his palm to the wood and reached out.
Not with force.
With thought.
Echo Sensory
— The wood whispered. Not sound—memory. Seraphine had stood here. Her hand shook when she touched the handle. She was scared.
But she still went in.
---
Alaric opened the door.
And stepped into silence.
It wasn't a chamber.
It was a library.
Underground. Dusty. Shelves lining the walls, stacked with scrolls and hand-bound books. The kind of place nobles forgot to mention when they were swearing their loyalty to the Empire.
He stepped deeper.
Let the door swing shut behind him.
The smell of paper and ash filled his nose.
Then he saw her.
Seraphine.
Standing at the far end of the room. Her back to him.
Her hand outstretched toward a table.
And on that table—
A book.
Not bound in leather.
Bound in rune-scorched chain.
Her fingers hovered just above it.
Frozen.
---
"Seraphine," he said softly.
She didn't turn.
Didn't flinch.
Just whispered, "I think this book is alive."
---
Seraphine didn't move.
Her hand hovered over the chained book, fingers barely trembling. Her voice was calm, but the kind of calm that only came when someone was holding back panic.
Alaric crossed the room slowly.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I don't know," she replied. "But it… it spoke."
He stopped beside her and studied the book.
It was thick. Bound in dark material—not leather, not cloth. It looked like dried bark, but denser, rougher. Chains wrapped around it tightly, locked with a metal clasp shaped like an eye. Runes covered the chain—not magical glyphs. Something older. Something raw.
Alaric tilted his head slightly.
The eye on the clasp blinked.
---
He didn't step back.
He just watched.
A strange pressure pressed against his thoughts, soft but firm—like the book was checking him. Not reading his mind. Feeling it.
Not magical. Not divine.
> Psychic.
He placed a hand on the table next to it, fingers resting gently on the edge of the page.
Seraphine whispered, "Should we leave it alone?"
"No," Alaric said. "We should open it."
---
He pressed down on the clasp.
It didn't resist.
No click. No flash of light. Just a soft hiss as the chains slid loose and the cover lifted on its own.
The pages turned themselves.
Once.
Twice.
Then stopped on a single spread—two wide, yellowed pages filled with symbols and writing that shouldn't have made sense.
But he could read it.
Not because it was in his language.
Because it was written like a thought.
---
The first line chilled him:
> "To the Mindborn who comes after us…"
Seraphine leaned in. "Mindborn?"
Alaric didn't answer right away.
He read on:
> "…We were here before the world knew spell or sword. Before the gods fell from fire. We lived by thought. We built without stone. We ruled without crowns. And we lost everything."
The room grew colder.
The book continued:
> "The last of us buried this vault. Not to be found. But to be heard—by the one who thinks like we did. The one who will remember what the world forgot."
Alaric turned the page.
On the next spread: a symbol.
It looked like a crown, but upside down. Thin lines circled around it—concentric waves, like a ripple in water.
Beneath it, a title burned into the paper in red ink:
> CROWN PROTOCOL – PHASE I: REMEMBERING THE SILENT EMPIRE
His pulse quickened.
"Alaric," Seraphine whispered, "what is this?"
"I don't know," he said.
But he was lying.
Somewhere deep in his mind, a voice he hadn't heard in years stirred.
Not a memory.
Not a thought.
A command.
> Unlock it.
He closed the book.
Fast.
The chains slid back over the cover as if they'd never moved.
The clasp blinked again. Then shut.
Alaric turned to Seraphine. "We need to leave."
"But—"
"Now."
---
They stepped out into the stairwell.
And froze.
The door at the top of the stairs stood wide open.
A shadow leaned against the frame.
Not a man.
Not fully.
It wore the robes of a Church Inquisitor.
But its face was covered by a silver mask.
Its presence hit like cold water in the lungs.
Seraphine gasped.
Alaric didn't move.
The figure spoke in a soft, echoing voice:
> "You were not meant to see that book, Mindborn."
> "And now that you have…"
It tilted its head.
> "…you will not leave."