Rain hammered against the high windows of the Lyceum Arcana Academy, running on twisting streams down the glass, but inside, the sound of the storm was lost beneath chaos.
The grand hallways, once filled with scholars and quiet voices, had turned into a battlefield. Glass shattered into deadly shards, wooden beams splintered as structure collapsed, and voices clashed together. Shouts, orders, and screams of pain.
Smoke coiled through the grand hallways, and the sharp, acrid scent of burning parchment mixed with the thick, sickly smell of blood.
Light flickered erratically, coming from the dying torches and the last, desperate flashed of arcane magic, painting the scene in stark, shifting shadows.
Prince Aerion ran. His lungs burned with each breath, his heart a frantic beat against his ribs.
He was seventeen years old, thin, his frame more accustomed to the gentle weight of books than the heavy press of swords. Fear, a cold like a sharp claw, squeezed his chest until he could barely breathe.
He pressed his back against cold stone, forcing himself to stay quiet, to think. He knew the passages of this place better than any soldier storming its halls, having spent countless hours exploring its depths in calmer times.
Ducking into a narrow a narrow servants' passage, he found himself enveloped by darkness and the close, stale air, but he kept moving. His fingers clenched around the necklace hanging at his throat, a small black dragon carved from onyx, the last gift his mother had given him. It was smooth and cold, yet strangely familiar in his palm.
As he reached a junction, voices echoed nearby, harsh and guttural, unmistakably belonging to Vaelgard soldiers. Their heavy, iron-shod boots slapped wet stone with a sickening rhythm that grew steadily louder.
Aerion froze, pressing himself back against the damp wall, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"...Archmage first," one of them grunted, his voice deep, edged with command. "Prince Therion's orders. No loose ends. Especially not the scholars."
Therion. His brother. The Crown Prince.
The words hit Aerion like a physical blow. Aerion inhaled sharply, choking on the truth.
His own blood had sent these killers, had orchestrated this brutal invasion of their most prestigious academy in the whole continent.
The betrayal twisted inside him, painful and cold. He felt a wave of nausea, but he pushed the feeling down, a desperate resolve hardening in his gut.
There was no time to process it. No time for sorrow. No time for anger.
*Run. Just run.*
He moved fast, taking the left passage, descending worn steps into what was once the magnificent Starfall Atrium. This had been a beautiful place, a sanctuary for studying the stars.
Now, it was a ruin.
Broken telescopes lay scattered across the marble floor, their lenses shattered, their polished brass casings twisted and shattered.
Star maps once painted on the soaring ceiling were torn and scorched, blackened by flame. Rain poured through a gaping, jagged hole in the high dome, splashing onto the cracked marble floor, where it pooled in the dark, reflective puddles.
Aerion sprinted for the small door at the far end, his last hope for escape. He was halfway across the cavernous space when the entire world shook.
A deep, rumbling boom exploded through the Lyceum. Magic clashed violently, a powerful arcane backlash. The tremor threw him violently off balance, and he stumbled, barely catching himself.
Stones cracked and rained down from above, dislodged by the force, and dust clouded the air, choking his breath.
He looked up with stinging eyes, to see a cascade of rubble blocking the small door, sealing it shut.
His pulse hammered. Panic clawed up his throat. He spun around sharply, desperate for another way, but what he saw froze him in place.
Borak.
The Vaelgard mercenary stood in the entrance he had just come through, his presence suffocating. His armor, dented and stained with old blood, clanked as he moved.
His eyes, dark and lifeless, devoid of emotion. He carried a heavy axe, its blade gleaming wetly in the dim, flickering light.
Borak saw Aerion. He didn't speak. He didn't yell. He just started walking forward, with slow, steady, and relentless steps.
Aerion's breath hitched. His trembling hands fumbled at his belt, searching, desperate. He had no weapons. No sword. No dagger. Only scholar's tools.
He grabbed two small glass vials, one smoked faintly in grey wisp. Another one held a clear, unmoving liquid.
He threw the smoking vial first.
It shattered at Borak's feet with a soft pop, releasing thick grey fog that curled around the mercenary's legs, rising fast.
Borak coughed once, but he didn't stop. He walked through the smoke, his silhouette swallowed, then emerging, still advancing.
Aerion thres the second vial, the acid one. The liquid splashed onto Borak's thick leather arm guard. It hissed, and burned it.
Borak barely looked at the smoking spot with a flicker of annoyance, like a fly had bitten him.
And he kept coming.
Aerion stepped back clumsily, his boots sliding on the slick marble. His foot caught on debris.
He fell hard, a sharp, searing pain shot through his side. He gasped, trying to draw a breath, the effort agonizing.
Borak stood and loomed over him, his massive form eclipsing the flickering light. Rain plastered the mercenary's dark hair to his skull, and his shadow swallowed Aerion completely.
No words passed between them. Borak simply raised the axe, gripping it with both hands, lifting it high above his head.
Aerion saw the wet, sharpened edge gleam in the dim light. He saw the cold, unfeeling eyes of the mercenary.
In that final, suspended moment, his mind flashed to Therion. *His brother. Why did he do all this?
Then the axe came down, in a fast and hard slice. Aerion twisted, a desperate, instinctive movement. But he was too late, or not fast enough.
A cold, shocking, and deep cold punched into his belly. Then came the heat, it was terrible, spreading heat, liquid fire blooming outward from the point of impact.
Aerion choked, a wet sound escaping his throat, and looked down. He saw the rough wooden handle protruding from his blue tunic. He saw his own blood, it was dark red, spreading fast across the expensive fabric of his uniform.
The pain roared in, a blinding, all-consuming agony that swallowed every other sensation. He couldn't scream. Only a wet, choked gasp escaped his lips.
*Why, brother?* The thought was faint, a whisper in the storm of pain inside his head.
He trembled violently, unable to move. His vision blurred. His breath shuddered. He heard nothing except the pounding of his own heartbeat.
The onyx dragon slipped from his limp fingers. It clattered with a small, sharp sound on the stone, coming to rest near his pooling blood.
His blood seeped into the cracks in the floor. An old groove, barely visible, part of a hidden design.
A dragon ward symbol, long forgotten, buried under layers of dust and time. His blood touched it, and filled the groove.
The symbol cracked, with a sharp, but not loud sound. Like breaking bone.
Then came the heat. Not fire, not the searing, consuming heat of flame, but something else. It exploded from the broken symbol, a wave of pure, furious rage that permeated the very air.
The rain sizzled where it touched the superheated stone. The very stones beneath Aerion's dying body grew hot, radiating an intense warmth. The air shimmered, distorted by the sudden, overwhelming energy.
Borak staggered back, his eyes wide with a sudden, dawning terror. Real fear finally twisted his scarred face. He raised an arm against the blinding heat, instinctively shielding himself.
Aerion's body twisted unnaturally and violently. His back arched off the floor in an impossible, unnatural movement.
His eyes flew open wide, unseeing a moment ago. Now, they blazed. Not blue, the soft color of his own eyes. But molten gold, glowing like fire in the dark.
A sound tore from his throat. Not a human scream, not even a gasp. It was a raw, guttural roar that filled the Atrium, shaking the broken glass and rattling the very stones.
It was not human.
Inside the broken, dying body, something ancient woke.
Kairos. The Dragon Emperor.
And he was enraged.