Training resumed the very next day, as if the horrors at Stonewatch had been nothing but a bad dream.
But Kael knew better.
Everything had changed.
He could see it in the eyes of the instructors — sharper, more watchful. He could feel it in the way the students moved — warier, their camaraderie laced with suspicion.
Even the air seemed thicker, as if the Academy itself held its breath.
Rynn met him at the training grounds at dawn, her auburn hair braided back, her green eyes fierce.
"New schedule," she said, handing him a parchment.
Kael scanned it quickly. "Advanced arcana classes? Enchanted weapon drills?"
"And something called 'Resonance Trials,'" Rynn added, wrinkling her nose. "Sounds ominous."
Kael tucked the parchment into his belt. "Better than sitting around waiting for the next attack."
She smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.
The Blood Awakens
Their first advanced arcana class was taught not by one of the usual instructors, but by an imposing figure draped in black and crimson.
Master Telrius — the Academy's foremost expert on forbidden magics.
He swept into the room like a stormcloud, his voice deep and unsettling.
"You stand at the threshold," Telrius intoned. "Between power and madness. Between creation... and annihilation."
Kael felt a shiver crawl up his spine.
Telrius' gaze settled on him — and lingered.
"You," the Master said. "Step forward."
Kael obeyed, heart hammering.
Telrius produced a shard of obsidian crystal, thrumming with dark energy.
"Touch it."
Rynn shifted uneasily at his side. Kael caught her glance — warning, concern — but he reached out anyway.
The moment his fingers brushed the crystal, heat exploded through his veins.
Images flashed before his eyes — burning cities, winged beasts tearing the sky apart, oceans boiling under crimson moons.And at the heart of it all: himself.Crowned in fire.Feared. Worshiped.
Kael ripped his hand back, gasping.
Telrius smiled thinly.
"Fascinating," he murmured. "Very few survive the touch."
Kael swayed, feeling Rynn's steady hand grip his arm.
"Sit down," she hissed under her breath.
He obeyed, every nerve screaming.
"You carry a deep resonance," Telrius said, addressing the class. "A connection to ancient magics long thought extinct."
His gaze swept over the students.
"Some of you have gifts sleeping within you. Most of you will die before unlocking them."
He smiled — a cold, predatory thing.
"Let us see who is worthy."
Secrets in the Library
Later, Kael and Rynn slipped away to the Academy's hidden archives — a maze of dusty corridors and forgotten tomes.
"If Telrius knows something, we need to find out what," Rynn said.
Kael nodded, still feeling the crystal's echoes thrumming under his skin.
They found an ancient ledger detailing bloodlines tied to dragonkind — warriors and kings who had wielded magic drawn directly from the world's oldest beasts.
Kael traced a name with his finger: Vaeryn of the First Flame.
Next to it, a symbol — a dragon intertwined with a sword.
The same symbol etched into Veyrion's hilt.
"This... this is your lineage," Rynn whispered.
Kael's head spun.
"Dragon-blooded," he said hoarsely.
It explained the visions. The power. The terrifying dreams.
And it explained why Dain had called him "brother" before falling into corruption.
"Not just me," Kael said, thinking of the little girl from Stonewatch. Of others who might carry the same hidden inheritance.
"The old blood is waking," Rynn said. "And someone's trying to control it."
The Betrayal
Their discovery came none too soon.
That night, during a late patrol around the training grounds, Kael heard a faint sound — the clash of steel.
He and Rynn followed it, moving swiftly through the shadows.
In a secluded courtyard, they found two figures locked in combat.
Serah — and Master Varick.
Kael froze.
Varick fought savagely, his strikes lethal, not sparring.
Serah parried desperately, blood dripping from a gash on her arm.
"Why?" she gasped.
"You were getting too close," Varick growled. "You and those brats."
Kael didn't hesitate.
He drew Veyrion, the blade singing as it left its sheath.
"Step away from her!" he shouted.
Varick sneered. "You don't understand what's at stake, boy."
"Enlighten me," Kael said coldly.
The traitorous Master laughed — and lunged.
The fight was brutal.
Kael and Rynn moved in perfect tandem, their months of training and battles forging them into a single, unstoppable force.
Varick was skilled — terrifyingly so — but he was alone, and he underestimated them.
In a final clash of steel and fury, Kael disarmed him. Rynn knocked him unconscious with a precise blow to the temple.
Breathing heavily, Kael knelt to retrieve something that had fallen from Varick's cloak — a black amulet, pulsing with dark energy.
Rynn recoiled. "It's corrupted."
Kael nodded grimly. "And it's not just him. There are more."
Serah slumped against the wall, clutching her bleeding arm. "We have to warn the Council."
"No," Kael said, staring down at the amulet.
"If there's corruption here... the Council might already be compromised."
The realization hit them like a punch to the gut.
They were alone.
Surrounded by enemies in a place they had once trusted.
And the war for the world's future had already begun.