The next morning dawned gray and windless, the sky heavy with low clouds that pressed against the academy's spires. Alex barely slept, his thoughts tangled in flames, spirals, and the faint pulse of the dragon scale hidden under his tunic.
He avoided Brinn's questions over breakfast, mumbled an excuse about needing quiet, and slipped away before classes began. His legs carried him before his thoughts caught up, back through the long western halls to the Tower of Scrolls. The stairs creaked underfoot like whispers.
He knocked once. No answer.
"Master Fenrik?"
Silence.
He pushed the door open.
The chamber was dim and cold, the smokeless flame banked low. Fenrik's desk was empty, books left open mid-thought. Something felt wrong—not dangerous, but absent, like the echo of a bell that had just stopped ringing.
Alex stepped inside.
His eyes roamed the shelves, then the far wall, where heavy banners stirred slightly despite the still air. He had planned to return the book Fenrik had given him, but a different curiosity pulled at him now. A thin crack of space between one bookcase and the stone wall caught his attention.
He squeezed through—and found a narrow passageway behind it.
The air grew colder as he descended crumbling steps. Ancient carvings lined the walls: wings, flames, a crown split in two. He lit a small oil lantern hanging on the wall, its light flickering across the dust. At the bottom, he found a sealed door. Runes lined its surface—most worn with age, but some still faintly glowing.
One symbol matched the spiral on his arm.
He reached for it—and stopped.
"That door's not for students," came a sharp voice behind him.
Alex spun. A girl stood on the stairs, arms crossed. She wore the dark green sash of a senior scholar—slim, composed, with dark eyes that glittered like flint.
"Who are you?" Alex asked.
"Elya Runehart," she said coolly. "Third-tier scholar. You're Alex Valea, the walking hazard."
He flushed. "I didn't mean to—"
"Spare me. You're not the first student to burn a corridor, but you are the first to activate a Flame-Seal in a hundred years."
Alex looked back at the door. "What is it?"
"A remnant of the old world," she said. "Or so the legends claim. Forbidden to open. Dangerous. That sort of thing."
"Then why are you here?"
Elya shrugged. "I study the past. And unlike you, I know when to leave it alone."
Alex hesitated. "Do you think dragons were real?"
She raised an eyebrow. "No. But Scholar Fenrik does. He's the academy's chief eccentric. Brilliant, but half-mad."
He stepped away from the door. "I think he's right."
"Then you're as mad as he is," she said. "Stay out of places you don't understand, Valea. Curiosity kills more than cats."
She turned and left, but as she did, her gaze lingered on him a heartbeat longer than necessary.
Alex lingered a moment longer before following.
---
That evening, he returned to the tower after sunset. The fire was blazing again, and Fenrik sat beside it, scribbling furiously on a parchment covered in glyphs.
"You found the passage," the old scholar said without looking up.
"You knew I would?"
"Of course. You're bound to the mark now. It calls to you."
Alex set the scale and the book on the table. "I need to learn. Please. Before I lose control."
Fenrik finally looked at him. "Then the lessons begin tonight."
He stood and gestured toward the center of the room, where a shallow stone basin sat. "Place your hand inside."
Alex obeyed. The basin filled with silvery mist that coiled around his fingers.
"Magic is a language," Fenrik said softly. "But what flows in you predates speech. Dragons did not speak spells. They were the spells. Their breath shaped mountains, their hearts stoked fire into life. What burns in you, boy, is not cast. It is awakened."
The mist flared red.
Alex gasped—the flame spiral on his skin glowed bright, as if answering the basin.
"What is this?"
"An echo of your essence," Fenrik replied. "You're attuned. The scale didn't give you power. It recognized it."
Alex drew his hand back, shaken. "Why me? I'm no one. I've failed everything."
"And yet, you stand here. Fire follows you. Ancient seals respond. The world does not pick its heroes from perfection."
He handed Alex a scroll. "Begin here. It's an old dialect of Draconic—half-lost. It may help you listen to what's waking inside."
---
Later that night, as Alex crossed the darkened courtyard back to the dorms, he noticed two guards at the outer gate. One of them—tall, armored in gray steel—spoke to another professor in hushed tones.
Something in the man's posture struck Alex.
A hunter's tension.
The name stitched to his shoulder: Captain Rhen Arlow.
"…burned from the inside out," Rhen was saying. "No tracks. No spell residue. Just char and ash."
The professor paled. "A rogue pyromancer?"
Rhen's eyes narrowed. "Or something worse."
Alex slipped away before they saw him.
The whispers had begun.
And the fire was only growing.
As he climbed the dorm steps, he thought of Elya—of her strange confidence, her knowledge of places she shouldn't know, and the way her eyes lingered when she warned him away. She intrigued him more than he wanted to admit.
---
The following day brought lectures in spell theory and a practical exercise in focus channeling. Alex sat beside Brinn, his thoughts half-rooted in the scroll Fenrik gave him, hidden under his robe. His attempt to cast the focusing rune ended in a brief, silent pulse—no flame, no surge. Just heat. The teacher nodded, assuming progress.
Brinn leaned in. "You're distant again."
"I'm just… thinking."
"About your near-death last week or the fact that you set a wall on fire in class again?"
He smirked. "That wall had it coming."
Brinn didn't laugh. His eyes were serious. "Alex. You're changing. And not just your spells. You didn't flinch when that lantern exploded yesterday. You didn't even blink."
He swallowed. "It didn't scare me."
"Exactly," he said. "And that's what scares me."
That night, Alex practiced silently in his dorm, eyes scanning ancient glyphs and muttering syllables of fire. The spiral on his arm hummed faintly. He didn't sleep.
In the depths of the tower, the sealed door glowed for the first time in centuries.