Kael sat in the back of the classroom, hood up, eyes locked on the same corner of the whiteboard he'd been pretending to study for twenty minutes. The numbers blurred. His wound throbbed. And his mind wouldn't shut up.
He tried to kill me.
Not scare him. Not warn him.
Kill.
For touching a rock that glowed.
Kael's fingers twitched under the desk. He half-expected them to light up again. They didn't.
His shoulder stung where the blade had grazed him. The bandage beneath his hoodie itched like hell, but he didn't dare scratch it. Not with Delra watching him from two rows over, eyes sharp and unreadable.
She knew something. He was sure of it now.
She'd always known something.
And if he was right—if this was what his gut told him it was—then she'd known since before he ever touched the shard.
The teacher's voice droned in the background, something about vector fields and coefficients. Kael barely registered it. The air felt thick. Like static before a storm.
A sigil storm, maybe.
That thought made him snort.
Delra raised an eyebrow from across the room.
He looked away.
The bell rang. Kael didn't move. Students flooded the hallway. Ren waved as he passed, headphones in, nodding along to a beat Kael couldn't hear.
Delra stood beside his desk, waiting.
Kael sighed and grabbed his bag. "You're going to say something cryptic, aren't you?"
Delra didn't smile. "Not this time. Come with me."
Kael considered refusing.
But he didn't.
Because he needed answers. And because a small, paranoid part of him wondered if he'd survive another ambush alone.
They walked in silence to the library. Then past it. Down a hallway he didn't remember ever seeing.
Then through a maintenance door that should've been locked.
Delra flicked on a flashlight and led him into the dark.
They ended up in what looked like an old records room. Dust blanketed everything. Filing cabinets rusted in corners like forgotten coffins. A single bulb flickered overhead, humming softly.
Delra closed the door.
Kael folded his arms. "Okay. Now tell me what in the hell is going on."
Delra didn't answer right away.
Instead, she pulled a small stone from her pocket.
It glowed.
Not like Kael's shard. Hers glowed soft green, like moss under moonlight. The shape was different too—flatter, etched with faint symbols.
Kael took a step back. "You too?"
She nodded. "I Sparked two years ago."
Kael stared. "And you never said anything?"
"No one does. Not until they have to."
He tried to speak. Failed.
Delra continued. "They're called Sigils. Artifacts left behind by a civilization long before ours. They don't work for everyone. But when they do… they change you."
Kael let that hang in the air. "Changed how?"
Delra met his gaze. "That depends on you. On what you are. On what you choose to be."
Kael swallowed. "That man. The one who attacked me. He knew I had it."
"He was a Hunter. Probably low-rank. They come after untrained Sparks."
"Why?"
"Because untrained Sparks are unpredictable. Dangerous. Easy to break. Or… recruit."
Kael blinked. "Recruit into what?"
Delra hesitated.
Then said, "The Ascendants."
The name didn't mean anything. Not yet.
But the way she said it made something inside Kael clench.
"Who are they?" he asked.
"A group of sigil-bonded who believe the higher stages should belong only to the worthy. Their version of worthy is… narrow."
"And Hunters?"
"Are the ones they send to make sure it stays that way."
Kael leaned against a desk. "Okay. So, to summarize: I accidentally bonded with an ancient magic rock, got assaulted by a riddle-spouting death ninja, and now I'm part of a secret war between magical supremacists and whoever the hell you are."
Delra nodded.
Kael exhaled. "You know, I was really hoping this would just turn out to be schizophrenia. That would be easier."
A ghost of a smile tugged at her lips.
"You're taking this better than most."
"Trauma's easier when you add sarcasm. It's science."
Delra reached into her coat and handed him a folded sheet of paper.
He opened it.
It was a map. Hand-drawn. Old. Faded. At the center: a symbol that made the shard in his box ache in recognition.
"What's this?"
"A map of Veil-Spires. Ruins from the First Sigil Age. This one here—" she pointed to the central mark "—is called Arken Hollow. They say it's where the first sigil was born."
"Born?"
"Or built. Or summoned. Depends who you ask. But it's where people first started breaking the rules."
Kael stared at it.
"I thought this was just a weird piece of glowing glass," he said quietly.
"It's more than that," Delra said. "It's part of a language. A design. One that writes itself into you."
Kael looked down at his hand.
He could still remember the spark. The taste of power. The brief, terrifying clarity.
He looked up.
"So what happens next?"
Delra's expression darkened. "That depends on how long we have before they send something stronger."
That night, Kael didn't sleep.
Not out of fear.
Not even from pain.
But from curiosity.
He sat on his bed, turning the shard over in his hand. It didn't glow this time. It pulsed, faint and steady, like a second heartbeat.
He knew, somehow, that the Spark wasn't the end. It was a door.
And behind that door were stages—steps carved into the mountain of power.
The Hunters, the Ascendants, Delra—they all had some understanding. Some version of truth.
But none of them were his.
Kael stared out the window at the stars.
"What if I don't want to play their game?" he muttered. "What if I make my own?"
The shard pulsed again.
He felt a thread hum beneath his skin.
And with a flick of focus, he plucked it.
This time, the light didn't fade.
This time, it grew.
Tiny symbols bloomed in the air in front of him—floating glyphs, radiant and alive.
He didn't know what they meant.
But he knew this: they were the beginning.
And he had already fractured the lie.