The rain had been falling for six days straight.
Not the soft kind that soothed nerves or brought sleep, but a cold, bitter rain that hammered rooftops, flooded the gutters, and clawed at windows like it wanted to come inside. Gray clouds pressed down on the world like a curse. Every tree in the village of Irel's Hollow was stripped bare, their branches shaking under the storm's howl.
Inside the old orphanage that sat at the edge of the woodlands, seventeen-year-old Caelum Greaves sat at a narrow window ledge, watching the sky drip like a leaking wound. The stone beneath him was cold. Damp. Familiar.
His breath fogged the cracked window, but he didn't bother wiping it clean. He liked the distortion. The way the world looked blurred and distant. Safer that way. Less real.
Behind him, boys snored or whispered in their beds. Dormitory C housed sixteen of them, all between the ages of nine and seventeen. All abandoned. All forgotten.
No one came to Saint Elric's Mercy unless they had nowhere else to go. And no one left unless they died, ran, or disappeared without a trace.
Caelum had seen all three.
He remembered when Ryke vanished from the dorms in the middle of the night. No screams. No goodbye. Just blood on the floor and his mattress left cold. They told the rest of the boys that Ryke had been adopted.
They always said that.
Caelum didn't believe them.
He'd lived here since he was five, dropped off in the dead of night by a woman with shaking hands and eyes like smoke. She hadn't given a name. Just pressed a paper note to the matron's chest and ran into the woods like the wolves were chasing her. The next morning, Caelum was bathed, named, and forgotten like everyone else.
Except he remembered her last words.
"Don't let them know what he is."
He hadn't known what that meant back then. Now he wasn't sure he wanted to.
---
The bell rang downstairs—sharp, cold, and final.
Everyone froze. Even the little ones.
That bell only rang when something important happened. Usually it meant someone had died.
Caelum rose from the window, silently brushing dust from his shirt. It was gray and frayed, like everything else he owned. His boots were too tight, his fingers bruised from splitting firewood. But he moved like someone used to surviving. Quiet. Watchful. Always ready for pain.
He opened the dorm door and stepped into the hallway.
The walls were lined with iron sconces, though none were lit. They didn't waste candles here. The floor creaked with every step he took, the wood old and swollen from the rain. Thunder growled outside like something alive.
As he descended the staircase, a figure was waiting at the bottom.
Matron Ovidia.
She was tall and narrow, like someone had carved her from bone and vinegar. Her hair was pulled so tightly into a bun it looked like a noose coiled behind her head. Her long black dress made no sound when she moved, but her eyes—cold, sharp, always judging—spoke volumes.
In her pale hands, she held an envelope.
Brown parchment. Black wax seal. Thick. Heavy.
She held it like it burned.
Caelum stopped three steps from the ground, expression unreadable.
"For you," she said, voice brittle. "A letter came."
He blinked. Once. "For me?"
"You heard what I said." She shoved the letter into his chest, then turned on her heel. "Pack your things. A carriage arrives at dusk. You're leaving."
Caelum stared after her, unsure if he'd heard her correctly.
Leaving?
No one left Saint Elric's. Not unless their name was on a gravestone.
He looked down at the envelope. No name on the front. No crest. Just the wax—black, stamped with an unfamiliar sigil. A circle of thorns around an open eye.
It pulsed faintly beneath his fingers.
---
He didn't pack.
There wasn't anything to take.
A single gray bag, stitched with carelessness, sat on his cot. Inside it he placed his boots, the extra shirt he hated, and the broken wooden carving of a bird he'd been working on since last winter. It was meant to be a raven, though the wing was chipped.
Caelum stared at it for a moment longer, then slipped it into the bag. Not because it meant something, but because it was his. One of the few things that was.
The hours passed in silence.
The other boys watched him like he was a ghost. None of them spoke. Not even Finn, who always had a joke ready. They'd seen boys leave before—but never like this. Never with a letter. Never with permission.
At sunset, the carriage arrived.
It came out of the fog like something summoned.
Black wood, curved like a hearse, with iron wheels and long obsidian horses that snorted steam instead of breath. The driver wore a mask. No eyes. No voice. Just motionless, waiting.
Caelum stood at the edge of the steps, heart steady.
He didn't ask questions.
He didn't look back.
He climbed into the carriage.
---
Inside was not what he expected.
The moment the door shut behind him, the sound of the rain vanished.
The world outside fell silent, as if swallowed.
Candles flared to life on their own, floating mid-air like stars. The interior was far larger than the outside should allow, all dark velvet, black glass windows, and strange metal veins running through the wood like circuitry. The air smelled of old parchment and burnt sage.
On the seat across from him sat another envelope.
Identical in shape.
But this one had his name on it.
Not the one the matron gave him. The one he hadn't heard in years.
> Caelum of the Hollow Flame
He stared.
He hadn't been called anything but Greaves since he was five.
His fingers trembled slightly as he reached forward and broke the seal.
Inside was a single piece of paper—thick, rough, and pulsing with magic that made his skin itch.
The letter read:
> "To the one who has been cast out—
You have been Seen.
You have been Marked.
The Arcanum calls you.
Do not resist. Do not run.
Your curse is your key. Your blood is your price.
When the bell rings thrice, you will arrive."
No signature. No instructions.
Caelum read it twice.
Then, as if on cue—
DONG.
A deep bell echoed through the carriage. The sound vibrated in his bones, cold and ancient.
DONG.
The second toll felt heavier, like it came from inside his chest.
DONG.
The final bell rang.
The candlelight extinguished.
And when it came back—
The carriage was gone.
Replaced by mist. Stone. Cold.
Caelum was no longer sitting.
He was standing.
In a courtyard.
Beneath a sky with no stars.
The stone beneath Caelum's boots was smooth and black, cold even through the thick soles. Fog coiled at his ankles, slow and deliberate, like it had a mind of its own.
He was standing at the edge of a massive circular courtyard, surrounded by towers that twisted into the sky like spears. The air was silent—too silent. No birds. No wind. Just the low hum of something unseen, like the world was holding its breath.
At the center of the courtyard was a gate.
No—a mouth.
Stone jaws, arched high like fangs, opened into darkness. Words were carved above it in ancient runes, but they shimmered and shifted when Caelum tried to read them. His mind couldn't hold the meaning.
A single figure stood beside the gate.
Tall, hooded, face hidden by a silver mask that reflected Caelum's face back at him in fractured pieces.
"Caelum of the Hollow Flame," the figure intoned, voice neither male nor female, but both. It echoed—not off stone, but in Caelum's mind.
"You have been Called."
Caelum didn't move. "What is this place?"
"The threshold," the figure said simply. "Beyond here lies the Arcanum. The school. The prison. The gate."
"To what?"
The figure tilted its head. "To truth. To power. To madness. Once you enter, you are no longer of the world above."
Caelum glanced behind him. The fog had swallowed everything. There was no path back. No sign of the carriage. No way home—if he'd ever had one.
He turned back to the gate.
"Then I go forward."
The masked figure stepped aside.
"The price has already been paid."
As Caelum walked beneath the stone fangs of the Arcanum, the air changed. Magic wrapped around him like a noose—tight, burning, old. It scraped at his skin like claws, tasted his blood, studied his mind. It didn't ask permission.
It simply took.
---
The interior of the Arcanum was impossibly vast.
The entry hall alone was the size of a cathedral, with obsidian pillars that rose so high into darkness they vanished from view. Dozens of staircases twisted in all directions—some moving, some floating, some suspended upside down. Strange runes pulsed in the floor, casting ghostlight in shades of blue and violet.
At the far end, a figure waited beside a grand lectern.
She looked no older than thirty, but power clung to her like a second skin. Her robes shimmered with deep crimson and onyx. Her hair was braided into a crown that wove around her head like a serpent.
Her eyes were pitch black. Not evil—just bottomless.
"Caelum Greaves," she said, voice sharp and elegant, "or should I say... Caelum of the Hollow Flame?"
He stopped several paces away. "That name hasn't meant anything in years."
"Then you are exactly who we want," she said. "I am Magister Elowen. You may call me Instructor. Or not. We're beyond titles here."
Caelum watched her, wary. "What is this place, really?"
She studied him. "The Arcanum is a sanctuary for those who've been rejected by the laws of magic... or by the world itself. We do not take the noble, the pure, or the talented. We take the cursed, the hunted, and the broken."
Caelum looked around. "How many others are here?"
"You'll see soon."
"Why me?"
She smiled without warmth. "Because your curse sings like a blade in the dark. It wants to be used."
---
He was taken through a passage lined with iron mirrors—each one showing a different version of himself.
In one, he was drowning. In another, he was on fire. In a third, he was kneeling with his hands soaked in blood—not his own.
The hallway ended in a massive circular chamber.
There, five other students stood, each flanked by masked attendants.
Five. All around his age. All carrying the same envelope he had.
They looked like fragments of different lives.
One girl had snow-white hair and crimson eyes. Her skin was pale as bone, her black uniform immaculate. She held her envelope like it might bite her.
Beside her, a broad-shouldered boy with coal-black skin and a burning brand over one eye glared at everyone like they were prey.
A thin, sharp-eyed boy stood behind them, posture perfect, his mouth twitching with nervous calculation.
A girl with gold-dyed dreadlocks and glowing tattoos traced along her arms looked half-asleep, humming a haunting melody under her breath.
And the last—tall, cloaked, silent—kept their face hidden.
Magister Elowen stood at the center, arms raised.
"Welcome, Forsaken. You are the six chosen this year. The first Circle of this cycle. Congratulations. Your bloodline, your curse, your pain... it's all finally useful."
The white-haired girl's lip curled. "Is this a cult?"
"No," Elowen replied calmly. "This is a school."
"Of what?" the branded boy asked, his voice low and rough.
"Of magic," said Elowen, "but not the kind sung about in stories. Not the sanitized spells they teach in city towers. Here, you will learn Arcanum—the old magic. The buried magic. The magic the world tried to forget. Because here, we do not cast spells. We command power."
Caelum felt something shift in the air. A low hum. A pulse beneath the floor like a heartbeat.
Elowen stepped forward. "Your curses are the key. You have all been marked by forces greater than you understand. The Arcanum will teach you how to use them. Or they will consume you."
She gestured.
Six flames burst to life in the air, forming a ring.
Each flame changed color as it hovered in front of them.
Caelum's flame was black and gold.
The white-haired girl's was deep crimson.
The branded boy's—flickering orange, edged with sickly green.
The girl with the tattoos—sky blue.
The sharp-eyed boy—violet.
The cloaked one—pure white.
"These are your Houses," Elowen said. "Formed by the nature of your curses."
She waved her hand, and the flames rushed forward, slamming into each of them.
Caelum staggered back as the black-gold fire seared through his chest—but it didn't burn. It sank in. Took root.
House Umbra.
"Tomorrow, you will begin your trials," said Elowen. "You are no longer children. You are Arcanists in training. Fail... and you will not return home. You'll be buried beneath the school like the others."
The cloaked one finally spoke, voice flat. "Others?"
"Every year, six enter," Elowen said. "Not all survive."
She smiled slightly.
"But those who do become gods."
The chamber fell into silence.
Not the kind that comes naturally—but the charged kind, thick and waiting. Everyone could feel it. That line between curiosity and fear. Six curses now breathed the same air. Six names that no longer belonged to the world above.
Elowen lowered her arms and the flames disappeared into their bodies like smoke.
"Your curses have bound you to your Houses. From now on, those Houses will determine your training, your rooms, your rituals… and your survival."
Caelum's chest still felt heavy with heat. The black-and-gold fire had sunk into him like a second heartbeat, resting low in his ribs. It didn't hurt. Not exactly. But it didn't feel right either.
Like something old had finally opened its eyes inside him.
He didn't know what House Umbra was, or what it meant. But judging from the others' reactions, neither did they.
"House Umbra," Elowen continued, turning toward him. "The House of hidden fire, shadow-weavers, and truth-binders. Born of secrecy and shaped by silence. You are the blade in the dark. You strike not for glory, but for necessity."
Her gaze swept to the white-haired girl.
"House Thorne. Bloodbound. War-forged. Your magic is written in flesh, in sacrifice. Pain is both your weapon and your teacher."
The girl didn't react. Her crimson eyes stared straight ahead, cold and unblinking.
"Elara Vayne," Elowen added. "Last of the Vayne bloodline. Cursed to feel the pain of everyone you touch. What a tragedy. What a gift."
Caelum filed the name away.
The branded boy was next.
"House Cinder. Fire-born. You burn not from rage—but from guilt. Your magic is destruction, and your test is restraint."
Elowen glanced at the seared skin over his eye. "Name?"
The boy clenched his fists. "Torren."
"Just Torren?"
"That's all that's left."
Elowen didn't press.
She moved to the tall, sharp-eyed boy who looked like he was trying not to breathe too loudly.
"House Solace," she said. "The most fragile, and the most dangerous. You heal. But your healing steals from others."
The boy stiffened.
"Elric Dawnmere," he said, voice clipped. "I wasn't told anything about a House."
"No one ever is."
Next came the humming girl, her glowing tattoos fading in and out with the flicker of her breath.
"House Zephyr," Elowen said. "Air-bound. Dream-chained. You walk between realities in your sleep. Some call it madness. Here, we call it potential."
"Zani," the girl said lazily. "Zani Aruna. I'm not crazy. Just weird."
The cloaked figure didn't speak when Elowen turned.
"Name?" she asked.
They stayed silent.
Elowen tilted her head. "Very well. The silent keep their power longer. House Lumina, then. The rarest."
The figure raised their chin slightly. Beneath the cloak, silver-blond hair glinted in the light. A pale face. Pale lips.
And eyes that glowed white.
Caelum looked away. Something about that gaze made his stomach twist.
---
After the introductions, masked attendants appeared from the edges of the chamber. Each one walked toward a student, silent and steady.
"You will now be taken to your respective halls," Elowen said. "Each House is hidden from the others. You will not leave it unless summoned. You will not communicate outside your circle unless required."
"Are we prisoners?" Elric Dawnmere asked, brow furrowed.
"No," Elowen said. "You are weapons in the making. And weapons must be tempered, not trusted."
Caelum's attendant was short, hooded in deep gray, and moved like wind over stone. They didn't speak, only gestured.
Caelum followed.
They led him down a spiraling corridor lined with symbols that flared to life only as he passed. Everything about the Arcanum felt alive—not just magical, but aware. The very walls whispered. The ceilings pulsed with low magic. Doors opened without being touched.
And the deeper they went, the colder it got.
Eventually, they reached a large iron door shaped like a crescent moon. It hissed open.
Inside was the House Umbra dormitory.
It was nothing like the gray orphanage he'd known.
The floor was black marble, veined with gold. The windows showed only starlight, even though there was no night sky outside. Dark velvet curtains hung along the walls, and ancient books lined the shelves—none with titles.
A large bed sat in the center, covered in gray and gold sheets.
There were no roommates.
No other signs of life.
Just a mirror on the far wall. Cracked, tarnished, and wide as a doorway.
Caelum stepped toward it.
His reflection stared back—older than he remembered, sharper in the cheekbones, colder in the eyes. He had grown up quietly, like a knife left in the dark too long.
As he turned to unpack what little he brought, something scratched behind the mirror.
He froze.
The scratching stopped.
He waited—listened.
Nothing.
Then, a single word appeared across the glass, etched in frost:
> "Listen."
Caelum backed away slowly.
He didn't scream. Didn't shout. Just stared.
Something in this place was alive.
Something was watching.
---
The next day began before dawn.
A bell rang—this time not from the sky, but from within the walls of the House itself. A low, vibrating chime that shook the bones. Caelum rose instantly, already dressed. He hadn't slept much. The whispering hadn't stopped all night.
He was led by the same hooded attendant down a different hall. This one smelled of ink, blood, and candle wax.
Eventually, they arrived at a massive chamber—hexagonal, with six seats shaped like thrones on the edges of a circular platform. The other five students were already seated, each
"Cast what? We haven't been taught anything," Torren said, his voice low, a slight growl hiding beneath each syllable.
"Exactly," Elowen replied, her black eyes narrowing slightly. "We do not teach you how to use magic."
Caelum frowned. "Then what are we doing here?"
"We are teaching you to survive it," she said. "Magic in this place is not summoned. It is unlocked. Your curse is your key, and this chamber is your first lock."
She raised her hand.
The ground beneath them cracked with six sharp flashes, like lightning frozen in stone. Runes erupted across the floor in a spiral—ancient symbols no one could read, no one had written. Each student was surrounded by a circle of glowing glyphs matching their House flame.
Elara flinched as her circle burned deep red. Elric stepped back from his, hands trembling.
But Caelum… his didn't burn. His hissed.
Black tendrils of smoke writhed upward from the gold-lined glyphs beneath his feet. They didn't rise like mist—they rose like memories. One of them coiled around his leg like a snake, cold and sentient.
"The first trial is simple," Elowen said. "Unleash your magic. Not through words. Not through formulas. Through will."
Zani chuckled darkly. "Sounds easy enough."
"You will find," Elowen said, "that the things buried in your soul do not like to be disturbed."
Suddenly, one of the attendants stepped forward—this one holding a long, obsidian dagger.
Elowen took it from them without hesitation. "Magic answers only to blood here."
She handed the dagger to Torren first.
"You first."
Torren took it with the glare of someone who wasn't afraid of pain, but was tired of proving it. He slit his palm in one clean move, letting the blood drip into the center of his circle.
Fire exploded upward.
Orange and green flames roared into the air around him, forming a crown of smoke. The sigils pulsed violently. A ghostly figure—a giant, with broken chains around its neck—emerged from the fire. It screamed once, then vanished.
Torren stood silent.
Elowen nodded.
"Elric," she said.
The healer flinched but obeyed. He cut deep. Too deep. Blood poured out—too fast. As it hit the runes, they shimmered violet. A heartbeat later, the floor beneath him shattered.
Dozens of roots, skeletal and pale, burst through the cracks and wrapped around his legs. They began draining color from his body. Zani screamed. Caelum stepped forward instinctively.
"Stay back!" Elowen barked. "Let the magic test him."
Elric fell to his knees. His veins turned black.
Then suddenly—he screamed something unintelligible, and the roots recoiled. Not from fear. From pain. He had fed them poison.
He passed out.
Elowen said nothing. Only looked to Zani.
The girl sliced her finger lazily and let the blood drip onto her circle.
Wind.
A whirlwind erupted around her, laced with silver feathers and whispering voices in tongues none of them knew. Her eyes rolled back, and her feet left the floor. Her skin cracked with light.
And then, she fell—quiet, dazed.
Elara went next.
Her blood boiled the second it hit the glyphs. The chamber filled with the sound of crying children. Faces appeared in the air—bloody, pale, twisted. Caelum turned away, jaw clenched.
Whatever her curse was… it was old.
Then the cloaked one stepped forward.
They didn't even use the dagger. They bit their thumb, calm and practiced.
Their glyphs turned white.
Nothing happened.
Elowen raised a brow. "Again."
Still, nothing.
But Caelum saw it.
The shadows in the room had subtly bent toward them. The reflections in the pillars rippled. And his own flame, buried in his chest, flickered in warning.
That one is dangerous.
Then it was his turn.
The dagger was heavy in his palm. Colder than it should be. It felt like holding a secret.
Caelum took a breath.
Then he sliced across his left hand and let the blood fall.
At first, nothing.
Then—
The entire room darkened.
Not visibly. Not as if a curtain had been pulled. But… real darkness. A swallowing. Like light had forgotten how to exist.
His glyphs surged gold and black.
A sound began to build—distant at first. A heartbeat. Then another. Then dozens. Louder. Faster. The stone beneath him cracked.
Smoke burst from the runes.
Then fire.
Then—
A figure emerged.
It was not a ghost. Not a spell. Not a memory.
It was him.
A mirror-image of Caelum, but older. Covered in scars. Eyes burned black. A crown of thorns around his head and blood dripping from his fingertips.
The other students backed away.
Elowen stepped forward, frowning, calculating.
The double stared at Caelum.
Then it spoke:
> "You should not have come here."
The double stood in the circle of flame, its feet rooted in the cracks of the floor, eyes glowing with liquid shadow. It tilted its head, examining Caelum like a dissected truth.
"You shouldn't have come," it repeated.
Caelum staggered backward. The air was molten. The candles had all gone dark, and even the magic flames had pulled away like frightened birds.
Elowen raised a hand, and a circle of protective light snapped into existence around the students.
"Elowen," Caelum gasped, "what… what is that?!"
"Your Echo," she said grimly. "A magical imprint left behind by the deepest parts of your soul. Most Echoes are passive illusions."
She narrowed her eyes.
"This one… is not."
The double turned toward her, its voice laced with mockery. "You're wrong. I'm not his shadow."
It pointed at Caelum.
"I'm his future."
With a sudden motion, it lifted both hands—and a wave of gold-black fire exploded outward.
Elowen slammed her staff into the floor. A wall of raw energy shimmered into place just in time, absorbing the flame. But the impact still cracked the marble beneath them, and smoke poured through the chamber.
"GET OUT!" she roared at the other students. "NOW!"
The masked attendants appeared instantly, whisking the others into shadow. Even the silent cloaked one hesitated before vanishing.
Caelum didn't move.
He couldn't. The fire that had burst from the Echo hadn't touched him. But it had recognized him. Matched his rhythm. Like it knew his heartbeat.
Elowen was muttering something ancient, her staff glowing with each word. "Your Echo should not have this form. It's not natural. Something else… is using it."
"Using me?" the double sneered. "No, no. You still don't understand."
He turned back to Caelum, smiling now. "You left me in the fire. You buried me in the smoke. But I'm not dead. I'm what you could be. What you will be."
Caelum swallowed. "You're not real."
The Echo grinned. "Keep telling yourself that."
It raised its hand again.
This time, it aimed at Elowen.
"ENOUGH!" she cried—and the floor between them cracked wide open.
A void. A spell-trap.
The Echo's body flickered, distorted, then was yanked downward into the crack like smoke through a vacuum. The moment its body touched the spell, it screamed.
Not in pain.
In rage.
"I'M NOT GONE. I'M WAITING."
The stone slammed shut.
Silence.
Then Elowen collapsed.
---
It took half a dozen attendants to carry her out. She was still breathing—barely—but her magic was drained. The Echo had nearly broken through the seal that kept the Arcanum's deeper wards locked.
The remaining students had been sent to their dorms in silence. Whispers now crawled through the school like mold. Whispers about Caelum. About his blood. About the "fire that talks."
Alone in his room, Caelum stared at his palm.
The wound was gone.
The blood had healed the moment the Echo vanished—but the scar left behind was not of skin.
It was in his name.
Caelum of the Hollow Flame.
He turned toward the cracked mirror again.
No reflection tonight.
Only writing, scratched in frost on the surface:
> "He knows you're awake."
He?
Caelum stood frozen for a long time.
And then—he heard a whisper.
Not from the mirror.
From behind the walls.
A voice, low and ancient.
> "They think you're cursed. But curses have reasons."
---
Three days passed.
Caelum was summoned to the central hall again. Not for training. Not for punishment.
But for trial.
He entered the chamber and found all six students standing before a council of masked figures seated on thrones of bone and crystal. At the center stood a new figure: taller than Elowen, robed in black stitched with constellations.
His face was covered by a golden mask that shimmered like water.
The head of the Arcanum.
Archon Vaelrik.
Caelum bowed automatically.
"You summoned me."
"We summoned you," Vaelrik said, his voice deep and ageless. "Because the event that took place during your trial has never happened before. Your Echo took shape. And it did not vanish."
Caelum stayed silent.
"You are not being punished," the Archon continued. "But a decision must be made."
He gestured.
A swirling vortex of magic opened between them.
It showed the Echo—alive, wandering a corridor deep below the Arcanum, its body flickering between forms. It had survived the trap.
"It's loose," Caelum whispered.
Vaelrik nodded. "It has no form of its own. It is a parasite. But strong. And worse—it is drawn to you."
"Why me?"
"Because you are its anchor."
---
The Archon turned to the others.
"Elowen is stable," he said. "But she will not return for a while. That leaves a vacuum in the trial arc. And an opportunity."
He turned back to Caelum.
"You will lead the hunt."
Caelum's eyes widened. "Me?!"
"You share a connection with it. You are the only one who can sense it."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then the Echo may find someone else," the Archon said simply. "Someone weaker. And feed on them instead."
Caelum looked around. Elara. Torren. Zani. Elric. The silent one.
They were all staring at him.
Waiting.
Judging.
He clenched his fists.
"Fine," he said. "Tell me where to go."
---
The hunt began that night.
The Arcanum was a maze of endless corridors, libraries without names, staircases that led to nowhere, and halls that moved when no one was watching. But the Echo left trails of burned magic—scars only Caelum could see.
They pulsed like veins in the stone.
His path took him through forgotten classrooms, through a chamber where stars hung like fruit from invisible branches, and down a staircase that never seemed to end.
Eventually, he found it.
A door made of fire.
It burned without heat, its center flickering with runes that moved like insects. Caelum reached out—and the door opened for him.
Inside: a forgotten wing.
Dust. Bones. Scrolls that whispered when touched.
And at the center, standing beneath a massive arch lined with broken mirrors—
The Echo.
It no longer looked like him.
It was taller now. Older. Wearing a cloak made of shadows and armor that breathed. Its eyes were pure flame.
"You came," it said.
"You're a fragment," Caelum said. "You don't belong here."
"Neither do you."
The Echo raised a hand—and the mirrors shattered.
Each shard exploded outward, forming rings of flying blades.
Caelum ducked and rolled.
A scream ripped from the walls—not the Echo's, but something deeper. A second voice, trapped in the same body. Something older.
Caelum threw out his arm.
He didn't know the words. But he didn't need them.
His magic responded to rage.
Black-gold flame erupted from his chest, forming a shield that blocked the shards midair.
The Echo growled.
"You're learning."
Caelum stepped forward, eyes glowing.
"I'm not you."
"No," the Echo whispered. "You're worse."
It charged.
They collided in a storm of fire and shadow. The floor cracked, symbols flared to life around them. Magic that hadn't been cast in centuries awoke with fury.
Caelum blasted the Echo backward—but it vanished into smoke, reappearing behind him, clawing at his back.
He fell to one knee.
"Why are you doing this?!"
"Because the Hollow Flame isn't just power," the Echo snarled. "It's a prison. We're not cursed—we're chosen. But the Arcanum wants to use us. I refuse."
Caelum gasped.
"You were trying to wake me up…"
The Echo hesitated. "Too late now."
It raised both arms—and began tearing a rift into the wall of the Arcanum.
Beyond it: chaos. Not another room. Not another world.
A realm made of screaming light.
Caelum stood, blood running from his mouth.
"You can't unleash that."
"I already have."
The Echo surged forward.
Caelum held up his hand—and for the first time, he didn't resist the fire.
He welcomed it.
A pillar of Hollow Flame exploded upward, tearing through the rift and slamming the Echo into the void.
"YOU CAN'T BURN ME," the Echo screamed.
Caelum walked forward, face illuminated by the fire.
"I already did."
He reached out—and gripped the Echo's chest.
Then he whispered the first word his mother had ever said to him.
> "Survive."
The fire devoured the Echo.
And the rift sealed shut.
---
The chamber went dark.
Caelum collapsed.
---
He awoke three days later, in a healing chamber surrounded by enchanted ivy and murmuring stones.
Vaelrik was there.
"You destroyed it," the Archon said quietly.
"No," Caelum replied, voice raw. "I claimed it."
He looked down.
In his hand was a single shard of black glass.
The Echo's heart.
The last piece of his curse.
He pocketed it.
---
That night, Caelum stood before the great mirror again.
No frost.
No message.
Just his reflection.
Alone.
But no longer afraid.
He whispered into the dark:
"I am the Hollow Flame. I am the Forsaken. And I'm still here."
Behind him, the Arcanum pulsed with power.
And something in the deep halls… listened.