The Academy was not a castle.
It was a continent folded into stone.
Ryel had never seen anything like it.
Even after weeks of riding south through Valaria’s trade-riddled sprawl, with its spiraling towers and blinking mana-lamps, even after crossing half a dozen walls lined with runes and ironwood, the Academy still caught him off-guard.
It rose like a dream at the center of a walled plateau, its towers a blend of Free Cities elegance and military pragmatism—steel buttresses and stained glass, arcane engines and training platforms. Floating bridges connected towers that loomed across miniature ecosystems: forest groves, underground combat arenas, high-altitude duel peaks, submerged aether domes.
There were over six hundred students in his intake year alone.
Not all of them would survive to graduation.
Ryel adjusted the strap on his scabbard as he followed the line of new students through the wide northern arch. The marble beneath his boots was veined with something gold and warm to the touch.
A soft breeze carried the scent of new parchment and sharp ink.
Somewhere above, a bell tolled once. Then again. Eight times total.
Eight houses.
Eight disciplines.
He was in House Pyraxis.
Combat Division. Sword-Focused. Aura-Driven.
They filed into the Sable Hall for their first joint lecture — all disciplines gathered.
Ryel scanned the faces around him, trying to place them.
Darian Voss sat two rows ahead — gold hair combed back, his House Voss cloak draped casually over his shoulder, a rapier gleaming at his side. He sat with the poise of someone who didn’t need to look around to know he outranked everyone. A few students watched him the way farmers watch approaching storms — with awe and anxiety.
To Darian’s left, a quiet, dark-skinned girl with white braids thumbed a brass ring on her finger. Ryel didn’t recognize her, but her aura felt...cold. Like moonlight on water.
Behind her, slouched against the pillar with arms crossed, sat Adrian Valeheart — Seraphina’s bastard cousin, if the rumors were true. He wore no crest. No colors. Just worn leather and scars on his knuckles.
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Ryel took his seat quietly.
No one looked at him for long.
That was fine.
He wasn’t here to be seen.
He was here to grow.
The hall fell silent as a figure stepped onto the raised stone dais at the front.
An old woman. Hair in a silver braid. Eyes white as frost. Her robe was simple. Gray and gold. She walked with a staff but without any hint of frailty.
"I am Arch-Instructor Rime," she said, voice carrying without effort.
"And this is your first—and only—overview of the world you now serve."
No scrolls. No notes.
Just her voice and the air.
"The world of Virelya is not flat by mistake. It is flat by design.
The Architects carved it from the Aether Sea, shaped it with seven disciplines of will.
Aether is life. Aether is breath. Aether is essence—raw, invisible, and waiting to be shaped."
She drew a line in the air with her staff. It shimmered—silver, thin, resonant.
"You shape it through your body. Through what we call Casting Organs."
She pointed at her heart. Then her throat. Her hands. Her eyes.
"The Heart is the forge. It converts Aether into elements.
The Voice is the conduit. It anchors spells through chant and tone.
The Hands are for precision. Structure. Control.
And some—like a rare few of you—may be born with Affinity. A natural bond to a domain."
Ryel nodded slowly.
He had no Affinity.
But his heart was strong.
He’d inherited that much from his father.
"There are three dominant forces in Virelya today:
The Aurelian Empire—steeped in bloodlines and ritualized combat.
The Free Cities of Valaria—where innovation and gold walk hand-in-hand.
And the Xeylon Theocracy—where gods whisper through bone and fire.
All three believe their path leads to dominion.
All three are wrong."
She smiled faintly.
"Because the Abyss doesn’t care what you believe."
The room shifted.
She tapped her staff. The air rippled.
Suddenly, students saw it—flickering projections overhead.
The battlefields of the north.
Men in gray and white.
Snow. Steel.
A sword cutting through flame and shadow..
The warrior stood tall in the projection, helmet gone, sword blazing.
A halberd as tall as the man slept in his hand.
It wasn’t a heroic pose.
It was a man on fire who refused to fall.
The room watched in silence.
"That," Rime said, "is what power looks like when earned."
"You will not be like him. Not unless you’re ready to bleed for it."
She let the image fade.
"Your disciplines begin tomorrow.
Sword. Spell. Strategy. Summoning. And more."
"This Academy does not expect obedience.
It expects proof."
And then she left.
Outside the hall, the students murmured as they broke into their assigned house groups.
Ryel lingered behind.
He stood alone beneath one of the great archways, eyes closed, feeling the residual echo of the projection.
The warrior reminded him of his father.
Everyone started to clear out from the room.
Ryel stood alone for a while longer.
He brushed his blond hair back from his eyes — purple, deep and sharp, inherited from the mother he barely remembered. The rest of his face belonged to his father — high-boned, strong-jawed, scarred by the cold.
He would earn his place.
Just like his father,
He would stand.
And one day—
He would be more than someone’s shadow.
