Violet stood rooted to the spot as a shiver ran through her.

  Her eyes were wide, her gaze fixed and unmoving. Though she had heard every word spoken in the adjoining room, in all honesty it should have amounted to nothing more than useful gossip. Whatever these men and the Hall officials were planning did not concern her. It didn’t affect her. It couldn’t even if it reshaped the kingdom itself.

  No.

  What had left her utterly stunned was what she had gleaned from the scrolls.

  It was another biography, one of the old kind, written by the aetherists and runeweavers of a long-gone age. At first glance, it seemed no different from the others she had seen before. But hidden within the plain text were layered runes, subtle enough to be overlooked by all but the trained eye. And those runes told a second story.

  A true biography.

  It spoke of the studies of Kosmas Drivon, an ancient aetherist who had begun his life as nothing more than a runesmith.

  That fact alone was enough to leave Violet reeling.

  She didn’t want to believe it. She couldn’t. And yet, the very existence of the scroll hidden here, triple-warded, guarded with such obsessive care, spoke volumes of its authenticity.

  A normal, non-aetherist… had become an aetherist.

  How?

  It was a foundational truth of the world: aetherists were born, not made. You could not become one through effort or study. It had to be in your blood—passed down through lineage—or the result of a rare aether mutation at birth. This was accepted, unchallenged fact.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  And yet this scroll defied it completely.

  Violet herself was a runesmaster, an apprentice runeweaver. Runeweavers were rare, yes, but their path was understood. Every living being carried a trace of aether within them, which made runesmithing possible for anyone willing to dedicate themselves to the craft. Rune mastery and weaving, however, demanded talent, discipline, and a slightly larger aether pool than the average person.

  That was the line.

  Runeweavers borrowed power, drawing upon aether through runes, enchantments, and casting.

  Aetherists did not borrow.

  They commanded.

  They were born with vast aether reserves and the innate ability to control elements themselves, without runes, without intermediaries. And as if that disparity weren’t cruel enough, their aether reserves grew exponentially with strength.

  If a runeweaver’s aether pool was the size of a pond, then an aetherist’s flowed like a river.

  And rivers only widened.

  Yet here—right in front of Violet—was proof that a runeweaver could cross that divide.

  That she could.

  She finally understood why these scrolls were hidden so carefully. Why the room was warded beyond excess. Why the hall itself was so empty. If it were not for the fact that no one alive—save her aunt—had ever been able to keep Violet out of a place she wanted to enter, she doubted she would have made it this far at all.

  The implications were staggering.

  Violet shook her head, trying to clear it. Thoughts crashed over one another, relentless, merciless. Her temples throbbed. She had skimmed the runes rather than studied them, she wasn’t in the state to do more. Her heart was already hammering in her chest.

  Other thoughts clawed at her mind.

  What it would mean to become an aetherist.

  Where these scrolls had come from.

  What would happen if she were caught.

  Yet none of them struck as deeply as one.

  What would this mean for Astrid?

  Her heart lurched, pounding even harder,

  And then,

  In the adjoining room, the man who had been standing with a wine glass in hand suddenly turned.

  He pointed toward the wall.

  Blue flame erupted from his hand.

  The moment his gaze snapped in her direction, Violet knew, it was over. She’d been found. No hiding, no denial. She turned and ran.

  The wall behind her exploded.

  Stone and ward-light shattered outward as a second blast followed the first, the force rippling through the hall and sending alarms screaming to life.

  The entire Hall shook.