The skies above the training center had darkened with the threat of an early storm. Heavy clouds rolled like war drums across the horizon, and the wind picked up speed, whistling through the trees with a strange, almost melodic cadence.
Keith turned thirteen that morning.
There was no celebration, no gifts, no congratulations.
Just drills, training, and the gnawing silence that came with being the only one in his dorm who hadn't awakened.
The other boys had been whispering about it—some out of pity, some with scorn. One even joked that Keith might end up assigned to logistics instead of the frontlines.
Keith tried not to care.
He trained harder than usual, his muscles screaming, sweat blurring his vision. But despite the pain, he welcomed the distraction. He welcomed anything that could drown the ache of inadequacy that curled inside his chest like a buried ember.
Mistress Vale watched from her tower again, her eyes narrowed.
The wind shifted around Keith.
Again.
Later that evening, Ethan found him behind the southern sparring shed, practicing alone with a wooden staff. Keith's movements were off-rhythm—less like drills and more like instinctual reactions. His eyes were slightly glazed, like he was chasing something only he could see.
"You okay?" Ethan asked, approaching cautiously.
Keith blinked. "Yeah… yeah. Just... something feels weird today."
"Weird how?"
Keith paused. "Like the air's heavier. Like my skin is buzzing. Like someone's watching me… from inside."
Ethan raised a brow. "From inside?"
Keith dropped his staff. "Forget it. I'm probably just tired."
But Ethan didn't look convinced. Neither was Keith.
That night, the storm broke.
Lightning flashed violently, illuminating the dark sky in white veins. Thunder rolled so deeply it rattled the windows of both the boys' and girls' hostels.
Keith couldn't sleep.
Something pulled at him. A pressure, not external, but internal—like something buried in his bones was beginning to stir, stretching, cracking, waking.
He walked out into the courtyard barefoot, the rain soaking him instantly. His breath fogged before him as if the air had dropped below freezing.
And then he heard it.
That voice again.
"Awaken."
He spun around—no one there.
But something had changed.
The world had gone quiet.
No rain. No thunder. No breath.
Only his heartbeat.
And that growing pressure.
Keith fell to his knees, clutching his chest as his vision blurred with an unnatural red glow. It wasn't pain—it was power, pressing against the walls of a cage inside him.
Trying to break free.
Elsewhere, deep within the northern wastelands, a cold-eyed woman in a crimson cloak paused mid-step.
She frowned.
"The sleeper stirs," she muttered.
Behind her, black-winged demons snarled in unison as if they, too, had sensed the change in the world.
Back at the training center, Mistress Vale jolted upright in bed. She rushed to the observation room and stared out at the courtyard where Keith knelt in the rain, clutching his chest.
She didn't hesitate.
She whispered a command into a crystal.
"Seal off the courtyard. Alert the elders. The boy… it's starting."
But just as suddenly as it began—the energy vanished.
The rain returned.
The thunder roared again.
Keith collapsed forward, soaked and shivering, barely conscious. Whatever had been building inside him had receded… for now.
Mistress Vale's expression was unreadable as she turned away from the glass. "The storm has touched him," she said.
"But he's not ready yet."
Across the training center, a girl with bright eyes and sharp instincts—one of the top performers in the girls' division—woke up in her bed, gasping. She didn't know why, but her heart pounded with anxiety.
She whispered into the dark, "Something's coming…"
And so it was that Keith, finally thirteen, stood at the edge of something vast and terrifying.
His awakening hadn't come.
But the world had felt it tremble.
And it would not forget.