The storm did not arrive all at once.
It began as pressure.
Vahn felt it before dawn—an uncomfortable density in the air, like the Academy itself was drawing a deeper breath than usual. The crystalline veins in the Sanctum of Resonance pulsed out of rhythm, their glow lagging half a second behind his movements. Even the Source Stream felt… hesitant.
Something was being decided.
He rose from meditation with a slow exhale. The Weaveborn mark beneath his skin was warm now, not flaring, not dormant—awake. Since the encounter with the shard, his perception had sharpened in unsettling ways. He could feel the tension lines in Mystara like fault lines beneath a city, each one ready to split if pressed the wrong way.
And someone was pressing.
By the time the bells rang for first assembly, Vahn already knew where he needed to be.
The Atrium of Confluence sat at the Academy's highest elevation, an open-air platform ringed by floating sigils that regulated large-scale Source interactions. It was rarely used—too exposed, too symbolic. When the Council wanted to be seen, they chose the Atrium.
Today, it was full.
Students gathered in careful clusters, robes marking division and allegiance. Spellblades leaned against marble railings, arms crossed. Arcanists whispered behind layered wards. Even the Researchers stood closer together than usual, as if proximity itself offered safety.
At the center stood the Circle.
All ten of them.
Vahn stopped at the edge of the crowd.
So it's public, he thought. Good.
Principal Ardyn Valemar stood slightly apart, his expression carved from restraint. When his eyes met Vahn's, there was no warning in them—only confirmation.
This was happening with or without him.
A Circle member stepped forward, her voice amplified by a resonance glyph that carried across the Atrium.
"By authority of Mystara Academy and the Accord of Ten Seats, this Conclave is called to order."
The air tightened.
"We address today a matter of existential instability," she continued. "The resurgence of unified Source phenomena. The breach of sealed legacies. And the individual at the center of these disturbances."
Eyes turned.
Some curious. Some fearful.
A few… reverent.
Vahn stepped forward before they could summon him.
"I'm here," he said calmly. No projection. No amplification. And yet, his voice carried.
A ripple moved through the sigils overhead as if the Atrium itself leaned in.
"You stand accused," another Circle member said, this one masked in gold filigree, "of reconstructing forbidden architectures. Of destabilizing elemental hierarchies. Of awakening dormant failsafes whose purpose predates this Academy."
"Accused," Vahn echoed. "Or credited?"
A murmur ran through the crowd.
Ardyn closed his eyes briefly.
The gold-masked member stiffened. "You are not on trial, Romanoff. You are at a threshold."
Vahn tilted his head. "Then say what you mean."
Silence.
Then the first Circle member spoke again, slower now. "The Eleventh Seat is stirring."
That did it.
Gasps. Whispers. A Spellblade dropped her grip on her weapon without realizing it.
"The Seat has remained empty since the Founding," the Circle member continued. "Its activation signifies systemic overload. The Academy was never meant to support such convergence again."
Vahn's gaze sharpened. "Again."
A pause—too long.
"You don't get to pretend ignorance," he said quietly. "Not after you erased it."
The Atrium shuddered.
Not physically—conceptually. The sigils flickered, struggling to reconcile the sudden spike in unified resonance.
The Weaveborn mark burned.
"I didn't awaken the Eleventh," Vahn continued, voice steady despite the storm coiling in his chest. "You did. Every time you suppressed integration. Every time you broke someone for not fitting your divisions. Every time you chose control over understanding."
"Enough," the gold-masked member snapped. "You presume moral authority where none was granted."
Vahn met his gaze.
"I don't need it granted."
Lightning whispered across his skin—not striking, not threatening, just present. The crowd felt it, a pressure like standing too close to something honest.
"I won't take the Seat," Vahn said. "Not as you define it. Not as a throne, or a leash, or a goddamn failsafe."
The Circle leaned in, unified despite themselves.
"But I won't let you fill it either."
The words landed like a fault-line rupture.
Ardyn finally spoke.
"Then what will you do, Vahn?"
Vahn turned to him. To the man who had opened doors and closed others. Who had watched without intervening until it was too late.
"I'll change what the Seat is," Vahn said simply. "Not a judge. Not a lock. A listener. A conduit."
"Impossible," someone breathed.
Vahn smiled faintly.
"So was the Weave."
Above them, clouds gathered with alarming speed, spiraling into a slow, deliberate rotation. Not summoned. Not answered.
Aligned.
The shard's words echoed in his mind.
Teach the storm a new shape.
"I'm not your disaster," Vahn said, lightning threading between his fingers like living script. "I'm your warning."
Thunder rolled—not loud, but deep, resonant, as if the sky itself had accepted the premise.
And somewhere far beneath Mystara, something ancient shifted in its sleep.
The Eleventh Seat was no longer waiting.
It was listening.