The Tower of Ash stood at the edge of the Academy grounds, a spire of scorched stone and blackened glass that no student was ever allowed to enter. Its silhouette was like a dagger thrust into the sky, its surface veined with ancient burns from spells long outlawed.
The last time Kael had seen it up close, he'd been chained.
And screaming.
Now, he returned under his own power, moving through the mist-choked garden that encircled the forbidden tower. The midnight bells had not yet rung, but the air was restless. Magic rippled around the stone like steam rising from a battlefield.
He paused at the entrance. The doors were ajar, just slightly. As if someone had known he'd come.
He stepped inside.
The interior was colder than he remembered. The walls bore scars from containment rituals — burned runes, smudged wards, melted iron. This was where they kept things that couldn't be destroyed. Things like the Sovereign's relics. Things like him.
Cerin Voss waited near the spiral staircase.
He looked exactly as Kael remembered: tall, pale, with hair like winter ash and eyes too intelligent for their own good. The Academy's prodigy. The golden boy. The one who always smiled like he knew everyone else's secrets.
Kael didn't speak.
Cerin held up the obsidian shard.
"You dropped something, Kael. Or should I say... Sovereign?"
Kael's jaw tightened. "If I were the Sovereign, you'd be dead already."
"Would I?" Cerin tilted his head. "That's the part I find fascinating. You went to Vault 09. You tethered to the fragment. And yet… here you are. Human. Rational. Not dripping in blood. Why?"
Kael stepped closer. "Why do you care?"
"Because the world is too small for two monsters," Cerin said with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "And I want to see what kind you are."
He tossed the shard to Kael, who caught it without flinching. Cerin continued, pacing slowly.
"You see, everyone thinks you're just some overreaching student with a penchant for dark artifacts. But I've read the classified records. I know what you were. You didn't conquer nations. You unmade them. You turned rivers to acid and skies to fire. And now... you sit in lectures and hide under a hood?"
Kael said nothing.
"So what changed?" Cerin asked.
Kael finally spoke. "I died. And dying does something to a man."
Cerin nodded slowly, almost respectfully. "Then maybe you'll understand this — I don't want to destroy you. I want to study you. I want to see if a villain can be rewritten."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "I'm not your thesis."
Cerin chuckled. "No. You're the future."
They stood in silence. Just two boys surrounded by ghosts.
Kael turned to leave. "If you come near me again without warning, I won't hesitate. Tethered or not, part of me still remembers how to kill."
"I'm counting on it," Cerin said.
The days passed, and Kael kept to himself. But things were shifting.
Professors were more alert. Wards across the Academy were being reinforced. The senior council had convened twice in one week — an event that hadn't happened in decades. Someone, somewhere, knew the truth was seeping out.
And worse — the tether was growing louder.
It whispered now.
At night, it sang in ancient tongues. During lectures, it projected memories that weren't his — burning skies, broken spires, the screams of a dying world. He wrote them down compulsively, afraid they'd slip from his mind. His notebook was filling with arcane sigils and half-finished sentences:
The mirror cracks when the soul forgets.
Three kings kneel before the unmaker.
She is coming. She is coming.
Kael didn't know who she was.
But he knew the fear that clung to the words.
It was Seren who finally forced a confrontation.
She stormed into his room one night, slamming the door behind her.
"You're unraveling," she said, without preamble.
Kael sat at his desk, surrounded by candles and pages of drawn sigils. He didn't look up.
"You should leave."
"And let you turn into whatever you're becoming alone? Not a chance."
Kael turned. His eyes were bloodshot. His voice was flat. "You don't understand. The fragment isn't just memories. It's alive. It's trying to take the wheel."
Seren walked forward slowly. "Then fight it. With me."
"I'm not sure I can."
"Then teach me how to kill it."
Kael blinked. That wasn't what he expected.
She crossed her arms. "Either you survive this, or we both make sure the Sovereign never breathes again. I'm not here to watch. I'm here to choose."
Kael looked at her, and for the first time in days, he saw a path. Not peace. But purpose.
"Then we start with the archive," he said. "There's something buried in the deep layer — a second shard. If we find it before the council does, we may have leverage."
"Leverage against who?"
"Everyone."
Three nights later, they broke into the Deep Archives.
Beneath the library, past three floors of forgotten grimoires and sealed spellbooks, was a chamber wrapped in silence wards and time-binding glyphs. It hadn't been opened in centuries.
Seren disabled the first layer. Kael handled the rest, using the Sovereign