Master Kael stepped up, his smoky eyes glowing with excitement. "This week's test: the Echo Maze Challenge. Teams of three will enter a sentient labyrinth. It shifts. It tricks. You'll need more than brute force—think synergy, smarts, and control."
Students instantly rushed to form their dream squads. Henry stayed put. He already knew how this would go.
"Mr. Henry," Master Kael called. "You'll team with Miss Lyra and Mr. Kaelen."
A collective groan echoed through the room.
Lyra looked like she was about to set the teacher on fire. Kaelen looked like someone just handed him a shovel and pointed to his own grave. Yeah… this was gonna be a mess.
Inside the maze, the tension was thick enough to bottle.
Polished stone walls shifted every few minutes, the whole place alive and watching. As expected, Lyra took charge.
"Easy logic," she snapped. "I disarm the magical traps. You"—she pointed at Kaelen—"handle physical mechanisms. And you"—her eyes drilled into Henry—"just try not to blow anything up."
And honestly? It kind of worked. Lyra was a pro at disabling lightning runes and fire wards. But then they hit a room where the path forward was sealed by a curtain of blinding white light. No runes. No obvious mechanism.
"It's pure light," Lyra muttered, frowning. "It can't be blasted through."
She zapped it anyway. The light just drank it in.
"Maybe if I overpower it—"
"Wait," Kaelen interrupted, scanning the room. "It's not a door—it's an eye. Look—no power source, no spell matrix. The light comes from the curtain itself. It's watching us." He pointed at a tiny slot on the ground. "It's a vault. Needs a key, not a punch."
"Oh, and what key is that, genius?" Lyra shot back.
While they argued, Henry just… stared at the curtain. He felt it. His chaotic, panicked Solari light resonated with it. But there was something else there too. Its opposite.
More light wasn't the answer.
The voice of Helia whispered in his mind: Balance. Don't fight. Blend.
Henry stepped forward. He shut his eyes—not searching for power, but for his center. Inside, he found both his calm darkness and panicked sunlight. Instead of picking one, he just held them both. Like Helia had taught him.
He reached out.
No explosion. No flashy spell. Just a silent, delicate thread of shadow slipped from his palm. Soft. Empty. Harmless.
It touched the curtain.
Nothing happened… then the light quivered. It wasn't destroyed—it was being… balanced. Neutralized.
The curtain dissolved like fog.
Silence.
Kaelen's jaw dropped. "Whoa."
Lyra stared at Henry, stunned. Not angry—confused. He hadn't overpowered it. He hadn't even used power. He'd used a concept.
For the first time in weeks, Henry didn't feel like a failure. He didn't feel strong either. He felt... steady.
For one brief, brilliant second, he had been twilight.
The rest of the test was clumsy, but they finished it. And that impossible little moment lingered between them, heavier than any spell. No one said it out loud, but they all felt it.