The next morning broke wrong.
Not disastrously — not yet — but wrong in the way a song feels when one note falls just a fraction flat. The sunlight that spilled through the golden windows of Dravenholt's palace carried a faint crimson hue, almost imperceptible… unless you'd once seen the Boundless Core awaken.
Adrian noticed immediately.
He sat at the edge of the training terrace, a towel slung over his shoulders, the air thick with the smell of dust and heat. The practice yard below rang with the clashing rhythm of steel and laughter — knights sparring, young cadets calling out drills. Yet over it all, that pulse.A slow, heavy thrum that resonated through his ribs.
"Adrian?"
Nymera's voice cut through the haze. She strode toward him, her armor gleaming in the sunlight, her braid undone from their early morning spar. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
He blinked, forcing himself to breathe evenly. "Just… listening."
"To what?"
"The world," he said softly. "It's… louder than usual today."
She frowned but didn't press. "Well, the world can wait. You promised me a rematch — and I don't let my sparring partners off easy just because they look broody at sunrise."
Adrian smirked faintly, grateful for her grounding presence. "You mean you're still bitter I disarmed you yesterday."
"I slipped on sand," she said, crossing her arms. "And you cheated."
"I adapted."
"You cheated."
Her glare could have melted gold, but the corners of her mouth betrayed her amusement. She drew her blade and pointed it at him. "Come on then, Corebearer. Let's see if you can do it twice."
They sparred until the suns climbed high and the marble burned beneath their boots.Nymera's style was raw sunlight — fierce, unyielding, yet controlled by instinct honed over years. Adrian moved like shadow and echo, each strike guided not just by training but by the faint awareness of every current of mana around him.
When their blades finally locked in a shower of sparks, Nymera leaned close, breathless. "You're holding back."
"And you're overextending," he countered.
Their gazes met — sunlight and starlight, gold and silver — and for an instant the air shimmered between them, threads of energy flickering like lightning. The sigil beneath Adrian's shirt pulsed once.
A thin crack of light spidered across the marble beneath their feet.
"Adrian—"
"I know."
They both stepped back as the glow vanished. The palace guards watching from a distance didn't notice; to them, it was only heat shimmer. But Nymera's instincts told her otherwise.
"That wasn't me," she said.
"I know," Adrian repeated quietly. "It was me. Or rather… what's inside me."
The wind picked up, carrying the scent of scorched mana.Somewhere beyond the city walls, the ground gave a faint tremor — almost like a sigh.
Later that day, inside the Hall of Solara, the Empire's seers gathered in uneasy silence. Crystals floated in the air, projecting the image of the sun — steady, but its corona tinged with faint, rhythmic pulses of crimson.
Nymera stood beside Adrian at the council dais, arms folded. "You said the Core sleeps. Tell me that's still true."
Adrian watched the flickering light without blinking. "It is. But even asleep… it dreams."
"Dreams?"
"Every world has its rhythm. The Core hears it. And when something touches that rhythm—"
"It answers," she finished grimly.
He nodded. "Dravenholt's sunlight… reminds it of something ancient. A warmth it once knew."
Nymera turned toward the seers. "Can we mask it? Change the resonance?"
One of the elder magisters shook his head. "Not without dimming the sun's mana for the entire empire, Your Highness."
"So if the Core wakes…"
"The light that feeds our lands will turn to fire."
The room fell silent.
Adrian exhaled slowly, his expression unreadable. "Then I'll leave before it does."
Nymera's head snapped toward him. "You'll what?"
"If my presence is what's stirring it, then I'll go. The Core feeds on memory — maybe distance will keep it calm."
"Don't you dare," she said, stepping closer. Her voice lowered, trembling with restrained fury. "You think you can just walk out after dropping a threat like that? You're not a curse, Adrian."
He looked at her — truly looked — and saw the faint desperation behind her fire. "Then what am I?"
Her jaw tightened. "Someone who's forgotten he's human."
The words cut sharper than any blade.
For a long moment, neither spoke. The air between them shimmered with unspoken things — fear, longing, the gravity of something neither dared name.
Finally, Nymera looked away. "You're staying. Until we understand this. Together."
He wanted to argue. But something in her voice — the same unbreakable certainty that had carried her through battlefields — stopped him.
"Together," he echoed quietly.
That night, the crimson hue faded from the sun.But the stars above Dravenholt flickered — ever so slightly — as though taking a breath.
Far away, in Noctharyn's shadowed sanctum, Carmila Noctharyn stirred from uneasy meditation. Her veins hummed with the same pulse that had nearly ended the world. She rose, eyes blazing violet in the dark.
"Adrian," she whispered. "What have you done?"
The night itself seemed to shudder in reply.