The ritual circle glowed faintly on the dormitory floor, sketched in chalk and blood.
It had taken them three nights to draw it properly. Each symbol had to be precise, each rune mirrored just so, and each line connected in a way that resonated with both glimpse and shadow. Leila had checked it again and again, her hands shaking with exhaustion, but she would not let a single mark be wrong.
Now the circle waited, cold and silent, as though daring them to step inside.
Kato paced near the window, arms crossed, jaw tight. "We shouldn't be doing this. We don't even know if it works. For all we know, we'll… tear something open we can't close."
Rafael sprawled on the bed, though his restless tapping betrayed his nerves. "That's the point, isn't it? If it's dangerous, it's because the Academy doesn't want us knowing about it. That's exactly why we have to try."
Leila sat cross-legged by the circle, staring at her notes, her voice low but steady. "We need to know if it's possible. Kaelen's journal said Ashbinding severs a glimpse. If that's true—"
"—then we're playing gods," Kato snapped.
"No," Anaya said quietly. She had been standing in the corner, watching the flickering candlelight make the chalk shimmer. "We're playing survivors."
The room fell into silence.
The decision had already been made.
When they first found the Ashbinding passage in Kaelen's journal, none of them could stop thinking about it. A ritual that could cut the threads of destiny itself. Dangerous, yes, but also… liberating. If it worked, no one could be bound to the Academy's control.
But someone had to test it.
The question was who.
"We can't try it on one of us," Kato argued. "If it goes wrong—"
"It will," Rafael interrupted. "Of course it will. That's why we practice small first."
Anaya pulled something from beneath her cloak. A small, trembling creature — a shadow-mouse, one of the vermin that infested the Academy's storage tunnels. Its eyes glowed faintly, as all animals' did: a glimpse-thread, faint and instinctive, guiding their simple lives.
Leila frowned. "That's… cruel."
"It's survival," Anaya said. Her voice felt flat even as her stomach twisted. "If it works, we'll know it can be done. If not…"
No one finished the thought.
They began.
The mouse was placed at the center of the circle. Its whiskers twitched as though sensing the wrongness of the space.
Leila read the incantation softly, Kaelen's scrawled words in her trembling hands. Kato held the chalk, tracing the outer runes as they glowed faint blue. Rafael held a shard of obsidian, sharp as a fang, needed for the binding stroke.
Anaya closed her eyes, summoning her resonance.
It came reluctantly at first, then in a rush — the pull of glimpses around her bending, twisting, threads of possibility unraveling. She directed it into the circle. The symbols flared to life, light crawling along the lines like fire racing through oil.
The mouse squeaked, its tiny body shuddering.
Then she felt it.
The glimpse-thread. So small, so faint compared to a human's — but real. A line of light tethering the mouse to some predestined course. She could almost see it, flickering in the air above the circle, shimmering like a spider's silk strand.
Her breath caught.
This was what the Academy controlled. This was what Kaelen had fought against.
"Now," Leila whispered.
Rafael's obsidian shard came down, not to kill, but to slice through the air where the thread shimmered.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the thread screamed.
Not with sound, but with resonance — a vibration that shivered through their bones. The mouse convulsed, the circle flared white, and the thread… snapped.
The light went out.
The mouse lay still.
Anaya's heart thundered. "Is it—"
The mouse stirred. It rose slowly, blinking. Its eyes no longer glowed faintly. No glimpse-thread shimmered above it. It moved with no tether, no guiding pull. For the first time in its tiny life, it was… free.
Leila gasped, covering her mouth. "It worked."
Rafael laughed, exhilarated. "It worked!"
But Kato's face was pale. "That thing's… wrong. Look at it."
The mouse scurried in circles, faster and faster, as if panicked by its own choices. It slammed into the chalk lines, twitched, and lay still again.
Alive. But broken.
No one spoke for a long time.
Finally, Anaya whispered, "Kaelen was right. It can be done. A glimpse can be severed."
"But at what cost?" Kato demanded. "Do you want that done to you? To me? To anyone?"
Leila hugged her knees. "Maybe… maybe it's different with humans. Maybe we can adapt. Maybe freedom isn't meant for animals, but it is for us."
"Or maybe," Kato said harshly, "freedom is just another word for ruin."
The argument stretched into the night.
Rafael wanted to test further, to push harder, to see if they could refine the ritual. Leila wanted to study, to find safer ways. Kato wanted to burn the journal before it consumed them all.
And Anaya—
Anaya felt Kaelen's presence in every flicker of candlelight, every smudge of chalk. His words rang in her skull: If they come for you — and they will — remember: you are not alone.
She couldn't stop seeing the mouse, free but broken. She couldn't stop wondering if that was her future.
But she knew one thing: the Academy would erase her if she didn't fight back. And now, at last, she had a weapon.
Two nights later, she dreamed again.
This time Kaelen stood inside the circle, his face lit by ghost-fire. His voice was hoarse, raw.
Ashbinding frees, but it also scars. The Academy erases with it because they fear us. But do not mistake their fear for falsehood. You cannot sever a glimpse without severing yourself.
He reached out. His hand burned with white light.
Choose wisely, Anaya. Because once you cut the thread, there is no weaving it back.
She woke with tears in her eyes, the journal clutched against her chest, the word Ashbinding echoing in her pulse like a curse.