Chapter 1: The Professor Who Should Be Dead
Pain arrived before thought.
It was a slow, deliberate pressure, as if a cold finger pressed from the inside of Lucien Arkwright's skull, testing for weakness. Then came the splitting ache—sharp, rhythmic, merciless. His consciousness floated up from a viscous darkness, dragged toward the surface by the insistence of suffering.
I'm alive, he realized distantly. Unfortunately.
The first thing he sensed was the smell.
Ink—old ink, thick with metal and oil. Beneath it lingered something acrid and sweet, like burnt herbs mixed with blood.
Lucien tried to open his eyes.
But failed.
His body felt wrong. Too heavy. As though invisible chains pinned his limbs to the chair beneath him. Panic flared, but it came muted, blunted by exhaustion and the lingering fog in his mind.
Paralysis? No… this is different.
Memories that were not his own brushed against his thoughts—lecture halls, student rosters, candlelit archives, a quiet life lived cautiously and ended violently.
Ended.
That word struck harder than the pain.
Lucien forced his breathing to slow. He focused—not on moving his body, but on existing. On gathering himself into a single point of awareness.
The pressure eased.
His eyelids fluttered open.
Crimson light washed over the room.
A tall window stood to his left, its curtains half-drawn. Beyond the glass hung a two moon unlike any he had seen in his previous life—large, dark-red, and unnervingly close, as if it hovered just above the academy towers.
The room itself was modest yet unmistakably academic.
A wide oak desk occupied the center, its surface cluttered with books bound in cracked leather. Margins were filled with cramped notes written in several languages—some recognizable, others disturbingly unfamiliar. A brass oil lamp stood extinguished near the edge, its glass faintly stained as though it had once been used for something other than light.
Directly before him lay a ancient artefact knife.
Lucien's breath caught.
The weapon was old-fashioned, heavy, its metal engraved with intricate symbols that prickled his eyes if he stared too long. It rested atop a folded cloth—now darkened with dried blood.
Mine? he wondered.
No. The certainty came from somewhere unknown place.
maybe His.
The professor who owned this body. The man who had failed this ritual.
Lucien pushed himself upright. The movement sent fresh agony lancing through his temples, but he clenched his teeth and endured. His gaze dropped to his hands.
Blood smeared his palms, dry at the edges and tacky at the center.
He followed the trail down.
On the wooden floor, partially erased, lay a ritual circle.
Chalk lines intersected with etched grooves. Candles had burned down to warped stubs. At the center, something had been scratched directly into the floorboards—a phrase written in a sharp, deliberate hand.
Lucien's heart pounded as recognition bloomed.
It was written in an ancient script.
Not Latin. Not Feysac.
Hermes.
"KNOWLEDGE IS A DOOR THAT OPENS BOTH WAYS."
The moment he finished reading, a whisper brushed the edges of his hearing.
A mysterious presence.
Lucien staggered back, knocking into the desk. The knife shifted slightly, metal scraping against wood. The sound snapped him back to himself.
Calm down, he silently Calmed himself. Panic is how people die twice. He recited twice.
Fragments surged into place.
This was Blackthorn Royal Arcane Academy.
This body belonged to Professor Lucien Arkwright, a low-ranking noble and specialist in ancient history and linguistic theory. Quiet. Unassuming. Useful enough to tolerate.
And last night, he had attempted a private ritual meant only for eyes that no longer existed.
So that's how he died.
A sharp knock echoed through the room.
He froze.
"Professor Arkwright?"
The voice was composed, edged with polite.
"A reminder," it continued, "your first lecture begins in forty minutes."
Footsteps retreated.
Lucien exhaled slowly.
So the academy believes I'm alive.
That was good.
What was not good was the way his vision occasionally flickered—symbols overlaying reality, like afterimages burned into his sight. Nor the faint murmur that rose whenever he thought too deeply about the ritual.
He turned toward the mirror mounted on the far wall.
The man staring back at him was unfamiliar yet intimate in the way dreams sometimes borrowed faces.
Black hair, slightly unkempt. Pale skin. Eyes the color of ink diluted with water—sharp, observant, far too calm for someone who had died less than a day ago.
A wound that is slightly visible in is stomach.
The flesh around it was blackened, as though burned from the inside out.
As he was checking himself in the mirror.
Another memory surfaced.
A lecture hall.
Rows of students dressed in academy black and silver.
And among them—
Her.
Princess Elowen Viremont.
Crown Princess of the realm. Sole heir. Moon-touched.
She had asked him questions no student should have known to ask.
Questions about dreams, and symbols that appeared uninvited, are whether blood could remember.
She's connected to this.
As if summoned by the thought, another knock sounded—lighter, deliberate.
"Professor Arkwright," came a calm female voice from beyond the door. "The Crown Princess requests a private consultation."
The two crimson moon outside brightened.
Inside Lucien's mind, something stirred.
A certainty that She is the key.
Lucien straightened.
"Tell Her Highness," he said evenly, "that I will see her now."