The whisper came again—soft as breath across glass.
"Remember…"
Caelan jolted upright, heart hammering so hard it hurt. The dormitory was still drowned in night, the air cold enough to sting his lungs. For a moment he couldn't tell if he'd dreamed it.
Then the glow answered for him.
On the bedside table, the silver-emblemed book pulsed faintly beneath the moonlight. Once, twice—like a heartbeat. The teardrop mark looked wet, as if the leather itself had begun to sweat.
Caelan stared.
Every instinct told him to leave it alone.
Every other instinct—older, deeper—told him that refusing it was pointless.
He swung his legs off the bed, bare feet hitting the stone floor with a soft sound. The room was quiet enough that even that felt loud. His roommate slept on, breathing evenly, unaware that something impossible was happening a few paces away.
The book's glow brightened.
The glass of water beside it trembled, ripples forming without any touch. The air hummed, a vibration he felt in his teeth.
"Stop," Caelan whispered, as if it might listen.
It didn't.
The cover lifted by itself. Pages fluttered—fast, frantic—then settled open on the same blank leaf he'd seen before, the one that had been empty until it wasn't.
Blue light bled across the parchment in hair-thin lines.
Words formed slowly, as if written by an unseen hand.
For the one who carries the same soul—
Strength was never lost, only hidden.
Caelan's throat went dry.
He leaned closer despite himself. The ink wasn't ink. It shimmered like liquid mana, rearranging as if it breathed.
Then the letters stretched—warping outward into an image.
Two figures stood beneath an endless sky.
A man. A woman.
White hair like moonlight and frost. Their eyes—one bright with blue-white radiance, the other burning gold—locked together as if no world existed beyond the space between them. They held hands, and overlapping wings of light unfurled behind them in a halo of layered feathers.
Caelan's chest tightened with a pain that wasn't pain.
Grief, so sharp it nearly stole his breath.
He didn't know them.
And yet his body did.
His fingers lifted, hovering above the page.
"Who are you?" he whispered, barely audible.
The woman's lips moved.
No sound came—yet Caelan heard it anyway, as if the words had always lived inside him.
Remember.
The image flickered violently.
Then it shattered into sparkling dust, dissolving across the parchment until nothing remained but a faint heat under his fingertips.
Silence returned so abruptly it left his ears ringing.
Caelan sat back hard, dragging both hands through his hair. "I'm not—" His voice cracked. He swallowed. "I'm not doing this."
He flipped through the book, searching for proof. A sketch. A stain. Anything.
Nothing.
The page was blank again.
That was worse than if it had stayed.
It meant it could change whenever it wanted.
It meant it was choosing when to show him the truth.
He sat there until his heartbeat slowed, until the glow fully died. Only then did he dare shut the book. Even closed, it felt warm—like a living thing pretending to be paper.
When he finally lay back down, sleep didn't come.
Every time he blinked, he saw the woman's golden eyes.
By the time dawn crept over the academy towers, Caelan had not slept at all.
Morning at Arcton Academy always moved like machinery—precise, relentless.
Students poured into the courtyards in clean uniforms. Mana-lamps dimmed as sunlight took their place. Airships drifted beyond the distant district line, their magitek engines pulsing softly overhead like slow thunder.
Caelan moved through it all in a haze.
Whispers followed him as usual, but they slid off his mind without catching. Last night's images sat heavier than humiliation ever had.
He arrived at Mana Resonance lecture late.
Instructor Vale paused mid-sentence as Caelan slipped into his seat.
"Late again, Veyra?" Vale's tone held the same bored irritation he reserved for nobles who thought time bent for them.
"Sorry, sir," Caelan muttered.
Vale exhaled dramatically. "Punctuality is not an optional spell component. Sit."
A ripple of laughter passed through the room.
Caelan opened his notebook, forcing his attention forward.
Vale wrote on the board: Resonance occurs when mana frequency harmonizes with the practitioner's core—
The letters blurred.
Caelan blinked.
They didn't sharpen.
Instead, the chalk marks shifted, rearranging themselves in front of his eyes. Straight lines softened into curves. Modern notation twisted into the same ancient runes he'd seen forming on the book's blank page.
His spine went rigid.
The runes pulsed once.
A whisper brushed his hearing—not in the room, not in his ears, but in the space just behind his thoughts.
Sealed… beneath tears…
Caelan's breath caught. His hand tightened around his pen until it snapped.
The sound was sharp enough to make Vale stop writing.
Every head turned.
"What now?" Vale demanded.
Caelan swallowed. "Nothing," he forced out.
Vale stared at him a second longer, as if searching for something behind his eyes, then turned back to the board with a click of his tongue.
The runes vanished.
Modern notation returned.
No one else reacted. No one else had seen it.
Caelan sat frozen, pulse loud, sweat cold on his palms.
This isn't exhaustion.
It wasn't imagination either. That whisper had been too clear.
Classes passed like water over stone.
By lunch, Caelan couldn't bear the noise of the cafeteria. He slipped away, moving on instinct, feet taking him through familiar corridors until he reached the library doors.
The moment he stepped inside, the air changed.
Cooler. Thicker.
As though the building itself recognized him.
His gaze went immediately to the stained-glass alcove.
The book sat there.
Not in his dorm.
Not in his satchel.
On the table, exactly where he'd first opened it.
Caelan stopped in the doorway.
"No," he muttered.
He'd locked it in his drawer this morning. He remembered the click. He remembered telling himself he'd deal with it later.
Yet there it was—waiting, patient as fate.
He approached slowly, as if walking toward a trap.
When his fingers touched the cover, warmth surged up his arm in a pulse.
The book opened on its own.
The first page was no longer the same.
Where there had once been a prologue, new words had appeared in polished handwriting.
Day 1 of Reawakening.
The cycle turns once more.
He has opened his eyes.
Caelan's mouth went dry.
He turned the page, hands unsteady.
Another entry formed, smooth and deliberate, as if the writer had all the time in the world.
We fought for peace, but peace demanded our end.
Five thousand revolutions of the sun shall silence our names.
Yet if memory stirs, may he find me again.
A scent like rain rose from the parchment.
Beneath the last line lay a single darker mark—perfectly round.
A dried tear.
Caelan's breath hitched.
Then, beneath the tear, a final sentence appeared in shimmering blue.
Find me.
His pulse thundered. Instinct screamed close it, run, pretend this never happened—
But his body moved before fear could decide.
He pressed his palm to the page.
Cold fire flooded his veins.
The library vanished.
He saw an open plain beneath a white sky. Banners snapped in a wind that smelled of ash and lightning. Soldiers moved like a living tide, armor gleaming with layered spellwork. He stood among them—not as Caelan Veyra, but as something heavier.
A blade—too large to be practical—rested in his grip as if it belonged there.
Across the battlefield, light split the horizon like dawn being torn open.
A woman's voice called his name.
Not "Veyra."
Not "Caelan."
Something older.
The world buckled.
Water rushed over him, muffling everything, pressing him down. He glimpsed the surface of a luminous pool from below, chains of light sinking like anchors, a scream swallowed mid-breath—
Caelan tore his hand away with a gasp.
Reality slammed back into place.
He stumbled, gripping the edge of the table hard enough to creak the wood. His lungs burned as if he'd been underwater. His vision swam.
The library was silent.
No one had noticed.
Or worse—no one could.
A soft voice spoke from behind him.
"Curiosity has claws, young Veyra."
Caelan spun.
Master Renar stood between the shelves, hands folded in his sleeves as if he'd been there the entire time.
"How long have you been watching?" Caelan demanded, voice shaking.
Renar stepped closer, gaze fixed on the book's faint glow. "Long enough to know when it begins again."
Caelan gestured sharply at the pages. "What is this?"
Renar's expression softened—almost pitying. "A record. A stubborn one."
"It moved," Caelan said. "It—It came back here. It wrote to me."
Renar didn't deny it. "It returns when needed."
"Needed for what?"
The old man hesitated, then exhaled slowly, as if choosing how much truth a boy could survive.
"For memory," he said at last.
Caelan's hands curled into fists. "Memory of what?"
Renar's eyes lifted to meet his—dark, steady, ancient in their calm. "Of who you were before this life learned to call you weak."
The words landed like a blade.
Caelan's throat tightened. He tried to speak, but nothing came.
Renar turned away, as if that was all he would give. "History is patient, young duke. It will not stop simply because you wish it would."
He walked off, lighting another lamp as though nothing in the world had changed.
Caelan stared after him, fury and fear tangling in his chest.
Then he looked back down at the book.
The blue words Find me had faded, leaving the tear mark behind like a scar.
Caelan shut the cover carefully, as if it might react to roughness.
He stayed in the library until twilight.
Not reading.
Not moving.
Just breathing—trying to convince himself his hands were his.
When the bells rang for evening curfew, he finally rose. Outside, the sky had turned bruised purple. The academy spires cut into it like blades.
He walked back to his dorm feeling heavier and lighter at once—like something vast had shifted inside him without fully waking.
That night, exhaustion dragged him under the moment his head hit the pillow.
He dreamed of a pool again.
The surface shimmered like crystal, reflecting no sky.
On the opposite bank stood the same woman—white hair, gold eyes, sorrow too sharp to belong to any ordinary person. She spoke as if they'd never been apart.
"Caelan."
His chest ached. "I don't know you."
Her expression didn't change, but something in her gaze cracked—briefly.
"You do," she said softly. "You just haven't forgiven yourself for forgetting."
He stepped toward the water.
The pool brightened.
Chains of light surged from beneath the surface.
He reached out—
And the light exploded between them.
Caelan woke before dawn, breath ragged.
The book sat on his desk.
It hadn't been there when he fell asleep.
His skin prickled.
Slowly, he approached it.
New letters curled across the cover like fresh ink drying.
One more has awakened.
Caelan stared, pulse thundering.
Somewhere out there—if the book wasn't lying—someone else had begun to remember.
Someone connected to the promise in his dream.
A name pressed against the inside of his skull, not yet clear enough to speak.
But it was close.
And for the first time, Caelan Veyra felt the dormant thing in his blood answer—faintly, like a sleeping engine turning over.
Not power.
Not yet.
But direction.