The wing of House Aetheris did not connect to the rest of the Academy the way the others did.
Lyra noticed it immediately.
The corridors leading to Noxveil were tall and dramatic, carved with shadow motifs that stretched along the ceiling like living ink. Pyrelyn's path radiated warmth even from a distance, torchlight flaring brighter with each step closer.
But the passage toward Aetheris narrowed gradually, almost imperceptibly. The air cooled. The stone changed color—from polished grey to something darker, porous, as if the walls had once been scorched and never fully restored.
It felt less like entering a House and more like being redirected into a structural flaw.
The attendants escorting her did not speak. Their silence was professional, but their distance was deliberate. They were not guarding her.
They were avoiding proximity.
The black line on her wrist pulsed faintly beneath her sleeve.
Not painfully.
Present.
They reached a pair of iron-bound doors embedded into stone that appeared older than the rest of the Academy. Not ancient—just foundational.
One attendant knocked twice. The sound echoed longer than it should have.
The doors opened inward.
Inside, the chamber was circular, lower-ceilinged than the grand halls she had seen earlier. No banners marked the walls. No House crest dominated the space.
Instead, there were twelve alcoves carved into the perimeter, each holding a narrow stone bed and a desk.
Twelve.
That was the entirety of Aetheris.
Conversation stopped as she entered.
No one stared openly. They assessed.
Lyra felt the evaluation sweep across her like a temperature change.
At the center of the chamber stood a woman in academic robes darker than those of the Masters in the ritual hall. Silver threading lined the cuffs—subtle, not ornamental.
Her hair was pulled back severely, revealing sharp cheekbones and eyes that had learned patience the hard way.
"Instructor Maeryn Thorne," she said without introduction ceremony. Her voice was even, unembellished. "You broke a pillar."
It was not a question.
"Yes," Lyra replied.
"How?"
"I don't know."
That answer held.
Maeryn studied her for several seconds.
"You hear it?"
"Yes."
A faint shift in the room. Not surprise.
Recognition.
Maeryn nodded once.
"Good. That means it chose you."
One of the students leaned against the wall, arms folded.
"Or it misfired," he muttered.
Maeryn didn't look at him.
"Echoes do not misfire," she said calmly. "They select. Intentionally."
She gestured toward an empty alcove near the rear of the chamber.
"You will reside there. Orientation begins at first light. You will not attempt activation without supervision. You will not test resonance thresholds alone. You will not seek classification outside this House."
A pause.
"If you break something else, you will inform me immediately."
Lyra nodded.
The attendants left.
The iron doors shut with a muted finality.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then one of the students approached her directly.
He was tall, pale, with faint grey lines spidering beneath his eyes as if veins had surfaced too close to skin.
"You destabilized the chamber," he said. Not accusatory. Curious. "I felt the compression."
"I didn't mean to."
"That's worse."
Another student laughed softly from across the room. A girl with cropped dark hair and faint scarring along one jawline.
"Relax, Cael. If she'd detonated, we'd be dead."
Cael did not smile.
Maeryn raised a hand slightly.
"Enough."
The tension thinned but did not dissolve.
Lyra moved to her alcove. The stone bed was bare except for folded linen and a thin blanket. The desk held a single slate tablet and stylus.
No decorative excess.
Aetheris did not invest in aesthetics.
She sat.
The fractures were easier to see here.
In the main hall, they had been faint—nearly lost in light. But in this lower chamber, the distortions threaded through the air like hairline cracks in glass.
She focused on one near the ceiling.
It pulsed.
Not visually—structurally.
A tension point.
Her mind reached for it before she consciously decided to.
The air tightened.
Across the chamber, Cael stiffened.
"Again," he said sharply.
Maeryn's head turned immediately.
Lyra withdrew.
The fracture vanished.
The room exhaled.
Maeryn walked toward her slowly.
"Describe what you did."
"I looked," Lyra said honestly. "It responded."
"That is not a description."
Lyra hesitated.
"I… pressed. Not physically."
A student near the far alcove shifted uneasily.
Maeryn's expression did not change, but her attention sharpened.
"You applied intent."
"Yes."
Maeryn stood still for a moment, processing.
"Your Echo interacts with structural seams," she said finally. "Not energy. Not matter. Seams."
The word lingered.
"Do you understand the difference?"
Lyra shook her head.
"Energy manipulation expends. Matter manipulation alters. Structural interference destabilizes." Maeryn's gaze held hers. "If you misjudge pressure, you will not burn something."
She paused.
"You will unmake its cohesion."
Silence followed that.
One of the students muttered quietly, "That's worse."
Maeryn ignored him.
"For tonight, you will observe only. No further contact."
Lyra inclined her head.
The students gradually returned to their own quiet routines.
Aetheris did not buzz with conversation like the other Houses likely did. There were no boasting discussions of manifested flames or comparisons of shadow density.
Instead, the chamber carried the subdued rhythm of individuals listening inward.
Lyra lay back against the stone.
The ceiling above her was smooth—but not to her sight.
Fractures webbed faintly overhead.
Not spreading.
Waiting.
High above the Aetheris wing, in the Observatory Tower, seven figures stood around a circular obsidian table.
An illusion projection of the shattered pillar rotated slowly above its surface.
The eldest Master traced a finger through the distortion where Lyra had stood.
"The reaction was vertical," he murmured. "Not radial."
"She did not amplify resonance," another added. "She interrupted it."
A third figure, cloaked deeper in shadow, spoke quietly.
"Origin Fragment?"
The word shifted the atmosphere.
"That classification has not appeared in over two centuries," said a woman to the right. "And the last instance resulted in host dissolution."
"Within twenty-one days," another confirmed.
The shadowed figure leaned slightly forward.
"Did the last host fracture the sky?"
No one answered immediately.
The eldest Master's eyes narrowed.
"Observation protocol only. No intervention."
"And if it escalates?"
"Then we reassess."
Silence settled.
Below them, unnoticed by most of the Academy, a thin crack appeared along one of the Observatory windows.
It did not shatter.
It did not spread.
It waited.
Elsewhere in Vhaldrith, in the luminous eastern wing of House Astren, Seren Avelyne stood before a tall arched window.
Moonlight silvered her hair.
Her Echo pulsed behind her eyes, probability threads weaving through her perception.
She had not witnessed the pillar's destruction directly.
She had felt the recalibration.
Probability lines had shifted.
Tiny adjustments at first.
Then larger.
She exhaled slowly.
A projection formed faintly in her vision: a possible future.
A fracture widening.
Academy spires collapsing inward.
A figure standing at the epicenter.
Not monstrous.
Not triumphant.
Still.
Lyra Vael.
The projection flickered and dissolved.
Seren recalculated.
Global destabilization probability: 63%.
Trigger variable: Unclassified Aetheris candidate.
Seren closed her eyes.
When she opened them, the scar in the sky seemed marginally longer than before.
Back in House Aetheris, the chamber had quieted.
Most students had retreated into meditation or sleep.
Lyra remained awake.
She turned her wrist slightly, examining the thin black line etched into her skin.
It was not raised.
Not scar tissue.
It felt… aligned.
As if something beneath the skin matched something above.
She focused again on the nearest fracture.
Carefully this time.
No pressure.
No intent.
Just observation.
The seam trembled faintly.
And for a fraction of a second—
The wall beyond it vanished.
Not broken.
Absent.
Beyond it lay depth.
Not darkness.
Dimension.
Something moved within it—not toward her, not away—just existing.
Her breath hitched.
The fracture sealed instantly.
Her wrist burned warmer than before.
Fragment.
The whisper returned.
Clearer.
Not pleading.
Not commanding.
Incomplete.
Across the chamber, Cael sat upright abruptly.
"You're doing it again."
"I'm not," Lyra replied, though her pulse was racing.
Maeryn was on her feet immediately.
"What did you perceive?"
Lyra hesitated.
"Depth."
Maeryn's expression hardened.
"Depth is not a structural descriptor."
"It wasn't empty."
The chamber went very still.
Maeryn studied her face.
"Did it move?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"I don't know."
Maeryn exhaled slowly.
"Sleep," she said finally. "All of you."
It was not dismissal.
It was containment.
Lyra lay back again, though sleep did not come easily.
High above the Academy, the wind shifted.
The scar in the sky extended by a margin too small for measurement.
Deep beneath Vhaldrith, within stone chambers sealed for centuries, something ancient shifted against its confinement.
Not awake.
Not yet.
But aware of a tremor.
A seam had been touched.
And it had answered.
Lyra closed her eyes.
The whisper did not fade this time.
It settled.
Closer.
As if, somewhere beyond sight, something was beginning to assemble itself around her existence.
Not consuming.
Not attacking.
Aligning.
And in the Observatory Tower, the crack in the glass lengthened by a single, silent line.