Riftkeep Citadel, the Veilwatch Tower
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It began with birds falling silent.
No cries from the windhawks at dawn.
No rustle of winged rootbeaks in the vinewalls.
The sky above Riftkeep hung too still.
Like the world was holding its breath.
Waiting.
---
Nyx began to change.
She was always a quiet presence—heat behind my ribs, shadow at the edge of thought.
But now?
She growled when certain people looked at me too long.
She snapped silent warnings in the presence of magic.
She felt closer.
Sharper.
Almost… separate.
"Something's pulling me," she murmured one night. "Through you. Toward… somewhere."
"Where?"
She didn't answer. But I felt her gaze tilt skyward.
---
The Visitor from the Crown
He arrived without sound.
A pale man in ink-dipped robes, marked with the Thorne Crest—not the burning crown, but the older one, the one made of briars and ash.
The students parted like tides before him.
Even the Ash Mothers stood straighter.
Only Vael met his eyes.
"A Watcher," she said.
The word had weight. Heavy enough to bend the air.
"I seek the anomaly," he replied, voice smooth as carved stone.
No name was spoken.
But every eye turned to me.
---
They didn't ask me if I wanted to speak with him.
They simply summoned me.
The Watcher sat behind a low obsidian desk. His skin was near-translucent, veins like silver thread beneath moon-pale flesh.
His eyes?
Black. Not dark. Black. Like holes in reality.
"You are… Sylara," he said.
Not a question.
I said nothing.
His gaze slid over me like oil. "The Hollow Flame fractured after you touched it. The Veinstone lit. The creature vanished. Do you deny it?"
"I didn't cause it."
"But it responded to you."
I shrugged, cold. "Maybe it was lonely."
He didn't laugh. Not even a twitch. "And your magic… still volatile?"
I didn't answer.
"Careful," Nyx growled inside me. "Hesmells like rot and prophecy."
"Anything else waking inside you?" the Watcher asked softly.
His voice curled like incense around my skull.
I stood. "If there is, I hope it bites."
---
When I came out ,it felt like everyone's gaze was on mine , the girl summoned by the watcher, the anamoly.
Students stopped talking when I entered the room.
Someone left bone-ash powder in my satchel.
Harmless. Symbolic.
It meant: Burned. Cursed. Untouchable.
Kiva responded by drawing a warding rune on her own forehead and sitting beside me at meal.
"Want me to punch someone?" she asked sweetly.
"No."
She grinned. "Good. I might anyway."
---
The next gleam, in Forbidden Lore, we studied bloodmarks.
"Rare, sacred runes," the instructor said, "etched into soul-flesh by gods, curses… or fate."
He showed examples.
One looked like mine.
Exactly like mine.
The others noticed.
Someone gasped.
Kiva's jaw tightened. "What the hells—"
I stood up and left.
The air behind me split with whispers.
---
Kiva found me that night in the old observatory. I was staring out at the Veinstone Fields, the dark plains glowing faint under the twin moons.
"You okay?" she asked.
"No."
Kiva sank beside me, knees folded under her, then threw her cloak over both of us without asking.
"You're not the only one scared, you know."
I didn't look at her. "You think I'm scared?"
"Not of others. Of you. Of what you're becoming."
Silence.
She glanced over. "You're not alone, Syl. You've got your angry magic, and—unfortunately for you—me."
I blinked. Slowly.
Then said, "You talk too much."
Kiva smirked. "You scowl too prettily."
---
Later that night, I dreamt again.
But this time, it isn't just fire or void.
It's Nyx—not a shadow, but a shape. Tall, dark-furred, eyes like stars behind clouds.
She stands beside a black throne in a broken city, her fur wet with ash and rain.
And beside her—
A mirror.
I step toward it.
In the mirror, I am crowned in flame.
And something behind me whispers:
"She will remember. When the moons break, she will burn the gate."
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