Scion of Ruin

The halls changed beneath Kyle's feet as he walked.

Gone were the polished corridors of Sanctum Magna—the clean golden sconces, the open archways lined with sigils of welcome. Now, the walls were rough stone, laced with iron rings that hadn't been used in a century. The air was cooler, musty, touched with old chalk dust and something faintly metallic. Something that wasn't rust.

Kyle followed Iskra in silence.

The corridor sloped downward in gradual curves. Behind them, two silent guardians flanked the path, their armor engraved with runes too old for modern magic. They weren't there to protect him.

They were there in case he changed again.

At the end of the hall stood a door.

It looked like nothing else in the Academy—black stone with inlaid obsidian, the frame fused with nine different metals. Glyphs of containment spiraled along the surface. Some glowed. Others flickered. One was cracked.

Iskra pressed her hand to the center.

The glyphs rearranged. Locked. Shifted. And the door hissed open.

The moment Kyle crossed the threshold, the air changed.

Not temperature. Not humidity.

Permission.

The air here resisted breath, as if whatever existed in this buried dormitory had never agreed to be disturbed.

Iskra motioned him inside. "This is the West Hollow Dormitory. It was closed after an accident in the past. You'll remain here until further notice."

Kyle glanced around. The walls were dark blue marble veined with silver. Rooms branched off from a central gathering space—small, windowless chambers meant for solitude. Each door had a sigil keyed to an individual magic signature.

"You think this will hold me?" he asked flatly.

"No," Iskra replied. "I think it will hold the parts of you that might want to leave. You must have felt the restrictive force here."

She didn't wait for a response. She stepped back out and shut the door behind her.

Kyle stood in silence.

Then—

"Finally." Vera's voice, sharp and familiar, echoed from the left hallway.

She emerged in her academy uniform—torn and half-buttoned, her braid shorter than before, as if she'd hacked it off herself. Her expression was unreadable. She didn't run to him. Didn't smile.

Just looked.

Cynric followed.

He walked with a limp now, one hand pressed to his ribs, the other holding a small tin of powder that he flicked open and shut absently. His usually pristine robes were singed at the hem.

Orin came last.

His goggles were off. That alone was enough to say something had changed. The shadows under his eyes were worse than Kyle remembered—bruised, hollow. He held a charm in his fingers—a small glass sphere filled with pale violet mist that pulsed every few seconds.

"Kyle," he said simply.

Kyle looked at them.

"You're all alive. Thank the gods," he said, voice catching a little.

Cynric grunted. "Barely. That bastard Luwen dropped us out of the sky with that teleportation trick of his, and we got ambushed soon after."

Vera folded her arms. "You look like shit. And well, overall different. When did you get white tips and... are you taller?"

Kyle gave a small laugh. "You should've seen the other guy."

Then the air between them went still.

Vera broke it. "We need to talk."

"Agreed," Kyle said.

Cynric nodded. "Come on. We've got tea. Sort of."

They turned and led him deeper into the dormitory.

Kyle followed.

But as he did, he realized something with a chill certainty:

They were glad he was alive.

But they didn't trust him.

Not fully.

And deep down… he couldn't blame them.

The room they gathered in had once been a study chamber, long before the West Hollow Dormitory had been abandoned.

Now it was little more than a square chamber with four chairs, a table warped by moisture, and light orbs that flickered when no one touched them. The walls were layered in overlapping spellwork—containment first, then tracking, then a third layer Kyle couldn't identify. It felt like standing inside someone else's nervous system.

Cynric passed out chipped ceramic mugs filled with a steaming mixture that smelled vaguely of dried mint and smoke.

"No idea what this is," he said. "But Orin says it's safe."

"I said probably safe," Orin corrected from where he sat cross-legged on the floor, fiddling with the pulse charm again.

Kyle accepted a mug, cradled it for warmth, and stayed quiet.

So did Vera.

Finally, Cynric broke the silence. "What happened?"

The words weren't accusatory. Just flat. Measured.

Kyle frowned. "You first."

Cynric gave a half-shrug. "Makes sense."

He leaned back against the wall, then stared straight ahead as he spoke.

"When the fog hit, I wasn't just knocked out. I woke up. Not in the dorm. Not in the arena. In… somewhere else. A garden. But everything was rotted. Dying."

Kyle stayed still.

"There was a man there," Cynric continued. "Wearing Headmaster robes. At first, I thought it was Professor Veylan. But he turned around, and it wasn't his face. It wasn't a face at all. Just… lines. Like a painting. And he told me my father was alive."

That last sentence dropped like iron.

Kyle looked up. Cynric didn't meet his gaze.

"Then I saw him," Cynric added. "Alive. Bound in chains. Hanging upside down like a spell construct. Screaming at me not to trust what I saw."

"Was it real?" Kyle asked quietly.

Cynric shrugged. "I don't know. But I remember feeling it. Every word that thing said rang like truth. Until it didn't."

The room fell quiet.

Then Vera stood.

She didn't speak at first. She walked to the far wall, leaned her shoulder against it, then finally turned her head.

"I saw myself," she said. "But not… me. Older. Stronger. Alone."

She closed her eyes.

"I was standing on a battlefield. Corpses. Students. Faculty. All of them burned, frozen, shattered—whatever had happened, I'd survived. And I was smiling."

Kyle looked at her. "You… were happy?"

"No," Vera said. "That was the worst part. I wasn't happy. I wasn't anything. I just… was. No grief. No anger. Just power. Like I'd carved the world open and had nothing left to feel."

She looked at Kyle now, and for the first time, there was something vulnerable in her voice.

"I woke up laughing. I think… I think that's what scared me the most."

Kyle opened his mouth—but Orin cut in.

"I saw nothing."

They all turned.

Orin wasn't looking at them. He was turning the charm in his hands faster now, like a nervous tic.

"Fog came. Then nothing. No vision. No voice. Just black."

Vera narrowed her eyes. "You're lying."

Orin finally met her gaze.

"No. I'm not. I didn't see anything. But… something saw me. I could feel it. Like it was leaning close to my ear and not saying anything. Just… watching."

A cold silence fell across the room.

Kyle took a slow breath.

"Well," he said at last, "you already know what happened to me. I'm sure Professor Iskra told you—after all, that's why you're all wary of me."

"Not all of it," Vera replied, voice cool.

Cynric set his mug down with a clink. "You changed, Kyle. Not just your body. Something is different about you. We felt it. Hell, the whole building felt it."

Kyle looked at his hands. The glow was gone now, but the marks beneath the skin remained—dull purple, like old bruises in the shape of language.

"I didn't ask for it... Well, actually I did—but it was a moment of desperation. I needed power, and I had access to it. So I took it. But magic has its rules, right?"

"When you take, it means you have to give," Orin finished.

"I believe you," Cynric said. "That doesn't mean it didn't happen."

Vera stepped forward. "Did it speak to you? You know—the thing that possessed you."

Kyle hesitated. Then nodded.

"What did it say?"

He looked up.

"It said I wasn't me anymore."

No one spoke for a long time after that.

An hour passed in uneasy stillness. No one had anything more to say.

The tea had gone cold. The glow orbs overhead had dimmed until the room was steeped in bluish twilight. No one suggested leaving. No one even shifted their seat. The unspoken weight of shared trauma sealed them in tighter than the wards on the door.

Then the buzz of a spell-lock disengaging echoed through the stone.

They turned as Iskra entered—this time flanked by Professor Vane, and a new face: Assistant Warden Halrix.

He was a narrow-eyed man with silver-rimmed spectacles and the posture of someone who'd never once bent a rule in his life.

He carried a slate.

Not a magical one.

A mundane clipboard. Paper. Pen. Manual records, old-fashioned and deliberate.

"We're initiating debrief and inventory," he said in a clipped tone, not even looking at them as he scanned the pages. "We'll begin with the following question: Who among your year has not reported in?"

"Define 'reported,'" Vera said dryly.

Halrix didn't smile. "Alive. Accounted for. Verbally confirmed."

Kyle sat up straighter. "Wait. There are still people missing?"

"There were over sixty students in the East Wing at the time of the blast," Iskra said quietly. "Twenty-three made it out on their own. Sixteen were escorted by staff. Twelve were extracted from beneath collapsed wards." She looked at each of them. "Seven remain unaccounted for."

Seven.

The number hung there like a gavel.

Cynric stood, suddenly alert. "Names?"

Halrix didn't hand over the list. He read it aloud.

"Garron Veil. Petra Sawn. Ilor Dane. Miette Voss. Barrim Tala—"

Vera flinched.

Kyle saw it. A tiny shift. Barely a reaction. But real.

Halrix continued, unaware. "—Davien Moore, and lastly, Cressa Indel."

Orin leaned forward, brow furrowing. "Voss? I thought she was the senior Engineering mage who transferred to the Oracular Exchange."

"She did," Halrix said. "And she returned quietly last week. Records show she requested anonymity due to family issues. That anonymity may have cost her."

Vera spoke at last.

"Barrim was in my alchemy class," she said softly. "He wasn't stupid. He was careful."

"I'm not here to assign blame," Halrix said briskly. "I'm here to update your status." He glanced toward Kyle. "Specifically yours."

"What status?" Kyle asked.

The assistant warden checked a symbol at the bottom of his slate.

"Quarantine Class 3. Magically Sensitive. Voluntary Containment. Psychological Review Required."

He looked at Kyle when he said it.

"Voluntary," Kyle repeated.

Halrix didn't blink. "You're here by choice. We simply strongly advise you to stay."

"And if I choose otherwise?"

Vane shifted. His armored boots clicked once against the floor. It was a small sound. Measured.

Kyle sat back, displeasure clearly painted on his face.

Iskra finally broke the tension.

"Regardless of the classification, this is your home for now. And it's warded—meaning you are under our protection."

Cynric muttered, "And what of us? You were clearly addressing Kyle."

"You three will be taken to your dorms and placed under house arrest, at least until your families can be safely contacted," Halrix said.

They left after that. No further questions. No encouragement. Just instructions.

A single scroll was handed to Vera before the door closed again. "For your eyes only," Halrix had said.

When they were alone again, Vera unrolled the scroll.

It wasn't from the Academy.

It was from the Infirmary Wing.

Kyle saw her eyes trace it once. Then stop.

Cynric leaned in. "What is it?"

She folded it before they could see the rest. "Their bodies were never found."

"The missing students?" Orin said.

"No. Not missing," Vera murmured. "They found where they died. They just didn't find the bodies."

A pause.

"They found uniforms. Boots. Blood."

Kyle's stomach twisted.

"Someone took them?" Cynric asked.

Vera didn't answer.

She stared at the scroll for a long time. Then folded it precisely and tucked it into her coat.

"I want to see the place where they died," she said quietly.

Orin raised an eyebrow. "You're not going to get permission."

Vera's jaw tightened. "I wasn't asking for it."

"Don't do anything you'll regret," Cynric said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Kyle watched her, a strange ache forming beneath his skin. Not from the entity. Not from the wounds.

From the realization that they were all mourning something now.

And some of them wouldn't say what.