Most new students would have spent their first night at Lumina Academy unpacking, nervously reviewing study materials, or attempting to socialize in the common room. I, however, had a different curriculum in mind: reconnaissance. Azrael's knowledge gave me a map of the future, but it was a map from a book. I needed to survey the terrain myself, to see what had changed, what was different from the novel's description. In a war against a pre-written destiny, outdated intelligence was a death sentence.
I waited until the witching hour, when the ambient energy of the Academy quieted and most of its inhabitants were asleep. Then, I slipped out of my room. I wore the same simple black clothes, but this time, I moved with a purpose that was entirely Damon's. The Mournblade arts were not just about communing with the dead; they were about understanding the boundary between states—life and death, presence and absence, sound and silence. To move unseen was a fundamental part of that.
I didn't just walk silently; I suppressed my life force, dimming the natural energy that every living being emits. To any magical sense, I would be nothing more than a patch of cold air, a flicker of shadow. It was a technique Damon had practiced for years in the silent halls of his home, and for the new me, it was as natural as breathing. Azrael the accountant couldn't have snuck past a sleeping cat. Damon Mournblade could walk through a graveyard full of ghouls without disturbing their slumber.
The Academy at night was a different world. The bridges of light were dimmed to a soft glow, and the moon—Aethelgard had three, a large silver one and two smaller ones, one crimson and one sapphire—cast an ethereal, multi-hued light over everything. The only sounds were the wind sighing through the high passes and the distant rush of the waterfalls.
I moved with a slow, deliberate pace, mapping the layout of the central islands. I noted the patrol routes of the Academy's sentinels— golems of stone and light that moved with ponderous, predictable certainty. I identified the restricted buildings: the Headmaster's Tower at the Academy's highest point, the central library with its wards of knowledge preservation, and the Affinity Chambers used for high-level cultivation. All places I would eventually need to access.
But my true destination was none of these. Azrael's memory guided me towards a less glamorous, but far more important location. The novel had mentioned it in a single, throwaway line when a minor character was trying to find a quiet place to study: "…he ended up in the dusty, forgotten archives in the Academy's foundations, a place no one had used in centuries."
The foundations. The place where the Vex'Arak had done their dirty work.
I found the entrance in the sub-levels of the main administrative building, just as described. It wasn't locked or warded. It was simply a heavy, iron-banded door with a sign so old and faded the writing was almost illegible: "ARCHIVES - SECTOR GAMMA." It was hidden not by magic, but by sheer bureaucratic neglect. The perfect hiding place.
The air inside was thick with the smell of dust and decaying parchment. The room was a vast, cavernous space, far larger than the building above it should have allowed—the first subtle sign of Vex'Arak spatial expansion. Shelves, groaning under the weight of countless scrolls and leather-bound tomes, stretched up into the darkness, far beyond the reach of the faint magical light that illuminated the chamber.
I didn't browse. I had a target. Azrael knew that the conspiracy wasn't just magical; it was logistical. There had to be a paper trail. Contracts, supply manifests, work orders. The Vex'Arak were arrogant. They believed no one would ever look, or that if they did, no one would understand what they were seeing. They were almost right.
Following Damon's instincts for navigating such places—mausoleums of forgotten things—I made my way to a section labeled "Structural Expansion & Maintenance: Cycles 300-500." It was a treasure trove. Dusty records of every major construction project at the Academy for the last two thousand years.
I pulled out a ledger, its cover thick with grime. "Year 437 of the Solarius Dynasty. Contractor: House Vex'Arak. Project: Spatial expansion of the lower library stacks." I scanned the details. The materials listed were standard. The prices were reasonable. Everything looked perfectly normal.
But I knew what to look for. Tucked away in the addenda, under a section for "Material Disposal and Anomaly Reporting," was a small note. "Minor spatial distortion reported in Sector 7. Contained. Attributed to unstable geological formations in the source island. Work completed on schedule."
I pulled another ledger. "Year 612. Contractor: House Vex'Arak. Project: Reinforcement of Blackwood Hall foundations." And there it was again. "Minor reality tear reported near the west wing. Sealed. Attributed to residual elemental stress. Work completed on schedule."
It was a pattern, repeated over centuries. Every time House Vex'Arak was hired for a major project, there was an "accident." A small, insignificant reality-warping event, always neatly explained away, always contained. But they weren't accidents. They were deliberate. Each "tear" was a place where they had weakened the veil between worlds. Each "distortion" was a node in their grand ritual circle. They hadn't just built rooms; they had built a weapon, and hidden it in plain sight within the Academy's own architectural history.
I spent what felt like hours in the dusty silence, cross-referencing dates, project locations, and reported "anomalies." I was building a map of the conspiracy, a timeline of the infection. The summoning wasn't a single event; it was the culmination of a thousand small, patient acts of sabotage.
As I was carefully placing a ledger back on its shelf, a prickling sensation ran down my spine. The kind of feeling you get when you know you are being watched.
My training, Damon's training, took over instantly. I did not tense. I did not turn. I did not give any sign that I had noticed. I simply finished my task with the same slow, deliberate motions, my expression one of mild, scholarly interest. I even let out a small, soft sigh of feigned boredom, as if the dusty records were proving less interesting than I'd hoped.
But my senses were screaming. The watcher was good. Very good. There was no sound, no scent, no shift in the air. There was only a focused point of attention, a gaze that felt like a physical weight. And it was coming from the ceiling, from the deep shadows where the light didn't reach.
I casually closed the ledger, placed it back on the shelf, and turned to leave, my movements unhurried. I walked out of the archive, closing the heavy door behind me, and made my way back towards Blackwood Hall. I did not look back. I did not quicken my pace. I projected an aura of someone who had satisfied a minor curiosity and was now heading to bed.
Only when I was back in the perceived safety of my own room, the door locked behind me, did I allow myself to process it. Someone had been watching me. Someone with skills in stealth that rivaled my own. Who? A Vex'Arak agent, checking to see if their secrets were safe? An Academy instructor? Or another student?
I walked to the center of the room and stood in perfect stillness, my eyes closed, replaying the sensation. The feeling of the gaze. It was cold, analytical, and… curious. Not overtly hostile. It felt like an observer, not an assassin.
Then, as I stood there, I felt a flicker. A disturbance in the shadows in the corner of my own ceiling. It was infinitesimally small, a brief deepening of the darkness, and then it was gone.
My eyes snapped open. A slow, cold smile touched my lips, a smile that was all Damon. It seemed my watcher had followed me home.
In the deep shadows of her own room, two floors down and one wing over, Elsa Noctis materialized from the darkness, stepping out of the shadow cast by her bedpost as if it were a doorway. She was breathing a little faster than usual, her heart beating a steady, controlled rhythm.
She had been tracking the Mournblade second son since he arrived. Something about him had set off her finely-honed instincts. It was his stillness. Not the practiced stillness of a trained spy, but the absolute, profound stillness of a deep lake, of a winter grave. It was unnatural.
So she had watched. And he had led her to a place she hadn't even known existed. The forgotten archive. She had watched from the rafters, her Shadow affinity making her one with the darkness, as he methodically uncovered a pattern she herself had only glimpsed. He wasn't just browsing. He was investigating. He knew what he was looking for.
The most disturbing part was the end. She was certain he had sensed her. For a split second, just before he turned to leave, she had felt his awareness brush against her hiding place. A human, even one with a Death affinity, shouldn't have been able to sense a Noctis in deep shadow. It was impossible. Yet, he had given no sign. He had played his part perfectly.
She had followed him back, flowing through the network of shadows that connected the Academy, and had watched him from the corner of his own room. She had seen him stand there, perfectly still, and had felt his senses probing the room. He had felt her presence. He knew.
Elsa opened a small, leather-bound journal on her desk. Dipping a quill into a pot of ink made from pure shadow, she made a new entry in her neat, precise script.
*Subject: Damon Mournblade. Status: Anomaly. Aware of Vex'Arak conspiracy. Possesses sensory capabilities exceeding known limits of Death affinity. Unsettlingly proficient in counter-surveillance. He is not what he appears to be. He is dangerous.*
She paused, tapping the quill against her lip. Then she added one more line.
*Potential Ally?*
She closed the book and retreated back into the darkness of her room. The game had just become infinitely more interesting.