The city of Myrian did not sing.
It grumbled, whispered, and occasionally snarled like a trapped animal, but song? That was a privilege reserved for the upper tiers of the Domini, for their noble-born youths whose lullabies were etched in mystical runes and gold-inked foretelling. There were none in lower levels, however, where soot clung to windows and cobblestone paths warped like shattered teeth: only silence and a scattered scream.
And even in that silence found between the cracked ribs of a half-remembered alleyway stood a library. No above-door sign, no gilded welcome, but a rusting bronze gargoyle above the entrance and a whiff of ink and paper clinging to its doorway like a cloud of incense.
Here is where Aelric resided.
Not as a patron.
Not even as a student.
And also the librarian's boy.
He was not born of legacy, or of prophecy, or of magic. Or so it was said. At least, by anyone. He was deposited in a basket on the entrance steps of the House of Silent Verses, a library constructed over an older building, abandoned by a mother who never knocked and a father who never gave him a name.
Your family is ink and dust, boy," Master Veynar would mutter to himself when handing Aelric another book to clean of mould or blood, whichever section it was from.
Veynar was Aelric's nearest thing to a father figure. A retired academic who had taught at the Arcane Academy before stepping back into private life, he never talked much about what he was like in the past, but would always discuss at great length about magic. He taught Aelric to read when he was still learning to walk. Common, yes; but also Elder Sigil and Celestine Script; and even jagged Yllari glyphs for a long-dead tongue.
And yet, in all of this. Aelric was normal.
Painfully hauntingly routine
No spark ever ignited when he contacted a wand. No glyphs gleamed on his fingertips. No great bloodline trembled in his veins.
And during such moments when the world slumbered and the snoring of Veynar filled the winding halls of the library, Aelric would sit in the moon-infused atrium and open books forbidden—books bound in dragonhide, iron-caged, or written in an ink that beat like a pulse—and whisper to them.
Tell me… what is a mage?
No one responded.
But he continued reading.
One day, everything changed.
The 13th day of the Month of Blades saw Myrian skies filled with smoke from the traditional Ascension Trials at the Arcane Academy. Carriages thundered along major avenues bearing aspiring scions of the Five Dominions—children in velvet and silk robes with names long enough to be incantations themselves.
Aelric observed them from the library rooftop where pigeons roosted in the mouth of a stone gargoyle.
They have no idea how lucky they are," he whispered.
"Luck is what fools use to describe structure they have no idea about," said Veynar over his shoulder. The old man clutched a page of parchment wrapped in dark silk. "But you… You're different."
Aelric blinked. "I don't?"
No. You require this.
He turned over the scroll.
Aelric unrolled it and gasped in
It was a summons.
From the Arcane Academy.
But it didn't make sense. He hadn't applied. Couldn't apply. No record of his family. No sponsorship. No gift of being spellborn to get a place.
"I… I don't know," he stammered, voice creaking like cracked parchment.
Veynar smiled—but not with his mouth. Only his eyes.
They have decided to have an Open Trial," the librarian announced. "For the first time in a hundred years."
Aelric's heart pounded. "But I'm not a wizard—"
Not yet.
"Does magic belong only to those born with it?" Veynar inched closer. "The world is in a state of turning. The ley lines are breaking. The Eclipse Codex rises. And I'd wager every bane-bound book in this library that a practitioner is disturbing a balance of dominions."
Aelric gazed at the scroll, and his fingers quivered.
"You want to see what lies beyond this city, don't you?" asked Veynar softly. "Not merely hear about it."
"Yes," Aelric whispered
Then go.
The Academy towered like a myth in stone. Carved against the walls of the Inner Vale, it curved upward in relentlessly thin arches and piercing spires, pulsing faintly with never-fading runic lights. To the lords and ladies, it was hallowed earth. To Aelric, it was a tempest—lovely, immense, and dreadful.
There were hundreds of candidates in the lower courtyard. The majority were in crested houses. Aelric was in a hand-stitched coat with patches and ink smudges.
Eyes looked towards him.
Sneers were
And he strode along with head held high, scroll held in hand.
He slept with it beneath his pillow for three nights. Still half-expecting it to fade away.
The woman wearing gold-threaded robes and a blindfold of silver mist spoke to the people.
"This is no test of might," she declared in a voice like a thunderbell. "This is a test of will. A test of truth. There are no grades. No scores. Only passing through the Crucible. If one can survive… Then one is selected."
Aelric swallowed hard.
He didn't feel special.
He felt like an impostor.
The doors of the Crucible swung open when he stepped in.
The Crucible was not a room.
It was a world.
Illusion. A fold between dimensions. Within it, reality distorted. The stone floor warped into a maze of memory and sorcery.
Aelric strolled alone
Initially, however, the road was straightforward: follow golden threads, respond to questions posed by talking stones, avoid illusions of flame and breeze.
But then it became personal.
He noticed the library. Vacant.
He noticed Veynar lying on the ground, blood mixing with shredded pages.
He pictured himself—older, bitterer, eyes sunken
"You are nothing," sneered the vision. "A page-turner. A mimic. A pretender."
Aelric dropped to his knees.
The crucible murmured:
"You are unworthy if you cannot create."
"I." His breath trembled. "I have nothing to offer."
Then die.
A wall of flame rushed towards him.
But just before it engulfed him—
He screamed.
And it is a defiance.
"I am worthy! Not because I was born to wield this kind of authority, but because I took it! Every evening, I studied. Every sentence I learned. Every bruise, every whisper, every sting—I bled for it!"
He stretched out to touch the blaze.
It didn't burn.
It flowered.
The flames became pages. The pages became light.
And in this instant, a voice other than his own whispered through reality's folds.
You are seen.
When he woke up, he found himself in the courtyard.
The rest hadn't come back.
Some never would.
The Trial Master loomed above him, blindfold of silver shining like moonlight.
"You have touched its source," she whispered. "You were never meant to live."
"I know," Aelric croaked
You are what
He blinked. "A librarian boy."
She smiled.
"No. You're something else now."
She held out her hand.
And in it—a ring. Black stone with silver veining. The token of a First Year Initiate.
Aelric grasped it in trembling hands.
Thunder boomed in the distance.
But it didn't scare him. It was a starting point.