In an unknown, long-forgotten part of the continent stood Lasthold—a fortress-city whose walls protected its inhabitants from outside threats.

  The city itself was encircled by tall walls of gray stone, adorned with carved patterns and protective runes. Towers rose above them with light silhouettes of pagodas, their roofs curved upward, bronze bells hanging from their tips. Their ringing carried across the surroundings, warning of the wind—or of a stranger’s step. Above the southern gate hung a massive copper disk, gleaming dully in the sunlight—a symbol of protection forged by the ancestors in an age when human civilizations had not yet fallen.

  The elders said that once, a civilization of spiritual mages had stretched across this continent. Cities shimmered with mana, nations competed for power, and humanity considered itself the crown of creation. But then—because of an unknown catastrophe—the civilization collapsed.

  For the people of Lasthold, the world ended at the nearby outskirts. Beyond them lay a dangerous unknown, filled with wild and corrupted beasts. Once, they had maintained contact with other cities—but in time, that connection had been severed as well.

  For hundreds of years they endured, passing down weapons and artifacts from generation to generation. All of it—for the sake of protecting the children, of not letting the beasts break through. Lasthold still lived only because spirit mages were nurtured within its walls.

  But even in this constant tension, the city’s streets were not lifeless. The markets buzzed with crowds, merchants shouted prices, children played in the shade of stalls. The air smelled of fresh bread and smoke from the forges. Laughter rang out through the noise, and that laughter sounded like defiance. To live—no matter what. To live—even if tomorrow another wave of beasts would descend upon the city.

  And in that moment, as if above the very sky, another sight opened. A Consciousness drifted high up, like a bird, and the whole of Lasthold lay upon its palm. Images shifted one after another: the streets grew sharp and clear, sunlight glinting in every crack of the paving stones; then all blurred again, as if the city were but a fragile memory slipping away from the depths of a dream.

  The gaze was slowly drawn westward. There, beyond the residential quarters, loomed a complex of buildings, their roofs shining with lacquered sheen. Courtyards, linked by galleries, hid in their shadows the slender figures of pupils, and on the towers banners flew with the symbols of Lasthold.

  The Soaring Consciousness recognized this place at once.

  “Academy of Spirit Mages…” murmured a weary voice, dissolving as though into the city’s din and the rustle of the forests beyond.

  Those words echoed, breaking apart, as if spoken by someone too distant and too exhausted to remain here for long.

  The moment the words were spoken, the vision shuddered. The city, the streets, the pagodas wavered, like paint blurred by rain. The noise of the streets fell silent, and in its place another picture flared.

  The Consciousness found itself in a spacious hall, divided into several levels. With each descending step, rows of desks stretched, and at the very bottom, before all, stood the teacher’s lectern. But no lesson was in progress. The class buzzed like a hive.

  Children darted between the rows, laughing loudly and boasting of gifts brought from home. One, puffing out his chest, showed off a gleaming vial of violet elixir—a present from his parents. Another, perched on the edge of a desk, waved a magic scroll.

  The air was full of voices, laughter, noise. But by the window, in the shadows, sat a lone boy. He was about fifteen. White as chalk, his hair fell in careless strands across his brow, accentuating the pallor of his skin. Amber eyes, almost golden, burned with fatigue, and the deep shadows beneath them made his gaze all the heavier.

  His clothes were modest but neat: dark garments with a high collar concealed his thin body. Long, overly slender fingers tapped a steady rhythm on the wooden surface of the desk, betraying tense, concentrated thought.

  He looked neither at pills nor at scrolls. As if all the clamor around had nothing to do with him.

  When the Consciousness’s gaze lingered on this boy, everything around seemed to quiver. In an instant the noisy class seemed fragile, as though about to crumble into dust.

  “This day again…” the same weary, wary voice said, as if it already knew what was about to happen.

  And then, as if on cue, three of them headed toward the window. Their rich dark-blue robes stood out sharply against the plain cloaks of most of the students. The fabric shimmered with a silken sheen, and fine patterns glimmered on the collars—marks of wealthy families.

  The first to sit down was a youth with long blue hair tied back by a ribbon and cold, ice-blue eyes. Without asking permission, he threw his hand onto the white-haired boy’s shoulder. The boy flinched almost imperceptibly, his shoulders tensing. His unease was all too plain.

  The blue-haired one burst into loud, deliberately brazen laughter.

  “Hey, Kael!” he shouted so that everyone around could hear. “Don’t you want to run to the dining hall for some buns?”

  His words sparked snickers among nearby students. The second, with short gray hair and a sharp chin, picked up the taunt, smirking:

  “You’re a failure anyway, can’t even absorb mana. At least this way you’d be of some use!”

  The laughter swelled, echoing through the class, while Kael sat motionless, only his fingers tightening on the desk until the knuckles turned white.

  Kael timidly raised his gaze, his amber eyes flickering, but he still forced out the words:

  “Draxion, it’s not my fault my body has no talent… But I have other strengths…”

  “And what might those be?” the blue-haired youth asked with arrogance.

  “Brains,” Kael retorted curtly. “Perhaps you’ve heard of such a thing?”

  For a moment, silence filled the class.

  The blue-haired one was caught off guard. His hand suddenly clamped around Kael’s neck and slammed his face hard against the desk. The wood cracked with a dull crunch, and a wave of muffled laughter and exclamations swept through the class.

  Draxion leaned close to his ear, teeth flashing with fury.

  “Brains?” he hissed. “You mean your book cramming? And how will your books protect Lasthold from spirit beasts?!”

  With a violent jerk, he hauled Kael up by the collar and hurled him onto the floor. His body struck the boards, air exploding from his lungs with a crash.

  The other students averted their eyes. None intervened. Some felt shame, some were simply afraid, and in a few gazes satisfaction flickered.

  “Kael’s body holds the worst possible level of talent…” a whisper sounded from somewhere to the side. “And now he has to endure mockery on top of it…”

  But before the words could spread further, Draxion’s lackeys flashed their eyes at the speaker. He instantly fell silent, pressed his lips together, and lowered his head.

  The Consciousness watching the scene gave a hateful snort.

  “Talent of the body? What nonsense…” the voice dripped with contempt. “There are no ‘talents of the body.’ There are different Forms of Soul. Lasthold simply had no Canon of Magic suited for my soul.”

  Kael lifted his gaze to Draxion, and for an instant his eyes blazed, as if ready to defy him. His fists clenched, his teeth ground. Inside, everything boiled, but his mind reminded him coldly: he didn’t have the slightest chance.

  He drew a deep breath, trying to still the tremor in his hands and his voice.

  “Alright… I’ll go to the dining hall…” he exhaled, turning away.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  But before he could rise, a sharp cry cut through the classroom air:

  “How dare you?!”

  Every head turned toward the door. There stood a girl—tall, slender, in an elegant crimson dress that set off her figure. Straight maroon hair cascaded over her shoulders, and in her eyes flared a fire ready to tear the silence apart.

  “Roselle…” Kael’s lips quivered. His heart clenched painfully. “Stop… You’ll only make it worse…”

  But she didn’t let him finish.

  “Though Kael may lack talent in magic, he has a phenomenal memory!” Her voice rang across the hall, slicing through the hum of whispers. “You foolish ignoramuses can’t compare even to a drop of the knowledge he holds in his mind!”

  The class froze. A few students exchanged glances, some muttered under their breath, but quieter now, wary of falling under the fire of her wrath.

  The Consciousness watching from the side gave an ironic snort:

  “Phenomenal memory? No, it is boundless and infinite… It is because of it that I became a slave… If only I had known I was a Shard…”

  The vision quivered, but the classroom still remained before his eyes.

  Draxion, still bracing against the desk, went rigid. He didn’t dare lunge at Kael in Roselle’s presence, but his expression showed clearly—the girl’s defense was far from to his liking. Cold anger gleamed in his eyes.

  He narrowed them slowly and, as if cutting with words, said:

  “You must have forgotten whom you’re betrothed to, caring so much for other men… My elder brother will be most displeased when he hears of this.”

  Silence in the class became almost tangible. No one dared move. Even the laughter that had so recently filled the hall seemed to wither.

  The three boys rose, their steps thudding on the stairs. They made for the exit, clearly unwilling to quarrel further with Roselle.

  Draxion, leaving last, turned back. His blue eyes pierced Kael, and he ground out:

  “You should have obeyed right away…”

  As soon as those words were spoken, the world around trembled. The atmosphere seemed to boil, the air began to bubble, as though the classroom itself were melting into a molten vessel.

  Colors drained, turning red, distorted, as if the world were drowning in blood.

  A flash of pain pierced the Consciousness. Before its eyes appeared Kael—crippled, beaten, his body barely holding itself upright on its knees.

  A second flash. The image shifted: a ruined family restaurant, its walls blackened, beams charred, the floor buried in splinters and ash.

  And a new jolt of pain. Now Kael knelt in the middle of a blood-drawn circle. His arms flung upward to the heavens, a prayer tore from his lips. The diagrams of blood glowed upon the ground. A ritual. A plea. A call to the Gods.

  “NO!” the Consciousness screamed, its voice breaking into hysteria. “Don’t do this, you little fool!”

  But in that instant the world could no longer hold. Everything collapsed into darkness!

  ? ? ?

  “Ghaaaah!” a ragged, sharp gasp tore through the air.

  The man jerked upright from the bed, gulping mouthfuls of air. Sweat streamed down his face and neck, soaking the blanket. His breathing was uneven, broken. Amber eyes widened, full of horror and pain, as though everything had just unfolded in reality.

  He sat like that for several moments before he began to return to himself. Gradually, through the haze of panic, the outlines of the room emerged.

  A spacious hall, luxurious and cold. Along the walls—carved panels, draped with cloth bearing ancient symbols. In the center loomed a massive golden table, buried under books. But they were not all books of paper: some tomes had been forged of metals, others glowed through transparent crystals, as though storing words carved by mana itself.

  This man looked strikingly like the boy from the dream he had just seen. No—it was him. Kael.

  His white hair had grown long, cascading in heavy locks over his shoulders and back, nearly to his waist. His face had grown sharper, more masculine—cheekbones pronounced, the lines of his jaw hardened. But his eyes… his eyes remained the same. Still those amber orbs, dulled by exhaustion, shadowed with gloom and black circles beneath.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow with a movement twisted by anger and rasped:

  “Again that damned nightmare… No. The nightmare is the place where I live.”

  He rose abruptly from the bed and, heedless of silence, strode toward a massive mirror in a carved frame. He wore only wide white trousers, the fabric falling loosely from his hips. His torso was astonishing—corded, defined, every muscle line honed as if by years of punishing labor. His body was no longer the thin frame of youth. Yet even this “strength” could not erase the crushing expression on his face.

  Kael stopped before the mirror and grimly raised his head. From the reflection, those same amber eyes stared back—no longer with youthful timidity, but burning with a grim, embittered fire and the weariness of centuries.

  “Damn God of Knowledge and Madness…” he ground out between his teeth, as though cursing the name itself. “I hope that after what I do today… you’ll finally kill me and end my torment.”

  For a moment his gaze lingered on the mirror, as if testing whether the reflection itself would warp under the weight of his words.

  Kael slowly reached for the rack and threw a heavy cloak over his shoulders. The fabric, dark and coarse, concealed the sculpted lines of his body, turning him once more into a somber, elongated figure. He fastened the high collar and fixed his stare upon the reflection.

  “Seven hundred years of slavery…” he muttered wearily, lips barely moving. “And through all that time not a single drop of mana has flowed into my body… How pitiful I am.”

  His gaze darted to a small casket by the mirror. Kael lifted the lid. Inside lay rows of translucent pills with a rainbow sheen, as if life-force itself had been bound within them.

  He picked one up with disgust. His fingers froze. His palm trembled, as if demanding to crush the fragile shell and end the humiliation.

  But the moment his muscles began to close, sharp pain lanced through his hand. A spasm twisted his fingers. Kael only grimaced, exhaling hoarsely:

  “Damn oaths… If I had known where calling upon the Gods would lead me, I’d have rather died back in Lasthold…”

  Clenching his teeth, he hurled the pill into his mouth and swallowed it, not even tasting it. Then he spun sharply, his steps ringing against the stone floor.

  As soon as Kael shoved open the door and stepped outside, light struck his face. What met him was no familiar chamber, but a floating platform of smooth gold. It hung in emptiness, and at its center stood alone the open door he had just emerged from.

  But what revealed itself around him was beyond imagining.

  The platform drifted in the midst of a bottomless, endless library. Golden bookshelves soared downward and upward for hundreds of levels, vanishing into both gloom and radiance. Balconies, arranged at varying heights, were linked by graceful bridges cast from the same gold as the shelves. Along them moved silent golden marionettes—lifeless figures without faces. Their motions were mechanical: one sorting books, another arranging scrolls, a third dusting the shelves, maintaining the radiant order.

  The whole space hummed with the quiet echo of rustling pages. It seemed as if eternity itself had been bound here into words and symbols.

  But Kael didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow. His face remained the same—grim and detached. He looked upon the golden bridges and endless tiers with the indifference of one who had seen this view not once or twice, but thousands, tens of thousands of times.

  At the very edge of the platform rose a slender pedestal crowned with a transparent sphere. Its smooth surface shimmered with a gentle light, as though absorbing the breath of the library itself.

  Kael cast a heavy glance at it and muttered softly:

  “Today is the only day I can go against the will of the God of Knowledge and Madness. The only day I might gain even a hint of freedom, and feel mana for the first time… But I need to make sure he is gone…”

  He reached out his hand and touched the sphere. At once the platform quivered and drifted forward, gliding toward the nearest balcony where golden marionettes moved about.

  As it neared the edge, Kael barked sharply:

  “Hey, tin can! Has the Master already left?”

  One of the marionettes froze. Its movements stopped so abruptly it was as if some invisible string had been cut. Slowly it turned, bowed, and in a lifeless, hollow voice said:

  “The Millennial Assembly of Gods has already begun, so the Master has departed from the Divine Library. Before leaving, he commanded you to study everything about the Epoch of Origin. By his return you must be well informed, or you will face harsh punishment.”

  Kael sneered crookedly, a malicious spark glinting in his eyes.

  “Torture doesn’t frighten me anymore…” he said coldly.

  With those words, he touched the sphere again and steered the platform upward, toward the very summit of the endless Library.

  Floors and shelves flickered past, vanishing below, while golden bridges and balconies streamed by, like pages of a book turned by an unseen hand. The platform climbed ever higher, but Kael scarcely noticed. His gaze was fixed ahead, his thoughts far in the past.

  “Because of my weakness, my parents’ restaurant was destroyed, and my father crippled…” the dark thought surged in his mind. “And I—a foolish boy—decided to call upon the Gods, using an ancient ritual I found in books.”

  His fists clenched so tightly his nails bit into his palms. His face twisted with rage.

  “I sold myself into eternal slavery to the God of Knowledge and Madness in exchange for punishment of my tormentors…” Kael’s lips trembled. “Only then… I did not yet know what a bastard the Master truly was.”

  Memory flared: the moment when a portal yawned open before him and dragged him into this very Divine Library. The God of Knowledge and Madness allowed him to watch his enemies die in dreadful torment. But the satisfaction was short-lived.

  Their deaths unleashed a wave of accusations. All suspicion fell upon his parents. And Kael kept watching as judges pronounced the sentence and executioners raised their blades. His family—his mother, his father, even his little sister—all of them were executed.

  Then he screamed, wept, begged the God to intervene. But the God only laughed, savoring the child’s despair.

  “That was your first lesson,” he had said. “When making bargains, one must be precise in every detail. You did not mention your family in the agreement. Therefore, their lives hold no value.”

  And then… then Kael’s true hell began…