Nathan drifted into consciousness like a stone sinking in reverse.

  He wasn’t aware of his body at first—only the soft pressure of heat blooming beneath his sternum. It pulsed faintly, like an echo of something that had already happened, as though the explosion from the testing chamber was still moving through him, ripple by ripple.

  Then came the pain.

  Not sharp. Not even burning. Just present. A tension in his muscles like he’d spent hours bracing against a storm.

  His eyes opened slowly.

  Above him, a glowing rune hovered, flickering in and out of visibility—gold at the edges, but incomplete. Half a circle, half a name. It pulsed without rhythm. The light almost hummed.

  He was in a bed. Crisp linen sheets. Clean white stone walls. An orb above his head cast soft illumination, adjusting its glow as he blinked. Everything was too quiet.

  And then came the voices.

  Low. Sharp-edged. Professorial.

  “He’s stabilized, but we still can’t classify the reading.”

  “No recorded affinity signature. It spiked off every scale. Even the fallback glyph collapsed.”

  “He touched the Sun relic,” someone whispered. “It shouldn’t have reacted. It shouldn’t have even been active.”

  Nathan tried to sit up, but his limbs felt distant.

  A chair scraped. Footsteps approached. A figure leaned into view—bronze skin, tightly braided silver hair, warm brown robes etched with mirrored script.

  Professor Alorra.

  She looked tired. Controlled.

  “Nathan,” she said gently. “You’re awake.”

  He tried to respond. It came out as a rasp. She handed him a small glass of something cool that tasted faintly like mint and stars. The tension in his throat eased.

  “What happened?” he managed.

  Professor Alorra stepped aside. Another figure entered his view.

  Professor Brannock—broad-shouldered, storm-gray eyes, casting robes rumpled like he’d been pacing for hours. His arms were folded, and his expression was pure disapproval.

  “You melted half the testing chamber,” he said.

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “No one ever does,” he muttered.

  Kirin Valen followed. Professor of Runes. Thin as a reed, long coat trailing behind him like a wisp of smoke. He adjusted his iridescent glasses and stared intently at the rune above Nathan’s chest.

  “It’s still unstable,” Kirin muttered. “I’ve never seen one refuse classification before.”

  “What does that mean?” Nathan asked.

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  “It means,” Alorra said smoothly, “that no official affinity has been assigned. Yet.”

  Nathan blinked. “But I… touched one of the relics.”

  Kirin nodded. “The eighth. The Sun relic. And it responded.”

  “I didn’t even think,” he murmured. “It called to me.”

  There was a long pause.

  Brannock turned his back. “He shouldn’t attend Casting until we’ve confirmed it. If he’s not Sun, and if he’s not anything else, then he’s a channel with no boundaries. That’s dangerous.”

  “He’s a student,” Alorra said sharply. “Not a weapon.”

  “He could become one.”

  Nathan sat up more fully. “I heard something. A voice. Not… normal.”

  Kirin looked up.

  “What did it say?”

  Nathan hesitated, for some reason he felt like he couldn’t divulge this secret.

  “I can’t remember.”

  Kirin stopped scribbling mid-air. Alorra’s eyes narrowed.

  Brannock just muttered, “Maker’s breath…”

  “It spoke to you?” Alorra asked. “Directly?”

  Nathan nodded. “I think it… knew me.”

  Kirin turned away and conjured a floating slate. “No prior record of these occurrences in Sun-based affinities. Not in Moon, either. Not even in corrupted Blood interactions.”

  Alorra gave him a tight nod. “Keep it quiet.”

  Brannock exhaled through his nose. “And what if that wasn’t Sun? What if he awakened something older? Something worse?”

  Nathan flinched.

  Alorra turned back to him, softer now. “You’re not in trouble, Nathan. We don’t know what happened in there, but we know you’re alive. You didn’t burn. You didn’t break.”

  Nathan glanced at the rune still flickering above him.

  “Feels like I might have,” he said.

  Kirin gestured to the rune. “We’ll continue monitoring this. You are—officially—unclassified. You’ll receive a temporary modified curriculum until further clarity emerges.”

  “In plain words,” Brannock grunted, “no solo casting. No combat. No raw channeling.”

  “And no pushing,” Alorra added firmly. “We will understand this. In time.”

  They left him then, murmuring in low voices as they exited the ward.

  The door hissed shut behind them.

  The room was silent again.

  Except—

  Nathan frowned.

  There it was again.

  Just beneath the edge of his hearing.

  A low, thin chord of sound—like a bow drawn across a single string. Not loud. Not even present, really. Just… remembered.

  Like something waiting to be played again.

  Lissandre was waiting for him when the nurses finally released him.

  She sat cross-legged on the floor just outside the infirmary, surrounded by three floating stones that hummed to her internal beat. A candle flickered midair above her, burning sideways.

  “You’re alive,” she said flatly, not looking up.

  “Hi,” Nathan said, sheepish.

  “You’re late,” she added. “And you missed dinner.”

  “They didn’t tell me what I am,” he said.

  “I know.”

  He blinked. “You know?”

  “You don’t explode a testing chamber and not become the center of hallway gossip.”

  She stood up, brushed herself off, and gave him a long once-over.

  “You look like you fought the sun and made out with it.”

  Nathan laughed, despite himself. “That bad?”

  “That shiny.”

  They walked back together through the lower halls, past open archways filled with music, students practicing runes, dueling sparks lighting the sky. Nathan noticed the way people paused as he passed.

  They were watching him.

  Some curious.

  Some wary.

  Some scared.

  “What are they saying?” he asked.

  “That you triggered a relic that hasn’t spoken in a millennium,” Lissandre replied.

  Nathan slowed.

  She looked at him sideways. “Also that you might be the rebirth of the Reaper, or a long-lost chosen one, or a mistake the realm is trying to erase. Take your pick.”

  He winced. “Great.”

  “Also also,” she said, “Krit’s been asking about you.”

  Krit found him that evening, sitting alone under the arch near the reflecting pools, where the stars overhead were mirrored so perfectly in the water it looked like the sky had folded inward.

  They didn’t say hello. Just sat beside him in silence.

  “I didn’t tell them everything,” Nathan said after a while.

  Krit nodded. “Good.”

  “I saw a version of me. In the mirror.”

  “Silver eyes?” they asked without missing a beat.

  Nathan stared. “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t,” they said. “I guessed. Because that’s what you’re afraid of. Being something other. Being recognized.”

  They looked at him carefully. “I hear things sometimes too. Not music, though. More like pressure. But when you walked past me after the test? It was like the wind held its breath.”

  Nathan hesitated. “Do you know what a Composer is?”

  “No,” Krit said. “But you don’t name something like that without reason.”

  Nathan looked out at the pool. His reflection rippled.

  “I think I broke something,” he whispered.

  Krit didn’t correct him.

  They didn’t offer comfort, or silence, or lies.

  They just said: “Good. Now you get to put it back together in your shape.”