Marcus Valen stood alone in the dim, echoing corridor of the dormitory wing, the scroll Nilos had given him still faintly warm in his palm. The name—High Regent Cassian Valen—lingered like a curse etched directly into his mind. His uncle. The very man who had once sworn fealty to his father, the king, and yet had stood by and done nothing when the throne was stolen from him. The Dark Book pulsed faintly against his chest, a low thrum of agreement. Its pages whispered secrets only he could hear, a chorus of a single word: Opportunity.
A faint, unnatural shift in the air made him pause. He turned sharply, his senses honed to a razor's edge by years of betrayal and a lifetime of death. There. A flicker of motion at the periphery of his vision—a rune carved into the wall behind him, nearly invisible to the untrained eye.
Wind Eye Glyph. He frowned. Someone was watching. And not just any someone. This was the work of a professional, albeit a second-rate one.
By morning, tracing the glyph's origin to Simon Hurst hadn't been difficult. The glyphs were old magic, favored by low-tier spies of the Council who believed their craft was subtle. But they weren't invisible to one with a connection to the Void—that realm between realities, where even whispers left oily fingerprints on the fabric of existence.
Simon was waiting outside the library, his posture deliberately relaxed but his eyes sharp, calculating. He offered a practiced nod as Marcus approached. "Prince Valen," he greeted, his voice a study in neutrality. "Haven't seen you frequenting the archives often."
Marcus returned a polite, empty smile. "I find that libraries are best appreciated when one isn't being watched."
Simon's bland expression didn't change, but his mana flared for a split second—a telltale sign of surprise, quickly masked. "You're observant," he said lightly.
"And you're careless," Marcus replied, stepping closer, his voice dropping. "Leaving a Wind Eye glyph on my door? You must be either very confident in your abilities or very desperate for information."
Simon's jaw tightened. He knew he'd been caught, but he clearly couldn't fathom how. "I only wanted to know if the rumors were true," he admitted, shifting tactics. "About the… experiments beneath the academy."
Marcus raised a brow. "Experiments?"
"A student vanished from the lower dorms last week. No trace, no record. Some say it was an accident during a forbidden ritual. Others believe it was something worse—something that was awakened."
Marcus studied him carefully. The story was too clean, the details too vague. It was a perfectly timed fabrication meant to gauge his reaction. He let a flicker of genuine amusement cross his face. "And you think I have something to do with that?"
Simon hesitated, and Marcus pressed his advantage. "Let me tell you what I know. Your true mentor is Nilos Vesta. And he gave me a scroll last night—one with a great many names on it. Including your own."
Simon stiffened, his blood draining from his face. That was all the confirmation Marcus needed. He stepped back, brushing past Simon with a quiet murmur that was for his ears alone.
"Next time, pick a better story."
Later that night, during his assigned patrol shift near the eastern wing, Marcus felt it again—a ripple in the weave of reality. This wasn't the clumsy signature of a surveillance spell. This was something far more intimate, and far more sinister.
Soul weaving.
He followed the trail, a ghost in the shadows, until he reached an abandoned study hall. Inside, two cloaked figures moved with practiced ease. At the center of the room lay a young initiate, unconscious on a stone slab. Hovering above her head was a shimmering thread of glowing essence, slowly and delicately unraveling from her mind.
Katherine. He recognized her immediately. The soul mage held the luminous strand with impossible delicacy, her eyes focused, her lips murmuring incantations too ancient for common use. Her specialty was memory siphoning. Dangerous, forbidden, and extremely valuable to those who traded in secrets.
Marcus watched for a moment longer before stepping into view.
Katherine's hand snapped up, and the soul thread vanished instantly. She turned, her expression an unreadable mask of ice. "Valen," she said coolly. "This isn't what it looks like."
"No?" he asked, walking slowly around the slab, his gaze lingering on the unconscious student. "Because it looks precisely like you're harvesting memories from initiates under the cover of darkness. That's treason-level meddling, Katherine."
Her gaze hardened. "You wouldn't understand the necessity."
"Oh, I understand perfectly," he said softly. "You serve the Council. They want leverage. Secrets. Information to hold over the heads of their enemies. Or maybe," he paused, "you just enjoy peeling minds apart like fruit."
She didn't deny it. Marcus smiled—a chilling expression devoid of warmth. "But I also know what happens next. You'll try to erase this moment from my memory. When that fails, you'll try to kill me to be safe."
Katherine lifted a hand, shadows coiling at her fingertips. Before she could act, the room warped. The stone walls stretched into infinity. The ceiling dissolved into a cold void of mocking, alien stars. In the distance, ghostly figures emerged—the faces of the very Council members she served, watching her with silent judgment.
It was a perfect, inescapable illusion. Her breath hitched. "No," she whispered, her voice trembling. "They can't see—"
"They could," Marcus corrected, his voice a calm anchor in her collapsing reality. "If I wanted them to."
She whirled to face him, raw fear finally cracking her icy composure. He took a step closer, the illusion holding steady around them.
"Or… we could talk."
She stared at him, her mind racing, searching for the deceit, the trick. She found none. "What do you want?" she asked, the words barely a whisper.
"To offer you a choice," Marcus said simply. "Continue being their disposable blade… or become your own master."
By the time dawn broke, Marcus had another ally. He met him in the long shadow of the clock tower. Drew Caspar, the lowest rung of the academy's underworld, sold secrets like candy when he wasn't peddling contraband spellbooks. He was wary, sweating despite the morning chill.
"You saw through my disguise yesterday," Drew muttered, avoiding his eyes. "No one does that."
Marcus leaned against the cold stone wall. "I see things others don't." He pulled out a small obsidian token. "This grants you one week of temporary access to the restricted archives. A gift. In exchange, I want every report Simon Hurst has sent to the Council."
Drew's eyes widened. "You're asking me to betray a Council agent."
"No," Marcus said. "I'm asking you to choose who truly owns your loyalty. Them, or the value of this token."
A long silence passed. Then Drew snatched the token from his hand. "This won't be easy," he warned. "They're careful. But there's something odd I've noticed. Simon sends most of his messages through encrypted channels to the Council. But sometimes, they're addressed directly and privately to Nilos Vesta."
Marcus's eyes narrowed. So the scholar was playing both sides against the middle. Excellent. Everyone had secrets. He would make sure to collect them all.
The candlelight flickered across Marcus's face as he stared at the parchment spread across his desk. The name High Regent Cassian Valen pulsed faintly beneath his gaze. A slow smile tugged at his lips as he reached out, fingers brushing the edge of the Dark Book.
[System Prompt]:
Target identified: High Regent Cassian Valen — Estimated current Fate Value: 78.4%
Fate Link Detected: Aelia Serin (Fate Value: 65.2%)
Would you like to initiate Fate Siphon? Success chance: 43% | Temporary Fate Boost: +0.7%
Marcus tilted his head, then exhaled softly. "No," he murmured. "Not yet."
Instead, he traced a different name on the scroll—one less powerful but far more accessible. Simon Hurst. He opened the Dark Book fully, letting it absorb the mana of his will. Shadows curled from the corners of the room, seeping into the ink on the page.
Initiating Fate Siphon: Target – Simon Hurst
Resistance detected. Counter-seal engaged.
Rolling fate manipulation check…
Success!
+1.2% Fate Value acquired. New personal total: 54.9%
New option unlocked: 'Shadow Pact' — You may now issue one binding command to this target for 48 hours.
Marcus leaned back in his chair, satisfied. The first pawn was now his to command.
Later that evening, Lena Sering stood before a vast, enchanted mirror deep within the academy's restricted archives. Her hands trembled as she chanted an incantation. Her reflection shimmered… and changed.
It was no longer her own face staring back. It was Marcus's.
She gasped, stumbling back. Behind her, Augustus Glem watched with narrowed eyes. "Her magical signature is clean," he muttered to someone else in the shadows.
From that darkness stepped Katherine, her gloved hand holding a vial of swirling gray mist—the distilled essence of stolen memories. "She's been compromised," Katherine corrected coldly, her voice sharp. "Her mind has been touched by an outside force. And not by us."
Augustus stiffened. Lena turned sharply. "What are you talking about?"
Katherine ignored her, her gaze fixed on the mirror where Marcus's face had been. "Someone is playing a deeper game than we are," she said. "Someone who can mask himself even in scrying reflections."
And somewhere, unseen, Marcus watched them through a hidden scrying node he had embedded in the ancient glass. He had planted the seeds of doubt. Now, all he needed to do was watch them grow.