The mirror's reflection shimmered for a final heartbeat—too brief for anyone but Marcus to notice—before he withdrew his consciousness from the scrying node. He stood in the shadows of his own room, his expression unreadable. The tension he had witnessed in the archives had been thick enough to slice with a dagger. Katherine's revelation about Lena's compromised mind had sent perfect ripples of paranoia through the little group of conspirators.
It was exactly what he wanted. Seeds of doubt blooming into a garden of paranoia. Let them begin to tear each other apart.
A soft knock at his dormitory door broke the silence. He opened it to find the corridor empty. Slipped beneath the frame was a folded letter. No wax seal, no noble crest. But the scent that clung to the parchment was unmistakable.
Jasmine and ink. Leah Veil.
He snatched it up, scanning the hallway one last time before retreating inside and bolting the door. Unfolding the parchment, his eyes darted across the elegant, familiar script:
"To the Shadow Prince,
Forgive this secrecy, but I have little choice. Mirra is alive—alive and under watch at the estate in Virelle Hollow. She has not forgotten you. Nor has she forgiven herself. This list will tell you who betrayed your blood. Guard it well.
Leah."
Attached was a second page, written in a complex cipher he hadn't seen since his first reign. His pulse quickened. This was real. Not illusion. Not a memory dredged up by the Codex. This was a fact, delivered from the world of the living.
He reached out through the shadows of his room, summoning Katherine without delay. She appeared moments later, a ghost of motion at his doorway, her gloved fingers brushing the frame as if testing for enchantments.
"You summoned me." It was a statement, not a question.
"I did," Marcus said, sliding the letter across the table. "Decrypt this."
Katherine raised a single, skeptical eyebrow. "That handwriting…"
"Mirra's," he confirmed, his voice flat.
Her lips pressed into a thin, hard line. She took the letter, her own magic—subtle and sharp as a needle—already weaving into the ink of the cipher. "If this is genuine—"
"It is," Marcus interrupted. "Leah wouldn't risk contact otherwise."
They worked in silence for nearly ten minutes, the only sound the faint crackle of the hearth fire. The cipher unraveled like silk threads pulling loose. Names emerged, stark and damning on the page.
Augustus Glem. Nilos Vesta. Aelia Serin. Simon Hurst. Katherine herself was listed, but with a note beside her name: unverified, loyalty unknown. Marcus's gaze locked on the final name, the one at the very top of the list. Leona Sering. The mother of Lena Sering. The true mastermind behind the betrayal of his family. His jaw tightened until it ached. That name had never surfaced before. But now it was there, inked in Mirra's trembling hand.
"The loyalty of these primary names?" he asked, his voice low.
Katherine scanned the document again. "The probability of their direct involvement is high. Unless this is all part of an elaborate ploy by Nilos to feed us misinformation."
"We'll assume it's true," Marcus said, a cold fire lighting his eyes. "And we will act accordingly."
Two days later, beneath the shadowed corridors of the academy's lower levels, a clandestine meeting convened. Decks of enchanted playing cards flickered with glowing runes as DeWitt Caspar dealt hands to three new recruits—two nervous students from the alchemy wing, one quiet girl from the divination department. Each had been vetted personally by Marcus. None knew his true identity. To them, he was only "The Scribe."
"You understand the rules," DeWitt said, his voice a low rumble. "Speak of this out of turn, and the deck will remember your names."
They nodded, their faces pale in the flickering card-light.
Behind the wall, unseen in an adjoining chamber, Marcus observed. With a focused thought, he activated the 'Shadow Pact' ability granted by his Dark Book—a new feature unlocked after absorbing enough residual karma from the Academy's endless rivalries. Calla, the young diviner, felt a sudden, inexplicable chill crawl down her spine, a feeling not of fear, but of profound certainty. On Marcus's invisible interface, her loyalty bar ticked upward by a mere 0.8%. He didn't force allegiance. He merely nudged it toward inevitability.
"Begin surveillance," DeWitt whispered, his instructions crisp. "Your targets are Nilos Vesta, Aelia Serin, and Simon Hurst. Report anything unusual via the encoded glyphs I gave you. Use the dark cipher only. Never speak their names aloud."
The trio nodded again, entirely unaware that their fates had just been irrevocably shifted by a will they could not comprehend. Marcus turned away. The network was forming. Slowly. Painstakingly. Like a spider weaving its web, thread by patient thread.
Days passed. Then came the test of steel.
Valk Taron fought like a beast wounded beyond reason. Three of Nilos's elite guards lay dead in the rain-slicked alley behind the library. Two more had fled. But Valk was grievously injured—his left arm broken at an unnatural angle, his ribs audibly cracked. He collapsed against the grimy brick wall, blood pooling around him.
Through a scrying node anchored to a nearby gargoyle, Marcus watched. He didn't intervene. He waited.
Minutes ticked by, each one an eternity. No one came for the fallen prince of the north. Not his so-called ally Aelia. Not the opportunistic Augustus. Not even the informant Drew. They had left him to die.
Only when the last ember of Valk's life force began to flicker did Marcus finally move. He stepped through the shadows, materializing beside the wounded man. A single touch from his palm to Valk's chest, and the bleeding stopped. The worst of the wounds sealed over with dark energy. Not healed—but stabilized.
Valk coughed up a gout of blood, his eyes wide with a mixture of pain and raw disbelief. "You… you let me die," he rasped.
"No," Marcus corrected, his voice as cold as the rain. "I let them decide whether they would save you. They chose not to."
Valk's ragged breathing steadied. So did the furious resolve in his eyes.
"They do not deserve your loyalty," Marcus continued softly. "Nor, perhaps, do I—until I have proven otherwise. But I am the one who is here."
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the drumming of the rain. Then, Valk sat up slowly, wincing through the pain. He looked at Marcus, his gaze clear and absolute. "From now on… I serve only you."
Marcus offered a hand. Valk took it. The pact was forged anew, sealed in blood and betrayal.
That night, Marcus returned to his room. The fire crackled in the hearth. The wards on his door hummed with quiet power. All seemed still.
But someone had been inside. Lena Sering. Her presence lingered in the air like expensive, cloying perfume. Subtle. Seductive. Dangerous.
He walked over to the wardrobe, feigning ignorance, but his senses were already screaming. As expected, the faintest ripple in the air near his bed signaled a spell taking root. An illusionary trap woven expertly into the bed linens. If he'd lain down, his mind would have been ensnared for hours, vulnerable and exposed.
Marcus smiled coldly. He traced the magical signature back to its source. Lena had used her personal sigil—her family's crest etched subtly into the very weave of the enchantment. She was growing bold. Or perhaps just careless.
Either way, she had already lost. Hidden beneath the floorboards, embedded within the very fabric of the room's foundation, was a glyph Marcus had placed weeks ago—a Void Imprint, a beautiful piece of magic designed to absorb and perfectly reverse hostile illusions.
It pulsed once, a soft thrum of dark power. The trap reversed.
Now, wherever Lena tried to rest tonight—in her bed, in a chair, even leaning against a wall—she would feel the same enchantment reflecting inward upon her. Soon, she would be trapped in her own nightmares. He could almost hear her scream before she even realized what had happened.
The game had changed. And this time, he was the one setting the board.