He barely noticed Naya approach. She sat beside him without asking, quiet for a moment.
"You scare me sometimes," she admitted.
He blinked, startled.
"Why?"
"Because you carry something… heavier than the rest of us. And no one sees it but me."
Kael said nothing. But her words cut deeper than anything the nobles had thrown at him.
---
Across the flames, the noble sons watched him. Ryn Valcor, son of a Duke, leaned closer to his companions.
"He disappears into the ground, comes back a wreck, and suddenly everyone's whispering his name like he's some hero," he sneered.
"Maybe he is," one of the younger nobles muttered, nervously glancing Kael's way.
Ryn's hand smacked the back of the boy's head. "Don't be stupid. He's nothing. Filthy blood. No crest. No star. Just a bug waiting to be crushed."
But deep down… even Ryn wasn't sure anymore.
---
That night, Kael couldn't sleep.
Something had changed.
Not just in him — but in the world around him.
The stars felt closer. The air heavier. The whispers hadn't stopped.
He reached for his satchel, opening it to reveal an old, tattered book he'd taken from the hidden chamber — something bound in dragon-hide, etched in symbols that seemed to move when unobserved.
He didn't know what it meant.
But it called to him.
And far above the academy, in the floating citadel of the Sky Throne where the elders watched all trials… a sigil glowed in warning.
A child with no crest had awakened a sealed path.
And history was shifting again.