Lohan moves through the crowded candlelit corridors of the guild hall, a pulse of nerves and stubborn will guiding him toward the morning’s test. He has long suspected that magic isn’t a gift to be...
Lohan moves through the crowded candlelit corridors of the guild hall, a pulse of nerves and stubborn will guiding him toward the morning’s test. He has long suspected that magic isn’t a gift to be owned, but a pact to be kept—between what you owe the world and what it owes you in return. Tonight the corridor hints at danger: a mislaid sigil, a shadow that refuses to dissipate, a trainer’s watchful eye that seems to measure every unspoken fear. He lingers by the furnace where names are burned into clay and promises are sealed with heat. The city outside murmurs with rain and rumor, and Lohan cannot tell which will decide his fate first—the stubborn stubbornness of his own heart, or the stubborn will of the magic that calls him. In the quiet after a failed spell, he discovers a fragment of power hotter than flame and more fragile than glass, a key not to doors but to identities he has yet to admit. Between lessons, he guards a friend who doesn’t always know they’re in danger, and in that protection, he finds that being brave may mean choosing when to stay silent, when to speak, and when to run toward the danger he’s learned to fear.
