The days following Kaela’s return dragged like leaden hours across Altharion’s mind. He watched her sink deeper into herself, her fire dimmed to embers, and saw in her hollow gaze the echo of everything he feared: that no matter how powerful a mage was, they were nothing but fuel to a system that burned the brightest among them first.
He couldn’t focus in class. His conjurations became erratic, more visceral. His professors took note. Whispers followed him through the halls. Paladins, who once merely observed, now lingered wherever he went—shadows of Elyonel in polished armor.
He no longer tried to hide his disdain. When a fellow student whispered a prayer of thanks to a paladin for “keeping them safe,” Altharion had scoffed aloud. “Safe from what? From ourselves?”
But one name still held weight for him. One voice could still anchor him.
Meridan Thalnos.
They met in the professor’s chambers, a sanctum of wood and warmth amid the cold stone of the academy. Scrolls lined every wall, candles burned low, and a pot of bitterleaf tea steamed gently on the desk.
Altharion paced, arms crossed. “You knew what would happen to her. You knew what they do in those sanctuaries. And you let it happen.”
Meridan sat, older than ever, his long silver hair tied back, his gaze steady. “I didn’t let it happen. I couldn’t stop it.”
“You’re one of the most respected minds here, Meridan. You could’ve protected her. You could’ve stopped them from breaking her.”
The old mage took a breath, then exhaled slowly. “I tried. But you must understand—Kaela isn’t lost. She’s wounded. There’s a difference.”
Altharion’s voice dropped. “She carves words into her skin, Meridan. She repeats prayers like they were beaten into her. That’s not a wound. That’s a scar burned into her soul.”
Meridan’s hands folded over one another. “She is strong, Altharion. Stronger than you realize. She will return. She just needs time.”
“I’ve given this place enough time,” Altharion snapped. “All of us have. And what do we get? Chains dressed as lessons. Fear masquerading as faith.”
Meridan stood then, slowly. “You are young. Your fire blinds you to the slow pace of change. But it does change—through patience, through perseverance.”
“I’m tired of patience,” Altharion hissed. “All it’s ever gotten me is silence.”
He turned to leave, but Meridan stepped forward, reaching out as if to say something more—something heavy, perhaps dangerous—but the words caught in his throat. He hesitated, then slowly lowered his hand.
Altharion looked back once, fuming. “You’re not who I thought you were.”
To that, Meridan gave a tired smile. “No. I’m exactly who you think I am. Just older… and slower than you want me to be.”
Altharion didn’t reply. He turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him.
The silence that followed was almost holy.
Meridan remained still for a long moment, staring at the closed door.
Then, to no one in particular, he whispered:
“Goodbye, Altharion. May the stars be kind when they weigh your soul.”
The sun filtered gently through the stained-glass windows of the academy hall, casting hues of violet and amber on the polished floors. The air was almost light for once—Kaela had laughed.
A real laugh.
It had been a jest from Torrin, of all people. Something dry and cutting about paladin helmets being fashion statements from an older, duller era. And Kaela, sitting beside Altharion with a bowl of untouched soup, had let out a soft snort. Then, after a heartbeat, a light giggle.
Everyone froze. Then smiled. Even Altharion.
She was still fragile—thin, haunted around the eyes—but that spark, that tiny flicker of who she had been, gave Altharion hope. He felt the knot in his chest loosen, and for the first time in weeks, he believed that maybe, just maybe, everything could begin to heal.
That hope lasted only until the next morning.
A surprise assembly was called. Students filled the ceremonial hall, whispering anxiously. The new Head of Arcane Administration, a gaunt man with a pallid voice named Magistrate Velcross, stood at the center of the platform.
“We bring grave news,” he announced, his tone devoid of sympathy. “A breach of trust has occurred within our sacred institution. One of our senior masters has been found guilty of high heresy.”
Altharion frowned. His heart skipped.
“The individual in question—Meridan Thalnos—has been convicted of the study and dissemination of forbidden magical arts. A grimoire, once contained within the restricted vaults of our library, was found missing. The charges include illegal arcane experimentation, manipulation of students, and attempted subversion of academy doctrine.”
A murmur rolled through the crowd like thunder.
Velcross raised a hand. “By the authority of the Church of Elyonel and the Inquisition, the sentence was carried out last night. Master Meridan was purified in flame, in accordance with sacred law.”
Silence.
For a moment, Altharion couldn’t breathe.
The room blurred.
“Meridan…?” he whispered, barely audible.
“Furthermore,” Velcross continued, “a report made by one of his colleagues confirms that the master had been influencing a student under his care—though we have yet to identify which. Rest assured, measures are being taken to find the accomplice.”
Altharion stumbled backward.
The world tilted.
It was his fault.
The grimoire. The conversations. The magic. The whispers. The pain.
Meridan had tried to protect him. He had known. That cryptic goodbye… he had known.
Altharion didn’t remember leaving the hall. He only remembered the door of his dormitory slamming shut. The grimoire was already waiting for him beneath the loose floorboard. When his fingers touched its cover, the air itself seemed to hold its breath.
He opened it.
No hesitation this time.
For days, he locked himself away. Curtains drawn. Candles burned to stubs. Food left at his door went untouched. Kaela knocked once. Then twice. Then stopped.
Torrin left a sarcastic note that went unread.
Nurelion lingered, but even he knew better than to interfere with someone mourning in silence.
Inside that room, Altharion devoured knowledge like a man dying of thirst. The text was endless, its glyphs shifting like living things. He read spells meant to shatter minds. He studied rituals that reached into the void and beckoned something ancient.
He saw visions—of fire, of ash, of Meridan screaming not in pain, but in sorrow.
And through it all, the grimoire whispered to him in a voice both terrifying and familiar:
“They burned the wrong man. But you… you could burn the world and be right.”
The shadows had ceased to be whispers.
Now they were breath.
They moved with Altharion, slithering from the corners of his room like tame serpents, dancing along the edges of his skin like cold silk. In the flicker of candlelight, they listened. In silence, they spoke.
And when they did… they spoke in two voices.
One deep, ancient, like stone grinding against stone:
“You are more than they ever allowed you to be. Surrender to what you are.”
The other softer, subtle, the sound of wind through an open tome:
“You do not have to become the storm to weather it. Use what you know. But remain yourself.”
These voices were not hallucinations. They were something else. Not imagination, but echoes from the grimoire—a living artifact that pulsed now like a second heart.
Altharion had stopped fearing it. The shadows were not enemies. They were tools. Weapons. Extensions of thought and emotion, responding to will with terrifying precision.
And now… he had a name.
The paladin who had witnessed Meridan’s arrest.
Alone, at the edge of the training yards, the man patrolled with an arrogance that dripped from every clink of armor. Altharion watched from the shadows—not just hidden, but within them.
With a breath, the world dimmed.
The shadows surged forward.
Chains of darkness wrapped the paladin before he could call for help, yanking him into a whispering alcove behind the barracks. His eyes widened as the dark magic crawled into his ears, his nose, his mind. Altharion didn’t need words—he poured himself into the paladin’s consciousness, tearing through memories like parchment.
Screams echoed.
Not out loud—only within.
He saw faces, conversations, a trembling hand passing a sealed report to the inquisitors.
A name.
Professor Velroth.
Then silence. The paladin’s mind snapped like a bowstring. His body convulsed and crumpled.
Altharion stood over the corpse, breathing heavily.
The voices were quiet now. Content.
That night, the shadows guided him to the professor’s home—nestled on the outer ring of the campus, where senior staff enjoyed the illusion of privacy. The grimoire was hidden beneath his cloak, cold against his ribs.
The door creaked open.
Professor Velroth looked up from his desk, confused. The glow of his reading candle caught the moment he recognized Altharion—and fear bloomed.
Too late.
The shadows struck.
Velroth was lifted into the air, bound by tendrils of pitch, his mouth gagged by silence itself.
Altharion’s eyes glowed faintly, the veins in his arms crawling with black light.
“You denounced him,” he said calmly. “You sent Meridan to burn.”
Velroth struggled, eyes wild. He tried to plead—Altharion didn’t listen.
The shadow-laced blade formed in his hand—wrought not of steel, but of hatred and betrayal.
He raised it.
And then he heard them.
Whimpers.
Children. A woman. Standing behind the archway—eyes wide with horror. A little boy clutched his mother’s dress, trembling. The woman wept silently.
Altharion’s breath caught.
The blade flickered.
The voices returned.
“They are not your enemy,” said the soft one.
“You’ve come this far. Finish it,” hissed the other.
He stood frozen.
The blade vanished.
And suddenly he could see himself—really see—as if from outside. The dark hood, the flickering magic, the corpses in his wake. The symbol he had become.
He lowered his hand.
Velroth slumped to the floor, unconscious.
Without a word, Altharion turned and ran—vanishing into the alleyways, the shadows opening like a lover’s embrace and swallowing him whole.
Back in his chamber, the grimoire lay open on the floor, pages flipping in an invisible wind.
He sank to his knees before it.
Not in fear.
But in shame.
“He’s gone,” Altharion whispered to no one. “And I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t save myself.”
He didn’t regret what he’d done.
Only that it hadn’t brought peace.
Meridan was still dead.
Kaela was still broken.
And the world still burned with injustice.
The shadows pulsed again, waiting.
The walls of the Academy no longer offered sanctuary.
They loomed like prison bars.
Altharion moved with purpose through the empty corridors, his footsteps soft, his cloak drawn tight. The grimoire pulsed beneath the fabric, close to his chest. Behind him, the voices of pursuit were growing—armor clanking, commands shouted. Paladins.
He had delayed too long.
He had hoped to escape without violence.
He was wrong.
Turning a corner, he found the eastern cloister sealed—three paladins blocking the arch, weapons drawn. Their eyes burned with righteous fire.
“Altharion of Eldorath,” one barked. “By decree of the Church of Elyonel, you are to be detained and tried for heresy, conspiracy, and murder.”
Altharion raised his hands slowly. His voice was steady, but his heart pounded.
“I don’t want to fight. Let me leave. I’ve taken enough already.”
One paladin stepped forward and slammed a sanctified ward into the floor—a null seal. A glyph blazed with holy light, severing his connection to the arcane flow in a pulse of agony.
The shadows recoiled.
Magic died in his veins like breath in icy water.
He staggered.
The other paladins closed in.
They didn’t intend to arrest him.
They intended to break him.
He ran.
Through winding staircases and memory-laden halls, he fled. More paladins appeared from every direction, activating null glyphs in staggered intervals to suffocate his magic and block teleportation.
Every time he tried to cast—his hands trembling with instinct—the glyphs would trigger. Arcs of divine light would stab through him, splintering concentration.
He reached the central corridor. The chapel tower loomed ahead.
And waiting there—
Velroth.
The professor stood encased in holy sigils, guarded by two more paladins. His expression was triumphant. Cold. Justifying.
“You should have fled when you had the chance, Altharion,” he said. “But now… you’ll burn with the rest of your heresy.”
Altharion’s knees buckled. The weight of suppression, exhaustion, and grief bore down like a storm. His magic was flickering. Flickering.
The grimoire pulsed once.
Then again.
And then—screamed.
BOOM.
The explosion shattered the air.
Shadows erupted in a storm of black flame and soundless thunder. The corridor collapsed in arcs of twisting, coiling energy—like serpents devouring the marble.
Paladins screamed.
Students nearby were hurled through the air like leaves in a gale.
Velroth, caught at the epicenter, was vaporized before he could finish casting a ward. Only ash remained.
The wards shattered. So did the windows. The stained-glass of Elyonel’s eye imploded in shards across the hallway.
When the dust settled—
Dead.
Three paladins. Two students. Others lay wounded, burned, unconscious.
Blood stained the ancient floors.
Altharion stood at the heart of the devastation, cloak torn, his body scorched, magic sputtering at the edge of collapse. The grimoire hung open in his hand, pages fluttering as if laughing.
In the distance, a voice cried:
“Altharion?”
He turned.
Kaela. Nurelion. Torrin.
They stood amidst the wreckage, frozen.
Their faces said everything.
Fear.
Altharion looked down at his blood-soaked hands.
His heart cracked.
“I—”
He didn’t finish.
With the last breath of power in his body, he vanished into shadow. The corridor swallowed him whole.
And the Academy of Eldoria would never speak his name without fear again.
Chronicles of Astravara 