Chapter 3 | Part 5

The compound was in chaos when Drusniel arrived.

He slipped through the service entrance as evening settled over Umbra’kor, expecting the usual quiet of family dinnertime. Instead, he found servants rushing through corridors, his father’s voice raised in the distance, and an atmosphere of controlled panic that set his teeth on edge.

He found his mother in the main hall, directing servants with quick gestures.

“You’re back.” She turned toward him, and something in her expression—relief, quickly masked—made his stomach tighten. “Where have you been?”

“Walking. I needed air.” The lie came easily. Too easily. “What’s happening?”

“Later.” She gripped his arm and steered him toward the family quarters. “Your father needs to speak with you. Both of you—where’s Shyntara?”

“I don’t—”

Shyntara appeared at the far end of the corridor, moving with the quick efficiency of someone who’d already assessed whatever threat had arrived. “I’m here. What is it?”

Their mother’s jaw tightened. “The study. Now. Both of you.”

Their father stood behind his desk, hands flat on the scarred wood. The same posture he’d used when delivering news about the rival house. The same controlled tension in his shoulders.

But this time, there was fear behind his eyes. Barely held, and not quite hidden.

“Close the door,” he said.

Shyntara did. The click echoed in the narrow room.

“There’s been an incident.” Their father’s voice was flat, deliberately neutral. “Contacts in the outer districts were attacked last night. Three dead. The rest scattered.”

“Which contacts?” Shyntara asked.

“Informants. People who kept us aware of the enemy house’s movements.” He met her gaze. “We’re blind now. Whatever they’re planning, we won’t see it coming.”

Drusniel’s thumb tapped against his fingers. Seven, eight, nine. The counting helped him process what his father was saying. Informants dead. Information network collapsed. The rival house making aggressive moves.

Your family’s position may be more fragile than it appears.

Zaelar’s words echoed in his mind. He hadn’t realized how precarious.

“What do we do?” Drusniel asked.

His father’s attention shifted to him. Surprise crossed his face, quickly buried, as if he’d forgotten Drusniel was there. As if his youngest son had become background noise in the larger crisis.

“We stay vigilant. We trust no one outside these walls.” His gaze hardened. “And we do not leave the compound alone. Understood?”

The irony sat bitter in Drusniel’s throat. He’d spent the entire day on the surface, learning forbidden magic from a stranger, and his father was warning him about safety.

“Understood,” he said.

The meeting ended shortly after—logistics, patrol schedules, contingency plans. Drusniel listened without hearing most of it. His mind kept drifting back to the tower. To the candle flame bending. To the sensation of air actually listening to him.

When his father finally dismissed them, Drusniel retreated to his room and closed the door.

That night, the presence returned.

Drusniel was lying in darkness when he felt it—that familiar warmth at the edge of his awareness. The texture that felt like Annariel. Close enough that the differences didn’t matter.

Drus. How did it go?

He reached back toward the warmth. I found him. Zaelar. He tested me.

And?

Air and water. He says I have dual elemental affinity. Even thinking the words felt strange. He says that’s why the trial failed—Venemora’s blessing may not work with elemental magic. Something about incompatible frequencies.

A pulse of warmth. Satisfaction. I knew you were special. I always knew.

The validation washed over him, and Drusniel let himself sink into it. After his family’s distraction, after his father’s barely-concealed dismissal, the approval felt like water in a desert.

He’s going to train me, Drusniel continued. Starting tomorrow. Air magic first. He says the costs are manageable if I’m careful.

That’s wonderful. The presence radiated approval. I’m so proud of you. This is exactly what you needed.

Drusniel paused. Something about the response sat wrong—a familiar unease he couldn’t quite name.

You’re not going to ask what the training was like?

A pause. Longer than it should have been.

Tell me everything, the voice said finally. I want to hear all of it.

But Drusniel had noticed. The real Annariel would have asked immediately—would have peppered him with questions about technique, sensation, the specific feeling of touching real magic for the first time. The real Annariel was curious about everything, always, relentlessly.

This voice… waited. Let Drusniel lead. Responded instead of initiating.

It was hard, Drusniel sent, testing. The technique is about suggesting, not commanding. I overreached on my second attempt and scattered everything.

That sounds frustrating.

Generic. Sympathetic but vague. No follow-up questions about what “suggesting” felt like, about how air magic differed from what they’d practiced in the grove, about whether the sensation matched any of the stolen texts they’d studied together.

It was, Drusniel agreed. He didn’t elaborate.

You’ll get better, the voice assured him. I know you will. You’ve always been disciplined when you want something. This time you have real power to work with. Imagine how far you’ll go.

The encouragement felt hollow. Drusniel recognized the shape of it—validation designed to reinforce his choice, to make him feel good about the path he was taking. But something was missing. The specificity. The curiosity. The Annariel-ness of actual conversation.

I should rest, he sent. Zaelar says I need to let my body recover before tomorrow.

Of course. Rest well. The warmth began to fade. I’ll check on you again soon. I’m so glad you found him, Drus. This is exactly what was supposed to happen.

The presence withdrew.

Drusniel lay in the darkness, eyes fixed on a jagged crack in the tower ceiling. He followed it until his thoughts slowed.

Something was wrong with the voice. He’d felt it before—the empathy test that failed, the conversations that always curved toward Zaelar—but tonight the wrongness felt sharper. Clearer.

This is exactly what was supposed to happen.

Who talked like that? Annariel had never been certain about anything. He questioned everything, considered alternatives, argued with himself in the margins of every book he read. He didn’t declare that events were supposed to happen. That wasn’t how his mind worked.

But the alternative—the thought that the voice wasn’t Annariel, that something else was wearing his friend’s mental fingerprint—was too terrible to hold for long. If the voice was fake, then who had been guiding him? And why?

Drusniel pushed the questions away. They led nowhere good.

The power was real. Whatever else was true, that was real. He’d bent a candle flame with his mind. He’d felt air move at his suggestion. For the first time in his life, magic had actually worked for him.

He would go back to Zaelar tomorrow. Learn more. Grow stronger. And when he finally understood what had been taken from him in that trial chamber—

Then he would decide what to trust.

End of Chapter 3.5 —> 4.1: Forbidden Knowledge: The Old Texts