Chapter 2 | Part 3

The messages came more frequently over the next two days.

Not constantly—the connection seemed to require effort on both ends. But each night, the presence would flicker at the edge of Drusniel’s awareness. Each night, he would reach toward it, and each night, “Annariel’s” voice would fill the silence.

They talked about the trial. About Drusniel’s isolation. About his family’s awkward attempts at normalcy. The presence was warm, concerned, sympathetic in all the right ways.

And slowly, relentlessly, it pushed him toward Zaelar.

The mages here talk about blocked candidates, the voice said on the second night. It’s rare, but it happens. When someone powerful enough doesn’t want a candidate to pass.

Drusniel lay in darkness, staring at the ceiling. Blocked. You mean deliberately.

Think about it. The presence pulsed with urgency. Who would benefit if you failed? Who might see you as a threat?

I’m not a threat to anyone. I’m nobody.

You’re not nobody. A pause. You’re smarter than most of the people who passed, Drus. You always have been. Maybe someone noticed. Maybe they saw a candidate who asked too many questions, who didn’t just accept what he was told.

The words stirred something uncomfortable in his chest. Pride and doubt, tangled together.

You think someone deliberately blocked me?

I don’t know for certain. But it’s possible. And Zaelar might know how to tell.

It was the third time in two nights that the conversation had curved back to the surface mage. Drusniel noticed the pattern. Filed it away.

On the third night, he tested something.

The presence arrived as usual—a warmth at the edge of awareness, followed by words pressed into his mind like fingerprints.

How are you feeling?

Drusniel didn’t answer right away. Instead, he did what he and Annariel had done a thousand times in the grove. He tapped his thumb against his fingers. One, two, three. Slow and deliberate.

The old game. Read me.

A pause.

You’re worried about your family, the voice said. That’s natural. The political situation is dangerous.

Drusniel’s stomach tightened. Wrong answer.

The real Annariel would have said: You’re doing your wall-tracing thing. Three lines. You’re scared, not worried. Big difference.

The real Annariel knew the game. Knew the tells. Knew that three taps meant fear, four meant calculation, seven meant family. They’d invented the system together over years of practice.

This voice knew what Drusniel felt. It didn’t know how it knew.

Drus? The presence flickered with concern. Are you alright?

Fine. He kept his thoughts carefully neutral. Just tired.

The effort of holding back—of not asking why the test had failed, why the voice felt different—made his head throb.

You should rest. We can talk tomorrow.

No, I— He hesitated. Pushed down the doubt. Tell me more about Zaelar. What else have you heard?

The presence continued, as if the question had never happened.

He’s powerful. That much is clear. The mages here speak of him in whispers—some say he was exiled from Umbra’kor decades ago. Others say he left by choice. A pause. I don’t know which is true. I only hear fragments, pieces of conversations I’m not supposed to overhear. But they say he understands magic the way a smith understands iron. Not just how to use it—how it works. How it breaks.

How it breaks. The words landed heavily.

If someone blocked your connection to Venemora, Zaelar might know the method. The signatures. He might be able to identify who did it.

Drusniel closed his eyes. The doubt still gnawed at him—the wrongness of the empathy test, the strange pattern of every conversation returning to the same name. But beneath the doubt, something larger pulled at him.

Answers.

He wanted them more than he wanted safety. More than he wanted to stay hidden in his room, waiting for his father to remake him into an assassin.

There’s something else, the voice said carefully. I didn’t want to say it before. I wasn’t sure you were ready.

Say it.

They fear your mind, Drusniel. The presence pulsed with conviction. At least, that’s what I think. You’re smarter than most. Smarter than people who teach in the training halls. If someone blocked you—and I believe someone did—maybe that’s why. They saw what you could become.

The words hit like a fist to the chest.

Not because they were insulting. Because they were exactly what Drusniel had always wanted to hear.

All his life, he’d been measured against Shyntara. Against his parents’ expectations. Against the endless pressure to be enough—not special, just sufficient. Average. The word his father had never said but always implied.

And now this voice—Annariel’s voice—was telling him the opposite. That he wasn’t average. That he was so exceptional, so threatening, that someone had sabotaged his trial to keep him contained.

It felt like truth. It felt like everything he’d ever needed to believe about himself.

It also felt rehearsed.

You were always meant for more than what they allowed you, the voice continued. Something took that from you. Don’t you want to know what?

Drusniel’s thumb brushed his fingertips, then stilled. The repetition helped him think.

This was the moment. The decision point. He could push back—ask why Annariel’s voice felt different, why the game hadn’t worked, why every conversation led to the same destination.

But the thought of pushing back made his chest tighten. The connection offered warmth, comfort, validation. Questioning it felt like stepping out of a warm room into cold wind.

Or he could accept the comfort being offered and follow where it led.

Yes, he sent. I want to know.

Then go to Zaelar. The presence warmed with approval. Find him on the surface. Ask your questions. I can’t help you from here, Drus. I’m trapped in training, isolated, useless. A thread of frustration. But he can help. He knows things about magic that nobody else does.

A pause. Then, softer:

I’ve been thinking about this longer than you have. I know it’s hard to see clearly when you’re in the middle of it.

Drusniel thought about the wrongness. The test that had failed. The conversations that always circled back.

But he also thought about the void in his chest. The feeling of something taken. The certainty that he had done everything right and still lost everything.

If there was a chance—any chance—of understanding what had happened…

I’ll find him, he sent.

Good. The presence began to fade, as it always did near the end of their conversations. Trust me, Drus. I know what’s best for you now.

The words should have been comforting.

Instead, they left a strange taste in Drusniel’s mind. Like a meal that looked right but smelled wrong.

Trust me.

Annariel had never spoken like that. He’d never claimed to know what was best. Their friendship had been built on equality—two boys reaching for something beyond their station, neither one leading the other.

But grief changed people. Isolation changed people. Maybe training was reshaping Annariel into someone more confident, more directive.

Or maybe—

Drusniel pushed the thought away before it could fully form.

Goodnight, he sent into the fading warmth.

No answer. The presence was already gone.

He lay in darkness, alone again, the doubt coiled in his stomach like a snake.

Something was wrong. He could feel it.

But the pull toward answers was stronger than the whisper of warning. And somewhere on the surface, a mage named Zaelar was waiting.

End of Chapter 2.3 — continues in Chapter 2.4: Voices in the Dark: The Decision