A Hero’s First Burden

So much time had past and he'd only just come to realize it.

The sun had not yet risen.

Pale strands of pre dawn light filtered through the high, arched windows of the Imperial Academy's eastern corridor, streaking across polished stone floors that felt unnaturally cold under Wade's boots. His steps were uneven. His uniform torn. His cloak half burned away at the shoulder.

He looked like someone who'd fought a dragon and won, but barely.

The hall was quiet, but not empty.

A lone cleaning automaton scuttled past on squeaking wheels. A scholar walked briskly across a far hall with an armful of scrolls and stopped short when he saw Wade—then turned away, quickening his pace without saying a word.

Wade didn't blame him.

He wasn't sure what he looked like. Only that he felt… heavier. Not physically. Spiritually. Like a hundred unseen eyes had latched onto his back.

He turned the last corner toward his dorm and nearly collided with Juno.

Juno dropped the plate of food he'd been balancing in one hand. It clattered to the floor in an explosion of eggs and roasted root.

"Stars above," Juno breathed. "Wade?"

Wade gave a weak smile.

"You look like you got in a fight with a fire spirit and it tried to cook you alive."

"Pretty accurate."

"Where were you? No, never mind—what were you doing?"

Wade stepped around the mess on the floor. "I found something."

"I figured that out when every ward under the west tower pulsed at 3 a.m. You tripped half the alarm web without technically setting it off. That takes talent. Or divine interference."

Wade reached the door to their room, opened it, and paused.

"You ever read about the old heroes?" he asked.

Juno raised an eyebrow. "Not bedtime stories. I deal in verified arcana, not romanticized martyrdom."

"I saw one."

Juno froze. "You what?"

"I'll tell you later," Wade said. "I need sleep. Then food."

Juno watched him slump into his bunk, eyes wide and calculating.

He didn't press further.

But Wade could tell—Juno already knew something had changed.

Wade slept until mid morning, and even then it was the ache in his right arm that pulled him out of unconsciousness. The brand still pulsed faintly—its golden light now visible even through the bandage someone had wrapped around it.

He didn't remember doing that.

He sat up slowly.

The system broke its silence.

[Mana Restoration in Progress – Recovery 87% Complete]

[Heroic Sigil Stable – No Changes Detected]

[System Alert: Magical Observation Detected – You Are Being Watched]

Wade exhaled. "Someone's still watching me?"

[Yes.]

He got up and moved stiffly toward the window.

The courtyard below bustled. Students moved between class halls. Professors glided by on enchanted platforms. The world, for them, was normal.

For him—it had split in half.

A knock came.

Wade turned, expecting Rae, maybe Juno again.

Instead, Kaela Virell stepped through the doorway, flanked by a soft breeze and a silence that clung like shadow.

She wore the academy's formal robe today—silver with pale azure trim. Her platinum hair was braided into a sharp crown.

No guards. No escort.

Just her.

Wade blinked. "Princess."

She shut the door behind her with a quiet click.

"I saw the energy signature," she said simply. "Down in the vaults."

"You watch the whole school?"

"I watch anything that shifts the balance."

Her gaze drifted to the mark on his arm. Her eyes narrowed—not cruelly. Not even judgmentally. But like she was calculating its shape, its meaning.

"You're different," she said at last.

Wade's heart skipped.

"What makes you say that?"

"That mark. It's not from this world. It's said that the last Hero had it, years ago. And now so do you."

He didn't speak. Neither did the system.

Kaela turned, walking to the edge of his desk. She picked up one of Juno's old research texts, flipped through it absently.

"You've attracted too much attention," she said. "More than you understand. Some of it good. Most of it not."

Wade folded his arms. "Are you one of those I should worry about?"

Kaela smiled—small, rare, sharp.

"If I were, you wouldn't see me coming."

"But no."

She placed the book down, walked to the door, and paused.

"The next time you descend into a forbidden vault, Theron… don't go alone."

Wade got a glimpse of her face, a mix of what seemed to be worry and sadness.

Wade got a glimpse of her

She left before he could respond.

The system waited until the door shut.

[Princess Affinity +2 – "Respect"]

[Princess Affinity +1 – "Attraction"]

Wade didn't move for a long time after Kaela left.

Her words echoed like a dropped coin in a dry well.

"Don't go alone."

He hadn't told her what he saw. What the Codex showed him. The Last Hero's fall. The Guardian's final words. The Demon Lord's eyes in that memory—eyes that now haunted the edges of his waking thoughts.

And she hadn't asked.

Not because she didn't want to know.

Because he figured she already suspected.

He stared at his hand.

It still tingled with lightning.

Eventually, he stood and began to clean himself up. He peeled away the scorched layers of his uniform, rinsed his face in the basin, and dug out one of the spare robes Juno insisted they keep—"because heroes still need clean laundry," he'd once said.

By the time Wade stepped into the light of midday, the campus had shifted again.

He wasn't just being stared at anymore.

He was being avoided.

Students who once whispered now crossed paths early to avoid brushing shoulders. A noble girl he'd dueled once in spell formation practice bowed—bowed—when he passed her on the stairs. And not one of the instructors called on him in class.

It wasn't fear.

It was caution.

The kind reserved for unstable artifacts.

Wade caught sight of Rae sparring in the northern quad. She noticed him, waved—and then paused. Her smile faded a little. Only a little. But he saw it.

Even Rae could tell something was different.

He didn't stop to explain.

He kept walking.

It was only when he passed beneath the massive central tower—the spire above which he'd felt the power surge from below—that the system finally broke its silence again.

[System Alert: Awakened Observer Protocol]

You are being watched by multiple magical signatures.

Warning: Three new threads of magical divination identified.

Source: Unknown.

Intent: Unknown.

Wade clenched his jaw.

"Then let them."

He had no intention of hiding anymore.

Because whatever was coming next…

He would meet it head on.