The Sigil Test

The chamber beneath the Hall of Echoes had not been opened in over a decade.

And it had never welcomed a student.

Kael stood in its center, surrounded by concentric circles of etched sigils that shimmered faintly beneath his boots. The stone beneath his feet pulsed with embedded power—raw, layered glyphs meant to reveal, repel, and, if necessary, contain.

There were no weapons here.

But Kael felt more endangered than he ever had in battle.

Above, high on the gallery ledge, Whisperer Vireth stood with two handlers and a senior sigilist, her hands folded neatly over a leather-bound ledger. A ritualist Kael didn't recognize prepared the rite, chanting low in an old tongue the Veilborn sometimes heard in dreams.

Eline wasn't with them.

She stood at ground level, just outside the outer ring. Watching.

Always watching.

Kael met her eyes. "Are you going to tell me what this is?"

She hesitated.

Then said, "They're calling it a 'containment drill.'"

"Containment," Kael echoed flatly.

He flexed his hands, felt the tug of the Veil respond—tendrils of not-quite-shadow brushing against the glyphs like mist against cold iron. "And if I pass?"

"They'll say you're stable."

"And if I don't?"

Eline didn't answer.

But the look in her eyes said it all.

You won't leave this room.

The glyphs flared.

One by one, the outer rings ignited, white-gold arcs of Veilbound force leaping between the etchings like lightning tethered to rhythm. The air thickened, pressure building in Kael's ears. The sigils weren't meant for clarity or calm.

They were meant for exposure.

Vireth's voice rang out from above.

"Begin."

The central glyph beneath Kael's feet surged, and Kael felt his knees nearly buckle. It wasn't pain—yet—but pressure. A pulling sensation in his chest, like something was reaching into his sternum and dragging a thread from his ribcage.

His breath came short.

A whisper—faint but cutting—brushed against his inner ear.

"You don't belong here."

Tenebris.

But not in warning.

In warning to them.

The second ring of sigils flared. Pale blue this time, then violet.

Kael's knees hit the stone.

He bit down a cry, but not before blood dripped from his nose and curled like ink across the runes beneath him.

The ritualist began a second chant, the pitch higher, faster.

He was being peeled. Peeled open like a book they didn't trust him to read for himself.

And Tenebris—usually a dark flame at the back of his mind—began to resist.

Not lash out. Not attack.

Refuse.

Like the Veil itself did not consent to being seen this way.

Kael shouted through gritted teeth, "Stop it."

The gallery above remained silent.

"I said STOP—"

And then everything broke.

The sigils ruptured outward.

A wall of black fire rolled from Kael's spine, not exploding, but unfurling—like wings, like a banner of ink soaked in lightning. The glyphs tried to hold, to bend and compress what surged free—but they weren't built for sympathy. They had been written for suppression.

Kael screamed.

But it wasn't rage—it was awakening.

Tenebris poured through his limbs, not overtaking him, but with him. Every cell in his body lit with shadowlight, fingers rimmed with flickers of darkness that vibrated in rhythm with the deepest pulse of the Veil itself.

The containment spell shattered.

Half the ritual circle went dark.

Stone cracked.

Wind without source howled through the room, pulling the breath from every mouth.

And then silence.

Tenebris stood behind Kael in ghost-form—no longer a shapeless phantom, but something almost humanoid. Silver eyes. Veil-wrought bone. Not demonic—but ancient.

Kael rose slowly, chest heaving.

No one spoke.

Not even Vireth.

The sigils at his feet were smoking.

Eline stepped forward. "Let him out."

Vireth's lips parted. "We need—"

"You saw what happened," Eline cut her off. "He warned you. You forced the bond to strain. He didn't attack. The Veil—defended."

The handlers hesitated.

Then—perhaps more afraid of Kael than willing to contain him—lowered the barrier glyphs.

Kael staggered across the ring. Not toward the exit.

Toward Eline.

She caught him before he fell.

Later, in the infirmary wing beneath quiet light, Eline sat beside Kael's cot, her expression unreadable.

He looked at her.

"I felt it breathe."

She nodded once.

"The Veil," he said. "It wasn't angry. It was… wounded. Like it was remembering something."

Eline said, "Some of the old records say the Veil used to sing."

Kael blinked.

"I used to think it was metaphor," she went on. "Until today."

She reached into her satchel and drew out a thin, worn journal—leather-bound, its cover marked with a single crescent eclipse.

"I found this in the restricted annex. One of the original Whisperers recorded fragments of what she called the Veilheart Songs. They're written in scattered glyph-form, mostly unreadable. But one thing is clear."

Kael waited.

Eline whispered, "The Veil remembers its pain."

Kael stared at the ceiling.

"And maybe," he said softly, "I'm part of it."