Signals Beneath the Skin

It began as a stutter.

Nothing unusual—Dominion's lectures were laced with fatigue, distraction, and ambition. Students forgot things all the time.

But not like this.

"Group seven," Professor Harn said, scrolling through his attendance slate. "Everwyn, Kaela. Rykar, Dominic. And… hmm."

He squinted.

The slot next to Dominic's name was blank.

No rank. No designation.

No name.

He tapped the crystal surface.

"Curious. Slot error."

Kaela didn't move.

Julius sat three rows back, watching.

Harn frowned, looked over the classroom—and scanned right past him.

"Very well," the professor muttered. "Moving on."

After class, in the Hall of Solaced Ashes, Julius caught snippets.

"He's in my dueling theory group—uh, the quiet one. The one who never—what's his—?"

"You know. The tall one with the eyes. Wait. What is his name?"

A girl from Potions skipped him entirely while reciting partners.

Even the mess hall records flagged his tray as "Unclaimed."

Only Kaela noticed.

Only Kaela said something.

Back in the dorm, she stood over his desk while Julius watched the ledger.

"It's not that they're forgetting you," she said.

"It's that the world is."

He didn't look up.

"Memory distortion?"

"No," she said. "Worse."

She stepped closer.

"Consensus erasure."

Julius raised an eyebrow.

"The Vault's not trying to hide you anymore," she whispered. "It's trying to rewrite you."

It happened first during sparring.

A fifth-tier student Julius didn't know took a feint to the shoulder, stumbled, recovered—and laughed.

"You were always here," the student said, panting.

Julius tilted his head.

"What?"

The boy blinked. "Sorry—what?"

"You said something."

"Don't think so."

Julius stared.

It happened again the next day.

A faculty member—Archivist Denna—handed him a scroll he hadn't requested. As he took it, her lips moved.

"You were always here."

Then she blinked. Looked at the scroll.

"Oh—this isn't yours. My apologies."

She took it back. Walked away, utterly unaware.

By the third time, Julius didn't react.

The phrase had changed tone.

It wasn't a comment.

It was a trigger.

Kaela caught him staring at nothing in the dormitory, hand on the ledger like it might warm enough to confess.

"You've heard it, haven't you?" she asked.

He nodded.

She didn't need to ask what.

Later that night, Julius flipped through restricted entries in the ledger, pried open with the sigil-blood technique Merik taught him.

One entry flickered into view.

Subject: Revoth Elai Marren

Status: Failed Vault Heir

Outcome: Mental recursion, memory echo spread

Final Words: "He was always here."

Julius read the file three times.

Then spoke aloud, calmly, to no one:

"I'm not repeating him."

The ledger did not respond.

But one corner of the page peeled back on its own.

Underneath:

"Then be better."

The Thirteenth Seat chamber was darker than usual.

Not unlit—just less willing.

Julius stepped into the spiral ring of chairs. The thirteenth seat remained untouched. Always untouched.

But Merik Valen was already there.

Not seated. Not standing.

Waiting.

His robe was open at the throat, hands behind his back. The mirrored skull mask turned slowly toward Julius the moment he crossed the threshold.

"You've been hearing it, haven't you?" Merik said. "The phrase."

Julius didn't answer.

Merik tilted his head.

"You were always here," he recited softly. "Echoes are not poetic, Julius. They're cracks. Pressure leaks. The Vault doesn't speak in messages. It speaks in repetitions."

"How many before me?" Julius asked.

Merik said nothing for a while.

Then:

"Six."

Julius blinked. "Six failures?"

Merik shook his head. "Six attempts."

He began to walk the inner circle of chairs.

"The first lost all sense of direction. His room vanished from the map. Faculty couldn't locate it, even while inside."

"The second bled numbers. Recited coordinates when stabbed."

"The third believed the Vault was his parent."

He stopped.

"The fourth erased a classmate's memory of their own mother just by touching their hand."

Julius said nothing.

"The fifth begged the system to kill her before she turned into a doorway."

"And the sixth?" Julius asked quietly.

Merik faced him.

"She got further than anyone."

A long pause.

"Then tried to open the Foundry Door with her own spine."

Julius's voice was flat. "And me?"

"You're the first to activate the door without screaming," Merik said. "That doesn't make you safe."

Another pause.

Merik leaned closer.

"It makes you promising."

The challenge arrived formally.

Folded black parchment. Crimson wax seal. Delivered by hand to Julius's desk by a faceless faculty courier who did not speak.

Kaela opened it before he touched it.

"Test of Containment. Public format. Witnessed by faculty and students." She paused. "Opponent… redacted."

Julius raised one eyebrow. "That's new."

Kaela shook her head. "That's illegal."

They gathered the next day in Dominion's outer dueling arena.

Tiered seats. No enchantments. No illusions. Just open sky, white stone, and the silence of institutional judgment.

Faculty lined the shadows.

Students filled the upper balconies, whispering. Julius stood at one end of the circle, coat off, ring exposed.

No weapons.

No glyphs.

No allies.

Just the space.

And at the far end—it formed.

Not summoned.

Not called.

Built.

From the stone, from the air, from memories leaking out of the system's cracks.

It wasn't a person.

It wasn't even a thing.

It was recognition misapplied.

A shape Julius had seen once in a mirror that had no reflection.

Tall. Wrong-jointed. Hollow-eyed. Skin that rippled like unfinished thoughts. It moved like it remembered being a body.

The crowd stilled.

Kaela stood just inside the arena gate, hands tight at her sides.

No one explained the rules.

The entity tilted its head.

And whispered—

"You were always here."

Julius stepped forward.

The entity didn't fall.

It folded.

Back into itself—like a wrong answer being retracted by the system that allowed it to exist. No scream. No banishment. It simply… ceased.

Julius stood in the circle, blood on his collar, knuckles bruised.

No victory was declared.

There were no cheers.

Just silence.

And eyes that watched differently now—not with fear or awe, but calculation.

Later, in the dormitory, Kaela sat behind him on the floor, tending to the bruise beneath his ribs. Her touch was precise, unsentimental. A blade in another context.

"You didn't flinch," she said.

"I didn't understand what it was," he replied.

"That should've made it worse."

"It made it mine."

She paused.

"Maybe that's what it wanted."

When she lifted the back of his shirt to check the shoulder, she froze.

Not at injury.

At design.

A spiral had formed just beneath the skin—barely visible, not burned, not inked. The skin around it shimmered with soft violet where light hit right.

Not a wound.

Not a spell.

A brand.

It hadn't been made.

It had grown.

Kaela leaned closer, breath shallow.

She didn't say his name.

She said only:

"That's not a mark of power."

She touched it—light, reverent, terrified.

"That's a claim."