The night before, the Academy's gates had fallen silent with anticipation. Students whispered in cramped halls, professors lingered by torchlight, and the Codex trembled on its pedestal as if it sensed what was coming. Now, dawn broke with an eerie stillness, the kind that lives between heartbeat and breath. No birds sang. No wind stirred. Only the Origin Halo, suspended above the rooftops, glowed with a soft iridescence that matched the pale sky.
I stood on the balcony of the East Wing, peering down at the courtyard where four of my closest allies awaited me. Seraphina, Valmira, Yuria, and Zephira formed a half-circle around the old brazier at the center, its basin cold and empty since Lilith's final farewell. This morning, the brazier would serve as our portal into the first of ten trials the Halo had foretold—ten tests that would determine whether I was worthy of the magic it offered.
