Rain continued to fall in endless whispers. It had been a week since the letter from Halberd University changed Andrew's path. The world he'd known—school corridors, poetry readings, tense silences shared with Kate—felt like pages from another book.
Kate had barely spoken since.
Michael sent him a quiet thumbs-up when he learned the news, followed by a single message: "Don't disappear on us."
Emma had been unusually silent.
And Jason? He had left campus entirely. No goodbyes. No explanations. Emma, when pressed, simply said, "He's… not himself."
---
Halberd University was a place Andrew couldn't quite describe. From the moment he stepped onto its ivy-covered grounds, something felt... off. The atmosphere was cloaked in hushes and lingering glances, the kind that stretched longer than they should.
The campus itself stood tall on a windswept hill in Northern England, its buildings an eerie harmony of Gothic arches and obsidian glass. There was beauty here, yes—but also something unsettling. Almost as if the stones whispered when no one listened.
His schedule was strange. Morning lectures in literature, symbolism, and linguistics. Afternoons spent alone in vast halls filled with tomes that didn't belong to any known catalog.
Evening sessions—closed-door gatherings known simply as The Seminar—were invite-only, and Andrew was one of the few undergrads permitted entry.
It was at his first Seminar that he met Professor Albrecht—a man whose storm-grey eyes bore straight into the soul. Dressed always in black, he spoke with sharp enunciation, as if words themselves were spells.
"Mr. Andrew," Albrecht said that first night, his voice low and compelling. "Do you believe language holds power?"
Andrew, unsure, nodded slowly. "Yes."
"Not metaphorically. Literally."
Andrew blinked. "Like magic?"
The class chuckled lightly, but Albrecht didn't. He stared, unflinching.
"Yes. Like magic."
---
Weeks passed. Then came the letter. Not from Albrecht, but from The Halberd Board. Gold seal, cursive script.
He was summoned to a room lit entirely by candlelight, velvet curtains muting the outside world. Twelve faculty members sat in a crescent formation. Not all were professors. Some were never seen outside this circle.
The head of the board, an older woman with obsidian beads wound tightly around her wrist, folded her hands.
"You are of the Whitmore lineage. You may not know it, but that name runs deep in our archives."
Andrew's breath caught. "My family never mentioned anything."
"Most don't. But there's blood, Mr. Andrew. And blood always remembers."
Another board member, a man with gold-rimmed glasses and a voice like silk, leaned in.
"We believe you may carry the dormant Gift—an ancestral ability to tap into the True Language."
Andrew looked around. "This is... a joke, right?"
"No. It is why you are here."
---
That night, he couldn't sleep. His fingers itched. He found himself writing—half-awake—in languages he didn't know. Symbols he couldn't recall learning danced across his notebook pages.
The next day, Albrecht handed him a book. It had no title.
"Try reading it," the professor said.
The cover opened willingly. Inside were symbols—neither Latin, nor Greek, nor anything modern.
But somehow… he understood.
He read aloud, softly.
And the air shifted. Candles flickered in time with his breath. The book pulsed faintly, like it had a heartbeat.
Albrecht watched, smile barely visible.
"It has begun," he whispered.
---
Andrew began training. Not with wands or chants, but with words. Ancient poems. Syllables that twisted meaning. Rhetoric that bent intention. The core of the Gift wasn't in summoning—it was in articulation. Magic, here, was language.
He learned that each Whitmore generation produced one or two bearers—some harmless, others world-changing. He read of a Whitmore ancestor who turned an entire army with one speech. Of another who spoke to a storm and calmed it.
But many had gone mad.
"The Gift," Albrecht told him, "requires clarity. Emotion. And purpose. If you misuse it, it misuses you."
---
Despite the immersion, Andrew still clung to old threads.
He wrote Kate.
Not every letter was sent. But he wrote.
I wish you could see this place, one letter began. It's terrifying and brilliant. Like living inside a myth.
I'm scared. But I think this is where I'm meant to be.
I miss how your silence didn't feel like an ending.
He wrote Michael too.
And once, he even wrote Emma.
He didn't expect a reply—but he needed her to know that he'd never meant to disappear.
---
Back at Glenmore, shadows brewed.
Emma noticed it first.
Jason had returned for a brief moment, showing up at the library like nothing had changed. But he didn't speak. He only stared at books that weren't there and murmured things under his breath.
She cornered him once.
"Jason, what's going on?"
He turned to her. His eyes—those normally indifferent, charcoal-black eyes—shimmered blue. Just for a moment.
"You shouldn't be near me," he whispered.
"Why not?"
"Because they're watching. And they know what I've become."
Emma stepped back. "What… are you talking about?"
Jason looked past her. Then left.
He never came back.
---
At Halberd, Andrew began unearthing more about the Gift.
One night, in a sealed archive, he found a file under the name "Whitmore, Alden"—his grandfather.
The file contained faded letters, council observations, and finally, one cryptic phrase written in blood-like ink:
**"He spoke only once. The sky broke."
Albrecht found him reading it.
"Your grandfather wasn't just Gifted," he said quietly. "He was dangerous. That power might live in you."
"I'm not dangerous," Andrew replied.
"No. But power doesn't care what you think you are."
---
His studies grew harder. He began writing in multiple languages without realizing. He dreamed of voices that spoke without mouths. Of symbols tattooing themselves to his skin in gold.
Some nights, he woke to find ink on his hands with no memory of writing.
He was changing.
Yet, he felt more himself than ever.
---
A message arrived from Emma. Simple.
I don't know what's happening to Jason. But I'm scared. And you're the only one I trust to understand.
He stared at it for a long time.
What was happening to Jason?
Could it be the same thing?
Was there more than one kind of Gift?
And if so, what side was Jason on?
The answers, it seemed, lay just ahead.
And the quiet flame within Andrew Whitmore was no longer content to smolder.
It had begun to burn.
End of volume 1
Finally the end of volume 1 thanks for the support along the way♥️