THE AETHERBORN

Thorne crouched low behind a curtain of levitating crystal orbs, each one humming faintly in tune with the tower's pulse. The hallway beyond stretched like a spine, impossibly long, cloaked in shifting light that refused to settle. Runes shimmered across the walls, warping in and out of his peripheral vision. It was like trying to watch something submerged in rippling water.

At its center stood a construct.

It didn't move.

Didn't breathe.

Didn't flicker with magic.

It just stood there, a humanoid form wrought from ridged metal and solidified aether, runes carved into every joint. Its back was straight, arms slack at its sides. But Thorne's instincts screamed anyway. The kind of scream that wasn't loud, but deep, the full-body warning that came when something was wrong in a way his senses couldn't fully explain.

He narrowed his eyes and toggled his Aether Vision.

The world shifted.

The runes pulsed like veins filled with starlight, curling through the construct's form like glowing tattoos. And there, in its chest, hovered a tight, compact aether core, the size of an apple and ten times as dense. Unlike the constructs Thorne had dealt with in Aetherhold or Alvar, this one didn't glow like a beacon. It throbbed dimly, like a star caught behind layers of fog. More importantly... it was shielded.

A thin layer of magic webbed around the core, nearly invisible except when he shifted his angle just right. He frowned. Not a normal shield. Not an enchantment. Not a sigil. More like a... filter. Something that pushed back against external senses, like a mirrored surface reflecting scrutiny. It made the core feel hazy, less real, like it didn't want to be known.

Thorne muttered a curse under his breath.

He reached into his coat and pulled out Brennak's folder, flipping it open with one hand and scanning the notes. There was a sketch of this hallway, the angle was different, and the construct was marked only with a question mark and the note: "Guardian? Static?" Below it, a second line: "DOESN'T REACT. Don't test."

He snorted. Too late for that.

He angled the papers against the faint blue glow of a hovering torchfly to see better. The floorplan showed that this hallway should connect to the central spiral, the one that led down into the tower's core chamber. But it also showed no traps. No guards. No shifting walls.

All of that was wrong.

Figures.

He tucked the papers back into his satchel and resumed watching.

The hallway refused to hold still. It was like walking inside a living memory, every few seconds, a subtle shiver ran through the air, like a ripple on pondwater, and the angle of the corridor would skew just slightly. Not enough to trigger vertigo, but enough that Thorne kept having to blink to be sure what was real.

The construct, meanwhile, stood frozen in the center of it all. But now that he was focused, he could see the illusion field around it. Clever. It wasn't cloaked. It wasn't hidden. It was letting itself be seen, but not understood. The aether shimmer warped perception subtly around its form. A normal infiltrator wouldn't even realize what was wrong until it was too late.

Thorne's mouth set in a hard line.

He couldn't sneak past.

Not this one.

He didn't know how he knew that, but he did. It wasn't just suspicion. It was the deep-rooted certainty that if he made a single movement within that shimmer, it would snap awake and tear through his stealth like parchment.

But the shielded core... it was tempting.

He remembered how he'd dealt with constructs in Alvar, forcing aether into their cores, overloading them, then siphoning the energy as they died. It had worked. It had been elegant. Efficient.

This one wouldn't go down that easy.

Still crouched, he tilted his head and listened. Somewhere above, faint and distant, he heard footsteps. Not constructs. Too light. Two people. Their boots tapped against polished stone, too slow for a patrol, too fast for casual wandering. A whisper. A chuckle. One said something in Elvish. Then their voices turned a corner and faded into silence.

Thorne exhaled slowly, focusing back on the construct.

His fingers drifted toward his dagger, but he didn't draw it.

Not yet.

Instead, he closed his eyes and let his senses drift. Not just Aether Vision. Veil Sense.

The world changed.

Ambient aether curled like breath over his skin, brushing his hair, stirring the edges of his cloak. It wasn't just light or temperature or pressure, it was presence. Emotion. Intent.

Here, in this ancient, ward-saturated tower, the ambient aether was not silent. It was layered with whispers, memories of spells, echoes of long-dead enchantments still humming like old songs.

And the moment he let himself fall deeper into that flow, something shifted.

He felt it.

The aether began to speak.

Not in words, not exactly. But in patterns. In pulses. The construct wasn't just standing guard, it was anchored to the hallway. The illusions weren't just tricks. They were attuned to it. Connected. Like its mind and the tower's magic had fused.

Thorne flared his senses wider.

There, a latch.

The aether around the construct pulsed slightly off-beat. The core wasn't shielded from all magic, it was shielded from hostile probing. From direct disruption. But Thorne wasn't trying to disrupt.

He was trying to listen.

He pressed a hand to the floor. The stone beneath was warm, humming faintly with the tower's lifeblood. Slowly, deliberately, he whispered a thread of aether into the construct's core field, not a surge, not an attack. Just a whisper. Intent: observe. Understand.

The shimmer pushed back. Then, hesitated.

And then... it let him in.

Not fully. Not past the shield. But enough.

He saw how the core worked, a self-contained loop of aether conversion. High-efficiency. Powerful. But dependent on the illusions. They weren't just cloaks, they were feeds. They powered the construct. Every ripple of perception fed into it, giving it shape, giving it strength.

Which meant... if Thorne could cut the illusions, even briefly, the construct would weaken.

He opened his eyes.

"Alright," he murmured, breath steady. "Let's see what happens when you starve."

Thorne stayed crouched for one more breath, locking the layout of the illusion lattice into his mind. The aether threads danced in a tight weave around the construct, interlaced with the hallway itself, a self-sustaining circuit of magic and perception.

But he'd found the seam.

A single line where the illusion pulled taut, not part of the core enchantment, but a secondary tether. Possibly for stabilization. Possibly an oversight.

He whispered to the aether again. This time, he didn't feed it into the blade.

He fed it into intent.

With precise movements, he slipped one of the Nullite daggers from its sheath. Its blackened blade shimmered faintly, still holding the fragment of energy he'd infused earlier. But instead of charging it fully, he trickled in a thinner stream, subtle, patient. He whispered the same command in his mind, the same single word etched into every fiber of his being.

Break.

Aether hummed, aligning with his will.

He stepped into the hallway, one slow footstep at a time. Not sneaking, not running. Walking like a shadow that had just remembered how to move.

The construct didn't react.

Not at first.

The moment his boot touched the innermost rune-etched tile, the hallway shivered. Light skewed sideways. The illusion snapped into overdrive.

The construct's head jerked up.

Eyes flared, twin points of white flame.

But Thorne was already moving.

He slid into a sideways step, pivoted around the ripple of magic like a dancer spinning through fog. He swept the blade low, not toward the core, but toward the seam. The part of the illusion network he'd traced.

The dagger bit the air.

Aether unraveled.

The hallway snapped into clarity.

And for a split second, the construct flickered. It staggered, as if balance had been torn from beneath it. The shimmering ward around its core pulsed wildly, faltering. Confused.

Thorne moved in.

His second blade came free in a whisper of leather. Both hands now, a dancer's grace and a killer's speed. He slashed diagonally across the construct's torso, ducked beneath a whirling arm of jagged steel, and drove the point of his left-hand dagger straight into the core.

The shield flared, but it was already failing.

The disruption from the illusion collapse had weakened its cycle. And now Thorne's dagger wasn't just piercing the metal.

It was feeding in intent.

He pushed his will down the blade like venom through a fang.

Break.

The construct let out a soundless scream, no voice, only a pulse of raw force. Its limbs twitched violently. The air rippled.

Then it collapsed.

Aether vented from its core like steam from a cracked engine. The light died in its eyes. The metal legs buckled first, then the torso began to fall, piece by piece.

Clang.

Thorne winced. The first piece hit the stone with a ringing sound that echoed too loud, too clear in the enchanted silence of the tower.

More pieces tumbled.

If one more joint hit the ground, the entire hallway would erupt in noise and there was no way the mages wouldn't hear that.

Thorne's hand whipped to his thigh strap. Fingers curled around the cool wood of his ashthorn wand, drawing it in a single, practiced motion.

And he whispered the incantation.

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The word came sharp. Clean.

His wand pulsed once, a pale shimmer at its tip, and the spell took.

The spell, one of the simplest in the academy's syllabus, reached out like invisible fingers. The falling metal pieces jerked midair, suspended a hairsbreadth above the floor.

Thorne gritted his teeth, eyes narrowing as he guided each limb gently toward the far wall, his wand trembling slightly in his hand. The parts bobbed, some heavier than expected, some off-balance.

But he moved slowly.

Carefully.

Until the last joint hovered into the corner, nestled beside the broken torso. Thorne flicked his wrist, releasing the spell just enough for the parts to settle into a quiet pile.

Not a sound.

Not even a scrape.

The silence returned like a held breath finally exhaled.

Thorne straightened slowly, heart still pounding. The wand still warm in his hand. He stared at it for a long moment. Then shook his head, half in disbelief. "A Tier One spell," he muttered under his breath. "Just saved my life."

He glanced back at the corridor, the flickering remnants of the illusion spell still dissipating like mist.

"I take back everything I said in class."

Then, without another word, he slipped deeper into the tower.

Thorne melted back into the hallway, the silence around him as thick as wet cloth. The construct was down, the corridor cleared, and the danger, for now, passed.

He shifted his stance, letting his breath even out, cloak settling like dusk around his frame.

A subtle ping echoed in his mind.

Skill Level Up: Veil of Light and Shadow 9 → 10

Thorne blinked.

The shadows that clung to him shifted, not darker, not thicker, just more… complete. Like the magic had stopped trying to hide him and instead simply decided he didn't exist.

He moved.

The air barely stirred. His boots made no sound. The torches didn't flicker. He was nothing moving through everything.

Two more wards blocked the next corridor, thin, lattice-woven enchantments meant to discourage foot traffic. He slipped his dagger free and carved through both with silent efficiency, slicing through their anchors with a breath of aether and a single whispered Break. One flared briefly before fizzling out. The other died like a gasp swallowed by the dark.

He turned the next corner and paused.

Ahead, at the far end of a short hall, he saw it, the central spiral. The heart of the tower. A vast, open shaft winding down and down and down into shimmering, torchlit gloom. Platforms spun slowly in the void, cradled in runic anchors. The entire chamber pulsed faintly with layered enchantments, a storm of bound spells resting just shy of awareness.

Thorne took one step forward.

And froze.

His Veil Sense snapped open like a scream.

Every instinct flared. Danger. Immediate. Close.

He didn't breathe. Didn't move. Just stood there, heartbeat hammering in his ears.

He scanned the hall.

Nothing. Stillness. No runes. No lights. No sound.

But then, at the very edge of his vision, when he tilted his head just slightly to the right, a shimmer. Thin. Hair-fine. Barely a flicker.

He snapped his gaze to it.

Gone.

"What the...?" he whispered.

He tried again. Turned his head slightly, just enough for the edge of his eye to catch it.

There... shimmer. Inches from his face.

His stomach dropped.

Invisible ward. Not cloaked. Not hidden. Invisible. As if the enchantment had been designed to vanish from all but the most nuanced senses.

His mind reeled.

Who the hell designed this place? And more importantly, how?

Could he do the same thing?

He squashed the questions and focused.

No time for awe.

He raised his dagger, holding it point-forward like a divining rod. Slowly, carefully, he pushed it toward the shimmer.

Resistance. Like dragging metal through honey.

He pressed.

Snap.

A pulse of power discharged, not violent, but enough to raise the hair along his arms and neck. His cloak fluttered. His teeth ached from the magical pressure.

The shimmer remained.

He cursed and tried again, slower, firmer, anchoring his will in the blade. The second attempt triggered a harsher reaction. Magic flared out from the point of contact in a spiraling wave, brushing his face with the weight of lethal energy. Not strong enough to kill, but close.

The dagger's glow dimmed.

Fast.

He was being too crude, too blind. Without sight of the ward's exact structure, he couldn't finesse it. Couldn't trace it thread by thread. He had to brute-force it.

That meant cost.

By the fifth attempt, he was panting, his hand numb from the feedback. The dagger, drained twice now, had been recharged hastily between bursts, and while it still pulsed with healthy light, its reserves were thinning. And still, he pressed on.

Each strike against the invisible lattice sent a wave of heat across his skin, like walking through the breath of something ancient and watching.

On the sixth try, the resistance buckled.

A final pulse of aether vented, rattling his bones. He nearly staggered, but held.

The shimmer was gone.

The space ahead was open.

He stood there, watching, not daring to believe it for a few seconds more.

Then stepped forward, one slow pace past where the ward had hovered.

Nothing.

No flares. No death.

Just a low, aching buzz in his ears.

He exhaled and moved forward, boots whispering across stone as the shaft's spiral path came into clearer view.

He paused just before descending, glancing down at the dagger in his hand.

It was still whole.

No cracks. No heat warping. Just faintly glowing, obedient, reliable.

Not like the last ones, brittle toys that exploded after a single binding.

"Good girl," he whispered to it, sheathing it with reverence.

Then he looked over his shoulder at the corridor behind him.

"Who the hell could even get this far?" he muttered. "Without Veil Sense, without aether binding… this place would eat you alive."

A grin tugged at his lips, tired, but sharp.

Then he slipped into the spiral, descending into the depths of the tower, toward the final chamber.

Toward the artifact.

The spiral stair gave way to a final platform, wide, polished, gleaming faintly under a lattice of drifting runes. Beyond it stood a massive archway, the final threshold before the heart of the tower.

Thorne crept closer, his body moving like liquid shadow. Veil of Light and Shadow wrapped tight around him, its evolved threads muffling every whisper of motion, erasing the subtle ripples of his presence.

He could see it now.

The artifact he was meant to steal.

Or at least, the chamber beyond, dimly illuminated by thin, ghost-pale light. In the center hovered a small pyramid of alien metal, dull gray at first glance but shifting faintly, as if its surface refused to stay in one shape for too long. A low hum reverberated through the room, like the artifact was breathing.

He was so close.

Too close.

Because then, he felt them.

Before his Veil Sense even flared, before he consciously registered the danger, his body knew. A cold ripple slid down his spine. His breathing hitched. The air thickened.

The two mages appeared from the chamber, stepping out with the quiet ease of predators who feared nothing.

Thorne's heart hammered.

Even without using his ability, he could feel their aura. Overbearing, suffocating, wrong. Their very presence pressed into the space around them like a weight, distorting the air, sending prickling sensations crawling along his skin. These weren't the clumsy hedge-wizards or pompous academy professors he was used to. These were monsters draped in human shape.

He moved instinctively. Cover. A niche in the wall, half-hidden behind a tall spire of crystal. He slipped into it, his Veil skill thickening over his form like a cloak of silence.

Don't breathe. Don't move.

He didn't dare activate Veil Sense. One pulse of his awareness might ripple too far, touch their magic and alert them. No. Not a risk. Not with them this close.

For a second, it seemed to work.

And then...

The first mage, tall and thin, stopped. His head tilted sharply, gaze unfocused as if listening to something beyond mortal hearing.

"There's a skill active nearby," he said, voice calm but firm.

Thorne's blood ran cold.

The second mage, shorter, broad-shouldered, with a face carved from pale granite, frowned. "Are you sure?"

The first mage raised his wand, a long spiraling rod of blackwood laced with veins of gold. His voice cut like steel.

"Resonant Veil Pulse."

The air thumped. A ripple of faint blue light washed outward from the wand, spreading through the chamber like an echo seeking its source.

Thorne cursed internally. Damn it!

The taller mage's eyes narrowed. "Yes. My spell was triggered. Something's here."

The second mage's brow furrowed. "Impossible. No one could have slipped past the wards."

"Impossible," the first repeated flatly, "doesn't mean false."

And then they started walking.

Toward him.

Not wandering. Not guessing. Moving straight for his cover with an unnerving precision, as if guided by an unseen hand.

Thorne's thoughts spun like a whirlwind. What do I do? What the hell do I do?

The Veil of Light and Shadow was still active, perfectly active. But their detection spell wasn't seeing him. It was feeling him. Like a subtle vibration in the air. They were zeroing in on the disturbance he created simply by existing.

I can't fight them. I can't outrun them. Damn it, damn it...

Damn it. Damn it!

His mind raced. His dagger wouldn't even scratch them. His stealth was already compromised. There was no escape if they found him.

And in that desperate, cornered moment, a dark thought surfaced.

If I'm going down… I'm taking them with me.

His fingers twitched. Slowly, silently, he tilted his head, just enough to take the smallest, quietest breath he could.

And then he exhaled.

Not air.

Not light.

But corruption.

The motes that slipped past his lips were faint at first, glinting like pale ash in the dim light. But as they spilled outward, they rotted, turning sickly, warped. They clung to the air like oil, invisible yet heavy with intent.

Entropy Breath.

The corrupted motes slithered low, silent, threading toward the two mages like serpents through grass.

The leading mage was still focused on the faint ripple of Thorne's presence, still convinced he was closing in. The second adjusted his wand slightly, scanning the space.

Neither noticed.

Neither felt the calamity creeping toward them.

The motes curled, hungry, reaching for the faint glow of their cores, ready to gnaw, ready to unmake.

In his rising desperation, he did the one thing he'd always sworn never to do without thought.

He let go.

He let the ambient aether, the living hum of magic around him, decide for itself.

And to his shock… it answered.

The air shifted. The tower's magic, thick and ancient, hugged him. It pressed in around his body, covering him not like a thin veil, but like a shroud.

The motes of aether he could always see, those vibrant, shimmering particles that floated like starlight, began to darken.

They turned black.

No, worse than black. Hollow. Like the space between stars. Layer upon layer of darkened motes folded over him, weaving into a living blanket of nothingness that swallowed him whole.

His body disappeared. His aura disappeared. Even his breath felt… erased.

Thorne froze in silent shock. What… what is this?

The leading mage stopped mid-step.

He frowned. His eyes darted left, right. His wand twitched.

Then his head snapped around, scanning wildly. For a second, raw confusion flashed across his features, like someone who had been handed a puzzle missing a single piece.

"…He's gone," the mage said quietly.

"Gone?" the second asked, incredulous.

The first mage nodded slowly, his voice a whisper like a blade dragged across stone. "Vanished. Not cloaked. Not hidden. Gone."

The second mage's eyes narrowed, disbelief etched into his voice. "So there is someone here?"

The first didn't answer. He just turned, his expression dark.

He strode to the massive double doors at the far end of the platform. Their surface gleamed gold and silver, a multifaceted star etched deep into the metal.

With slow, precise motions, he raised his wand.

And began to cast.

Thorne had never seen anything like it.

Even through the darkened veil covering him, his Aether Vision flared unbidden, desperate to understand the spell being formed. It was incredible, a construction of hundreds of interlocking sigils, a spiral of geometric impossibilities woven together like threads in a divine tapestry.

When the mage finished, a waterfall of pure energy descended from the top of the door to the bottom, washing over the gold star like liquid light. Sigils bloomed in the air, layer upon layer, endless, shifting like fractals.

"Let's go," the first mage murmured.

Both men turned, chanting quiet incantations. With each step, their bodies shimmered with new layers of magic, speed buffs, strength enchantments, silence wards. It was like watching war machines being tuned in real time.

And then they were gone.

Thorne stayed frozen.

One minute. Two. Three.

Only when his heart stopped pounding in his ears did he finally let the breath slip from his lungs.

He waited another moment just to be sure. Then he stepped out from the wall, the dark shroud of aether reluctantly peeling away from his body like mist.

Skill Level Up: Veil of Light and Shadow 10 → 14

Slowly, silently, he approached the great double doors.

The residual magic was still there, humming faintly from the recent spell.

He gritted his teeth, slipped his dagger free, and began.

The dagger drank in ambient aether, his binding will shaping it like a chisel. He traced the sigils one by one, dismantling the impossible lock with excruciating care.

Seconds bled into minutes. Sweat dripped from his jaw. His heart thudded in erratic beats, every pulse screaming they're coming back, they're coming back...

And then…

Click.

The massive doors shuddered.

And slowly, silently, opened.

A sliver of pale, alien light spilled into the hall.

Thorne's lips curled into a sharp, triumphant grin.

And then his grin twisted.

His voice dropped to a venomous whisper.

"That hairy bastard. I'm going to kill you, Brennak."