The sky above Arcanum Academy was bruised purple when Riku returned. Clouds loomed low like they were listening, and the air smelled of steel and ash.
Riku didn't speak as he crossed the training fields. The visions from the Ardent Spire still lingered—too real to be dreams, too distant to fully grasp. He could still feel the heat of the throne beneath his fingertips.
Kaela walked beside him, unusually quiet. She didn't ask questions, and for that, Riku was thankful.
He wasn't ready to answer any.
---
That night, sleep didn't come easily.
Riku lay in his dorm room, staring at the ceiling as the moonlight painted pale shapes across the floor. A faint pulsing itch throbbed along his right forearm. He rolled up his sleeve and froze.
A mark—new and jagged—was carved into his skin. Not with pain, but with purpose. A glowing sigil, shaped like an eye surrounded by shattered rings, dimmed and brightened with each beat of his heart.
> "What the hell is this…?"
He tried to touch it.
A flash of white light exploded across his vision.
---
Riku was no longer in bed.
He stood in an endless plain of black stone. Above him, the sky twisted like liquid obsidian. A figure cloaked in shadow stood a few feet away.
> "You bear the Mark of Echo," the figure said, voice low, female, ancient. "Few survive it. Fewer earn it."
"I didn't ask for it," Riku snapped.
"Neither did the last one."
> "But you're not him."
---
The figure raised a hand, and the mark on Riku's arm began to glow. Symbols erupted around his body—floating, burning with light.
> "The world is shifting, Riku Tanaka. And you… are the fulcrum."
> "When the gates open, you will either anchor this realm—or break it."
---
He tried to step forward—but the ground cracked beneath him.
"You're not real," he muttered. "You're just another vision."
But the pain was real when the darkness reached for his chest, slicing through his aura like paper. He fell to one knee.
The shadow vanished.
The mark pulsed once more—and he awoke, gasping.
---
Kaela was standing in his doorway.
She must've heard him.
"You screamed."
Riku's breath was shallow. Sweat soaked his shirt.
"I… saw someone. Something. She called it the 'Mark of Echo.' Said I was the fulcrum."
Kaela's ears twitched. "That's old magic. Forbidden magic."
"Of course it is," Riku muttered.
---
She entered the room slowly and sat at the edge of his bed, her gaze falling on the glowing sigil.
"That's not a curse," she said softly. "It's a key."
"To what?"
She looked away. "To whatever's been locked for a thousand years."
---
Outside, the moon shifted behind dark clouds. Somewhere deep in the earth, something rumbled faintly—something that had been waiting for the right bearer.
Riku didn't know what lay ahead.
But the world wasn't waiting anymore.
And neither was the truth.