The west courtyard had no clocks.
No sun dials. No hanging bells. No ticking gears in any tower to whisper the time.
And yet, it always felt like dusk there. The sky above it dimmed earlier than anywhere else, and shadows grew long whether the sun agreed or not. Callum had passed the space a dozen times since arriving, but never noticed that there were no birds. No wind. Just the brittle rustle of leaves that didn't seem attached to any tree.
Now, standing in its center, he felt… watched. But not by eyes.
By something quieter.
The letter crumpled in his pocket.
Bring no lies.
He hadn't told anyone he was coming. Not Elly. Not Harlan. Not even the walls.
The benches around the edge of the yard were all empty.
Except one.
A man sat there. Not tall, not imposing. Thin. Leaning forward with both hands clasped in front of him like he was praying to the ground.
He wore academy robes. Not student robes. Not instructor robes either.
Something older.
"Callum," he said without lifting his head.
Callum didn't ask how the man knew his name.
"You've seen the memory," the man continued, voice low and unhurried. "I could feel it when it opened again. It's been a long time."
Callum stepped forward slowly. "Who are you?"
The man finally looked up.
His eyes were wide, brown, unthreatening. Kind, almost. But broken.
Like glass that had been shattered and then taped together so carefully you could barely see the cracks—until the light hit just right.
"My name was Osric. Long ago. I was once a student here. Class 5-M."
Callum sat across from him, unsure why. The man didn't seem dangerous. And yet—
"You had the same Skill," Callum said.
Osric smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Not exactly. Mine was called [Conviction]. Anything I believed about myself became real. As long as I held the belief."
Callum frowned. "That's… terrifying."
"Only if you aren't careful." Osric leaned back. "You and I are alike, Callum. We bend reality, not with power, but with certainty. And certainty is brittle. If it breaks—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Callum waited. "You said you could feel it open. The memory."
"I built it. Or—" Osric hesitated. "I seeded it, let's say. Not with magic. With memory. I needed something that would remember me after I forgot myself."
Callum tensed. "You forgot… who you were?"
Osric nodded slowly. "When you lie too often, you lose the thread of what you really are. At first, I thought I was just using [Conviction] to become better. Stronger. Smarter. But slowly… my own truths stopped fitting."
He looked away.
"Then one day, I woke up with someone else's name. Someone else's voice in my mouth. And no one noticed."
Callum swallowed. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you're at the edge of the same cliff."
Osric leaned forward, eyes sharp now. Alive.
"Have you lied today?"
Callum blinked.
"I—"
"That's the problem," Osric said gently. "You don't know. You can't know. Not if it's your survival instinct."
Callum tried to answer. Couldn't.
The truth was: yes. He had lied. He'd told Elly he was fine. Told Harlan he hadn't found anything strange in the tower. Told himself the memory was just an echo.
None of those were true.
And they hadn't even felt like lies.
Osric stood.
"You need to anchor," he said. "One truth. One absolute. Something no lie can bend. Something to hold onto."
Callum stood too. "What if I don't have one?"
"Then borrow mine." Osric held out a small vial. Clear glass. A single drop of ink floating inside. "This is memory-dye. If you use it on a page, and write with your blood, the truth you write can't be overwritten. Not even by your own magic."
"That sounds—"
"Dangerous. Yes. But it'll give you something to fight the decay." He placed it in Callum's hand. "Don't use it lightly. Use it when the truth starts to fade."
He started to walk away.
Callum called after him. "Wait. Why now? Why talk to me now?"
Osric didn't turn. "Because you're the first since me to make Verrin hesitate."
And then he was gone.
Callum sat awake for most of the night.
The vial lay on his desk. He hadn't touched it again.
He didn't write. He didn't sleep. He just… thought.
About Osric.
About the battlefield.
About the lie that Verrin almost believed.
And slowly, without realizing it, his hand reached for the ink.
He pricked his finger.
Wrote just a single sentence.
My name is Callum Bram. I want to be real.
And the page shivered.
Only once.
But it felt like the world held its breath.
The next day, the sky cracked open.
Literally.
During mid-morning drills in the mana field, a scream from above had sent every student scattering. The sky had split down the middle like someone pulled a curtain apart—and for just a moment, the sun blinked.
Everyone saw it.
Only the 9-Z instructor didn't panic.
Instead, she sighed and said, "Finally."
Callum spent most of the day pretending not to notice the growing panic among upperclassmen.
He sat in the tower library, watching as students ran back and forth between bookshelves, scrolls in hand, muttering about dimensional warping and forgotten stars.
He found it hard to care.
Because he couldn't stop thinking about that ink.
When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the way the memory-dye locked his thoughts in place.
Like gravity, but heavier.
Not weight on the body—weight on the self.
By sunset, he'd made a decision.
He needed to know more.
Not about his Skill.
Not even about the academy.
About the people who came before.
The others who'd used words to break reality.
He snuck back to the hidden stair beneath his floor.
The bronze ring lifted easier this time. The staircase seemed less threatening now—almost like it recognized him.
He descended.
The chamber was unchanged.
Bookshelves. Dust. Candle.
The orb still floated. Still pulsed.
Callum stepped forward.
"Show me more," he said softly.
The orb flared.
This time, the memory began in silence.
A classroom. Familiar.
Younger students sat in rigid rows while an older man scribbled across the board in glowing chalk.
Callum stood in the back. No—watched from the back. He wasn't in the memory. Just witnessing.
The young Osric sat near the front.
Eyes bright. Attentive.
Callum leaned closer.
And then—without warning—the instructor turned.
And looked right at him.
Not Osric.
Callum.
"You don't belong here," the instructor said.
Callum flinched.
The room shivered. Books blurred. Chalk flared.
"You're not ready to see this yet."
Callum stepped back.
But the instructor raised a hand.
And the world collapsed inward.
He gasped as he came back.
The room spun.
The orb floated calmly, unchanged.
But Callum could still feel the pressure of those eyes.
And one word echoed louder than it should have:
Ready.
Ready for what?
That night, he wrote a second sentence in the book.
There was another before me. He remembered my eyes.
The page accepted the words.
But this time, the ink stayed wet.
Like it wasn't finished.
Like it wanted more.
Elly caught him the next morning as he stumbled out of the stairwell.
"Secret lover in the basement?"
"Secret book," Callum muttered.
"You're not denying the lover part."
"I'm too tired to lie."
Elly grinned. "That's when the good ones happen."
At breakfast, Harlan said nothing.
He just placed a folded paper on Callum's tray.
Callum opened it slowly.
It wasn't a note.
It was a page torn from a book.
An old one.
One he hadn't read.
Truth is the final language. The world listens, not to words, but to what we mean when we break them.
Callum looked up.
Harlan met his eyes. "You're not the only one who's been watching the memory room."
He stood. "But you're the only one who woke it up."