Chapter 19: Darkness Below

  Evening settled over the tower like a slow exhale, the crystal window framing a sky painted in shades of violet and deep blue. Akilliz climbed the spiral stairs with pleasantly tired legs, the day's successes warming him from the inside out. Eleven silvers in his pocket. Friends who actually liked him. A salve he'd made himself selling for good coin.

  And Ma's pages hidden in his boot, waiting to be read properly when he had privacy and courage in equal measure.

  Maybe Luminael wasn't so impossible after all.

  Sylvara's door was closed when he passed her floor, soft candlelight seeping beneath it along with the faint scratch of quill on parchment. Still researching, probably. He thought about knocking, saying goodnight, but something stopped him. An instinct that she wouldn't welcome the interruption.

  His room welcomed him with its moss-stuffed bed and the familiar weight of exhaustion settling into his bones. He lit the candle on his desk, pulled out his journal, and began recording the day's events in careful script.

  Wound Knit Salve: yarrow, comfrey root, calendula, lavender. Bruise the herbs to release oils, steep in warm beeswax-oil base for twenty minutes. Sold for four silvers, first real income as an apprentice.

  He paused, quill hovering, then continued:

  Had lunch with Lirien and Kael. They're good people. Real. Not like most elves who look through me like I'm furniture. Lirien asked about Ma, about why I chose alchemy. Told her the truth, that I want to finish what Ma started. She understood. Held my hand.

  His cheeks warmed writing it, but he didn't scratch it out. It felt important to record, like marking a moment that mattered.

  Sylvara sent my letter to Pa. Said she was being helpful, and I guess she was. But someone was in my room while I slept. And today while I fetched that book, someone organized all my papers. Cleaned the floor. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but it feels... wrong.

  He set the quill down, staring at the words. Was he being ungrateful? Sylvara had helped with the letter. Had taught him brilliantly. Had given him opportunities no other mortal would get.

  But Pa's voice echoed again: Trust your gut, Aki. When something feels wrong, it usually is.

  He couldn't write about the archives. Couldn't risk someone finding his journal and reading about Ma's pages, the demon's guidance, the mark spreading. Some secrets were too dangerous to commit to paper.

  Akilliz closed the journal and moved to the window, looking out over Luminael's glowing spires. The city hummed its eternal song, vines carrying light through streets like veins of captured starlight. Beautiful. Ancient. Full of secrets he was only beginning to glimpse.

  Somewhere out there, Lirien was finishing her shift at the Sanitarium. Kael was probably setting something else on fire. Thalindra sat in her council chambers, blind eyes seeing everything.

  And here he was, alone in a tower with a teacher who sent his letters and cleaned his room and studied books about binding while he slept.

  Stop it. You're being paranoid. She's just thorough. Teachers are like that.

  He changed into sleep clothes, simple tunic and trousers, and climbed into bed. The moss pallet welcomed him, soft and cool, and exhaustion pulled at his limbs like a riptide.

  The candle still burned on the desk. He should get up and blow it out properly.

  In a minute. Just rest my eyes for a minute first.

  Sleep took him fast and deep, dragging him under before he could form another coherent thought.

  He woke standing.

  The transition was jarring. No gentle drift into consciousness, just sudden awareness that he was upright in the middle of his room with absolutely no memory of getting out of bed.

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  Moonlight streamed through the window, painting everything in shades of silver and shadow. The candle on his desk had burned down to a stub, wax pooled thick around its base. How long had he been asleep? Hours? The moon's position suggested past midnight, maybe closer to dawn.

  His bare feet were cold against the stone floor.

  And his right hand held a piece of white chalk.

  Akilliz stared at it, incomprehension giving way to creeping horror. The chalk was worn down, used, white dust coating his fingers and palm. And on the floor beneath his bed, barely visible in the moonlight...

  Symbols.

  Chalk symbols drawn in crude patterns. A circle about the size of his torso, with branching lines extending outward. Amateur work, the lines wavered, some symbols looked half-finished or incorrectly formed. But deliberate. Intentional.

  No. No no no.

  He dropped the chalk like it had burned him, stumbling backward until his shoulders hit the wall. His breath came short and panicked, heart hammering against his ribs.

  I drew these. While asleep. I got out of bed, found chalk, and drew these things without knowing.

  The demon's voice slithered in, dismissive and almost bored. "Sleepwalking, mortal. Stress does funny things to weak minds."

  "But the symbols..."

  "Amateur scribbles. You probably saw something in one of Sylvara's books and your dreaming mind regurgitated it onto the floor." The demon yawned, audibly uninterested. "You drew some circles in your sleep. It's not the end of the world."

  Akilliz knelt, studying the marks more closely. They did look crude. Unfinished. Not the precise, intricate work he'd expect from someone who actually knew what they were doing. More like a child's imitation of something they'd glimpsed once.

  "Someone else could've drawn them," he whispered. "While I slept."

  "Oh please." The demon's voice dripped with mockery. "Who? Your beloved teacher who's been nothing but helpful? The guards who patrol outside? Maybe the kitchen staff snuck up here to practice their amateur ritual work?"

  Heat flushed through him. Embarrassment mixing with lingering fear. When the demon put it like that, it did sound ridiculous.

  "The chalk was on my desk," he tried weakly. "I don't own any chalk."

  "Sylvara left it there for lesson planning. You picked it up in your sleep."

  He couldn't leave them. Couldn't risk anyone seeing.

  His hands shook as he grabbed the cloth from his pack and lunged for the basin, dunking it in water. He dropped to his knees and scrubbed frantically at the chalk marks, watching white dust smear into grey streaks. The symbols resisted, clinging to the stone like they didn't want to go.

  “Come on, come on, COME ON!”

  He scrubbed harder, cloth wearing thin, water splashing. The lines finally began to fade, dissolving into meaningless grey smudges. Within minutes nothing remained but damp spots on the stone.

  He sat back on his heels, breathing hard, cloth dripping in his hands. Staring at the clean floor.

  Just a bad dream. Stress from the new city, the training, everything being so different.

  The demon was right. He was being dramatic. Paranoid. Reading sinister intent into helpful actions and sleepwalking episodes.

  Get a grip, Aki. You're fine. Everything's fine.

  He wrung out the cloth with shaking hands, set it aside, and was climbing to his feet when he heard it.

  Footsteps in the corridor outside.

  Heavy. Deliberate. The distinct metallic clink of armor.

  His heart stopped.

  Akilliz's breath caught. He dove for the bed, pulling the covers up, forcing his breathing to slow even as his heart threatened to hammer out of his chest.

  The footsteps grew closer. Paused outside his door.

  Through slitted eyelids, he saw the door crack open just slightly. Maybe an inch. Torchlight from the corridor spilled through the gap, and a silhouette filled the space. Broad shoulders. The gleam of polished armor. Too tall to be Sylvara. Too bulky.

  A guard. One of the city patrols checking the tower's security.

  Voryn?

  The thought sent ice through his veins. Voryn hated him. Had made that abundantly clear during the trial. If the guard captain was checking on him, was it genuine security... or something else?

  The silhouette stood there for what felt like an eternity, just watching. Akilliz could feel eyes on him, studying him, measuring his breathing, checking if he was truly asleep or faking.

  Then the door closed softly, and the footsteps continued down the corridor, armor clinking with each step until they faded into silence.

  Akilliz lay frozen, every muscle locked tight, barely breathing.

  Guards patrol the grounds. They check the towers. That's normal. That's their job.

  But why had the guard opened his door? Why stand there watching?

  Probably just checking if I was safe. Making sure no intruders got in. That's what they do.

  Unless.

  Unless Voryn had drawn the symbols. As some kind of frame job? Attempt to prove he was practicing dark magic and get him expelled?

  Wait, that's insane. Why would Voryn waste time drawing amateur ritual circles under my bed?

  But the thought wouldn't let go. Voryn had access to the tower. Guards patrolled everywhere. Voryn hated him. And those symbols had been so crude, so amateurish. Exactly what someone with no real magical knowledge might draw if they wanted to make it look like dark magic without actually knowing what they were doing.

  The paranoia tightened its grip. His mind raced in circles, unable to settle.

  He pulled his boots closer, felt for the pages hidden inside. Still there. Safe. Ma's words pressed against worn leather.

  "Trust no one in Luminael, even those who knew me."

  But who knew her?

  He withdrew the pages carefully, unfolding them in the moonlight. Her handwriting, still legible despite the tears and creases.

  "What were you trying to tell me?" he whispered to the empty room. "Trust no one..."

  The warning felt heavier now. More urgent. Everyone who'd been kind to him, Sylvara, Thalindra, even Lirien and Kael, could any of them be trusted? Or was he surrounded by people who wanted something from him?

  His eyes stung with exhaustion and unshed tears. Too much. Too many questions. Too many shadows.

  He tucked the pages back into his boot, too tired to read more, too frightened to keep them out where someone might find them. The journal went under his pillow, candle finally extinguished with trembling fingers.

  The room plunged into darkness lit only by moonlight.

  Maybe I just need some rest, he thought desperately. If I can get any.

  But as he lay there, staring at the ceiling, listening to the tower's eternal hum, sleep felt impossibly far away.

  The sky outside had started to lighten. Dawn approaching fast. Maybe an hour or two before Sylvara would expect him for morning lessons.

  His body felt heavy, exhausted beyond measure, but his mind wouldn't quiet. Kept circling back to the symbols, the footsteps, the feeling of being watched while he slept.

  Just stress. Just paranoia. Everything's fine.

  But the small voice in the back of his mind whispered louder now: Someone opened your door in the middle of the night and watched you sleep. That's not fine. That's not fine at all.

  The tower hummed its ancient song around him, vines carrying light through living walls.

  And beneath his bed, where the chalk marks had been, the stone held faint residue that wouldn't quite wash away even with water. A ghost of symbols that someone, somehow, had wanted drawn.

  Whether by his hand or another's, he still couldn't say.

  But as exhaustion finally dragged him under into fitful, uneasy sleep, one thought burned clear:

  He wasn't safe here. Maybe he'd never been.