Cassian Thorn had always flipped his coin.
In class. In duels. In silence. In storms.
Heads meant yes. Tails meant no. It was his compass, his oracle, his anchor.
But one morning, it landed on its edge.
And stayed there.
The First Symbol
He found it during Dream Theory.
The coin slipped from his fingers and rolled across the floor. When he picked it up, the face had changed.
No head. No tail.
Just a symbol — a spiral stitched with thorns.
He blinked.
The symbol blinked back.
The Research
Cassian brought the coin to the library.
He searched every language archive, every magical glyph compendium, every tower schematic.
Nothing matched.
Not even in the forbidden texts.
Until he found a single phrase in a sealed book:
> "The tower speaks in symbols. But only to those who flip."
The Visions
The coin began to change daily.
Each morning, a new symbol.
Each night, a new dream.
- A tower with no doors.
- A mirror that swallowed light.
- A stitched child holding fire.
- A book that bled ink.
He began sketching them.
Nova Quinn gasped. "These are tower glyphs."
Zephyr Vale whispered, "You're translating the fifth tower."
The Pattern
Cassian laid the symbols out in a spiral.
They pulsed.
Lyra stared. "It's a map."
Maris nodded. "Or a sentence."
Juno Blaze frowned. "Or a warning."
The book in Lyra's dorm pulsed violently.
New ink appeared:
> "The coin was never chance. It was memory folded into metal."
The Choice
Cassian stood before the fifth tower.
He flipped the coin.
It didn't land.
It hovered.
Then it spun.
And the tower opened.