Ashthorne Academy was vast.
Dozens of towers.
Hundreds of classrooms.
Miles of corridors.
Thousands of students.
And yet—
For the first time in recorded history—
it felt small.
Too small to contain what had just happened.
The East Wing breach had been sealed.
Reality itself bent to a first-year's voice.
A rift obeyed him as if he were its creator.
And now?
The Dominion Council wanted answers.
Whether Caelum intended to give them any was another matter entirely.
Chaos in the Courtyard
By the time Caelum, Lira, Marenne, and Jalen reached the courtyard, the academy was in full uproar.
Instructors shouted conflicting orders.
Noble heirs barked demands.
Support Division students scrambled with stabilizing sigils.
Combat Division teams marched around looking confused and dangerous.
When Caelum appeared—
A wave of silence fell across the courtyard.
Students turned.
One by one.
Eyes widening.
Voices dying.
The boy who walked out of a Dominion interrogation alive.
The boy who touched the Whisper Library and made it collapse.
The boy who crippled Brutus Kaldros with a tap.
The boy who commanded a reality tear to close.
They didn't know the word Threadbearer.
But fear didn't need vocabulary.
Lira walked behind Caelum carefully, trembling but uninjured.
Marenne kept an analytical distance, studying everything.
Jalen kept very close to Caelum's back—safety by proximity.
Then—
The courtyard gates exploded open.
The Dominion Council arrived.
The Council Descends
Seven figures strode into the courtyard—
wrapped in robes heavy with silver sigil-threads, their presence bending the air around them.
The highest magical authority in the empire.
The most feared group outside the royal family.
The ones who conducted the ancient seals.
Who executed forbidden sigil bearers.
Who protected the empire from conceptual catastrophes.
And the ones who had already failed to understand Caelum twice.
At their center stood the High Inquisitor:
Maelivara Voss — the Iron Seraph.
Her armor was made of polished sigilsteel.
Her eyes glowed with relentless judgment.
Her wings—chains threaded through metallic feathers—scraped against the air.
She raised a hand.
"Silence."
The entire courtyard obeyed.
Every whisper died.
Every foot froze.
Even the wind seemed to halt.
Her gaze scanned the crowd.
Then fixed on him.
"Caelum Veylor."
Lira tensed.
Marenne held her breath.
Jalen almost vomited.
Caelum remained perfectly calm.
He stepped forward.
"Yes."
Inquisitor Voss's voice cut through the courtyard like a blade.
"Explain the phenomenon in the East Wing."
"No."
The courtyard gasped.
Voss's eyes narrowed.
"Repeat that."
Caelum's expression did not change.
"No."
The instructors went pale.
Even Artheon's expression twitched in grudging respect.
Voss's voice dropped into dangerous calm.
"We do not request explanations. We require them."
"Requests and requirements imply leverage."
Caelum's tone was polite.
Deadly polite.
"You have none."
The courtyard froze again.
This time from shock.
Voss stepped closer, each footstep shaking the ground.
"You do not grasp the situation you stand in."
"I do," Caelum said. "Your seals are failing. Your knowledge is incomplete. Your ancient corpse is stirring. And you lack the capacity to contain any of it."
Silence.
Dead, suffocating silence.
Voss clenched her jaw.
"You are out of your depth, child."
"And yet," Caelum replied softly,
"I was the only one who could close the rift."
That hit her.
Hard.
Several Council members stirred, whispering urgently.
Voss's voice sharpened.
"You acted recklessly. You touched an active anomaly—"
"I stabilized it."
"You endangered the academy—"
"I saved your students."
"You interfered with Dominion affairs—"
"I corrected your failure."
Gasps rippled through the courtyard.
One Council member—an elder with sigils etched along his skin—snapped:
"You speak with arrogance beyond your age!"
Caelum tilted his head.
"No. I speak with accuracy beyond your comfort."
The elder flushed with rage.
Voss raised her hand to silence him, eyes narrowing further.
"Caelum Veylor, you will accompany us immediately. We will conduct a full inspection of your sigil stability."
"No."
His voice was soft.
But absolute.
Voss stepped forward, wings unfolding slightly.
"This is not optional."
"It is," Caelum said. "Because you are afraid."
The courtyard held its breath.
Voss's wings froze.
Caelum continued, voice barely above a whisper:
"You fear what you sensed in the seal chamber.
You fear what the library revealed.
You fear what the rift recognized.
You fear me."
The Council bristled.
Several sigils ignited.
But Voss did not move.
Because every word was true.
Caelum took one step forward.
Threadlight flickered faintly in his eyes.
"I have no intention of harming Ashthorne," he said. "But if you attempt to restrain me again…"
His voice deepened—
as if another voice layered beneath it—
the whisper of the corpse's echo.
"…your chains will break before I do."
A tremor rippled through the courtyard.
Not from the ground.
From the Council.
Voss hid it well—but her wings twitched.
Caelum turned away.
"We are done here."
He walked past her.
Past the entire Council.
Past hundreds of silent, terrified students.
Nobody stopped him.
Nobody dared.
Lira followed at his heels, still shaken.
Marenne scrambled after her, heart pounding.
Jalen scuttled along, eyes wide.
Artheon merely smiled faintly.
This… he thought,
is what it looks like when a monster begins to stand.
But the Council wasn't finished
The moment Caelum was out of earshot, the courtyard erupted into tense whispers.
A Council warlock hissed urgently:
"This boy is not a student—he is a threat!"
Another snapped:
"His sigil is unrecorded—unscannable—unprecedented!"
A third whispered:
"The Threadbearer prophecy… could it be—"
Voss silenced them all.
Her voice was low.
Controlled.
Frightened.
"Prepare the Dominion Archivum," she said. "We must review the Old Records."
Her eyes turned cold.
"Find every reference to the Unfolding Thread.
Every prophecy.
Every seal-ritual.
Every failure."
"Why?" a Council member asked.
Voss stared at the place Caelum had just stood.
"Because," she murmured,
"we may be looking at the end of the academy's ability to control him."
A long pause.
Then she whispered:
"…and perhaps the end of our ability to control anything."