The descent from the dais didn't feel like walking; it felt like drowning in shallow water. Kael kept his chin tucked against his chest, trying to turn himself into a ghost, but the world wouldn't let him fade. The Plaza of Ascension, which had spent the morning humming with the vibrant, melodic frequencies of successful spells, was now heavy with a silence that felt like a physical pressure against his eardrums.
"A Valerius," a voice drifted through the crowd, sharp and thin. "To think the bloodline of the Eternal Flame could produce a cold ember."
The words weren't even spat with hate; they were spoken with a clinical, detached disappointment that hurt far more.
Kael focused on his boots. Right foot. Left foot. He counted the cracks in the marble tiles, trying to turn the world into a series of numbers he could manage. But his luck, as always, was a cruel architect. His toe caught on a slight protrusion in the stone—a fraction of an inch that a mage's passive mana field would have automatically smoothed over. Without that invisible cushion, Kael was just a boy subject to the laws of friction and gravity.
He went down hard.
The impact wasn't elegant. It was the wet, dull thud of bone hitting stone. A collective bark of laughter erupted, spearheaded by Alaric's distinct, braying tone.
"Careful, Zero!" Alaric called out, his voice echoing with practiced ease. "The earth is just trying to find a place to bury the disappointment."
Kael scrambled up, his palms raw and embedded with grit. He didn't brush the dust from his tunic. He didn't look at Mina, though he could feel her gaze—a warm, stinging spot on the back of his neck. He simply ran. He pushed through the sea of spectators, who parted with a subtle, instinctive flinch, as if his lack of mana were a rot that might leap onto them.
By the time the wrought-iron gates of the Valerius estate loomed through the mist, a cold, unseasonable drizzle had begun to seep into his clothes. The manor was a sprawling skeleton of gray stone and ivy, a place built for giants that Kael felt increasingly too small to inhabit.
He slipped through the side entrance, hoping the shadows of the servant's hall would swallow him. But the Hall of Heroes lay in his path—a long gallery where the portraits of his ancestors hung like silent judges. Their eyes, painted with flecks of real gold to simulate the glow of high-tier mana, seemed to track his every stumble. Every ancestor was a legend: slayers of leviathans, weavers of storms, architects of empires.
Elias Valerius stood at the far end of the gallery, his back to the dormant hearth. He looked less like a man and more like a cliff face—immovable and weathered by a storm only he could see.
"The Architect sent a messenger," Elias said. He didn't turn around. His voice, usually a command that could ripple through a battlefield, was now a flat, exhausted rasp. "He said the Prism didn't even vibrate. Not a single hertz of resonance."
Kael stopped ten paces away. The cold from his wet clothes was starting to numb his skin. "Father, I... I studied every theory. I followed the breathing patterns perfectly. I—"
"Go to your room, Kael," Elias interrupted, finally turning. His eyes weren't angry; they were vacant. "The High Elders are coming tonight. They expect to see the future of our House. I cannot... I cannot have you there. It would be an insult to their time. And to our name."
An insult. Kael didn't argue. He climbed the winding servant's stairs to the attic, his legs feeling like lead. His room was a cramped space of slanted ceilings and dust motes, a place where the grandeur of the Valerius name finally ran out of room.
He sat on the edge of his bed, listening to the rain pick at the roof like a thousand tiny needles. In the gloom, he reached into his nightstand and pulled out the brass compass. It was his only tether to a mother he barely remembered—a delicate piece of craftsmanship where every gear was a poem of logic and intent.
He held it tight, his knuckles turning white. He squeezed the metal, closing his eyes until stars danced in his vision, praying for just one spark. One tiny throb of heat to prove he wasn't a mistake. He poured every ounce of his frustration, his shame, and his desperation into his grip.
Snap.
The sound was tiny, but to Kael, it was a thunderclap. The protective glass spider-webbed under his thumb. A silver gear, no larger than a grain of sand, popped from the mechanism and disappeared into the dark crevices of the floorboards. The needle, which had always been his one hope for a sign, now swung aimlessly, completely disconnected from its heart.
Kael stared at the shattered relic. He tried to nudge the needle back, but his fingers were too large, too clumsy, too human. Each touch only bent the delicate brass further.
"Even this," he whispered, a single, hot tear finally tracking through the dirt on his cheek. "I can't even hold a memory without killing it."
He set the broken compass on his pillow and curled into a ball, turning his back to the gray light of the window. There was no magic to fix the glass. No spell to find the missing gear. There was only the rain, the dark, and the crushing realization that he was a hollow vessel in a world built for the overflowing.