Zareth didn't move.
He stayed sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes locked on the corner of the room.
The shadow there had already gone still again but that didn't make it better because the thing inside his chest hadn't.
It pulsed once.
Slow.
Heavy.
Not like a heartbeat.
Something deeper than that.
Something that didn't belong.
Zareth swallowed hard and pressed a hand flat against his chest for one strange second, he could've sworn he felt something beneath the skin shift in response.
He pulled his hand away immediately.
"No."
His voice came out quieter than he meant it to.
The apartment stayed silent.
Just the rusted standing fan whining weakly near the wall, the soft drip drip drip noise of rainwater falling into the bucket near the sink.
And his own breathing, slightly too fast.
Morning had already settled into the room, pale and washed out through the broken blinds, but it didn't feel like morning, it felt like something had followed him back from the dream.
Something that had no intention of leaving.
Zareth sat there for a while longer, trying to convince himself he was being stupid.
That it was stress.
Lack of sleep.
An overactive imagination.
Anything that sounded normal enough to believe.
It didn't work.
The dream still clung to him too clearly.
The ruined city.
The crimson sky.
The older version of himself standing among the dead like he had already accepted what he'd become.
And that voice.
That thing in the dark.
He dragged a hand over his face and forced himself to stand, the floor was cold under his feet and the apartment looked the same as always.
Cracked mirror.
Old desk.
Unwashed cup in the sink.
Half-folded uniform hanging off the chair.
Nothing had changed.
And yet somehow, everything felt slightly out of place like the room belonged to him less than it had yesterday.
Zareth walked to the mirror and stopped in front of it.
For a second, he just stared.
Messy black hair.
Pale skin.
Lean shoulders.
Gray eyes dulled by exhaustion.
Still him.
Still ordinary.
Still forgettable.
But the longer he looked, the less that word felt right.
Ordinary.
It didn't fit anymore, not after what he saw, not after whatever that thing was inside his chest.
His gaze lowered slightly.
Then stopped.
His right eye.
Something was wrong with it.
Not obvious.
Not enough for anyone else to notice unless they were looking too closely,
But the outer ring of his iris looked darker than before and when the morning light shifted across the glass a faint trace of red caught beneath the gray.
Zareth froze.
He leaned closer and it vanished just gray again looks normal tired and human.
He stared at his own reflection a little longer before stepping back.
"I'm definitely losing my mind."
The mirror didn't disagree he turned away and grabbed his towel, the shower was freezing, the pipes in the building had never worked properly, and today wasn't suddenly going to be generous.
Cold water hit his shoulders hard enough to make him hiss under his breath but even that didn't fully wake him up his thoughts kept dragging him back to the dream.
Back to the older him.
Back to the way those red eyes had looked at him.
Not like a warning.
Not like a stranger.
Like he already knew what Zareth would become and hated him for being too slow to realize it.
Zareth shut the water off harder than necessary.
"Nope," he muttered, reaching for his uniform.
He got dressed in silence.
Black fitted academy jacket, white undershirt and dark trousers.
The Veyrith Academy crest stitched neatly near the chest even now, the uniform still felt wrong on him.
Too clean.
Too expensive-looking.
Too much like something meant for people born into a different life.
He buttoned the collar, slung his bag over one shoulder, and checked the clock on the desk.
Then swore immediately.
"Damn it."
Late.
Or at least close enough to late to make his chest tighten.
He stuffed a notebook into his bag, grabbed his ID, nearly forgot his schedule, then caught it before he reached the door.
The whole time, that strange pressure behind his ribs never fully went away as if it were awake now watching and waiting.
When he reached the front door, his hand paused on the knob for no reason at least, no normal reason.
His body had gone still before his mind caught up.
Like some part of him didn't want to open it.
Didn't want to step outside and didn't want to find out whether the world would still feel wrong once he left the room, Zareth clenched his jaw and opened the door anyway, the hallway outside smelled faintly like dust, rust, and somebody's burnt breakfast from two floors down
that, at least, felt normal.
The elevator still didn't work and that is also normal.
He took the stairs down from the fourth floor, one hand dragging lightly along the chipped railing.
The building groaned around him the same way it always did pipes knocking somewhere in the walls, old lights buzzing overhead, footsteps from another apartment fading behind a closed door.
For a moment, he almost relaxed.
Almost.
Then he reached the street and the city felt different.
Not visibly.
No crimson sky.
No broken buildings.
No smoke.
Everything was exactly where it should've been.
People walking to work.
Motor traffic groaning awake.
But after the dream, it all felt strangely fragile like he'd seen what this city could become if something went wrong enough and now he couldn't stop imagining the cracks.
Zareth shoved one hand into his pocket and started walking, the route to Veyrith Academy was one he knew by memory now, past the corner bakery across the narrow overpass.
Through the district where the buildings got taller and cleaner and the sidewalks stopped looking like they were one heavy rain away from collapsing.
The closer he got to the academy, the more obvious the difference became.
The lower district always looked like it was holding itself together out of spite.
The upper side of the city didn't have that problem.
Everything there looked polished, protected, like money itself had built walls around the streets.
By the time the academy gates came into view, Zareth's expression had already gone flat again.
His usual face.
The one that gave away as little as possible.
Veyrith Academy stood exactly the way it always did tall, elegant, and irritatingly untouched by reality.
Dark stone buildings.
Silver trimmed glass.
Clean courtyards.
Students moving through the gates in expensive uniforms and effortless confidence and most of them looked like they belonged there so naturally it was almost offensive.
Zareth slowed slightly near the entrance.
He didn't belong here.
He never had.
Even after getting accepted, even after surviving months inside these walls, the feeling had never left, This place was built for heir, bloodlines and for people with names that opened doors before they even touched the handle.
And then there was him Zareth Ashveil, scholarship student with no powerful family and no bloodline anyone cared about.
No place in a world like this except the one he forced for himself.
He kept walking.
The academy halls were already filling up by the time he stepped inside.
Students moved in clusters, voices low and easy, a few casually showed off sparks of affinity as they talked.
Blue static dancing over fingertips.
A flicker of wind around a notebook page.
Casual things.
Things people like him weren't supposed to have.
Zareth looked away and kept moving his fingers twitched once at his side then stopped.
He found Class 1-B faster than expected.
When he stepped inside, the room was already loud, full and alive in a way he never quite liked.
Students were spread across the room in loose groups, some standing near desks, some sitting half turned in their chairs, some already deep in conversations that probably started before they even entered the room.
Zareth didn't look at anyone for too long.
He headed straight for the back corner and dropped into the nearest empty seat same instinct as always back row.
Wall to one side.
Fewest eyes possible.
He set his bag down and leaned back slightly.
His body still felt too aware.
His fingers started tapping lightly against the edge of the desk before he even noticed.
Once.
Twice.
Then faster.
He stopped and curled his hand into a fist.
Same habit.
The classroom noise blurred for a second his thoughts drifted and not to the dream this time, further back, cold orphanage walls, steel-framed beds.
That old silence where kids learned too early not to ask for too much.
Zareth remembered watching other children get chosen.
Remembered pretending he didn't care.
Remembered realizing, little by little, that no one was coming for him.
That kind of thing never really leaves you.
It just gets quieter.
Until something drags it back up again.
"Talking to yourself already?"
Zareth looked up.
A girl was standing beside the desk one row ahead of him, one brow slightly raised.
Brown hair.
Sharp eyes.
Academy uniform neat and properly worn.
Something about her face hit him with a strange kind of familiarity that made his chest tighten before he even understood why.
She noticed his expression immediately.
And the small smile on her face faded just a little.
"You don't remember me," she said.
Not accusing.
Not even surprised.
Just disappointed in a way that sounded practiced.
Zareth frowned.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Because the truth was immediate and uncomfortable.
No.
Not really.
There was something there.
A feeling.
A half memory buried somewhere too deep to reach but her name, her face, her voice, they should have meant more than they did and the fact that they didn't made his chest twist strangely.
The girl let out a quiet breath and sat down in the chair ahead of him, turning slightly in her seat.
"Bea," she said.
"Since apparently we're doing introductions again."
Zareth nodded once.
"Right."
"Very believable."
That almost got a reaction out of him.
Almost.
She looked at him for another second.
Then said,
"You look awful."
He blinked.
"Good morning to you too."
"There it is."
"What?"
"That thing you do."
"What thing?"
"The pretending you're fine thing."
Zareth gave her a flat look.
She didn't look away.
Weirdly, he did first.
Before he could say anything else, the classroom door opened and just like that, the room shifted not silence but close enough.
Professor Seraphine stepped inside with the kind of presence that made people sit straighter before they even realized they were doing it.
Tall.
Dark coat.
Sharp posture.
Silver eyes that missed absolutely nothing.
Her heels clicked once against the floor as she walked toward the front.
She set a thin stack of papers on the desk then turned toward the class, her gaze swept across the room once then stopped on him.
Zareth felt it instantly.
Not just because she was looking at him, because it felt like she was checking for something.
Something under the surface.
Something only she seemed to know to look for.
Then she looked away.
"Take your seats."
Everyone already had.
No one was stupid enough to point that out.
Seraphine turned toward the board.
"Today we'll be reviewing foundational bloodline theory, core resonance, and basic channel control."
A low groan moved through part of the class.
She ignored it.
"Try not to embarrass your bloodlines before lunch."
A few people laughed.
One boy near the center of the room said something smug enough to get a few others grinning.
Zareth tuned most of it out.
He tried to focus on the board.
Tried to focus on the lecture.
Tried to focus on literally anything that wasn't the feeling in his chest.
Didn't work.
Every time Seraphine said words like core, awakening, or resonance, that thing beneath his ribs seemed to react.
Not violently.
Just enough.
A pulse.
A shift.
Then the tension in the room changed.
Not because of the lesson.
Because of voices.
Two boys near the center rows had gone from talking quietly to talking like they wanted the whole room to hear.
One had dark auburn hair and the kind of expensive confidence Zareth had stopped trying to name.
The other had silver blond hair and looked like he'd never once lost an argument in his life.
"You really think rankings mean anything this early?" the auburn-haired one said, leaning back with a careless smirk.
The silver-haired one didn't even glance at him properly.
"They mean enough for you to keep bringing them up."
A few nearby students snorted.
The auburn haired boy's smile thinned.
"That's funny coming from someone whose family had to buy influence to stay relevant."
The silver-haired one finally looked over.
Cool.
Unbothered.
"And yet somehow we still rank above yours."
That got a reaction.
Small, but immediate.
A couple of students exchanged glances.
Someone muttered, "Here we go."
The auburn-haired boy leaned forward slightly now.
Not angry yet.
But close.
"You talk a lot for someone who hides behind a surname."
"And you rely a lot on yours for someone with nothing interesting to say."
That one landed harder.
The room didn't go silent, but attention definitely shifted.
Even Seraphine paused for half a second.
Not concerned.
Just observing.
Like she was deciding whether this was worth stopping.
Zareth looked away.
Not his problem.
Didn't matter.
Wouldn't involve him.
Hopefully.
Then the pressure in his chest pulsed again.
Hard.
His hand tightened on the edge of the desk.
Cold spread suddenly through his fingers.
He looked down.
And froze.
A thin black strand had wrapped once around his index finger.
Not smoke.
Not shadow from the desk.
Something darker.
Something alive.
It moved once.
Then disappeared the moment he saw it.
Zareth's breath caught.
The cold it left behind stayed.
And this time he knew for certain he hadn't imagined it.