The wind whispered across the palace roof, cool and steady, brushing strands of silver hair across Aurora’s cheek. Her deep blue eyes stared skyward, unblinking. The world above was brilliant—sunlight laced with mana, clouds drifting in slow, divine spirals. But she didn’t look at the sky.
She looked through it.
"Trap forty-one... done," she whispered, voice dry with fatigue. "Now for trap forty-two."
Beneath her, the rooftop was cold stone. Her legs had gone numb hours ago, but she barely noticed. Her mind floated elsewhere—threaded through ley lines, woven into hidden layers of reality. Her mana flickered outward like a net cast wide, connecting her to the lattice of spells she had left across the kingdom.
Most wouldn’t even sense them.
Most weren’t her.
The floating to beside her pulsed softly. The Book of the Damned—bound in leather that no beast should have provided, stitched with arcane threads that drank light and bled whispers. One crimson slot glowed faintly within its cover. Four were still empty.
She’d need more ti. And more blood.
She had gotten it—or perhaps it had gotten her—a week ago, during the mont everything shifted.
It had begun with silence. Not the gentle hush of wind or the stillness of a quiet night, but a deep, cosmic hush—when the Dreaming stopped. The age-old current that carried sorcerers between waking and arcane vision had simply... halted. The world had changed then, not by force, but by so inscrutable cosmic turn.
Even now, Aurora couldn’t sleep properly. Not really. Her body dozed in fits, eyes fluttering shut for short snatches of rest, but it wasn’t slumber—not truly. It was a state between dreaming and drowning, like floating belly-up in deep, bottomless waters.
It had beco a habit: lying still with her thoughts unraveling through infinite spirals, drifting toward sothing not quite seen, not quite nad.
And it wasn’t just her.
Sothing had shifted for all mages.
Sothing vast, unseen—profound.
Even rlin, her ever-elusive master, had reached out to her for the first ti in years. Not in words, but in raw magic. In pulses. Echoes. Threads of energy she knew only he could weave.
They were connected now.
No—everyone was.
All living things, from the smallest blade of grass to the gods that watched in silence, were tethered to sothing. Sothing deeper than ley lines, older than the void. Sothing that curled at the edges of reality, whispering from the abyss and beckoning toward infinity.
Whatever had happened that week, it had redrawn the map of magical existence. Not broken the rules—rewritten them.
And for mages like Aurora, it was a gift.
An edge.
When she closed her eyes, she didn’t fall into the Dream. Not anymore. Instead, her mind descended inward—into her own subconscious, down through the darkened staircase of soul and will, until she reached the abyss of mana.
And there, her power didn’t just flow.
It expanded. Amplified. Multiplied.
A river of potential gushed through her veins, hot and electric and terrifying. It was like standing in the eye of a storm made entirely of thought and spellcraft.
And the book above her—the Book of the Damned—was her compass in that storm.
Its floating pages glowed faintly, stitched from leather that pulsed like skin, etched with symbols that writhed when she tried to understand them. But it worked. She understood it now—how to shape it. How to use it.
And with its guidance, she had crafted spells so intricate, so volatile, that even rlin would have been shocked. Delirious. Jealous, perhaps.
She could almost hear his voice now: "You’re playing with stars, child. Be careful what you burn."
Aurora smirked bitterly, brushing silver hair from her face as she stared up at the sky.
"...Henry also said, watch over Atlas," she muttered, voice laced with derision. "Haaa... that stupid father figure. Can’t even trust his own child."
Her eyes narrowed.
"I don’t know what will beco of him..." she added, quieter this ti. Not dismissive—almost... mournful.
Because as much as she hated to admit it, a part of her agreed with Henry.
Atlas was becoming sothing more—and sothing dangerous.
And if no one was watching him closely, no one would be able to stop what ca next.
Aurora exhaled, her breath fogging in the cooler air. "Gods above, this strain... fuck sideways."
A mont of silence. Then:
"...If Henry doesn’t pay triple, I swear I’m usurping his wrinkled ass."
She shifted slightly, pulling her cloak tighter. Sowhere below, the palace stirred—voices, servants, whispers of war and succession. But here, above it all, she was both removed and deeply entangled.
Her eyes half-closed.
She focused.
And then her magic brushed his presence.
Atlas.
He was far—miles away, hidden under a disguise spell so complex it blurred even her vision. But not completely. Her perception pierced through illusion like moonlight through broken glass. She saw the golden hair. The blue eyes. The softness crafted with surgical detail.
But she felt the fire beneath it.
Atlas had changed.
Again.
He was no longer the boy who stumbled into her tower, bleeding and breathless, asking for help with spells too advanced for his age. He had beco sothing else—fierce, guarded, unknowable.
"Claire," she muttered, frowning as the serpent of wealth entered the room with him. Claire was too close—always too close. And when Atlas leaned in, murmuring sothing too low to hear, Claire blushed.
Blushed.
Aurora’s jaw tightened.
"What are you doing, you idiot," she whispered. "What happened to ’don’t trust her’? What happened to all that fire and frost in your blood?"
But her heart wasn’t steady either.
Because even she—who had mocked him, cursed him, guided him—couldn’t stop watching.
And the Book beside her trembled.
It pulsed once, twice. Then louder.
Like it had seen him.
And liked what it saw.
Aurora sat upright. Sweat beaded on her neck. The book was glowing now, reacting—not to her, but to him.
"What are you doing?" she murmured to it, voice taut. "Why are you reacting now?"
The crimson gem within the cover burned hot. Runes shifted. Pages turned on their own, revealing unfamiliar glyphs—pages she hadn’t written, hadn’t even known were there.
$&&$#$ (Atlas’s na.)
Written in ancient ink.
In blood.
Aurora’s heartbeat stuttered. "That’s not possible..."
*****
Guys sorry about this but I will be not uploading today and tomorrow. Getting more busy in my work. Its been Hard to juggle both writing and my actual work. But don’t worry I will start uploading like normal starting Friday. 😉 until then, have patience guys.
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