The silence in the room was a physical weight, thick and suffocating. It was broken only by the rhythmic, dry scratching of a quill against parchment—a sound that did little to disturb the profound stillness. Marcus Valen sat hunched over his heavy oak desk, his form a study in concentration. Lamplight cast long, dancing shadows across the walls, catching the glint of his signet ring as his eyes scanned the fragmented epigraph he had smuggled from the ruins beneath Hollow Stone.
The candle beside him flickered—once, twice—then stilled as if holding its breath in anticipation. He traced a gloved finger over the ancient symbols etched into the obsidian shard. The stone was unnaturally cold, its chill seeping through the leather into his skin. He could feel the immense weight of its history, something far older than the Empire itself, pressing against the edges of his mind. His own magic, a familiar and obedient pulse within him, stirred faintly in response, seeking a point of resonance, a flicker of recognition.
None came.
"Try again," he muttered, his voice a low rasp in the quiet. He focused his will, drawing a thin, shimmering thread of fire essence from his core and channeling it into the stone.
For a moment, the runes glowed with a soft, inviting crimson light. Then, they flared. Violently. Tendrils of black flame, cold and hungry, spilled from the obsidian, clawing at the air. The temperature in the room plummeted in an instant, a wave of frigid cold that stole the breath from his lungs. Marcus barely had time to throw up a reflexive magical barrier before the candlelight was extinguished, plunging the room into absolute darkness.
In the sudden blackness, the shadows stopped behaving as they should. They did not simply lengthen or deepen; they twisted, peeling away from the walls like wet ink running down a page. The darkness coalesced, gathering itself at the foot of his bed into a vaguely humanoid shape, a silhouette cut from the fabric of absence.
A whisper, unintelligible yet unmistakably sentient, curled through the air like smoke.
His hand flew to the dagger hidden in a spring-loaded sheath beneath his sleeve, the cold steel a small comfort against the hammering of his heart. "Who's there?"
The figure did not move, but the whispers grew louder, weaving a tapestry of sound that seemed to bypass his ears and speak directly to his mind. Words formed—not in any tongue Marcus knew, yet their meaning bloomed within his consciousness, stark and clear.
"The Contract... was never meant for kings..."
The dark silhouette raised an arm—if it could be called that—a limb of pure shadow that did not disturb the air. It pointed directly at him.
Marcus stood slowly, every muscle tensed. The Shadow Codex, the arcane book strapped to his belt, began to vibrate violently. Its pages, bound by his will, fluttered open of their own accord. But instead of recording the impossible event unfolding before him, the paper remained starkly, stubbornly blank. The system, the power that had documented every iota of his journey, had failed. For the first time, it was blind.
"This isn't just old magic," Marcus realized aloud, his voice tight with a terrifying excitement. "This is something outside the known order."
The figure tilted its head slightly, a gesture of unnerving curiosity. It spoke again, the voice clearer now, resonating not with sound but with pure meaning. "You bear the mark of the Star-Dome, yet you walk blind. This path leads only to ruin."
"Then tell me what I'm walking into," Marcus challenged, his voice steady despite the ice crawling up his spine. "Tell me what this is."
The shadow hesitated. When the whisper returned, it was laced with something mournful, an ancient sorrow that echoed across millennia. "It is the voice of the void. The language of the Forgotten Ones. You have awakened the Void-tongue."
The moment the words solidified in his mind, the figure shuddered and collapsed inward, unraveling like mist in the morning sun. Light returned with a sudden, audible snap. The candle on his desk was burning once more, its flame tall and steady. The oppressive chill vanished as if it had never been.
All signs of the encounter were gone—except for the damningly empty page in the Shadow Codex and the phantom pounding in his skull.
He exhaled, a long, slow breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Not even the system can touch this," he murmured, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across his lips. "Which means no one else has either."
And that meant power. Power no one could predict. Power no one could counter. Power he would learn to wield.
Two floors below, Simon Hurst scribbled furiously on a report sheet, his face tight with a familiar, gnawing suspicion.
"I saw it again—last night, near the east dormitory wing," he said, not looking up. "A pulse of energy strong enough to distort the wind currents around the building. And every time it happens, the epicenter is Valen's room."
Across the desk, Aelia Serin barely glanced up from the steam rising from her porcelain teacup. Her expression was one of practiced, infuriating indifference. "That brat? Please. If he were capable of anything beyond cheap parlor tricks, someone of consequence would have noticed by now. Go bother someone who matters, Simon."
Simon clenched his jaw, the muscle twitching in his cheek, but he nodded stiffly. He knew better than to argue with her when she used that tone. He wasn't finished, however.
Later that evening, under the guise of a routine maintenance check on the warding arrays in the hallway, he paused at Marcus Valen's door. With a swift, practiced movement, he slipped a small, flat token inscribed with nearly invisible runes beneath the threshold. A Wind-eye Talisman. It would silently record any significant magical activity inside the room and transmit a silent alert.
He straightened up and walked away, a grim smile touching his lips. "Let's see how long you can hide it, Your Highness."
Meanwhile, deep within the Imperial Archives, where the air smelled of ancient paper and sealed history, Nilos Vesta stared down at a faded scroll. It detailed the cataclysmic fall of the Star-Dome civilization, its script written in a high, archaic form of the imperial tongue. His lips were pressed into a thin, bloodless line.
"Valen has the shard," he stated, his voice a low murmur that was absorbed by the towering shelves of books.
One of his informants—a cloaked student of the academy—knelt at his feet on the cold marble floor. The student's face was hidden in shadow. "We confirmed it. He retrieved it from the lower chambers. Should we… acquire it tonight?"
"No," Nilos replied, his eyes still fixed on the scroll. "Not yet. Let him dig deeper. Let him stumble closer to the edge of the abyss. He is a royal, and his curiosity will be his undoing. When he is on the verge of understanding, then we will strike."
A shadow passed behind his eyes, a flicker of something far colder than scholarly ambition. "He doesn't understand what he's meddling with. No one does."
Back in his room, Marcus studied the obsidian fragment once more. The Void-tongue. The words echoed in his mind. If this truly existed, then the history books—the carefully curated tales of the Empire's glorious founding—were all lies. The Empire had not risen from noble conquests; it had built its foundations upon stolen, forbidden secrets. And somewhere, buried beneath centuries of deception, lay the truth of what the royal family really was.
He opened the Shadow Codex again, focusing his will upon it. Slowly, the book responded, a faint light glowing from its pages. They still refused to write, to document the shadow or the voice. But something new had appeared at the bottom of the interface, a line of text that shimmered with an ethereal light:
[Fate Echo - Locked]
Cost: 50% Providence
"Hmm." Marcus's gaze sharpened. "So it's tied to fate after all."
He closed the book with a soft, definitive thud. To unlock this echo, to see the memory of the Void-tongue, he needed Providence. A vast amount of it.
"I need more Providence," he said to the silent room.
And soon, he would find ways to take it.
Because the stars remembered what had been stolen.
And so, now, did he.