Chapter 9: Insight

Chapter 9: Insight

The ring pulsed beneath his boots, though it didn’t feel welcoming. If anything, it thrummed like a warning—a heartbeat out of sync with his own. Cold light licked at the edges of his coat, casting long shadows across the glyph-etched floor. Somewhere behind him, someone coughed.

The air in the chamber had changed. It was thinner here—drier. As if the space itself held its breath. The violet runes beneath the floor dimmed slightly as he stepped toward the pedestal, casting his shadow in long, hesitant strokes behind him.

Thorne raised a hand. The others fell silent.

"Insight," he said, like a sentence.

An evaluator stepped forward and placed a slab.

Polished crystal, deceptively still. A faint swirl of dormant colour at its center. But Forten knew better. This wasn’t just a slab. It housed a core shard—cut from the fifteenth floor of the Tower itself, forged under pressure no mortal hand could replicate.

They said it remembered every soul it touched.

The slab itself hummed softly against the pedestal, like it recognised him. The edges, deceptively smooth, were known to draw blood from the careless. The pedestal, too, bore the weight of its legacy—older than the rest of the chamber, scorched and cracked from centuries of failed initiations. Spiderweb fractures veined its base, yet the glyphwork carved into its spine shimmered faintly, pulsing with residual magic. Still alive. Still watching.

Forten exhaled. He knelt. Placed both hands on the slab.

Nothing.

The cold seeped in first—fingertips to palm to spine. It wasn’t the kind of cold that bit, but the kind that spread, like ink in water. The kind that felt less like weather and more like being watched—submerged in someone’s icy, calculating gaze.

Then came a faint tingle, like static climbing up his arms. He shut his eyes, just for a moment. He remembered what the instructor had said earlier.

If you possess any natural affinity—arcane, elemental, psychic—it will manifest as color and form.

But Forten had never felt anything. Never cast a spell. Never glowed.

Then—

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A flicker.

At first, it was no brighter than a match struck in wind. A faint pulse. The core shimmered pale blue for half a breath—

Then it twisted.

It jerked once, spun—

—and shattered.

CRACK.

A sharp tear in the air echoed through the chamber as the slab split clean down the middle, releasing a hiss of steam and a spray of crystalline dust. Static danced up Forten’s arms, across his shoulders, sparking briefly at his neck before fading.

The noise echoed—too loud for something so small. The walls caught it and returned it in waves. And then silence.

The room froze.

Then voices rose—first in whispers, then sharper.

“That’s not supposed to happen.”

“It didn’t even register—just cracked.”

“Check the core—was it unstable?”

Forten blinked at the slab. One half still sat on the pedestal. The other had skidded a full meter across the floor. It had left a clean trail through the dust on the stone.

"Is it broken?" Forten asked, softly.

No one answered.

The senior evaluator crouched down, ran a gloved hand over the fractured core. His fingers came away lightly singed.

"That slab was calibrated this morning," he said.

"Maybe he forced a resonance feedback," another muttered.

"Without affinity? Impossible."

A third voice snapped across the room. “Remove him.”

Forten flinched.

“That kind of reaction? He could be unstable,” the man said. “What if he’s cursed?”

“He is,” someone whispered behind a sleeve. “Byrin’s boy. Shouldn’t even be here.”

The first instructor turned toward Thorne, who hadn’t moved. “Sir—your call.”

Thorne crouched beside the slab. He studied Forten’s hands, then his face, then the pedestal. No expression.

"You felt something?" he asked.

Forten hesitated. "Yes. But it wasn’t—I don’t know. It didn’t feel like a glyph. It felt... curious."

A pause.

Thorne said nothing. He just stood, then turned to the others. “Leave it.”

“Sir?” the evaluator blinked. “Protocol says—”

“I said leave it.”

The air in the room shifted. Not with sound. With authority. The other instructors backed off without another word.

Forten stood, hands still tingling with phantom static. The slab lay broken behind him like a verdict passed in secret.

"But what does it mean?" Forten pressed.

The evaluator shook his head. "It means the slab failed to record anything conclusive."

"So... I failed?"

"You broke it. That’s not the same."

Whispers spun through the chamber like frost on glass.

"That’s Crested Byrin’s son, right?"

"He cracked the core."

"Can you even fail that badly?"

“Byrin was affinitied, though. No idea how the kid turned out dry.”

“No way. Not even a flicker?”

“No glyph. No magic. Nothing.”

"Maybe the tower broke him before he even went in."

“Broke his dad, didn’t it?”

“Like father, like son then—except someone forgot to pass down the fire.”

The laughter was quiet and mean—mean in that cowardly way laughter gets when it knows it’s safe behind a crowd. It fizzled fast when one of the examiners shot a glance sharp enough to slice stone.

Forten stepped back from the pedestal, his hands still tingling with phantom static. He flexed his fingers, half-expecting something—anything—to spark.

Nothing sparked.

Nothing glowed.

Nothing.

Just skin. And confusion.

He walked out of the ring slowly, eyes fixed on the ground. But not before he saw Thorne staring after him.

Not disappointed.

Not impressed.

Just... watching.