Failed. [i]Again.[/i]

The silence that followed was broken only by the familiar voice in his mind, dry, smug, and maddening.

[color=9e7cde][i]“Have you tried doing it correctly?”[/i][/color]

Quill, perched high atop the bookshelf like some faded gargoyle, tilted his smoky green eyes toward him. Emrys didn’t answer. He just turned and glared, exhausted. It wasn’t the first time he’d failed, and it wouldn’t be the last, but that didn’t make it any less infuriating. He had tried. Again and again. And again. It just wasn’t working.

[color=9e7cde][i]“Your circles were very round,”[/i][/color] Quill offered. [color=9e7cde][i]“I’ll give you that.”[/i][/color]

Emrys muttered a curse under his breath and dropped back to his knees, pressing the damp cloth into the chalk lines until they smeared into pale ghosts on the floor.

Master Elandros had insisted the Ward of Threshold was a perfect exercise for him, simple, reliable, and harmless if it failed. [i]“Wards are foundational,”[/i] he’d said, like a man reciting a proverb from memory, not even glancing up from his book. Emrys had nodded dutifully, masking the sting of being left behind.

He wasn’t ready, apparently. Not polished enough. Not confident enough. Not worthy of brushing shoulders with the brilliant and the immortal. So while his master donned robes and command, Emrys was left in the quiet apartment with a stick of chalk, a stern book, and an incorrigible familiar who had no off-switch.

The television played in the background, volume turned low. Gowns shimmered across the screen, sequins catching the light like bits of starlight trapped in silk. The Tem Gala. Every beautiful mask in the city was there. They walked the red carpet like it was a ritual of their own, names and houses whispered with reverence, the occasional flash of something inhuman behind the eyes.

Emrys stayed behind. Practicing.

His circles were precise, his incantation steady. He had followed the book word for word, gesture for gesture. And still the ward refused him. He could feel the moment it faltered, like a breath held too long collapsing in on itself. The power simply slipped. Slid out of reach. Gone.

He scrubbed the floor in tight, angry circles.

[colour=6ea8d6][i]’Maybe I’m not ready. Maybe he’s right.’[/i][/colour]

Then the television stuttered. A flicker. A soundless beat. He looked up.

The static came first.

Then the light.

It drew his gaze to the window, where the skyline fractured in silence. The top of the Tem Tower bloomed, gold, then red, then white-hot orange. It swallowed the horizon with awful beauty. For a second it looked like a sunrise had torn open the world in the wrong direction.

Then came the sound.

A deep, bone-deep thrum that cracked against the windows like a god pounding on the door. The television went blank. The lights buzzed and died. The apartment froze.

Emrys stood motionless, cloth still clutched in his hand, forgotten.

The fire burned on the skyline. Ash drifted from the distant wound in the city. Somewhere, alarms began to howl. He couldn’t look away.

[color=6ea8d6]“Quill…”[/color] he whispered. [color=6ea8d6]“What was that..?”[/color]

No reply.

For once, the bird had nothing. No smug remark. No muttered rhyme. No scathing insight.

He was staring too.

And that silence, [i]that[/i], was what finally made Emrys afraid.

[hider=Synopsis]Emrys stayed behind to practice. Then the sky caught fire.[/hider]