Rising With My Mystic Power

WEIGHT OF EYES

The courtyard hadn’t emptied even after the duel ended. Students clustered in tight groups, their voices a low thunder rolling through the evening air.

Mordaine pushed through them, every step a battle against the prickle of stares burning into his back.

He could hear the words they weren’t even trying to whisper anymore.

“Golden flame…”

“Isn’t that impossible?”

“He hid it all this time?”

"No someone like him couldn’t there must be a trick.”

The Ember inside him pulsed, restless, as though feeding on their suspicion. Mordaine clenched his fists, willing it to quiet. Not here. Not now. If I lose control again…

At the edge of the yard, Kael leaned against a column, arms crossed, lightning flickering faintly around him. His smirk was gone, replaced by a razor-thin line of disdain. He didn’t speak, but the glare he gave Mordaine promised a storm yet to come.

Mordaine quickened his pace.

Lyra stepped into view. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t mocking. Her sharp eyes searched him as though peeling away every layer until only the flame remained.

“You should be careful,” she murmured, falling into step beside him. “Power like that doesn’t stay unnoticed. And neither do you.”

Her tone was not warning, it was certainty. Mordaine opened his mouth to ask, What do you know? but the weight of too many listening ears pressed him into silence. He only nodded, though questions burned hotter than the Ember in his chest.

The hallways of the Academy felt different that night. Lamps glowed the same, banners hung the same, yet every corner seemed to hold a shadow that turned when he passed.

Mordaine reached his dorm, but before he could close the door, a firm voice stopped him.

“Carrowell.”

He turned. At the end of the corridor stood Master Eldrin, the robed figure who taught Arcane Theory. The elder’s eyes were sharp, glinting with curiosity that looked far too much like suspicion.

“You will report to the High Council chambers tomorrow at dawn,” Eldrin said. His tone was calm, but beneath it lay something heavier, colder. “They will want to… clarify what we all witnessed.”

Mordaine’s chest tightened. The Council. The ruling body of the Academy. If anyone could unearth the Ember’s truth, it was them.

“Yes, Master,” he said, voice steady though his insides roiled.

Eldrin studied him a moment longer, then turned away, robes sweeping like shadows across the stone floor.

When the hall was empty again, Mordaine shut the door, leaning his back against it. His breath shuddered free.

For a moment, silence. Then…..

You can’t hide forever, the Ember’s voice whispered in his mind, faint but clear. They will see. They must see.

Mordaine squeezed his eyes shut, fists trembling. “Not yet,” he whispered. “Not until I’m ready.”

But deep down, he wasn’t sure if ready would ever come.

The Council chambers loomed above the east wing, a vaulted dome of stone threaded with veins of silver that shimmered in dawnlight. Mordaine’s boots echoed against polished floors as he entered, each step carrying the weight of sleepless hours.

The chamber itself was a circle. Seven high backed chairs rose like thrones around a central dais, where a sigil burned faintly upon the floor. Elders in robes of deep crimson, sapphire, and black regarded him with the cool intensity of hawks measuring prey.

“Step forward,” the central figure commanded. High Magister Calvesswhite hair like frost, his eyes sharp as shattered ice.

Mordaine obeyed, feeling the sigil’s warmth ripple under his boots. He didn’t miss how the Elders’ gazes narrowed as the golden flame inside him stirred in answer.

“You fought Kael Dren in the dueling yard yesterday,” Calvess said, voice carrying across the chamber. “Reports claim you manifested… something unnatural. A golden fire.”

The words rippled through the chamber. Mordaine swallowed hard.

“Yes, Magister,” he said carefully.

Another elder, a woman with ink-black hair and jade ornaments, leaned forward. “Do you deny it?”

Mordaine hesitated.

Denial was useless too many had seen. But truth was dangerous. He forced his voice steady. “I cannot deny what happened. But I do not understand it myself. It came… suddenly.”

The Elders exchanged glances, their whispers too faint for him to catch.

Magister Calvess’s gaze sharpened. “Golden flame is not recorded in our archives. Fire exists. Holy fire, rare, but known. Yet yours your flame defied classification. What are you, boy?”

The Ember pulsed inside his chest, eager, as though urging him to speak its name. Mordaine’s jaw clenched. Not now. Not yet.

“I am only a student,” Mordaine said, bowing his head. “I seek understanding as much as you do.”

The silence stretched, thick as fog.

Finally, Elder Veyra the jade-adorned woman rose. “Then let us test the boy. If his power is his own, it will answer him. If not…” Her gaze flicked sharp as a blade. “We shall know.”

At her gesture, attendants carried forth a crystal basin, filled with water that shimmered silver. The surface rippled with runes, glowing faintly as it was placed at the center of the chamber.

“The Mirror of Truth,” Calvess intoned. “Step forward, Mordaine Carrowell. Place your hand within. Reveal what lies beneath your flame.”

The Ember’s voice whispered again, low and burning in his mind: Do not let them see me.

Mordaine’s heart pounded. Every path was a trap truth or lie, exposure or suspicion. Slowly, he stepped forward, the eyes of the seven burning into him.

The water rippled as his fingers brushed the surface.

It glowed first red, then white, then gold. Light surged upward, a pillar lancing toward the dome. Gasps filled the chamber. The runes on the floor flared brighter than ever before.

And then voices. Whispering, echoing, ancient tongues pouring from the light itself.

The Elders lurched to their feet.

“This… this is not possible”

“It speaks with the voice of the First Flame”

“No… something older «

Mordaine staggered back, clutching his chest as the Ember throbbed wildly, no longer whispering but roaring. They must not bind me. Resist, boy!

The light began to shatter the basin, cracks spiderwebbing across crystal.

Attendants rushed forward, but Calvess raised a hand. “Stand down!” His gaze burned into Mordaine. “This is no mere student. This power is forbidden.”

The word slammed into Mordaine like a blow.

Forbidden.

And in that instant, he knew every step from here would be watched, judged, hunted.

The Council might let him walk out of this chamber alive. But never free.