Kael traced the final symbol on the glass screen—a spiral that bent inward on itself, like a question asked too many times. As his stylus touched the last point, the glass hummed. The ember above him flickered, then swelled into a soft, silver sun.

Kael leaned back, his own aura—usually a steady, muted blue—flickering with amber awe. The new script worked. But as he turned to log the result, the glass screen went dark. In its reflective surface, he saw not his own face, but a figure in a hood, holding a similar stylus.

In the hollowed-out server rooms beneath the old city, Kael worked by the light of a single, floating ember. His tools weren’t keyboards or mice, but a stylus carved from solidified sound and a screen that was actually a pane of raw, living glass.