Asher Augustus didn't sleep much these days.
He lay awake most nights with his thoughts stitched together like pieces of glass—sharp, clear, and uncomfortable. Tonight was no different.
The window of his mansion remained open, letting in a breeze laced with campus energy. The scent of alchemical ingredients drifted in from his alchemy chamber. He sat on the edge of his bed, arms resting on his knees, staring at the small slip of illusion paper he'd been flipping between his fingers for the last hour.
He was looking for patterns.
Politics didn't end at the academy gates. That had been his father's first lesson. "Every classroom is a court," the King had said. "The only difference is the robes." And Vyrith—secluded though it was—was no exception.
So Asher played his part. He answered faction invitations with polite non-answers. He maintained relationships without forming bonds. And yet, even with all his care, something still managed to slip past him.
The card had started it.
Phantom Bloom. A harmless name. A whisper of illusion and control. But nothing in this academy was harmless. Not anymore.
He placed the card on the table beside him, still sealed in its crystalline slip, and leaned back with a sigh. His chambers, lavish even by royal standards, didn't offer peace—just silence.
People believed he had it all figured out. Born into the Lunar Kingdom, third in line, groomed for courtcraft and war both. A name known across every continent. He played the soft-spoken prodigy perfectly—naïve when it helped, brilliant when required.
But even Asher knew he was improvising now. Because no one, not even he, had predicted this arcane maze.
First, Clayton. Then Eric. And now Marvin.
The instructor's involvement was more than a school incident—it was a signal flare. Something bigger was at work, and while Clayton and Eric both had theories, Asher couldn't help but view it through a political lens.
Power like this didn't stay hidden by accident.
He pulled himself away from the bed and crossed the room to his desk, activating the low-tier projection crystal embedded in the wall. Reports flickered to life—discreet data packets sent by his quiet watchers. Not agents of the Lunar Kingdom—he didn't trust the court to act without adding chains—but a small group of hired analysts, quietly planted through school funding.
He scanned through them.
More instructors with gaps in their histories.
Strange student withdrawals—five in the last semester alone, all from electives tied to illusion mechanics or artifact theory.
Unmarked deliveries. Anonymous artifacts. No direct trail. Yet.
Asher rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Politics at Vyrith felt like home. That's what made it dangerous.
In the court, everything was theater—appearances and consequences. At Vyrith, the faces were younger, but the stakes were the same. Factions moved like predators. Every student here had the potential to become a leader, a weapon, or a martyr. Every elective, every mentor, every duel—it all served as a testing ground.
Asher had survived politics his entire life by learning two rules early:
First—never reveal your real intent until everyone else has already played their hand.
Second—never trust your allies more than your enemies. At least your enemies are predictable.
And that's what made Clayton and Eric so interesting.
Clayton, with his careful silence and calculated uncertainty, hadn't cracked yet. He was smart enough to ask the right questions and bold enough to act. But he wasn't ruthless. Not yet.
Eric was different. Born into power like Asher, but from a house built on coalition, not monarchy. Warwick Union's politics were messier—more fragile. Eric didn't wear his pride on his sleeve, but Asher could see the sharpness beneath the surface. A boy trained to bend when needed but never to break.
It made them both useful—and dangerous.
Asher walked back to the desk and opened the artifact logs again. Then paused.
A new ping.
Encrypted. From one of the watchers. A short report.
He read it once. Then again.
An irregular arcane frequency was detected in the western wing. Coinciding with Instructor Marvin's lecture window.
He asked Clayton to make some more Echo Chimes and gave some to his people to investigate
And faint echoes of the same signature are tied to the Mirage Cascade and Phantom Bloom cards.
A new lead. At last.
He picked up the card again, holding it between two fingers.
If this was part of a larger experiment, as they all suspected, then Marvin was likely one of several. A distributor. Or worse, a cultivator.
The term Eric had used stuck with him: seeds.
Plant enough of them. Let them bloom. Harvest chaos when the time was right.
The Hollow Circle.
That was what Clayton had called it. A name he'd found during research, he said. Some weird conspiracy attached to a sigil—half a sun with green wax. Neither Asher nor Eric had heard of it before, and while the name sounded like fiction, the implications weren't.
Because in this world, the fiction sometimes bled into reality.
And Asher also noticed that while telling this, Clayton was a bit erratic, a little more excited than his usual self. Asher knew Clayton did not tell a lie, at least not a complete one but he also did not say the complete truth.
The Hollow Circle, real or not, was an idea. And ideas, when given enough belief, turned into movements.
He didn't like that.
Movements were harder to kill than people.
Asher placed the card back into the box and clicked it shut.
It was time to move. Again.
The investigations were far from over, and every step forward made it more dangerous to stop. Faculty could be involved. Entire groups could be planted within the student body. If this was political manipulation, then the academy was already compromised.
Still…
He couldn't walk away. Not yet.
Because power wasn't just something you inherited.
It was something you shaped. Held. Protected.
If Marvin was connected to something larger, then Asher would expose it. Quietly. Precisely.
Not to save the academy. Not to be a hero.
But because every empire, even a future one, needed to know its threats.
And if the Hollow Circle had already begun playing their hand…
Asher intended to flip the table.
With Clayton, with Eric, or without them.
But for now, he would wait. Observe. Track.
Because that was the game.
And Asher Augustus never played to lose.