The cloaked figure's silent departure left Elias reeling, a fresh wave of terror and bewilderment washing over him.
He stood frozen in the alley, the echoes of the thug's strained gasp and the phantom touch of the chilling presence still prickling his skin.
Someone else out there knew what this power was. Someone else moved in that same eerie silence, wielding that same unnatural cold.
The thought, unsettling as it was, also ignited a flicker of desperate hope. He wasn't alone.
The walk back to the orphanage was a blur. The familiar sights of mana-lit streets and bustling night markets seemed alien, seen through a new, disturbing lens.
Every shadow held a potential watcher, every gust of wind felt like a whisper. He managed to sneak into his bed, but sleep was a distant dream.
The images of the spectral figure from the annex, the feeling of that agonizing pull within him, and the stark relief on Lena's face when the concrete swerved, played on an endless loop. He spent the night wrestling with the impossibility of it all. What was he? And why him?
The next few days were a blur of nervous energy. Elias avoided Lena, the sting of their argument still fresh. He knew she deserved an explanation, but what could he say? Hey, remember how I told you I don't have mana? Turns out I can call up dead people and make bad guys suddenly weak. Pretty cool, huh? The thought made him feel sick. He needed answers before he could even begin to talk to her.
He spent every free moment in the Academy library, poring over texts, not just the approved histories, but the dusty, often-ignored tomes in the forgotten corners. He found archaic references to "spirit resonance" and "etheric manipulation," always buried deep within sections detailing the 'primitive' magics before the Great Sundering, dismissed as dangerous and chaotic.
One particular passage from an old folklore collection mentioned a forgotten sect of "shadow-weavers" whose magic was rumored to draw on "the echoes of what was, rather than what is."
It sent a shiver down his spine. It felt close, but still too vague, too much like myth.
His hunger for answers led him away from the Academy, deeper into the forgotten pockets of the city – abandoned warehouses, crumbling historical sites, neglected burial grounds.
Places where the modern hum of mana felt distant, and the air felt... different. Thinner, colder, sometimes even resonant with unheard sorrow. He was searching for a sign, a clue, anything that could make sense of the chaos inside him.
One afternoon, he found himself in the sprawling, neglected municipal cemetery, a place where generations of the city's forgotten had been laid to rest beneath cracked headstones and overgrown weeds. It was quiet here, a profound, heavy silence broken only by the rustle of dry leaves.
He walked amongst the rows, feeling that now-familiar cold presence, stronger here, almost thick in the air. He noticed that some grave markers felt colder than others, almost vibrating with a faint hum that only he seemed to perceive. He wasn't trying to do anything, just trying to understand.
He stopped before a crumbling obelisk, its inscription long eroded by time. As he focused on it, that warmth in his gut began to build, accompanied by an intense, almost painful thrumming in his fingertips.
The cold around him sharpened, condensing, like invisible threads tightening. He felt a profound sense of loneliness, a silent, lingering grief emanating from the very stone. He felt drawn to it, compelled to touch it.
As his fingers brushed the weathered surface, the warmth and the cold surged together, a swirling vortex within him. Images, clearer than before, flooded his mind: a woman, young, with eyes full of sorrow, clutching a faded locket. A faint, mournful whimper echoed in his ears, a sound that seemed to come from inside his own head.
"A profound sensitivity to residual psychic imprints, amplified by the inherent energy unique to your lineage."
The voice, deep and resonant, cut through the ethereal torment. Elias gasped, yanking his hand away from the obelisk.
He spun around, his heart leaping into his throat.
Standing perhaps ten feet away, partially obscured by a weeping willow, was the cloaked figure from the alley.
They had shed some of their street disguise; the hood was pulled back just enough to reveal a gaunt, aged face, etched with deep lines of sorrow and knowledge.
His eyes, though shadowed, held a piercing intensity that Elias instantly recognized as the source of the profound, controlled cold he'd sensed. He was old, perhaps in his seventies, but there was an undeniable strength in his posture, a quiet power that seemed to ripple beneath his worn cloak.
"Who… who are you?" Elias stammered, backing away slowly, his hands instinctively raising in a defensive gesture.
The old man stepped fully into view, his movements deliberate, unhurried. He was shorter than Elias had expected, but his presence was immense, filling the air with a power that hummed just beneath Elias's perception.
"My name is Silas. Silas Vance. And I, young Elias, am your grandfather."
Elias froze, his mind reeling. Grandfather? He had no family. They were all gone. The orphanage had told him so.
"That's impossible," he whispered, shaking his head. "My parents… they died. I have no family left."
A flicker of pain crossed Silas's ancient features, quickly masked by his habitual stoicism.
"They did. A tragic accident, so they said. But before… before they were taken, before you were whisked away to the confines of the state, your father entrusted you to me.
He knew. He felt the Embermark stirring within you even then, albeit faintly. I have been searching for you ever since."
Silas took another slow step forward, his eyes never leaving Elias's.
"You possess a power, Elias, that is not mana. It is far older, far more… intricate. It is the Embermark. The curse that severed our family from mana also forced our ancestors to innovate, to discover another path. I myself spent decades perfecting its control, understanding its nuances."
He extended a gnarled hand, and Elias saw a faint, unsettling shimmer of dark, almost smoky energy coalesce around his palm, a controlled, deep cold emanating from it.
"What you experienced back at the Academy, what you did in that alley, it was the nascent stirrings of our family's true legacy. Necromancy, they call it, those who fear it. A connection to the very souls of the departed. A power to command what has passed, to wield the echoes of what was."
Elias stared, utterly bewildered.Necromancy? The word felt dark, forbidden, like something from Mr. Thorne's hushed lectures about pre-Sundering chaos. Yet, the old man, his grandfather, spoke of it with a calm, almost reverent certainty.
"I can teach you," Silas continued, his voice a low, compelling rumble.
"I can show you how to control this power, how to understand the gifts of our cursed bloodline. Gifts that will allow you to fight back against the true architects of our suffering, the ones who orchestrated the curse upon our family, the ones who ensured your parents' 'accident'."
Silas's eyes, dark and ancient, suddenly sharpened, glinting with a cold, unwavering resolve that mirrored the power Elias was only beginning to glimpse within himself.
"The Blackwood family. They believe they erased us. They believe they won. But you, Elias, are proof that the Embermark endured. You are the last spark of a forgotten fire, and with my guidance, we will forge that spark into a flame that will burn away their lies and exact a justice long overdue."
Elias looked from the ancient, powerful man to his own trembling hands, then back to the fading inscription on the obelisk. The ghostly whisper from moments ago returned, but this time, it felt different – not desperate, but curious.
The world had just turned upside down. Mana was not the only power. He had family. He had a lineage. And he had a dark, terrifying, ancestral gift, waiting to be unleashed.