The fortress bell rang low and solemn, echoing through the stone corridors of House Umbral like a dirge. It was not a summons of celebration but one of remembrance—today marked the Day of Departed Sigils, a sacred tradition across the five kingdoms. A day when families lit incense for those who had passed, and when the air grew thin between the living and the dead.
Kael stood beside his mother at the base of the ancestral shrine, staring at the glowing incense sticks rising in rows. His fingers tightened into fists behind his back.
Lady Mirei whispered the family prayer with delicate reverence, her voice trembling slightly on the last lines: "To those lost in silence, may your echoes guide our steps. May your shadows grant us strength."
(What shadow did I inherit? From what past do I truly come?)He bowed his head like the others, but his thoughts swirled with a strange pull—memories that didn't belong to this life. A black mountain silhouetted against a blood-red moon. A battlefield littered with stone shards and weeping blades. A woman screaming his name, not Kael, but something ancient… something long buried.
"Are you unwell, Kael?" his mother asked quietly, noticing the faraway look in his eyes.
"I... I think I remembered something. But not from here."
She looked startled, almost frightened, but quickly composed herself. "Say nothing of this to anyone. Not even Shun. There are powers that slumber for a reason."
The silence between them spoke more than words ever could.
Later that morning, Kael returned to his training chamber, where Master Shun was already waiting. Unlike the formal training yards where Rin and the others practiced, this room was old, tucked beneath the library and shielded by both stone and spell.
"You feel different today," Shun said, lighting a small bronze censer with silverbark incense. "Not stronger. Not weaker. Just... different."
Kael did not respond immediately. Instead, he closed his eyes and sat cross-legged on the cold floor, trying to recall the memory that had stirred during the shrine prayers. But the image was already fading, like breath on glass.
"You told me the World Seal was a tool of destruction," Kael said. "But what if it's more than that?"
Shun set down the censer and knelt across from him. "What do you mean?"
"I saw a city. A war. I stood over it—like I had been there before."
Shun's brows furrowed. "You've never left this house's lands, Kael. Dreams are just the mind's attempt to explain the soul's unrest."
"No," Kael said, more firmly. "It wasn't a dream. It was a memory."
Shun hesitated. "You're too young for reincarnate recall. It's rare... and dangerous."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "What if I'm not like the others?"
Elsewhere in the fortress, House politics churned beneath polished courtesies. A gathering of lesser nobles and senior retainers had formed in the Hall of Veyron Flames, ostensibly to discuss logistics for the House's upcoming sigil-taming expedition. But beneath the surface, the topic was Kael—and what to do with him.
"He's an unstable anomaly," Lord Daichi said sharply. "The seal he bears is not under our control. What if the other houses learn of it?"
"And what if they already know?" Lady Akiko interjected. "The Hawkspire spies have been unusually quiet. That's always a bad sign."
Rin, standing near the hearth with arms crossed, listened to it all with simmering impatience.
"I say we provoke him," Rin said. "Force his power into the open. If he fails, he dies. If he survives, then we cage him."
"Too risky," Lord Daichi warned. "He's your brother—"
"Half-brother," Rin snapped. "And only by blood."
Kael, unaware of the discussion taking place, continued his private training. With each passing hour, he pushed harder—meditating for longer stretches, tracing unfamiliar runes in the air with his mana, watching as they flickered briefly, then faded.
(Why can't I control it? It's mine, isn't it?)
The pulse of the World Seal came and went like a shifting tide. Sometimes warm, sometimes cold. Sometimes whispering to him in a language he couldn't yet translate.
But that day, something changed.
A flicker of movement. A ripple in the air. His sigil flared for a moment—just long enough to reveal its full form. An ancient black symbol, ringed with nine smaller orbs, each one glowing faintly with a different hue. Then, in an instant, it vanished.
"Did you see that?" he asked Shun, breathless.
Shun only nodded. But his expression was pale, almost frightened.
"You're not supposed to have that sigil."
Kael frowned. "What do you mean?"
"There's only one recorded bearer of that mark in history. He was called the Sigilbreaker. And the kingdoms united to kill him."
That night, Kael sat alone in the outer balcony of the west tower, gazing at the moonlight painting the mist with silver. Toshiro eventually joined him, bringing two cups of hot pineleaf tea.
"You didn't show up for sparring," Toshiro said, handing him one of the cups.
"I needed air," Kael replied.
"You always need air these days."
Kael laughed softly. "It's getting harder to breathe in that house."
They sat in silence for a while, sipping tea. A quiet friendship stretched between them—simple, solid, and unsaid.
"You're going to be something big, Kael," Toshiro finally said. "But I hope you don't lose yourself becoming it."
Kael looked out across the rooftops.
(I'm not afraid of becoming something else. I'm afraid of already having been someone I no longer remember.)
By the following sunrise, the five family emblems had been lowered across the fortress, signaling the approach of a neutral envoy from the central Temple of the Sigil Arts.
The temple sent such agents rarely—only when powerful manifestations were detected.
Kael watched from a balcony as the envoy arrived. A single robed figure, clad in white and gray, with a veil over her face and a floating sigil lantern beside her. She never spoke as she entered the gates.
From a nearby alcove, Lady Aiko watched her approach with tight lips.
"We may have waited too long," she whispered to Lord Kaito. "If the Temple gets involved…"
"Then we no longer own him," Kaito finished grimly.
Down below, Kael could feel the envoy's eyes on him through the veil piercing, curious, and strangely… familiar.
And deep within his chest, the World Seal pulsed once more.