The Glitched Mage

A week passed, and the skeletal frame of the Academy had taken shape—massive, awe-inspiring, and unmistakably alive with magic.

Riven and his generals stood just beyond the perimeter of the construction zone, gazes lifted to take in the towering structure that now dominated the southern plateau. Obsidian stone and abyss-glass stretched into the sky, scaffolded spires caught the morning light, and the air around the Academy buzzed faintly with restrained power.

"I still can't believe we built this much in under a month," Damon muttered, rubbing a hand over the dark circles beneath his eyes. The exhaustion clung to him like armor—but so did the pride.

"Whole kingdom hasn't slept since the first stone was laid," Krux added, stifling a yawn and blinking hard. "Pretty sure I saw one of the Guild's stonecutters casting while sleepwalking."

Nyx's eyes glinted as she scanned the sweeping bridges and high towers. "It's beautiful," she murmured. "Puts your palace to shame, you know." Her lips curved into a smirk as she turned toward Riven.

"That was the point," Riven said, arms folded, voice calm. "It's not just another seat of power—it's a message. One the world can't ignore. Something they'll be forced to remember."

"Oh, they'll remember this," Damon chuckled, rapping his knuckles against the cool dark stone of the grand archway rising in front of them.

Riven exhaled slowly, his gaze still fixed on the unfinished heights above. "It's far from complete. But it's strong. Stable."

A beat passed—a quiet ripple of anticipation moving through the group.

"It's ready?" Aria asked, her voice quiet but sharp.

All eyes shifted to Mal.

He held a thick scroll under one arm, ink still fresh on the layered diagrams. He didn't speak at first, instead watching the Academy as if he were waiting for it to breathe. Then, he gave a slow nod.

"I've run every test twice," he said. "The mana lattice is fully integrated into the foundations. The runic conduits are holding steady. Every elemental thread is in place. Wards are synchronized and self-sustaining. Structurally, it's sound."

His gaze met Riven's.

"It's ready to ascend."

A hush fell over the group. No one moved, not even Nyx. The moment had been approaching for weeks, threading its way through every sleepless night and every beat of hammer against stone. But now that it was here—now that the impossible was within reach—it settled over them like gravity itself.

Riven's fingers twitched once at his side. Not from nerves, but focus. Precision.

"How long until the anchor can be installed?" he asked, eyes never leaving the central spire.

Mal studied the schematics one last time, the parchment flickering with residual mana lines. "The altar is fully aligned with the Academy's heartstone now. Once you drive the anchor nail into place, it'll form the final conduit—linking every system, every ward, every thread of mana into a single, living network."

Damon let out a low whistle. "Then we'll need to clear the platform. Every crew, every apprentice, every undead—off the site by nightfall."

"They're not going to want to leave," Krux said, already turning to bark the orders. "Half of them want to see it rise from the inside."

"They'll see it," Riven replied. "Just not from beneath a collapsing scaffold if the anchors fail."

Nyx tilted her head slightly, shadows flickering around her heels. "You think Solis will move once they see it?"

"They'd be fools not to," Aria murmured. "But they won't be ready. Not for this."

Riven's expression didn't change—but something in him stilled. A tether tightening.

"They've watched our walls rise," he said. "They've heard the rumors. But this—this is the first moment they'll feel us. And when they do, they won't know whether to fear it, covet it, or try to tear it down."

He turned, eyes sweeping the structure once more. The rising Academy cast long shadows across the plateau, its foundations woven into the land like the roots of a growing god.

"Prepare the kingdom," he said. "I want everyone assembled for the ceremony."

Aria's brow arched slightly. "The entire kingdom?"

"Yes," Riven said. "Let them witness it."

Nyx's smirk returned. "A spectacle, then."

"A reckoning," Riven corrected softly.

—x—

By dawn, the entire southern plateau had become a living amphitheater.

Lines of citizens stretched along the terraces and ridgelines, organized in quiet rows by Damon's soldiers and the undead sentinels stationed between them. Lanterns glowed with steady violet light. Banners of the Shadow Kingdom had been raised above the scaffolds, their silver crowns and skeletal arms fluttering in the wind.

The Deveroux Guild had sent representatives to observe—dressed in fine trade robes, but with the cautious tension of men who understood what they were about to witness was not simply magic. It was legacy.

And among them, quiet, hooded, a mask of woven silk across his mouth, stood the Danu prince.

Kael didn't speak. He made no move to step forward. But Riven saw him—parted from the others by nothing more than a hood and silence. Hidden in the crowd, yet unmistakable.

Their eyes met once.

That was all it took.

Riven turned to the crowd, his voice rising with quiet strength, amplified not by magic, but by the sheer stillness that followed his presence.

"I know much has tested us these past weeks," he began, and at once, the murmurs stilled. "I know what we've built here has demanded more than labor—it has demanded sacrifice. From those who shaped stone through sleepless nights, to those who cooked, healed, guarded, and guided—this kingdom moved as one. And none of it was in vain."

He turned, gesturing to the towering silhouette of the Academy behind him—its spires gleaming like blades against the morning sky.

"This is more than stone and spell," he said. "This is our defiance. Our future. Our answer to those who would see us forgotten. It will become a sanctuary of truth, a crucible of power, and a beacon the world cannot look away from. Solis's academy is fading. Ours is just beginning."

Then he turned back toward the people—toward the kingdom that had risen with him.

His hand moved to his back, drawing the anchor staff in one smooth motion. The light caught along its length, black and glimmering like a spine forged in starlight.

"And now," he said, raising it high, "we give it breath."

His voice cut through the silence like a blade.

"Today—it ascends."

A thunderous cheer rippled through the gathered crowd—less a sound and more a surge, as if the entire kingdom exhaled at once. It wasn't just celebration. It was release. Every sleepless night, every aching muscle, every spell carved into stone had led to this moment. The air pulsed with pride, with anticipation, with something sacred.

Riven didn't linger to bask in it.

He turned and stepped into the great archway of the Academy, his cloak trailing behind him like a shadow swallowed by the sanctum's waiting mouth.

Inside, the halls were hushed, the walls breathing faint mana-light through veins of stone and sigil. He made his way alone through the central corridor to the heart of the Academy—his steps echoing through the vast, unfinished silence. At the chamber's core, behind an unmarked panel of shadowsteel, Riven pressed his palm to a rune hidden within the wall.

It responded with a faint pulse.

Stone shifted.

A spiral staircase unfolded, its edges wreathed in ghostly blue light, descending deep into the earth. Into the buried heart.

With each step downward, the air grew denser. Warmer. The pressure of mana thickened, vibrating through the soles of his boots and into his spine. The beating presence of the altar called to him—ancient, expectant.

By the time he reached the bottom, the chamber had changed.

Where once there had been cold stone and dust, now there was power incarnate. The walls had been reinforced with metal, etched in new wards by Mal's artificers. Every line hummed with quiet anticipation.

And there—hovering above the altar like a captive star—was the heartstone.

It pulsed with a soft pink glow, alive and unchained. The pressure it gave off was suffocating. Even Riven had to pause, his lungs drawing in slowly against the invisible weight that radiated from it. The air shimmered with tension. The room vibrated like a bowstring pulled taut.

He stepped toward the altar.

Toward the center of everything he'd built.

He stopped just short of it and closed his eyes.

This was the culmination of it all. Not just weeks of construction—but years of exile, rebirth, war, and loss. This altar had waited for centuries. And now it stood ready to carry the weight of a future reborn.

Riven exhaled and raised the anchor-staff.

"First," he said quietly, "we rise."

The staff caught the chamber's glow. Its jagged spine shimmered, the three embedded runes along its length flaring to life one by one—crimson, violet, and silver. Mana surged down Riven's arms, drawn from the deepest wells of his core, and poured into the anchor.

The runes responded instantly.

They burned.

A deep hum filled the chamber, like the world itself had begun to sing.

"Then," Riven growled through clenched teeth, "we break all that dares to hold us down."

With both hands, he drove the anchor downward.

It struck the altar like a hammer to a war drum.

The chamber exploded with light.

Riven stumbled back, shielding his eyes as a shockwave of energy burst outward in a sphere of raw mana. Dust fell in thick cascades. The runes flared like lightning etched into the stone. The staff didn't simply rest in the altar—it merged with it. Its pointed base cracked through the heartstone's surface, piercing it cleanly.

The altar screamed.

A deep, resonant groan shook the earth. The entire Academy trembled, as if startled awake from a long sleep.

Then, the runes lining the anchor began to twist.

The anchor shimmered as mana surged through it—veins of power bleeding upward from the altar, wrapping the staff in tendrils of fire, shadow, wind, water, light, and stone. It wasn't a conduit anymore.

It was a spine.

A living pillar.

The heartstone lifted—rising slowly from the altar as the anchor pushed upward. It stretched higher and higher, light trailing behind it like a banner. The altar accepted it, fused with it, elevated it.

Riven stood frozen for a breath.

It looked almost like a tree—born not of soil, but of will. A column of purpose growing toward the sky, hungering for the sun.

Stone and dust cracked and rained from the ceiling as the anchor broke through.

Riven turned and bolted up the staircase two at a time.

He emerged into daylight just as a ripple of golden-pink light surged into the clouds above. The crowd had gone utterly silent, all eyes turned toward the rising column of magic that now speared through the center of the Academy.

Mal was already running toward him. "Everything all right?" he asked, eyes wide, voice tight. "Is it holding?"

Riven caught his breath.

"We'll know soon enough," he replied—and even as he spoke, a low groan echoed across the plateau.

The kind that came before the sky cracked.

The kind that meant something bigger than stone was shifting.

The ground trembled—first a whisper beneath their feet, then a rolling quake that stole the breath from every chest.

A thunderous crack split the silence as the anchors spine burst through the floor of the Academy's central atrium, trailing stone, dust, and pulsing light in its wake. It climbed—upward and unrelenting—carrying the glowing heartstone with it, cradled within the curve of its jagged vertebrae.

The spire of the Academy shuddered in response, and then, with a deep groan that echoed like the howl of a slumbering god, the heartstone rose to the very center of the tower—hovering now in the open air of the central atrium, casting its radiant light over every wall, every wing.

It pulsed—slow and steady—like a heartbeat.

Then came silence.

Total. Breathless. Absolute.

For a moment, it was as if the world had gone still—watching. Waiting.

And then, it began.

The earth screamed.

The plateau cracked like glass under an unseen hammer, and jagged fractures tore through the land. Screams rang out from the crowd as people stumbled backward. Damon shouted orders. Krux and Aria dropped into defensive stances. Nyx's daggers flashed into her hands.

But the threat wasn't coming from below.

It was the Academy itself.

With a guttural, wrenching groan, the entire structure pulled free from the earth.

The ground peeled upward in jagged sheets as the Academy wrenched itself from its cradle of stone, tearing a chunk of the plateau with it. Dust and rock tumbled from its underside. The anchors spine stretched ever higher, anchoring the structure as it climbed—linking altar to heartstone, kingdom to sky.

Like a vine reaching for the sun.

Awe rippled through the onlookers. Eyes widened. Mouths hung open. For many, it was the most beautiful, impossible thing they had ever seen.

Even Riven, who had imagined this moment a hundred times in silence, found himself speechless.

The Academy kept climbing.

Its blacksteel bridges shimmered in the light. Its elemental wings flared with life—flames dancing from the forges of Ignis, mists coiling around Thalor's domes, translucent wind-bridges spiraling from Zephar. The Lumae wing gleamed like a falling star in reverse, its polished crystal facets catching every gleam of morning sun.

And then—at last—the movement slowed.

The dragon-spine ceased its climb, holding the Academy aloft. Below, the base of the spine, still tethered to the altar, solidified with a sound like thunder locking into place. Layers of dark metal formed around it—armored plating forged by mana itself. A protective cradle for the altar. A root system for the skyborn citadel.

In Riven's chest, the runes etched into his body pulsed once more—one final throb of power.

Then came silence.

The entire kingdom stood motionless, every breath held as they stared upward.

Toward the impossible.

The Academy floated above them now—not balanced on scaffolds or bound by cranes, but suspended by the spine of an ancient relic, the anchor of Varethun stretching from the earth to the heavens. Its towers gleamed in the morning light, its terraces catching the wind like the wings of a waiting colossus.

It was more than a structure.

It was the crown of the Shadow Kingdom—risen not by chance, but by choice. A symbol of their defiance. A monument to what they had become.

And in that moment, with the sun striking its highest spire, the world could no longer look away.