After Orientation…
The day’s formal lessons are over, but Carter’s mind is still racing.
He sits alone in his new room. The silence feels heavy, a weight pressing down.
The big window looks out on a beautiful scene—a twilight sea with strange moons and faraway clouds of stars—but he hardly sees it.
The day’s events play over and over in his mind, a jumbled mess of shocking things he learned and scary truths.
He looks down at the thick book on his desk. It’s bound in leather.
The Lexanomicon. He runs a hand over the smooth, cool cover.
The silver Lotus Circle seems to glow with a faint light inside.
A Gate, he thinks. The word feels strange, not real.
A hidden door deep inside your mind. He tries to imagine it, to feel for some kind of lock or wall inside himself, but there’s nothing.
Just the normal, steady beat of his own heart. Is that how it felt for everyone else?
A door they never knew was there? He remembers what Damien told him: …opening your Gate.
The words promise something, but also feel scary. What would it feel like to have a main part of his soul ripped open?
He opens the book. The pages are now in plain English, which feels familiar and comforting.
He looks at a chart about Linguistic Dissonance. The descriptions of pain and bodies breaking apart send a shiver down his spine.
Resonants, he thinks, his eyes drifting back to the window. Gabriel called him one.
Him, and Akira. Fifty percent less pain.
It sounds less like a gift and more like a slightly less awful way to die.
What does any of this even mean? he asks himself. The question is like a tired, frustrated sigh in the quiet room.
Just yesterday, his biggest problem was not getting a promotion because he “blended in.” His world was small, easy to predict, and boringly normal.
Now, his world is a floating city in a sky that never ends. Angels and men who look like lions live there, and it follows magic rules he can’t even start to understand.
He closes his eyes. The image of his parents’ faces flashes in his mind—not their warm, smiling faces, but the cold, empty darkness in their eyes as they came at him, their minds twisted by the Safeguard.
The memory hits him like a punch. A tight knot of sadness and anger forms in his chest.
This isn’t just about him anymore. It’s about them.
It’s about Leo. It’s about everyone stuck in that silent, unseen prison.
The thought is like a small light in all the confusion. He needs to understand this.
He needs to learn. He can’t just sit here.
He gets up and leaves the room. A sudden, restless energy pushes him forward.
He walks through the huge, quiet hallways of the Library. His footsteps make echoes on the shiny marble floors.
The air is cool and still. The soft, yellow light from the lamps makes long, moving shadows on the walls.
He sees other mages walk by. They look serious and focused, like they know what they’re doing.
They move with a calm confidence, like they belong there. He feels like he’s walking where he shouldn’t be.
He decides to walk around outside, needing fresh air to think clearly.
He finds a big archway. It leads out to a large, neat garden area.
The air here smells sweet, like flowers that only bloom at night. He doesn’t know their names.
Fancy stone benches sit along twisting paths. The soft sound of a fountain nearby fills the air.
He walks to the edge of the terrace and looks out. The view is even more amazing from here.
The sky, full of stars, stretches out everywhere. It’s a huge, scary, and beautiful emptiness.
He walks around a corner. He sees two people he knows talking by the stone wall.
One is Killian, looking messy like always. The other is a man he saw during the introduction.
He is an old man, but built like a mountain. He is tall and very strong.
His powerful body shows even under his simple white shirt and black leather jacket. Old, faded scars cover his face and thick neck.
They tell stories of many fights won and lost. His long white hair, thick like a lion’s mane, is tied back at the back of his neck.
A neat white mustache and beard frame a strong, serious jaw. But his eyes, a bright blue, have a surprising warmth and a bit of fun in them.
“I’m telling you, Gendric, the kid learns fast. He doesn’t need all this fuss,” Killian says. His voice is a low, familiar grumble.
“And I’m telling you, my friend,” the old man replies. His voice is a deep, happy rumble. “Even someone who learns fast needs to know the rules before he breaks them.”
“Plus, I want to see this talented kid for myself.” He sees Carter walking toward them.
A big, friendly smile spreads across his scarred face, making lines around his eyes.
“Ah, speak of the devil! You must be Carter.”
“Don’t mind him,” the old man says. He puts a hand on Carter’s shoulder.
His hand is huge, heavy like a rock, but his touch is surprisingly gentle. “He gets grumpy when he has to sit still too long. My name is Gendric.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Carter says. He feels a little nervous because the man is so big.
“I heard a lot about you, boy. You made quite an entrance,” Gendric says with a loud laugh and a voice that screams Viking warrior. “I’m excited to see what you and the others can do.”
“We’ll be spending a lot of time together.” He gives Carter’s shoulder one last, firm squeeze.
Then he turns back to Killian. “I’ll leave you two. Try not to teach him your bad habits before I can teach him some good ones.”
Gendric walks away. His heavy footsteps echo on the stone terrace.
Carter watches him go. He feels a sense of confused respect.
“Was that your friend?” Carter asks, turning to Killian.
“One of the few I have,” Killian replies with a shrug. “We’ve been helping each other out and getting into trouble for a long time.”
“He seems… strong.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Killian says. A real smile, rare for him, touches his lips. “He once got into a fistfight with a Basilisk because he said it was looking at him funny.”
“The man has more testosterone than sense, but he’s the most loyal person you’ll ever meet.” He leans against a pillar.
His face turns serious. “Don’t let the friendly act fool you. I’ve known Gendric for decades.”
“He’s one of the few people here I’d trust with my life, no questions asked. But he’s seen more fighting than almost anyone.”
“In a real battle, that warmth disappears. He becomes something else. They call him the Berserker for a reason.”
“Don’t ever forget that.”
“Hey, you two!” a cheerful voice calls out.
Ruby jogs towards them. Her pink eyes sparkle with her usual happy energy.
“Brooding needs at least two people, but it’s much more fun with three! What are you guys talking about?”
“Nothing important,” Killian says. He seems a little happier when she’s around.
“Well, whatever it was, it can wait,” Ruby says. She puts her arm through Carter’s.
“The other new people are all in the lounge. They’re really excited about their Lexanomicons.”
“You should come hang out. Get to know everyone.” She looks at Carter, thinking.
“This is kind of strange, but this whole thing—the classes, the new people—it feels like a real school. I never got to go to one.”
“You didn’t?” Carter asks, surprised.
“Nope. My father taught me everything. Languages, history, magic… I learned it all at home.”
“It was… lonely, sometimes.” She looks around at the big buildings of the Library.
“I grew up in France, in a safe place the Library kept hidden. We only moved here to the Marble City a few years ago.”
She pulls him along. Killian follows with a sigh that sounds like he’s given up.
They go into the lounge. The other new people are gathered together.
Their faces are lit up by the soft glow from their open Lexanomicons. The air buzzes with an exciting, shared energy.
“it says here that with Arabic magic, you can actually turn copper into iron!” Keyona says. Her eyes are wide with a look of pure, greedy excitement.
“Forget fighting, I’m going to be rich!”
“Russian is for the earth,” Yulian says with a proud, loud laugh. “I will be able to move mountains!”
“I will be a hero, like in the stories!”
“I found the section on Tagalog,” Nico says. A small, real smile is on his face. “It’s a language for Energy Class.”
“It says we can control kinetic energy. We can add power to our punches, or even take the force from an enemy’s hit.”
The feeling is very different from the sad mood Carter expected. These aren’t just people who were hurt anymore.
They are students, learning about a new and amazing world. Carter finds himself getting caught up in their excitement.
A real sense of hope starts to grow in his chest.
Ruby claps her hands together, getting their attention.
“Okay, okay, quiet down, smarty-pants. So, what’s the coolest thing you’ve found so far?”
Her question is light, but her pink eyes are sharp with a real, almost careful curiosity.
“I’m just wondering… what did it feel like? You know… the Safeguard?”
The excited talking stops right away. The mood in the room drops.
The air grows thick and heavy with pain they don’t talk about.
“It felt… cold,” Nico says suddenly. His voice is barely a whisper.
Everyone looks up at him. He’s staring at his hands.
A look of pain is in his eyes. “When it happened… seeing their eyes change.”
“It was like the people I’ve known my whole life were gone, replaced by… things. Watching my own brothers and sisters look at me with nothing but hate in their eyes…”
He stops, his voice breaking, unable to finish.
A feeling of shared understanding passes through the group.
“For me, it was the silence,” Paige says. Her voice is soft and shaky.
“One second, my cousin was yelling at me. The next… nothing. Just this awful, empty silence in her eyes.”
“It was like her soul had been taken out.”
“It’s losing control,” Keyona adds. Her usual cool confidence is gone. Her voice is rough and open.
“Knowing that the people you love most, the people who are supposed to protect you, can be turned into puppets… that’s the part I can’t stop thinking about.”
Carter thinks about his parents. Their love and kindness were gone, replaced by a cold, lifeless urge to kill.
He thinks about Leo, his best friend. Leo’s face was like a blank mask full of mindless anger.
The memory hurts like a fresh cut.
“Yeah,” he says. His voice is rough. “I know what you mean.”
The quiet sadness returns. It feels heavier than before.
“Okay, wow, sorry,” Ruby says quietly. She sees how her question affected them.
“I didn’t mean to make things sad. Let’s… let’s talk about something else.”
“Let’s talk about something happier,” Paige says. She’s trying to change the subject. Her voice is still a little shaky.
“Has anyone read the part about magical creatures in the Lexanomicon? It says they are made using strong magic circles and many languages to change an animal’s DNA.”
“How is that even possible? How did they make people like Gabriel and Sir Agamor?”
Everyone looks at Ruby. She’s the only one with real experience.
“It’s… hard to explain,” Ruby says. She chooses her words carefully. “It’s very advanced, high-level magic.”
“You need a whole team of mages, and it’s very dangerous. Most of the ‘recipes,’ as the book calls them, are actually not allowed now.”
“As for the Director and the Branch Heads… honestly, I don’t know all the details. Nobody really does.”
“Their changes happened a very long time ago. The only one whose beginnings are common knowledge is General Wulan.”
“He’s not a human who was changed. He’s a Manzee. He’s a direct descendant of Sun Wukong’s family from old China.”
“Hey, where’s Akira?” Yula asks. She looks around the lounge. “The angry one.”
“I saw him on my way here,” Ruby says. She points vaguely down the hall.
“He was in one of the outdoor training areas. The one with all the straw dummies.”
Carter remembers walking past that area on his way to the gardens. Through a big, open archway, he had seen Akira.
He was alone in the huge space with stone floors. His sword was a silver flash in the fading light.
His movements were like controlled violence—a precise, powerful show of cuts, blocks, and strikes.
Every cut was perfect. Every step was planned.
Sweat dripped from his forehead, but he breathed evenly. His focus was complete.
He wasn’t just practicing. He was thinking deeply, pouring his whole self into the art of the sword.
Carter hadn’t liked how the guy acted. Not at all.
But watching him train… there was a discipline there. A constant effort that was impossible not to respect.
While the rest of them were still confused by the day’s discoveries, Akira was already getting ready for the fight.
The thought is a serious one. It cuts through the light, hopeful feeling that had started to grow in the lounge.
Carter looks around at the faces of his new friends—Yulian, who dreams of being a hero; Keyona, with her plans for magical wealth; Paige, with her endless scientific curiosity.
They were all still thinking things over, still learning. But Akira… Akira already knew.
He understood how important this was in a way Carter was only just starting to grasp.
“Well,” Ruby says, pulling him from his thoughts. Her voice sounds tired. “I’m really hungry.”
“All this talk about magic and almost dying has made me hungry. Who wants to go check out the dining hall?”
Happy agreement rises from the group. The shared pain, followed by the shared wonder, has created a weak, new connection between them.
As they all get up to leave, Carter feels a sense of teamwork, of having a shared goal.
He is no longer just Carter Cross, the EMT who just fits in. He is a new student of the Library of Solomon.
He is one of them.
And for the first time since his life fell apart, he doesn’t feel totally alone.