Krit waited outside Rune Theory with Ripple hovering at shoulder-height, water-orb turning slow somber loops. Nathan shouldered his satchel, already bracing for awkwardness. Their conversation, “You were a mediocre caster a month ago,” “Mind your own forms”, still lay like broken glass between them.

  “Breakfast?” Krit asked, brittle politeness.

  “Can’t. I promised Liss I’d help her with combustion proofing our dorm.” Nathan started past, then forced himself to stop. “What do you want?”

  Ripple’s surface quivered, translating tension Krit refused to show. “I found a corridor last night. Sealed. Marked with twin crescents. Might relate to your… developments.”

  Twin crescents, Sun and Moon. Nathan’s pulse ticked faster. “And you need me to open it.”

  “I thought you’d like answers.” Krit’s tone was level, but shards of resentment glittered underneath.

  “Fine. Lead the way.”

  They strode side-by-side through drifting motes of sunlight. Neither spoke. Ripple rotated in uneasy spirals.

  The west service wing was slated for renovation, but scaffolds stood abandoned. Krit guided them down creaking stairs and through an equipment alcove that reeked of old solvent. At the dead-end wall, they stopped.

  “Here.” Krit brushed mortar dust from a faintly glowing sigil. Two interlocked crescents lay half-erased beneath soot. “Ripple feels a pull.”

  Nathan extended a hand. No wind, yet cobwebs trembled as if exhaling. In his mind the melody swelled, a single, suspenseful chord, and runes blinked alive behind his eyelids: arrow-chevrons nested inside a wider arch.

  He slashed the shape in the air. Gold lines sank into stone. Cracks spidered outward with gunshot pops; bricks groaned, sliding back in grinding increments. Dust geysered.

  Krit coughed, waving grit aside, but their eyes shone despite the tension. “That was… efficient.”

  Nathan muttered, “Guess I’m good for something.”

  Fifty paces in, the ramp leveled into a tunnel webbed with broken casting circles. An uneasy hum vibrated the floorboards.

  Krit knelt at a scorch mark. “Someone purged this space, violent channel backlash.”

  Ripple emitted a nervous trill. Nathan swept his orb forward, and a ceiling runes ignited overhead, bathing them in crimson.

  Krit gasped. “Shield, ”

  Wind roared from hidden vents, swirling broken glass and charred papers into a shredding cyclone. Krit flung a Water ablation rune; a mist shield slowed shards but wind punched through.

  Nathan’s instinct hurled a hexagonal shield rune, cells tessellating mid-air. Glass ricocheted, wind parted. “Behind me!”

  Krit ducked against his back; Ripple merged with their shield, strengthening the vapor layer. Nathan thrust his hand upward, visualizing a spiral-brace rune that clamped the ceiling vents. Iron grated; airflow choked off, battered debris crashed to the floor.

  As dust settled, Krit straightened, breathing hard. “Adaptive reflexes again,” they said, an edge returning. “Do you even your runess or do they just appear to bail you out?”

  “Better than bleeding,” Nathan snapped.

  “Better, yes. Controlled? No.”

  He swallowed retorts, advanced down the wrecked corridor. They passed scorch-runes shaped like claw marks, as though someone had tried to rip runes out of the wall.

  The passage widened abruptly into a studio-sized vault. Bookshelves lay toppled, alchemy flasks fused into black glass puddles. But all attention funneled to the far wall: a towering iron gate of intricate crescents and sun-rays interlocked like a celestial puzzle. Three heavy horizontal bars locked it; only the center bar kept its inscription legible: CONDUCTOR

  Beneath it, dust outlined the negative shape of a missing pedestal.

  Ripple floated forward, emitting soft harmonic chirps. Krit whispered, awed, “Focus levels spiking.”

  Nathan approached, golden orb bobbing overhead. The gate radiated cold. His heartbeat synced to the thrumming melody only he could hear. He reached out but stopped inches away; iron frost hissed in the lantern glow.

  “Go on,” Krit said, voice softer now. “Whatever you did to the wall, try here.”

  Nathan’s breath fogged. A new rune unreeled in his mind, an eight-point star locked within twin rings: authority and balance. He lifted his palm…

  Footsteps pounded behind. The trap hallway rattled again, vents shrieking. A secondary defense runes re-armed, hurling arcs of crackling electricity down the tunnel.

  “Back!” Krit shouted. They drove Ripple into a sheathing vortex; Nathan instinctively slammed the star rune into the floor. A radial shield blossomed, sunlight made solid, just as lightning hit. Sparks diffused into harmless dust motes that tinkled like tiny bells.

  The backlash flared bright, then died. Nathan’s shield dissolved. He staggered, head buzzing.

  Krit caught his elbow. Their snappishness faded into raw concern. “Are you, ”

  “Fine,” Nathan lied, steadying. But inside he reeled; the gate seemed to pulse with every heartbeat, yet refused to yield.

  “Your runes match its frequency,” Krit said slowly. “But something’s missing.” Eyes drifted to the empty pedestal. “Key, maybe.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Nathan flexed tingling fingers. “Or a second caster,” he muttered, thinking of Narcis and the half-formed Convergence they had not mastered.

  A silence stretched. Krit set their jaw. “We go before more traps wake.”

  Nathan hesitated, gaze locked on the barred word CONDUCTOR

  At the breach, Nathan resealed the wall with the same arrow-chevrons. Stone slid shut, leaving only dust to hint at what lay beyond.

  They emerged into grey daylight; drizzle dampened cloister tiles. Ripple sagged near Krit’s shoulder, drained. Krit turned to Nathan. Words balanced on their lips, apology or accusation, he couldn’t tell.

  “I’ll document the traps and petition Varis for restoration permits,” they said instead. “But I won’t mention you opened it.”

  Nathan lifted his gaze. “Thank you.” His tone came out harsher than intended.

  Krit’s reply was equally tight. “Catalogue your symbols, Nathan. Surprises save us once; next time they may bury us.” They pivoted toward the library arcade, Ripple trailing like a deflated comet.

  Nathan watched them vanish into morning fog, shoulders knotting with guilt and stubborn hurt. Noctisolar, waiting on a parapet, crooned low, but still offered no words. The dragon simply dipped its head, as if urging patience that Nathan no longer felt.

  Rain began in earnest, speckling the stone at his feet. The iron gate’s chill lingered in his bones, the title Conductor

  Rain hammered the slate roof overhead, drumming so loudly the third-floor library windows shivered in their frames. Nathan rounded a shelf with a fistful of rune texts, and nearly collided with Krit. Ripple hovered a handspan above their shoulder, spinning in tight, anxious loops.

  Krit’s calm mask looked brittle. “Nathan. We need to finish the conversation you walked away from.”

  “Not tonight.” Nathan tried to sidestep. “I’ve got fifty pages of sigil drift to, ”

  Ripple darted in front of him, splashing cold spray against his tunic. Krit didn’t budge. “This can’t wait. The vault gate, the word , none of that is small.”

  Nathan clenched his jaw. “I filed a damn report with Maintenance. They’ll rope it off.”

  “That vault targeted us with layered traps.” Krit kept their voice low, but it vibrated with tension. “And it woke only when you were there. Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Nathan’s pulse spiked. “And before you ask, I still don’t have a neat glossary for my runess.”

  Krit’s eyes narrowed. “Then let someone help you decode them.”

  “No.” Nathan’s reply came out a snarl. Students at nearby tables glanced over. He lowered his voice but not his anger. “I saved our asses down there. I’m not handing my head over to some committee because you’re twitchy.”

  “Twitchy?” Krit’s composure cracked. “We walked through a relic corridor fused by lightning scars. That gate bears Sun–Moon runes people stopped carving centuries ago, maybe millennia. You opened it like a damn pantry door.”

  Nathan shoved wet hair from his eyes. “Why does that freak you out so much?”

  “Because untested magic kills.” Krit pointed at Ripple, whose surface trembled. “Look at him, he can feel the instability in your aura.”

  Nathan barked a humorless laugh. “Yeah? Well your walking puddle can mind his own business.”

  Ripple flashed a hurt indigo. Krit’s jaw tightened. “You keep acting like a lone hero. If those runes backlash, the splash zone won’t be just you.”

  Nathan stepped closer. “I’m not your project, Krit.”

  Krit met his glare. “No, you’re my classmate, the one writing runes he can’t read.”

  A long breath hissed between Nathan’s teeth. “Fine. Tell me this, scholar: you mentioned a Cataclysm when we were down there. What the hell is that? Nobody’s lectured about it.”

  For a heartbeat, surprise flickered in Krit’s eyes. “It’s… shorthand among historians. The era when half the old lexicons were purged and Sun-Moon research was outlawed. Libraries burned, scholars vanished. We study fragments.” Their voice softened a fraction. “Exactly why I worry: you’re recreating a language that got people erased.”

  Nathan swallowed, throat suddenly dry, but stubbornness flared hotter. “So the history faculty sits on a smoking crater and never bothers to tell the rest of us? That’s fantastic.” His laugh came out sharp. “Guess I’ll add that to the pile of shit I’m juggling.”

  “Nathan, ”

  “No. You wanted honesty? Here it is: I’m tired, I’m sore, and every time I blink a new rune slams into my brain. Until someone shows me the idiot-proof manual, I’ll use them however the hell I need to keep people alive.” He took a step back. “And if that scares you, stay out of my orbit.”

  Krit’s expression folded into something equal parts anger and hurt. “If a spell you don’t understand explodes, I won’t have a choice.”

  “Then gear up for fireworks,” Nathan muttered, shouldering past. “Because I’m not slowing down.”

  He strode between stacks toward the stairwell, water dripping a furious trail behind him. The last thing he heard was Ripple’s soft, mournful chime, and Krit’s quiet reply to no one in particular:

  “Stubborn conductors break more than batons.”

  But Nathan didn’t look back. The argument trailed off in rain-muffled silence, unresolved, sharp as broken glass, each of them certain the other wasn’t listening, neither willing to yield a single inch of ground.

  Night pressed thick and wet over the courtyard as a cold rain soaked every cobblestone joint. Nathan stumbled from the library’s west door, half-blind with hot tears. The argument with Krit echoed in vicious loops, un-tested magic kills… stay out of my orbit… fireworks.

  He made it to the shadow of an ancient elm before his legs buckled. Water sheeted off his hair, dripping from his chin in rhythmic patters that mimicked the pounding in his skull. His lungs refused a full breath, each inhale snagged halfway, then tore free in a ragged sob.

  The panic tightened, a vice squeezing air from his chest. He pressed both palms to soaked gravel, fingers trembling so badly they scraped raw. The courtyard spun; lamplights smeared into blinding streaks.

  A low, resonant trill curled through the downpour, soft as a mother’s hush. Noctisolar descended from the parapet, wings beating rain-mist into silver clouds. The Celestial Dragon’s opalescent scales diffused lantern glow, casting a gentle prism over the dark.

  Nathan tried to speak but only a strangled wheeze escaped. The dragon folded its wings and crouched beside him, enormous head lowering until warm breath mingled with the chill air. Its gold-flecked eyes held no judgment, only steady presence.

  A fresh sob tore loose. Nathan buried his face against Noctisolar’s neck-ridge, fingers sliding along smooth scales that thrummed faint heat. The dragon’s throat rumbled, a subsonic purr traveling through Nathan’s spine like distant thunder.

  He matched his breathing to the vibration: four counts inhale, six counts exhale, again, again. Rain plastered his clothes; tears blurred with water until he couldn’t tell them apart.

  Minutes passed. The vise around his chest loosened by fractions. He felt the swirl of dragon-warmth under his palms, grounding him to a single unmoving heartbeat larger than his own.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he whispered, voice hoarse. Noctisolar’s only response was a gentle bump of its muzzle against Nathan’s shoulder, urging him upright.

  Nathan straightened, wiping water and mucus with the soaked sleeve of his robe. Lightning flared behind low clouds, illuminating the courtyard, and the silent oath in Noctisolar’s posture:

  The panic receded far enough for rational thought to breach the surface. The gate, the title , Krit’s warnings, yes, terrifying. But in this rain-washed hush, the dragon’s steady glow felt like permission to keep going, mistakes and all.

  A final shaky breath left him. Nathan pressed his forehead to Noctisolar’s brow ridge. “Thank you.” No answer came, dragons did not yet speak, but a quiet pulse of warmth rolled from scale to skin, steadier than words.

  When he finally rose, rain still hammered the stones, yet the storm inside his chest had gentled to a hard, determined rhythm. He turned toward the dormitory lights, Noctisolar pacing at his side like a silent sentinel, each of them reflecting the other’s resolve beneath the relentless, cleansing rain.