SAGE

The idea of being taught magic again should have frightened me. It did not.

If anything, it made something quiet inside me settle. I had never been too proud to learn. I had clawed my way through every skill I possessed—combat, control, leadership—often the hard way. Starting from the beginning did not scare me.

What unsettled me was something deeper. I did not think I had the magic gene anymore. It felt gone.

Not dormant or sleeping. Gone.

As though the goddess had taken back what she had lent me. The abyss, the ancient bloodline that had awakened in me, the tether to something divine—all of it felt like...