But it ended too fast.
Merlin didn't wait. His boots were already moving, stone ringing underfoot as he crossed the narrow garden path. Elara followed a step behind. Her hand had gone to her belt, not her blade yet, but close.
They rounded the hedge line, feet skimming over the uneven brick. The air felt thicker here. Not hot. Just slow. Like breath took longer to move through it.
Then he saw the vines.
Twisted across the gravel. Slick with moisture that hadn't come from rain. They coiled along the ground and up the stone like they had been waiting for something. No origin point. No seedbed. Just… there.
Elara halted beside him. "Those aren't ornamental."
Merlin didn't answer right away.
'They're not supposed to be here. This isn't the right terrain. These things look like they grew through the cracks in minutes, not months.'
A faint pulse stirred in his head.
[STABILIZATION PROCESS ONGOING]
[ENVIRONMENTAL ANOMALY DETECTED — ANALYSIS INCOMPLETE]
[WARNING: AFFINITY RESONANCE UNAVAILABLE]
Merlin's jaw tightened. He kept his hands still.
'Of course. It can sense it, but not enough to tell me what I'm looking at.'
Elara knelt beside the vines. Not touching. Just watching. The stems twitched. Not with the wind. There was no wind.
Merlin crouched too, slower. He studied the edges where the vines met the stone. The way the texture of the bricks had started to flake away, like heat stress on old glass.
"It's pulling from something," he said.
Elara looked at him. "From where?"
He didn't answer. He didn't know.
[INTERNAL LINKING RESTABILIZED]
[MANA INTERFACE: LIMITED]
[FUNCTION: PASSIVE SENSORY FILTER — ONLINE]
The pressure in the air sharpened. Not from the vine. From underneath.
'There's something under this floor.'
Merlin straightened slowly. The weight in his chest had shifted. No panic. Just a low, slow certainty building in the pit of his spine.
Elara stood too. Her hand stayed near her knife.
"There was a scream," she said.
"You think it came from this?"
"I think it stopped because of this."
She stepped around the edge of the vines, checking behind the column. Her voice was lower now.
"No sign of one either."
No drag marks. No blood. No personal item left behind in a rush.
Just a coil of vines, slick and slow, growing upward with too much purpose.
[SYSTEM NOTE: EXTERNAL DOMAIN PRESSURE DETECTED]
[CLASSIFICATION: CORRUPTED ROOT NETWORK]
[RIFT BREACH UNCONFIRMED — OBSERVATION REQUIRED]
Merlin stared at the message.
'It's trying to map it. But it still can't confirm. That means it's small. Not a gate. Not yet. Just a hairline.'
Elara had moved to the edge of the grass. She looked over her shoulder at him.
"You're thinking too hard. What is it?"
He shook his head once. "Nothing confirmed."
"That's not comforting."
"Didn't mean it to be."
She stared for a second, then turned back to the vines. One of them had curled around the leg of a bench now, threading its way around the wood like a spine.
From deeper in the corridor, a door creaked open.
A second-year student stuck his head out, looked both ways, then stopped when he saw them.
He blinked. "What… is that?"
"Go back inside," Elara said sharply.
The student hesitated.
Merlin didn't move. Just watched the vine as it twitched again.
[SUBSYSTEMS RETURNING TO MINIMUM STABILITY]
[AFFINITY ACCESS: 4% RESTORED]
[USER STATUS: SUBNORMAL FUNCTIONALITY — ACTIVE]
The hum in his blood was still too faint to reach for. But it was there. Like the lowest string of an instrument finally being tuned again.
Elara stepped closer.
"You're getting that look again," she said. "The one where you go quiet before something awful happens."
The vine curled tighter.
He took one step back.
"Elara," he said quietly. "Don't touch it."
Behind them, another tremor passed.
This one stayed a little longer.
And somewhere, further down the corridor, they heard another noise.
Not a scream this time.
Like something old being opened from the inside.
Merlin didn't look away from the vines.
But in the back of his mind, the system whispered another message.
[WARNING: DOMAIN SEEDING INITIATED ]
[PRIMARY CONDITION: HOLLOW LABYRINTH — STAGE ONE]
[RECOMMENDATION: OBSERVE AND WITHDRAW]
He didn't tell Elara.
The vines didn't move again.
But the space they had come from still felt wrong.
Elara didn't say anything. She just stood there next to him, eyes still on the patch of overgrown wall like it had personally insulted her.
The scream they'd heard hadn't returned. No voice. No footstep. Nothing but the faint scent of morning leaves and stone dust.
Merlin stepped back. Just one pace. His hand brushed against the inside of his coat.
Inside his vision, pale letters pulsed softly.
[STABILIZATION PROCESS ONGOING]
[MANA AFFINITY RECOVERY: 6%]
[COGNITIVE OVERLAP FUNCTIONAL]
[MOTOR-NERVE LINK STABLE]
It didn't feel like much. But it was more than before. The lines stayed visible this time. No flicker. No glitch.
Just a quiet presence behind his sight, like a part of himself humming back online one limb at a time.
He exhaled through his nose.
"We should find Reinhardt."
Elara's head turned just enough to glance at him. She didn't question it. Just nodded.
They moved. Fast. Not a jog. But enough to pull them into sharper motion. Their boots hit stone with clean rhythm, echoing slightly as they cut through one of the unused archways near the northern wing.
Two first-years passed them in the opposite direction. One of them looked up to say something, then thought better of it when he saw Merlin's face.
He didn't stop walking.
'Keep it together. You don't have answers yet. Don't give them a reason to ask questions.'
As they reached the east hall, the air shifted again. Brighter windows. Light catching the edges of the tile. The echo of someone landing a clean hit from inside one of the open practice rooms.
Reinhardt was at the far end.
He stood with his arms folded across his chest, watching two students exchange sword forms without much enthusiasm.
His blade was slung behind him in its usual half-scabbard, and his expression was unreadable as always.
Elara stepped up first.
He didn't turn. Just raised an eyebrow.
"I can tell by your tone this isn't about missing class," he said.
That got his attention. The man turned slowly, arms dropping to his sides, eyes sharper now. Assessing.
"We were walking near the garden stair," Elara said. "We heard a scream. Clear. Human."
"When we got there," Merlin added, "there was nothing. Just vines."
Reinhardt stared at them.
"No one else around?"
"No," Merlin said. "Not a trace."
Reinhardt didn't look away.
'He's reading our posture. Looking for hesitation.'
The instructor's jaw ticked once. Then he turned toward the practice room and barked over his shoulder.
"Class dismissed. Out. Quietly."
Two confused students blinked at him. One dropped a practice sword. It clattered.
Reinhardt ignored it. He looked at Merlin again. Closer this time. He stepped forward once, enough to close most of the distance between them.
"You sure about what you heard?"
"Yes," Merlin said. Voice flat. Even.
Elara nodded. "Both of us."
Reinhardt's hand brushed the edge of his coat, checking the position of the hilt across his back. Not drawn. Just reflex.
"All right," he said. "Show me."
No dramatics. No raised alarm.
But something in the way his posture changed said he wasn't brushing it off.
They turned. Walked again. Elara slightly ahead now. Reinhardt in stride beside Merlin.
[MANA AFFINITY RECOVERY: 9%]
Merlin felt the heat build slowly near the base of his spine. Not strong enough to be usable. Just there. Like his body was remembering something his mind hadn't allowed.
He kept moving. Kept quiet.
And didn't mention the part where he felt the vines watching him back.
The hallway stretched back toward the courtyard like it had never been altered. Same steps. Same chill. Same slight drag in the air that shouldn't have been there.
Reinhardt didn't ask questions as they walked. He didn't need to. The tension had already settled. It wasn't about whether Merlin and Elara were telling the truth. It was about how bad the truth was going to be.
Merlin counted the paces.
Fifteen past the old armory door. Nine more to the mosaic column with the chipped edge. Three more and—
The vines were still there.
Now they had grown up the full leg of the bench and begun curling over the back. One thin strand reached into the stone crack beside it, splitting the line wider.
Elara let out a slow breath. "They moved."
Reinhardt didn't speak. He just stared.
Then he crouched, close enough to see where the vines had clawed at the earth below. His hand hovered, palm open. Not touching. Just close enough to test.
He pulled his hand back.
"That's not just residual mana," he muttered.
"No," Merlin said. "It's not."
Reinhardt stood. Eyes narrowed.
"No one," Elara said. "Not yet."
He turned to Merlin. No humor. Just weight behind the look.
It wasn't a question.