CHAPTER 16: LEYLINES OF THE ATOM

Having immediately subdued the errant intruders that had violated guest rights as under Magi code of law. Caedrion exhaled deeply while he watched the leylines on his hands fade in glory.

They continued to exist as a permanent state across his flesh. But they always brightened whenever he activated the flow of what he could only presume was mana in his veins.

He was just about to return to his studies when Aelindria grabbed his hand. Forcing him to look her in the eyes as she demanded an explanation.

"What the hell was that? You just snapped your fingers and the Ignarion delegates vanished? Where have they gone? What do you mean you have restrained them?"

Caedrion free’d his hand, and sighed, activating the magic in his veins once more as the leylines stirred back to luster.

His eyes began to glow as he placed the tip of his finger to the woman’s head. Causing her own body to stir without her command.

And then she fell asleep in his arms as he caught her falling body. An act that only provoked his father and her mother.

"What have you-"

But before they could continue, Caedrion interrupted them with a sharp raising of his finger.

"Quiet.... She awakens...."

And just like that, Aelindria’s eyes slowly parted, giving way to her rust color irises, the glowing state they hasd previously been forced into once more receded back to a normal brightness.

The girl felt like her head was about to concave upon itself as she grabbed it with both hands, groaning in agony in the process.

"... What did you do to me... What did I see?"

Caedrion smirked coyfully as he leaned in and whispered into the woman’s ears words only the two of them could hear.

"The essence of magic itself... You understand now... Don’t you?"

Aelindria’s headache ebbed as clarity returned, and she looked upon Caedrion, not merely as a genius, but perhaps... a monster dressed in brilliance.

"You... You.... You can’t... It shouldn’t be possible.... And yet..."

Malveris and Sylene were practically dying of impatience, as Sylene was quick to demand an answer from the both of them.

"What? What has he done? What shouldn’t be possible?"

Caedrion, having helped his cousin to her feet, was quick to answer on her behalf.

"To put it simply... I used the barrier to send the criminals to the dungeons. Where they now await their sentence. You can go see for yourself if you wish. But to explain how I managed t accomplish this... It would take hours, perhaps even days. So let’s just leave it at that, shall we?"

He waited for nothing more, and instead departed, intending to fully resume his studies, and wait for his father, aunt, and cousin to confirm what he had done.

---

Caedrion waited until his family had finished with their interrogation of the prisoners. They had provoked the Lady of the House, and as he stood there watching the process unfold, the heir of the architect was able to confirm many of his suspicions.

The Architect, allegedly a semi-divine like being which his family claimed descent from. Capable of performing structural magic.

In this primitive world and their ignorance towards the universe itself, and its building blocks, they misunderstood its applications.

The average Ferrondel magus used the powers of the architect to shift literal structural blocks. It was why they were referred to as defensive magi barely worthy of the title.

Formwrights were a divergent school, and Sylene was the last heir of their teachings.

They utilized structural magic not to affect the world around them, but the body itself. Bone, flesh. They sculpted and perfected it, or mutated and twisted it as they pleased.

It was the same principle in theory, but applied differently.

The others of his house had begun to see him as a prodigy. But in truth, he was a reformer trapped in a cathedral of tradition.

The Architect’s gifts were not blueprints for walls,they were equations written in starlight, in plasma, in entropy itself. Yet none had eyes to read them.

And thus, after his aunt had grown weary of venting her fury on those who had offended her honor. He stepped forward from the shadows.

The delegation from House Ingarion had been torn apart and put back together again, repeatedly throughout the past few hours.

In an attempt to gain valuable information that House Ferondel lacked, and to appease Sylene’s wrath.

Yet their minds were still sound, and their expressions defiant. When they saw the Heir of the Architect approach them, they did not shiver or scurry in fear, they stood up defiantly.

They were still proud. Still snarling. Still clinging to lineage and inherited power like barnacles to a drowned ship.

Caedrion did not hate them. That would require emotion. What he felt was disappointment... and a flicker of anticipation.

Yet, how could they possibly understand his thoughts? They thought instead the look in his eyes was one of arrogance.

"You think you’re so grand because by sheer chance we ended up in your dungeon! Think again; our house is of fire and fury. You will all burn for this when the others come to liberate us..."

Caedrion ignored the taunts, designed to bait him into foolish action. Instead, he looked past the prisoners, and to the surroundings of the cell itself. As if he were examining the very material it was built from.

"Fire and fury... Quite fearsome. To one who doesn’t understand the composition of flame.... You see... This world, and the Magi within it. You have all been blessed with extraordinary power... The problem is you all have such primitive thinking."

The prisoners scoffed; a few even laughed, while one had the nerve to mock Caedrion to his face.

"Primitive thinking? Fire burns, and can consume everything in its path. What more is needed to know than that!"

Caedrion didn’t frown; he didn’t smile either. His expression was cold as he raised his hand, light beginning to glow on the marks upon its back, and within the palm itself as he pressed his hand forward, mere centimeters away from the bars.

"Ignorance... As always, and proudly so... The reason my house has fallen to such a sorry state is because they started thinking like you lot... But I will show you the truth. The magic of the architect is not in shifting stone, nor is it in forging iron, or restoring bone... It is in the structural fabric of the very universe. It is... Atomic."

Atomic? Had he began speaking in tongues? The prisoners laughed—derisively, nervously. Not knowing that ignorance, in that moment, was their final sanctuary.

But Caedrion knew, and thus his tone shifted from chilling to almost sorrowful, as if he were generally remorseful for that which he had yet to act upon.

"Forgive me... But what I am about to do has the potential to be extremely painful, and potentially life-threatening. It is entirely outside the realm of ethical experimentation. But you have all forced me to move up my timetable. And will not let this opportunity that you have graced me with slip by."

"Do you know what it means to unravel a man?" he whispered, more to himself than to them.

"To reduce flesh and spirit to formulae, to pierce the veil between what is and what holds it together? No, of course you don’t. That’s why you scream of fire, and bark of vengeance. Because it is easier to burn than to understand."

Caedrion closed his eyes. He had calculated the threshold of pain. Measured the line between irreversible damage and adaptive transformation.

But what he could not quantify, what he never could, was what remained of a person once he had seen their essence stripped bare.

A blinding light filled the dark subterranean cavern where the dungeon cells were held. Chasing away the shadows beyond the mortal realm.

Only for utter darkness to consume the void it left behind once it had vanished.

When the gentle ebb of light had returned to the room, Caedrion walked out, with a smirk upon his face.

Like a demon who had just signed a deal in his favor.

Sylene watched him, having witnessed the entire scene without Caedrion’s knowledge.

Or so she thought.

Her jaw clenched. She had always thought herself a master of her art, the last true heir to the Formwright legacy.

And yet the boy, no, the creature... before her had unraveled their prisoners with methods she couldn’t begin to comprehend.

This was not talent. This was something else. Something vast... and deeply wrong.

She had once held him as a child, swaddled in woven starlight, thinking him gifted. A rare heir born of promise and precision.

But now, as his silhouette vanished into the corridor’s gloom, she wasn’t sure he was even human.

"What are you becoming?" she whispered aloud.

No answer came. Only the gentle thrum of distant ley-lines pulsing in resonance. And a soft vibration in the air, as if the dungeon itself now remembered what he had done.