Elara Valerius's POV :
The High Tower was a place of absolute perfection, or at least, it was supposed to be. As I walked through the corridors of the Second-Year wing, my footsteps were silent against the polished marble. My own mana, a steady, rhythmic pulse of silver light, hummed beneath my skin like a well-tuned engine. At seventeen, I was already a Second-Year Commander. I was Elara Valerius—the "Miracle Twin."
But today, the air in the Academy felt heavy, and it wasn't because of the gravity tests.
"Did you hear?" a girl from my cohort whispered as I passed the arched windows. "The First-Year S-Class had their resonance test today. The Dud actually stayed conscious under two-times gravity."
"Magnus is just coddling him," her friend replied with a scoff. "A mascot for the commoners. I heard he looked like he was coughing up blood by the end of it. Pathetic."
I kept my gaze fixed forward. Cassian. My other half. We were born minutes apart, shared the same womb, and carried the same face—though mine is sharp with discipline and his is softened by a permanent, lazy haze. To the world, we were the ultimate proof of the "Gamble of the Veins." One twin took all the power, leaving the other a hollow shell. To our father, Duke Valerius, I am the crown jewel, and Cassian is the cracked stone that should have been thrown away at birth.
I turned the corner near the entrance to the High Tower's gardens and saw him.
He was walking away from the First-Year wing, his shoulders slumped, his uniform wrinkled. Beside him walked Lyra Thorne. It felt like a physical sting to see him like this. We were twins, yet he looked like he belonged to a different species.
"Cassian," I said, my voice cutting through the ambient hum of the hallway like a silver blade.
He stopped. He didn't turn around immediately. For a heartbeat—a single, flickering second—I saw his shoulders square. It was a momentary shift in posture that looked almost... lethal. But then, as if a string had been cut, he let them drop back into that pathetic, slouching mess. He turned, blinking slowly, his eyes half-lidded as if he were about to fall asleep.
"Oh. Elara," he said, his voice a lazy, irritating drawl. "Did you need something? I'm in the middle of a very important walk to my bed."
I stepped closer, my silver mana flaring slightly. It was an unconscious test. Most students would flinch. Cassian just scratched his neck and stifled a yawn.
"Father sent a letter," I said, watching his face. "The Blood Appraisal next week isn't just an Academy requirement anymore. He pulled strings with the Voss Clan to ensure the High Priest handles the scan personally. They aren't looking for mana-veins, Cassian. They are looking for a reason to have you permanently removed from the academy. They want to prove your 'Hero' status is a fraud."
I waited for the fear. I waited for him to beg me for help. We used to share everything before the gap between our powers became an ocean. Surely he knew I wouldn't let them kill my own twin?
Instead, he looked at his fingernails. "Sounds like a lot of paperwork. Tell Father I'm busy. I have a Combat Trial coming up, and I'm planning on being very convincingly defeated."
"Stop playing the fool!" I hissed, taking a sharp step into his personal space. "You survived a Rift, Cassian. No 'Null' survives a Rift. I don't know what trick you used, but the Voss family will find it. If they find even a trace of forbidden power in your blood, they will execute you as a Corrupted. They will kill my brother to protect the family name!"
For a split second—so fast I almost questioned my own senses—the sleepiness in his eyes vanished. What replaced it wasn't fear. It was a cold, bottomless void that made my own silver mana recoil as if it had touched a freezing abyss. My "Vein-Sense" screamed at me to get away, sensing a predator that didn't have a heartbeat.
Then, he blinked, and the "Dud" was back.
"Execution sounds even more tiring than the speeches," Cassian said, stepping around me. "Anyway, give my regards to the High Priest. I hope his scrying stones are well-polished. It would be a shame if they didn't find exactly what they expect to find."
He walked away, nearly tripping over a slightly raised tile. I stood there, my hands trembling. When I had flared my aura at him, the mana hadn't bounced off him. It had simply... vanished. Like it had fallen into a hole that didn't exist.
"What are you, Cassian?" I whispered to the empty hallway.
Cassian's POV :
I felt Elara's gaze burning into my back until I turned the corner. My twin sister was always the hardest to fool. We were born from the same spark, and she spent half her life trying to find that spark in me. She didn't realize that I didn't "lose" my spark during our birth; I consumed it. I had been eating the world around me since the first time I took a breath.
"Your sister is dangerous," Lyra whispered once we were safely in the servant's stairwell, her face pale. "If she starts doubting your 'Dud' act, the Headmaster will know within the hour."
"Elara only believes what she can see," I said, my voice dropping the lazy act now that the scrying eyes were out of range. "And I'm going to make sure she sees exactly what she wants to see: a brother who is a disappointment to the Valerius name. A weakling who survived by luck and is now drowning in the High Tower."
I stopped on the landing and leaned against the cold stone wall.
"Lyra, I need you to find me a very specific type of potion. Not a healing one. I need a 'Fragility Draught.' Something that makes my skin bruise easily and my mana-channels look... charred. It needs to look like 'Mana-Burn'."
"You want to look like you're hurting yourself?"
"I want to look like a 'Dud' who is desperately trying to be a Hero to impress his twin sister, and failing," I said, a cold smile touching my lips. "The Voss family loves a tragedy. If they think I'm destroying my own body trying to keep up with the S-Ranks, they'll stop looking for the monster. They'll just wait for me to break."
"And the Blood Appraisal?" Lyra asked, her voice trembling. "They use the Eye of Truth. It sees the soul, Cassian. You can't just 'fake' that."
"The Eye of Truth sees what is there," I replied, looking down into the darkness of the basement stairs. "But I am a Null. There is nothing there. The trick isn't showing them something else—it's making sure they don't realize the 'nothing' they see is actually a mouth that can swallow them whole."
As we descended into the lower levels, the temperature dropped. This was my territory. The High Tower was a stage, but the basement was the reality. I needed to reach the hidden library. The Guardian had mentioned a technique—"Void-Skin"—that could mimic the appearance of damaged mana-veins. If I could master it before the Voss High Priest arrived, I could turn their most powerful diagnostic tool into my greatest defense.
"Go, Lyra," I said, stopping at the door to the Old Library. "Get the potion. And make sure nobody follows you."
Lyra nodded and vanished into the shadows. I pushed open the heavy oak door. The smell of dust and ancient ink greeted me.
"The pot is boiling, boy," the Guardian's voice rasped from the darkness. "The silver light of your twin is searching for you. Do you intend to hide forever?"
"Not forever," I whispered, stepping into the dark. "Just until I've taken everything I need from their foundations. If they want to look into my soul, I'll make sure they see exactly how deep the hole goes."
The "Dud" was gone. In the silence of the basement, the Null began to breathe.