In the hidden magical town of Heartwood, nestled beyond the veil between worlds, Heartwood Academy stands as a beacon for young mages seeking to master the ancient arts of spellcraft and potion-making. For centuries, it has trained generations of magic users—until students began vanishing without a trace.
Ember Shadewood, a shy and observant 15-year-old with an unexpected gift for Nature Magic, arrives for her first year unaware that her arrival coincides with the third disappearance of the sem
The Secret of Heartwood Academy - Testimony of the Spirits — Voices from the Deep Realm, the Trap After Return
The shadow glimpsed through the experimental building's window still lingered at the edge of Ember Shadewood's mind.
That gaze—just a touch too sharp—in the moment Professor Valen's back disappeared around the corner. It could have been nothing. But when the desire to believe it was nothing felt too strong, it usually wasn't—Ember knew this from experience.
"Wait, not there. Move a bit more to the south side," Aurora said.
The next morning, Aurora spread blueprints across the table in the Greenbough dormitory's common room. Her silver hair melted into white under the morning light. Her mismatched eyes—different colors on each side—traced the lines drawn on the map. The girl who had analyzed fragments with Ember in that laboratory yesterday seemed like a different person entirely; today's Aurora was meticulous and efficient.
"I analyzed the root-keeper patrol routes by time. Between six and eight in the early morning, there's only one person covering the southern perimeter. If we slip through that gap, we can likely reach the Spirit's Circle—about three kilometers from the outer edge, where twelve silver-bark trees form a ring—without encountering any root-keepers," Aurora said.
Finn leaned over the blueprints, and the single beauty mark at the corner of his mouth twitched slightly with amusement.
"I think you'd make a great strategist for an evil organization," Finn said.
Aurora answered without looking up, immediately and flatly.
"I'll take that as a compliment," she said.
Finn laughed—genuinely, happily, his golden eyes narrowing.
Ember watched the two of them and felt a subtle sense of being left behind. There was still distance between her and Aurora. Aurora was polite, willing to cooperate with the investigation. But in her true feelings, Aurora still wasn't facing toward Ember—Ember understood this. Her habit of observation picked up on such small details.
"Ember, do you have confidence we can get in without the root-keepers noticing today?" Finn asked, turning to her.
Ember thought for a moment before answering.
"...Honestly, I wouldn't call it confidence. But the forest... I think it's calling to us," she said.
"Then as long as the forest is calling to you, we're getting VIP treatment. No need to worry," Finn declared.
There was no basis for it, yet somehow Ember felt a little reassured—which was frustrating.
***
The outer edge of Silverwood was still sleeping in the thin morning light.
The silver-bark trees—trees with silver-colored bark unique to Heartwood—glowed at night, but now, just after dawn, their light wavered faintly like an afterimage. The morning light filtering through the branches mixed with the trees' own luminescence, tinting the air at the outer edge a pale white.
Just as Aurora had read it, there were no root-keepers on the southern perimeter. The three crouched low through a section of low brush and crossed the outer edge.
The moment Finn whispered "VIP treatment," they heard a root-keeper's footsteps in the distance. All three threw themselves into the brush simultaneously. The smell of moss reached Ember's face. Damp earth. The presence of insects.
The three remained motionless until the root-keeper's footsteps faded completely.
Once it was completely silent, Finn whispered softly.
"...The VIP treatment might have been a lie," he said.
Ember looked at Finn sideways without a word. Finn looked away.
***
Ember understood the moment they crossed the outer edge.
The forest's air had changed.
In this forest that spread within the boundary between the human world and the spirit realm—the invisible boundary called the veil—the flow of earth's magical power, the "root-veins," was far more concentrated than in the outside world. That flow seeped into Ember through the soles of her feet, through her palms, gradually and steadily. Her body temperature rose slightly. Or more precisely, it felt like something foreign was entering her body—something that wasn't her own blood flowing through her.
With each step, the moss beneath her feet glowed faintly.
A green, subtle light. Only where Ember's feet touched did the moss shine for a brief moment, breathing like a living thing, then fade.
"Your feet are glowing with every step, but that defeats the whole purpose of hiding," Finn pointed out quietly from behind.
Ember felt troubled and concentrated, trying to suppress the light. The spell-mark on her left wrist—the faint pattern indicating a user of nature magic—only grew stronger. The moss's glow intensified too.
"Backfired..." Ember muttered.
Aurora had been watching. She stopped and looked between Ember's feet and wrist alternately, then her expression grew more serious.
"The resonance is bidirectional. It's not that Ember is touching the root-veins—the root-veins are recognizing Ember and responding. This is a different dimension from ordinary nature magic," Aurora said.
Aurora's words were emotionless, analytical. Yet her eyes were serious, and beneath the caution and courtesy in her gaze when looking at Ember, there was pure astonishment.
Ember accepted the weight of those words while simultaneously feeling something strange.
(This isn't my power.)
The word "borrowed" surfaced in her mind. She was merely channeling something vast, temporarily. She was just a conduit; the real power lay elsewhere.
That sensation frightened her a little.
***
As they ventured deeper into the forest, the trees grew denser.
In this place where the root-vein lights couldn't reach, only the silver-bark trees' glow illuminated the path. Tree roots bulged from the ground, and one had to choose their footing carefully to avoid tripping. Finn caught his foot on a root once and let out an "oof." Aurora, half a step back, said curtly, "Quiet." Finn's mouth formed a silent "How am I supposed to be quiet about this?"
From the outer edge to the Spirit's Circle was approximately three kilometers.
Just past the two-kilometer mark, Aurora stopped.
It was abrupt. Her feet simply stopped and didn't move.
Finn called out, "What's wrong?" Her response was thin. Her focus seemed directed somewhere distant.
Ember looked at Aurora's face. It wasn't pale. But her expression was frozen—as if she were seeing a dream, caught between waking and sleep.
After a moment, Aurora whispered quietly.
"I hear it again. ...It's not enough. I have to get better, or it won't mean anything," she said.
Finn looked at Ember. Ember was thinking the same thing—that wasn't the voice of a spirit.
Aurora's tone wasn't her usual confident one. It was like a child talking to herself in a dark room—raw, defenseless.
"It's not enough. No matter how hard I try, no matter how far I go. ...Why is it like this," she said.
Her voice trembled.
The forest's resonance was drawing out memories—Ember understood this. It wasn't through nature magic perception; she simply knew. This forest was sensitive to the energy of life and amplified what lay within its holder. Now, the forest was pulling out what Aurora had carried alone for so long.
Excellent grades. A candidate for genius. The weight of those words.
Aurora lowered her face. Her long silver hair wavered slightly in the dawn light.
"...I showed you something unnecessary," she said.
It was an attempt to sound strong, but it didn't quite succeed.
Ember took a step closer.
She gently placed her hand on Aurora's arm.
No words came. She tried to find them, but didn't know what to say. Comfort felt like a lie. Saying it would be okay felt wrong.
So she simply placed her hand there.
With only the meaning that she was truly present.
Aurora went rigid for a moment. Then, slowly, the tension in her shoulders eased. Not completely. But just a little.
The three stood still, sharing their silence together for a while. Only the forest's sounds continued quietly around them.
***
The Spirit's Circle was in a place where the forest's presence changed.
Twelve silver-bark trees formed a perfect ring. Within that circle, the grass on the ground was a different color. Not ordinary green, but faintly silver-tinged, as if it contained light.
The moment the three stepped into the ring, the flow of root-veins intensified dramatically through Ember's palms and soles. It felt like a great river flowing through her body. Warm yet somehow cold. Alive yet outside of time.
Finn and Aurora stepped back slightly. Both seemed overwhelmed by the air of this place. Aurora gripped her right hand's silver ring—said to glow when concentrating spells—tightly.
Ember stood at the center of the circle.
A voice reached her.
It wasn't a human voice. Multiple presences overlapped. As if hundreds of years of words were compressed into a single instant.
—Child bearing the blood of the drifter. The nature of the root-keeper awakens within you.
(Drifter's blood—the bloodline of the magic users who, fleeing persecution in the human world seven hundred years ago, founded Heartwood.)
Ember's legs nearly gave way. She consciously braced herself to keep from kneeling.
—Deep within the forest, the root-veins are being consumed.
The words were cold. Not metaphorical—stated as fact, with the weight of truth.
—The locations where the missing students' magical power was drained coincide with the thin-points of the veil.
Thin-points of the veil—approximately eight kilometers from the outer edge, where the boundary between worlds called the veil became extremely thin. Far beyond the root-keepers' patrol area.
Words left Ember's mouth.
"Where are the missing students now?" she asked.
—Still before the veil. But time remains scarce.
With only that, the voice receded.
Like water draining. Like waking from a dream.
Ember stood at the circle's center, realizing she was on the verge of tears. Not from sadness. From the weight of having learned something certain—something that couldn't be taken back.
There was a presence beside her.
Finn had come. He said nothing. He simply stood near her shoulder.
Ember steadied her breathing through Finn's presence, gradually.
***
On the way back from the circle, Aurora stopped, sensing something.
"Behind," she said tersely.
The brush moved.
A multi-legged insect about a meter and a half long—a spine-shadow bug, a creature dwelling in Silverwood's deep regions—crawled out from behind a tree. Its spine-like body hair reflected light, its outline clear even in the dim forest. It spread its appendages and approached.
Aurora immediately raised her right hand. Light magic. White light gathered at her fingertips. But fatigue from continuous use showed. The output dropped, the light flickering. The spine-shadow bug flinched but didn't fall. Instead, it spread its appendages wider and drew closer.
"Your follow-through is weak!" Finn shouted.
Finn ran toward a nearby tree, grabbed a thick branch with both hands, and put his weight into it. A dry crack. The branch snapped. He threw it directly in front of the bug.
The insect's appendages reflexively turned toward it.
"Run!" Finn yelled.
All three ran at once.
Aurora shouted while running, "Did you really think a stick would let us escape!?"
Finn answered while running, "It starts with belief!"
"That's not logic!" Aurora protested.
"Don't argue while running!" Finn shot back.
Protruding roots, low branches, damp rocks—the three leaped over them in succession, sprinting through to the safe zone.
They stopped simultaneously just before the outer edge, in an area beyond the root-keepers' patrol.
They were all breathing hard. Finn bent at the knees, breathing deeply. Ember folded at the waist and collapsed onto the grass.
After a while, Aurora spoke.
"...The stick actually worked," she said.
Her voice was small. Somewhere between exasperation and laughter.
Finn looked up. "Right?"
Aurora laughed.
It wasn't a complete smile. Her lips curved slightly upward, her eyes narrowed, and it faded quickly. That was all.
But to Ember, that laugh seemed special. That Aurora,
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