Magnus did not return to the academy immediately.
He spent three days in solitude, hidden within the dense, mist-laden forests near Riverenda, pouring over the ancient texts, tracing every symbol in the grimoire, searching for a loophole.
The ritual was explicit, a willing sacrifice was needed to sever the curse entirely, but Magnus refused to accept that fate.
He would not trade one life for another. He would not become the very thing he fought against. There had to be another way.
On the fourth night, under a sky heavy with storm clouds, he knelt within a circle of sigils carved into the damp earth.
The Eclipse Shard pulsed in his hands, shifting between light and darkness, resisting him. The power within it was not meant to be wielded lightly.
It was a fragment of something beyond mortal comprehension, a force neither wholly divine nor entirely cursed.
