PROLOGUE: The Night the Twins Vanished
The mountain had not trembled in over a century.
Yet beneath the black winter sky, the ancient stone groaned like something alive turning in its sleep.
Snow slid from the cliffs surrounding Vermont Academy of Elemental Power as bells rang across the hidden campus below. Windows flickered with blue flame. Protective sigils burned brighter along the academy walls before suddenly dimming again.
Far beneath the mountain, inside chambers older than the academy itself, representatives from magical regions across the world gathered around a circular obsidian table.
No students knew this place existed.
Most professors did not either.
The room smelled of candle smoke, stormwater, old parchment, and iron.
Ancient symbols glowed beneath the floor.
At the center of the chamber stood a woman wrapped in indigo robes stitched with silver thread. Rings lined nearly every finger she possessed, and carved runes pulsed faintly along the staff resting in her hands.
“The signs have already begun,” she said quietly.
Across from her, a broad-shouldered man covered in old rune tattoos frowned toward the ceiling overhead.
“The mountain has stirred three times this month.”
Another voice answered from the shadows.
“And creatures are migrating early.”
That drew silence.
Not fear.
Recognition.
At the far end of the chamber sat members of the four founding bloodlines.
The Newtons.
The Waltons.
The Leonards.
And one empty seat.
No crest marked it anymore.
That had been intentional.
Some histories were easier to erase than explain.
A tall man from the Leonard family adjusted the silver cufflinks at his sleeves before speaking.
“We are discussing earthquakes and creatures while children are being born tonight.”
The woman in indigo turned sharply.
“You know very well what tonight means.”
The room darkened slightly.
Candles bent inward.
Then came the voice none of them wanted to hear.
An elderly star reader seated near the chamber wall slowly lifted her blind eyes.
“The divided blood has returned.”
Outside, thunder cracked hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling.
The old woman continued softly:
“When the divided blood awakens beneath the waking mountain,the forgotten house shall rise again.
Two souls split.Two paths broken.
One shall bend memory.One shall fracture time.
And the old gates will open once more.”
Voices erupted immediately.
“The prophecy was sealed.”
“The Fourth Bloodline was destroyed.”
“It was hidden.”
“It survived.”
“The mountain does not wake for nothing.”
The Leonard representative leaned back calmly.
“Then perhaps this is the moment we prevent history from repeating itself.”
Cold silence settled across the chamber.
Everyone understood what he truly meant.
Kill the children before the prophecy begins.
Before another word could be spoken, the chamber doors burst open.
A messenger stumbled inside pale with panic.
“The barriers around the lower medical wing are failing.”
Every face changed instantly.
“My wife is in labor,” one of the Newton representatives snapped.
“So is mine,” Harry Walton said sharply as he stood from his seat.
For the first time all evening, genuine fear entered the room.
Not political fear.
Parental fear.
And somewhere deep beneath the mountain…
something ancient smiled.
---
The hidden hospital wing glowed with warm amber lanterns and floating healing sigils.
Unlike human hospitals beyond the mountain, this place breathed with old magic.
Water drifted through suspended glass spheres across the ceiling.
Protective charms hung from every doorway.
Soft singing echoed through the halls from spirit healers moving room to room.
Near the delivery chambers floated one of the Hearth Mothers.
Tall and faceless beneath layered white veils, the ancient being moved silently through the corridor carrying bowls filled with glowing water and herbs.
The nurses lowered their eyes respectfully as it passed.
The Hearth Mothers only appeared during births tied to prophecy.
Tonight, there were three of them.
Inside one chamber, Evelyn Newton gripped the bedsheets while magic sparked from her fingertips uncontrollably.
Across the hall, Ivana Walton screamed through another contraction while healers rushed around her.
Harry stood near the bedside trying to maintain composure.
He was failing.
Stormlight flashed through the enchanted windows.
The mountain groaned again.
One of the younger nurses froze suddenly.
“Did you hear that?”
The lanterns flickered once.
Twice.
Then every light in the hallway went dark.
Silence swallowed the medical wing.
For one terrible second, the mountain stopped breathing.
And then the screaming started.
Protective barriers shattered across the corridor windows.
Blue fire exploded along the walls.
A healer was thrown backward by invisible force.
Alarms rang throughout the hidden hospital.
“Seal the lower entrances!”
“Protect the children!”
“GET THE TWINS OUT!”
The Hearth Mother turned sharply toward the nursery.
Its veils lifted slightly.
Beneath them there was no face.
Only light.
The newborn cries stopped all at once.
A nurse gasped.
“The babies—”
The nursery doors exploded inward.
Chaos swallowed everything.
Magic tore through the hallways.
Glass burst.
Creatures howled somewhere beyond the barriers surrounding the mountain.
And in the middle of the panic, Elise ran.
Her heartbeat thundered violently as she shoved through smoke-filled corridors searching for the lower chambers.
“Ivana!” she screamed.
No answer.
Only firelight.
Then finally—
A hidden room beneath the medical wing.
Ivana Walton sat trembling against the wall, blood staining the front of her gown as she clutched two wrapped infants tightly against her chest.
The moment Elise entered, Ivana looked up with terrified eyes.
“They know,” she whispered.
The mountain shook again.
Dust rained from above.
“Elise,” Ivana said weakly, grabbing her wrist. “Listen to me carefully.”
“We have to move,” Elise urged desperately.
“No.” Ivana pulled the babies closer. “You have to move.”
Another explosion rattled the corridor outside.
The babies began crying.
For one brief moment, the lanterns overhead bent toward them unnaturally.
Like the room itself recognized them.
Tears filled Ivana’s eyes.
“If they stay here, they’ll never belong to themselves.”
Outside the hidden room, footsteps approached.
Too many.
Too fast.
Ivana shoved the infants toward Elise desperately.
“Take them.”
“Elise—”
“You’re their godmother.”
Elise stared down at the twins.
One baby suddenly stopped crying and looked directly at her.
The air shifted.
A nearby metal tray slid violently across the floor on its own.
The second infant opened her eyes.
For half a second, the clock hanging above the doorway stopped ticking.
Elise’s breath caught.
The prophecy.
It was real.
“I promise,” Elise whispered.
Ivana smiled then.
Small.
Broken.
Relieved.
The last thing Elise saw before the emergency barrier slammed shut between them was Ivana lifting trembling fingers toward her daughters one final time.
Then the corridor collapsed in flame.
The mountain roared.
And the twins vanished into the storm.
---
Days later, the magical world received devastating news.
Both sets of twins had disappeared during the attack.
The academy locked down.
Search parties spread across hidden territories.
Ancient creatures stirred along the mountain borders for the first time in generations.
Then came the miracle.
Two children were recovered and returned to the Newton family.
The academy celebrated publicly.
But quietly… something felt wrong.
The mountain did not react to the returned twins.
Ancient wards failed to recognize them.
Old creatures avoided them entirely.
Still, fear forced silence.
The magical world wanted stability more than truth.
So the investigation ended.
Officially.
The Walton twins, however, were never recovered.
Years passed.
Rumors faded.
The prophecy became myth again.
But somewhere beyond the hidden magical cities, Elise carried the real twins from place to place under false names and borrowed protections.
Human towns.
Safe houses.
Old allies.
Forgotten bloodline routes.
For three years they survived in the shadows.
Until the night everything went wrong again.
A fire.
Screaming.
Running footsteps.
The sound of creatures in the dark.
The girls would only remember fragments later.
Fear.
Cold air.
Someone pulling them away.
And then— nothing.
By morning, Ivana Walton was officially presumed dead.
No body was ever recovered.
Only scorched magic remained beneath the mountain.
Elise disappeared soon after.
The real twins vanished again.
Far from the academy and its secrets, a tired woman named Monique Seals opened the door to find two frightened little girls standing beside a silent man carrying old magic in his bloodline but almost none in his hands.
“Please,” Elise whispered weakly.
“Keep them hidden.”
Monique looked down at the twins.
Small.
Terrified.
Holding each other tightly.
Children before prophecy.
Children before power.
Children before the world could turn them into symbols.
Monique stepped aside immediately.
“Bring them in.”
And far beneath Vermont Academy, buried under ancient stone and sleeping magic…
something finally opened its eyes.
