Morgana opened her eyes.
The first thing she noticed was the absence of pain. No searing backlash from a failed spell, no tearing sensation of a soul ripped from its anchor—just stillness. The air smelled of damp stone and something metallic, like old blood or rust.
Light filtered in from somewhere above, weak and gray. She lay on cold, uneven ground, her fingers brushing against rough grooves carved into the floor. Runes. Faint, degraded, but unmistakable. A fragment of the old world, worn down by time.
She sat up slowly, her body protesting with unfamiliar stiffness. Her hands trembled—not from exhaustion, but from something else. Something new.
She flexed her fingers, and for the first time in her life, mana responded.
Not the distant, untouchable hum she had spent decades studying. Not the theoretical framework she could explain but never wield. This was raw, immediate, *hers*. A spark flickered at her fingertips, unstable and weak, but undeniably present.
Morgana exhaled, her breath shaky.
She had expected death. Oblivion. Instead, she was here—wherever *here* was—with a working magical core.
The realization settled over her like dawn breaking.
She looked around. The chamber was small, its walls lined with broken runes, their meanings half-lost to erosion. A cell, perhaps, or a tomb. Beyond the dim light, shadows stretched into deeper darkness.
Morgana pressed a hand to the floor, tracing the grooves of the nearest rune. Crude. Inefficient. A child’s attempt at copying something they didn’t understand.
She smiled anyway.
Because for the first time, she could *fix* it.
Morgana closed her eyes.
The darkness behind her eyelids was different now—not empty, but alive with potential. She could feel the mana inside her, a quiet pulse beneath her skin, steady and real. It was still unfamiliar, this connection, like learning to breathe with new lungs.
She exhaled slowly, focusing on the sensation. The rune she had traced lingered in her mind, its flawed structure clear as if etched behind her eyes. She could see where the lines wavered, where the intent had been misapplied. A modern mage might not notice the inefficiency, but to her, it was as obvious as a misplaced stitch in a tapestry.
Her fingers twitched against the floor. She could fix it. She *wanted* to fix it.
But first, she needed to understand the limits of this new core.
Morgana opened her eyes again, lifting her hand. The spark returned, flickering weakly at her fingertips. It wasn’t much—hardly enough to light a candle—but it was hers. She focused, guiding the mana through the simplest rune she knew: a stability glyph, the foundation of countless spells.
The rune formed in her mind, precise and clean. The mana followed, hesitant at first, then surging forward as if recognizing the path. The spark brightened, steadied—
And sputtered out.
Morgana frowned. Not enough power. Or perhaps her control was still unrefined. She flexed her fingers, studying the faint residue of mana clinging to them. The core was functional, but weak. Depleted, maybe, or simply untrained.
She looked back at the degraded runes on the floor. Even flawed, they were a starting point. A puzzle. A way forward.
For the first time in her life, the puzzle wasn’t just theoretical.
Morgana smiled.
Then she got to work.