Does a Beginning Have an End?

He opened his eyes.

A gray sky hung above him like a heavy sheet of wet cloth, ready to fall and smother him at any moment. Tesi lay on his back, while the dry branches of that same tree scratched crooked lines across the sky, like cracks in old glass.

For several moments, he simply lay there, feeling the cold of the ground seep through his clothes, crawl along his spine, and settle deep into his joints.

Last year's leaves crunched beneath him—not wet, not alive, but dry and brittle like old paper.

The smell of rot and mold hung thick in the air, so tangible it almost felt as though he could taste it.

The silence pressed against his ears.

And then, in the middle of that silence, Tesi realized something.

He had been asleep.

Not unconscious. Not lost in some empty void.

Asleep.

There had been warmth behind his eyelids, fragments of images already slipping away from him, dissolving like smoke over water.

Slowly, his spine cracking as he moved, Tesi rose to his feet.

The branches above him swayed in the wind. One of them, older than the others, gave a long, miserable creak, almost as if it were complaining about its own pain.

Tesi turned his gaze.

Beyond the trees, between trunks whose roots clawed out of the earth like twisted fingers, he could make out the outlines of rooftops.

He walked toward them.

His footsteps disappeared into the soft decay covering the forest floor.

The forest ended abruptly.

As though someone had taken a knife and cut a line through the world.

And beyond it, a street opened before him.

It was wide, paved with gray cobblestone. Once, the stones must have been laid perfectly even. Now they had sunk into the earth, cracked in places, pale green grass forcing its way through the gaps like living threads—stubborn, almost shameless in its determination to survive.

The town stood in silence.

Not destroyed.

Not burned.

Simply...

abandoned.

As though everyone had gone out to buy bread one morning and never returned.

The shutters were tightly closed and bolted, yet the wooden boards had not warped with age. The windows remained intact.

In one of them, Tesi caught sight of his reflection.

Pale.

Dark shadows beneath his eyes.

Beside one of the houses stood a wooden table.

A mug rested on top of it.

At the bottom was a thin white film, dried and cracked like skin after a burn.

Nearby, a shirt hung from a rope stretched between two posts.

The wind moved it gently.

There was something disturbingly alive about the way it swayed.

Tesi continued walking.

Every step echoed from the walls around him.

But the echo sounded wrong.

Foreign.

As though the street were memorizing the sound of his footsteps, recording them, pressing them permanently into the stone.

Then—

he stopped.

A figure had appeared at the far end of the street.

A person.

He walked slowly, dragging one leg behind him.

Every step seemed to take effort, as though he were carrying some invisible weight.

And there was something horrifyingly familiar about the way he moved.

Tesi narrowed his eyes.

His heart skipped a beat.

Then began pounding somewhere in his throat, heavy and uneven.

It was him.

The same shoulders.

The same way of holding his head.

But his face...

The man walked with his right hand pressed against his side, just above the waist.

A thin stream of blood seeped between his fingers.

The wound had not closed.

Tesi couldn't move.

He watched the wounded version of himself approach.

The other man never raised his head.

He stared at the ground.

Or through it.

Or perhaps at nothing at all.

They nearly collided.

When less than a step remained between them, Tesi saw his eyes.

They weren't dead.

No.

There was peace in the eyes of the dead.

These held something else.

Oblivion.

As though the person himself were somewhere very far away.

The other Tesi walked past him.

So close that their shoulders almost touched.

Tesi inhaled.

The smell of blood struck him immediately—metallic and thick.

It mixed with the scent of damp earth, rotten leaves, and something else...

something familiar.

The smell of his own skin.

Tesi spun around.

The other Tesi was limping back the way he himself had come.

Toward the forest.

“Wait...”

The word escaped his lips.

But there was no sound.

His voice never came.

Tesi watched the other version of himself move farther away.

The limp became more obvious with every step.

His hand pressed harder against his wounded side.

Then he reached the trees.

The trunks closed around him as though the forest had swallowed him whole without bothering to chew.

Tesi remained there for several seconds, staring at the place where he had disappeared.

The silence returned.

The same heavy, suffocating silence.

But something about it had changed.

It felt as though the entire town had frozen with him.

Waiting.

Tesi tried to take a step toward the forest.

He couldn't.

His legs felt rooted to the stone.

He lowered his gaze.

The cobblestones beneath his feet were losing their shape.

Slowly, they dissolved into murky mist.

Then the walls of the houses began to blur.

The shirt disappeared from the rope.

The table vanished.

Then the mug.

The world around him began to fall apart.

Tesi raised his head.

The gray sky darkened.

The outlines of the buildings stretched into long black streaks.

And then he heard something else.

Voices.

Distant.

Muffled.

Then the rustle of grass.

The smell of blood vanished.

The dampness of the forest disappeared with it.

In its place came the cold air of morning.

Tesi blinked.

The empty street was still there before his eyes.

He blinked again.

Now there was only sky above him.

A real sky.

Tesi lay on the ground without moving for several seconds.

His mind seemed unable to understand where one place had ended and the other had begun.

Fragments of the dream still flashed before his eyes.

Empty windows.

Blood between his fingers.

His own face.

He inhaled slowly.

Rough grass tickled his neck. Small stones pressed into his back through his clothes. Morning dew had soaked into the fabric around his shoulders.

The air was fresh, carrying the scent of wormwood and dust from the road.

Somewhere in the distance, the city hummed.

An ordinary sound.

A living sound.

Tesi closed his eyes for several seconds.

The other man's gaze appeared before him again.

Not dead.

Not empty.

Simply looking somewhere impossibly far away.

Tesi opened his eyes and slowly sat up.

“A dream...” he whispered.

His body ached slightly, as though he really had spent the entire night lying on stone.

Tesi ran a hand across his face.

Then suddenly stopped.

His gaze dropped to his side.

He ran his hand over the fabric.

Nothing.

No blood.

No wound.

“Strange dream.”

He stood, brushed the dirt from his clothes, and looked toward the forest once more.

Only trees.

The morning wind moved through the leaves.

Somewhere among the branches, birds called to one another.

Tesi remained there for a little longer.

Then he turned away.

He had other things to do today.

The selection for the mage squads is today.

He needed to be there.

His body trembled like a reflection disturbed on the surface of water.

White hair fell across his eyes.

His shoulders narrowed.

His face changed.

And a moment later, an ordinary sixteen-year-old boy stood in the clearing.

Short.

Thin.

Hair as white as snow.

Eyes as yellow as the sun.

His clothes remained the same, but they had become clean, as though freshly washed. Even the stains left by the morning dew had disappeared as though they had never existed.

There was no trace of what he truly was.

Tesi looked down at his reflection in a nearby puddle.

The water was muddy, bits of debris floating across its surface, yet the face reflected there was perfectly clear.

An unfamiliar face.

Foreign eyes.

A different shape to the lips.

A perfect disguise.

Tesi exhaled.

“Time to see how much the selection has changed... and what the Astras are like these days.”

A faint smile touched his lips.

“Hopefully someone can surprise me.”

The city was alive with activity.

The moment Tesi stepped onto the main street, the noise of the crowd surrounded him—laughter, the clinking of coins, the grinding of cart wheels against cobblestone.

Blue-and-gold banners hung everywhere.

A dragon decorated each one, twisting in the wind as though it were alive.

The smell of roasted meat and flowers filled the streets.

Those heading for the selection were easy to recognize.

Many had come with their parents and had grown unusually quiet.

An opportunity like this came only once in a lifetime.

One boy repeatedly adjusted his collar with trembling hands while his mother whispered something quickly into his ear.

A girl sitting on a bench held a small amulet tightly between both hands, her eyes closed.

Tesi passed them and continued toward the arena.

Inside, there was plenty of space.

Stone walls three men high surrounded the grounds, and beneath them stood nearly a hundred young faces.

Some looked ahead with hope.

Others with fear.

Others still with cold calculation.

Tesi recognized members of noble families by the crests on their cloaks.

Golden dragons.

Lions.

Swords.

The Langraf brothers stood slightly apart, remaining within their own circle and keeping their distance from the commoners.

Tesi swept his gaze across them.

They have more mana, but there are commoners with similar amounts.

Interesting.

I wonder what kind of magic they have.

He was about to look away when a strange boy entered through the gates.

A purple robe.

Expensive.

Made from thick silk, with silver embroidery along the collar and sleeves.

But the cut was completely unfamiliar.

Tesi had never seen anything like it before.

The boy was tall for his age, with dark, almost black hair falling across his face and hiding his eyes.

He walked slowly but confidently.

Every step calm.

Precise.

And then there was his mana.

Tesi sensed it a moment before he properly noticed the boy.

The air around him became denser.

Heavier.

Like the atmosphere before a storm.

The hairs along Tesi's arms rose on their own.

This wasn't the same kind of power he felt from everyone else.

It seemed to have no bottom.

No matter how deeply Tesi tried to sense it, he couldn't find its edge.

He stopped.

Slowly, he turned toward the figure in purple.

The Astras are right there, and they aren't reacting.

They should be.

An amulet?

Or is he hiding it himself?

No... it's too clean.

And yet no one can feel anything.

Except me.

A slight chill passed over Tesi's skin.

Not from fear.

It had simply been a long time since he had encountered anything worth noticing.

He isn't an ordinary kid.

There's something wrong with him.

I finally come to one of these selections again, and this is what I find.

And then the boy was behind him.

Tesi hadn't heard a single footstep.

At some point, there was simply another presence standing close behind him.

“You're pretty strong for an ordinary kid.”

Tesi slowly turned around.

The boy in the purple robe looked at him with a faint smirk.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Of course you don't.”

The stranger gave a quiet laugh and leaned slightly closer.

“Do whatever you want here. I don't care.”

His expression remained relaxed.

“Just stay out of my business.”

Tesi looked calmly into his eyes.

“And if I don't?”

The boy's smile widened.

“Then things will get more interesting.”

He straightened.

“Just don't get in my way, and we'll part peacefully.”

With that, he walked away without looking back.

A moment later, he disappeared among the other participants.

Tesi watched him go.

Interesting.

Perhaps this selection really would be more entertaining than he had expected.

The gates closed.

Heavy iron gates slammed shut with a metallic crash that echoed throughout the arena.

Silence came instantly.

Every head turned toward the center.

And then he appeared.

Sinilium.

The Fifty-Fifth Fermag of the Kingdom of Vilnarius.

A tall man wearing a royal cloak that shimmered beneath the sunlight.

Long, yellowish hair fell around a face marked by scars—scars that spoke of years and wars.

There was fire in his eyes.

Steel.

And something difficult to read.

“Thank you all for coming here today and choosing to seek a place among the mages,” he began.

His voice carried across the entire arena.

Even the birds seemed to fall silent.

“The Kingdom of Vilnarius was not always what you see today.”

He looked across the crowd.

“Beyond these walls lie forests we do not control. Beyond the mountains are lands we have lost. And beyond the horizon are those who would take even what remains.”

His voice hardened.

“And the only thing holding that line is magic.”

“Yours.”

“Mine.”

“The magic of the Astras standing here today.”

He extended one hand toward a group of mages standing apart from the others, each wearing a different cloak.

They silently nodded.

Sinilium paused.

In the silence, the banners could be heard fluttering in the wind.

“I won't lie to you the way they do in schools.”

“I won't tell you that magic is a gift.”

“Sometimes, magic is a curse.”

“It burns you from within if you're weak.”

“It drives you insane if you're foolish.”

“And it kills you if you aren't ready.”

His voice became quieter.

Almost a whisper.

Yet every word reached the crowd.

Tesi was only half listening.

The same words.

They said them before him.

And before the ones who came before him.

Only the scars on the faces of the men saying them ever change.

“Remember one thing.”

Sinilium's gaze moved across the participants.

“Your strength is not your magic.”

“Strength is your will.”

“And will cannot be measured.”

“Today, you will show us yours.”

“And we will see which of you is ready to become something more than just human.”

The Fermag raised his hand.

A sphere of pure light appeared above his palm.

Blinding white.

Untainted by even the slightest trace of color.

Light flooded across the arena.

For a moment, Tesi narrowed his eyes as warmth passed over his face.

“Let your journey begin.”

Sinilium lowered his hand.

“And let it be your own.”

The light disappeared.

“The selection itself will be simple,” the Fermag continued, his voice becoming clear and businesslike once more.

“You will be divided into groups of five. Each group will fight either members of the Astras or representatives of the main squads.”

“After each battle, three people will be chosen from every group.”

“Then the tournament will begin.”

“You will fight one-on-one.”

“Once it is over, you will learn which squad you will join.”

He paused.

“Let me make one thing clear.”

“You do not need to win the tournament.”

“You may lose in the very first round.”

“The captains are here to judge your abilities.”

“Not everyone here possesses combat magic, so we will also be watching those who are eliminated immediately.”

He smiled.

“Well then.”

“Let's begin.”

Tesi exhaled and looked toward the purple robe.

The boy stood with his arms crossed, his expression completely indifferent.

As though none of what was happening had anything to do with him.