The Fifth Bell
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Ezra Locke was a systems architect in a world powered by logic, crystal tech, and a runic code that governed machines—not magic. His work on dimensional transport made him one of the most powerful minds of his time—and a target. Assassinated in a sabotage plot, Ezra's body was destroyed. But not his mind.
He awakens in Aerthalen, a world where magic exists—real, ancient, and deeply feared. Here, runes aren’t tools of science, but the foundation of an arcane language capable of shaping reality itself. What the people of this world call “glyphs” and “wards,” Ezra sees as a distorted mirror of the systems he once mastered.
Taken in by Wrenmoor Academy, a school for gifted glyphcasters, Ezra tries to blend in—but his memories of another life, and another language, never fade. Worse still, the magical runes of Aerthalen react to him in ways no one can explain. Doors open. Wards twist. Hollows—creatures of broken magic—are drawn to him like a beacon.
As ancient secrets resurface and power begins to shift, Ezra realizes he wasn’t brought to Aerthalen by accident. Someone—or something—rewrote the laws of death to bring him here. Now he must master a magic he was never meant to wield, uncover who orchestrated his assassination, and survive the Fifth Bell—an ominous rite whose toll marks the thinning barrier between worlds.
Because this world is breaking too.
And Ezra might be the only one who can rewrite it.