The training chamber emptied slowly, one by one, as though each student feared the air still burned with Merlin's power.
Whispers drifted in their wake, hushed but sharp enough to cut:
"Six stars."
"Impossible."
"He's not normal."
Merlin heard every one. He didn't respond.
He remained at the center of the chamber, boots planted on the polished floor, his golden eyes fixed on the far wall where faint echoes of the simulation still lingered in his mind. He wasn't trembling. He wasn't even tired. That was what unsettled him most of all.
Everyone else had been pushed to the brink. He hadn't even cracked.
He clenched his fist slowly, arcs of lightning flickering faintly around his knuckles before he forced them down. 'This strength… I can't deny it anymore. I'm not on their level. Not even close.'
The thought carried no pride. Only weight.
A shadow fell across him.
