The alley was narrow and damp, its stones slick with last night's rain. Gareth walked alone, each step echoing against the silence of sleeping streets. Shadows clung to the walls, but his mind was elsewhere, far from the city's veins.
And then, the scene shifted.
Dawncrest National Academy towered in pale brilliance against the morning sky, banners of deep azure and gold swaying in the breeze. Its classrooms, built from smooth stone and lined with tall arched windows, gleamed with the polish of prestige. Within, voices murmured, books rustled, and quills scraped across parchment.
The door creaked as Lyra stepped inside.
Her shoulders were squared, but her steps carried the weight of a storm. On her back, just barely revealed beneath her cloak, the Dawncrest sigil caught the morning light — a rising sun cleaved by a black scar across its center. Her family's symbol. The mark of traitors.
A hush fell.
Whispers followed, sharp as knives."The traitor's daughter is here…" one girl sneered, lips curling."Indeed. Look at her, walking so proud."Soon the murmurs thickened, spreading like wildfire, a chorus of gossip laced with scorn.
But then, a voice cut through — steady, sharp."Enough."
All eyes turned. The silent girl, Serenya Vale, lifted her head, her voice carrying more weight than its softness should allow. "Stop this."
A pair of boys followed, rising from their benches. "Leave her be," one of them barked. The room shifted, the tide of cruelty faltering under sudden resistance.
From the hallway, Talia lingered, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. She didn't speak — only observed, her presence calm but unreadable.
The Academy uniforms gleamed in the light: dark navy coats trimmed with silver thread, crisp white shirts beneath, belts fastened with bronze clasps bearing the Academy crest — an open book beneath a sword. Capes of midnight blue draped from their shoulders, trimmed in pale gold for higher ranks. In that glow, the classroom felt alive, a place of order and pride — yet brittle with the cruelty of rumor.
Lyra bowed her head in thanks, her voice low. "Thank you…"
Serenya offered her a faint, cryptic smile. The boys gave her a nod, nothing more. It was enough.
Lyra turned swiftly and stepped out, the whispers still crawling at her back.
In the hallway, she stopped before Talia. Her voice trembled but was steady enough."Did you… find anything?"
Talia's gaze fell to the floor. For a moment, silence hung between them. Then, softly, almost broken:"…No."
The silence between Lyra and Talia stretched, heavy as stone. Before either could speak again, a calm, relaxed voice cut through the hallway.
"Enough wandering."
They turned. Professor Joren stood at the far end of the corridor, hands folded behind his back. His dark hair framed a face too youthful for his title, yet his eyes — steady, unreadable — carried the weight of someone who had seen far too much. At twenty-eight, he was the Academy's prodigy-turned-instructor, master of all four elements, and he bore that reputation with an almost careless ease.
"You two should return to class before I find a reason to mark you absent," he said, his tone flat, almost bored.
Lyra's lips trembled as she snapped, unable to hold herself."You think it's so simple? That I can just walk back in there? Every glance feels like a knife, every whisper digs deeper—and I try, I try to keep my head high, but it doesn't stop, it never—"
Joren raised a hand, eyes narrowing in faint amusement."Please," he interrupted lazily, "put your whole sentence in one line. It's exhausting to watch you unravel word by word."
The silence after was sharp, broken only by Lyra's flushed indignation.
And then — a snap.
The air folded in on itself, bending space with a ripple of silver light. In less than a breath, Joren was gone, leaving only his voice echoing faintly behind.
"Back to class."
The snap echoed through the hall, and for Lyra and Talia, Professor Joren was simply gone.
But he hadn't returned to the classroom.
Instead, he appeared in the middle of a damp jungle, the air thick with the scent of moss and the trill of unseen birds. Sunlight speared through the canopy in golden beams, dust motes swirling as he sighed deeply.
"Finally… quiet."
He leaned against a tree, the tension melting from his shoulders. For a moment, he let himself simply breathe. His lips curved faintly, almost at peace.
Then his foot slipped.
He tumbled into the undergrowth with a thud, landing hard against a root. Pain flared, and with it came the sharp crack of something breaking. Joren lifted his wrist — the Academy's enchanted watch, the device that anchored his teleportation. Its face was fractured, its hands frozen.
"Damn you!" he roared at the sky, startling a flock of birds into flight.
He forced the device to spark once more. The air warped, and with a wrench of will, he vanished again.
This time, he stumbled into a high mountain pass. Thin air bit at his lungs, the horizon spread vast and cold, and behind him came the clash of steel. Soldiers drilled in formation, but their armor bore no crest of the Academy. Their banners were foreign, marked with a sigil — a coiled serpent wrapped around a broken sun.
Their captain turned sharply, his voice carrying across the peaks:"An intruder!"
Joren's scowl deepened. The broken watch pulsed, sputtering. He pressed it, forced it — another wrenching snap — and the world bent again.
He landed with a stumble in front of the class, robes disheveled, hair dusted with pine needles and grit. His students gawked as he brushed himself off, muttering under his breath.
"…Flawless as always."
The classroom buzzed with low murmurs, the last of the gossip clinging stubbornly to the air. Lyra sat stiffly, her hands tight in her lap, eyes downcast as whispers nipped at her from every corner.
Then the air rippled. With a faint snap, Joren appeared at the front of the room, boots settling lazily against the stone floor as if he'd merely strolled in from a garden walk. His white hair caught the lanternlight, his expression unreadable but faintly amused.
"Sit," he said. Not loud. Not sharp. Just steady.
The room quieted instantly.
Joren lowered himself into the professor's chair with a long, drawn breath, as though the act itself were a kind of meditation. His gaze drifted across the rows of students, pausing here and there—not with judgment, but with a weight that made every boy and girl straighten a little taller.
Then, slowly, he began.
"Bullying," he said, the word dry on his tongue. "Do you know what it really is? Not the laughing, not the whispers, not the names you throw." His fingers tapped once on the desk. "It is fear. Fear disguised as cruelty."
A hush fell. No one dared look away.
"Peel it back once," Joren went on, his tone even, almost lazy, as if he had all the time in the world. "At its first layer, bullying is weakness. The weak bite at others to convince themselves they're strong."
He let that settle, eyes shifting to the corner where a pair of students avoided his gaze.
"Peel again," he continued. "It is envy. You hate in others what you secretly wish was yours. Their name. Their courage. Their blood." His eyes flicked briefly toward Lyra, but did not linger.
Another pause, heavier now.
"And deeper still?" Joren leaned forward, his voice softer, sharper. "It is a wound. A hollow inside yourself you cannot bear to face. So you carve that pain into someone else, thinking it will fill the void."
He leaned back at last, folding his arms, gaze sweeping the room.
"Bullying," he said again, "isn't strength. It is confession. A confession shouted so loud, so ugly, the whole world knows you are bleeding."
The words lingered like smoke. No one moved.
Joren gave a soft, humorless laugh. "So the next time you open your mouths, remember—what you say is less about them… and more about you."
He leaned back, folding his arms, gaze sweeping the rows like a final decree.
"Let this truth settle in your bones. If you cannot master yourselves, then you will never master the world."
Silence. Utter silence.
And just like that, he reclined in his chair, expression returning to its usual, easy calm, as if nothing at all had been said.
The silence hung thick, the echo of Joren's words still clinging to the walls. No one dared stir until he rose, dusting his hands as though the lecture had been nothing more than idle conversation.
"Lesson delivered," he said, almost lazily, though the weight of it lingered in every chest. With a snap, he was gone, leaving only the faint ripple of displaced air where he had stood.
For a long moment, the classroom remained frozen. Then chairs scraped softly against stone.
Two girls at the far end of the row exchanged nervous glances before hesitantly standing. Their steps were small, uncertain, but they carried them across the room until they stood before Lyra's desk.
Their heads bowed—not deeply, but enough to mark the gesture.
"We… we're sorry," one of them murmured, voice low, fragile as glass. The other nodded, her face pink with shame.
Lyra blinked, her hands curling in her lap. For a heartbeat she only stared, uncertain if the apology was real or simply another mask. But the tremor in their voices—the unease in their eyes—told her it was more than empty words.
Her throat tightened. Slowly, she inclined her head in return, just enough to acknowledge them.
The girls gave small, hurried smiles—awkward, but genuine—before retreating back to their seats.
It wasn't much. But it was something.