The Sovereign Arcana Academy was a symphony of structured magic, and Mehandi was a single, discordant note. For the first few days, he was a specter in the halls, his every move scrutinized by the students. He heard the whispers in lecture halls and the cold stares in the dining commons. The title "Ghost Volkov" clung to him like a shroud, a rumor of a boy who had cheated death and defiled the very essence of magic. He found solace in the quiet corners of the gardens, the only places where the aether felt familiar, a faint echo of his home.
His solitude was broken in the magical theory lecture when Professor Valerius, the wizened old professor from his first class, called out a name. "Miss Anya Lareau. Please demonstrate a basic mana-flow transference."
Anya was a whirlwind of frustrated energy. She had a mop of fiery red hair and a storm cloud of a magical aura that pulsed with uncontrolled frustration. She stepped to the front, hands trembling, and tried to channel her mana into a crystal. It sputtered and died, and the crystal remained dark.
"Again, Miss Lareau," Valerius said, his voice laced with disappointment.
Anya's cheeks flushed. She was a torrent of power with no riverbed to guide it. She slumped back to her seat, her aura flaring in a mix of embarrassment and anger. As she passed Mehandi, her foot caught on his satchel. She stumbled, and a flash of her uncontrolled magic sent a nearby stack of books toppling over.
"Watch where you're going, Ghost," a student sneered, his friends snickering.
Anya, however, turned to Mehandi with a defiant look. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice barely a whisper. She looked at his hands, at the quiet stillness of his aura. "You're… different."
Mehandi simply nodded, and with a quiet push of his aetherial will, the books on the floor floated back into a neat stack. They didn't rise with a traditional spell, but with an effortless, graceful movement, as if the air itself was helping him. The class went silent.
Professor Valerius watched him, his gaze sharp with curiosity. "Mr. Volkov," he said, "the next assignment is a simple fire-evocation spell. You will channel mana from the atmosphere and create a stable, two-inch flame."
The assignment was a challenge to his very nature. Mehandi couldn't channel mana; he was a conduit for aether. As the other students practiced, their hands glowing with raw, unstable energy, Mehandi sat perfectly still. He closed his eyes, not channeling, but listening. He reached for the faint, natural light in the air, for the potential energy in the room, and for the quiet resonance of the stone beneath his feet.
He didn't conjure a flame. Instead, his hands began to glow with a deep-blue light, a cool, gentle luminescence that radiated heat, not fire. The light pulsed, and a tiny, hovering globe of pure, condensed starlight appeared above his palm, a perfect, stable source of heat and light. It wasn't an Evocation spell, and it wasn't mana. It was pure aether.
The professor stared, his eyes wide. The silence in the room was absolute. This was not a power found in any textbook or magical scroll. This was a violation of every principle they had ever been taught.
As the bell rang, a stern-looking man in a black and silver robe entered the classroom. His aura was cold and authoritative. He was a member of the Magisterium's academic oversight committee. His gaze, colder than any spell, settled on Mehandi.
"Mr. Volkov," he said, his voice flat. "Your abilities are... of great interest to us. You will come with me."
Mehandi had come to the academy to cleanse his name, but he was quickly learning that his magic was a language no one here understood, and what they did not understand, they feared. His trial was just beginning.