The corridor outside the infirmary was too quiet.
Mana lamps burned low along the marble walls, their light a pale shimmer that bent and rippled as if underwater. The air was thick with sterilizing incense, clean but suffocating. Students and staff passed at a distance, voices hushed, steps careful—like the walls themselves were listening.
Carmila and I walked side by side. Neither of us spoke.
She wore her uniform again—fresh, pressed, but her sleeves hid faint bandages, and her eyes, though clear, carried that distant sheen people wear when they've stared too long into something vast.
Ahead, two sentinels in black armor waited outside an arched door of dark oak. Runes traced its edges in faint gold, pulsing like a heartbeat. The sigil above it—a silver flame—marked the private chamber of Headmaster Eldric Vaelor.
Carmila's gaze brushed mine briefly before she stepped forward. Her expression didn't waver when the guards saluted and opened the door.
"Lady Noctharyn," one of them said. "You may enter. The Headmaster will see you first."
She inclined her head, then disappeared inside.
The door closed with a soft thud that sounded heavier than it should have. The air shifted, a ripple of mana folding inward. I could feel the barrier reasserting itself—smooth, precise, absolute.
She was gone for twenty-three minutes.
I counted each one.
The silence of the corridor pressed against me until I could hear my own heartbeat echoing in my ears. Every few seconds, the runes along the door flickered faintly—as though reacting to the conversation inside.
When the door finally opened, Carmila emerged with the same measured calm she had worn going in. Her face was unreadable, her steps light.
"Your turn," she said softly.
Something in her tone—neither warning nor comfort—made my stomach twist.
"Did he—"
She cut me off with a faint smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Don't keep him waiting."
Then she walked past me, crimson hair brushing against my shoulder like a whisper.
The door closed again, and I was alone with the hum of the runes.
I drew a slow breath, then stepped forward.
The guards bowed without a word, and the wards peeled open, layer by layer, like the petals of a flower retracting from sunlight.
Inside, the Headmaster's office was nothing like the cold austerity of the rest of the Academy.
It felt… ancient.
High shelves lined the walls, stacked with relics that glowed faintly under containment sigils—broken blades, sealed grimoires, vials of crystallized mana that pulsed like captured hearts. A massive window dominated the far wall, its glass etched with protective runes that distorted the storm-washed skyline of Ashbourne beyond.
And behind a broad obsidian desk sat Headmaster Eldric Vaelor—the man whose presence alone could silence a room.
White hair and beard framed a face carved by centuries, every line a scar of time and wisdom. His black robes seemed to drink the light, but his green eyes glinted beneath heavy lids, sharp and steady.
He didn't speak right away.
Instead, he studied me the way a mage studies a spell—reading every fault line, every hidden current.
"Sit," he said finally. His voice was calm, measured, carrying that weight that bends the air itself.
I obeyed.
The chair opposite him was made of darkwood etched with faint silver runes—subtle containment sigils, I realized, designed not to trap, but to read. I could feel them brushing against my aura, tasting the remnants of the mana that still clung to my veins.
Eldric folded his hands. "You have caused quite the disturbance, Mr. Ravenshade."
His tone wasn't accusatory. It was… observational.
"I assume the investigators told you about the incident," I said.
"They told me what they could see." He leaned back slightly, the air rippling with the movement. "You and Lady Noctharyn entered a sealed sub-level unauthorized. You encountered a high-tier entity. It was annihilated. And yet—no residual mana remains. The chamber itself has rewritten its own spatial structure. Am I correct so far?"
"Yes."
"Good." His eyes narrowed slightly, as if watching my pulse rather than listening to my words. "Then tell me what they could not see."
The faint hum of the mana lamps seemed to deepen, as though the room itself leaned closer to hear.
I hesitated.
How could I explain that something beyond magic and reason had stood before us—something that spoke in riddles of memory and identity?
"I'm not sure what it was," I said carefully. "But it destroyed Fredrick as though he never existed. And then it—spoke—to me."
Eldric didn't blink. "What did it say?"
My throat felt dry again. The memory pressed against my mind like a brand.
"It said… I wasn't ready yet. That I had to defeat the Overlord to remember."
Silence.
No flicker of surprise, no widening of the eyes—only that faint shift of mana in the air, like wind stirring still water.
"I see," he murmured.
He rose slowly.
When Eldric Vaelor stood, the very mana in the room straightened—currents aligning, reacting instinctively to the gravitational pull of his presence. Every rune in the office dimmed, as though bowing to something older than itself.
He walked to the window and looked out at the city.
Ashbourne glimmered below, its towers patched with repair runes, cranes moving like slow, patient insects.
"Power leaves traces," Eldric said softly. "Even when we think we've erased them. Yet whatever touched you left none. That is… unusual."
His reflection in the glass turned slightly toward me. "And how do you feel, Adrian?"
The question startled me more than it should have.
"Tired," I said. "Confused."
"And afraid?"
A pause. "I don't know."
He smiled faintly, not in mockery, but with something that looked like pity.
"Honest. Good."
He turned back, the folds of his robe whispering across the floor. The air thickened; faint motes of green-gold mana drifted from his sleeves like dust in sunlight, coiling lazily before dissolving.
"Fear is the beginning of understanding," Eldric said. "But it can also be the first chain that binds us."
His hand lifted slightly, and the air shimmered. A sound-barrier descended like a curtain—silent, absolute. The faint hum of the outside world vanished.
Now, only the two of us existed in that space between breaths.