When the doors of the audience chamber closed behind Aurelian and the echo of his footsteps dissolved into the palace corridors, the king remained where he was for a long moment, staring into the empty space as if expecting the man to come back,take back a sentence, soften a word, or at least pretend the whole conversation had been a misunderstanding.
Nothing happened.
Slowly, the king let his hands fall. Only now did he realize he'd had them clenched. The tension he'd held through the entire meeting began to leak out sideways, turning into irritation and anger he no longer had anyone to hide from. There were no courtiers, no mages, no guards,just him, and the awareness that he'd accepted a burden he didn't even know what to do with.
"Damned lunatic…" he muttered under his breath, turning sharply and pacing the length of the hall without caring how loud his steps were. "Always the same. He shows up, says what he wants, disappears,and I'm the one left holding the mess."
The noble houses came to mind almost immediately, an unwanted reflex.
He knew exactly what would happen once word of the Academy began to spread,whether it traveled through the guilds, through rumor, or through ordinary human chatter. Sooner or later it would reach the ears of those who'd treated magic like private property for generations, something you inherited at birth instead of something you earned through skill.
"They'll scream," he said quietly to himself, bracing his hands against the stone windowsill. "They'll threaten. Push. Send envoys and letters dripping with outrage."
He could picture it too well: aristocratic salons filled with furious voices, councils of houses that had competed for influence yesterday,only to find common ground tomorrow the moment their monopoly was threatened.
For a heartbeat, anger rose in his throat again. But instead of exploding, it cooled into something sharper. More useful.
The king gave a short snort that was almost a laugh.
"If the noble houses want to pick a fight with a madman like him, let them handle it themselves," he muttered. "They shouldn't expect me to stick my neck out on their behalf."
And then, when his emotions settled enough to make room for thought, he began to rebuild the situation in his head,this time without the illusion that he could simply sweep it under a rug.
An academy.
Commoners learning magic.
The houses furious, ready to sabotage whatever they could.
Aurelian, who surely wouldn't hesitate if someone stood in his way.
The king slowly straightened.
"This could be… useful," he admitted at last, quietly, grudgingly,because not everything in this was loss.
If the houses focused on fighting Aurelian, biting at the Academy, trying to undermine it, then their attention would drift away from the crown. Away from taxes, royal influence, and all the quiet conflicts that had long simmered between throne and aristocracy.
And if the Academy truly began training people outside the houses,common mages without crests or bloodlines,then those mages would be the easiest to recruit.
All you'd have to do was offer them work.
Stable. Safe. Under royal patronage.
The guard. The administration. The army. City protection,structures that had suffered for years from a lack of loyal, competent mages not bound to noble interests.
The longer he thought, the clearer it became: Aurelian's Academy,dangerous and destabilizing as it was,might be one of the few tools that could actually strengthen the crown instead of weakening it.
"Maybe it isn't completely disastrous," he conceded under his breath, still with obvious reluctance.
He turned toward the doors and summoned one of the servants waiting outside the hall.
"Send for my fourth daughter," he said calmly, in a tone that left no room for questions. "Elena. Immediately."
When the servant vanished, the king was alone again with the knowledge that the world had entered a phase of change that could no longer be stopped,and that whether he liked it or not, he would have to learn to use the chaos before someone else did.
***
Once the royal palace had shrunk into the distance and the capital's walls became nothing more than a pale line on the horizon, Aurelian settled more comfortably against the dragon's back, letting it climb higher,where the air was thinner, colder, and less saturated with the human tension that always hung over cities like invisible residue.
"Why am I doing this…" he muttered, not raising his voice. The dragon could hear him better than anyone. "Why did I suddenly decide, at my age, to dig around in this disgusting world,and an even more disgusting, fossilized system that barely pretends to work."
The dragon beat its wings in a heavy, even rhythm. It didn't respond, because it knew that tone and those words too well. It heard them after every major expedition, every sealed dungeon, every conversation that ended the same way,only the face on the other side changed.
Aurelian sighed and looked down at the lands stretching beneath them,cities, roads, villages. From this height they looked peaceful, almost innocent, as if they weren't full of people living in constant strain, counting the days between one disaster and the next.
He knew exactly why he was doing it.
Not because he believed in kings, houses, or any grand vision of a state. To him it was all temporary structure,easy to replace, even easier to rot.
He was doing it because he could see farther than they could, and he understood too well what would happen the day he was gone.
He had no illusions.
He would die.
Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday,because even he wasn't an exception to everything. And a world built on one man was a world built wrong, doomed the moment that man stopped existing.
"Without me, they won't last long," he said quietly, more to himself than to the dragon. "Not the king. Not the houses. Not this whole kingdom that pretends it's stable only because someone keeps cleaning up their worst problems."
That awareness was the worst of it,heavier than fighting monsters and dungeons. With those, at least, he knew where the enemy was and how to seal it.
Here, the problem was the entire world,one that had grown used to the idea that someone would always show up and fix things.
Aurelian closed his eyes for a moment, then sighed again,longer this time.
"Fine," he muttered at last. "Since I've started, there's no point backing out."
A crooked smile tugged at his mouth as his thoughts drifted to his four disciples,each different, each troublesome in her own way, and each stubborn enough not to be discouraged easily. Not by him, and not by the world.
"At least they understand magic isn't a crest or a privilege," he murmured. "And sometimes you have to smash a comfortable order just to make it move."
He looked toward the horizon, where more cities waited, more faces, more conversations that wouldn't always be pleasant,but could be managed with the right kind of "persuasion." Experience had taught him that most people, even the powerful ones, became cooperative very quickly once they understood how few real alternatives they had.
"There are still a few people I need to visit," he thought, and the smile grew a fraction wider. "If it goes well, they'll want to help. And if not… that can be solved too."
The dragon accelerated, as if sensing its rider's decision. Aurelian adjusted his grip and let the wind strike his face. There was still work to do, and the world,disgusting and outdated as it was,wouldn't change itself, no matter how much he wished it would.
***
Late afternoon in the commercial district carried the same familiar weight as always,when the day wasn't over yet, but it was already clear nothing new was going to happen. People drifted around more out of habit than need, trying to sell the last of their stock or find something that would let them call the day at least somewhat worthwhile.
Roland stood by one of the side windows in Mr. Klein's shop, leaning lightly against the frame. He pretended to watch the street, but in truth his gaze wandered above the rooftops, toward a sky that was unusually clear today,as if it were mocking the people chained to the ground.
He was thinking about magic.
Not the cores he counted and recorded every day. Not the artifacts that passed through his hands like ordinary goods.
The power itself.
What it would be like not just to see it or sell it,but to touch it. Feel it. Understand it.
For years his mind had told him the dream was pointless. The world was very clear on this matter.
Commoners didn't use magic.
Commoners worked near it, around it, or for the people who had the right to it by birth.
"Roland," Mr. Klein's dry, steady voice came from behind the counter, "if you're done counting clouds, maybe you'll return to what actually makes money."
Roland flinched and immediately stepped away from the window, feeling the familiar sting of embarrassment. He hadn't been scolded harshly,just exactly the way Mr. Klein always did it, in a manner that left no room for argument.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Klein," he said quickly, reaching for the ledger and pen as if the objects themselves could drag his thoughts back into the proper shape. "I was only checking,"
"I know what you were checking," the merchant cut in without raising his voice. "And staring at the sky has never paid anyone's bills."
Roland nodded and returned to his place at the counter, forcing his focus onto lines of numbers even as the images in his head refused to be crossed out.
Just then, the shop door opened again. The bell over the frame rang out once,short and bright,announcing another customer.
"Good afternoon," Edgar said, stepping out from the back and taking his place at the counter with the easy confidence of someone raised on trade talk. "How can we help?"
A man entered wearing a plain but sturdy coat, with the face of someone who'd seen dungeons from a safe distance,yet close enough to know they weren't stories for bragging over beer.
"I'm looking for something that protects against fire energy," he said without preamble. "Not a high-grade artifact. Something practical. For expeditions."