Aria walked with wandering steps through the near-empty alleys, drowned in the silence of the "Ashen Outskirts," which had begun to exhale the last breaths of daylight.
Her fingers tightly gripped the heavy bag of gold; its cold touch did not grant her the peace she sought, but rather reminded her of the crime of power she had committed today.
In her heart, there were silent prayers that the nobleman would not possess enough pride to complain about her to the Mages' Council.
The Council shows no mercy to those who break the prestige of pure blood—so what about the one who crushed it with a hand void of magic?
She exhaled a hot, strong breath, then raised her head to gaze at the full moon sitting in the heart of the sky, piercing the cloak of pitch-black darkness with its silver light.
Its glow lit her darkened path, but in her eyes, it appeared as a silent witness to her inevitable fate.
She said to herself bitterly:
"Damn it... the church might be raided if that monkey decides to exaggerate the problem."
Aria did not fear for herself; her body, which had conquered lightning, was capable of conquering exile.
But the thought of the small children or Mother Joanna being harmed or humiliated gnawed at her heart.
She knew the taste of humiliation well; she knew the feeling of having your dignity trampled because you are "lesser" in the balance of Mana, and she did not want those innocent souls to drink from that same cup.
She walked as shadows danced around her, and the image of Joanna's anxious face at dinner never left her mind.
That bag of gold had become an ethical burden, for every coin in it might be the price for the church's peace, which now hung by a thread, while the night wind whispered around her, carrying omens of coming gloom.
As soon as Aria's feet touched the stone front yard of the church, she froze in place, her body stiffening as if the stillness of the night had ambushed her inner turmoil.
Under the pale moonlight, she saw Mother Joanna and the children lining up in front of the ancient wooden door, signs of anxiety and anticipation flooding their small, tired faces.
In that moment, the ice that had encased her heart all day melted.
A warm smile formed on her lips despite the tears held back in her red eyes.
Conflicting emotions clashed within her: bitter regret for the danger she might bring upon them, and overflowing gratitude for these pure souls who loved her sincerely and without price in a world that recognized nothing but power.
She approached them with steady steps.
As soon as they caught a glimpse of her red hair in the darkness, the children rushed toward her like arrows of joy, throwing themselves into her arms.
Little "Mikey," who had not yet passed his sixth spring, clung to her, hugging her tightly as if fearing she would vanish, and spoke in a choked voice:
"Sister Aria... I thought you didn't love us anymore and that you had left forever."
A soft laugh escaped Aria. She knelt before the little one to be at his height and said in a tone dripping with tenderness to reassure their trembling hearts:
"My little one... I was just working as usual, so there's no need for all this worry. I am here and I will not leave you."
Touching his innocent face was like a silent vow that she would remain their firm shield, no matter how cruel the world around them became.
As soon as Aria finished her reassuring words to Mikey, Aiden—the eldest among them at ten years old—stepped forward to break the moment with sharp, childish emotion, shouting:
"You're lying! You'll leave us anyway by going to the Academy!"
He stood before her with furrowed brows in anger, pursing his lips in a cute frustration that betrayed his deep fear of losing her.
Aria stood up, leaving Mikey, and faced Aiden eye-to-eye, feigning anger and sternness to match his intensity.
Meanwhile, Mother Joanna watched from afar, placing her hand over her mouth to suppress a laugh that almost escaped her, as if she were watching a scene from a comedy play starring her fierce daughter and this stubborn little boy.
Aria raised a single eyebrow in defiance and said in a strong tone:
"Yes, I don't deny that I will apply for the Academy entrance exam; it is a mandatory matter that cannot be avoided. But I wasn't lying about my work!"
Then she suddenly raised her hand, showing the heavy bag of gold that shimmered under the moonlight, and added craftily while tilting her head toward him:
"Besides, what business is it of yours, Aiden? Are you my boyfriend and I just don't know it?"
Aiden's eyes widened in shock and bewilderment at the boldness of her words, and soon redness flooded his cheeks, his face blushing in a very adorable way that overcame his angry expression.
Aria did not let the opportunity pass; she reached out to pinch his glowing cheeks with enjoyment and playfulness, while he began to grumble and fidget, trying to escape her touch amidst the muffled laughter that started to fill the stone courtyard.
After that tender display that dispelled the loneliness of the night, Aria pushed the children with feigned firmness toward their beds, ordering them to sleep immediately because the hour had grown late and the first threads of dawn were about to pierce the darkness of the sky.
Once silence prevailed in the hallway, she headed to the wooden table and sat across from Mother Joanna. Between them, they placed that golden bag, which looked strange and jarring amidst the poverty of the church.
Joanna broke the silence with an inquiring look, pointing her finger at the bag as she asked:
"Aria, how could simple charcoal yield such a bountiful profit just from being sold? Is there a logical explanation for this?"
Aria looked at the bag, then raised her hand to scratch her head in a desperate attempt to arrange her words and beautify the bitter truth.
After a moment of hesitation, she stared directly into Joanna's eyes and said with blunt honesty:
"I lost my temper because of that nobleman... He went ahead and burned my charcoal and destroyed my merchandise, so I taught him a harsh lesson in etiquette."
Joanna struck her hand against the table in surprise, making the utensils rattle, and said with a panic that almost turned into a muffled scream:
"Have you gone mad, Aria? How could you do that to a nobleman?!"
Aria exhaled sharply and began to recount every detail of what had happened in the village market, from the sparks of lightning to the man's submission under her grip.
As soon as she finished her story, Aria crossed her arms over her chest with visible annoyance and irritation.
In her dictionary, she was not wrong; it was merely self-defense and a legitimate right.
As for Mother Joanna, she remained staring blankly, struggling to grasp the magnitude of the disaster that had fallen upon their heads, realizing that this gold might be a curse that opens the gates of the Mages' Council's hell upon them.
Aria stood up from her seat calmly to put an end to a debate that would never finish. Before Joanna could start raining down a barrage of reprimands for her rebellion, she withdrew toward the bed.
To Aria, what she had done was not recklessness; it was a reclamation of her stolen dignity, which that nobleman had tried to crush under his feet.
She tucked herself under the coarse covers beside the small children, and as soon as her head touched the pillow, she fell into a deep sleep, as if her exhausted body were escaping the complexities of reality into the stillness of nothingness.
Tranquility did not last long; with the dawn of a new day, sounds of strange commotion began to rise outside the church walls, piercing the silence.
The noise disturbed Aria's sleep, and she woke up with a frowning, sleepy face, a slight headache playing in her head—she had slept only a few hours, not enough to mend the exhaustion of yesterday.
However, as the intensity of the voices escalated, the fog of sleep vanished from her eyes, and she opened them wide in terror. She clearly recognized Mother Joanna's desperate screams, intermingled with the din of coarse men wanting to storm the church by force.
It wasn't just the screams that terrified her, but the rhythmic and sharp thud of horses' hooves striking the stone ground outside—a neighing that signaled military prestige and tyrannical authority.
In that moment, Aria did not tremble for herself—she who had faced lightning with a bare chest—but her heart contracted with fear for the weak souls inhabiting this place.
She felt a coldness coursing through her limbs as she imagined the children shivering under their clothes, realizing that the "monkey" nobleman had not swallowed yesterday's insult, but had brought hell with him to her doorstep.
She leaped from her bed like a sudden leopard, her red eyes burning with a flame that boded ill for whoever dared to knock on her door with such violence.
Aria advanced outside with wide, confident strides, cutting through the morning stillness to face the hell that dared to knock on the doors of her sanctuary.
She stopped at the threshold, her gaze freezing on the military and spiritual force that occupied the stone courtyard.
The scene was breathtakingly imposing; four knights lined up in their polished armor reflecting the sunlight, and behind them stood two mages, with great waves of "Mana" emanating from their bodies, making the air tremble around them.
With one swift glance, and through the luxurious clothes woven from ether threads and the encrusted badges adorning their chests, Aria realized the bitter truth: these were not mere guards, but envoys of the "Great Mages" of the kingdom—the highest authority whose will is never rejected.
She swallowed hard, turning her gaze once toward these tyrants and once toward Mother Joanna, who stood trembling, and the children gathered behind her with eyes drowned in terror.
Anxiety gnawed at her insides, not out of fear of death, but from the looks the mages were giving her—looks that scrutinized her from head to toe with faces marked by mockery and disgust. Their mouths were curved in clear arrogance, as if their silence said in spiteful amazement:
"I cannot believe that such trash—a hollow body possessing nothing but a human soul devoid of magic—could take down a nobleman of pure descent and drag his pride through the dirt!"
The silence that pervaded the place was heavier than mountains—a silence that precedes the storm about to uproot everything Aria loved.
Silence dominated the church courtyard until it was broken by the voice of one of the envoys, who finally spoke in a commanding tone:
"How old are you, girl?"
He stared at Aria with icy sharpness, waiting for her answer with thinning patience as if counting her breaths. She replied curtly:
"Nineteen."
As soon as she spoke, the mage raised his hand in a sudden movement, and a magical record scroll emerged from the void, flickering with a faint light.
He knitted his brows in concentration, asking mechanically:
"Name?"
She replied with the same coldness:
"Aria."
His eyes scanned the written lines in a swift search, and soon the paper vanished and faded as if it had never been.
The mage stared at her again, raising his eyebrows in clear surprise, a slight smile forming on his lips as he said:
"Evading the test, in addition to assaulting a nobleman... and I truly don't know how this happened, considering you don't possess a single atom of Mana in your body."
He paused for a moment, then turned his head slowly toward his fellow envoy, adding in a serious tone:
"Could you tell me what the penalty is for assault and deliberate evasion of the test?"
Their gazes suggested that the fate awaiting Aria had already been decided in their minds, while she stood like a steadfast mountain against the wind of their poison.
The other envoy returned that filthy smile, not satisfied with just a look of contempt; he stared at Aria from the corner of his eye as if seeing an entity that did not deserve to exist. In a tone devoid of any emotion, he said with icy coldness:
"Execution."
He uttered it with extreme simplicity, as if informing the crowd of the daily weather, unconcerned with the impact of the word that shook the pillars of the place.
In that moment, Mother Joanna's gasp echoed, filled with terror, as she took a step back, placing her hand on her chest in fear for her daughter threatened with death.
As for Aria, she remained tall; her eyelid did not flicker, nor did her eye blink.
Instead, she continued to stare at them with sharp, piercing looks, unconcerned with that punishment or their terrifying threat.
The first mage burst into a loud laugh that filled the courtyard—a laugh dripping with sadistic pleasure. He said, turning to his companion:
"How about we enjoy ourselves a bit by letting her try the honor of attempting?"
The other was not late in supporting him, answering with biting sarcasm and a poisonous smile that shook the core of those standing, as if they were planning an entertainment show where Aria would be the victim for magic to play with and tear apart.
The envoy began to clap his hands with slow, provocative movements, a cold laugh escaping his lips as he said:
"This is wonderful! Everyone will have the opportunity to witness the scene of her public execution."
As soon as he finished his words, the two mages burst into hysterical laughter filled with bitter irony—laughs that gnawed at the morning stillness and sent shivers through the bodies of those present.
Meanwhile, Aria stood silent like a trapped storm, her fists clenched with such immense force that her knuckles turned white and her veins bulged, exerting a Herculean effort not to explode in anger and strike them down then and there.
If she let loose her raw power, they would become a mere memory under her feet, but she feared for the church and those in it from the consequences of such madness.
Before the two mages mounted their horses to leave, one of them turned toward Aria and gave her one last look dripping with evil, saying in a commanding tone:
"The test date is the day after tomorrow... prepare well."
He pointed with his hand gestures toward her inevitable death awaiting her under the name of "the test."
As soon as their horses moved away and their neighing faded into the horizon, Aria exhaled a heavy sigh, as if moving a mountain off her chest.
She turned quickly toward the children and Mother Joanna, asking them in a voice full of concern:
"Is any of you hurt?"
They all shook their heads quickly, amazement still on their faces from the horror of what had happened.
Mother Joanna stepped forward with trembling steps, placing her hand on Aria's shoulder with a tenderness tinged with fear, and said in a shaky voice:
"May God be with you always, Aria."
Aria looked into her eyes, thanking God in her heart that the invaders had left without touching her family with any harm, despite the certainty that what's coming would be much harder.