The Light's Investigation
The next day at noon, two white carriages rolled up to the academy. Men and women stepped out in gold-embroidered robes, wearing gloves as pure as fresh snow. Student chatter died down into whispers.
"Purity inspection," someone muttered. "Inquisitors."
Marion felt his stomach pitch. His hands suddenly felt too big, too empty, too visible.
It's fine. Normal guy. Head down.
They were led by a tall man with a clean-shaven head and eyes like cold water. He spoke quietly—yet everyone seemed to hear him.
"I am Inquisitor Valen. We investigate cause, perpetrator, aftermath. You speak when questioned."
Teachers nodded submissively. Two novices drew chalk circles over shattered tiles; a deaconess lit a narrow, colorless flame that gave off no smoke. The scent of anointing oil and cold metal replaced the dust of the night.
They began in the courtyard: measuring cords, blessing signs, small glass prisms that shimmered milky in the light. In the Great Hall, Valen stopped where the necromancer had fallen.
"Here," he said.
A novice knelt, lifted a black speck with tweezers. The deaconess held a prism over it. It flickered.
"Penetration. Mechanical. A projectile."
Marion heard his own breathing become loud.
Beside him Manuel bit his knuckles. Tobia chewed his lower lip until it bled.
"Who killed the necromancer?" Valen asked into the hall.
No one answered.
"A lecturer—" the rector began, but Valen raised a hand. "We test first. Then you invent."
They found nothing that looked like a projectile. No shaft. No tip. Only a dark splinter of hard, alien matter—hard as stone, light as bone. The novice sniffed it and grimaced.
"Wild resin."
"Goblins," the deaconess said flatly.
A hard murmur rolled through the students. Katie squared her shoulders—as if the world became orderly again as soon as there was something to point at. Jenny lowered her gaze even further.
Then the interrogations began.
In a side room, they seated students in rows. A glass prism on the table. A hand placed on it. A question. Three answers: yes, no, silence. With some, the prism captured a warm gold; with others it stayed dull.
Lukas and Basti giggled—until the novice informed them, deadpan, that false giggling counted as lying. After that they sat still as stones.
Marion was in the third row. He counted heartbeats.
Normal guy. Don't fidget. Eyes on the table.
Vania gave him an encouraging little wave; her fingers shook. Leon nodded once. Jenny acted as if he were air.
"Name?"
"Marion."
"No." The prism stayed dull.
"Do you know who killed the necromancer?"
A roar filled his ears.
"No."
The prism flickered slightly, like someone had pricked it with a needle. Valen's gaze lifted—only a finger's width.
"You are uncertain."
Marion pressed his hand harder against the glass. His fingers were damp. "I… didn't see it." True—twisted, but not a lie. He hadn't seen the shot—only the silence afterward.
The prism calmed. Valen let the silence stretch, then wrote something on a slate that had no visible writing.
"One last question, Marion." Valen's voice was soft, almost friendly. "Have you recently… had unusual dreams or apparitions?"
A knife in the lung.
Pyres. Tessa beside his bed. Dravonel. Nix in the woods.
From very far away, he heard his own voice. "I sleep badly. Since the fire."
The prism remained gray.
"Good," Valen said. "Next."
Outside, they drew purity lines around doors and windows, smeared thresholds with consecrated oil. A priest recited warding verses that rasped in the ears like sand. Students had to pass in single file by a "light mirror" that briefly flared for some—smoke, wounds, a stolen roll, a thousand tiny untruths.
For Marion it barely vibrated, like a mosquito hum. Valen turned his head as if he'd heard something—then looked away again because behind Marion, Tobia was secretly pulling a bun from his bag and the mirror flared bright.
"I—blood sugar drop," Tobia stammered. "I need—"
"Eat later," the novice snapped, irritated—and surprisingly human.
By evening Valen announced in that cold, ordering voice that allowed no contradiction:
"A foreign projectile stopped the necromancer. Goblin traces. No student admits to being the shooter."
His gaze swept the crowd as if it could hook a lie out of the air.
"We will report the finding to the city guard."
Marion went cold.
Nix. Run.
"One last thing," Valen said, eyes searching faces like barbs. "Reborn are rare, but not impossible. If anyone discovers… foreign gifts, report them. The Church protects what bows to the Light—and purifies what mocks it."
No one breathed.
When the inquisitors left, they left chalk circles, oil stains, and a silence worse than noise. The academy only exhaled once the carriages passed through the gate.
Vania stepped beside Marion, careful, warm. "Are you okay?"
"Sure," Marion lied, staring toward the forest. Dusk hung between the trunks like a net.
Stay away, Nix. Stay invisible.
The bell rang for evening hour. Routine pretended to be school again—tables still standing, chalk writing numbers again.
The Betrayal
It was a gray afternoon. Rain slapped against the academy windows. Class crawled along; everyone was tired after exams and the undead attack. Marion tried to remain inconspicuous—head lowered, notes in front of him.
Normal guy. Invisible. Nobody.
But as he wrote, he felt Katie's gaze. She sat diagonally behind him, chin on her hand, eyes cool and alert. He'd noticed it before—not like Jenny's occasional pity-glimmer, but sharp, testing, as if she wanted to pry something open.
Two days later, it became clear.
In the morning, white carriages rolled into the courtyard again. The Church of the Light. Inquisitor Valen stepped out, flanked by deaconesses and novices. Chalk, oils, prisms—same rituals, same cold eyes.
Teachers gathered the students, nervous, stiff. Marion felt his legs start trembling before Valen even spoke.
"There is a lead," the inquisitor said. "A student among you shows traces of the Foreign. Possibly… a Reborn."
The crowd murmured—voices like knife cuts.
"Reborn?"
"Here? In our class?"
Marion felt his heart stop.
Then Katie stepped forward. Hands folded, gaze hard. "I saw him. Marion. He behaves strangely. He knows things he shouldn't. After the attack he was… different." Her voice was calm, cold, without a trace of hesitation.
A ripple went through the room. Jenny stared, horrified. Vania clapped a hand over her mouth. Tobia and Manuel stood frozen.
"That's ridiculous!" Manuel snapped, voice cracking. "Marion is… the most inconspicuous of all of us! A nobody!"
"Exactly," Tobia stammered, sweat on his brow. "He can't even cast properly."
Valen raised a hand. Silence. His eyes locked onto Marion.
"Step forward."
Marion stood as if turned to stone. His mind roared.
Now. It's over. They know.
Hands pressed into his back—students forcing him forward. Every movement felt like pushing through syrup. He walked down the center aisle under everyone's stare.
"Place your hand on the prism," Valen commanded.
Taken Away
"Place your hand on the prism," Valen repeated.
Marion hesitated. Seconds burned like minutes. Then he put his hand on the cold glass.
A blinding flare.
White-gold, like the sun itself.
The prism almost screamed with how bright it was. Students stared; some shielded their eyes. Jenny let out a cry. Vania covered her mouth with both hands. Katie only smiled thinly.
"A Reborn," Valen said. No joy. No horror. Just a verdict, cold as steel.
Everything moved fast after that. Two novices grabbed Marion's arms. He tried to resist, but his legs felt like lead. Students scattered as if contamination might leap onto them. Tobia shouted, "He's harmless!"—but a teacher held him back. Manuel yelled for them to stop, but his voice died in the air.
"In the name of Alion," Valen proclaimed, "we take this foreigner with us. He will be delivered to judgment in the capital. His soul belongs to the Light."
The white carriages were already waiting outside. Marion was dragged across the cold courtyard. The rain had stopped, but puddles gleamed like mirrors. Every step hammered in his skull:
Over. Over. Over.
Students crowded the windows. Faces he knew—Jenny, Vania, Leon, even Lukas and Basti—staring at him like an animal in a cage. Only Tobia wept openly, palms pressed to the glass.
Marion looked back—and felt nothing.
No anger. No fear.
Only emptiness.
Inside the carriage, it was dark. He sat between two novices, hands tied with a rope that smelled of incense. Valen sat opposite, expression unmoving.
"Many of your kind," Valen said softly, "wanted to become gods. You will burn like they did."
Marion laughed bitterly. "So that's my life? A nobody in two worlds. First noodles, then the Light." His voice sounded weird in his own ears.
The wheels rattled over cobblestones, out through the academy gates, out into the night. Marion stared up at the carriage ceiling, lips dry. Thoughts buzzed in his head like gnats.
If I had known… if only I'd known earlier what I am…
He saw himself—with power, with knowledge, with Nix at his side. Maybe he could have led peoples. Maybe he could have become king. Maybe a demon king. Maybe he could have ruled this world.
But he hadn't known.
And now it was too late.
His breathing turned shallow. The rope cut into his skin.
So this is how it ends, he thought.
On a pyre.
Nothing special.
No hero. No savior.
Just a stupid boy who didn't even realize he was something.
He closed his eyes. Images drifted past: the wolf girl, Tessa, Tamara, Nix. All the blood, the kisses, the lies, the screams. All of it—for nothing.
And he thought:
If I had known… I could have become someone.
But not like this.
Never a normal nobody.
The carriage kept rattling toward the capital.
Toward the end.
End of Book 1