Third Person POV
"The greatest prodigy since The One-Winged." The moniker given to Icarus Veyn, only surviving member of the once powerful Veyn family. Alas, now the family's name and fame is but reduced to one young man. As he stepped back onto the campus of the Gravenloch Academy for the first time in 4 months, he wasn't met with the reception such a prodigy should be receiving. Far from it. Nobody welcomed him in. Nobody paid their respects. Nobody looked his way. The sparse few who did, did so with absolute scorn and disgust. Of course, this is expected, as he is also called "the boy who killed his own team."
He endured all the scornful gazes, which seemed to be cursing him under their breaths and entered his classroom. Just as he was about to sit on his chair, it was pushed back. Sensing this, he quickly picked two strings from the air, manipulated them to form the runes for "thread" and "sticky", and pulled the chair back with his magic string. Almost immediately, he felt the countereffect, his shoe was stuck to the ground. He looked around, searching for the countereffect for the magic used to move the chair, and saw a slight tear in the uniform of a student sitting 3 seats to his right. The student had his needle in his hand, and looked into the eyes of Icarus with a mixture of anger and fear. "Tsk!" Icarus heard someone else click his tongue. The sound came from a man with deep blue hair and silver eyes.
Icarus brought out his own needle and was about to pay it back but in walked 2 men. The first one looked at Icarus with the same eyes everyone else did. The other didn't seem to be bothered. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, a slender yet well-built frame, and was extremely handsome. "This is your new professor, Baron Xyza. He has returned after serving the kingdom on the frontlines for over 2 decades. He received his nobility for his accomplishments on the battlefield, so it'd be best if you respected him as such." He then turned towards Xyza and told him, "This class has a few troublemakers, so make sure to keep them in check." Xyza just smiled. The other professor then left.
"Let us start with my introduction then, shall we. I am Baron Nova Xyza. Even though Professor Varros introduced me, I would like to ask if any of you have any questions about me. I would be more than okay with answering any questions, so go ahead." Almost, on cue, multiple hands went up. This much was obvious, as it is rare for someone to return from the frontlines, much less in one piece.
"Where were you posted, sir?" asked a young man. "The Plains of Rethmar," he responded, with a slightly sad undertone. Suddenly everyone fell silent. There had been recent news of a scavenger company returning to the plains completely hollow-eyed and deathly. "I was discharged from the posting a week before the scavenger company departed. This news makes me want to go back and help my comrades, but I know that isn't possible anymore," he looked even more sad now, but his face didn't show it, only his voice.
Another voice then spoke up. "If you have been posted in the Plains of Rethmar for the last 2 decades, then you would have surely met "Nuve Lune", right sir?" The voice came from a woman, she had jet black hair, and blood red eyes. Her name was Selene Marr, and she is a childhood friend of Icarus. She had always idolized "Nuve Lune", or "Lune of the new world", the one who is considered the greatest healer after Lune, the strongest tether-healer of the old world.
"Oh, that would be me…" he said sheepishly. "Most people know me either by that name or my other name, Baron Rethmar." For a second, everything seemed to be still. Selene looked visibly in awe. Then everyone started to gush at the prospect of learning from one of the heroes of the new world, but Nova shushed everyone, as there was another man now raising his hand to ask a question. This man was Orin Deyth, the sole heir to the Deyth family, the ones who run the academy. His silver eyes contrasted with his deep blue hair, and his expression seemed cold, enough to freeze hell over. He was also a very close friend of Icarus, before the "incident".
"Yes, Orin Deyth?"
"If you have been in the plains of Rethmar for the last 2 decades, you would have met Luke Veyn, correct? And also, a certain prodigious talent with him?"
Almost as soon as he said that, the room turned cold, as if to match his expression. The needle in Icarus' hands seemed to be weaving threads together, his eyes a blurry mess, however the intent was obvious. Violence. Pure, unadulterated violence. Before anything could get out of control, Selene bound the threads using 2 tethers, shutting off any possibility of violence. "That was out of line," Selene coldly said to Orin.
"It's just a simple question, you accursed kid," Orin glared at Icarus.
Before Icarus could respond to escalate the situation, Nova bound everyone's needles and nearby threads with tethers. Selene was astonished that something like this was even possible, at that speed too. "That's enough! To answer your question, yes I did meet them. And the only reason the Planes are still one of our strongholds is the 2 who you spoke about. Luke Veyn was posthumously honored with the title of "Protector of Rethmar". His son was also honored by His Majesty personally, receiving political immunity. Is there anything else you want to know?"
"No…" he looked away, irritatedly.
"Alright then, let's start with the class. I will be your faculty for 'The Basics of Weaving.' Can anyone explain to me the theory behind weaving?" Many students raised their hands. "You, Lynaeus Corvus," Nova pointed to Lynaeus, son of Commander Ulysses Corvus.
Lynaeus stood up with an ease that came from endless drilling. His voice carried across the room, steady, deliberate, calculated to sound effortless. "The theory behind weaving," he began, "rests on three fundamental pillars. Echoes, Threads, and Tethers." He paused, adjusting the pin of his uniform, the faint hum of dormant resonance flickering along his sleeve like static.
"An Echo," he continued, "is a remnant of what was. Emotion, death, creation. Any act strong enough to scar reality. When something powerful happens, the world remembers. Those memories don't fade. They vibrate beneath everything we touch. That vibration is what we draw upon."
A faint whisper ran through the classroom as several needles in students' pockets quivered in Lynaeus nodded.
"A Thread," he said, "is our method of contact. We shape resonance into conceptual strands. Things like fire, steel, mercy, decay. And bind them to the echo's frequency. A thread alone is harmless, but combine several and you have a weave. That's what creates results. Light, force, healing, destruction. Of course, not everyone can weave every thread, some have higher resonance towards some threads than others."
He stopped for a moment, glancing toward Icarus. The cursed prodigy sat motionless, his expression unreadable, fingers unconsciously twitching like he was feeling invisible strings in the air.
Selene leaned forward, whispering to herself, "He's analyzing the weave mid-lecture again…"
Lynaeus caught it, his jaw tightening slightly, but pressed on.
"Finally, Tethers. The most important part. They anchor a weave in reality. Without a tether, the threads unravel, and the echo consumes the caster. A tether can be anything. Your lifespan, a memory, an emotion, a piece of your body. The greater the effect you attempt, the more the tether demands."
A low vibration suddenly rolled across the room, barely audible, but enough to make the chalk tremble in Nova's hand. Threads of faint blue light began to slip from Lynaeus's fingertips, drifting upward like strands of silk.
"Corvus," Nova said sharply.
He froze. The threads, half-formed, snapped back into his hand like recoiling snakes. The air went still again.
"My apologies, Professor," he said quickly. "Habit."
Nova's expression was unreadable. "A good weaver never leaks their threads. A perfect one doesn't even think of them until they're needed."
A few cadets snickered nervously.
Lynaeus lowered his gaze for a moment, then looked straight ahead again. "Understood."
He went on, voice quieter now. "Overuse corrupts the tether. You start losing what you've spent. Time, sanity, even the sense of who you are. Some call it curse accumulation. Others," he hesitated just long enough to make it pointed, "call it genius with an expiration date."
A few whispers broke the silence, uneasy laughter trembling under them.
From the back row, Icarus tilted his head, his tone low enough that only Selene and the air itself seemed to hear it.
"Still chasing perfection, huh…" he muttered, eyes half-closed. "You'll catch it one day. Just before it kills you."
Selene shot him a look, half warning, half plea for restraint, but the corner of Icarus's mouth twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile.
Nova clapped once, the sound sharp as a blade. "Textbook perfect," he said, but there was no warmth in the praise. "However, I prefer examples over recitations. Can anyone here show the class what a minor tether looks like when stretched to its limit?"
No one moved.
Until Icarus's chair scraped softly against the floor. The class held its breath. Except for Orin, who was amused, ready for his ex-best friend to humiliate himself. Selene clenched her knuckles nervously. The air in the classroom was extremely heavy, enough for a bead of sweat to form on Nova's forehead. He nodded, out of what looked like recognition rather than fear.
As Icarus pulled out his needle, everyone else did so well. Icarus silently weaved two threads, fire and motion. Everyone waited, anticipating violence, expecting it to take time. However, much to everyone's shock, it was quick. Too quick for someone of their age. Icarus had managed to draw the 2 threads without a single mistake. He then weaved them together.
The silence was broken by the slight vibrations of the desks of all the students, as the threads seemed to go out of control for a bit, but just as quickly as that happened, it stopped. The threads had stabilised, though the ember was in an unnatural color. As Nova looked at the color, the pain in his wrist flared up momentarily, as he remembered that fateful day at Rethmar.
Icarus then started to stretch it out further. However, clearly the students started to get more and more tense the more he stretched it. "That's enough…" said Nova.
"You said stretch it, didn't you?" retorted Icarus, not a hint of respect in his voice.
"I can feel the heat of the ember from here, so there is no way you can not. How can you be so indifferent to pain and fear?"
"Indifferent to pain and fear? What nonsense," he chuckled. "I pride myself on being a coward, as one should." Now some chuckles escaped the students' mouths.
"What's wrong with being a coward? Fear keeps people alive, while bravery gets them killed." This shut everyone up, likely due to it resonating with their knowledge of the recent massacre of Rethmar.
"As for pain, no thank you. I have been beaten, burned, crushed, drowned, cut, stabbed, pierced, bitten, chewed, and gutted enough times for several lifetimes already." Nobody understood what he meant. Orin muttered under his breath, "This whining again…"
Icarus heard this, but instead of responding to him, he looked straight into Nova's eyes.
"You do know how one becomes a mythical hero, right? It's really easy. You just have to do something outlandish and then die. The death part is the key actually," Nova gulped audibly to this, his eyes clouded, not with fear, but with admiration.
"Seems like I wasn't meant to die that day," muttering which, he collapsed the thread. This caused a momentary shockwave which shook everyone's desks, making a few books fall to the ground. The same eyes which viewed him with disgust before this, now viewed him with fear. The genius was still alive.
The color in the room vanished for a brief moment and returned with a bang. There was still some distortion around Icarus. Selene weaved together Mercy and Calm, and cast it at Icarus. The curse around Icarus hissed as Selene's weave hit him, then it receded, and the entire class breathed a sigh of relief.
"As you saw just now, Icarus' weave was the perfect demonstration of an aggressive weave and then a misweave. And Selene's weave was the perfect quick support weave," Nova then looked at Icarus and pointed to his seat. "Well done."
As Icarus walked past Selene, she muttered to him, "Your resonance… it's wrong again…"
Icarus just ruffled her hair and got back into his seat.
Nova flicked his hand, collapsing all the resonance in the room to a halt, a complete deafening silence. Everyone held their breath, being in a completely resonance free place for the first time in their lives. He then looked straight at Icarus, looking like he had finally collected himself. "The danger of brilliance is believing you can rewrite consequences. Your misweave didn't need to be so dramatic, you know that right?"
"I'm not rewriting the consequences, Baron. I'm living with them. I do so everyday. As for the misweave, the curse of misweave made it more flashy than I expected, but I controlled it, didn't I?"
"Fine, Fine," he sighed. "And it's sir, not Baron." Icarus snickered under his breath, as Nova brought back the resonance.
"He's still leaking his madness. Why even show up if you can't control it…" Orin muttered, but the whole class heard it, perhaps as intended. Icarus' eyes darken, and rune-like threads climb up his hands like veins. Selene quickly snaps a tether between them to cut their resonance contact, in a wondrous fall of light akin to snow. "Don't. Not here. Not again." Selene pleads to the two. They both withdraw their needles.
"Not again…" sighs Nova, his voice carrying a significant weight. "Weaving isn't mastery, you naive younguns. It's negotiation. The stronger the thread, the heavier the price. If you can afford to weave threads at the drop of a beat like this, then you will lose your life before you know it," while saying which, he draws a diagram midair showing Echo → Thread → Tether.
"While here you are only playing around with small threads, some try to weave too many at once. Life. Death. Balance. Chaos. Curse. They think perfection means harmony. But harmony… it devours," he glances towards Icarus whose eyes are looking right at Nova, glaring into his soul. "I once knew someone who tried to weave all 5 of those strongest opposite threads at once. He succeeded. Once," he glanced towards Icarus again, who seemed to not be bothered. Everyone else though, were shocked that something like that was even possible. They were so engrossed that nobody noticed Nova glancing at Icarus. Nobody except a certain girl with blood red eyes.
Selene looked at Icarus, her jaw clenched. Icarus didn't meet her eyes. Their one-sided glaring contest was interrupted by Nova's words. "I know all of you have come to this class with you own beliefs, values and teachings. However, do remember this. It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.The mind, once sealed with arrogance, becomes deaf to truth and blind to growth. Knowledge does not enter a cup that believes itself full. It spills. It's wasted. The greatest barrier to wisdom isn't ignorance. It's the illusion of understanding. Until a man humbles his certainty, he'll mistake noise for insight and ego for intellect," it took a minute for everyone to absorb these powerful words. "And with that, class is dismissed."