Elara was waiting outside the lecture hall.
She had her bag over one shoulder and her arms crossed with the specific posture of someone whose patience had a particular object.
"You were waiting for me."
Isaac saw her from the corridor's far end. He walked up to her and paused.
"There is something that I wanted to talk about, that I couldn't bring it up during the lunch."
Elara peeked at the sheathed knife that was attached on the right side of his waist.
"Walk with me," she said, falling into step beside him before he reached her.
They walked in the direction of the eastern courtyard—the route that passed through the less trafficked corridor between the lecture hall wing and the residential area.
Elara was quiet for a moment. The quality of quiet that preceded something rather than followed it.
"I heard about your room," she said.
Isaac said nothing.
"A rumor. Someone's relative works the Golden Repose night guard rotation. What they heard traveled." She looked at the corridor ahead. "I wanted to ask during lunch. I couldn't."
"Too many people," Isaac said.
"Yes." She paused. "Are you alright?"
He looked at her. The question deserved the same accuracy he gave every question she asked directly.
"Yes," he said. "Nothing that required treatment."
"That doesn't equal alright, Isaac."
Isaac glanced at the window.
"Three people," she grimaced with the specific expression of someone who was genuinely terrified. "In your room. At night."
"Yes."
"And the investigation closed."
"Yes."
She was quiet for a moment. "Did you file for a room change?"
Isaac considered how much he should share. He pondered if he was dragging her into this matter. Then, he realized the potential already exists, given how she was already a known friend of his throughout the Academy.
"Last week, I encountered two operatives of the Solari Empire, observing me."
Instead of replying to Elara's question, therefore, he decided to inform. Elara froze immediately as she registered his words.
"I reported this incident to professors. They apprehended those operatives. Meanwhile, I was assaulted on the same night. Thankfully, the danger was mitigated through the help of Princess Lyra Aetherion."
Isaac shifted his eyes to look at her.
"What I am trying to say is, that there are spies—or betrayers—the students who act for the interest of the Solari Kingdom. Those observers flagged me as a threat, and the students decided to eliminate this threat that I posed."
They were no longer walking. Elara was looking ahead, in trance. Her eyes trembled vividly, processing what she heard.
"Wherever I move my room to, the threat would remain. War is far closer to us than we think, Elara."
"…What then?" Elara whispered. "What should we do, Isaac?"
It was no longer about Isaac, but about both of them. Elara realized that she wasn't free from the threat either.
"Act usual. Do remember that you are stronger than you think, being an owner of a B-rank skill. To make trouble with you, they need to send someone of equal or higher caliber, but it is quite easy to discern an owner of B-rank skill or above given how rare they are. Therefore, the actual chance that you may be put in a similar situation as me is actually lower than your current speculation."
Isaac reasoned, and that managed to put her at ease.
"Besides," he narrowed his eyes, "I have some leads that I can start from."
"Leads?"
"Let's just say… that I am tired of being reactive."
His eyes were cold.
"You reap what you sow."
That's all that he had to say.
…
Elara's path eventually diverged, and thus, she bid Isaac farewell. He continued walking alone, entering the Golden Repose.
The Golden Repose's main corridor on the residential floor had the after-school quality of a space between functions—students returning from the day's sessions, the ambient noise of a building transitioning from institutional to residential rhythm.
Isaac was halfway down the corridor when he heard the voice.
It wasn't loud, and the voice sounded familiar.
Donaston Terra stood at the corridor's junction with the specific quality of someone who had found an obstruction and was registering it without particular urgency.
Irine was at the junction's far edge; her path had apparently crossed Donaston's. It was a simple encounter that could've gone by without much, but Donaston seemed to have had a different plan.
He was looking at her as if looking at a pointless chunk of stone that lied on the ground.
"Irine, no surname. Commoner class, D-rank skill. Yet, the Core stream and therefore, assigned in the Golden Repose. Ridiculous."
He spat with the tone of someone who has been piling up anger in him for quite some time and found an opportunity to dump it all out.
"Don't you dare think that everyone would be fawning over you because you have the quality of an eye candy. Commoner will always be commoner. The fact that you are setting your foot in this ground disgusts me."
Irine looked at him. Having received an insult so sudden and unexpected, she didn't have the usual flat look in her face. Stoic and defensive. She subconsciously took a step back, which he compensated with a step forward.
Even now, her [Glamour] was running in the background as the passive skill, augmenting her already noteworthy beauty. Some students, witnessing that she has gotten into a trouble once more, flinched as if they wanted to take a step forth and save her as if they were her knight in armor, but the hostile presence of the nominated heir of the House Terra, Donaston Terra, invoked fear in them.
"…I paid the amount in full." She finally said. "I earned my right to dwell in here."
"Hah! If money could purchase you anything, why aren't the merchants nobles yet?"
Donaston snorted as he peered into Irine's eyes, menacingly.
"You walk freely in here because Zephyr has a particular interest in you. Without your looks and wealth that your parents pampered on you, you are nothing," he looked at her with the cold precision of someone drawing a boundary rather than making a point. "Nothing but a generic commoner."
Isaac, now among the crowd who were witnessing the scene, felt a déjà vu. One way or the other, Irine was always being picked on by someone. Because of her entrancing appearance, she ended up picking up the crowd—whether she liked it or not.
His eyes observed Irine once more. Then moved on, onto Donaston Terra.
He paused.
The precision of [The Prism] caught onto something. Donaston Terra—his height, approximate wing span, body shape—appeared similar to one of the three enemies whom he and Lyra faced during the night.
Donaston Terra. Worth investigating.
He filed this.
Irine, with her mouth shut, didn't speak any longer. With Donaston continuing his glare on her with the look of someone who was enjoying the moment of superiority, there was a that suffocating tension in the corridor.
Then, there were the clear sounds of steps. Someone was walking in this moment of stillness.
"Donaston."
The voice came from behind him—the carrying quality of someone who had been moving through the corridor and had assessed the situation with the speed these assessments happened.
Aldric Zephyr stood at the corridor's far end with his hands in his pockets and the contained ease he always carried. He looked at Donaston with the patient attention of someone who had arrived at a calculation they had already completed.
"I remember that pitiful letter you sent me before, about how you apologize for your rudeness." Aldric said, "What a miserable speck of dirt you are, picking on a girl to vent out that puny anger of yours."
Donaston turned. His expression shifted from that of anger to realization to acceptance.
"…Zephyr."
"I heard that the youngest daughter of House Terra is well known for her calm composure," Aldric said with the flat delivery of someone stating a semantic information. "How did you come out from the same womb as her? Someone with a rock-hard brain like you?"
The level of insult that Aldric threw at Donaston was clearly a several times stronger than the last commotion that the crowd experienced.
They saw Donaston's fists trembling, clenched up so hard that the veins were popping out.
However, Isaac felt that something was off.
That reaction…
Too forced. Too rigid. Rather than anger, Isaac read embarrassment in Donaston's eyes.
It was as if this was planned ahead.
Aldric and Donaston clashed beforehand. Donaston was forced to choose between a formal apology and a duel.
Donaston looked at Aldric. At Irine. At the corridor's assembled audience.
"…Fine," he said. Then he turned and walked in the opposite direction without looking at the audience the corridor had produced.
The corridor exhaled.
Aldric watched him go with the expression of someone who had completed a task and was now redirecting attention toward what had preceded the task. He looked at Irine with the composed interest he always brought to her.
Isaac's eyes narrowed. Aldric has been attempting to garner Irine's interest for more than a couple of times by now. He deduced that there was a likelihood that Aldric forced Donaston to orchestrate this scene where he would serve as Irine's hero of the day.
Aldric opened his mouth, about to speak to Irine. His eyes were soft, and his demeanor exhibited that of charisma.
"—and this is precisely the bearing that House Zephyr has always demonstrated."
However, a voice then arrived from the corridor's side, interrupting his attempt.
Camilla Hedron stood at the corridor's edge with the composure that was her default register and an expression that had the specific quality of someone who had identified an opportunity and was executing on it without appearing to execute.
"The next Patriarch of House Zephyr," she continued, directing her attention at Aldric with the specific warmth of someone who had calibrated the warmth's temperature in advance. "Intervening on behalf of…" She glanced at Irine, recalling the clash that they had in front of Isaac's room in the past, "…someone who has no standing to claim intervention—because it is right, not because it is required. That's what separates House Zephyr from the others."
Aldric looked at Camilla.
His expression did not change significantly. But the specific quality of his attention had shifted—he had been oriented toward Irine, and the shift was visible in the fractional recalibration of someone whose focus had been redirected by a variable that required acknowledgement.
"Miss Hedron," he said. The formal register. Not cold—measured.
"I hope you'll allow me to express my admiration," Camilla said, with the ease of someone who had rehearsed the natural delivery. "What you just demonstrated—the composure, the authority… it's exactly what this Academy's third-year higher class should represent. What House Zephyr represents."
Aldric looked at her with the patient attention of someone who was listening and processing simultaneously. With a particular political calculation in his mind, he said something in return—low, the private register he used in public spaces—and Camilla's expression produced the specific quality of someone receiving exactly the engagement they had been building toward.
The corridor's audience began its dispersal. The scene had resolved with Donaston gone, Aldric occupied, and Irine free from the trouble. The specific social machinery of the Golden Repose returning to its ordinary operations.
Isaac looked at Irine. Surprisingly, she was staring back at him, for whatever reason.
She appeared calm. However, he read sadness in her eyes.
Then, she turned and walked away.
Isaac realized that it wasn't that she didn't care. Rather, feigning boredom was her defense mechanism, an act that she learnt to deal with these troubles that always found their ways to her.
"A calm one, isn't she? Bold as well, I would say, given how we are talking about Donaston Terra and Aldric Zephyr here."
The voice came from his immediate left.
Seraphina Everfrost stood at the corridor's edge with the composed attention she always carried. It appeared that she too was looking at the junction where Irine had been standing.
"Then, she leaves," she said. "How many times did he reject Aldric Zephyr by now? Quite unbelievable to see from a commoner woman, frankly speaking."
Isaac looked at her. Then at the direction Irine had taken.
"Would you have done the same?" He decided to ask.
"Probably not. Politically speaking, it is important that she expresses gratitude to her benefactor—Aldric Zephyr in this case. This puts her at a bad light in the eyes of the nobles."
Seraphina was then quiet for a moment. Then she looked at the corridor where Aldric and Camilla were still engaged—Camilla's composure doing its work, Aldric's attention partially redirected.
"Camilla Hedron. Now that I think about it, her family have close ties with House Valerius. Yet, she now speaks with the heir of House Zephyr," she remarked. "She's been positioning herself near House Zephyr's social orbit since the beginning of the term. Every significant moment where Aldric is visible, she's adjacent to it." She paused. "I've been watching the pattern."
She turned to look at Isaac. Something seemed to have entered her.
"And, I heard from Caspian once, of how you and Camilla were acquainted."
Isaac processed. Then, he responded, "You can tell by my status of Nameless. Even before my revocation of the surname Valerius, I was an outcast within the House given how talentless they deemed me."
It was an indirect, noble's roundabout way to say that he had no idea what she was talking about.
"…Talentless?" Seraphina turned to look at him. "I see potential in you."
"What would be the cause?"
"There would be a few to talk about. The duel, the class designation as rank 2, calm under the pressure, and…" She stopped. Instead of finishing her sentence, she decided to stare at him.
She held an expression of someone who had been conducting an observation and had arrived at the conclusion that they were the ones being observed instead.
"Why, aren't you cunning," she spoke, dryly.
"Cunning?" Isaac raised an eyebrow. "Call it curious." He looked at her. "I asked, and you answered without a second thought."
Seraphina looked at him for a long moment.
Something shifted in her expression—not the surprise of someone who had been caught, the specific adjustment of someone who had filed a variable at C-rank and discovered it was operating at a different level entirely.
"Talentless, you say," she said, quietly, "It is bizarre how someone like you can be deemed talentless and without potential. Caspian too, he…"
Isaac said nothing.
Seraphina looked at the corridor's junction one more time. Then she turned and walked toward the Golden Repose's upper residential floors with the unhurried certainty she always carried.
Isaac watched her go. The moment she left, any thoughts regarding her left him.
After all, there was a matter more important.
Donaston Terra.
[The Prism] held everything from the last ten minutes at full resolution. The corridor's geometry. Donaston's cold dismissal and the specific stature of the figure—the shoulder width, the movement economy, the way the body distributed its weight in the standing position. The same details that the garden stone's fracture had produced. The same body that had been in the garden during that night.
He filed the confirmation, silently.
He continued toward his room.