Three hours had passed since the end of the duel.
The sun had already crossed its zenith, and its light—tired—slid down the walls like golden honey, slow and warm.
The arena, which had once been boiling with voices, shouts, and stamping feet, now felt like another place entirely—withdrawn, empty, a body asleep after a fever. Only scattered sounds survived: the metallic echo of swords striking wood, the creak of armor being adjusted, the dry murmur of distant orders.
Oswin had been carried away unconscious, his arms hanging like a rag doll's, his head tilted to the side. The blood from his cuts had already coagulated, hardening into dark streaks.The collision with the wall had not only left wounds on his body; something in his expression felt broken, as if an invisible thread had been severed. Now he rested in the medical post, surrounded by the acrid smell of burnt herbs and iron.
As for me, I found no rest at all. My feet wandered on their own through the surroundings of the fortress, guided more by unease than reason. I had only half-listened to Kyle's explanations—or perhaps less than that.
Words came in and out like wind. What remained were images: long corridors, cold walls, windows framing slices of pale sky. I walked without thinking until I realized I had reached the dormitories.
The building rose like a solid block of three floors. Gray stone, dark roof, narrow windows. It carried the austerity of something built to endure time, not to please the eye.The interior kept the same tone: simple tapestries, ancient crests faded by dust, shadowed corridors smelling of damp stone. The air felt heavier there, as if every step echoed more slowly.
On the second floor, Kyle stopped in front of a door reinforced with iron fittings. "This is your room. Number 17. Baths at the end of the corridor, to the left. Clean clothes are already inside. You'll go through inspection before the ceremony."
He let his hand slide off the handle and looked at me with that half-smile. "But don't worry about rest time… If your companion keeps going like this, you'll last another year here."
The provocation landed like a stone in my stomach.
'How long has Nikolas been wandering in the forest to be so well known?' But I didn't respond. I only nodded, swallowing the doubt.
I pushed the door open with effort. The room was small, practical to the point of coldness: a wooden bed with heavy blankets, a worn iron wardrobe, a desk with a dried ink pot, and a chipped glass cup. Through the square window, light entered timidly, scratching the stone floor in dying golden rectangles.
I slowly took off my shoes and, for a moment, hesitated between collapsing onto the hard mattress, which somehow looked more comfortable than any throne, or seeking air by the window.
Axel decided for me: he jumped silently into the lit corner, curling into the improvised blanket I had sewn myself. He yawned lazily, and his amber eyes reflected the last flicker of daylight before fading into dusk.
I let out a muffled murmur against the mattress: "That's the second time today… how does Axel keep pulling the blanket out of the bag?"
But my mind found no rest. It boiled in disconnected fragments, memories and questions colliding like sparks.
'Now that I finally have some time…' The image of the rebellious captain cut through me: shining steel, sword raised, the posture of someone who should have had nothing but chains. 'If he was confined… where did he get armor and blade from?'
The doubt vanished as quickly as it came, replaced by the suffocating weight of that afternoon's duel. I sighed deeply, leaning back against the chair, my gaze lost through the window. And inevitably, I was pulled back to the arena. To her.
Beatriz.
There she was, motionless, like a living shadow under the light. One golden eye, vibrant like amber; the other red, like the dormant ember of a forge. But there was no warmth. No reflection, no hesitation. Only open portals: one to the sky, the other to the abyss.
Her expression… empty. Flat. Almost inhuman. Not arrogant. Not cruel. Just absent, as if everything that made her "Beatriz" had evaporated into the wind.
'What happened to the shy girl who used to avoid eye contact when speaking?' I recalled her first presence: restrained, almost delicate. Now she was a human wall, a volcano silenced by its own pressure.
The words of the crowd still echoed inside me: "She awakened aura even before the limitation was lifted."
And then came the praise toward Oswin: "A little more, and he'll be on the same level."
I had tried to bury my insecurity with irony myself: "A duel between children, huh?"
But who was I fooling? Even Oswin… even he had reached something I hadn't.
And me? What was I?
"Will I ever… be able to do the same?" I thought, swallowing hard.
"More year has already passed, but..." I clenched my teeth. "I still feel like there's so much I don't know, so much I just can't understand."
A bitter taste rose in my mouth. A knot tightened in my chest. A feeling I didn't want, couldn't name. But the realization struck like a blade: "I am incomplete."
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, trying to push the thoughts out of my mind like dust being swept away. In vain.
Beatriz had not only won the duel. She had left a scar.
It was in moments like this that I longed for the library. It had always been my refuge: between the smell of old parchment and sleeping dust, I found peace, or at least order.
But today… today even books would reject me. I was dirty, ragged, unworthy of crossing the threshold of a sacred place, guardian of knowledge.
The evening light now entered at oblique angles, painting the room with orange stripes and elongated shadows.
I walked to the window and rested my hands on the cold sill. Outside, the sky was turning violet, and nocturnal birds were testing their calls.The fortress rooftops glowed with a warmth already fading, while below, silhouettes moved back and forth: trainees, soldiers, instructors, flowing like a constant ant nest.
I stayed there, motionless. Minutes. Maybe hours. My mind gradually emptied.
I let out a long, dragged sigh.
"Crying over spilled milk is pointless…" I murmured, my voice rougher than intended. I turned away, exhausted. "Tomorrow is a new day."
Before lying down, I cast one last side glance. Axel was already asleep, curled like a cocoon in the blanket, this time on top of the desk. His slow breathing carried the room's silence.
I lay down. Closed my eyes. The accumulated weight of the entire day pulled me down like a current at the bottom of a river.Especially the bright yet dead gaze of Issack—but I was too tired to extend the thought.
And the last thing I thought before darkness swallowed me was: 'That was only the arrival… and I already feel like I crossed three wars.'
And then, finally, the world fell silent.
✦ ✦ ✦
At Dawn, in the Palace of Aurithéa
The moon hung high in the sky, casting a faint silvery light through the tall, arched windows of the royal library. The night wind softly whistled through the old cracks of the building, as if the night itself were whispering secrets among the shelves.
In the middle of a long dark oak ladder, balanced on the rail of a shelf that reached the library's ceiling, stood Alice.
Dressed in a light sky-blue silk nightgown with white embroidery, the typical sleeping attire of a noble lady, she moved with the grace of someone who had done this hundreds of times before.
Beside her floated a small golden sphere of light, gently pulsing and illuminating the book spines with a warm, discreet glow.
Her hair flowed like golden silk down her back, swaying softly as she climbed one more step. Her golden eyes scanned the titles with focused intensity, almost reverently.
"Not this one." she murmured, pulling a blue leather-bound book and quickly inspecting the spine.
A second later, she tossed it downward with a care that Alexander would have found sacrilegious. Yet no sound was heard of it hitting the ground.
"This one won't do either…" A pause. Her delicate fingers ran along a higher row.
"Oh… this one is unusual." she said, more to herself than to any living being.
She pulled another volume, flipped through three pages, and then tossed it down as well.
So the time passed. She climbed, descended a few steps, checked faded spines, read words in dead languages, felt the texture of books as if reading history through her fingertips.
Each choice was accompanied by small murmurs, curious expressions, or silent disdain.
Thirty volumes later, a small tower of books rested on a rune-embroidered carpet. Each cover carried the glow of different eras—some rustic, others noble—but all now discarded for future reading.
And then she stopped.
Her eyes fixed on a shadowed corner, hidden behind a dusty glass frame. She extended her hand, gently brushing away a spiderweb, and touched what she sought.
"Finally… I found it." Alice's golden eyes lit up with a quiet, satisfied glow. There was something almost magical in that moment, a childlike spark of triumph, but also a near-sacred reverence.
It was a book with a dark cover, hard as stone, with metallic edges corroded by time. No title. No identification. Too heavy to lift with one hand.
She tried to pull it once, but the book did not budge. So, with a soft sigh, she simply tilted it backward using all her youthful strength.
Gravity did the rest.
The book fell from the shelf, and unlike the others, it landed with a heavy, dull thud, as if the floor itself acknowledged the weight of its contents. Dust rose in a thin veil in the air.
'And to think even the enchanted "Soft Fall" carpet wouldn't be able to handle its weight.'
Alice descended with elegance, her steps soft and restrained, like a ballerina finishing her performance.
The glowing sphere followed her like a faithful companion.
Alice stopped in front of the pile of books. She knelt slowly, as if paying homage to a sacred artifact, and extended her hand.
Her thin, careful fingers slid toward the last tome. For a moment, she simply observed it in silence, as if the ancient object carried not just knowledge, but a dormant consciousness.
"You gave me an absurd amount of work to find you…" she murmured, a restrained smile on her lips. The way she spoke was almost affectionate, as if the book could hear her. "But luckily for me, I'm a genius when something interests me."
She ran her hand over the dark, worn cover. Dust yielded beneath her touch, revealing engraved symbols in relief. She tilted her head slightly, golden eyes narrowing as she deciphered the letters faintly glowing under the golden light of the floating sphere.
"Forngaldr Thjodhr Felthar Tíminn." she read softly, almost like a spell. "It's written in Jotundrim… the ancient language of the Giants."
She let out a brief, impressed sigh, her eyes once again tracing the title. It was a rare language, nearly extinct, with deep roots silenced by official history.
In the world she lived in, it was common belief that giants, despite being blessed with superhuman strength, unmatched vigor, and legendary endurance, were… intellectually deficient. It wasn't uncommon to hear they knew more about smashing stones than shaping them.
But for Alice, who had grown up distrusting any knowledge that proclaimed itself absolute, that had always sounded like a poorly stitched veil.
"How can a people said to be brutish and illiterate…" she began, now speaking to the empty space around her.
"…have their own written language? Leave records? Do calculations, raise columns, build fortifications? And on top of that, create an astronomical calendar more precise than the one made centuries after their fall?"
There was a light tone of indignation in her voice, mixed with fascination.
"No… this story doesn't add up."
She turned her head slightly, gazing at the arched windows high above the library. The night still reigned, but something about that moment felt out of time.
"This world really is a tapestry of lies and forgotten truths…" she murmured, as if thinking aloud more than intending to speak. "But that's what makes it so fascinating. Never boring. Not for a single second."
A smile formed on her face. It was not just satisfaction, but the expression of someone who had just unearthed a secret—a fragment of history buried for centuries.
"They say that more than five hundred years ago, one of the first Archmages was a Giant…" she continued, almost in a confidential tone. "Today, anyone who says that is treated as a lunatic."
Alice placed her hands on the book as if sealing a silent pact.
"But perhaps… just perhaps… he left something here."
With her heart beating slightly faster, not from fear, but anticipation—she opened the tome. The book's hinges creaked softly, as if waking from centuries of sleep. The first page revealed itself with solemn slowness, as though the book itself hesitated to show its contents.
And then she saw it.
"Forngaldr Thjodhr Felthar Tíminn." The title, The Kingdom Forgotten by Time, was there, just as on the cover. But what came right below made her breath falter for a second.
"By Alfonse Heisenberg Van Allytharion"