Chapter 641: A weird monster ?
"Oh," Selphine murmured. "Now he's interesting."
The illusion panned to a clearing strewn with broken branches and glimmering arcane traps—some half-spent, others ticking toward detonation. At its center, a young man towered over the chaos.
Bulky. Broad-shouldered. Arms like siege pulleys, bare to the elbow. His tunic was torn, soaked in sweat, and the axe in his hands was massive—worn, chipped at the edge, clearly used for more than show.
He moved with a brute's ease, but there was calculation in his rhythm. No wasted motion. Every step controlled. Every swing deliberate.
Two opponents circled him—one wielding twin short swords, the other casting mid-range kinetic bursts with precise, elegant gestures.
He didn't retreat.
He advanced.
A parry with the shaft of the axe. A sidestep that barely qualified as such. Then a low feint—and the blade came around, wide, cleaving through the first attacker's defense like parchment.
The second caster blinked backward.
Too slow.
The axe flew—not just swung, thrown—a whirling blur of iron and fury. It collided with the shield ward mid-air, shattered it, and sent the caster tumbling.
"...That's not basic," Cedric said quietly.
Elara's eyes narrowed.
"He's trained. Not formally. But trained."
"Street dueling?" Aurelian offered.
"Wartime," Cedric countered. "Or mercenary work. Maybe both."
"He looks northern," Selphine said thoughtfully, her gaze sharp beneath the flicker of illusion light. "The way he plants his feet… low stance, heavy hips. That's not city training."
Aurelian tilted his head. "North? You mean the icebound provinces? Or the Ironwood range?"
"Ironwood," Cedric answered before Selphine could. "The posture. Axe control. They don't teach that finesse unless you've spent years fighting beasts bigger than wagons. The north doesn't teach style. It teaches survival."
Aurelian gave a soft hum of agreement, eyes still locked on the projection. The young man had retrieved his axe now—dragging it free from the cracked stone like it weighed no more than a dagger. He didn't pose. Didn't look to the edges of the arena for acknowledgment.
He just moved on.
Elara's gaze hadn't shifted once.
The crowd around them murmured with fresh excitement, a cluster of onlookers already tossing spell-encoded tokens into a betting basin glowing with thin gold sigils. His odds were shifting. Fast.
"What's his rank, you think?" Selphine asked, not lightly.
Cedric's lips pressed into a thin line. "Hard to say from this surface."
"There's too much interference in the projection," Aurelian added, flicking his fingers through a sigil to try and adjust the resolution. "It's layered with veil distortion—intentional, probably. They don't want the outside reading signatures too clearly."
"But I saw something," Elara murmured.
They both turned.
Her eyes were narrowed, focused—like she wasn't watching a projection at all, but something far deeper.
"When he caught that second spell," she said slowly. "Right before he threw the axe. His body shimmered. Just for a second. Not illusion. Not armor. It was his 'intent' folding."
"It was his intent," Elara said, her voice low, eyes still locked on the fading shimmer in the illusion.
Selphine blinked. "His intent? From here?"
Aurelian turned fully to face her, brows raised. "Are you sure?"
Elara didn't look away. Her fingers curled slightly at her side, not in tension, but in memory.
"…Not really," she admitted. "Just a guess."
Cedric shifted beside her, eyes narrowing at the thought. Elara continued, voice growing quieter, more measured—like she was turning the memory over in her mind, checking it for cracks.
"But it wasn't mana armor. And it wasn't a defensive glyph. The shimmer came before the spell struck him. Just for a breath. Like something unseen was bracing for impact."
Selphine tilted her head, intrigued. "That's a very unorthodox way of using intent. Blocking a spell with will alone? That's barely theoretical. It's supposed to be suicidal."
Aurelian murmured, "And if it wasn't instinctual? If it was deliberate?"
"Then he's not just trained," Cedric said grimly. "He's conditioned."
The crowd cheered again, breaking momentarily into the heavy quiet that had fallen around the three of them.
Selphine's gaze flicked to Elara once more. "Have you ever seen anything like that before?"
Elara hesitated.
Then slowly—like drawing a blade from its scabbard—she nodded.
"…I have."
A pause.
The air felt heavier, suddenly. Touched by something unsaid.
Elara's eyes didn't flick to the illusion this time.
They drifted to the cobbled stones beneath her feet, to a memory lodged somewhere between pain and reverence.
"A certain someone," she said softly, "who was really good with a sword… also did that."
Cedric's breath caught—just slightly. But he didn't speak.
Elara didn't name him.
Didn't have to.
The shadow of a name lingered in the silence like a heartbeat underwater.
"Is it him?" Selphine asked, her voice lower now—no longer testing, no longer amused. Just curious, and sharper for it. "The one we talked about before?"
The illusion shimmered in the background, switching to another quadrant of the trial field—flashes of lightning lighting up the distant sky. But Elara didn't lift her gaze. Not yet.
"Yes," she said simply.
Aurelian exhaled through his nose, quietly, as though letting the weight of the truth settle in his chest. "Oh…"
He looked back toward the projection, even though the axe-wielding boy was no longer in view. "So he's talented like that."
"He's more than that," Elara murmured, finally raising her eyes again—not to the illusion, but to the edge of the sky where the first stars were beginning to cut through the dusk. "He's one of the most talented people I've ever seen. Dangerous. Brilliant. Stubborn."
Her voice trailed off. Then came the softer addendum, shaped more like a confession than praise:
"And utterly impossible."
Aurelian grinned faintly. "Sounds like someone I'd like."
Selphine tilted her head, her expression unreadable. "Sounds like someone I'd like to meet."
Elara's lips curved—not quite a smile. Something thinner. A thread of warmth woven into a tapestry of thorns.
"I'm not sure he'd let you," she said quietly.
Cedric said nothing. His jaw had tensed again, eyes forward but distant. He hadn't reacted to the compliments, but there was something in his posture—tight around the shoulders, just enough to suggest friction beneath the surface.
But he stayed still.
Still listening.
Still there.
And Elara—despite everything, despite the storm she felt brewing again behind her ribs—didn't retreat from the conversation.
She turned her gaze back to the illusion just as another clash broke out in a storm-lit clearing. She didn't see the axe-wielder again.
But she would.
She was sure of it.
And when she did… she'd know.
******
Nightfall came like a curtain drawn over the sky—swift, sudden, and strangely graceful.
Lucavion sat at the edge of a jagged cliff-plate, a slanted rise of stone overlooking what had once been part of a forest—now splintered and cratered, its trees twisted like dancers frozen mid-spin. Aetherlight flickered above, stars painted in patterns he didn't recognize, not constellations from the real world, but something older. Crafted.
"This place…" he murmured, leaning back on one hand as his eyes traced the twin moons suspended in the fabricated heavens, "...really is a fine piece of work."
[Hmm.] Vitaliara rested along his shoulder like a coil of warmth, her tail flicking lazily in time with the distant wind. [Takes an obsessive mind to build a world like this just to throw children into bloodsport.]
Lucavion chuckled under his breath. "Aesthetic bloodsport, to be fair. Look at that sky."
The soft crackle of firelight hummed nearby—contained, efficient, a small sphere of enchanted coals nestled beneath a heat-dome.
It was the basic ratio that was given to everyone who would be participating in the exam.
He stretched out his legs with a quiet sigh, a few light nicks still traced along his coat from the earlier scuffles. He'd fought over ten people in total now—some in groups, some one-on-one, but none of them had lasted beyond five minutes.
And not one of them had been a familiar name.
"No Arlenth," he muttered. "No Shiven. No Roulane. Not even that axe brute from the Eloria mines."
[Who are they?]
"People that I will meet."
[….]
She couldn't really reply to that…
Just as Vitaliara's tail settled back into its idle sway and the heat-dome flickered in quiet rhythm, something shifted.
Lucavion felt it first.
Not heard. Felt.
RUMBLE!
Chapter 642: A weird monster ? (2)
RUMBLE!
Just as Vitaliara's tail settled back into its idle sway and the heat-dome flickered in quiet rhythm, something shifted.
Lucavion felt it first.
Not heard. Felt.
A tremor beneath his palm, subtle, too precise to be coincidence—like the land itself had inhaled.
Then came the sound.
A roar.
Not the guttural bellow of a man, not the sharpened cry of war or challenge—no. This was something else entirely.
It cracked through the sky like a falling star, layered with unnatural distortion, and rolled across the terrain in waves, echoing between the shattered hills.
Lucavion didn't move. Not yet.
He just smiled, slow and low. "Oh…"
Vitaliara tensed, her claws pressing lightly against the fabric of his shoulder. [That's not a contestant.]
"No," he said, rising to his feet in one smooth motion, his coat catching the light of the fire as it swept behind him. "It wouldn't be."
The Academy's crafted space wasn't just for pitting humans against one another. That would be too clean. Too predictable.
This world was designed to test everything—reflex, decision, survival instinct. And nothing tested that like an apex predator unleashed into the middle of chaos.
Lucavion turned his gaze east, toward the shadowed treeline that stood beyond a half-collapsed ruin. The wind had stilled. The zone held its breath.
Then—
Swoosh.
A blast of compressed air shot across the ridge, carrying with it the stench of ozone and churned stone.
And through the clearing mist—
It emerged.
Massive. Lithe in a way that only predators born of mana could be. Its body shimmered with layered carapace, sleek and silver-blue, pulsing slightly as veins of aether glowed beneath its skin. Six legs moved like liquid, claws crackling with heat and frost in equal measure. Two eyes, lidless and alien, locked onto Lucavion.
The beast's breath hissed, its maw opening to reveal a split jaw lined with jagged, shifting teeth—like bone reimagined by madness.
"Now that," Lucavion murmured, drawing his sword with a deliberate slowness, "is a fine escalation."
And yet—Lucavion's smile thinned.
He couldn't feel it.
No flicker of killing intent. No weight in the air, no whisper of aura brushing against his skin. It was as if the creature wasn't even there.
"…Oh?" he muttered, his sword slack in his hand, loose, almost casual.
[Vitaliara's tail flicked once.] [That's not normal.]
"No," he agreed quietly. "It isn't."
The mana around the space was shifting—not wild, but curated. Managed.
'So this is how they intend to thin the herd…'
The Academy's doing. An artificial field suppressing presence. Perhaps even cloaking the monster's own existence from lesser candidates.
"Heh…"
He didn't get time to elaborate.
The beast moved—fast.
With a deafening CRACK of displaced air, it lunged. A blur of motion and heat.
Lucavion's eyes snapped into focus, the edge of his blade lifting just in time.
CLANG!
Claw met steel in a blinding spray of sparks. The sheer force of it sent Lucavion sliding back, boots digging twin trenches through the ash-coated ground.
One heartbeat.
Then two.
And he stopped, one foot grinding into the dirt, body low, arm steady despite the impact still vibrating through his bones.
'Tch… Early 4-star. At the very least.'
The beast paced, clicking mandibles shifting with wet, grating sounds. Its alien gaze never left him.
"To cull the lower ranks…" he muttered, voice soft, "this is what they release on nights, huh?"
It charged again—without sound.
Lucavion pivoted, slipping to the side with just enough twist to avoid a direct strike. The edge of the monster's claw scraped his coat, cleaving through fabric like paper. He responded in kind—his blade flicked out in a sudden upward arc.
CLANG! CLINK! SHLICK!
It was like cutting through layered steel.
Lucavion spun with the rebound, his body fluid as water, shifting weight from heel to ball, dodging the snapping jaws that lunged where his head had been a moment ago.
'It's reading my moves now. Adaptive. Lovely.'
The sword dipped again. His posture closed—tight, compact. Footwork precise.
Another feint. Another strike. He twisted his hips, letting the beast overextend, and raked his blade across one of the glowing veins running under its carapace.
The result?
A burst of cold blue ichor hissed onto the ground, the mana inside it writhing in defiance.
[Be careful,] Vitaliara whispered into his thoughts, claws tensing along his back. [That substance… it's volatile.]
"Noted," he murmured.
But even as he spoke, his eyes flicked upward, catching the rippling distortion at the edge of the treeline. More shapes. Watching.
Contestants?
Observers?
Or other predators?
He couldn't tell.
'Which begs the question…'
"Should I wait," he said aloud, adjusting his stance, "and act as a dark horse in front of everyone?"
The beast snarled low, steam hissing from vents along its spine.
"Or should I gather attention now?"
He weighed the thought a second longer, then exhaled through his nose.
And smiled.
"Let's not give them too much time."
Lucavion's smirk deepened, the glint in his eyes sharpening with purpose.
'If I drag this out, they'll see me anyway. Every strike would draw more eyes, more whispers.'
So be it.
If mystery was his weapon, then he'd forge it into a blade sharp enough to carve silence into awe.
His hand shifted along the hilt of his sword, and with a flick of his wrist, the [Flame of Equinox] bloomed—quietly, beautifully, like twilight bleeding into dawn.
No flare, no roar—just a smooth, spiraling arc of heat and frost coiling together around the blade, threads of pale gold and ghost-blue weaving in tandem. Life and death, flame and frost—each pulsing with an opposite rhythm, and yet, in his grip, they danced in balance.
[Flame of Equinox. Ashen Twilight.]
The name slipped from his lips like a vow.
"Severance Form."
The ground beneath his feet cracked gently, the pressure of his gathered mana warping the terrain in a soft radius. Yet even then, it didn't scream power. It whispered it.
The monster responded—its limbs flexing with a burst of primal instinct, steam whistling out like a kettle under pressure. It lunged, all six legs pistoning forward with terrifying force.
But Lucavion didn't retreat.
He stepped into the charge.
One breath.
Then another.
And just as the beast reared to strike—
Lucavion vanished.
No flash. No explosion. Just a blur—a ripple in the air where a man once stood.
CLANG—CLINK—SHRIIIIIP—
Three steps. One rotation. A blade drawn like a crescent moon.
By the time the monster's claws slashed down through empty space, Lucavion was already behind it, sword lowered, the embers of his technique still hissing softly against the cold air.
Tick.
The creature froze mid-lunge, its body twitching as fissures of gold and silver light etched themselves into its carapace.
Tick.
A low, broken hiss escaped its throat. Then—
CRACK.
Its body split.
Not in halves—but in segments—dozens of them, sliced so precisely the wounds hadn't even begun to bleed until gravity caught up.
The pieces slipped apart with haunting quiet, cold ichor trailing through the air in glistening arcs, vaporizing wherever it touched the lingering trail of Lucavion's flame.
He exhaled, slow and clean, sheathing his blade with a quiet shffft.
"…Too slow," he murmured.
[Ashen Twilight: Severance Form] was not built for flash. It was a technique rooted in stillness—where motion became suggestion, and flame became intent. It fed on the smallest openings, the tiniest misstep in the enemy's form, and delivered judgment in three parts:
Weightlessness. Silence. Collapse.
The Flame of Equinox threaded through each strike like a scalpel of entropy—unraveling mana constructs, destabilizing core flow, and searing through the natural resistance of living beings not with heat, but with balance.
The monster had never stood a chance.
Vitaliara blinked, her tail coiling tightly.
[You really used that.]
Chapter 643: What happened ?
The Citadel of Domain Control.
The world shifted when one stepped into it.
Not walked—entered, as if peeling through the seams of reality itself.
Here, above the spatial dome that housed the exam below, the laws of physics bent not under machines or wires, but the meticulous weave of magecraft—the pinnacle of constructed sorcery. A pseudo-10-star technique, known only as Axiom Gatework, sprawled across the chamber's ceiling like a constellation carved into stone. Runic threads hovered in the air, living glyphs, each rotating with a pulse that resonated not in sound, but in concept. Understanding them was not a matter of sight—it was permission.
And only one man in the world had the authority to shape it: the Headmaster.
The floor was not floor—it was a lens. Transparent yet kaleidoscopic, revealing the world below like gods gazing upon a sandbox of survival. Mountain ridges folded in real time. Rivers redirected themselves mid-current. Trees uprooted and slithered like snakes, settling where they were needed. The dome of the examination zone shrunk by the second, a luminous boundary that pulsed inward, mimicking the breath of a dying star.
No computers. No interfaces.
Instead, mages—no, architects of space—floated within arcane arrays suspended mid-air. Their robes whispered against the artificial wind conjured by atmospheric regulators, each regulated by a core embedded in the glyphs around their feet. They weren't casting spells—they were editing existence.
One mage, draped in layers of hex-threaded silver, extended a hand and shifted three fingers mid-sentence. Far below, the temperature dropped five degrees, a snowfall manifesting where none had been. It wasn't just weather. It was controlled pressure. Temperature curves. Wind vectors. Each element simulated, refined, and then invoked through a lattice of runes.
Another mage rotated a cube of crystal between their palms. With each turn, monsters shimmered into being within the dome—each one forged from elemental bases and adjusted by aetheric ratios. Their creation was not haphazard but calculated. A fire-beast here to pressure the fireless. A stealth predator there to test the perceptive. Every creature placed like a strategic move on a war table. Balanced. Monitored.
And amidst it all stood the core pillar—the heart of the Citadel.
A massive obelisk of obsidian and crystal, inscribed with glyphs from a dead language even the elves no longer remembered. It pulsed once every second. With each pulse, the exam space below responded: shrinking, mutating, evolving. This was not merely a battlefield.
This was an experiment in controlled chaos.
At its peak floated the Headmaster himself—unmoving, eyes closed, suspended within a ring of eleven spells rotating like planets around a sun. Each spell was a concept—Field Compression, Aether Feedback Nullification, Artificial Evolution Algorithm—and each one impossible to replicate outside this room.
A voice crackled through the air like pressure from a fault line—low, sharp, and reverberating with command.
"Mana density in quadrant twelve rising too quickly. You—adjust the stream before it ruptures again."
The addressed mage flinched, robes flaring slightly as they shifted mid-air to redirect their focus. "Yes, Archmagister Keleran!"
Dozens of mages floated within the vast, hollow core of the Citadel, like celestial bodies caught in orbit around a single will. They moved in synchrony, their bodies encased in robes woven with arcane filaments, their faces illuminated by the glow of shifting glyphs that coiled and pulsed around them.
Senior Archmagi floated higher in the chamber, overseeing layers of magical input—strategists of space itself—while the younger acolytes occupied the lower rings, executing directives with clockwork precision.
"Stabilize the thermals around Sector Sixty-Two," another voice barked, this one female, old and unwavering. "There's a convergence forming. The last thing we need is a frostquake while the sixth-layer terrain shift's still cycling."
"Already buffering the leyline edge, Magister Levrinne," came the quick reply. The young mage made a sharp gesture, and below, the shimmering illusion of tundra softened, its jagged ice smoothing like glass under breath.
Hovering platforms spun slowly near the obelisk, holding archives of mana-encoded data—holographic scrolls mapping each candidate's path. Countless orbs floated nearby, each attuned to a specific participant.
"Lucavion… that one's still veiled," a younger observer murmured, eyes narrowed at the pulsing orb showing flickers of his most recent movements—just after the creature's death. "Mana trail is clean, no signature traces left behind."
"That's intentional," muttered another. "He's suppressing his aether field. Advanced technique for a Tier 3. Dangerous mind."
From across the chamber, a third leaned in. "He's not a mind we're tracking for top-tier placement, is he?"
"No," the first answered, voice lower now, curious. "But perhaps he should be."
The Citadel was not silent. It thrummed with discussion, argument, adjustment—magic as mathematics, instinct, and art all at once.
"Raise the gravity field slightly in the northeast sector," came Keleran's voice again. "Candidate Number 9871's too stable. She needs to be pressed harder."
"Understood."
The confirmation barely left the analyst's lips before a ripple passed through the Citadel—a pause, not of silence, but of suspended intent.
The air shifted.
And every mage stilled.
Because without warning, the Headmaster moved.
Not a grand gesture. Not a theatrical command. Just a single hand, rising slowly within the orbit of the eleven conceptual spells.
His fingers curled inward.
Permission.
The central obelisk responded instantly—its pulse deepening in tone, shifting from a gentle thrum to a resonant, almost living sound, like a heart shifting gears.
A single rune ignited along the core—a glyph forbidden to all but the Headmaster himself. It pulsed in crimson and gold, jagged in shape, unnatural in rhythm.
Across the Citadel, Keleran's voice dropped an octave. "Authorization received."
Another mage—a young operator watching the lower reserves—blinked. "Wh… we're really releasing them?"
"Indeed," murmured Levrinne, her voice devoid of warmth. "Begin Phase V trial insertion. Deploy Subject: Vekorith."
A silence settled, heavy and charged. Even the floating analysts stopped for a breath.
Subject Vekorith.
Codename: Maw of the Null Horizon.
An artificial apex predator, designed from layered magical principles and unstable cores. Born of convergent mana theory and eldritch bio-synthesis. A creature not meant to exist, but made to test the limits of existence.
"It's early," someone whispered.
Keleran didn't turn. "And yet, necessary. The lower-tier candidates need culling. And the higher ones…"
He glanced toward the orb tracking Lucavion—now glowing slightly brighter than before.
"They need measuring."
Below the Citadel, deep within the understructures of the dome's artificial terrain, a seal broke.
Not physically.
But spatially.
A chamber that hadn't existed moments ago now did—unfolding between quantum layers of constructed space, its walls lined in obsidian veins and containment glyphs. Within it, the creature stirred. Not born. Not awakened.
Unleashed.
Six legs unfolded from a crouched, sinewy form. Plates of carapace shimmered with mirrored mana, each layer shifting hue like oil on water. Veins of aether pulsed beneath its hide, flickering in and out of visibility. Its twin eyes opened—lidless, emotionless, unblinking.
It moved—silently.
A hiss escaped its spiraled maw, not breath but a vibration—a sound that bent the very space around it.
"Releasing Vekorith into Quadrant Thirty-One," a mage called out, hands steady despite the tremble in her voice.
"Mana cloaking engaged," another confirmed. "Presence suppression optimal. No candidates will detect it until contact."
"Directive?"
Keleran's expression didn't change. "Observe adaptive patterns. No interference."
The air within the Citadel held stillness the way deep oceans hold pressure—silent, crushing, waiting.
"Vekorith has entered the testing field," confirmed a senior technician, eyes narrowed as he adjusted the aether-thread display tracking the predator's movement. "Phase V is live."
"Visual confirmation?" asked Levrinne.
"Negative. Optical and spatial camouflaging holding steady. It's moving beneath terrain layers—using the faultline ridges for cover."
Keleran folded his arms, observing the central macro-projection where candidate movements traced luminous paths. Among them, Quadrant Thirty-One glowed faintly as Vekorith's presence distorted the grid.
"Predator en route to first contact," another mage said. "Estimated time to encounter: twenty seconds. Target proximity confirmed—three contestants, low to mid-tier, clustered near an abandoned aqueduct."
"Let's see how it feeds," Keleran murmured.
But then—a flicker.
Just one.
"Eh?"
Chapter 644: What happened ? (2)
"Let's see how it feeds," Keleran murmured.
But then—a flicker.
Just one.
"Eh?"
So fast that even the mana-sensitive lenses failed to track it properly.
Then came the sound.
A ping.
Subtle, crystalline, and deadly final.
A red glyph bloomed in midair before one of the analysts—an alert beacon, stark and pulsing with quiet urgency.
"…No," the mage whispered.
Another ping. The same glyph. Now louder. Then a third.
Keleran's brow furrowed. "Report."
"I—I think it's a glitch," stammered the analyst. "The system's reading one of the apex test constructs as… neutralized."
A silence cracked through the chamber like thunder in a monastery.
Levrinne's eyes narrowed. "Which construct?"
The analyst's voice caught in his throat. "Vekorith."
The word fell like a curse.
"Timestamp?" Keleran snapped.
"Nine-point-seven seconds since deployment. Nine-point-seven, exactly. System registered mana deconstruction and full dissolution of all core bindings—like… like it was dismantled surgically."
"Impossible," Levrinne hissed. "Even if it was defeated, the collapse protocol shouldn't've triggered unless the core was unraveled entirely."
One of the senior mages scrolled furiously through runic overlays, eyes wide. "No explosion. No rupture. Just… stillness. It was there, and then—it wasn't. Dissolution traces….."
The silence thickened.
Eyes shifted toward the analyst—young, wide-eyed, now visibly pale as she tried to make sense of the data sprawled before her.
"Yes?" Keleran's voice was a razor now, impatient and cold. "The traces?"
The analyst swallowed hard, her hands shaking slightly as she scanned the projection again. "It doesn't show anything."
"What?" Levrinne's voice cracked like thunder.
"There's... no identifiable residue," the analyst murmured. "The aether imprint left behind is non-attributable. It's not matching any recorded elemental or conceptual basis. Not even Void or Null-aligned signatures. There's nothing. Just absence."
Another mage leaned forward, tapping into the backup threadwork. "There must be a mistake. Run it again. Pull from the raw matrix. Layer Two."
The analyst obeyed instantly, recalibrating the projection sphere.
The data flickered.
Remained blank.
A void where there should have been a battlefield's scars.
Keleran's brow furrowed, deeper now. "No trace of combat. No counterforce. No displacement. No decay signature of the construct's core?"
"None, Archmagister. It's as if Vekorith... never existed."
"Absurd," Levrinne hissed. "Find the contestant. Who was nearest to the encounter point?"
The glyph-matrix pulsed, and the spatial grid zoomed inward, the quadrant unraveling in expanding rings of magical geometry. The terrain layers peeled back like pages in a book.
There, near the heart of the distortion—
Fifteen glowing orbs.
"Fifteen candidates were within range," another mage reported, sweeping through the data. "Ten sword users, three elemental casters, one martial variant… and—"
His voice stalled.
Keleran turned his head.
"Well?" he snapped. "Speak."
"There's one more. Candidate with black hair… and a white feline-type creature perched on his shoulder. Static interference near his aura output. It's... heavily masked."
The orb brightened as the spell focused on the figure.
A black-cloaked young man stood at the edge of the aqueduct ruins. His face unreadable. His posture relaxed—too relaxed. He wasn't even looking in the direction Vekorith had approached from. The white cat blinked slowly beside him, tail coiled like a question mark, as if the creature too were watching the Citadel itself.
"Name?" Levrinne demanded.
"Lucavion. Contestant Number 7342."
Another mage scanned his performance logs. "He's eliminated ten candidates so far. None with significant resistance. Estimated rating... four-star."
Keleran's arms folded slowly, his eyes narrowing.
"Four-star?" he repeated.
"Yes, sir. Estimated strength only. We have no full combat logs—he suppresses his aura field to near-zero. And... according to the logs, he was not recorded casting any external techniques."
"No spells?" someone echoed.
"No mana surge," the analyst confirmed. "Only faint traces of kinetic disruption and thermal imbalance."
"That's impossible," a third mage muttered. "Even a precision kill leaves aftermath. Especially against a creature like Vekorith."
"And yet," Levrinne murmured, "there he stands. Unharmed. Unmoved."
The orb pulsed again.
Lucavion slowly raised his hand, as if brushing off dust from his shoulder.
Only—there was no dust.
Just the faintest flicker of something that had never been there.
Keleran stepped closer to the central obelisk, peering into the layered aetheral readout now fixed on the boy.
Keleran's gaze remained locked on the orb, the calm tension in his posture concealing a storm beneath.
He tilted his head slightly, watching the boy's faint smile—not one of triumph, nor even satisfaction. It was detached, clinical. As if he had done nothing at all.
Is it him?
The question echoed—not spoken aloud, not yet—but it lingered in the air, traced in the sharp furrow of the Archmagister's brow.
But no answer came.
Because there was no answer.
Not yet.
The data was too clean. Too still. As though the encounter had been erased, not concluded.
And with a creature like Vekorith—a thing still in its experimental phase, a fusion of theory and nightmare—there were gaps. Uncertainties. Alchemic instability, untested integration sequences. Maybe, just maybe…
"There is a possibility," one of the senior engineers offered, cautiously. "That the construct's dissolution wasn't caused by external combat at all. The internal matrix was still incomplete. There were risks of spontaneous self-collapse if the binding formulae hadn't fully integrated."
Levrinne scoffed. "You're telling me it just fell apart on its own?"
The engineer shrugged slightly, more hesitant now. "It's within the realm of possibility. The binding was layered over multiple conceptual cores. If any one of them misaligned under active pressure, it could cause a cascade—non-violent, total mana dispersal. Instantaneous."
Keleran's expression didn't shift. But his arms slowly dropped to his sides.
A long breath.
Then—
"…We'll consider that possibility," he said at last, his voice neutral. "The construct is, after all, in trial phase. And the reaction we observed—abnormal or not—may not be anomalous in the long run."
He turned away from the orb, the spell array dimming as his attention moved on.
"If it was him… we'll know in time. And if it wasn't…" He trailed off, then gave a small shake of his head. "Then it was our own failure in design."
Levrinne looked like she wanted to argue. But she said nothing.
Keleran gave one final glance at the orb, the boy's figure now smaller, walking off through the mist-slick ruins without urgency.
"Lucavion, huh…" he murmured. "An interesting name."
With a flick of his fingers, the orb dimmed fully. "Redirect surveillance resources. Priority on candidates showing signs of abnormal mana evolution. Vekorith's data is to be logged but not obsessed over. Not yet."
He turned, cloak billowing faintly behind him as he ascended the command platform once again.
"Focus on the upcoming terrain shift. And prep a new construct. We move to Phase VI by end of cycle."
"Yes, Archmagister," came the chorus.
The mages obeyed. The data feeds recalibrated. The hum of glyphs resumed its rhythm.
The Citadel returned to function.
But no one noticed—no one dared to look closely enough to see it—
A narrow flicker.
A slight tightening in the Headmaster's eyes.
*****
[You really used that,] Vitaliara murmured, her tone edged with something between awe and accusation.
Lucavion rolled his shoulder, letting the lingering mana slide off him like water from silk. The air was still thick with the scent of scorched ichor and dissolving ether, but the silence that followed was absolute.
Then—
[Why that technique?] she asked, more pointed this time. [Didn't you say it was still incomplete?]
"I did," Lucavion replied, brushing a fleck of blue ash from his coat as he stepped around what was left of the beast. "But that thing was a good way to test it."
[Hmm… Suspicious.]
He arched a brow, amused. "Suspicious? Me?"
Vitaliara narrowed her eyes, her tail lashing lightly across his shoulder. [I feel like you had another reason.]
Lucavion offered nothing at first—just a slow exhale, the kind that let the silence stretch a little longer than necessary. Then he gave a slight shrug.
"Maybe," he said at last, his smirk faint, unreadable. "Who knows?"
[You know.]
"I do."
[And you're not telling me.]
"That is Lucavion for you."
[Stupid.]
He didn't answer—just started walking again, heading deeper into the fractured wilderness, where the terrain grew stranger and the sky seemed to pulse with closer stars.
The path ahead twisted with rising stone ridges, faint glows flickering at the edges of sight—mana shifts, active combat, or perhaps just the zone itself reacting to his presence. The battlefield was changing. Folding inward.
Chapter 645: Named candidates
The scent of burning amber and sweetroot drifted through the evening air as the three of them moved through the festival-lit streets.
Lanterns swayed overhead, strung like fireflies between ancient towers and merchant awnings, their light enchanted to flicker with warm reds and deep golds—each one ignited in honor of Empress Lysandra, the first bearer of the flame, the uniting founder whose reign had forged the Empire from dust and fractured thrones.
The Festival of the First Flame had always been equal parts reverence and spectacle, and this year, with the Academy's Candidate Trials being broadcast for the first time during the holy week, it felt less like coincidence and more like ceremony dressed in armor.
Children ran barefoot through the square, faces smudged with pastry sugar, trailing enchanted ribbons that sparkled as they moved. Street performers danced on planks of rising air, juggling molten spheres that never quite burned. And the bells—those ever-distant, ever-haunting bells—chimed softly from high above the cathedral arches, marking each phase of dusk as it gave way to full flame-night.
"Do you remember the last festival?" Aurelian asked idly, glancing at Selphine as they passed a row of glass-blown masks being sold from a floating cart. "When they released phoenix motes over the river?"
Selphine rolled her eyes faintly.
"I don't. And you were not there, remember."
"Yes, well," Aurelian said, undeterred by Selphine's flat denial, "I may not have technically been there, but I heard about it in such vivid detail that it's almost the same."
Selphine snorted. "You make it sound like you personally negotiated with the phoenix to borrow its feathers."
"Not feathers," Aurelian replied with mock solemnity. "Motes. Blazing, golden motes that rained down over the river like fire tears. Whole sky lit up like a divine tapestry."
"They were lanterns with illusion runes and mist spells," Selphine corrected dryly. "Half of them malfunctioned and caught on the fishing nets."
"Elowyn," Aurelian turned toward her, scandalized, "You see this? You see how history gets butchered in real time?"
Elara's eyes had drifted upward, toward the flickering stream of lanterns dancing above their heads. The play of color across her cheekbones made her expression hard to read—part-warm, part-distant.
"What are phoenix motes, exactly?" she asked, half-curious, half-amused.
Aurelian straightened immediately. "Rare magical phenomena—at least in festival lore. Said to appear when the imperial line is strong and the land is at peace. Symbolic, you know. Beauty born from fire."
Selphine rolled her eyes. "They're decorative spell constructs. Copper threads, ambient flame mana, and a bit of incense. He just likes anything that floats and glows."
"They represent rebirth and endurance," Aurelian insisted, lifting a hand. "You'd know if you ever paid attention to the symbology lectures."
"I was busy paying attention to the ones that didn't include glitter and bedtime stories."
Elara smothered a laugh, shaking her head as she walked a step ahead of them, hands folded lightly behind her back. The familiar rhythm of their banter, dry and oddly affectionate, had become one of the few things in the city that felt like solid ground.
The streets were crowded, yes, but not frantic. It was that lovely in-between state—where festival energy hummed but hadn't yet boiled over. Where even the strangers around you felt like participants in something shared.
They had left their inn earlier, mostly because the Candidate Trials had grown stale. The first night had been chaos—some of it beautifully so, with strange creatures from failed runic rifts roaming the outer quadrants of the trial space, candidates fending off both illusions and very real threats.
But since then?
Not much.
Now, even the illusion broadcast pillars in the square had grown quieter, surrounded mostly by idle festival-goers glancing up between bites of roasted apple or sips of spiced cider.
"I'm telling you," Aurelian muttered, as they passed another illusion feed displaying a group of candidates arguing over territory. "The whole thing's stalled. It's like watching noble children try to play war in a garden."
"Give them a break," Elara murmured. "They've survived two rounds of the most brutal trial format the Academy's ever used."
"They should at least make it interesting," Aurelian shot back.
And that's when they noticed it.
The shift.
The tension.
Like a ripple beneath music.
The street noise hadn't changed, not exactly. But there was a different kind of buzz ahead—more concentrated. People moving with purpose toward something, drawn like iron filings to a lodestone.
"What is going on?" Aurelian asked, his tone sharpening as he nudged closer to the cluster of murmuring watchers.
The three of them slipped through the edge of the crowd, the festival's warm hum suddenly muted in this pocket of focused tension. Dozens of people had gathered around the illusion pillar now—shoulder to shoulder, eyes raised, some leaning forward as if proximity might grant them greater understanding.
Elara's gaze flicked upward.
And there it was.
The trial feed had shifted.
A new quadrant.
And at its center—
A single figure, surrounded.
Three opponents fanned out in a loose triangle around him—two with swords drawn, one bracing behind a long, rune-carved spear. Their stances were deliberate, focused, disciplined. This was no wild skirmish or desperate ambush. This was calculated. A coordinated takedown.
But the one at the center?
He didn't look concerned.
If anything, he looked delighted.
The figure was lean, wiry, with shaggy, sun-bleached hair that curled at the edges like he'd once tried to tame it and then given up halfway through the attempt. His sleeves were torn at the elbows, revealing metallic bands fastened tightly to his forearms—etched with volatile glyphwork that sparked erratically with flickers of electric-blue mana. A battered scarf was tied loosely around his neck, fluttering despite the absence of wind. Dirt smudged his jaw, and he wore the kind of grin that looked borrowed from a tavern brawl three drinks too deep.
And gods, he wouldn't stop talking.
"I mean, really," his voice echoed over the scrying feed, laced with crackling static, "three on one? I'm flattered! Usually I need dinner first—maybe a little wine, some light manipulation—"
"Is he joking?" Selphine muttered.
"Looks like it," Aurelian said. "Or he's lost his mind."
"I don't think he ever had it to begin with," Elara said under her breath.
Onscreen, the three opponents were circling tighter. One lunged forward, sword arcing fast and clean.
The center figure didn't block.
He twisted, slipping just under the blade with all the grace of a circus acrobat and then, with a flick of his wrist, slammed his bracer against the ground.
BOOM.
A burst of lightning erupted outward in a ragged circle—less refined spellwork, more barely-contained chaos. The blast staggered two of his attackers, the third managing to leap backward in time—but not before his hair stood on end from the residual charge.
"Okay," Aurelian breathed, impressed. "That's not amateur work."
"Unstable lightning core," Elara murmured, watching the way his bracers glowed. "Too raw to be standard-issue. He's channeling spell-scrolls through a fixed focus. That's risky."
"Effective," Cedric said, finally speaking.
The figure in the illusion rolled to his feet, sparks dancing around his boots, and raised his hands as if addressing an invisible audience.
"Thank you, thank you—please, hold your applause. I'll be here all trial, possibly electrocuted, possibly exploded. No guarantees!"
Another lunge. This time from behind.
He ducked, then twisted his body in a wide spin, one bracer flaring with jagged glyphs that sent a streak of lightning arcing sideways—an erratic bolt that bent mid-air like it had a mind of its own and slammed into the spear-user's side.
The crowd in the square gasped.
"Who is this lunatic?" someone muttered nearby.
Aurelian shook his head. "No name tag showing. Must've been wiped during the last formation collapse."
"I didn't even know you could team up in this phase," Selphine added.
"Why not?" Elara replied. "There's no rule against it. Just none guaranteeing it'll last."
Back on the feed, the man—boy, really, now that you looked closer—was grinning even wider.
And talking. Always talking.
"I mean, if you really wanted to impress me, you could've brought snacks. Or a dragon. But nooo, just steel and grim expressions—how predictable!"
The remaining two attackers looked rattled. One charged again, more desperate now.
He let the blade come within inches of his chest before shifting sideways and grabbing the edge of it with a glyph-etched glove that should not have been able to catch it.
The spell-glyph ignited at contact. There was a flash, a hum, and then—
The sword was ripped from the wielder's hands, flung backwards by a magnetic burst that scorched the surrounding grass.
Chapter 646: Named Candidates (2)
Elara said nothing.
Not at first.
Her posture didn't shift, but something in the line of her shoulders went still. Still—not like composure. Still like something stopped moving inside her.
The crowd murmured and swelled behind them, a sea of voices rising with each electric burst. Aurelian was still muttering excitedly under his breath, tracking spell patterns and power fluxes. Selphine's arms were crossed now, sharp-eyed and calculating. Cedric stood unmoving beside her, gaze flickering between the illusion and Elara's unreadable profile.
But Elara—she wasn't watching the spellcraft anymore.
She was watching the smile.
The way the boy—no, the performer—grinned, even as fire sparked across his boots and chaos whirled around him.
He didn't just fight. He played. As if the battlefield were his stage, and every close call was a cue. That devil-may-care glint in his eyes, that lopsided smirk like he knew the world was about to burn and couldn't wait to ask it for a dance—
It was reckless. Impossible. Infuriating.
And achingly familiar.
Her breath caught—not sharply. Just enough to register. Just enough to feel the pull in her chest where something once lived unguarded.
'No. It's not him. He was never a mage like this. Not this loud. Not this messy.'
But still—
Still, she whispered it.
"…Luca."
The name slipped past her lips, soft and low, like a secret she didn't mean to give to the wind.
Selphine turned toward her at once. "What?"
Elara blinked, pulled from whatever corner of her memory had held her captive. Her eyes flicked to Selphine, expression cool again—but her voice came quieter this time, more guarded.
"He reminded me of someone," she said.
"That boy in the projection?"
Elara didn't answer right away.
Instead, she turned her gaze back toward the screen, where the lightning mage had now flung himself backward into a roll, bracers sparking as he skidded through mud and laughter, narrowly dodging another spell.
"…Someone who also thought rules were more like… suggestions," she said finally. "And who never quite knew when to shut up."
"That guy," Aurelian said after a beat, his tone light but not mocking—genuinely intrigued, perhaps more than he wanted to admit, "must've really left an impression on you."
Elara didn't respond.
Didn't need to.
They all knew who she was talking about.
Even in the silence that followed, there was the shared weight of that name—Luca. Not just a ghost, not just a scar. Something more. Something still unfinished.
But Elara's face gave nothing away now. The moment had passed. Her expression had returned to its usual inscrutability—cool, composed, and edged in iron.
She didn't elaborate.
The broadcast flickered.
The projection above the plaza shifted, its illusion veil rippling like water before settling into a new scene—new coordinates, new quadrant.
A new figure.
This one… different.
Where the lightning mage had been fire and chaos, this boy was control and precision. Still young—maybe twenty, twenty-one at most—but his presence carried weight. His stance was tight, centered, almost textbook in its form.
He stood on the edge of a broken ridge, surrounded by half-toppled trees and the lingering smoke of broken runes. Below him—a horde.
Beasts. Twisted mana-spawn with glinting eyes and jaws too wide, the kind of creatures that had crawled from failed illusion loops or corrupted trials.
And yet, he didn't waver.
He moved.
A single step forward—and then his blade sang.
Not a named weapon. Not enchanted or gilded. Just a longsword, steel-forged and weather-worn. The kind used by knights too practical for ornament.
But in his hands, it became something else entirely.
He cut through the first beast in a clean arc, barely breaking rhythm. Then pivoted. Slashed a second with a low sweeping strike that caught two more in its wake. His footwork was impeccable—tight, grounded, efficient. There was no hesitation. No flourish.
Only focus.
And then—
He turned his back.
Not to expose himself.
To shield.
Because behind him, a group of candidates were scrambling for footing—less skilled, younger, slower. One had fallen. Another clutched a wounded leg, trying to lift a friend.
The knight—because that's what he looked like, even without a crest or sigil—stepped in front of them. His sword raised, his free hand extended in warning.
Stay behind me.
A beast lunged.
He moved faster.
The blade struck with a crack like breaking bone. A single stroke—swift, brutal, final.
"He's not just fighting," Cedric said quietly, watching with narrowed eyes. "He's protecting them."
Elara's gaze sharpened.
The monsters didn't stop.
But neither did he.
The boy—no, the knight in all but name—moved with a rhythm born not of violence, but of duty. His shoulders squared. His grip never faltered. And though claws raked across his arm and one beast's tail slammed into his ribs hard enough to stagger him, he held.
He took the hits others couldn't.
Not because he was careless.
But because they couldn't afford to.
Another wave came—four creatures this time, lunging in from different angles. He inhaled once, steady and sharp.
Then exhaled—and his mana flared.
It wasn't showy. No thunder, no lightning, no wild color burst.
Just arcs of clean-cut mana tracing out from his blade, like ribbons of condensed light. A sword path laced with purpose.
One, two, three—each arc cutting forward in a perfect crescent, slicing through the lead attackers before they could reach the wounded candidates behind him. The final beast got too close, and he met it with a direct clash—his sword grinding against its fangs before he twisted his blade and forced it to the ground, ending it in one merciful strike.
His aura, now visible from the projection's high clarity feed, was crisp.
Disciplined.
Not overflowing. Not chaotic.
Just… steady. Powerful. Controlled.
"Mid four-star," Elara murmured, almost to herself. "Maybe higher, but definitely mid."
Aurelian let out a low whistle. "A commoner reaching mid-four before even entering the Academy? That's…"
"Rare," Selphine finished, her voice unreadable. "And impressive."
They watched as the boy stepped back toward the group behind him—no words exchanged, no grand gestures. He just checked one of the younger candidates' footing, helped another to their feet, turned slightly to watch the treeline.
Always watching.
Always shielding.
Even injured, he didn't sit.
He stood guard.
"That's the kind of person they write ballads about," Aurelian muttered.
Elara said nothing—but she felt it too. That thread in her chest that pulled when she saw someone fight not for glory, not for pride, but because they could, and so they must.
The projection shimmered again, and now the feed included tracking data.
A wounded mage near the back of the group—the one he'd shielded—clutched a communication crystal, whispering into it. Her voice, barely audible, reached out to the broadcast rune.
"He saved us," the girl said. "All of us. His name is—"
A beat. Then the rune picked it up clearly, and the illusion feed displayed it in soft golden light across the edge of the projection.
"Reynald Vale."
The crowd murmured, his name echoing outward like a dropped stone in a still pond.
Reynald stood in the frame, silent, sword lowered but still ready, as more smoke curled from the ridge behind him.
And though he didn't bow, or gesture, or acknowledge the eyes watching from a thousand miles away—
There was something unmistakably noble in the way he stood.
Unclaimed by crest or title.
But unmistakably a knight.
Chapter 647: Brother
The glass panes of the high-arched windows let in the midday sun, but Priscilla Lysandra's chambers remained cold.
Her headquarters—if they could be called that—sat at the western fringe of the imperial palace grounds. Not hidden, no. Merely… ignored. Nestled between the old observatory archives and a wing that hadn't seen renovation in decades. The floor tiles here didn't shimmer. The walls bore no enchantments to keep the temperature perfect. The lamps had to be lit manually, and the tapestries? Faded, outdated, and untouched by a court artisan's hand in years.
A subtle message.
You are allowed to exist. But not to shine.
And she had learned to live with that.
She sat now at her desk—one of the few things she'd chosen herself—going over reports left by her attendant, Idena. Rotations of imperial personnel at the festival, status updates from the Shadowguard outposts near Velis Prominence, and several sealed letters bearing the crimson wax sigil of her half-brother.
Unread. She didn't need to open them to know the poison inside.
She was halfway through marking a reply to a Crown Cipher memo when the soft knock came at her chamber doors.
It was Idena, of course.
"Your Highness," the attendant said with her usual quiet grace. "It has begun."
Priscilla didn't look up. "The Trials?"
"Yes."
The air shifted.
Priscilla set her quill down and closed the folder before her. Her fingers rested atop it for a long moment, unmoving.
She rose slowly, the folds of her slate-colored gown settling around her like settling ash.
This—the Trials—was a newly implemented measure. A gesture, they called it. A reform.
The Imperial Academy, once a sealed sanctum for nobility and highbloods alone, had opened its gates to outsiders. Commoners, they said, as if the word itself were a fresh idea. The public was told it was a grand vision for the future—one led by the Crown Prince's progressive council.
That was the script.
But Priscilla had lived in this palace long enough to know the nature of its theater.
This wasn't a change of heart.
It was a recalibration.
Yes, the Trials allowed commoners a path into the Academy now—but the number permitted was still tightly controlled. Whispers in the halls said only nine seats had been promised. Out of hundreds. And those nine would be hard-earned, their placement determined not by examination of mind or merit, but by survival. Blood spilled in arcane arenas. Power measured in desperation.
And the nobles?
They would watch from behind charmed glass and silk-curtained lounges, placing bets and sipping golden wine, safe in the knowledge that any commoner strong enough to survive would be placed under constant scrutiny. Displayed like beasts that had earned their place in the menagerie.
A spectacle.
Nothing more.
Priscilla stepped away from the desk and moved toward the hearth—not for warmth, but because the room lacked even the illusion of comfort. Her fingers brushed the stone, rough and cracked from time and neglect. Unlike the other wings of the palace, hers bore no scrying basin. No viewing crystal. Not even a spell mirror tuned to the Academy's private feeds.
Her half-siblings would have them, of course.
The Crown Prince, especially.
She could picture it now—him reclining in one of the eastern viewing towers, surrounded by advisors, courtiers, and coiling sycophants. Watching the projection with cold, expectant eyes. Measuring the candidates. Weighing them like meat at market.
Smiling if one of them stumbled.
Smiling wider if one of hers did.
Her fingers curled against the stone.
Let them watch.
Let them dress it in glory and call it opportunity. Let the empire pretend that this was a step forward.
She knew better.
This wasn't about inclusion.
It was about control.
And when the Trials ended, when the nine were chosen and paraded into the Academy as symbols of change, they would be shackled by expectation—studied, feared, used.
Just like her.
Priscilla turned from the hearth and walked toward the far window, where the shimmer of the capital's illusion dome could be seen in the sky's reflection—just faintly. Barely visible unless you were looking for it.
"I assume the others are watching from the imperial halls?" she asked, her voice quiet.
Idena inclined her head. "Yes, Your Highness. Most of them were invited to the Platinum Lounge for a private viewing."
Of course.
The ones that mattered.
The ones who had never needed to earn a seat.
Priscilla stood in silence for a long moment, then turned back toward her desk.
"Very well," she said. "Prepare my riding coat."
Idena blinked. "You intend to… go out, Your Highness?"
"I intend to see," Priscilla said, her tone colder now. "If I'm to enter the same academy, I may as well witness the theater from the edge of the stage."
She would not be granted a seat beside her siblings.
So she would stand in the crowd.
She would walk among the people.
And watch who dared to rise.
The coat they brought her was plain by imperial standards—no gilded cuffs, no house crest sewn into the lining. Just a charcoal-gray riding cloak with faint embroidery at the collar and a row of polished onyx clasps. Modest. Unassuming.
Intentional.
Priscilla fastened the last clasp herself, tugging the fabric close around her frame. Her hair, usually left loose in the palace, was pulled into a high, elegant twist—braided, minimal. A statement not of vanity, but control.
Idena stepped back, glancing over her silently. She didn't ask where they were going.
She didn't need to.
As they passed through the lower hall of the west wing, the guards stationed at her entrance nodded—but with the stiffness of habit, not respect. The corridors remained mostly empty—few dared wander this wing unless summoned. It was a stretch of old stone and forgotten prestige.
But as they turned the final corner before reaching the inner courtyard gate—
She felt it.
Before she saw him.
A subtle shift in the air.
Like gravity remembering itself.
And then—
He stepped into view.
Someone that she was not ready to face at that moment….
Chapter 648: Brother (2)
At that moment, someone stood right before Priscilla.
Tall. Impeccably dressed. His robes a cascade of silver and violet, threaded with platinum that shimmered with subtle warding. His gloves bore the sigil of the imperial line—clean and bold. A crownless presence, but one that carried weight all the same.
The Crown Prince.
Her half-brother.
Lucien Arcturus Lysandra.
He stood there, hands loosely folded behind his back, as if he hadn't been waiting—but had known she would pass this way.
His eyes, a colder shade of crimson than hers, flicked over her attire.
"Off to join the people, dear sister?" he asked, voice smooth as silk steeped in frost. "How noble of you."
Priscilla stopped, the fabric of her coat settling around her like a hush.
"Lucien," she said coolly. No title. No bow.
He stepped forward, leisurely, boots silent against the marble floor. "You could have asked for a private viewing room. I'm sure the court would've found you a corner."
Priscilla's gaze didn't waver. Not even as he approached with that ever-cultivated serenity—the kind bred into highborns who never once feared consequences.
"Contrary to someone who enjoys watching from a throne of polished glass," she said calmly, "I find more value in blending in."
She allowed a pause. Just long enough to let him feel it.
"To see things as they are. Not how people pretend they are when your shadow falls across them."
Lucien's lips curved—thin and graceful. Amused.
But his eyes?
They gleamed with something colder.
"I suppose that's a luxury you inherited," he said lightly, "from your mother."
The word dripped like spoiled perfume.
Priscilla's hand curled against her side—so tightly her nails bit into her palm through the fabric of her glove. But her expression did not move.
Not an inch.
Lucien continued, voice silk-smooth and laced with quiet cruelty.
"She was good at that, wasn't she? Blending in. Hiding her place. Passing herself off as something... more. Remarkable, truly, how far a common flower will reach for the sun when no one tells it what it is."
Priscilla said nothing.
Not because she had no words.
But because she knew—he wanted her to use them.
And she would not give him that pleasure.
He watched her in silence for a moment more. Then, casually—
"I heard about the incident on the terrace," he said, brushing a nonexistent speck from his sleeve. "Rather dramatic, even for you."
She didn't blink. "You're unusually well-informed."
"Of course I am." His voice was almost musical. "A man with no title, no history—insulting a high house in public, invoking the name of the Empire, and then speaking to a royal as if he were equals? That's hardly forgettable."
Lucien's gaze sharpened.
"And I hear," he added, "you let him walk away."
Priscilla's expression didn't shift—not outwardly.
But inside?
The edges of her thoughts turned razor-sharp.
She had looked into it. Quietly. Carefully. She'd tasked two scribes from the Shadowguard's neutral sect. Not her own attendants. Not the palace informants—all of whom Lucien could sway with a word, a glance, a smile.
She hadn't expected much.
She hadn't gotten much either.
No letters. No transactions. No favors recorded.
No loose ends.
Lucien never left them. And this time was no different.
But there had been something.
Not proof.
Not yet.
But a question.
A crack.
House Crane had long walked the middle line—traditional, insular, and carefully uninvolved. Never quite favoring the Crown Prince, never opposing him outright. And yet, their heir had secured a seat in the Imperial Academy's enrollment—the highest-tier path, the one reserved for the blooded elite. Without question.
No competition.
No trials.
Just… placement.
No public sponsor. No patron declaration.
Just a quiet assumption that had gone unchallenged.
And in court, assumptions were often the most dangerous truths.
She had traced the name of the admissions handler responsible—Lady Girae Vonsin, a minor functionary from the Central Branch with no history of deviation.
Except, three weeks prior, she had received an unscheduled private audience.
No record of who summoned her.
But Priscilla knew.
She could feel it.
It wasn't evidence. Not enough to confront him. Not in this court. Not against him.
But it was a pattern.
And if the boy on the terrace had seen it too—
Lucien stepped closer, gaze sharp now, probing. "So, tell me," he said, voice smooth but heavier now, "what was he to you?"
Priscilla met his gaze.
And smiled.
Barely.
"The same thing your alliances often are," she said, tone cool. "A mirror. Uninvited. But revealing."
Lucien stilled.
Just enough.
Just for a breath.
Then he laughed—quietly, polished, as if truly amused. "You're learning to speak like them," he said. "Careful. Too much of that, and people might mistake you for someone relevant."
Lucien's laughter faded—thin, graceful, the kind that left a sting behind even after it passed.
But then, it stopped.
So did the air.
And in the next breath, he stepped forward.
Too close.
Closer than he ever had before.
Before Priscilla could shift back, his hand moved—slowly, deliberately—and settled on her shoulder.
Elegant.
Controlled.
Cruel.
The platinum-threaded glove looked delicate against the dark fabric of her coat.
But then—
He clenched.
Pain lanced beneath her collarbone like iron driven into flesh.
She didn't cry out.
Didn't even flinch.
But her teeth pressed together—hard.
She felt the sharp heat of it spread through the joint, the pressure radiating like fire held still. Her breath caught, but she forced it down, forced her spine not to move, forced herself to remain.
Lucien's smile never wavered.
And his voice?
It dropped to a whisper—silken, venomous.
"You wear that coat like you matter," he murmured, fingers digging in deeper. "You walk these halls like you've earned a name. But you forget what you are, sister."
His hand tightened further.
And then came the word.
"Your mother," he breathed, right against her cheek, "was a whore dressed in candlelight. A girl who spread her legs for the Emperor and thought that made her royalty."
The pain burst like glass behind her ribs—but it wasn't just from his grip.
It was the violation of it.
The raw, deliberate way he said it. Not for truth.
For dominance.
"You," he whispered, "are a stain we're forced to polish. A footnote pretending to be a headline."
His breath was warm, too warm, but his eyes were cold steel. Unforgiving. Detached.
"This world was never built for people like you. It endures in spite of you."
He finally released her shoulder—fingers sliding off with the smoothness of silk drawn across bone.
The pain didn't vanish. It throbbed—deep and bruising.
He stepped back, brushing the air as if wiping something unpleasant from his glove.
Then, louder—smooth and public again, in case anyone happened to be listening beyond the hall.
"Enjoy the festival, dear sister," he said. "I do hope you find something entertaining in all that rabble."
And with that—
He turned.
And walked away.
Leaving the corridor colder than it had been, and the fire behind Priscilla's eyes bright enough to melt stone.