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My name is Velgrin.
Archwizard Velgrin of the Spiral Order.
Three years ago, that name could set a battlefield ablaze before I even arrived. Now it gets me polite nods from teenagers who can barely cast a proper shield charm.
I suppose that's progress. Or retirement. Hard to tell the difference sometimes.
I woke at dawn out of habit, not necessity. My body clock still ran on military time despite three years of civilian life. The morning light filtered through my bedroom window, pale and cold. I dressed without thinking about it: crimson robes with black spiral embroidery, polished boots, silver staff leaning against the wall like an old friend who'd overstayed their welcome.
My shoulder ached when I reached for the staff. Old injury. Duel with a blade-dancer from the Southern Wastes. She'd been fast. I'd been faster, but not fast enough to avoid the scar she left behind.
I stepped outside into Elther's morning chaos.
The city never slept quietly. Carriages hummed past on low-grade mana stones, their drivers shouting at pedestrians who wandered into the street without looking. Spell-smiths hammered at glowing metal in open-air workshops, sparks flying in all directions. Students in cheap academy uniforms ran past me, clutching books and looking panicked about whatever exam they'd forgotten to study for.
I walked through it all without paying much attention. My destination was the same as always: Henderson Academy of Arcane Arts.
The academy sat on the eastern edge of the city, a sprawling complex of towers and courtyards designed to look impressive and succeeding. The main gates were wide enough to march an army through, flanked by statues of famous graduates. Archmages. Sword Saints. Battle Kings. And one particularly large statue of me conjuring fire into the shape of a dragon.
I'd argued against that statue. Lost the argument. Now I had to walk past it every morning while students took pictures.
"Good morning, Master Velgrin!"
A cluster of first-years bowed as I passed. I nodded back, didn't slow down.
"Morning, Professor!"
Another group. More bows. I kept walking.
The greetings followed me across the courtyard like echoes. Students, junior instructors, even the groundskeepers who maintained the academy's enchanted gardens. Everyone acknowledged me. Everyone showed respect.
It should have felt good.
It mostly felt automatic.
I reached the grand tower on the academy's east wing and stopped at its base. Twenty-seven floors of lecture halls, ritual chambers, and practice arenas stacked into one architectural monument to magical education. Stairs spiraled up the interior, but I hadn't used them in years.
I snapped my fingers.
A golden circle flared beneath my boots, intricate runes spinning into place. Levitation magic, basic enough that most third-years could manage it. I rose smoothly into the air, the ground dropping away as I ascended along the tower's exterior.
Glass panels reflected my passage. Carved stone blurred past. The city spread out below me, smaller with every second.
At the top floor, I stepped onto the landing and waved my hand. The oak door to my office unsealed itself with a quiet hiss and swung inward.
I walked inside and closed the door behind me.
The office was simple. A desk. Bookshelves. Two chairs for visitors who rarely visited. One tall window overlooking the courtyard. No decorations except for the seven skulls mounted on the far wall.
Six belonged to magical beasts I'd killed during the war. Drakes, mana wolves, a sand basilisk from the Silver Wastes. The seventh was human. The bone was clean, the edges scorched black from the spell that had killed him.
I didn't look at them often. They were just there. Reminders of a life I'd left behind.
"Good morning, Professor!"
I turned.
Josh Globen stood near the window, holding a scroll and looking pleased with himself. He was built like someone who'd been carved from stone and then given a personality as an afterthought. Broad shoulders, thick arms, blond hair that curled at the ends. His teaching robes were rolled up to his elbows and he had a smudge of soot on one cheek.
Josh was my teaching assistant.
I still wasn't entirely sure how that had happened.
"Josh," I said.
He held up the scroll. "I've been working on today's lecture materials. I redrew that combustion weave you gave me, but something's wrong. The stabilizer node keeps leaking mana."
"Show me."
He unrolled the diagram across my desk. The main glyph rings were neat, if slightly off-center. The fire runes were paired with containment brackets, but the positioning was all wrong.
I tapped the primary circuit. "You put the flame anchor too close to the mana sink. The array's trying to breathe and choke at the same time."
Josh squinted at the diagram. "But isn't the containment bracket supposed to suppress overflow?"
"In water magic, yes. Fire doesn't work that way. The more you try to suppress it, the harder it pushes back. You're not working with hydraulics. You're working with combustion."
Josh scratched his chin. "So fire magic has feelings."
I raised an eyebrow. "It has rules. Respect them or end up like First-Year Altren."
Josh winced. "I still can't look at gloves without flinching."
"Good. Fear keeps you alive."
I pulled a different scroll from my drawer and handed it to him. "Try this instead. Dual-aspect casting frame. Fire paired with a neutral mana lattice. No suppression, just redirection."
Josh unrolled it and his eyes went wide. "This is a Magi-tier scaffold. I thought you couldn't attempt this before the Seventh Circle."
"You can't execute it," I said. "But understanding the theory will teach you more than a hundred textbook drills."
He grinned. "You always teach above the syllabus."
"The syllabus was written by people who never had to cast under pressure. Magic theory is easy in a classroom. It's different when you're bleeding, your glyphs are cracked, and the air is full of nullification gas."
Josh's grin faded slightly. "I wouldn't survive that."
"You might. If you learn to improvise." I gestured at the scroll. "Spellcasting isn't memorization. It's adaptation. Know your runes, yes, but more importantly, know why they're shaped the way they are."
Josh pointed at the outer ring of the scaffold. "This spiral here. Why does it curve inward instead of anchoring outward like the standard design?"
I leaned forward slightly. "Because it creates a vacuum seal. When flame passes through, the spiral condenses the heat and pulls ambient mana toward the center. Turns the array into a siphon. Controlled feedback loop."
Josh let out a low whistle. "So it recycles the mana it burns."
"Exactly. Efficient, deadly, elegant. Most casters waste sixty percent of their power on bleed-off. This model uses everything. And it scales."
Josh stared at the diagram like it had just solved every problem he'd ever had. "Did you design this?"
"No," I said. "I killed the man who did."
Josh blinked. "Oh."
I allowed myself a faint smile. "Don't look so shocked. He was trying to burn down a fortress. I disagreed with his architectural philosophy."
Josh laughed nervously. "Right. Well, I'll get these lecture scrolls distributed."
I gestured toward the sealed packet on the side table. "Take those to the second-year hall. Tell them to study the fire rune lattice and prepare a short-form dual-glyph incantation for next week."
"Got it."
"And no conjuring snacks during the lecture."
Josh hesitated. "That was one time. And technically, the pudding explosion was the rune's fault."
"Vanilla pudding doesn't explode."
"It does if you inscribe a flare sigil into the spoon handle."
"Out."
Josh saluted, gathered the scrolls, and headed for the door. His boots thudded against the floor like he was marching to war.
I called after him. "Josh."
He turned. "Yeah?"
"Next time, bring me something new to question."
He smiled, wide and genuine. "You got it, Professor."
The door closed behind him.
I was alone again.
The office settled into silence. I walked to the window and placed one hand against the glass. Below, students practiced sword aura formations, bright trails of light following every blade. Others struggled to keep elemental orbs floating above their heads without losing control.
I should have felt proud.
But pride, like fire, fades when left unattended.
I turned back to the wall of skulls and stared at the seventh one. Human. Scorched clean. A worthy enemy, once. Dead by my hand.
That was a long time ago.
I'd been someone else then. Commander Velgrin of the Spiral Order. The man who brought fire to battlefields and left nothing but ash behind. Enemies feared me. Allies respected me. Subordinates obeyed without hesitation.
Now I taught theory to students who had never seen real combat.
Now I corrected diagrams and handed out reading assignments.
Now I lived quietly.
But sometimes, standing in this office with seven skulls watching me, I wondered if I'd made the right choice.
The fire inside me hadn't gone out. It just burned lower now. Controlled. Contained.
Safe.
I turned away from the window and sat down at my desk. There were papers to grade, lesson plans to review, administrative nonsense that somehow always found its way to me.
This was my life now.
And most days, I told myself it was enough.