Midnight in the Academy was supposed to be a time of rest, but for Elian, it was the only time the world made sense.
He slipped out of the Grey Cloak dormitories, avoiding the patrolling golems with practiced ease. He didn't use an invisibility spell—he didn't know the chant for one, anyway. He just calculated the golems' patrol patterns. They moved in perfect, predictable loops every 180 seconds.
Variable X: Golem rotation. Variable Y: Shadow density. Solution: Walk now.
He slipped through the courtyard and picked the lock of the Old Clocktower.
This place was forbidden, labeled "Structurally Unsound" by the faculty. To Elian, it was paradise. The tower was a skeleton of brass gears, massive springs, and ticking pendulums. It was a machine. It didn't require belief or poetry. It just worked.
Elian climbed the spiral stairs to the bell chamber, high above the sleeping campus. The wind whipped through the open arches, cold and biting.
He sat on a crate, opened his battered case, and took out his violin.
It was a cheap instrument, scratched and worn, but he kept it tuned to a mathematical perfection.
Elian closed his eyes and placed the bow on the strings.
Measure one. Tempo: Adagio.
He played.
To a normal listener, it was a melancholic melody in D Minor. But to Elian, it was geometry. The vibration of the G-string created a sine wave that rippled through the air. The transition to the A-string created an intersecting arc.
As he played, he let his guard down. He stopped suppressing his mana.
Unconsciously, the "Source Weaving" began.
Tiny motes of blue light began to dance around the bow. They weren't spells; they were raw possibilities. As the music swelled, the dust on the floor began to organize itself into perfect concentric circles. The wind blowing through the arches stopped being chaotic and started flowing in a rhythmic spiral, matching the tempo of the song.
For ten minutes, Elian wasn't a failed student. He was a conductor of reality.
He finished with a sharp pizzicato. The blue lights faded. The wind returned to chaos.
Elian let out a long breath, his shoulders slumping. He felt lighter. The shame of the classroom, the laughter of the students—it all evaporated in the presence of the music.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The sound was slow, deliberate, and terrifying.
Elian nearly dropped his bow. He spun around, clutching the violin to his chest like a shield.
Standing in the shadow of the great bell mechanism was a figure cloaked in white and gold—the colors of the Royal Class.
She stepped into the moonlight. Silver hair that seemed to glow, eyes the color of a frozen lake, and a posture so perfect it looked painful.
It was Seraphina von Aethelgard. The "Ice Queen." The top-ranked student in the Academy. The girl who had scored a perfect 100 on the Ignis Minor exam while Elian was getting a zero.
Elian's heart hammered against his ribs. Panic mode engaged.
"I... I wasn't casting illegal spells," Elian stammered, his voice cracking. "I was just practicing. Please don't report me to Hyst. I can't afford another demerit."
Seraphina tilted her head slightly. Her expression was unreadable—blank, cold, terrifyingly neutral.
"Report you?" Her voice was soft, melodic, but lacking any warmth. "Why would I report a virtuoso?"
Elian blinked. "A... what?"
"Your intonation," she said, taking a step closer. "It's perfect. Even in the allegro section, you didn't miss a single frequency. And the atmosphere..." She looked around at the dust, which was still settling in strange patterns. "The air seems to listen to you."
Elian's brain short-circuited.
Analysis:
Target: The most popular, talented girl in school.Action: She is complimenting the school loser in an abandoned tower at midnight.Conclusion: This is a trap.
"Is this a dare?" Elian asked, his voice hardening. "Did Kael put you up to this? Or maybe those guys from House Veridia? Tell them it worked, okay? I'm startled. Very funny."
Seraphina paused. A flicker of confusion crossed her porcelain face. "A dare? I do not engage in childish wagers."
"Then why are you here?" Elian demanded, stepping back. "You're a Royal. I'm a Grey Cloak. We don't exactly run in the same circles."
"I come here to think," she said simply. "The silence helps. But tonight... the music was better than silence."
She looked him in the eyes. For a second, Elian felt exposed, like she was scanning the source code of his soul.
"You are the boy from the Great Hall today," she stated. "The one who forgot the chant."
Elian winced. "Yeah. That's me. The goldfish memory."
"You aren't stupid," Seraphina said. It wasn't a question. "The way you play... it requires immense structural understanding. Why do you struggle with simple recitation?"
"Because it's boring," Elian blurted out before he could stop himself.
Seraphina's eyes widened slightly. "Boring?"
"It's just memorizing dead words," Elian muttered, packing his violin away quickly. He needed to leave. This conversation was dangerous. "It's like painting by numbers. There's no... logic to it. Anyway, I have to go."
He clicked the case shut and shouldered it. He tried to walk past her, keeping his head down.
"Wait."
Seraphina didn't move to block him, but her voice held a command that made his feet stop.
"Will you play tomorrow?"
Elian gripped the strap of his case. Don't engage. She's mocking you. She's going to tell everyone about the 'sad violin boy' in the tower.
"No," Elian lied. "I'm busy studying. I have to memorize the Canticle of Tides before I get expelled."
"A pity," Seraphina said. "It was the first time in a long time I felt... calm."
Elian didn't look back. He hurried down the spiral stairs, his pulse racing.
She's definitely messing with me, he told himself firmly as he reached the bottom. A Royal like that doesn't talk to a nobody unless they want something. Maybe she needs help with an assignment? No, she's a genius. She doesn't need help.
He shook his head, deleting the encounter from his mental RAM.
It was a fluke. A glitch in the social matrix. Ignore it.
Up in the tower, Seraphina remained standing in the cold wind. She looked at the floor where Elian had stood. She reached out a hand, tracing the air.
She could still feel the residue of his mana. It didn't feel like magic. It felt like... mathematics.
"Boring," she whispered to herself, testing the word on her tongue.
A rare, tiny smile touched the corners of the Ice Queen's lips.
End of Chapter 2