The dust from the ruined platform was still floating in the air, catching the dim light of the room like tiny glass shards. No one moved. No one even seemed to breathe.
From the rows, the students looked down at the wreckage in shock. For the past half hour, they had sat through Professor Vance's lesson, treating his words about Mana and Aether like distant history, just book talk meant for old scrolls.
Then Instructor Morgana had invited three volunteers to step forward, Leo von Celestial, Arthur Vale, and Riven Ashford, and those three freshmen had actually done the impossible. They broke the rules of reality.
Up in the Class Audax section, Princess Cordelia bit her lip, her strawberry-blonde hair falling forward as she stared down at the shattered stage. Her emerald eyes tracked the three figures, Arthur, Riven, and Leo, still standing in the dust.
She had watched it all.
And she knew, now more than ever, how far she still had to go.
