Chapter : 431
The grand gates of the Bathelham Royal Academy lood before him, a monunt of white stone and gleaming iron wrought into the shape of roaring lions. They were not just an entrance; they were a declaration. This was the heart of the kingdom’s power, the crucible where the future elite were forged, and the air itself seed to hum with a low, constant thrum of ambient magic, a palpable energy that was both invigorating and deeply, profoundly intimidating. For Lloyd Ferrum, it was also the sll of his most public and painful failure.
He stepped out of the simple carriage Master Elmsworth had procured, his boots landing on the hallowed cobblestones with a soft, final thud. He looked up at the soaring spires, at the ancient, ivy-covered walls that had stood for centuries, and a familiar, unwelco ghost settled onto his shoulders. It had been years since he’d last walked these grounds, yet the mory of his departure was as sharp and clear as if it were yesterday. The hushed whispers, the pitying glances, the crushing weight of his own inadequacy—it was all still here, woven into the very fabric of the place.
“Impressive, is it not, Professor?” Master Elmsworth chirped beside him, his voice filled with the unabashed pride of an alumnus and a long-serving faculty mber. The old tutor seed to have shed twenty years in his excitent, his usual dry deanor replaced by an almost boyish enthusiasm. He failed to notice the sudden, tight set of Lloyd’s jaw, or the distant, haunted look that had entered his student-turned-colleague’s eyes.
“It is… as I rember it,” Lloyd replied, his voice carefully neutral. The mories were a sudden, unwelco flood, a torrent of sensory details he had spent the better part of a lifeti trying to forget. The precise shade of green of the main quadrangle’s impossibly perfect lawn. The way the afternoon sun slanted through the high, arched windows of the grand library, illuminating dust motes that seed to dance with more grace and purpose than he had ever possessed. The cold, unyielding feel of the stone benches where he had often sat alone, a book open on his lap, pretending to study, when in reality he was just trying to be invisible, to escape the boisterous, confident laughter of his more successful peers.
His gaze drifted across the sprawling campus. He saw the west wing, where the magical theory lecture halls were located. He could almost sll the chalk dust and the faint, acrid tang of failed beginner spells, a scent forever associated in his mind with confusion and frustration. He saw the distant, imposing structure of the martial training grounds, the place he had actively dreaded, where his clumsy footwork and weak Void power had been a constant source of amusent for his classmates and weary sighs from his instructors.
And he saw the won’s dormitory tower, a graceful spire of white stone and elegant balconies. A sharp, unexpected pang of guilt, hot and piercing, shot through him. Jothi.
Gods, he thought, a wave of self-recrimination washing over him. Jothi. His sister. She was here, sowhere within these ancient walls, navigating this sa treacherous landscape of expectation and ambition. And he, in his whirlwind of soap empires, royal summons, and midnight assassin encounters, had not sent her a single ssage. He had arrived in the capital, the King’s city, and had not even thought to check on her, to see how she was faring, to offer the simple, brotherly support he had so spectacularly failed to provide in their first life.
He rembered her as she was now—fierce, proud, competent, her cool disdain a shield forged in the fires of his own past failures. He rembered the look in her eyes at the Summit, the mix of shock and grudging respect as he’d won his matches, the quiet, almost painful confusion as she tried to reconcile the brother she thought she knew with the strange, powerful man who had erged. He had ant to bridge that gap. He had wanted to. But the chaotic montum of his new life, the constant, pressing demands of survival and strategy, had pushed the thought aside.
You’re a terrible brother, Lloyd, his internal monologue supplied, the voice not of the cynical eighty-year-old, but of a younger, guiltier self. You lost her once to assassins. Are you going to lose her again to your own selfish preoccupation?
Chapter : 432
The thought was a spur, cutting through the haze of his own nostalgic lancholy. His purpose for being here, for enduring this walk through the graveyard of his past humiliations, sharpened into a single, clear objective. The eting with the Headmaster could wait. The strange, experintal class could wait. He needed to find his sister. He needed to talk to her, to see her, to make sure she was alright. He needed to start, however clumsily, however belatedly, to be the brother he should have been all along.
“Master Elmsworth,” Lloyd said, his voice firm, cutting through the tutor’s enthusiastic rambling about the architectural history of the main library. “Before we proceed to the Headmaster’s office, there is a personal matter I must attend to. I need to find my sister, Lady Jothi.”
Elmsworth blinked, surprised by the sudden, direct request. “Lady Jothi? Of course, Professor. A fine student. A credit to your house. She resides in the Crimson Maple dormitory, in the east wing. A most prestigious placent, reserved for senior students of exceptional standing.” The pride in his voice was evident; he was clearly one of the tutors who admired Jothi’s talent and dedication.
“If you would be so kind as to lead the way,” Lloyd said, his tone polite but leaving no room for argunt.
Master Elmsworth, though slightly flustered by this deviation from the official schedule, could hardly refuse. He nodded curtly. “Of course, Professor. This way.”
He led Lloyd away from the grand central spire, taking a quieter, shaded path that wound through a series of smaller, interconnected courtyards. Students they passed here were older, their uniforms adorned with the small, silver pins that denoted senior class standing. Their stares were more direct, more assessing. They recognized him, and the whispers that followed were less about his past failures and more about the baffling mystery of his return. They saw not just the disgraced heir, but the young man who had been personally appointed by the King, a paradox they could not resolve.
The Crimson Maple dormitory was a handso, elegant building of warm, reddish-brown stone, its entrance flanked by two ancient maple trees whose leaves, even in the height of sumr, held a faint, crimson tinge. It felt like a place of quiet, scholarly dignity, a world away from the rowdy, boisterous energy of the first-year barracks he rembered.
Master Elmsworth spoke briefly with the stern-faced proctor at the entrance, a formidable-looking woman who looked as if she could quell a student rebellion with a single, disapproving glare. The proctor’s eyes widened slightly when Elmsworth explained who Lloyd was and whom he wished to see. She looked at Lloyd, her gaze sharp, analytical, then nodded curtly and disappeared into the building’s quiet interior.
Lloyd waited, a strange, nervous energy fluttering in his gut. It was absurd. He had faced down assassins, negotiated with monarchs, built a comrcial enterprise from nothing. And yet, the simple prospect of speaking to his own sister, of trying to bridge the vast, silent chasm that had grown between them, made his palms sweat.
The proctor returned a few monts later, her expression unreadable. “Lady Jothi is not in her chambers, Professor Ferrum,” she stated, her voice formal, clipped.
Lloyd’s brow furrowed. “Not here? Is she in a class? The library, perhaps?”
The proctor shook her head. “No, Professor. Lady Jothi Ferrum is not at the Academy.” She paused, then delivered the statent that felt like a physical blow, a sudden, unexpected punch to the gut. “She took a formal leave of absence three days ago. She has left the capital to participate in the Azure Shield Tournant in the southern province of Aeridor.”
The Azure Shield Tournant. The words echoed in Lloyd’s mind, a dissonance, a wrongness. He knew the na. It was one of the most prestigious, and most notoriously brutal, martial tournants in the entire kingdom, second only to the Royal Championship itself. It attracted the best, the strongest, the most ambitious warriors from a dozen different duchies, all vying for glory, for honor, for the chance to prove their ttle on a grand, public stage. It was not a place for students. It was a place for hardened knights, for veteran rcenaries, for powerful, seasoned Spirit Users.
And Jothi… Jothi was there? Alone? A sixteen-year-old girl, throwing herself into a crucible of steel and blood against grown n and won, battle-hardened professionals? It made no sense. It was reckless. It was… desperate.
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