The room was too small for how many of them were cramd into it.
Stone walls. Dim light. One long table.
No professors. No staff. No adults.
Just them.
The first-years.
Luneth stood with her back to the wall, arms crossed, one foot pressed lightly against the baseboard like it could help her think faster.
She didn't speak.
Not yet.
Cassian sat in the corner, leg outstretched, wrapped in three layers of crystal-treated bandages. His shirt was torn, the color gone from his lips.
"…I should've done more," he said.
"No one could've," Nikolai mumbled, hunched on a stool like he was trying to disappear into the wood. "He told us to run."
"And we did," Rowan muttered. "Like cowards."
Valen said nothing. He hadn't since they got back.
Elara was pacing in slow, sharp circles.
Jack leaned against the table, one arm across his chest, jaw tight.
Vivienne was seated in the far corner, eyes shadowed. She hadn't spoken since they entered.
Luneth finally exhaled. "He's gone."
The words dropped like iron in water.
"He was taken," she continued. "We all saw it. And whatever those things were—they weren't trying to kill us. Only him."
"Which ans this wasn't an attack," Rowan muttered. "It was a capture."
Cassian rubbed a shaky hand through his hair. "He fought. Gods, he fought. I saw him burn one of them straight through the chest."
"They didn't even flinch," Nikolai whispered.
Silence.
Elara stopped pacing. "Where the hell was Thalorin?"
That got a reaction.
Jack straightened, finally. "That's what I want to know."
"There's no way he didn't sense that level of mana rupture," Valen said quietly. "Even if he were asleep. Even if he were drunk."
"He's not," Vivienne said.
They turned.
Her voice was hoarse. Rough around the edges.
"He doesn't sleep much. And he doesn't drink. He's been preparing for sothing all year." She paused. Swallowed. "If he's missing…"
"…Then we're on our own," Luneth finished.
The room went still again.
First-years.
That's all they were.
Kids in tailored uniforms.
However Lindarion?
Lindarion had been the constant.
The weird constant, sure. The arrogant, too-smart, too-poised-for-his-age constant who walked like he had already seen the ending and just hadn't told anyone yet.
Now he was gone.
"Do we… wait for the professors?" Cassian asked.
Jack scoffed. "For what? A briefing on how to write his obituary?"
"Enough," Luneth said.
The cold in her voice was worse than her affinity.
"No one's dying yet."
She looked at each of them in turn.
Valen, unreadable.
Elara, furious.
Rowan, restless.
Cassian, ashad.
Nikolai, terrified.
Vivienne, still burning from sothing no one could touch.
Jack… unreadable.
And herself.
Frozen.
She hated not knowing.
Hated not understanding the variables.
But they were here. And Lindarion wasn't.
So she did what she always did.
Focused on what she could control.
"First," she said, "we figure out if he's still alive."
That was the only thing they could hope for now.
A hypothesis.
A maybe.
And Luneth would prove it one way or another.
—
There was no plan.
That was the problem.
No professors. No headmaster. No orders. Just the slow rot of silence filling the academy like mold behind walls.
Luneth hated rot.
"Let's start from the beginning," she said. "Again."
Cassian groaned from his corner. "We've already gone over it four tis—"
"Then five won't kill you," she snapped.
He didn't argue after that.
Across from her, Jack leaned back in his chair. One foot propped up, arms folded. Pretending he was relaxed. He wasn't.
Vivienne just stared at the table.
"Elara. Tiline," Luneth said.
Elara exhaled through her nose, cracking her knuckles like the facts offended her.
"Four minutes after the first tremor, the invaders ca through the rupture. Eight of them. No visible mouths, no insignias, no vocal commands. They just moved around like dolls."
"Targeting Lindarion," Rowan added. "Like hounds on a leash."
"They ignored everyone else unless directly provoked," Elara continued. "One student cast a barrier. It was bypassed. Another attacked. Erased. Not killed. Just—gone."
"Which ans spatial displacent," Luneth muttered. "Or total annihilation. Neither is good."
Jack's voice cut in, drier than sand. "You're welco for the comntary, by the way."
Luneth ignored him.
"Nikolai," she said.
He startled slightly. "Y-yes?"
"Energy signature?"
He hesitated. "I… I didn't feel a specific affinity. Not really. It was—loud. Like a hundred sources clashing. And unstable. I tried to isolate the frequency but it slipped. Like it didn't want to be recorded."
Cassian blinked. "The mana didn't want to be recorded?"
"Don't look at like that," Nikolai mumbled. "You didn't see it."
Silence stretched again.
Luneth tapped the table twice.
"So what do we know?"
"They ca for him," Vivienne said quietly. "Not to kill. To take."
"And we let them," Jack added. "You missed that part."
"I didn't miss anything," Luneth said flatly.
The fire in her voice wasn't heat. It was pressure. Controlled. Focused.
"None of us were strong enough. That's not an insult. It's math."
"We saw him activate his domain," Valen said finally, speaking up for the first ti in minutes. "It covered the courtyard. It warped the pressure. He wasn't stalling. He was trying to end it."
"And it still wasn't enough," Elara finished.
That landed heavier than anything else.
A mont passed.
Two.
Then Luneth stood.
"I'm going to the Arcane Records wing."
Jack raised a brow. "You want to browse historical library stacks while our classmate's probably being—"
"Yes," she cut in. "Because soone built that teleportation thod. Soone crafted armor that ignores ambient mana interference. Soone tested these things."
"And?"
"And records leave residue."
She pulled her gloves tighter. Mana pulsed faintly beneath her skin—cold, steady.
"If I can isolate the spatial fluctuation signature," she said, "I can trace the fragnt paths. There may still be residue left in the stone."
Nikolai blinked. "You an you want to track them by mana echo?"
"Exactly."
"That's… insane. You'd have to overlay a reverse-thread through a distorted fracture line. If you ss it up—"
"I won't."
It wasn't arrogance. Just fact.
She looked at the others.
"I'm not saying we can bring him back. Not today. Maybe not ever."
Cassian shifted.
"But we can find out who took him. And where. And why."
Jack tilted his head. "And what if we find out more than we want to know?"
Luneth turned to the door.
"Then we adjust the equation."
And with that, she walked out.
No fire trailing behind her.
No rousing speech.
Just footsteps.
And intent.
—
Ti didn't pass in this place.
It peeled.
Like skin.
Lindarion didn't know how long he'd been left hanging—arms suspended by a thread of mana too precise to be physical, too cruel to be magical. It burned without leaving marks. It compressed nerves without rupturing them.
Whoever had made it wanted him conscious.
His right shoulder was dislocated.
Left knee twisted inward at the wrong angle.
One rib—maybe two—were cracked. Breathing hurt. Moving hurt. Thinking hurt.
The only thing that didn't hurt was giving up.
Which ant he hadn't done that yet.
The door didn't creak when it opened.
It never did.
Just a gentle sigh of air, followed by the soft echo of polished shoes. That sll—leather oil and herbs—always ca first.
Then the voice.
"Good evening, Sir Lindarion."
The man never raised his tone.
He didn't shout.
Didn't threaten.
He just acted like this was all a conversation over wine.
As if tying a child to a floating rack of force-threads was a matter of refined taste.
"I've brought sothing new for you today," the man said, setting sothing on the table.
Click. tal on wood.
Not a whip. Not chains.
Sothing finer.
"Have you ever seen a mana conduit filant, Lindarion?"
'How much ti has passed…'
He didn't answer.
He couldn't. His throat was raw from the last hour.
"Fascinating things," the man continued, lifting a thin silver coil no thicker than a hair.
"Normally used in advanced mana relay cores. But when applied correctly…"
He moved forward.
Lindarion tried to brace for it.
That was a mistake.
The filant slid under his fingernail.
He didn't scream.
'It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.'
His back just arched with a sharp convulsion, and he nearly blacked out.
"Ah, yes. I thought we'd finally hit the pain threshold."
The man pulled sothing else from the tray—a tool like surgical pliers, but shaped to turn the thin wires once inserted.
The second filant went into the next nail.
And then the next.
He reached the fourth before Lindarion's body started convulsing too much to hold.
The entire cell had been wrapped in so kind of a field—no suppression, just perfect stabilization.
Enough to keep Lindarion's core awake, but not functional.
It was surgical.
Cruel in its efficiency.
"You're a fascinating puzzle, young prince," the man said, wiping his gloves clean. "You endure too much, too early. I wonder who you learned that from."
'Soone save …'
Lindarion's head dropped.
His lips were trembling.
Not from weakness.
From restraint.
He wasn't crying.
Not yet.
He was trying not to say anything.
Not to speak.
Not to scream.
Not to beg the man.
That was the last thing they hadn't taken.
"You think this is cruelty, Lindarion," the man said.
"But it's just… adjustnt."
He turned to the tray again.
This ti, a small blade.
Sleek.
Thin.
Coated in a viscous blue liquid that shimred like condensed mana poison.
"Let's see how you hold up under organ targeting."
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