Toven returned to the table with a sharp exhale, his footsteps heavier than before. He dropped back into his chair, fork scraping against the edge of his plate as he sat.
Mireilla gave him a sidelong glance, her voice softer than usual. "Don’t take it to heart."
"I didn’t," Toven muttered, stabbing a piece of roasted fowl and shoving it into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, then added with a grumble, "But it’s annoying."
Mireilla smirked faintly into her mug. "Can’t refute that."
Caeden set his cup down with quiet precision. "Lucavion warned us it would be like this. And he’s making sense. Kaleran said much the sa back when he was overseeing us."
Toven’s brows furrowed, but he didn’t argue. He rembered it well—Vice-head Kaleran’s asured tone, his warning as sharp as any blade.
The ice, the wall between noble and commoner—it might look solid, but it was brittle. One clash of mana, one word too sharp, and it would fracture. And when it did, the cracks could run deep.
Silence stretched for a beat as they all turned back to their als. The tension eased slightly, the rhythm of knife and fork filling the gap.
Then, Elayne set her utensils down neatly, her gaze calm but firm. She rose from her chair with the sa quiet grace that defined her. "I will take the paper."
Elayne paused.
Not out of hesitation, exactly—but sothing unreadable flickered in her stillness. Her gaze hovered on the parchnt clutched in the noble girl’s hand, then drifted toward the hallway beyond. She didn’t speak. Her expression didn’t shift. But sothing behind her eyes moved—quiet thought, maybe. Or calculation.
Mireilla watched her for a mont, brow arching slightly. Then, casually, she spoke between sips of her drink. "Elayne—bring it here. We’ll look together."
Still, Elayne said nothing.
She stood by the edge of the table, one hand loosely brushing the edge of her chair as if deciding whether to sit again or keep moving. The ambient clatter of dishes and conversation buzzed around them, but in their corner of the dining hall, the stillness seed to hang heavier.
Elayne didn’t nod. Didn’t frown. She simply... lingered.
"Tch," Mireilla muttered under her breath. "You planning to morize the whole thing and report back?"
Elayne’s head tilted ever so slightly—not in offense, but in that ghosting way that made Mireilla wonder if she’d even heard the question or had already moved past it in her mind.
Then, after a beat too long to be casual, Mireilla asked again—quieter this ti, but firm.
"Elayne. Okay?"
A pause.
Then—soft, precise, barely more than breath:
"...Okay."
And just like that, she was gone.
Not with a flourish. Not with noise. Just—gone.
A shadow folded into deeper shadow. One mont standing, the next... a fading slip between student clusters, her silhouette swallowed by the edge of the dining hall’s golden light. Her footsteps made no sound, and none of the nobles even seed to notice her passing.
Caeden blinked once. "Every ti she moves like that, I swear I stop hearing things."
"She’s probably an assassin," Toven muttered, arms crossed, his scowl still lingering from earlier. "Or a specter. Or one of those mist ghosts that can peel your skin off without touching you."
Mireilla didn’t comnt.
She just stared at the place Elayne had vanished, a long mont passing before she returned to her stew.
"She better not take the long way."
Toven huffed. "With her, it is the long way. Just fast."
It wasn’t long.
In fact, by the ti Mireilla finished the next bite of her stew, Elayne was already returning—quiet as mist. She moved between tables like a thread through fabric, avoiding attention not by hiding, but by never inviting it. One mont she wasn’t there, the next, she was.
No words. Just the soft press of parchnt against wood as she set a sealed envelope in the center of the table.
Mireilla leaned in. "Did you—"
But Elayne was already sitting again, her posture composed, eyes fixed calmly ahead as if she’d never moved at all. No explanation. No bragging. Not even a nod.
Toven blinked. "Right. Assassin."
Mireilla rolled her eyes but broke the seal with a flick of her fingers. The wax hissed faintly as it parted, its rune fading into inert shimr. Inside the envelope: folded parchnt. Heavy, high-quality stock, rimd with faint gold trim. On its face, the crest of the Academy—etched in layered ink.
Caeden glanced at the insignia and let out a low breath. "It’s official."
Mireilla unfolded it slowly, flattening it out between their mugs and plates. The page unfurled into a neat grid, organized by date, wing, and exam category.
There it was.
Plain as daylight.
The wings were split.
Mireilla was already scanning downward. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "These aren’t just lists. They’re personalized. By na."
Sure enough, five schedules were tucked behind the first page—each bearing a na: Elayne Cors, Caeden Roark, Toven Vintrell, Mireilla Dane... and Lucavion.
He arrived at the table just as his na was spoken, smirking lazily. "You started without . That hurts."
Toven snorted. "We thought you were avoiding the part where we cry together."
Lucavion pulled out a chair, sitting backward on it, arms resting across the top rail. "Please. I cry on the inside. Quietly. With grace."
Elayne handed him his page without a word.
He scanned it once, then again, brows rising. "Different tis for everyone..."
They each took their schedules, eyes flicking across the rows.
The Schedule Details:
Each student had seven distinct exam categories, spread across the week:
Weaponship Evaluation
→ Combat instructors. Focus on form, precision, live pressure duels.
Mana Control Trial
→ Cultivation room trial. Internal circulation and external expression.
Magical Theory & Knowledge Interview
→ Oral exam. Structured like a professional assessnt—Magisters asking real-world application questions.
Affinity Test
→ Raw compatibility across elental or conceptual mana fields. Observed. Docunted.
Combat Awareness Trial
→ Situational test. Enclosed environnt. Randomized threats. No help.
Written Knowledge Exam
→ Multiple disciplines. History, formations, strategy, theory.
Etiquette & Conduct Evaluation
→ A formal sit-down. Presentation, speech, posture. Judged silently, scored rcilessly.
Mireilla lifted the top parchnt again, eyes narrowing as the structure of the schedule settled into focus.
"...They’re not just personalized," she murmured. "They’re staggered. But not all of them."
Toven leaned in, chewing on a piece of bread. "What do you an?"
She tapped the header at the top of the shared grid. "Written exams. They’re marked in bold. Sa ti across all wings."
Caeden nodded slowly. "Makes sense. If they split them up, they’d need entirely different questions per session."
"And if they didn’t..." Mireilla added, "—then answers would spread before the last students ever sat down. It could be chaos."
Elayne tilted her head slightly at the page, silent as ever, but the faint shift in her brow suggested she agreed.
Lucavion’s grin returned. "Imagine soone bribing a spirit to carry out the answer key."
"You’ve thought about this," Caeden said dryly.
"I imagine many things," Lucavion replied, folding his schedule with dramatic precision. "Most of them entertaining. So of them illegal."
Mireilla ignored him. Her eyes scanned down her column now, searching for the markings tagged DANE, MIREILLA in clean, serif script.
"Tuesday... written theory." She traced the line. "And again on Thursday. Double load."
Toven made a noise halfway between a groan and a cough. "Back-to-back essays or split subject pools?"
"Doesn’t say. Just ’Written Evaluation – Tier I’ and ’Written Evaluation – Tier II.’ Tier two might be specialization categories."
Lucavion whistled. "How delightfully vague."
Mireilla flipped to the second page of her personal packet—exam layout and sequence. The rest of her trials were spread without any clear order:
--------------------
MIREILLA DANE – EXAM SCHEDULE
Monday – 08:00
Combat Awareness Trial – Zone C
Tuesday – 14:30
Written Evaluation – Tier I – Grand Lecture Hall A
Wednesday – 12:00
Affinity Test – Crystal Hall
Thursday – 09:00
Written Evaluation – Tier II – Grand Lecture Hall A
Friday – 05:30
Weaponship Evaluation – West Arena
Friday – 16:00
Mana Control Trial – Cultivation Chamber 2A
Saturday – 10:00
Etiquette & Conduct Evaluation – Rotunda Salon
------------------
Mireilla’s eyes halted at the early hour marked for Friday.
05:30.
Her lips curled downward. A slow exhale followed, but then—low, under her breath, edged with scorn:
"...Sonnar’s cracked teeth."
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