The clock struck nine.
Sharp chis echoed across the stone hallways of the Observatory’s private wing—once a ditation hall, now repurposed for high-ranking etings. Early autumn air drifted in through the open archways, crisp and dry, brushing past tall marble pillars that lined the walk to the council annex.
Arcten arrived precisely on ti.
Not early. Not late.
He walked with the sa lazy grace he always had—shoulders loose, coat draped open, scabbard hanging low at his hip. His hair was half-tied, his boots slightly dusted from the training yard.
Marcus was already there.
Standing at the far end of the room near the open window, arms clasped behind his back, posture immaculate. His uniform was pristine. Not a wrinkle. Not a speck. His mana signature, even without flaring, clung to him like cold pressure in the air—precise and self-important.
Neither man bowed.
"Marcus," Arcten said, voice flat.
"Arcten," Marcus returned, colder.
The silence afterward lingered.
Marcus didn’t turn at first. He kept his gaze on the horizon beyond the stone railing—where the lower students filtered through the training yards below. The dos were already being reset for the next evaluations.
"I assu," Marcus began, voice calm and venom-laced, "you’ve already dealt with him."
Arcten didn’t answer.
The silence returned—not the tense kind, not even loaded—but bored. Like a man ignoring a buzzing insect on his shoulder because swatting it would require effort.
Marcus’s jaw ticked.
"Alo?" His voice sharpened. "Answer ."
Still nothing.
Arcten didn’t move. He just rolled his shoulder once, slow, deliberate. His eyes finally slid toward Marcus—not with reverence, not with guilt.
Just a glare.
Dry. Level. Quietly annoyed.
Marcus turned to face him fully now, the ambient mana in the room pulsing once, faintly. His voice dropped an octave.
"Is the job done?"
Arcten held the stare for a second longer. Then, without fanfare, he said:
"No."
A beat of silence.
Marcus blinked once. "...What?"
Arcten shrugged, as if the conversation bored him more than the outco.
"I didn’t do it."
"You—" Marcus took a sharp step forward. "You an you failed?"
"No," Arcten replied, tone as dry as sand. "I an I didn’t do it. There’s a difference."
Marcus’s expression cracked for just a mont, disbelief flickering behind tightly controlled disdain.
"You were ordered to crush his evaluation. Make an example."
Arcten snorted. "I was asked to evaluate him. Don’t rewrite the script."
"That’s not what was ant, and you know it."
Arcten stepped closer now, just enough to crowd the space, just enough to speak without raising his voice.
"I didn’t sign on to beco a noble’s errand dog. You want soone broken? Find soone who still believes in your ga."
Marcus stared at him, sothing dark flashing behind his eyes. "This isn’t about belief. It’s about order. You had one task—put him in his place before the wrong people start imagining he has one."
Arcten’s expression didn’t shift.
"I did," he said. "Turns out, his place might be above yours."
Marcus’s hand twitched—only slightly. A ripple of arcane pressure flickered in the room, curling into the stone like a held-back storm.
But Arcten didn’t flinch.
He just turned away again, letting the smoke of his presence linger like an insult left to burn itself out.
"I held back," Arcten muttered.
Then paused.
"...At first."
Marcus’s brow lifted—sharp, disbelieving.
"And?"
Arcten tilted his head just slightly, like he was weighing the weight of honesty on his tongue.
"Then I stopped," he said. "Because it didn’t matter."
He turned again, eting Marcus’s eyes with that sa unreadable flatness.
"The kid is just good. That’s it."
Marcus’s lips parted, a word half-forming before logic cut in.
"You’re telling ," he said, voice tightening, "that you, a forr war-class instructor, lost to a first-year student?"
There was silence.
And then—
"Heh..."
It slipped out like a breath, but the shape of it curved at the corner of Arcten’s mouth. A motion foreign to his face. Forgotten, even. A smirk—not wide, not theatrical, but honest in a way that made it worse.
Marcus’s eyes narrowed. "What’s funny?"
Arcten exhaled through his nose, half-turning.
"Nothing."
"Is this funny to you?"
"It is."
"You just said nothing was funny."
Arcten’s smirk grew a fraction, just enough to be felt.
"I lied."
The words landed without apology.
Marcus’s eyes sparked—literally, a flicker of mana briefly crackling at his fingertip before he pulled it back under control.
"You think this is a ga? You’ve embarrassed the entire faction—"
"No," Arcten cut in, voice like a blade, quiet but absolute. "You embarrassed the faction. By thinking you could puppet the outco. By assuming your fear was truth and his restraint was weakness."
Marcus’s expression twisted—between insult and calculation, trying to shape this into sothing usable, sothing controllable.
But Arcten didn’t wait for him to find footing.
"I got in the ring with him. I crossed steel. I felt the intent."
He took a step forward—closer now than he’d been all morning, close enough to strip the formalities from their pretense.
"And if you’re asking whether I, Arcten Valebran, lost to a freshman...?"
His eyes sharpened.
"...Then I’ll tell you, mage. I lost to sothing far more dangerous than that."
Marcus didn’t speak. The words had knocked the silence askew—turned it from tension into sothing closer to unease. Arcten could feel it.
He let the mont stretch, then added, almost as an afterthought:
"You’ll see for yourself soon enough."
Marcus’s brow furrowed. "What?"
Arcten turned, already walking away.
"They record the evaluations, don’t they?" he called over his shoulder. "When the footage is released, you’ll see exactly what I an."
His footsteps echoed as he neared the door. The heavy wood creaked faintly beneath his hand—but he paused.
Just before he stepped out.
His voice ca again, low and steady, not bitter... but final.
"If you want to deal with that kid," he said, "you’ll need more than dull swords."
He looked back once—just a glance, enough to ensure the words hit.
"It wasn’t enough to stop him."
Then he left.
No door slam. No dramatic exit.
Just silence, and the faint scent of old steel and dust where he’d stood.
Marcus remained motionless.
His hands, still clasped behind his back, had tightened—fingers curled slightly into the fabric of his gloves. No outward tremble. No shift in posture. But the stillness had changed.
The room was quiet now. Too quiet.
How do I explain this to the Crown Prince...?
That thought lingered like a whisper in a cathedral.
Lucien would not take it lightly. Failure was one thing—but unpredictability? Uncontrolled narrative? That was the kind of crack Lucien hated most.
Marcus’s jaw tensed.
He could already imagine the prince’s voice—quiet, smooth, curious in that way that always ant danger was waiting at the end of the sentence.
"Tell , Marcus... why is one of our own instructors praising the very boy we sought to humble?"
The gears turned.
A dozen versions of the report began forming in his mind. Half-truths, redirected bla, strategic omissions. He’d need to control the phrasing, manage the perception. Downplay Arcten’s words. Dull swords, he had said. The arrogance.
The door creaked open behind him.
He didn’t turn.
"Marcus," ca the smooth, lodic voice from the entrance, "you’re already here. Wonderful. I was just coming to find you."
The clack of her heels followed—slow, graceful steps.
Marisse entered the chamber with the glow of soone whose morning had gone exactly as planned.
"I oversaw the oral evaluations in the second hall. Remarkably sharp candidates this year. Better than last. More poise. Less of that... farm-boy aggression we’ve had to sand down in years past."
She stopped mid-stride.
"...Marcus?"
Her eyes narrowed, smile dimming by degrees.
He hadn’t moved.
She tilted her head slightly, her golden hair catching the morning light as she examined his expression.
"What’s wrong?"
He didn’t answer imdiately. The silence stretched just long enough to suggest complication.
Her heels clicked once more on the stone as she stepped closer.
"I know that look," she said lightly, but there was steel sliding into the velvet now. "That’s the ’how do I tell the Crown Prince sothing he won’t like’ face."
Marcus exhaled once. Through his nose.
Then he spoke.
"Arcten failed."
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