"If golden mana acts as a stabilizer," a man asked, voice smooth, "is it replicable outside Valen lineage?"
Amberine's skin prickled.
Elara's face didn't change. "The ring is replicable as a function," she answered. "The origin attribute is not required to understand the model. But the material used to generate the layer affects efficiency. We are investigating alternatives."
The man's gaze lingered.
Count Ken von Valen's hands were too clean.
Amberine's protective anger flared.
Ifrit perked up, pleased by anger.
Amberine swallowed. Her throat felt too small.
She forced her fingers to unclench from the parchnt. The edges had left faint red dents in her skin.
Draven wasn't on the stage.
That was the part that made her stomach twist.
His voice ca from the VIP cluster—the constellation of seats where the world's weight sat arranged like a ley-map of power: emperors with jewel-heavy crowns, queens wrapped in mantles that looked like living wards, kings whose rings carried more contracts than gemstones, archmages who radiated field pressure even while sitting, war heroes with scar-maps on their hands and eyes that never stopped counting.
And there—among them—Draven.
Not elevated like a noble.
Placed like a blade kept within reach.
Amberine's eyes flicked to him almost involuntarily, like a student glancing at the front of a classroom when the teacher drops a piece of chalk.
He was seated among people who were supposed to be untouchable.
And then he stood.
That was absurd.
The keynote luminary rising from the sa tier as emperors, as if the tier belonged to him too. As if hierarchy was sothing he could ignore because his mind already outranked it.
Amberine caught a micro-flash of movent from Regaria's cluster.
Queen Aurelia Thalassia Arctaris Regaria leaned back in her seat like she was bored of breathing. Her fiery red hair spilled over one shoulder, bright as a contained fla in an ocean-blue hall. She didn't clap. She didn't whisper.
She watched.
Not like a sovereign assessing a scholar.
Like a proud mother watching a son step into a room that might crown him or try to cut him.
Her lips moved without sound.
Bastard.
The word should have been insulting.
It sohow wasn't.
Amberine nearly choked on the realization and had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep her face from doing anything stupid.
Elara's posture tightened beside her, a hairline shift only Amberine would notice. Not fear. Preparation. Her fingers were still around her notes, but the tendons in her wrist stood out again.
Maris didn't touch Amberine this ti. Too many eyes. Instead, she angled her body closer, a subtle shield, and gave Amberine one steady look that said: breathe. stay here. don't combust.
Professor Astrid's thumb tapped her badge once. Twice. She stopped herself and clasped her hands like a woman trying to make her own nerves obey.
Draven stepped out from the VIP cluster and began to walk.
He didn't approach like a guest coming to congratulate students.
He approached like a professor walking down a classroom aisle to check your work.
Minimal steps. No wasted motion.
His coat moved with him in a straight line, dark fabric cutting through the prismatic ocean-light like ink through water. His gaze was surgical—Amberine could feel it even from here, the way it carved across the orb, the illusion overlay, the anchor points, their posture, their breathing. He saw everything.
And sohow he looked exactly like he did in class.
Which was terrifying.
Power reacted around him like iron filings around a magnet.
Prince Caelum Aurelian Drakonis Regaria didn't move, but his eyes tracked Draven's path the way a war-room mind tracks a blade. Exits. Threats. Leverage. If Draven wanted the room, Caelum was already calculating what it would cost to let him have it.
Duchess Malesya Nortuis von Blackthorn's smile didn't change. It simply sharpened. The expression of soone deciding whether to buy a thing or break it so no one else can.
Sophie von Icevern sat upright, hands folded. Her expression was tense in a way Amberine recognized: justice trying to decide if this is fair. Her eyes flicked once to Amberine, then back to Draven, hopeful and anxious at the sa ti.
Annalise leaned toward her sister like a shadow that loved too hard. Her bright eyes didn't watch Draven first.
They watched Sophie watching Draven.
It made Amberine's instincts itch.
The air tightened.
Aetherion's defense field did a subtle synchronization pulse as Draven crossed the floor—so faint most people wouldn't notice, but Amberine felt it along her teeth, a shimring ripple through the amphitheater. Conduit lines under the crystal platforms brightened, then steadied. Disguised constructs embedded in pillars adjusted their posture by a fraction.
System-priority actor.
The fortress was treating Draven like a key.
Ifrit hated it.
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