The moment the projection vanished for good and the last echo of Selenne's footsteps dissolved into silence, the hall felt like it exhaled all at once.

A beat passed.

Then the stir began.

Chairs scraping. Boots shifting. Voices rising in low, overlapping chatter.

"Is that it?"

"Thought it'd be longer, honestly."

"Gods, that was a sermon, not a briefing."

Elara didn't move yet. She remained seated, gaze lingering where the tiers of light had hovered moments ago. Even with the hall brightening under mundane chandeliers again, she could still feel the afterimage of it—etched behind her eyes like a warning.

'Paragon… and what it costs to stand there.'

Beside her, Aurelian gave a long, theatrical sigh and stretched, his arms thrown carelessly over the back of his chair. "Well. That was invigorating," he said, in the dryest tone possible. "Nothing gets my blood flowing like a good fiscal breakdown of the mage economy."

Selphine didn't rise either, but she did arch a brow toward him. "You managed to stay awake, then?"

"Barely. But I did drool through a full five-minute segment on ledger protocols. You think I still get credit for that?"

Across the hall, students filtered toward the exits in loose, drifting groups. Some murmured among themselves, heads bent low in genuine discussion. But most?

Scoffs. Shrugs. Laughter that edged more toward dismissal than nerves.

"Whole thing was dramatic for no reason," one boy said to his friends, adjusting the cuff of his immaculate uniform with a flourish. "As if we're not going to coast through half of it on lineage alone."

A girl beside him twirled a lock of hair around her finger and smirked. "Please. They just want us panicking early so the standards look more impressive. It's all show."

Another nearby voice chimed in, this one a bit rougher, older—likely a second-year repeating orientation for appearances. "The written tests are a joke. Just recite three noble bloodlines and write a paragraph about how mana flows clockwise in the northern hemisphere. Done."

Some laughed at that. Not cruelly. Just habitually. Like veterans in a war they never quite had to fight.

Elara caught snatches of conversation from the students moving around her:

"Honestly, I'm just here to get the Academy seal on my file."

"Same. Couple years, clean record, then straight into a contract with some mid-tier House. Maybe a decent dowry if I'm lucky."

"They made it sound like a battlefield." A dismissive snort. "It's a school."

It had sounded dramatic.

Even Elara, still seated as the clamor of students grew behind her, couldn't quite pretend otherwise.

'You will be measured.' 'You will fall.' 'Credits are the currency of progress.'

Her brow lifted slightly as she exhaled through her nose, the corner of her mouth twitching before she caught herself.

'It's an orientation, not a war council.'

She wasn't discounting the content—Selenne had delivered precision. Expectations had been laid out like architecture, carved into light and air.

But the delivery…

It had an edge. Not just the clinical severity of a scholar, but the theatrical rhythm of someone who liked the sound of finality. Someone who enjoyed watching silence settle like frost over a crowd. Maybe too much.

'She's either trying to keep up her legend… or just has a flare for pageantry.'

"Elowyn." Marian slid into the seat beside her with the ease of someone who always sat without asking. "So. That was something."

"Dramatic," Selphine added from the other side, flicking an invisible speck from her sleeve. "In that delightful way people who know they're brilliant often are."

"You mean over-the-top?" Marian tilted her head, smirking.

Selphine gave a slow blink. "I said what I said."

Elara finally stood, brushing a lock of dark hair behind her ear—the illusion still holding, still seamless.

"She might be theatrical," she said evenly, "but at least it wasn't boring."

"Oh no," Marian agreed. "Boring it wasn't. A bit like being lectured by a divine oracle with a flair for bureaucracy."

"Or a stage actress trapped in a theoretical physicist's body," Selphine mused, a rare grin tugging at her lip. "I half expected her to end with 'Thus spoke the stars.'"

"I'd pay to hear her say that unironically," Aurelian said, catching up behind them with an exaggerated yawn. "Honestly, I was mostly waiting for the lightning to hit when she said Paragon. Felt like it needed thunder."

They laughed—soft, not mocking, just threaded with the strange warmth of shared bemusement. The kind that only emerged when tension began to unwind.

"She was kind of funny," Marian said. "In that dry, terrifying, immortal-sorceress kind of way."

"Better than some droning administrator," Elara said lightly, and meant it. She could feel the machinery behind Selenne's words—there was no accident in what had been emphasized, what had been left to linger.

Even if the delivery was heavy-handed, the intent was crystalline: No one would be able to say they hadn't been warned.

As they stepped out of the hall into the open corridor, the afternoon light stretched low and gold across the stone floors. The wind was picking up, tugging at cloaks and sleeves, and the smell of parchment, mana, and distant cooking fires hung in the air—Academy-scented.

Selphine adjusted her pace to match Cedric's, her eyes glinting with their usual observational sharpness.

"Well, Reilan?" she asked, feigning casual. "You've been suspiciously quiet. What do you think of our theatrical Magister?"

Cedric, walking with his usual measured gait, didn't miss a beat.

"Her words…..She appears to speak with something in mind."

"Her words…" Cedric said, quiet but deliberate, "She appears to speak with something in mind."

That earned a pause.

Marian blinked, glancing over her shoulder at him. "You mean aside from terrifying the incoming class into perfect attendance?"

Selphine frowned lightly. "You think there's more to it than just theatrics?"

Aurelian rolled his eyes, hands tucked into his pockets as they passed a stretch of arched windows that spilled golden light across the floor. "Come on. That is her character, isn't it? The whole 'mysterious Archmage with starfire in her veins and a personal vendetta against mediocrity' thing? You saw how she moved. She enjoys it."

"She does," Elara said quietly, tone unreadable. "But even for someone who enjoys the stage... it felt pointed."

Selphine considered that for a breath, then gave a light shrug. "Well, maybe she's just trying to thin the herd early. Some of the commoners will drop by end of week anyway. Might as well raise the stakes while they're still listening."

"Exactly," Marian added, stepping over a decorative inlay without looking down. "If you make it sound like bloodsport, the ones who came here for free meals and name recognition might at least sharpen their pencils."

Cedric didn't respond right away. He walked a few paces more, gaze steady on the path ahead.

Then: "She didn't speak like someone delivering a standard warning. She spoke like someone anticipating failure."

Selphine arched a brow. "Not failure. Collapse?"

"Possibly." Cedric's jaw tightened faintly. "Or worse."

Aurelian let out a low whistle. "Stars above, Reilan. You're really leaning into the doomsday interpretation today."

"Not doomsday," Cedric said, calm. "Just… prepared."

A brief, contemplative silence fell among them.

Then Marian shook her head, lightness returning to her voice like a sheet pulled back over something darker. "Well. If she is expecting something to go wrong, I hope she's not talking about the food. I've already accepted that I'm going to live off those sirloin meat pies for the next month."

That earned a full stop from Aurelian, who turned to stare at her like she'd sprouted antlers.

"…Wait. Are you serious?"

Selphine blinked once, then slowly turned toward Marian, expression caught between curiosity and mild alarm. "You do realize the kitchens here are ranked among the best in the Empire, yes? Their chef worked under Lady "Belrieve" herself before she got conscripted to this place."

"Not just her," Aurelian added, voice rising with genuine offense now. "Three of the sous-chefs have imperial-level certifications. One of them is a certified taste-arcanist. The kitchen's imbued for clarity enhancement. Clarity, Marian. The flavors are supposed to hit brighter."

Marian shrugged, entirely unmoved. "Still don't trust it."

Selphine narrowed her eyes. "The sirloin pies are considered the lowest-tier dish they serve. You know that, right?"

"Exactly. Which means no one fights me for them."

There was a beat. Aurelian just stared at her.

"…That's not a virtue, Marian. That's a culinary red flag."

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