Chapter 22 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
AERIS
The day after, the recruits who’d been sent to guard the outer borders finally and classes officially started back that morning, and despite the exhaustion dragging at my spine, I forced myself into my seat in Elemental Theory.
Kaelia slid into the desk rows away from mine with her usual effortless grace, dark hair falling like silk down her back. She caught my eye just long enough to flash me that smirk…the “I’m still better than you” one she’d perfected since childhood.
I didn’t rise to it. Couldn’t.
Not when my thoughts were still tangled in last night…
In him.
My conversation with the Sovereign kept replaying in fragments. his calm tone, the rare softness in his eyes, the way he actually listened to me. The way he almost said something meaningful before his entire expression snapped into something sharp and distant.
And then—
He vanished.
Not walked away. Not dismissed himself. Just…gone, as if someone had yanked him out of existence mid-breath.
What could’ve happened?
Was it about the academy?
Was it something personal?
I didn’t know why my heart twisted at the idea, why I suddenly cared this much about his wellbeing. Maybe because the past few days had shown me glimpses of a man beneath the title.. someone intense, brilliant, irritatingly confident…yet oddly human.
And he was the only person who understood plants the way I did.
I was so lost in the haze of it that I barely registered the voice calling my name.
“Aeris Thalorian?”
Instructor Vale’s sharp tone cracked like lightning. I jerked upright.
“Yes! Yes, I—sorry.” My voice came out too fast, too breathless. My heart thudded hard enough to shake my ribs.
A wave of snickers rolled through the class.
Instructor Vale fixed me with a stare that could’ve peeled bark off a tree. “I asked a question, Miss Thalorian. Unless you’ve suddenly developed the rare gift of mind-reading, I expect an answer.”
Heat crawled up my neck. “Could you…repeat the question?”
More laughter except Rhea, whose worried raised eyebrow asked “What is going on?”
Instructor Vale exhaled through his nose, each second of air filled with judgment. “Very well. I said: If a spellcaster’s energy output surpasses their natural reserve, what is the immediate physical consequence?”
My mind lagged for half a heartbeat.
Then instinct and memory snapped to focus.
“Internal mana recoil,” I said, surprising even myself with how steady it sounded. “It forces the excess energy back into the caster’s conduits, causing temporary nerve disruption, mana block, or in severe cases complete magical burnout.”
The room went quiet.
Even Vale blinked.
His expression shifted from irritation to reluctant approval. “Correct. And concisely explained.”
Rhea shot me a thumbs-up. Someone behind muttered, “Okay, nerd,” under their breath.
But none of that settled me.
Instructor Vale had already resumed his lecture, his voice a steady drone about mana pathways, sustainability thresholds, and responsible output. Normally I would’ve hung on every word. Today, they blurred together like ink in water.
I tried to force my mind back to the present…
back to runes, back to theory, back to the one place I’d always felt steady.
“…and moving on,” Instructor Vale continued, snapping a scroll shut with a crisp thwack. “Considering recent evaluations, class structure will undergo a temporary shift.”
The tone in his voice changed…firm, deliberate.
The entire room perked up. Even Kaelia straightened from her elegant slouch.
Vale clasped his hands behind his back. “Effective immediately, our theoretical lessons will pause.”
Gasps rippled across the room.
Vale went on, unfazed. “Due to rising concerns along the Virelian borders and the academy’s heightened alert status, every student will now undergo intensified practical training.”
My stomach tightened.
“Your captains,” Vale continued, “will oversee all sessions. Mana endurance, weapon proficiency, elemental control, combat simulations…you will be pushed beyond your current limits.”
More murmurs. A few students sat a little straighter. Others paled.
He paced slowly down the aisle between desks, hands clasped, robes whispering across the stone floor.
“The academy believes strength must be built before knowledge can be safely expanded. Therefore, for the next several weeks, your magic and your bodies will be your primary focus.”
A new wave of whispers. A few excited. Most anxious.
Kaelia murmured “Finally. Something worth my time.”
I didn’t react. My thoughts were spinning too fast.
Why now?
Why the sudden urgency?
What happened last night—
Was it connected?
Vale’s voice cut through the tension.
“You will report to your assigned captains immediately after midday meal. Failure to take this seriously will reflect in your evaluations and your future rank.”
He paused in front of our row.
“Some of you,” he added pointedly, “have great potential. And some of you have great instability.”
My breath hitched and I swallowed past a lump in my throat.
“Dismissed,” Vale said.
Chairs scraped and conversations erupted. Students filed out, buzzing with nervous energy and excitement.
Rhea hooked her arm through mine as the classroom emptied, dragging me into the flow of students. “Are you okay? You’re acting like you just saw a ghost.”
“I’m fine,” I said automatically.
Which was exactly what someone not fine would say.
Rhea stopped walking, tugging me to face her. “Nope. Try again. You were spaced out the entire class. Vale could’ve asked you to recite the founding treaty of Virelia and you would’ve just blinked at him.”
“I wasn’t that distracted.”
“Aeris, you nearly stood up without your bag. That’s level-five distraction.”
I winced. “Okay…maybe I was a little distracted.”
“And you still haven’t told me what happened at your test with the Grand Sovereign.” Her eyes softened slightly. “Did it go badly? Is that what this is?”
A breath caught in my chest. “It didn’t go badly.”
That was the problem.
Rhea’s brows rose. “So it went well?”
“It went…” My voice trailed. I didn’t even know how to describe it. Strange? Intense? Unexpected? “It was fine.”
She squinted. “That is the least believable ‘fine’ I’ve ever heard.”
Before I could respond, her expression shifted into something mischievous.
“Oh my stars.” She gasped dramatically. “Are you hiding something? Did something happen between you and the Grand Sovereign?” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Did he—”
“Rhea.” My cheeks heated painfully. “No. Absolutely not. Nothing happened.”
“Uh-huh.” She bumped my hip. “Your face says otherwise.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but another voice cut cleanly through our banter.
Kaelia paused beside us, her cool grey eyes lingering on me longer than usual long enough to notice the nerves I tried to hide.
“Try not to faint during training, Thalorian,” she said lightly. “It would be embarrassing for both of us.”
I didn’t rise to the bait. I couldn’t.
Because while the rest of the class worried about training—
My mind replayed the Sovereign’s face. The shift in his eyes. The way he vanished without a word. The way the air had crackled, wrong and heavy.
And I couldn’t shake the feeling…
Whatever caused today’s changes at the academy…
It started last night.
With him.