Anas approached Era too quickly, closing the distance before anyone had time to stop her. She came so near that the space between them began to feel uncomfortable. Still, she did not seem to notice. Her attention was fixed entirely on him, her eyes moving carefully over every detail as if she had found a living subject from one of her Fire Avatar studies.
"This is unprecedented," she said, the words leaving her almost like a breath. Then her excitement rose again. "An Avatar that talks. And not only that, one willing to share its own name."
Era did not step back. He only looked down at her, his gaze steady and unreadable, letting her stare meet his without offering anything more.
"Miss Lorkan," Era said, his voice calm but carrying enough weight to still the air around him, "I'd advise stepping aside."
Cur seemed to know before she answered that she would not move willingly. He stepped in beside her, placed a gentle hand against her shoulder, and guided her back toward the chair she had abandoned moments earlier.
"I'm going to need you all to calm down for a moment," Cur said, keeping his voice as level as he could, "so I can explain."
He looked from one face to the next, trying to press some order back into the room before excitement took it from him completely.
For a heartbeat, it almost worked. Then Hariel leaned forward, drawn by the same curiosity. Calliarna followed more slowly, her steps cautious but no less intent as she moved toward Era.
Cur saw them both moving at once. The thin grip he had on the room slipped.
"WOULD YOU ALL CALM DOWN!?"
The shout struck the room hard enough to freeze them in place. Cur stood there afterwards, breathing heavily, his own surprise showing for a moment in the silence he had created.
No one spoke. The excitement drained slowly from their faces, leaving behind the awkward realization that they had crowded around Era like children discovering a puppy.
Calliarna was the first to compose herself. She straightened, smoothed the front of her clothes, and stepped back with a quiet restraint the others quickly copied.
One by one, they returned to their seats. Cur waited until the last person settled, until the room finally felt still enough for his words to land.
"Like I said…" Cur let the words hang for a breath. "He's not an Avatar."
Markus was the first to break the quiet.
"Then what is he?" he asked, his eyes still on Era. "Because he sure as Winter looks like one."
"So," Cur began, then stopped almost as soon as the word left him. His mouth stayed open for a moment, but nothing followed. He glanced at Era, then back at the others. "This is going to be hard to explain. We… don't know…?"
The room went quiet in a way that felt heavier than before. Everyone simply stared at Cur, waiting for him to continue, as if the rest of the answer might arrive if they gave him enough silence.
"Well," Hariel said at last, blinking once, "that's the easiest explanation I've heard today."
Cur's hand rose to his temple. He rubbed at it hard, as though the answer might be lodged somewhere behind his eyes and he could force it loose if he pressed hard enough.
Calliarna watched him more carefully than she watched Era. The fear she had felt when Era first appeared had not vanished, but it had shifted aside, replaced by something quieter and more immediate. Cur was finally trying to expose a part of himself he had kept hidden, and the way they were staring at him, interrupting him, pressing him for answers, was only making it harder.
"Why don't you just start from what you know?"
She kept her voice gentle, hoping it would give Cur's thoughts somewhere to settle, somewhere solid enough for him to begin.
Cur looked at her. For a moment, he seemed almost surprised that the suggestion helped. Then he drew in a slow breath, turned to Era, and finally faced the group again.
"Era is not an Avatar," Cur said. This time, he spoke the words with more care. "He's something different. You remember how Professor Slaine taught us that Avatar manifestation only happened to those who underwent extreme trauma?"
The words found a sore place. Calli looked away first. Anas followed a breath later. Neither of them spoke, but the small movement was enough to show that Cur had touched on something they would rather leave buried.
Cur noticed. His voice softened. "Well… Era has been with me since birth."
Anas recovered first. The discomfort on her face disappeared behind something sharper, more serious, as she turned her attention fully back to Cur.
"That shouldn't be possible…"
"Hence why we're pretty sure he's not one," Cur said, almost too quickly.
It sounded less like an answer and more like an attempt to stop Anas before her thoughts ran too far down a path he had already searched.
Era spoke then, his calm voice cutting neatly through the space Cur left behind.
"It's true. Fifteen years, four months, and eight days, to the date."
This time, it was not Anas who spoke. Markus leaned forward slightly, his eyes fixed on Era.
"Then what are you?"
Era held Markus's stare for a moment before answering. "That is what we are trying to figure out. We have a few ideas, but none have been fruitful. There has never been anything like this in the kingdom's history. Trust me, we looked."
Era's gaze shifted, slowly and deliberately, toward Markus. "In fact, Mr Heldew, you even helped us at one point."
Markus's brow tightened. It took him a second to understand what Era meant, and then another to remember the days he and Cur had spent in the library after school had ended.
"So you have nothing to go on?" Calli asked.
Cur shook his head. "Not quite. We have a few clues we're trying to follow." He paused, then lifted his hand. "Four clues, actually."
He raised one finger.
"One. This was someone else's doing."
The reaction was immediate. Shock passed through the group, sharper than curiosity had been. The visitors in Cur's room had expected confusion, maybe impossibility. They had not expected blame.
"H-How do you know that?" Markus asked.
There was concern in his voice now, unmistakable and directed entirely at his friend.
Cur did not answer right away. Instead, he turned toward the unevenly organised bookshelves beside the bed. For a moment, he only stood there, his fingers hovering over the spines as though he had to remind himself where it was hidden.
Then he drew out a book and opened only the front cover. Tucked inside, pressed flat against the first page, was a piece of old parchment.
Cur handled it as if the parchment might fall apart from the weight of being touched. He eased it free with both hands, careful not to bend it, careful not to leave so much as a wrinkle behind.
Only then did he walk back to Markus and hold it out.
"Please be careful with it," Cur said quietly. "It's extremely fragile."
Markus accepted it with both hands. The moment the parchment settled against his fingers, he understood why Cur had warned him. It felt ancient, older than any book in the school library, older than anything any of them could reasonably imagine surviving.
He lowered his gaze to it. Around him, Anas, Calliarna, and Hariel leaned in, careful at first, then closer as curiosity overcame caution. The surprise came slowly this time, spreading across their faces as their eyes moved over the markings.
There was writing on it. At least, Markus thought it had to be writing. The symbols followed lines, held spaces, repeated themselves with too much intention to be random. But none of it made sense.
"That's…" Anas began, then stopped, her eyes narrowing as she studied the parchment more closely. "That's not any known language on our continent."
She looked up at Cur, then at Era. "Does this explain why you think someone did this to you? Can you read it?"
Cur shook his head. Era did the same beside him.
"No," Cur said. "Neither of us can." He hesitated, then pointed toward the lower edge of the parchment. "But look near the bottom."
Markus adjusted his hold and tilted the parchment slightly so the others could see. Together, they searched the lower lines, moving past the strange symbols until they finally found something familiar.
There, written in their language, in their writing system, in letters none of them had to struggle to recognise, was Cur's name. Not his full name. Only his first.
Markus brought one hand to his chin, though he kept the other carefully beneath the parchment.
"I see…" he said slowly. "So that's the idea. You think someone did this because your name is written here. And the rest is in a language we don't know."
His eyes shifted back to the symbols. "Could it be an older language?"
"No," Anas said at once.
The certainty in her voice made the others look at her.
"There has only ever been one language in our world," she said, still staring at the parchment. "The Maker's Word. Even Elves, Seraphims, Mares, and Dragons write their magic spells in the same language. This is…"
She trailed off, almost as if the thought had become too large to say with certainty.
"…otherworldly?" Calliarna finished softly.
The word settled over them with an uncomfortable weight. For a moment, even Anas did not seem eager to correct it.
"It's just a theory," Cur said, though his voice did little to make it sound smaller.
The group's attention returned to him, slower this time, more cautious than curious.
Hariel leaned back just enough to give the parchment space, but his eyes stayed on Cur.
"What are the other three clues?" he asked.
Cur looked to Era, not quite asking and not quite refusing to answer himself. The glance lingered just long enough for everyone else to notice it. Era understood.
"The second clue," Era said, "is something called the Gate of Nydius."
No one answered. The name moved through the room and found nothing to settle on. Anas glanced at Hariel. Hariel looked toward Calliarna. Markus searched Cur's face, then Era's, as if one of them might realise they had said enough to make the meaning clear.
The silence stretched. Their confused expressions became answer enough.
Era continued, his voice calm but slower now, as though he were choosing each word from somewhere difficult to reach. "My memory of things is hazy. Most of what I remember belongs to Cur. His childhood, his lessons, his fears. Pieces of his life are clearer to me than pieces of my own."
He paused, and for the first time his stillness felt less like certainty and more like distance. "But that name is different. The Gate of Nydius. I remember it vividly. Not as a place. Not as a physical door. Just… a name."
Calliarna was the first to pull her attention away from the sound of it.
"Did you try both the Grand Library and the Academy library?" she asked.
"We have," Cur replied. A slight frustration entered his voice, controlled at first, then harder to hide. "We've even been secretly communicating with someone in Bloodfallen, trying to get them to check their own records. We tried reaching others in other kingdoms too, but…"
He looked down at his hands. "It seems our letters aren't being delivered."
The room fell silent again, but this silence was different. It did not come from confusion. It came from the shape of the possibility Cur had just placed in front of them.
A dozen theories seemed to pass between them without being spoken. Were the letters being diverted? Destroyed? Ignored? Or was someone close enough to Cur, close enough to his life, to make sure answers never reached him?
Markus broke the quiet before it could pull them too far into that thought. He sat a little straighter, as if forcing himself to focus on what could still be asked.
"What's the third clue?"
Cur did not answer him immediately. His eyes shifted instead to Calliarna, standing near the foot of his bed. Something in his expression changed, not soft exactly, but careful.
"This one…" Cur said slowly, "is the answer you've been looking for, Calli."
Calliarna's eyes widened. For a moment, the frustration and anger she had been carrying had nowhere to go. They simply hung there, caught between wanting an explanation and fearing what shape it might take.
Cur drew in a breath, then let the answer fall into the room.
"The third clue is… I can't use fire."
The words struck them all at once.
For a moment, no one seemed to know how to move. Cur's admission hung between them, quiet and impossible, while shock passed through each face in a different shape. Surprise first. Then confusion. Then worry, deeper and harder to hide.
Mouths opened. Questions began and died before they were spoken. Everyone wanted to say something, but only one voice reached him first.
"What?"
Cur looked at Calliarna and felt the word sink deeper than any accusation could have. It was only one syllable, barely more than a breath, but it made him want to step back from everything he had just revealed. To hide. To forget the long months of silence and frustration that had led them here.
He knew what she had wanted from him. What she had believed he could become. Perhaps that was what hurt most. Not that she expected too much of him, but that she had expected it because she believed he was capable of it.
Calliarna stood too quickly. The movement was sharp, almost uncontrolled, as if her body had reacted before she had decided to. Her hands trembled at her sides. Her knees looked unsteady beneath her. Her mouth opened once, then closed again, searching for words that would not come properly.
No one else seemed to notice the tears beginning to gather in her eyes. Era did.
"W-what do y-you mean?" she asked. "You can't—of course you can. I've seen you. We've all seen you. The Soul Render, the aptitude tests every six months, even our fights. I've seen you use your black flames."
Cur's answer caught in his throat. He could feel his own composure beginning to fracture, and he knew this was the hardest question he would have to answer.
Before either of them could break, Era spoke instead.
"Calliarna Uls," Era said. "What you saw—what all of you saw—was my doing."
Calliarna turned her head toward him slowly. The small, unsteady movement made Cur regret every choice that had led them to this moment, but regret had arrived too late to change anything. They had come too far for silence now.
Era let the silence settle before he continued. "Before we go further, I would like to tell you the last clue as well, because it is tied to this one. However…"
His gaze moved across the room, steady and enclosing, holding each of them where they were. "You will not react emotionally. I am doing this for Cur and for myself. Had I had my way long ago, we would not be in this Academy, much less having this conversation."
He paused, and the warning in his voice became something colder. "So before we continue, I want a guarantee. Not only of your rationality and composure, but of your friendship, trust, and care for Cur."
The group felt the weight of his words more than the force of his gaze.
It was not a simple warning. It was a choice, and one they needed to make carefully. Would they stand with Cur even when the truth became difficult, or would they decide that what he carried was too much for them to face?
A long pause followed. It seemed to stretch thin across the room, each second making the air heavier. One by one, they gathered themselves.
Calliarna sat again at the foot of the bed, closer to Markus this time, as if asking silently for something steady to lean on. Markus did not move away. Hariel straightened in his chair and forced a small, reassuring smile onto his face. Beside him, his hand settled behind Anas's back, quiet support offered without a word.
Era watched them for a moment. Only when he seemed satisfied that they were still there for Cur did he look down at the person who had shared his life from the beginning.
Cur had calmed on the outside, but Era knew better. The room may have steadied, but Cur had not.
What if they think less of me? What if they're disgusted? What if they hate me? What if they fear me? Or worse… what if they simply stop caring?
Era did not need the thought spoken aloud. They shared the same inner space; he felt the shape of Cur's fear as clearly as if it had been said between them. Cur looked at him, and the look confirmed everything.
They're still here, aren't they? Era thought back gently. You made good friends. I'm happy for you.
Then Era placed his right hand against Cur's back. It was a small gesture, but the intention behind it was clear. Courage. Cur received it.
Cur rubbed his fingers together, as if trying to shake the nerves loose and let them fall somewhere harmless. Then he lifted his head and faced them all directly.
The words came slowly, but once they began, there was no taking them back.
"This… this body isn't mine…"
--- A single second before the announcement, in an undisclosed location deep within Where no Man could set foot ---
Somewhere far beneath the reach of men, in a place no map named and no living foot was meant to find, a being sat alone in the dark.
Purple eyes opened within a body darker than the shadows around it. There was no light here, not truly. Nothing warm enough to be called flame. Nothing soft enough to be called darkness. Only the slow sound of water running somewhere unseen, and the faint, endless pull of hundreds of chains.
Those sounds had been the only voices in that place for more than eight hundred years. They had worn against the silence without ever breaking it. Drop by drop. Link by link. Year after year.
The chamber itself seemed less built than endured. Its walls were made from something that resisted sight, something the mind refused to understand even when the eyes tried to shape it. It held the being not as a prison held a captive, but as a wound held pain.
And in that single, ordinary second, while Cur spoke the words to the visitors in his room, to the friends gathered around him, the being moved.
The motion was small. Barely more than a shift in a chair. Yet after eight centuries of stillness, it seemed to disturb the whole dark.
The chains answered first. A faint scrape. A slow metallic breath. Then silence gathered again, tighter than before, waiting.
For the first time since being placed there, the being spoke.
"There you are…"