Chapter 117
Thalen Merrow adjusted his grip on the reins as the war ox grunted, tugging the heavy battle wagon through the uneven path that skirted the edge of the Weeping Vines. Despite the rattling of enchanted wood and the low creaks of steel-bound wheels, his mind remained elsewhere. Ever since they'd left the Royal Academy, something about their journey hadn't sat right with him.
Melgil, sitting beside him, shared the same blank recollection, patchy memories, vague impressions, and a growing unease that whispered of enchantment or foul play. They were supposed to have crossed Riverton's land, a known expanse of 600 acres thick with population and trading life, but somehow, no eyes had seen them pass. That alone defied logic. Riverton wasn't a place one simply slipped through unnoticed, not with nearly a thousand inhabitants and a territorial mindset sharpened by constant border tensions with the swamp.
When the weather-worn sign for Riverton appeared along the cobbled road—white paint faded, edges moss-covered, it sparked a decision in Thalen's gut. They'd never formally reported their mission to the local guild, and despite the Hollowtree beast now rotting in a forgotten patch of marsh, the silence surrounding their return had likely stirred rumors. They owed Riverton more than just a passed glance. Gripping the reins tighter, he turned to Melgil.
"We're making a detour," he said, his voice firm. "Riverton deserves to know what happened in those swamps. We'll report to the guild ourselves."
The war ox snorted, and the wagon veered onto the branching road. The city rose slowly from the lowlands, red clay roofs poking through the summer haze, vineyard fences crisscrossing in lazy spirals around farms and cottages. By the time they rolled past the western checkpoint, guarded by two yawning militiamen, word of the arriving battle wagon had already begun to spread.
It wasn't long after they reached the guild courtyard, its stony arches bathed in late afternoon gold, that trouble came sniffing. A sharp cry from the upper level of the guild hall drew all eyes. Descending the marble steps with too much flair was Lord Halven Dreswick, a young aristocrat draped in embroidered navy silks and smelling of spiced perfume and ego. His narrow face curled into a smug grin as he locked eyes with the wagon's occupants.
"Well, well," he drawled, flanked by a towering bodyguard whose armor glinted like obsidian and whose hand rested conspicuously on the hilt of an ornate blade. "So the Royal Academy did send someone. Or perhaps you're late? Lost, maybe?"
Thalen felt a flicker of irritation, but before he could speak, a softer voice from the back of the wagon caught everyone's attention.
"I remember him," whispered a girl with straw-colored hair, brushing aside the wagon's curtain. Lora Sith stepped down, her boots landing with a solid thud. Though dressed in plain leathers and still streaked with swamp grime, she carried herself with quiet confidence. She was the daughter of a farmer just east of Riverton and among the first chosen to join the Hollowtree hunting party.
Her gaze met the aristocrat's with unimpressed calm.
"His family always harasses my parents to sell them our vineyard"."
"Lucky for me, my older brother is a retired soldier. And after getting married, they took over the vineyard from our parents."
Lord Halven Dreswick's smile faltered. The courtyard fell into a hush.
Thalen resisted a grin. Perhaps this detour would be more productive than he thought.
Count Ailmar Dreswick the Second was the embodiment of aristocratic excess, sculpted from privilege and dressed in vanity. Slender and pale with cheekbones as sharp as his tongue, his hair was a calculated cascade of ash-blond curls, scented and carefully pinned back with a silver clip bearing his house's crest—an upturned goblet resting on a bed of coin.
His blue eyes, cold and shallow, had the habitual gleam of someone who always expected the world to yield to him. He walked with an exaggerated poise, each step calculated, each gesture overperformed. His garments were custom-tailored from imported velvet and stitched with threads of gold, his boots unscuffed by dirt—clearly enchanted to reject the earth itself, just as he often did the commoners beneath him. There was an air of performance in all he did, as though the entire realm were his stage and everyone else merely supporting characters in his drama.
But Count Ailmar was only the most recent product of the Dreswick line, a family steeped in generations of greed, manipulation, and entitlement. The Dreswicks had long abandoned any sense of civic duty, instead viewing their wealth and vineyards not as gifts to nurture but as assets to leverage. They hoarded land like dragons hoarded gold, lobbying for influence in the royal court and treating their tenants as expendable tools. To them, charity was a weakness, and diplomacy a game of leverage.
Their estate, nestled atop the richest hill in Riverton, loomed like a jewel-encrusted fortress, closed off by walls too tall and gates too proud. Stories abounded of their backroom deals, of harvests hoarded during famine seasons, and of rival vineyards mysteriously burned in the night, only for Dreswick labels to flood the markets soon after.
Among them, however, the most insufferable of all was not Lord Halven himself, but his son, Halric Dreswick, a student of the Royal Academy and, unfortunately, of the same graduating class as Thalen Merrow and the rest of the Hollowtree hunting party. Halric was his father's shadow in training, arrogant, overconfident, and endlessly self-absorbed. He was known to stroll the Academy halls in gaudy attire, often accompanied by hand-picked lackeys who laughed on command and echoed his every insult.
While his classmates honed their survival skills and elemental training, Halric bragged about his family's exclusive deals with eastern mages and flaunted the jeweled dagger gifted to him by his grandfather, a blade he had never once drawn in a real fight. He scoffed at field assignments, preferring to conjure up shallow illusions during mock tests, then claiming it as mastery. His mouth was quicker than his mind, and his failures were always someone else's fault.
Though the others in the Academy had endured him with tight-lipped tolerance, seeing the Dreswick crest once more, now flaunting its way down Riverton's guild steps, stirred an old and bitter familiarity in Thalen's chest. These were the people who claimed the lion's share but never joined the hunt, now here to gloat, question, or worse, take credit for what they hadn't earned.
Halric Dreswick had no idea that both Lord Daniel Rothchester and Lady Melgil Veara Gehinnom, two of the most influential names among the Royal Academy's nobility, had joined the Hollowtree hunting party.
Had he known, perhaps he wouldn't have returned home early with such smug disdain. To Halric, the entire combat expedition was beneath him, just another crude activity for lower nobles and glory-chasers desperate to earn battlefield points for academy ranking. He had called it "a filthy slog through mud and peasantry," loud enough for the professors to hear.
When the time came to depart for his group's selected quest, he simply packed his things, submitted a forged medical note of "arcane fatigue," and had himself escorted back to the Dreswick estate, leaving behind only the scent of perfume and arrogance in the dormitories.
To Halric, field combat was for those who lacked imagination or wealth. Why wrestle monsters when you could dine with barons and buy enchanted artifacts to protect your name instead? He saw the Academy's physical tests as a farce, a leftover tradition from a time when magic and nobility hadn't yet secured dominance.
The question that now lingered in his mind was, who cleared the Hallowtree quest? And seeing Daniel Rothchester was with them, the possibility that they cleared their selected task. The timing was relatively within the parameters when the announcement was declared. But the announcement from the world voice didn't mention who cleared the quest. It was unusual and felt weird..
The moment Halric Dreswick came that very night, he and everybody who was still awake that night heard the announcement, but without confirmation on who cleared it, Halric planned to take credit; he just needed actual proof. And seeing that Daniel was with them, the chance that they were the ones who killed the hallowtree was extremely high.
He hadn't yet spotted Daniel Rothchester stepping down from the battle wagon—the very wagon Halric now found himself quietly envying. It was his first time seeing it up close: a reinforced construct of enchanted blackwood, runes etched into every panel, its presence exuding both power and survival. It wasn't something cobbled together by peasants. It was a war machine, a trophy of something earned. Halric's jaw tensed.
When the hunting party had departed from the Academy, Halric and his circle of elite classmates were still deep in their cups, drunk from another night of celebration, slouched in their velvet-lined dorms. He hadn't even noticed them leave. So when the news broke that Daniel Rothchester and Lady Melgil Veara Gehinnom had accepted the Hollowtree Hunt—the highest-rated quest among the ten posted on the Academy's bulletin board—he laughed it off like everyone else in his circle. No one believed they'd actually pursue such a mission without an escort, let alone complete it.
But now, seeing them here, mud-streaked and quiet, was a different matter.
Daniel Rothchester, heir to one of the most powerful duchies in the kingdom, and Melgil Gehinnom, descended from the oldest known bloodline of mages—together, they were nobility of the highest order. And suddenly, it all made sense. They were the ones who must have slain the Hollowtree monster. Who else could have?
The others,Thalen Merrow, Lora Sith, and the rest of the five—were just commoners. Talented, maybe, but commoners nonetheless. They had only entered the Academy because Duchess Elleena Rothchester, Daniel's own mother, had forced the institution to open its gates to anyone who could pass the grueling entrance exams, regardless of lineage. It was a move that shattered centuries of elitist tradition, and one that Halric and the rest of the noble houses had never forgiven.
To him, the presence of commoners within the academy halls was a stain on its legacy. And now, those same "mudbloods" were standing alongside Daniel and Melgil, arriving in triumph, with a monster's death to their name and a battle wagon that commanded attention. Halric's throat dried. The ground beneath his feet, the one he believed was built only for people like him, suddenly didn't feel as solid.
A few weeks ago, Halric Dreswick still strutted through the Royal Academy like he owned every polished marble tile beneath his feet. Arrogant and entitled, he had grown up knowing nothing but praise, wealth, and deference.
He felt special, not because of what he'd done, but because of who he was. Born into one of the oldest and wealthiest noble families in Riverton, he had been told from the moment he could speak that his bloodline alone made him superior.
That superiority followed him like a perfume, intoxicating and suffocating to all who came near. Most of the other students in his elite circle simply accepted that Halric Dreswick would one day be a lord of great influence—and that at the Academy, he already was.
So when Daniel Rothchester and Melgil Veara Gehinnom arrived late into the academic year, weeks after orientation and initial rankings had already been established, Halric had scoffed. A late entry? It was laughable. He remembered watching Daniel step into the grand hall that morning with quiet confidence, dressed plainly, shoulders square, and expression unreadable.
Halric immediately labeled him an outsider, a waste of noble title. He was too quiet, too modest, too... unimpressive. And more importantly, Halric had already decided to make an example of him. He had even prepared a string of insults in his mind, waiting for the perfect moment to humiliate the so-called duchess's son in front of everyone.
But before Halric could open his mouth, Melgil Veara Gehinnom entered the hall.
Time seemed to slow for a moment, as if the Academy itself paused to acknowledge her presence.
Her white hair shimmered like moonlight under the arched stained-glass ceiling, her violet eyes piercing through every soul in the room without effort. She moved with elegance that wasn't taught, it was born, woven into her bloodline. The other students fell silent, as if someone of celestial origin had walked into a place built for mortals. Even the professors had stood a little straighter.
And to Halric's dismay, she walked straight toward Daniel Rothchester.
Not only did she approach him—she stood beside him. With quiet defiance, she ignored every other noble in the hall and aligned herself with a boy Halric was moments away from mocking. And when he tried to step forward, to insert himself into the moment and perhaps redirect her attention, her gaze met his with chilling precision. She didn't speak, but the message was clear: don't.
That moment carved itself into Halric's memory like a bitter scar.
What angered him most wasn't that she defended Daniel,it was that she chose Daniel. In that single instant, everything Halric believed about prestige and noble worth began to crack. He had spent years grooming himself to become someone people would admire, someone women would pursue, someone like her would fall for. But Melgil didn't even glance his way twice. Worse, she stood beside someone he considered beneath them both.
He never got the chance to insult Daniel that day. And ever since, every time he saw the two together, even in passing his arrogance was forced to battle a feeling he hated more than anything: jealousy.
But everything changed the day Daniel Rothchester stepped into the Academy's Training Arena Hall and silenced it not with words, but with power.
It had begun as a petty challenge. Velric Draan and Cassien Eladar, two of the most aggressive upperclassmen and proud sons of lesser noble houses, had cornered Daniel under the guise of a "friendly spar." But anyone with eyes could see it was a staged humiliation, a cruel game meant to put the quiet Rothchester heir in his place. Halric had been there, seated among the watching students, arms crossed, a smirk already forming as the match began. He expected Daniel to fold perhaps endure a hit or two, maybe land a few sloppy counters, then yield.
But what unfolded before him shattered every assumption he held.
Daniel didn't just fight; he commanded the arena. Every movement was sharp, clean, decisive. With perfect timing, he dismantled Velric's brute-force offense and turned Cassien's illusion magic against him. His form was that of a seasoned warrior, not a student. Then, when a black-market summoning artifact smuggled in by one of Cassien's allies, ruptured on the arena floor, unleashing a horde of wild monsters into the hall, Daniel and Lady Melgil Veara Gehinnom stood their ground. The rest of the students panicked. Some fled. Others froze. But the two of them remained, fighting back-to-back with terrifying efficiency. Daniel wielded his blade like it had a mind of its own, and Melgil's magic cracked through the air like divine judgment.
They didn't fight for show. They fought to protect. To defend the students, the Academy, and each other. With justification. With honor. With power that couldn't be denied.
Halric watched, stunned. His smirk faded somewhere between the second and third monster falling. His arms dropped from their arrogant fold. The girl he once dreamed of impressing was now surrounded by arcane light, her hair whipping like a banner in the storm, standing beside a boy Halric had once dismissed as a joke.
A joke. That thought burned now.
After the chaos ended and the arena settled, silence fell. Professors arrived. Investigations began. Punishments were handed down. But in that silence, something else settled inside Halric:
Not the petty kind, the kind that festers in the bones.
Daniel Rothchester, who had said almost nothing in the halls, had now done something that no one could ignore. And Halric, for all his titles and money and charm, had been a spectator. That truth stung in a way nothing ever had. He never told his family what happened that day. Not his father. Not his siblings. Especially not his mother, who always expected him to rise to the top of his class. How could he tell them that the "commoner-sympathizing" Rothchester boy had outshone them all?
Though Halric's arrogance remained, clinging to his soul like old ivy on stone, it cracked whenever he stood near Daniel or Melgil. He could sneer and scoff at the others. He could mock the common-born. But when it came to them, especially Daniel, he said nothing. Not a word. He kept his head down. He smiled politely. And though his pride screamed in protest, Halric Dreswick bowed, because in the shadow of Daniel Rothchester, he was afraid to stand tall.
There was something deeply unsettling about Daniel Rothchester, something that no amount of rank, wealth, or reputation could prepare anyone for, and it all started with his eyes.
His left eye shimmered with a yellowish-golden hue, radiant like a dawn sun frozen in place, while his right eye bore the icy blue of a frozen lake, still, cold, and ancient. At first glance, most assumed it was a magical mutation or perhaps the result of noble bloodline enchantments. But those who stared too long really stared and felt something stir inside them. Not awe. Not curiosity. But dread.
Halric Dreswick had mocked Daniel in his mind more times than he could count. But whenever their eyes met, even briefly, he felt his body tense, as though he were prey being locked onto by something far older and far more dangerous than a mere human. Daniel didn't scowl or glare—he barely changed expression at all. It was the stillness in his gaze that made the world feel wrong, like something powerful and hidden was watching from behind those two unmatched irises.
And it wasn't just Halric.
Across the Academy, students whispered about it behind closed doors. They joked nervously, trying to ease their discomfort. But deep down, many admitted the truth: looking directly into Daniel's eyes made their instincts recoil. Some described it like standing too close to the edge of a cliff and feeling the wind try to push you off.
Others claimed it felt like a weight pressing on their chest, ancient and unknowable. The academy's combat instructors, even the veterans who had faced wars and eldritch horrors, grew strangely quiet when Daniel passed. Some would avert their eyes altogether.
There were rumors among the staff, unspoken but ever-present that whatever Daniel Rothchester was, he wasn't entirely ordinary. His lineage as the duchess's son explained his status, but not the raw pressure he exuded. That wasn't learned. It wasn't trained. It was something born, or perhaps awakened.
Even Professor Malren, the head of elemental theory and known for calling nobles "spoiled candleholders," once paused mid-lecture when Daniel entered the classroom, blinking in confusion before clearing his throat and fumbling his notes. After class, he was heard muttering under his breath, "That boy's eyes… something's not right. Something dark, heavy, and raw."
Halric, for all his arrogance, understood this truth more than most. Each time Daniel looked his way, he felt it, not just fear, but the kind of fear that made his heart want to flee his chest. It was not the fear of losing a duel or status.
It was the fear of looking into someone who was no longer just a person…
…but something that the world itself was still trying to understand.
As he recalled, in the days that followed Daniel Rothchester's arrival at the Royal Academy, a strange shift began to take hold of the once untouchable halls of power. The Academy, once dominated by the arrogance and privilege of noble-born students—those who flaunted their wealth, titles, and family names like shields—began to quiet down whenever he appeared.
He didn't need to raise his voice.
He didn't need to swing a weapon or chant a spell to make his presence known. Just the sound of his footsteps echoing through the corridors was enough to stop whispered conversations. Students who once strutted proudly with their entourage, who used their influence to intimidate, cheat, or harm, would now falter. Some turned away mid-sentence. Others quickly gathered their things and left.
Daniel didn't need to look at them; he was the law they had once ignored.
No one expected it at first. They thought he'd be another sheltered noble who'd ride through his years at the Academy on his family name. But Daniel had arrived with a different purpose—and he made it clear within his first week that no name, no title, and no bloodline would place a student above the rules.
If he saw a noble berating a servant-class student, he stepped in. If he heard of someone exploiting first-years, he investigated. And if he found proof, he didn't just report it—he acted. Not violently, not carelessly, but with a quiet resolve that made even the most arrogant think twice.
There were several times, witnessed by students and staff alike, when Daniel and Lady Melgil Veara Gehinnom personally confronted abusers and forcefully removed them from the training grounds or practice rooms. Not with fists or spells, though both were more than capable—but by invoking the Academy's laws with such conviction and presence that resistance became impossible. Those who tried to challenge him found themselves outmatched not only in strength but in will.
He became a silent enforcer of order—an embodiment of the justice the Academy claimed to stand for but had long since forgotten.
Even in mundane moments, when Daniel would walk into a classroom, quietly take his seat, or browse the shelves of the Academy library with his fingers brushing against worn spines—his presence was enough to shatter the false confidence of others.
The elites who once mocked the commoners, who used their family ties to get away with anything, began to feel cornered. And the most terrifying part for them was that Daniel never acted for praise or recognition. He didn't boast. He didn't seek favor. He simply did what was right.
To the common-born students, he became a quiet legend. A figure who proved that power didn't come from heritage, but from conviction. To the nobles, especially the entitled ones like Halric Dreswick, Daniel Rothchester became a reminder that the old order was crumbling, and that fear, the kind earned through strength and principle, was far more lasting than any title inherited from birth.
Now, a new pressure weighed heavily on Halric Dreswick, one far greater than jealousy or shame—the truth about Daniel Rothchester and the fact that his entire family still had no idea who he truly was.
To the Dreswicks, Daniel was just the long-lost son of Duchess Elleena Laeanna Rothchester, a war hero with a legendary past but no current political ambitions. They believed her reclusive nature after the war had rendered her house politically dormant—noble, yes, but no longer a threat to the influential web the Dreswicks spun around Riverton and beyond. Daniel, they assumed, was a mere formality at the academy. A name on a ledger. An empty title.
But Halric knew better now.
He had seen what Daniel could do, how the entire Academy shifted around him without him ever demanding it. He had seen him cut down monsters, face corruption, silence bullies, and enforce the law when the staff themselves hesitated. He had felt the unspoken fear in the air when Daniel simply walked into a room. And most of all, he had seen the way Lady Melgil Veara Gehinnom, the unattainable goddess of nobility and magic, stood beside him with unwavering loyalty—not out of obligation, but out of respect.
And yet, Halric's father, Lord Dreswick, still casually referred to Daniel as "that boy with the late entrance," a footnote not even worthy of a second thought. His brothers mocked Duchess Elleena as a relic of past wars, claiming her family was fading and irrelevant. His mother still sent letters to Academy contacts, asking why Halric hadn't yet risen above the new intake of "lesser nobles and farmer-bloods."
If they found out too late, if Daniel's rise became public—if the Royal Court, or worse, the Crown, took notice of him before the Dreswicks did—everything would crumble. Their power, influence, and control over Riverton's politics depended on foresight, leverage, and preparation. And Halric, who had seen the truth firsthand, would be the one held responsible for letting that storm go unreported.
He could already imagine the fury on his father's face: "You knew, and you said nothing?"
So now Halric stood at a crossroads. He had to tell them. He had to tell his family that Daniel Rothchester wasn't just some quiet student, or a late-blooming noble child. He was something else. A force not just of talent, but of terrifying potential. A figure who could easily shift the balance of power in the Academy, and perhaps beyond.
But doing so meant swallowing his pride. It meant admitting that he had been wrong, so very wrong, about everything.And Halric Dreswick had never done that in his life.
Still, if he didn't speak up soon…
he wouldn't just lose face. His family could lose everything.