The storm had broken hours ago, but its chill still clung to the air. The heirs had been escorted back to the academy grounds, their passage watched by guards whose faces were pale with uncertainty.
No one spoke. The silence between them was not from exhaustion—it was the silence of things too heavy to name.
Saphine walked beside Eris, her hand occasionally brushing against the edge of his coat, grounding herself. Behind them trailed Seloria, Lyssandra, and their shadows—Cyrinth, Melina, and the others—quiet as ghosts. The Saintess' daughter was wrapped in a cloak far too large for her, her eyes empty but alert.They stopped before the old marble staircase of the academy. There, beneath the flickering lanterns, Elder Aurelion was waiting.
He stood perfectly straight, one hand resting on the head of an ornate cane. His expression was mild, but the faint golden ripple around his eyes betrayed that he had not come merely to greet them.
"So," he said softly, his voice barely audible over the wind. "You return with an echo that should not exist, and yet—alive. How curious."
Eris's face betrayed no emotion. "Elder Aurelion," he said, inclining his head slightly. "We were under the impression our mission was to survive, not to destroy history."
"Survival," Aurelion murmured, "is a convenient term for disobedience."The others froze as a thin wave of invisible pressure rolled out from the elder—subtle, like the faint gravity of a dying star. The ground beneath them creaked as the marble steps trembled. The Saintess' daughter whimpered, her cloak trembling.
Seloria reached for her weapon by instinct, but Eris lifted a hand.
"Stay still," he said quietly.
Aurelion's gaze snapped to him. "You would give me orders, child?"
Eris took one step forward. His expression didn't change. His tone didn't rise. Yet the air itself shifted—the faint hum of restrained power weaving through the night like a second heartbeat."Pressure," Eris said softly, as though musing aloud. "Such a crude thing, Elder."
The elder's eyes narrowed. "You—"
But before the word could leave his lips, the world changed.
A soundless ripple spread outward from Eris—no flash of light, no distortion—just absence. The elder's aether field, once a golden haze around him, simply disappeared. The marble beneath his feet cracked—not from impact, but from the sudden void his power had fallen into.
For a heartbeat, Aurelion couldn't breathe. The world he stood in—the very air—had been taken from him.
And then it released.
The elder staggered back, pale and shaking. His eyes widened, not in fear, but disbelief. "What… did you—"
Eris's reply was mild. "I asked you to stay still."
Behind him, even Seloria and Lyssandra exchanged wary glances. The faint shimmer around Eris's eyes was gone as quickly as it came, his expression once more unreadable.
"You've grown bold," Aurelion murmured, regaining his composure though the tremor in his voice betrayed him. "Your family will not protect you from the consequences of arrogance."
"Then perhaps they should worry," Eris said, and turned away.
The elder's voice followed him like the hiss of a snake. "You think your secret unseen protects you. But it's only a matter of time before even the Four see through it."
Eris didn't look back. "Let them look. The Grand Gaze doesn't hide. It simply waits."
Aurelion's cane cracked against the marble, the sound echoing across the courtyard, but by the time he looked up again, Eris was already walking through the archway, Saphine at his side.
They didn't speak until they reached the western dormitory gardens—a quiet place where the moonlight pooled like liquid silver over the trimmed hedges. The others had gone ahead, leaving only Eris and Saphine beneath the whispering leaves.
Saphine finally broke the silence. "You didn't have to provoke him."
Eris glanced at her, adjusting his glasses. "He was testing how deep the water ran. I let him drown just enough to remember it isn't shallow."
Despite herself, Saphine snorted. "You make it sound so simple."
"It was."
She rolled her eyes. "You really are insufferable sometimes."
"Only sometimes?" he said lightly, and her mouth twitched before she could stop it.
They sat on the edge of the marble fountain, where the faint ripples reflected their faces—hers tense, his calm.
"Eris…" she began hesitantly. "When the elder spoke, when he said 'secrets unseen'… did he mean your secret?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he leaned back, watching the moon through the thin mist. "He meant what he fears," he said at last. "And fear always names what it cannot see."
Saphine frowned. "That doesn't explain anything."
"It explains enough."
She sighed and decided not to push further. Instead, her gaze drifted to the orb they'd brought from the Hollow—the record of their trial. It pulsed faintly, as if echoing the distant heartbeat of something vast.
"The Saintess' daughter…" she murmured. "She said she felt something in me, like her mother's echo had recognized it."
Eris's eyes shifted toward her, sharp as glass. "Did she?"
"Yes. She said her mother's echo—Divinity—had resonated with mine. But I don't even understand my own yet."
"You will," Eris said quietly. "Perhaps sooner than you think."
She looked at him. "You say that like you know something."
He smiled faintly. "I see what I see."
Her eyes narrowed. "You're doing that thing again—talking like an oracle and pretending it's insight."
"I prefer 'mystery.' It makes me sound taller."
She burst into laughter, sudden and bright, cutting through the heavy air. Eris looked mildly offended by it, which only made her laugh harder.
When she finally stopped, he was still watching her, that faint unreadable look in his eyes again—something between amusement and… concern.
"You're changing," he said softly.
She blinked. "What?"
"Your echo," he corrected. "It's growing louder. When you laughed just now—it stirred."
Saphine looked down at her reflection in the fountain's water. For a heartbeat, she thought she saw another face staring back—calm, regal, with eyes like dying stars. Then it was gone.
"Eris…" she whispered. "What if we're all being watched? Not by the families, not even by the peaks—but by the echoes themselves?"
He didn't answer. His gaze lingered on the moon, faint lines of thought moving behind his calm eyes.
After a long silence, he said, "Then I hope they're watching closely."
"Why?"
"Because we're about to disappoint them."