———
The headmaster's study felt like a coffin lined with expensive tapestries. The air was still and heavy, seeming to swallow all sound, broken only by the frantic drumming of Kael's own heartbeat in his ears. He and Professor Torian had just passed through the towering, rune-carved door, and inside, two men who held his fate in their hands were waiting.
Archmage Ignatius sat behind a massive oak desk, his face an unreadable mask of calm authority. But it was the other figure who commanded the room's attention. Duke Valerius stood with his back to them, staring out the large arched window at the sprawling academy grounds below. His posture was ramrod straight, a silhouette of controlled power and simmering fury. He didn't turn as they entered, letting the silence stretch into a weapon.
"Professor Torian. Kael," Archmage Ignatius began, his voice neutral. "Thank you for coming. The Duke has... concerns he wishes to address."
The Duke finally turned. His steely grey eyes, so like Kael's own, swept over them, bypassing Torian entirely to land on his son. The look was not one of paternal pride, but of cold, forensic assessment, as if examining a flawed piece of machinery.
"Concerns," the Duke repeated, the word a low, dangerous rumble. "A quaint way to put it, Ignatius." He took a single, deliberate step forward. "I received a report. My son, the *Mana-Cripple*, not only passed the entrance exam but was granted a special admission. A curious outcome, don't you think?"
His gaze shifted to Torian, sharpening into a blade. "And then I read the details. He didn't pass by demonstrating power. He passed by *sabotaging* the examination itself. And he was promptly scooped up by you, Professor. The resident expert in... catastrophic failures."
Professor Torian met the Duke's glare without flinching, though his ink-stained fingers curled slightly. "Your information is correct, Valerius, but your interpretation is shortsighted. Your son possesses a unique talent—"
"A talent?" the Duke cut him off with a harsh, humorless laugh. He finally looked at Kael, his voice dripping with a scorn that was somehow more personal, more painful than any bully's taunt. "What I see is a boy who has learned a cheap parlor trick. A talent for disruption. For *breaking* things. Is that the legacy you wish to cultivate, Torian? Teaching my defective son new ways to be a disappointment?"
Kael flinched as if struck. The words, delivered with such cold precision by his own father, burrowed deep into the old wounds of his insecurities.
"He is not defective!" Torian's voice rose, losing its scholarly calm for the first time. "He sees the world through a lens you cannot even comprehend! While your precious mages are busy adding pretty colors to a collapsing structure, Kael is the only one who can see the cracks in the foundation! He is the most brilliant architectural mind to enter this academy in decades, and you call him a disappointment?"
The Duke's composure cracked. He slammed a hand flat on the Archmage's desk, the sound echoing like a thunderclap in the quiet room. "Brilliant? He collapsed during his first confrontation! A genius who faints at the slightest strain? Do not drag my son into your delusions, Torian! I know who you are. I know what you lost. I will not let my son become another one of your failed experiments!"
He turned his furious, desperate gaze back to Kael. "Alaric," he said, using Torian's first name, his voice dropping, laced with a history Kael didn't understand. "I know you are a genius. A one-in-a-million mind. But I am begging you, as a man who once respected you... do not drag my son into your madness."
Kael felt a strange pang in his chest. For a fleeting moment, he saw past the anger in his father's eyes and saw something else—something that looked terrifyingly like fear.
But the moment passed. The Duke's expression hardened once more into impenetrable ice. "The recruitment is void. You will return home, Kael. This fantasy is over."
Something inside Kael, a cord that had been pulled taut for years, finally snapped. It was a mix of Arga's defiance and Kael's own accumulated pain. He took a shaky step forward, his voice trembling but clear.
"No."
The room went utterly silent. The Duke stared at him, genuinely stunned. He had never been openly disobeyed by his youngest son.
"What did you say?"
"I said no," Kael repeated, his voice gaining strength. "I will not return. I am staying here. I will study with Professor Torian."
A muscle twitched in the Duke's jaw. A storm gathered in his eyes. "You ungrateful wretch," he whispered, the words venomous. "You have no idea what you are playing with. You think this is about pride? About your childish desire to prove yourself?"
His voice rose to a roar, raw and ragged, and for the first time, Kael saw a glimmer of moisture in his father's steely eyes. "WHAT SORT OF FATHER WOULD WATCH HIS SON WALK INTO A LION'S DEN AND DO NOTHING?!"
The shout echoed, followed by a heavy, breathless silence. The Duke was panting, his shoulders slumping ever so slightly, the image of the unshakeable lord shattered to reveal a terrified, desperate man beneath.
"From the beginning..." the Duke continued, his voice now a broken, hushed thing, "All of it... keeping you away from magic, hiding you from court, letting them call you a cripple... it was all to *protect* you. To keep you safe from... *this*." He gestured vaguely at Torian, at the academy, at the entire world of magic. "Can't you see that?"
The revelation hit Kael like a physical blow. The disdain, the coldness, the isolation—it hadn't been about shame. It had been about a twisted, desperate form of love. The foundation of his resentment began to crumble, leaving only confusion and a profound, aching sadness.
He looked at his father, truly looked at him—not as the imposing Duke, but as a man haunted by ghosts Kael couldn't see. And in that moment, a new, fierce determination was born.
He straightened his back, meeting his father's pained gaze with a newfound, unshakeable resolve.
"Then let me prove it to you, Father," Kael said, his voice quiet but ringing with conviction in the silent room. "If you have spent my whole life protecting me, then let me prove that your protection was not in vain."
He took a deep breath, the words hanging in the air between them, a challenge and a plea.
"What if I prove my worth, right here, in front of you?"