Chapter 10: The Gauntlet
The Hall of Proclamation was not built for comfort. It was built for intimidation. Soaring obsidian pillars held up a vaulted ceiling lost in shadow. The air was still and heavy, smelling of cold stone and old power. The five members of the Academy Council sat on a raised dais, their faces impassive masks. Magus Brom stood to one side, his expression grim. In the center of the floor, Agent Corvus looked like he belonged there, a spot of sterile white in the ancient hall.
Silas stood alone before them, feeling smaller than he ever had.
"Let the record show," intoned the central councilor, a severe woman with silver hair named High Magus Evandra, "that this emergency session has been convened at the request of Agent Kaelen Corvus of the Celestial Bureau, regarding the student, Silas Vale."
Corvus gave a slight, precise bow. "High Magus, honored councilors. I am here today to present incontrovertible evidence that the student Silas Vale is bonded not to a familiar, but to a Class Three Reality Deviancy. An entity of void origin that poses a direct and existential threat to the stability of this academy and the safety of its students."
He raised his crystalline device. It projected shimmering images into the air above him. Silas saw the data from his bonding, the anomalous mana readings from his classes, and finally, the violent red flare of the Veracity Crystal.
"The entity exhibits properties of cognitive parasitism, reality distortion, and energetic negation," Corvus continued, his voice calm and logical. "It is an unclassified, predatory consciousness that is slowly rewriting its host's fundamental nature. Left unchecked, it will not merely corrupt Mr. Vale; it will consume him and become a breach point for further incursions from its native dimension."
He lowered the device. The images vanished. "Therefore, I formally petition the council for an Immediate Excision Order. The entity must be severed and banished, and Mr. Vale placed into permanent custodial care."
The words hung in the air. Permanent custodial care. A life as a studied specimen, or worse, a hollowed-out shell.
High Magus Evandra's gaze, cold and weighing, fell upon Silas. "Student Vale. You have heard the petition. The evidence is... compelling. Do you have anything to say before this council renders its judgment?"
This was it. The moment. Silas's mouth was dry as dust. He felt the eyes of the council, of Corvus, of Brom. He felt the immense, silent pressure of the institution itself, ready to grind him into nothing for the sake of order.
And then he felt something else. A core of absolute cold, a stillness at the center of his being. Lurk. Not speaking, just *being*. An undeniable fact.
Silas took a step forward. His voice, when it came, did not shake.
"The Agent calls my familiar a 'deviancy,'" Silas began, his words echoing in the vast hall. "He calls it a 'threat.' He is correct that it is not from the Approved Registry. He is correct that its power is unlike anything you have seen."
A ripple of surprise went through the council. Corvus's eyebrow twitched almost imperceptibly. He had expected denial, desperation, not... agreement.
"But he is wrong," Silas continued, his voice growing stronger, "to call it a corruption. Our bond is not one of parasitism. It is one of symbiosis. A new form of magic that your system is too rigid to comprehend. You fear what you cannot file away."
He looked directly at High Magus Evandra, channeling every ounce of the defiant certainty Lurk provided.
"Therefore, I do not beg for mercy from this council. I do not accept its judgment. Instead, I invoke a higher law. A older law."
He took a deep breath, the words feeling ancient and powerful on his tongue.
"I invoke the Trial of Ascendance. I demand the right to prove the validity of my bond before the celestial forces themselves. Let the heavens decide if my familiar is a deviancy to be excised, or a new truth to be recognized."
For a full ten seconds, there was absolute silence. The councilors stared, their masks of impassivity shattered into pure shock. Magus Brom had closed his eyes, as if in prayer. Corvus's face was a study in frozen, furious disbelief. The Trial was a legendary, almost mythical right. No one invoked it. No one was foolish enough.
High Magus Evandra was the first to recover. "The Trial of Ascendance," she repeated, her voice hushed. "It has not been invoked in over two centuries. The risks..."
"Are mine to bear," Silas said firmly.
"The traditions are clear, High Magus," Magus Brom spoke up, his voice ringing with authority. "Once invoked, the petition for excision is suspended. The Trial must be granted."
Corvus found his voice, a sharp, cold thing. "This is a transparent delaying tactic! The boy is desperate. The Trial is a death sentence."
"Then my death will be my own," Silas shot back, "and not something sanitized in one of your compliance offices."
The councilors conferred in hushed, urgent whispers. Finally, Evandra turned back, her face once again an unreadable mask, though her eyes held a new, wary respect.
"The tradition is, indeed, absolute. The invocation is recognized. The petition for excision is tabled pending the outcome of the Trial of Ascendance."
She raised a hand, and a complex, glowing sigil burned to life in the air before her.
"By the ancient rites, a champion must be chosen to represent the established order. The champion must be a peer, a student of this academy, bonded to a familiar of recognized celestial lineage." Her eyes scanned an unseen list. "The system selects... Seraphina Valerius."
As if summoned, the great doors of the hall swung open. Seraphina stood there, backlit by the hall's torchlight. She had clearly been listening. Her face was pale, but her chin was high, her eyes blazing with a mix of shock and grim determination. Solaris on her shoulder mantled its wings, its golden light a direct challenge to the shadows in the hall.
"The Trial will commence at dawn, three days hence, in the Arena of the Ancients," Evandra proclaimed. "May the heavens judge the truth of your bond, Silas Vale."
The session was over. The councilors rose and filed out. Corvus gave Silas one last, venomous look before striding away. Brom came to Silas's side, his hand a heavy, comforting weight on his shoulder.
Seraphina remained at the doorway, her gaze locked with Silas's across the vast, empty space. There was no disdain in her eyes now. Only the cold, clear understanding of a duelist. She gave a single, sharp nod—an acknowledgment, and a promise of the fight to come—then turned and left.
Silas stood alone in the center of the hall, the echoes of his own gamble fading into silence.
"It is done," Lurk's voice was quiet, final. "The path is set."
*Now we have to walk it,* Silas thought.
In three days, he would face the sun. And he would have to find a way to make it set.