Chapter 11: The Calm Before
The silence in the Hall of Proclamation lingered around Silas long after everyone had left. The weight of his declaration still hung in the air, a tangible thing. It was Magus Brom's heavy hand on his shoulder that finally broke the spell.
"Come, boy," the Magus said, his voice gruff. "Staring at empty chairs won't prepare you for what comes next."
He led Silas not to the library or a training ground, but to a part of the academy Silas had never seen: a forgotten greenhouse attached to the alchemy wing. The glass panes were murky with grime, and the air inside was thick with the scent of damp earth and strange, phosphorescent fungi. It was a place outside the usual order.
"This is my private study," Brom said, latching the door behind them. "The wards here are... old. They'll mask your activities from prying devices." He fixed Silas with a stern look. "Corvus will be watching everything else. He cannot interfere with the Trial directly, but he will be looking for any excuse to disqualify you. Your training must be invisible."
For the next two days, this became Silas's world. Brom could not teach him Lurk's magic, but he could be a strategist.
"Seraphina's power is pure, celestial force," Brom explained, sketching glowing diagrams in the air. "It is direct, overwhelming, and predictable. She will try to crush you with sheer power. You cannot meet force with force. You must be the hole the river flows into."
The training was brutal. Lurk, no longer constrained by the need for secrecy, pushed Silas to his absolute limits.
"Focus," Lurk's voice would intone as Silas stood before a training dummy. "Do not see the object. See the connections that bind it."
Silas would pour his will out, not to shatter the dummy, but to find the single point of tension that held its form together. The first dozen attempts failed. The dummies would smolder or crack, but not unravel. The strain was immense, a mental exertion that left him nauseous and drained.
"Again," Lurk commanded, its presence an immovable glacier in his mind.
On the thirteenth attempt, something clicked. Silas stopped *pushing* and simply *saw* the flaw in the dummy's construction. He gave that flaw his full attention, and with a whisper of unraveling thread, the dummy collapsed into a heap of disconnected straw and wood.
"Acceptable," Lurk stated.
Progress was slow, painful, and utterly draining. But with each success, Silas felt his control grow finer, more precise. He learned to create a localized "null" field, a small bubble where Seraphina's spells might simply wink out of existence. He learned to subtly leach the heat from the air, creating a pocket of debilitating cold.
It was during one of these exhausting sessions that Leo found them. He peeked through the greenhouse door, his wisp trembling violently.
"Silas?" he whispered, his eyes wide as he took in the scene of a training dummy that had been deconstructed into its base components. "I... I heard about the Trial. Everyone is talking."
"Come to see the freak show?" Silas asked, too tired to be polite.
"No!" Leo said, stepping fully inside and shutting the door. "I... I brought you this." He held out a small, warm pastry. "From the kitchens. You look like you haven't eaten." He looked at the pile of straw that was once a dummy. "And I can be a lookout. If Corvus or any of his lackeys come snooping around, my wisp can give a signal. It's good at being nervously distracting."
It was a small gesture, but in the crushing isolation, it felt monumental. Silas wasn't entirely alone.
Meanwhile, glimpses of Seraphina's preparation filtered through the academy rumor mill. She was training in the Grand Astral Arena, her sessions drawing crowds. Witnesses spoke of pillars of golden fire and light so pure it hurt to look at. She was being honed into the perfect weapon, the champion of the established order.
The night before the Trial, Silas stood in the greenhouse, practicing maintaining the null field. He held it for a full minute before his concentration broke, sweat dripping from his brow.
"It will have to be enough," Brom said from the doorway, his arms crossed. "You cannot win a contest of endurance against a phoenix. Your only chance is a single, perfect, surgical strike. You must break her rhythm, not her spirit."
Later, alone in his room, Silas felt the cold certainty of Lurk's presence.
"The strategy is sound. The rival's power is a song. We must be the silence between the notes."
"And if we can't find the silence?" Silas asked, staring at his hands.
"Then we will be drowned out." There was no comfort in the statement, only fact.
As dawn approached, Silas didn't sleep. He sat on the edge of his bed, going over every lesson, every failed attempt, every small success. He was no longer just a student hiding a secret. He was a weapon that had been forged in secret, about to be unveiled to the world.
He was terrified. But beneath the terror, there was a thread of something else, something cold and sharp and ready.
It was time.