The dormitory door closed with a click that sounded far too final, isolating Veridia and her "problem" from the rest of the world.
Veridia let herself slide down the wood until she hit the floor, hugging her knees tightly. Her legs were shaking uncontrollably. The image of Professor Galt embedded in the wall played in her head on a high-definition loop.
She barely remembered how she had gotten from the hallway to her room. The minutes in between were a blur of panic and adrenaline, anchored to reality only by Nalia's firm presence. Her friend hadn't left her side after the disaster; she had taken Veridia by the arm, guiding her silently and with great urgency away from the crime scene, shielding her from the curious gazes starting to peek around corners.
"Breathe, Veri," Nalia had whispered upon reaching the dorm, her voice still trembling but regaining its usual commanding tone. Before gently pushing her inside, she had pressed the pastry and the apple rescued from the dining hall into Veridia's hands. "I'll... I'll come up with an alibi. You lock yourself in. Do not come out."
The door had closed, leaving her with cold dinner in her hands and the echo of her friend's worry vibrating in the air.
"Did... did you kill him?" Veridia asked the air in a hushed voice, finally returning to the present.
Kaelen was already in his usual spot by the window. He had returned to his human form the moment they entered, brushing an invisible speck of dust from his shoulder with the same indifference one would use to flick away a fallen leaf.
"Keep breathing," Kaelen replied without turning around. His voice was calm, devoid of any human emotion—neither pride nor guilt. "He was in the way."
Veridia rubbed her temples, feeling her sanity slip through her fingers.
"'In the way'... Kaelen, he's a professor. A high-ranking mage of this institution. Tomorrow, the entire faculty will be breaking down our door."
He didn't answer. To Kaelen, human hierarchies were a concern only slightly more annoying than avoiding a crack in the pavement. He sat on the sill, crossing one leg over the other with imperial elegance, and fixed his golden eyes on the twin moons beginning to peek through the firmament.
The atmosphere in the room shifted. The violence from the hallway dissipated, replaced by a cold, silent heaviness. Veridia noticed that, despite his arrogance, Kaelen's shoulders were unusually tense. The wound in his stomach, though hidden by his regal black robes, was still there, draining his essence. She could feel it through the bond connecting them—a dull echo of exhaustion vibrating weakly in her own mana—confirmed by the air around him, which still smelled faintly of blood and ozone.
"You must be exhausted," she said, standing up and reaching into her backpack. She pulled out what Nalia had given her: the Star Meat Pastry and the apple. "You spent a lot of energy during the exam... and then with the professor. Here."
She held the food out with a trembling but firm hand. Kaelen turned his face slowly, just enough to look at her out of the corner of his eye. His gaze dropped to the pastry as if it were an offensive object, a personal insult to his lineage.
"I do not consume that," he said. His tone wasn't simple disgust, but an undeniable truth. "Human food is repulsive to me. It lacks energetic density. It is empty."
Kaelen fell silent immediately, the taste of his own explanation bitter on his tongue. Why do I bother explaining my needs to a human? he questioned in the privacy of his mind, irritated by that flicker of unnecessary vulnerability.
Veridia didn't withdraw her hand. On the contrary, her green eyes sparkled with a sudden idea. An almost suicidal intuition told her that if he hadn't killed her when she dragged him to this world, he wouldn't kill her for offering him a snack.
He's a spirit... or a demon... or something purely magical, she thought. Physical matter disgusts him, but... what if I change the recipe?
Veridia closed her eyes for a second. She inhaled deeply and, concentrating harder than ever before, pushed a wave of her own mana into the apple and the pastry. It wasn't refined magic; it was raw, slightly chaotic, but it was pure life essence. The fruit glowed faintly with an emerald shimmer for a second.
She took a step forward, invading Kaelen's personal space with a boldness that would have given Nalia a heart attack, and set the food on the sill right next to Kaelen's hip.
"Look, I don't know what the kings of the underworld or wherever you're from eat," she said, crossing her arms and looking him directly in the eye, "but I put some of my own mana into it. It's the best I've got right now."
Kaelen looked at her, eyebrows slightly arched. He could smell her mana permeating the food; it no longer smelled only of dead matter—now it smelled of her, the anchor keeping him tied to life. It was... tolerable. A necessary concession for his recovery.
"There you go," Veridia finished, turning back toward her bed. "If you don't like it, throw it out the window. But please, don't starve to death just for being picky. It would be very embarrassing for my academic record if my first familiar died of starvation on the first night."
Kaelen didn't respond. He looked at the energy-imbued apple. He didn't touch it immediately, but he didn't scorn it or hurl it into the void either. He simply allowed it to remain there, by his side.
"Sleep," he ordered finally, regaining his habitual coldness. "Your prattling is unnecessary."
"And you?" she asked, settling under the blankets. "Are you going to stay there judging the moon all night?"
"Sleep is a vulnerability I cannot afford in this state," he replied, closing his eyes in a meditative stance. "You are fragile, human. You saw today how easily your kind breaks under minimal pressure."
Veridia wanted to retort that she wasn't that fragile, but the accumulated exhaustion hit her suddenly. And, deep down, knowing that this arrogant and lethal monster was guarding the door granted her a strange, twisted sense of peace.
"Goodnight, 'Picky Cat'," she murmured, closing her eyes.
That fragile calm barely survived until the first light of dawn.
◆◆◆
Veridia dreamed of snow. Not the soft, white snow of children's tales, but a biting blizzard on a plain of eternal obsidian, where a silver tiger walked alone, leaving behind tracks of blood that the ice erased instantly.
"Aethel."
The voice cut through the dream. Not a shout, but a calm mention, spoken with authority.
Veridia opened one eye with difficulty. The room was bathed in the pale light of dawn. Kaelen was standing in the center of the room, his back to the window. He was looking at her with that unreadable expression, his right hand slightly raised, pointing toward the entrance door. An almost imperceptible hum of dark energy was beginning to gather at his fingertips.
"W-what...?" she yawned, wiping away a trail of drool. "Is it daylight already?"
"Your door is vibrating," Kaelen said. His tone was flat, purely informative. "Someone on the other side is using low-quality vocal amplification magic. It is annoying. I will make them be quiet."
And that glow on his fingers?... wait a second, what does he mean by "I will make them be quiet"? He's not going to ask them for silence; he's going to erase them along with my door! Veridia thought, the panic fully waking her up.
"No!" she bolted upright, panic sweeping away the remnants of sleep. "Do not disintegrate anything or anyone!"
At that precise moment, a voice boomed—not just at the door, but through the walls, the floor, and probably Veridia's very teeth.
"STUDENT VERIDIA AETHEL! BY ORDER OF THE DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE AND THE ZENITH BOARD OF DIRECTORS! YOUR IMMEDIATE PRESENCE IS REQUIRED IN THE MAGISTERIAL TRIBUNAL HALL!"
Veridia covered her ears with a groan, falling back onto the bed.
"I knew it. Galt. They're going to expel me. Or execute me in the square. Probably both, in that order."
Kaelen lowered his hand, dissipating the dark energy without the slightest effort. He seemed mildly irritated, with the resignation of one who chooses not to swat a mosquito because the effort isn't worth it.
"I will let you handle these trifles. Go, human."
Veridia scurried around the room, tripping over her own boots as she tried to put her uniform on decently. Kaelen watched her for a second, let out a sound indicating his patience was reaching its limit, and enveloped himself in a blinding light. He returned to his lynx form. When Veridia tried to approach to pick him up and protect him, he slipped away with a fluid movement, avoiding any physical contact.
"I get it, you don't want me to touch you," she said, resigned, as she opened the door. "Let's go."
My fur shall not touch human cloth, he replied in her mind, his tone icy. Walk, human.
◆◆◆
The hallway toward the Magisterial Tribunal was unlike any other place in Zenith. It was a throat of gray stone, narrow and ridiculously high, designed architecturally to make anyone crossing it feel insignificant. Statues of the Founding Judges lined both sides, looking down from three-meter pedestals with hollow, judgmental granite eyes.
This environment is supposed to crush me, Veridia thought, feeling the physical weight of the place's magical authority trying to stifle her aura. But after surviving Kaelen's gaze and Ryumu's sadistic jokes... this almost feels cozy. Students scrambled out of her way, hugging the walls as if she were carrying a plague, but this time, no one dared to laugh.
The fear in their eyes was palpable.
They had seen the crater on the testing field. They had heard about Professor Horo babbling in the infirmary. And they had seen the silhouette of Professor Galt imprinted in the plaster of the east hallway. Veridia Aethel was no longer the class clown; now, she was the bearer of the monster.
Upon reaching the immense double mahogany doors of the Tribunal, Nalia was already there, standing like a sentinel with a folder full of documents under her arm.
"You're two minutes late," Nalia said, unfazed by the lynx walking with indifference at Veridia's heels.
"I was... dreaming that I had a nice grimoire and a normal familiar," Veridia lied with a sad smile. "Are you here to defend me?"
"I'm here to ensure you don't say anything that incriminates you—or both of us—further," Nalia corrected, pushing the heavy door open. "Go in. And remember: do not speak unless asked directly. And control your... Familiar."
◆◆◆
The Magisterial Tribunal was a space designed not to impart justice, but to force absolute submission.
Upon entering, the first sensation was one of inverse vertigo. The ceiling was lost in a dome of perpetual darkness, studded with runes that glowed like dead stars. But the most terrifying thing wasn't above; it was in front.
There was no normal bench. The judges' dais rose like a vertical wall of polished obsidian, soaring more than ten meters above the floor where the accused stood. The twelve chairs of the faculty members were suspended up there in a semicircular gallery so high that Veridia had to tilt her head back painfully just to try and see them.
From her position, the judges weren't people. They were dark silhouettes outlined against the cold light of the runes—distant, faceless gods looking down with arrogance. The acoustics were designed so that their voices descended like divine thunder, while the voice of the accused, trapped in the pit at the center, sounded small, weak, and pathetic.
This isn't a trial, Nalia thought. They don't intend to let Veridia defend herself.
Is this even legal? Veridia wondered, doubting the legitimacy of a place so hostile toward the accused.
In the center of that vastness, floating in a magical chair and wrapped in so many bandages he looked like a furious mummy, was Professor Galt. He levitated at a medium height, like an executioner eager to give the order.
"There she is!" Galt shouted, pointing a bandaged, trembling finger at her. His gravelly voice reverberated off the curved walls. "The delinquent and her unregistered wild beast!"
Veridia swallowed hard, walking toward the exact center of the room. The lynx at her feet didn't even look up. He kept his eyes forward, yawning openly and showing fangs that were far too white and sharp. To Kaelen, architecture designed to intimidate humans was less impressive than a poorly built anthill in the mud.
"Silence," ordered an ancient voice that descended from the heights like a divine sentence. The Dean of Theoretical Magic was just a dark smudge up there. "Veridia Aethel. You are accused of aggravated assault on a faculty member, destruction of school property, and possession of an unauthorized high-level familiar. How do you plead before this Tribunal?"
Innocent! My out-of-control familiar knocked out a professor just by walking, and sent another into an existential crisis with a look!
Veridia blinked, reconsidering her defense out of late-onset panic. Perhaps it would be better to let Nalia speak for her.
The weight of the room tried to physically crush her. Kaelen, sitting by her side, emitted a low, almost inaudible sound. It wasn't a growl. It was a suppressed laugh, the product of his patience finally going on strike.
Cheap theater. Unnecessary noise. How humans enjoy wasting their short time, the lynx thought, his golden eyes ceasing their yawn to focus on nothingness. This farce insults my existence.
A shadow imperceptible to the human eye began to crawl from his silver paws. It wasn't visible magic; it was pure murderous intent. A bloodlust so ancient, so pure, and so concentrated that the breath of everyone present crystallized.
Up there, on the unreachable dais, the twelve judges stopped breathing in unison. They didn't know why. They only knew that, suddenly, their most primal instincts were screaming that they were now prey. They felt an icy chill caress the back of their necks—a silent promise that the obsidian wall would not protect them. Horror paralyzed them in their seats, an absolute and irrational fear; they felt their veins burning as if ice were running through them instead of blood.
Kaelen was a single thought away from unfurling his stellar wings and turning the Tribunal into a mere memory of rubble.
◆◆◆
Thousands of miles away, where the sea beats furiously against black cliffs that no human map records...
The sky over the crags darkened momentarily, not from storm clouds, but from a palpable distortion in reality itself. A figure emerged from nowhere, landing softly on the salt-sprayed rock. There were no explosions or craters; her arrival was as silent as the fall of an autumn leaf.
She was a young woman, and her presence was a living contradiction in that wild landscape. She wore a voluminous Victorian Gothic-style dress in a purple so deep it appeared black, accented with wine-red ruffles at the high collar and shoulders. A white maid's apron with lace edges contrasted with the darkness of the outfit, tied at her waist with a precision that betrayed devotion. Her hair, a dark violet color, was cut in a short, practical bob, topped by a white maid's headband.
But what shattered the illusion of fragility wasn't her violet eyes—cold and devoid of all visible emotion—but the metallic glint on her arms. Instead of cloth cuffs, the maid wore polished silver metal bracers on her forearms—functional armor that made it clear her hands were made for something far more lethal than serving tea.
The Steel Maid took a deep breath of the human world's air. It smelled of salt, of decay, and of an overwhelming distance.
"The trail is faint and scattered," she murmured to herself, her melodic voice nearly lost in the deafening roar of the waves. "But not just because of the distance... Someone has interfered."
She crouched, touching the rock with a gloved finger. A wave of violet energy rippled out, searching for her master's unique signature. She found it, but it was blurred, muffled by a layer of strangely sophisticated human magic.
"A barrier of silence and concealment," she analyzed, her eyes shining with coldness. "Someone on this plane is skilled enough to mask the arrival of an Archdemon. Lord Kaelen is good at hiding, but this... this is an active countermeasure."
The Steel Maid stood and smoothed her skirt. The situation was worse than anticipated. Her lord was not only wounded and far away; he was in the territory of someone capable of playing hide-and-seek with demonic royalty.
"Endure, my Lord," she whispered, and a shadow of real concern crossed her perfect face. "Your sword and shield are on their way. I will be delayed, but I will arrive. And woe to the poor soul who has dared to touch a single hair of yours before my arrival."
The maid began to walk toward the interior of the continent. She didn't run, but each step she took devoured meters of distance in an unnatural way, beginning the long journey in search of her master.