Chương 83: Chapter 16: A Silent Word

She arrived panting at the base of the towering clock in the Atrium of Knowledge, where the group was already gathered. Fern, Yarra, Corin, Maya, and Ren looked at her in unison, their expressions were a mix of anxiety and resignation. Selena was the last one, again. But this time, the one waiting for them was not the frigid Isolde, but Valerian himself. Stationed against the pedestal, his black tunic with red trim stood out in the clear light.

Upon seeing her arrive, a broad and theatrical smile drew across his face. —Welcome, my Lady Duchess! —he proclaimed with his baritone voice, laden with a sarcasm that cut through the air— You honor us with your regal unpunctuality. He let out a cackle, a sound that reverberated with false joy in the immensity of the Atrium. Without losing an ounce of his showmanship, he activated the secret mechanism with the fluidity of a ritual repeated a thousand times and guided them through the dark threshold.

Today's path was different, a spiral descent that seemed to seek the very heart of the mountain, until it opened into a room that left everyone breathless. It was a perfect cube, of an immaculate and unnatural whiteness. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, everything glowed with a light of its own, diffuse and without an apparent source, casting no shadows. The contrast with Valerian's black tunic was so violent that his figure seemed like a void cut out against the blinding purity.

The air smelled of nothing, of a sterilized vacuum, and the silence was so absolute that the slightest sound became a profanation. —Barefoot —Valerian ordered, his voice muffled by the whiteness— Everything that touches this floor must be pure, or as pure as mortal flesh can be. While the others clumsily removed their shoes, Valerian approached Selena. He leaned in until his breath, which smelled of bitter herbs and cheap liquor, brushed her ear. His whisper was a poisoned silk dagger.

—By the way, it's considered cheating if you wear that bracelet inside —he said. With an exaggerated gesture of his hand, he simulated removing an invisible bracelet from his wrist. His gaze, of a piercing blue and laden with an uncomfortable knowledge, fixed on the simple bracelet of stone and thread. —Only clothes inside, no accessories, nothing extra that you carry upon you. You know that already, my little walking misfortunes —he added in a louder voice, addressing everyone with a macabre wink.

The order floated in the white room. One by one, they left their few belongings in a corner: a leather belt, a handkerchief, a simple hairpin. Selena's gaze fell on Maya's necklace, a simple and touching piece: a leaf of perpetual green, perfectly preserved in a piece of amber resin, hanging from a braided thread. It was a piece of her forest, a talisman of her world, a symbol that reminded her of home. Then, all eyes, including Valerian's, turned toward Selena. The master extended his hand, expectant.

A glacial cold, foreign to the controlled climate of the room, took hold of her. With fingers that began to tremble, she started to unfasten the bracelet. The faint heat it always emanated, that serene and rooted sensation that had been her anchor in the storm, began to fade, to become distant, like music dying out as a door is closed. When the bracelet detached completely from her skin, the world collapsed. It was instantaneous.

A brutal dizziness that clouded her vision, as if a thick gray veil had come between her and the blinding whiteness. Nausea twisted her stomach; a cold sweat broke out on her neck and the palms of her hands. An uncontrollable tremor shook her limbs, making her stagger. She looked at her hands, those small, foreign hands, and a brutal dysphoria, a visceral rejection of the flesh she inhabited, struck her mind with the force of a hammer blow.

Reality was crumbling, the foundations of her fragile sanity were cracking, and the dissociative fog of those first catatonic weeks threatened to swallow her again, here, in this white and implacable cube. She couldn't bear it for another second. She doubled over at the waist, bringing her hands to her head, a stifled groan escaping her lips. Then, a firm hand grabbed hers. Valerian, with supernatural speed, took the bracelet she had just released and placed it back on her wrist.

The contact of the smooth stone and the threads was immediate, a torrent of calm that expanded through her arm, soothing the tremors, dispelling the nausea, clearing the fog. Selena gasped, still crouched on the white floor, while the feeling of belonging, of being anchored, came stumbling back. Valerian did not help her up. He only stood by her side, and his voice, for once stripped of all mockery, resonated with an ancient and sympathetic heaviness. —I understand, child.

—he said, and the words were not comfort, but a statement— I understand. His gesture was that of a man who had witnessed this same tragedy, this same fundamental tearing, too many times. There was no compassion in his eyes, but the lucid and tired recognition of a wound they all shared, a fracture in the soul that the bracelet did not heal but merely plugged. The whiteness of the room seemed to intensify, becoming almost aggressive, a blank canvas reflecting the collective turmoil.

Selena stood up little by little, her legs still shaky, the stone and thread bracelet adjusted once more to her wrist like a life preserver. Her gaze, clouded by shame and the recent vertigo, sought the faces of her companions. She found a mixture of confusion, pity, and, in the case of Fern and Corin, an almost clinical curiosity. Before she could articulate a word, an excuse, or an explanation, Valerian's voice cut through the silence, but no longer with the sarcasm of the jester.

There was a new edge to his tone, an underlying seriousness that disarmed his own farce. —Telling you what I cannot for your rank would not be as theatrical as I desire —he declared. For an instant, the jester's mask vanished, revealing the man who lived behind it, a man whose gray eyes now shone with the cold light of a strategist. The silence that followed was dense, laden with foreboding. The minutes crawled by, each heartbeat an echo in the white chamber.

Until, with a sudden flourish that seemed more an exorcism than a gesture, Valerian broke the spell. —Misfortunes, outcasts, and the cursed over here, please! His voice was clear as he announced the order, then his arm extended to the left. —The Crimson Duchess... over there. He added, pointing to an empty space to the right with a tilt of his head that was both a mockery and a sentence. The shock was palpable. Mouths opened in a mute chorus of incredulity.

No one, not even in their boldest nightmares, would have imagined that someone would dare address Selena by that blood-stained title, much less segregate her with such cruel precision. The faces of Maya, Ren, and the others were a poem of stupor and sudden fear. Valerian, however, gave them no time to digest it. He interrupted the collective shock with a sharp clap that rang out like a gunshot in the whiteness. —The last one to move will die from a ricochet!

He announced, and a broad smile, devoid of all joy, stretched across his face. —Or something like that. The metaphor is the least of it. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. It was as if an invisible whip had lashed the air. Everyone, except Fern, who seemed to be paralyzed for a second longer out of sheer amazement, moved immediately, forming two groups with the clumsiness of one obeying a deadly whim.

On one side, the five resonants of common origin, huddling together, a blotch of confusion and fear. On the other, alone, like an island of mourning in the white sea, Selena. Her figure, clad in the black dress, seemed to absorb the light around her, and her face, pale, was a mask of wounded and cold dignity. —Our little noble cheated in the room. Valerian proclaimed, pacing in front of them like a conductor before his bewildered band. —So, she will be our living example. Besides the blood that stains her hands.

His gaze settled on Selena with an intensity that pierced her. —She has something else. Something more... subtle. Let's see if you are capable of feeling it. After an exaggerated bow that felt obscene in that context, he retreated to a corner of the white room. He leaned against the wall, crossed his arms over his black tunic, and sank into absolute silence, his eyes scrutinizing them all with the patience of a predator. The minutes flew by, transforming into an hour, then two.

Time lost its meaning in that white void. Only the gazes existed, furtive, laden with growing tension, going from Selena to the group and from the group to Selena. Fern was sweating, Corin looked ready to faint, Maya tried to maintain a calm breath, Ren evaluated the situation with a soldier's eyes. And Selena, motionless, bore the weight of being the object of study, the enigma to be deciphered. It was Fern who finally broke the accumulated pressure, overcoming his caution. —It's her bracelet, right?

—he said, his voice was raspy from a dry throat. Valerian didn't even flinch. His response was a poisoned dart of sarcasm. —It is evident, Lord of the Obvious. He replied, without taking his eyes off Selena. —I mean something else. Something you don't touch but feel. Then, tired by the exasperating silence of the participants, Valerian rolled his eyes. It was a sincere gesture, almost of surrender amidst the incompetence of the new generation of ignoramuses. The tension became almost unbearable.

Corin, on the verge of collapse, stammered, looking for an answer, any answer that would release them from that torture. —She... she is older than us —he managed to babble, as if age were the key to the mystery. Valerian straightened slowly, a look of annoyance on his face. His voice dripped contempt. —A shrewd deduction... for a blind man. The silence left by Valerian's acidic retort was thick, laden with Corin's shame and the collective frustration.

The whiteness of the room seemed to close in on them, a sterile laboratory where their own ineptitude was the only specimen to observe. It was then, in that tense void, that Yarra, the broad-backed woodcutter, spoke. Her voice, usually firm, came out shaky, dragging with it something that had been kept quiet for a long time, something that resonated in everyone's gaze, but no one had dared to vocalize.

—She doesn't feel like us —she said; the words, simple and brutal, fell into the room like an axe on a block of ice. There was no need to explain whom she referred to. They all felt the truth in their bones, in the very quality of the air surrounding Selena. It wasn't just the aura of nobility or the weight of her title. It was something more fundamental, a difference in the very texture of her presence before the void. Valerian did not applaud, nor did he smile in an exaggerated manner.

Simply, a spark of genuine satisfaction, almost paternal, lit up his eyes. He approached Yarra with feline fluidity, took her hand, and raised it with the solemnity of a herald. —We have a winner! He proclaimed, and his voice, for the first time, lacked mockery. From nowhere, as if emerging from a fold in his tunic, three bronze crowns appeared, which he deposited in Yarra's calloused palm. —Three crowns to the victor of perception.

A murmur of complaints, a mix of envy and the feeling of injustice from a game whose rules they did not know, arose from the group. Fern grunted, Corin lowered his head. —You cannot complain. Valerian cut in, his tone regaining a hint of his usual disdain. —Rewards are for the lucky ones, my little misfortunes. The fortune of perceiving what others do not. He gave a slight tilt of his head, a gesture almost of respect toward Yarra. —Furthermore, the victor may ask one thing that I can answer.

Yarra, with the bronze crowns burning in her hand, swallowed hard. Her powerful body, accustomed to the tangible struggle against wood and the elements, seemed to shrink before the prospect of a question that transcended the physical. Her eyes, of an earthy brown, met Valerian's. —I want to see the magic. She stammered, her voice breaking with contained emotion. —I don't want to read it in books. I want to... see it. Valerian smiled.

It wasn't the theatrical grimace from before, but a genuine expression, almost joyful, like that of a craftsman about to show his masterpiece. —A simple and profound wish, but by calling it magic you make your ignorance evident —he mused. Then, he pronounced a word, a word that had no sound, a command to reality itself, only after the movement of his mouth did it happen. In the exact center of the group, between Selena and the other five, a flame was born from nothing.

It was no common fire; it did not crackle; it gave off no heat. It was a perfect spiral of flaming and cold light, dancing in silence, contorting itself like a living being made of pure energy. The instant the flame appeared, all sounds vanished. Yarra's gasps, Corin's heavy breathing, the beating of their own hearts... everything was absorbed by an absolute auditory void. Touches disappeared; they no longer felt the ground beneath their bare feet, nor the clothes upon their skin.

Smell was nullified; taste became an insipid plain. Only vision remained, sharpened in a terrifying way, fixed on the spiral of flaming light of the fire that spun in the deepest silence they had ever experienced. The spiral of flaming light of fire vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Sound returned with a thundering torrent: their own panting breaths, the creak of a joint, the furious beat of blood in their ears.

Touch, smell, everything came back, overwhelming, as if the world had been snatched away and returned to them in the same instant. It was only after the senses returned a second later that Valerian's voice resonated within the room. It was clear, serene, and the bearer of a naked truth. —The echo exists. Each word was a seal of certainty pressed directly into their consciousnesses. —Do not deny it. It is not mastered. It is not studied. It is understood. With the soul and with the mind.

The air, suddenly, became breathable again. The tension that had filled the white room like heavy gas dissipated with Valerian's blunt declaration. A collective sigh, barely audible, escaped the students' lips as the master, his black tunic billowing like a banner of the absurd, headed toward the exit. —Unless you want to live isolated in this room forever, follow me. He announced without turning back, his voice already a distant echo in the passage opening in the white wall. —By the way, Yarra.

He added, pausing for an instant and casting an ironical glance over his shoulder. —You owe me two hours of life. A carefree smile, almost a macabre wink, lit his face before he disappeared into the gloom of the tunnel. The group moved like a single dazed organism, shuffling their feet over the implacable whiteness. They exited through a passage they hadn't seen before, which led directly to a shadowy corner between coral trees, near the path that wound toward the cloisters.

The natural light, filtered through the foliage, hurt their eyes accustomed to the unnatural purity of the chamber. Selena did not exchange glances with anyone. Yarra's revelation — She doesn't feel like us — resonated in her ears with the force of a verdict. It wasn't an accusation, but the statement of a physical, tangible truth that everyone, including herself, had perceived at the most primitive level of their beings.

She separated from the group with quick, almost fugitive steps, and headed directly to her room in the Forest Cloister. The need for refuge, for four walls that were not a laboratory of psychological torture, was a physical urgency. The wooden door closed behind her with a creak that seemed to her deliciously mundane.

Without even the strength to dedicate herself to any other task, she threw herself onto the bed, burying her face in the pillow that smelled of clean sheets and a faint aroma of moss that seeped through the window. A long, shaky sigh, coming from the deepest part of her entrails, escaped her chest. So, I actually never reconciled with this body, she thought, bitterness tinting every mental word. The hands I see, the skin I feel, it all remains foreign. The nausea, the malaise, the tremor… they didn't go away.

They just hid, lurking beneath the surface, waiting for me to take off this bracelet. Another sigh, deeper, laden with the weight of evidence. Corren… is your bracelet just a psychological anchor? It's likely. It is very likely that it is so. The sound of the door opening pulled her from her brooding. It was Samira and Fjora, entering with their characteristic stealth. They each sat on their functional beds; their gazes fixed on her.

Them again, Selena thought, with a resignation that was no longer entirely uncomfortable. The King's surveillance doesn't bother me too much, at least not like before. But they seem like pawns, without a spark of their own emotion. Well… not entirely. She had barely seen Samira's eyes shine when she spoke of books. Then an idea was born to her: Fjora, when I have the Weapons Practice and Handling class, I'll take her.

Surely wielding a weapon, feeling its weight, will pull her out of that coldness and perpetual silence. Only after that did she allow herself seconds of silence; she stopped thinking. She focused on breathing while looking at the ceiling; it was the most objective way of doing nothing. She knew what she would have to do, she knew she was different, but now and only now, she sought to be in silence with herself, to fully find her own center.