Chương 89: Chapter 22: A Prodigy Hunter

The next morning when she woke up, her eyes felt heavy. The first thing she saw, amidst the thin threads of light filtering through the window, was a letter bearing the seal of the great House Solendra. She brought it close to her face; the sender made it clear: Valerius. She sighed deeply and left it on the table, unable to cope with that feeling which took root in her chest every time she saw the man's loving gesture. The medicine class that day drifted toward natural philosophy.

Armish Levis was a doctor who had served the Church of the Eternal Sap; every one of his words rooted the well-being of individuals in the incessant flow of the goddess and the correctness of destiny. Selena could only think of one thing: dogmatism. She arrived at Isolde's class sighing, fatigue weighing heavy upon her eyelids, but a spark of nervous adrenaline kept her alert. There was a palpable change in the white room.

The usual atmosphere of contained tension had been charged with a new, dangerous, and electrifying voltage. Isolde, standing in the center of the white void, observed them with her gray gaze, sharper than usual. —Today —she announced, her voice cutting through the silence like a knife— you will attempt to master the echo for the first time. A collective shiver ran through the circle of students. —Do not fear —she continued, though her tone was not reassuring, but factual— I will be here. And you will not die.

It is possible that none of you will succeed. But that, too, is part of the teaching. She had them disperse, increasing the distance between each other until they were isolated in their own space of anxious whiteness. Then, she drew a short, thin-bladed dagger. —I need a little of your blood —she declared, bluntly. She approached each of them, and with a swift, precise movement, pricked the palms of their hands. Scarlet drops welled up, bright against their pale skin and the ambient whiteness.

Isolde collected them in small glass vials, which she sealed instantly and handed back to their owners. —Good. Those of you who feel more comfortable with the vial try to write with it when you feel it. Do not be greedy, or the rebound could damage you severely. Those who feel capable of speaking it with words do so. Without another word, she withdrew to a corner, merging once more with silence, her eyes turned into two implacable observation points. The hours dragged on.

The room was a silence broken only by the shallow breathing and the racing beats of six hearts. The tension was a thick substance, a poison filtering into their lungs. The first to move was Ren. With determination, he dipped his index finger into the blood of his vial and began to trace signs in the air. The blood, instead of falling, vanished into space, absorbed by an invisible force.

But there was no elegant blossoming of a spell; instead, a sharp, horrible crack resounded, followed by a piercing scream that echoed through the whiteness. —I think I've broken every bone in my hand! —he managed to articulate his eyes wide, filled with absolute pain and terror. Isolde rose with the fluidity of a shadow. She approached him and examined his hand, already deformed and swollen. —Not a bad first attempt —she said with terrifying calmness— But you were too greedy in what you wanted to achieve.

She pulled a small square of parchment covered in intricate runes from her tunic. She placed it over Ren's shattered hand and executed a series of synchronized movements with her fingers. Immediately, all the students watched as the bones beneath the parchment seemed to piece themselves back together like a fast-forwarded puzzle. When sound and feeling returned with a collective gasp, Ren's hand was no longer a shapeless mass. Only one finger—the pinky—remained crooked and unmistakably broken.

—Good —Isolde concluded, then withdrew the parchment, which remained pristine, as if it had not been used at all— Remember, I only brought these objects to save your lives. If you make further mistakes, you must pay for the consequences. Take care of your finger. And she returned to her corner. Next was Yarra. With greater caution, she wet her finger and traced the air. The blood vanished. Nothing happened. A sigh of relief escaped her lips. —No rebound? —she asked, hopefully.

The answer was a violent, dry cough that bent her at the waist, as if her lungs were trying to spit up something that was not there. Isolde approached again, placing one of her parchments over Yarra's lungs and activating it with repetitive movements; the coughing subsided, though a harsh rasping remained in her throat. When it was Maya's turn, the healer closed her eyes, concentrating. Her finger, stained with scarlet, moved deliberately.

The blood disappeared; then, watching her, they all saw that a small scratch Maya had on her heel had vanished, closed without a trace. —It worked! —she cried, euphoric, a wide, relieved smile lighting up her face. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Isolde nodded, a corner of her lips curving slightly. —Well done. The rest of you, continue. Selena only watched, holding her breath, feeling the weight of the vial in her hand.

Until something surged within her. It was not the familiar, serene warmth of the bracelet. This was deeper, more visceral, as if a subterranean river of pure potentiality, the Echo itself, flowed through her veins instead of blood. An instinctive understanding, born of her mind and her absolute senses, took hold of her. She opened her mouth, forming a word that produced no sound, a mold of will and understanding turned into a silent verb.

The same sensation of sensory emptiness that Valerian had made them all feel enveloped them. When the world returned, a pool of clear, still water stretched before them on the white, impermeable floor, like a sudden and impossible mirror. However, Selena had felt a tug, like a stripping away of her very essence. —Water —Isolde said, and for the first time, her voice sounded genuinely interested— Interesting. Continue. All eyes then turned to Fern. The hunter, his face pale with concentration, took his vial.

With determination, he wet his finger and began to write in the air with broad, energetic movements. The blood vanished behind his strokes, consumed by the effort. When he finished, there was a moment of silence, a tense calm in which nothing seemed to happen. But then, Fern's hair began to whiten. Not graying, but snowy, absolute white, as if he had aged years, yet only his hair. His eyes filled with tears of blood that ran down his cheeks. A scarlet thread trickled from his ears. —Pro... fessor...

—he managed to stammer in a hoarse voice, and then, the horror was consummated. Every pore of his skin began to ooze blood. Not a hemorrhage, but a scarlet sweat, a total effusion that in seconds covered him completely, soaking his clothes and forming a growing pool at his feet. Isolde rushed toward him, her face showing urgency for the first time, her hands reaching for another of her precious rescue parchments. Yet it was already too late.

Before she could reach him, before any spell could contain that catastrophic collapse of the body, Fern collapsed. His figure, now a red and crumpled silhouette, lay motionless in the pool of his own spilled life. No one moved. The protocols, carved into their minds by fire over months, had taught them that in the face of a catastrophic failure, a novice's intervention would only make things worse. Only a master like Isolde could attempt to contain the disaster. But knowledge did not cushion the impact.

Selena's hands were shaking; a silent, convulsing weeping had taken hold of Corin, whose shoulders shook uncontrollably. Yarra and Ren avoided looking directly at the scarlet pool and the motionless figure, but the grief on their faces was palpable, a mask of horror and suppressed tears that made them look years older. Isolde, with a coldness that at that moment seemed superhuman, brought the class to an end. —Carry your companion —she ordered, her voice a metallic echo in the stained room.

She gathered Fern's belongings, and among them, Selena saw the copper ring he always wore, now dull and silent. They followed her through a corridor they had never seen before, a secret exit that led to the cold, damp basement of one of the towers, far from prying eyes. The air smelled of cleanliness, alcohol, and various herbs. —Wait here —Isolde commanded and vanished into the gloom. Minutes later, she returned accompanied by another master.

Selena recognized him immediately: Anselmo, the ancient and wise professor of advanced medicine, the very one who had spoken of bones with such passion. His eyes, usually filled with academic calm, settled on Fern's body and then, for a fraction of a second, met Selena's. No words were spoken, but in that exchange of glances, there was a dismal understanding: he was "the other," the one in charge of the remains that the echo left behind.

Anselmo knelt beside Fern, his gnarled fingers examining without touching directly, avoiding the already coagulated blood. He looked up at Isolde and shook his head slowly. —There is no solution for a death such as this —he declared. His grave voice laden with a resigned sorrow. —Not even the most refined magic can piece back together what power itself has torn apart to this extent. All that remains is to notify his parents and give him a worthy burial.

—The class is over —Isolde announced, addressing the students, who stood like statues of salt and grief— You must leave. They obeyed, stepping out of the basement into the greyish light of the afternoon, leaving behind the chilling atmosphere and the weight of a death that now loomed over their shoulders, not as an abstract threat, but as a bloody and tangible reminder. There were no parting words among them. Each walked away on their own, carrying an agonizing, slow sorrow that settled into their bones.

For Selena, the image of Fern bleeding out superimposed itself over the memory of Nyssa's head rolling on the floor of the Sacred Rest. Death, grotesque and unjust, was a shadow that followed her from one place to another. Exhausted by her sleepless night and the horror she had witnessed, she let herself be guided by Fjora and Samira to her room.

Both slaves saw her collapse onto the bed without even undressing, instantly dragged into a deep, escapist sleep that carried her to other realms, far from white rooms and red pools. Classes of the void were suspended for two days. An uncomfortable silence, heavy with mourning and fear, took hold of the corridors they frequented. On the third day, everyone attended the funeral. It was held in a small, private cemetery on the mountain slopes, overlooking the towers of Kaelburg.

A priest of the Church of the Eternal Sap, dressed in green robes, invoked the sacred rest, the return of the deceased to the Great Flow of existence. —Aelthra, grant him the great rest in your bosom, mother of all life, mistress of the cycle that includes death. It is you, oh powerful lady, who alone guides souls to the river of prosperity and rest. But his words, designed for comfort, rang hollow. Because they knew the truth Isolde had revealed to them: there was no rest, there was no flow to accept them.

Only the Whispering Echo, claiming what had always been its own. A collective, thunderous, and heartbreaking weeping broke out as the simple wooden coffin was lowered into the earth. It was not just grief for Fern the hunter, but terror for their own fates. Selena, with the cold rain falling upon her mourning clothes like tears from heaven, looked at the gravestone. It was simple, made of polished granite.

Upon it, engraved in clear letters, was a merciful lie:"Here lies Fern, a prodigy hunter, loved by his cherished ones and by those who shared his destiny." Sharing destiny. Those words resonated with infinite bitterness. They did not share a future; they shared condemnation. That day, Selena barely ate. After the funeral, she had no strength to study, to practice languages, or to fence.

She only dedicated herself to resting her mind, to accepting the new and terrifying certainty that had settled in the deepest part of her being: the future of every mage was not just death. It was annihilation. It was knowing that, in the end, not even the comfort of an afterlife was permitted to them. The Void did not just kill them; it claimed them, absorbed them, erased them forever.

And the rain, which kept falling, seemed to wash away not only the earth of the grave, but any illusion of peace they might have dared to cherish.