At Sky City Academy, the main lecture hall was bathed in soft light filtering through the tall stained-glass windows. About thirty students, seated in semi-circular rows on light wooden benches, took notes with concentration. At the center of the platform, Amaera Castillon delivered her lecture in a calm and authoritative voice.
She stood straight, imposing despite her slender and elegant figure. Her long cyan hair cascaded in silky waves down to the small of her back. Her gray eyes, piercing and cold, swept across the room with an intensity that made anyone who dared hold her gaze too long look away.
The long mage robe she wore, a deep midnight blue embroidered with subtle silver patterns, clung perfectly to her form: the generous curve of her chest was hinted at beneath the fitted fabric at the bust, her defined waist emphasized the slenderness of her hips, and the flowing material slid over her long legs.
Each movent caused the hem of the robe to ripple lightly against her thighs, occasionally revealing pale and smooth skin. Her discreet perfu, a subtle blend of flowers, floated around her, adding an enchanting note to her presence.
"...and that is precisely where the fundantal difference lies," she explained, tracing a luminous diagram in the air with her index finger. "Between mana and Aura..."
The students nodded. Amaera was about to continue when suddenly...
A familiar, burning and oppressive sensation surged from the distance, like a wave of heat crossing the horizon. Her heart skipped a beat. She knew this signature. She had felt it hundreds of tis, in mories she had tried to bury.
"What the-"
Her arcane mana released itself involuntarily. An invisible pressure invaded the room: the air grew heavy, charged with static electricity. The crystals on the ceiling flickered. The most sensitive students clutched their throats, gasping.
"Sulyvhan?... You’re alive, you bastard!"
A stunned silence fell...
"Vice-! Director!"
A boy in the front row coughed violently, eyes watering.
"Vice *cough* Director!"
A girl farther back pressed her hands to her chest, suffocating.
"You’re suffocating us!"
Amaera blinked, snapping back to reality. She took a deep breath, forcing her mana to recede. The pressure vanished instantly; the temperature returned to normal and the air beca breathable again. The students caught their breath, so rubbing their throats.
She adjusted a cyan strand that had slipped over her face, putting her impassive calm mask back on.
"I montarily forgot to control it. Please forgive . I will step out for so air."
She turned toward the door, her robe flowing gracefully around her hips. The students watched her leave, still in shock.
Just before crossing the threshold, a student timidly raised his hand.
"Vice-Director... Do you wield arcane mana?"
Amaera stopped dead. Slowly, she turned her head. Her steel-gray gaze settled on him. The boy felt an icy shiver run up his spine.
"You must have been mistaken. That was not the case."
The boy swallowed hard, nodding rapidly.
"Yes-yes! I must have been mistaken. Sorry for the disturbance."
Amaera said nothing more. She left the room, closing the door behind her without a sound.
In the empty corridor, she finally stopped. She looked up toward the invisible horizon, where that aura continued to grow, pulsing with a force that made the very air vibrate. Her lips pressed into a thin line. Her fingers tightened slightly on the fabric of her robe, creasing the velvet at her hip.
"This ti, you won’t get away so easily..."
***
At the top of the Tower of Sorcery, where the howling night winds shattered against the black ramparts, a solitary figure stood motionless. The circular platform, lined with gargoyles whose stone eyes were cracked, offered a dizzying view of the cloudy abysses below and the stars twinkling coldly above. The full moon bathed the place in silvery light, making the worn slabs, polished by centuries of invisible footsteps, shine.
At first glance, almost nothing could be discerned of this figure. Only her long white hair betrayed her presence. They cascaded in an endless silky mass, trailing across the cold floor. The longest strands spread over several ters, rippling slightly with each gust. They captured the moonlight and reflected it in pearly glints, giving the impression that the night itself had materialized into hair.
Her face remained completely hidden beneath a large black umbrella, whose handle, carved from dark wood veined with silver, rested against her shoulder. She sat on a small black marble dais, back straight, shoulders relaxed despite the oppressive aura emanating from her. She held a book titled *The Prophecies of Nostradamus*.
The yellowed pages were illuminated by the moon.
She stopped abruptly. Her clawed index finger held the page halfway. A familiar sensation, distant but powerful, had just pierced the horizon: a raw, devastating aura from the human Empire, charged with an energy she had not felt in centuries...
With a asured gesture, she placed her free hand on the edge of the platform. Beside her, a slender pipe carved from bone waited, still smoking.
She picked it up delicately. Her matte hand appeared fully in the moonlight: smooth dark skin and black claws caught a silver gleam before vanishing into the shadow of the umbrella as she brought the mouthpiece to her invisible lips.
She inhaled deeply, letting the scented smoke escape slowly from beneath the umbrella in lazy curls that danced in the cold air.
"The Art Sundering Eclipse?" she murmured in a low voice tinged with amusent. "I thought my master’s rival was dead too?"
The words hung for a mont, carried by the wind, before dissolving into the night.
She was one of the three witches of Mystic Trinity.
She was known by many nas across continents and eras: the Witch of Curses; the Walpurgis Witch; the most powerful witch still alive.
But her true na was Walpurga.
"Interesting," she breathed, taking another pull from her pipe.
***
At the Holy Cathedral, more precisely in the place called the Sanctum, the air was so laden with arcane mana that it ford a luminescent mist floating in thick swirls. The white marble walls veined with gold shimred faintly under this diffuse light, and the high stained-glass windows let in only a pale glow.
Behind a fine veil of immaculate silk stretched between two massive pillars, a silhouette almost lted into the mist.
Only her hair could be distinguished: long golden filants, so brilliant they seed woven from threads of liquid sunlight. They cascaded in a perfect waterfall to the floor, brushing the cold stone without a sound, and swayed gently with the invisible currents of mana. Each strand captured the ambient light and reflected it in warm, golden glints, contrasting sharply with the ethereal coldness of the place.
Suddenly, the silhouette gave an almost imperceptible shudder. A subtle change passed through the atmosphere: a distant pulse, an energy signature that had not appeared in centuries... The golden hair of Her Holiness quivered, as if stirred by a breeze from elsewhere.
"How is this possible?" she murmured in a soft voice mixed with incredulity.
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