Evangeline simply nodded. It was a single, curt movent of her chin—less an acknowledgnt of Noah himself and more a submission to the reality of the situation.
She began heading toward her room at the end of the short hallway, her gaze fixed on the floor a few feet ahead of her, as if the effort of keeping her head up was suddenly too much to ask.
Noah stood exactly where he was, watching her retreat.
A sharp, ragged sigh escaped his lips, the sound cutting through the quiet house like a blunt blade. He stared at her back, his throat tightening so quickly it felt physical.
His mouth opened, a single syllable forming behind his teeth, but no sound ca out. The air left him, leaving his lips parted in a silent, desperate shape.
He closed it, his jaw clenching as he fought down the rising heat in his chest, only for his mouth to open again a second later.
He looked like soone trying to speak underwater, the pressure of everything he was holding back keeping the words firmly trapped inside his throat.
He drew a deep, sudden breath, expanding his chest, and forced his limbs to steady as he gathered whatever scattered fragnts of confidence he could find in the hollow of his stomach.
"Mom," he said.
The word was louder than before, breaking the heavy stillness of the hallway. Evangeline’s footsteps stopped instantly.
Noah swallowed hard, his hands fisting at his sides to stop them from shaking. "Mom... I need to talk to you."
For a long, agonizing three seconds, his mother didn’t move. She remained standing with her back to him, her posture rigid, her shoulders frozen in mid-stride.
Then, slowly, she turned around.
Her face was a canvas of pure surprise. The exhaustion that had dominated her expression just a mont ago seed to vanish, replaced by a sharp, startled alertness.
Her eyes searched his face, tracking the tight line of his jaw and the unusual seriousness in his eyes.
It was a request he rarely made after all.
"Is this..." Evangeline started, her voice dropping into a cautious, hesitant register.
She paused, her eyes dropping to the floor for a brief second before returning to his. "...about the suspension?"
Noah shook his head imdiately. "No."
The word was firm, cutting off her assumption before it could take root.
Alia on the other hand, kept her arms wrapped tightly around Noah’s waist.
He placed a hand on her shoulder, trying to slowly pull away from the hug.
Alia, however, seed entirely reluctant to leave him. Her small fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt, resisting the subtle pressure of his hands.
She leaned her weight into him, her chin tucked against his ribs, anchoring herself as if she believed he might disappear if she let go.
Noah offered a small, reassuring squeeze to her shoulder, gradually untangling her grip until she stepped back, though she remained close enough for her sleeve to brush his.
It was strange, really. It wasn’t even like he hadn’t seen her for that long—he had only been out of her sight for a matter of hours, a standard block of ti that usually elicited nothing more than a casual greeting.
But today, she just seed very excited. There was a restless, vibrating energy under her skin, a bright impatience that didn’t match the heavy atmosphere his mother had brought ho.
Her eyes were wide, darting between Noah and Evangeline, her small face flushed with a secret warmth that she seed entirely incapable of hiding.
Noah took a slow, stabilizing breath. He didn’t look at his mother’s face anymore. Instead, he lifted his right arm, extending his arm slightly forward, and glanced down at his own palm.
The skin was unblemished, the lines of his hand familiar and ordinary. Yet, beneath the surface, he could feel the strange, foreign pulse that had been keeping him awake for days.
"It’s about this..." he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper.
Evangeline’s brow furrowed, her eyes dropping to his open hand. Alia leaned forward, her breath catching in her throat as she stared at his fingers.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, the temperature in the imdiate radius of Noah’s hand plumted.
A faint, wispy current of cold mist began to bleed out of his skin, rising from the center of his palm like pale smoke. It drifted upward, swirling in lazy, freezing circles against the warm air of the room.
The mist thickened rapidly, gathering density and weight, condensing with an terrifying speed.
Before their eyes, the vapor hardened. A sharp, crystalline structure began to extend upward from his skin, crackling softly like ice breaking on a winter pond.
Within three seconds, the mist had completely vanished, leaving behind a solid, flawless object resting perfectly balanced above his palm.
It was an icicle. It was long, thin, and dangerously sharp, its surface catching the dim light of the hallway and fracturing it into tiny, brilliant shards of white and blue.
Small, freezing droplets of moisture clung to its edges, but it didn’t lt; it simply existed, suspended by the sheer reality of his will.
Evangeline’s reaction was instantaneous. Her eyes widened in absolute shock, the pupils shrinking as she took a sharp, involuntary step backward.
Her hand flew to her mouth, her fingers pressing hard against her lips as if to physically stop a scream from escaping.
Every ounce of her maternal fatigue was entirely gone, replaced by a raw, unadulterated disbelief that made her entire fra go rigid.
Beside him, Alia’s reaction was identical, her jaw dropping as she stared at the frozen spike with an intensity that bordered on fear. Her eyes reflected the blue tint of the ice, her small chest rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths.
The silence in the room was no longer heavy with sadness; it was electric, frozen solid by the impossible object hovering in Noah’s hand.
Alia’s voice broke the stillness, sounding incredibly small, her tone trembling with an awe that she couldn’t quite contain.
"Is... is that..." she muttered, her fingers twitching at her side as she stared at the frost radiating from his skin. "...a spell?"
Noah looked down at his sister, the cold weight of the icicle still hovering just a fraction of an inch above his skin.
"Yes, it is, Lia," Noah said, his voice dropping into a softer, steadier rhythm than before.
He let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for months, a small, wry smile finally tugging at the corner of his lips. "I finally broke through."
The words seed to unlock sothing in the room, shattering the fragile, frozen silence that had held them all captive.
Alia didn’t just smile; her entire face crumpled in an instant.
A sudden, bright shine filled her eyes as heavy tears welled up over her lower lids, catching the blue-white fracture of the ice light before spilling over her cheeks.
She didn’t care about the freezing air radiating from his hand, nor did she care about the dangerous, needle-sharp point of the crystal spike resting just inches from her face.
With a small, choked sob, she lunged forward, burying her face right back into the center of his chest.
Her arms wrapped around his waist with twice the intensity of her previous embrace, her small hands clutching the fabric of his shirt so hard her knuckles turned white.
"I knew it," she cried, her voice muffled against his ribs, vibrating with a fierce, absolute certainty that made Noah’s throat tighten.
She squeezed him tighter, as if she were trying to fuse herself to his achievent. "I always knew you were going to break through to adept magus!"
Noah didn’t correct her. He kept his arm slightly extended to keep the frost away from her hair, his eyes dropping to the thin, elegant lines of the icicle.
He hadn’t ntioned a specific rank. But as he looked at the structure of the ice, he understood exactly why she had jumped to that conclusion.
The spell was a common adept rank spell, so it was only natural they felt he broke through to adept rank.
A heavy, warm wave of emotion welled up deep within his chest, rising so fast it nearly threatened to take his breath away.
It was a strange, intoxicating mixture of profound relief and fierce validation.
Yet, beneath the warmth of the mont, a sharper, more exhilarating thought began to stir in the back of his mind.
He couldn’t help but wonder what their reactions would look like if he actually told them the truth. If he told them the rank he had indeed broken through wasn’t the respectable, hard-earned adept rank.
If he told them he was an arch magus.
The sheer absurdity of the reality brought a quiet, dangerous spark to his eyes.
To jump from a struggling apprentice magus past the threshold of an adept, bypassing ranks of grueling study that took grown n decades to conquer, and landing squarely into the legendary realm of an arch magus was sothing that defied the very laws of the academy.
It wasn’t just a breakthrough; it was an impossibility. If Alia was crying over a common frost spike, the truth of his actual standing would likely completely break her understanding of the world.
But that part would be kept to himself, at least for now.
He knew the dangers of a fla that burned too bright, too fast.
The world wasn’t ready for an arch magus living under this roof, and more importantly, he wasn’t ready to handle the storm of scrutiny that would follow such a revelation.
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