Lyra kept her eyes on him, unsure what to do with herself.
Minutes ago, hatred had been burning through her, real, sharp, directed entirely at him. And now it was simply gone, as though it had never taken root at all. In its place was sothing far more familiar to her.
Curiosity.
The sa restless, pulling kind that had followed her through most of her life. It was already moving through her at full force, questions stacking on top of questions before she could properly sort any of them. Her mana core was gone. So what now? Would she have to build a new one? Was that even possible? How did one begin cultivating Qi from nothing? What would the first step look like? What was she supposed to do between now and then?
Her head was spinning pleasantly with it.
Necrotize caught the current of her thoughts and said nothing outwardly, though sothing in him was quietly amused.
"Necrotize." She looked at him directly. "So what do we do now? How do I start cultivating Qi?"
He read the impatience in her voice imdiately, the barely contained energy of soone who had just been handed the most important thing they’d ever wanted and was now physically struggling not to sprint toward it.
He smiled.
"Not yet. Let your body rest first." He rose from the bench in one easy motion, straightening without hurry. "Co back to it in four or five hours. We’ll go from there."
Then he glanced toward the path leading back.
"For now, our second class. We’ve kept it waiting long enough. Let’s move."
Lyra heard her own question echoed back to her in the shape of his answer and felt a wave of mild embarrassnt wash over her. She was being impatient. Restless in the exact way she always told herself not to be, like a child tugging at a sleeve, fixated on one thing to the exclusion of everything else around it.
She said nothing. Just nodded once, got to her feet, and fell into step behind him the way she always did, a half-pace back, quiet, her silver hair shifting with the movent.
They walked the entire path back to class without exchanging a single word.
And sohow, the silence between them felt entirely comfortable.
***
The classroom was nothing like its usual self.
No noise. No easy chatter between seats. The energy that normally filled the room before a class that loose, restless hum of students killing ti was entirely absent. What had happened earlier still sat over everyone like a weight they hadn’t quite figured out how to put down. Even the conversations that had managed to start after Necrotize left had petered out into quiet.
Carlos sat exactly where he always did, front row, ahead of everyone else. None of what was happening around him registered as worth his attention. He sat straight, eyes forward, running mana circulation through himself in steady, unhurried cycles. He never let ti go to waste. Small disturbances didn’t shake his determination. They never had.
Then the classroom door opened.
Necrotize ca in first, both hands in his pockets, his pace carrying that sa complete indifference to everything around him. Lyra followed behind, but sothing was different. Her head wasn’t lowered. The particular heaviness she usually carried in her posture, that quietly inward quality of soone bracing against their own existence, was gone. She wasn’t thinking about the other students. She wasn’t thinking about what they thought of her. There was only one thing moving through her mind at all.
Qi.
The mont they stepped through the door, the already-quiet room went completely still. Whatever fragnts of conversation had survived until that mont died instantly. Every pair of eyes moved to them and most of those eyes settled, with particular weight, on Lyra.
A single-elent holder. Walking casually behind the God of Destruction. The sa God of Destruction who had, not long ago, referred to himself as a single-elent holder apparently on her behalf.
Nobody here actually believed that, of course. You would have to be spectacularly, almost impressively foolish to take that claim at face value. These were students selected for their aptitude.They were there to beco mages. Their minds worked faster than most. They knew what they had witnessed wasn’t the limitation of a single elent, it was sothing else entirely, sothing that didn’t have a clean na yet.
But one student’s thoughts ran in a slightly different direction.
Green hair, cut cleanly around a face that was, by any honest asure, surprisingly striking. Natasha Fenwick sat near the front, watching them enter with wide eyes and an expression of pure, uncomplicated wonder.
Incredible. They’re both single-elent holders. I never would have imagined Lord Necrotize, of all people, carrying a single elent. And Lady Lyra with lightning as well.
The thoughts continued in that vein, building on themselves with cheerful enthusiasm, assembling a picture that was almost entirely wrong and yet sohow completely sincere.
Necrotize caught the current of it as he passed and felt sothing quietly amused stir in him. There was sothing genuinely interesting about the way this particular mind worked. Without overthinking it, he changed direction and sat down beside her.
Lyra, following his lead, settled into the seat on his other side without question.
The bench was in the front row. Natasha to his left. And to Natasha’s left...Carlos.
***
The mont Necrotize sat down beside her, Natasha’s entire body staged a quiet revolt.
Sweat. Imdiately. Her legs were trembling under the desk. Her hands had gone cold.
Why. Why is he sitting here. Of all the seats. Why this one.
She stared rigidly forward, every muscle locked in place.
Okay. Natasha. Breathe. You need to breathe. Rember who is sitting next to you. Do not do anything strange. Do not move weird. Do not speak weird. Do not exist weird. She paused internally. If you make one wrong move, your head is gone. Literally gone. So what do I do now? Do I say hello? How would that even go? "Hello, Mr. God of Destruction, my na is Natasha, shall we be friends?" Absolutely not. Hard no.
She was mid-spiral when so terrible instinct made her turn her head.
Necrotize was looking directly at her smiling.
Oh no.
Oh no, no, no.
He’s looking at . Why is he smiling like that. What does that an. Is he planning sothing. Is this what it looks like right before death. Mum, Dad. I am so deeply sorry. Your daughter may not survive today. He’s going to hit with lightning. That’s what’s happening. I’m going to be struck by lightning inside a classroom and no one will even be surprised.
She was simultaneously praying and composing ntal apology letters to her entire family.
Necrotize, sitting perfectly still beside her, was having an extrely difficult ti keeping his expression under control.
She’s a little bit stupid, isn’t she.
The thought arrived with genuine fondness rather than cruelty.
But then sothing else caught his attention entirely.
Sothing shifted, not in the room, not in the air, but in her. Sothing at the level of her soul, deep and quiet and unmistakable once noticed. He went still. He had sat beside this girl without thinking much of it, drawn by the oddness of her thoughts. And yet sohow, until this exact mont, he had never actually looked at her. Not properly.
Now that he had,
Another unusual body.
The thought landed with more weight than he expected.
What is happening there?
Necrotize was already confused enough. Lyra’s constitution still had no complete explanation, that question sat unresolved at the back of his mind, waiting. And now, without warning, a second question had walked into the room and sat down beside him.
He let his attention move inward, pulling his focus to a single point, thinking carefully. Turning the observation over slowly.
And then an image surfaced in his mind. A face. A particular presence he recognised without needing to na imdiately.
So. This is their doing.
The mont the thought completed, Necrotize raised his gaze from the desk and directed it upward, past the ceiling, past the building, past everything above it. His violet eyes burned steadily, focused on sothing that existed well beyond the visible world, fixed on a point that had no physical location.
Whatever was up there, he was looking directly at it.
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