The cold stone floor of the giant hall felt like a sheet of ice beneath Silarias’ elbows. As the dull quiet slowly returned and the bright, magical light from the infirmary behind them faded, the shadows of the academy stretched out long and jagged across the corridors. The air smelled of old parchment, steaming herbs, and the metallic scent of overheated crystals. Around them, the boys on the ground slowly began to groan and stretch. Nicola tossed his arms behind his head, loudly cracked his knuckles, and rolled onto his back with a deep sigh. Aurelius rubbed his stiff neck in irritation, while Beat rolled his shoulders until the joints popped audibly. Miki and Ren sat on their knees, rubbed the deep sleep from their eyes with small fists, and stared dazed at the high vaults. Apollo and Vulkan remained partly piled on top of each other, trying to get their bearings. Silarias cleared his dry, raw throat. It felt as though there was sand in his windpipe. He leaned back heavily against Nyx’s shoulder and looked around the circle of tired faces. “And…” he rasped out, squinting his eyes against the ambient light. “How… how is Faustus actually doing?” Nicola burst out in a hard, jarring laugh. He slapped his hand against the stone tiles. “Faustus?! Man, that guy is anything but normal! He woke up an hour ago, stared sharply around as if he were in a hostile camp, patched himself up within three seconds with his own energy, and tossed all his medical junk away with a dull thud!” “He grabbed two loose, soaking wet leaves of Iðunn’s Haomamane from the bowl,” Beat added with a grin, exaggerating the motion. “Stuck them straight in his mouth, chewed them bone dry without blinking an eye, and took off barefoot. We saw it just a bit too late to stop him, but the only thing he shouted as he rounded the corner was that he was ‘going to lift some weights with Oslo’.” Silarias rolled his eyes and felt a light chuckle rise up. “That incorrigible idiot…” he thought to himself. “He just survived Pandora’s Box and the first thing he thinks of is going to lift weights with that dwarf.” He wanted to say it out loud and join the laughter, but the words choked in his throat. His entire body stiffened in a fraction of a second. His jaw clenched so tightly that his teeth ground together. His eyes snapped wide open. A piercing, golden blue glow exploded from within behind his pupils. Along his neck, over his forearms, and straight across his bare chest, his veins began to pulse brilliant blue and gold. It was as if liquid lightning was being pumped through his bloodstream. The air around his figure began to vibrate and ripple from a sudden, crushing atmospheric pressure. Flash. A savage storm of images battered his consciousness with the force of a battering ram. He saw himself standing on the battlements of a giant, golden tower in a kingdom he had never laid eyes on. He felt the heavy, suffocating, and dark pressure of his Curse with Lucifer, the pitch black flames hungrily devouring the fibers of his soul. A face emerged from the mists. A woman with sharp, determined facial features, eyes full of untamed pride, and a fire that cut through the darkness. Kelayla. His mother. The rebellious Void Hydra Beasthuman… the previous vessel. He felt the terrifying sensation of shifting, the physical feeling as if his own flesh and bones were being rearranged, as if his consciousness was being ripped out of his physical form and shoved back in with brute force. “Sil?!” screamed Nyx. Her voice no longer sounded beside him, but seemed to come from the bottom of an endless well, miles away. Silarias’ eyes lit up so intensely that the glaring, blinding light cast the entire hallway in a blue and white glow. The boys recoiled onto their hands and knees. His back arched to an extreme curve, his legs tensed until the muscles threatened to tear, then suddenly gave out, and he fell hard backward. But he did not feel the stones. His consciousness was yanked into the air with a giant, rushing force. For a few endless seconds he floated far above his own motionless body, above the roofs of the University, above the clouds, above the entire world itself. He felt how everything was connected via an invisible network of lines. He sensed how the magical currents breathed deep through the earth, how the wind moved, how every living creature carried a tiny spark. Deep inside, around his heart and his spiritual core, one lock after another cracked open. Clack. Click. BOOM. It sounded as though ancient, heavy vault doors that had been locked for thousands of years were being blown violently out of their frames. Barriers holding his powers hostage melted like wax in the sun. An ocean of pure, uncut energy flooded straight into his soul and merged with his core. Click. His eyes snapped open with a jolt. The fierce glow vanished instantly, as if a candle was blown out. Silarias lay on the cold stones once more. His head rested in the lap of Nyx, who stared down at him with piercing, tearful eyes. Above him hung the worried, ashen faces of Beat, Nicola, and the rest… but directly beside them stood the strict, emotionless face of Rapha. Rapha blew a long, trembling breath out through her nose. “The patient isn’t dead… phew…” At the same time she was startled by her own words, slammed a hand over her mouth with a smack, and hastily began muttering under her breath to herself: “Don’t say that, stupid box… don’t say it out loud with them standing right there… stay professional, Rapha, professional…” She regained her stiff posture, knelt beside Silarias on the stone floor, and fixed him with her crystal irises, which were spinning softly. “How do you feel? Do you feel anything strange? Pain? Pressure in your skull? The feeling that your insides are boiling?” Silarias stared with wide pupils at the high stone vault above him. His chest rose and fell in a rapid, irregular rhythm. “Uhh…” he managed to get out, his lips bone dry. “Better… but… also a whole lot worse…” And with every second it got worse. A churning, icy, bitter nausea welled up straight from his deepest insides. It felt as though the magical energy in his stomach had turned to acid. His vision began to spin and the heads above him blurred into hazy spots. Rapha completely ignored his increasingly green complexion. She knelt on the stone, reached out her hands, and began checking him physically without a moment’s hesitation. Her icy fingers pressed hard into his neck, grabbed his wrists to measure muscle tension, and pushed mercilessly against his ribcage. “Just checking if the internal structures are still intact. The neck nebulae must absolutely not be locked up after a load of spiritual entities like that…” “THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH!” shrieked Nyx suddenly. Her voice reverberated through the high hall. With a fierce swipe, she roughly pushed Rapha’s medical hands away from Silarias’ chest. “He is fine! Right, Sil?! Tell me he is fine!” Silarias looked at Nyx. He wanted to say ‘yes’, wanted to lift his chin and put on his usual tough grin, but it was a losing battle. His face turned from pale to a sickly swamp green. He could only shake his head wildly, barely able to control himself, while clenching his jaws together with all his might to keep from vomiting right there in her lap. Rapha stood up with a deep sigh and straightened her apron. “Fine. But you report back to the department first thing tomorrow morning for a checkup. Understood?” She spun sharply on her heels and walked away with quick, ticking steps. As she rounded the corner of the long hallway, her voice was still heard under her breath, hastily reasoning against her own thoughts: “Why did I have to say that out loud… now they’ll think we’re all completely crazy and…?! What if the council finds out…?” Her footsteps disappeared around the corner so abruptly that not even an echo sounded through the hall. It was as though she had simply dissolved into thin air. Silarias propped himself up on trembling elbows, gasping for breath, his hand pressed firmly against his stomach. “So… is she gone? Like… really really gone?” Nyx and Beat looked at him dazed. “Uhh… yeah?” Miki and Ren stepped closer. Miki tilted her head and rubbed her arm. “Sil… why do your eyes look so strange?” The exact moment Silarias realized Rapha was definitively out of sight, he dropped his entire ‘cool hero act’ in a single blow. “UGH!” He bolted upright with a speed nobody expected from a freshly awakened patient. He looked around in pure, wild panic for something, anything that could serve as a receptacle, and his eyes landed on an oversized, ornate clay jar standing as decoration next to a massive marble pillar. He stormed toward it, nearly tripped over his own feet, pulled the wooden cork out with a wild, desperate jerk, and vomited uncontrollably straight into the depths of the jar. The sound echoed hollowly through the vase. With a dull thud he rammed the cork back in, leaned his sweaty forehead against the cold earthenware, and took deep, wheezing breaths. “Woah… PHEW!” In the distance, Doppo came sprinting down the hallway. He was completely out of breath, his sweaty face red as a beet, and his clothes hung loosely over his shoulders. “Ohh… Sil! So glad you’re awake, man! I heard about it from the guards… really sorry about all that mess, and a pity about Vespera… but whoa! So legendary what you did!” Doppo stopped right in front of him, waving his hands to catch his breath. “You really surprise me every single time in the most positive way! If I tell the guys from Ironclad about this, they’ll never believe their own ears! From now on… no matter what you say or what you do, you have my deepest respect!” Silarias, still bent slightly over the vomit jar, wiped his mouth with the back of his trembling hand. “Ohh… well… you really don’t have to go that far, Doppo…” He tried to inconspicuously take a wide step to the left to block the opening and the earthenware with his own body. Doppo’s eyes suddenly landed on the jar. “AHAA! There’s that jar! I actually didn’t feel like walking all the way back to the basements to grab a new one… Another jar of wine for the masters, already the fifth of tonight, you realize!” Doppo was already reaching out his hand enthusiastically toward the wooden cork. Nyx’s eyes turned as big as saucers. Silarias plunged into total stress and stared with wide eyes at Nicola, Beat, and the rest. Everyone looked at him with panicked, shocked expressions and gestured wildly with their hands that they had absolutely no idea how to solve this. Doppo’s fingertips were already touching the top of the cork. “YOU KNOW WHAT!” Silarias suddenly screamed exaggeratedly loud. Doppo got the fright of his life and snapped his hand back a centimeter at lightning speed. “What? What is it?!” “I… I have your respect, you know!” Silarias blurted out, his voice at least two octaves higher than normal. “And you know what you can do for me now? If you actually don’t feel like hauling that wine… you don’t have to! You know?! You could just… go get water! Or juice! Fresh juice is much better!” Doppo nodded along a few times with Silarias’ feverish, hasty explanation. “Yeah… yeah, actually yeah…” “You know what? You’re right!” Doppo suddenly shouted with full conviction and determination. “I’m not bringing the master wine! Enough is enough! I’m just going to get icy water for him! Anything for the king!” Doppo spun on his heels and wanted to sprint away, but Silarias grabbed him by the shoulder just in time. “Ehh, wait… how… how bad is it actually in there? What exactly happened to Vespera?” Doppo’s face instantly turned dead serious. “Oh yeah… Vespera. They’ve been interrogating her in the Council Chamber for hours now… The masters are furious, Sil. It really doesn’t look good for her.” Without wasting another second, Doppo ripped himself loose and bolted at full speed down the long hallway. Nyx stepped directly up to Silarias and stared at him sternly, almost accusingly. “Sil… that’s what I’ve been trying to say the whole time. She isn’t going to just get away with this. You understand that, right? She broke the academy rules!” But Silarias barely heard her. The nausea had receded, replaced by an icy determination. He turned around and set off with large, powerful strides toward the giant, dark oak doors at the end of the main corridor. “Miki, Ren… Nicola, Beat…” he spoke hoarsely, but unyieldingly over his shoulder. “Sorry for scaring you all like that. I mean it. But that’s how far I go for my family. And Nyx… please understand that Vespera is our family too.” Without waiting or knocking, Silarias slammed both hands against the heavy double doors of the Council Chamber, forcing them wide open. BANG! The doors crashed against the stone walls with a dull, echoing thud. Instead of a brightly lit classroom, he looked into a warmly colored, dim, and piercingly silent room. In the center of the hall stood a giant round table made of dark, polished wood. The only direct light in the room came from a single magical spotlight aimed strictly at Vespera. She sat all alone at the head of the table, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. “SILARIAS?!” A voice thundered through the hall with overwhelming power. Solomon. With a loud WOOSH, all the torches along the high walls ignited at the exact same moment, bathing the entire room in a warm, golden, and flickering glow. Only now did Silarias see the full scene in all its detail. Leonardo sat at the side, his hands clamped onto his wooden walking stick, with an unreadable expression on his face. Right beside him sat Juro, wrapped completely in medical bandages and shimmering healing magic from his headband all the way down to his chest plate. Vespera sat at the table with glittering tears in her eyes, staring at the sudden opening of the door. In the shadows behind the council members stood a few top students: Lord Caspian, calmly drinking from a copper chalice, Felice, Dante, and Pyra next to Fukarou. Fukarou’s beak literally dropped wide open. “YOU WERE ONLY OUT FOR TWO DAYS?!” he screamed in absolute bewilderment. Silarias leaned nonchalantly against the heavy doorpost, raised a hand, and coughed lightly. “Yeah… I know… long, huh? If Nyx and Rapha hadn’t helped me so well…” Solomon suddenly burst into a roaring, booming laugh. “Hahaha! Nyx and Rapha?! Wait… Nyx and Rapha?! How on earth…?” BAM! The doors behind Silarias swung wide open once more. Doppo came storming in with a wooden water jug in his arms, dripping wet with sweat and completely out of breath. “I got water! Water for the master…!” Doppo panted. Completely caught up in his own adrenaline and without realizing where he was standing, he shouted out loud: “So I just ran into Rapha in the hall and she said they gave Silarias an entire barrel of…” Doppo’s voice cut off instantly. His eyes landed on Silarias, and only then on the full Council, the teachers, and the top students he had just zoomed right past. He swallowed audibly. “I uhh… they apparently administered an entire barrel of Iðunn’s Haomamane to him…” Doppo tilted his head in pure, childlike bewilderment. “An entire… barrel…?” Lord Caspian, who was just taking a large gulp from his copper chalice, spewed the liquid out in a giant, spraying arc straight through his nose and began coughing heavily. “AN ENTIRE BARREL?!” Nyx, who had walked into the room behind Silarias, looked confusedly from one to the other. “What is it?! What does that even mean?!” Pyra slowly stepped forward, her eyes as big as saucers from shock. “Nyx… a barrel of Iðunn’s Haomamane is practically enough to cure an entire family tree or a complete empire, heal them, kill them, heal them again, and kill them once more!” Everyone in the council chamber stared at Silarias as if he were a walking, impossible medical miracle that should realistically have turned to dust. Solomon slowly leaned back in his heavy chair, his gaze fixed sharply and fascinatedly on Silarias. “Wait… Silarias, my boy… I mean… how in the name of the gods did you actually come back from this?” Miki and Ren, who had curiously slipped forward under Silarias’ arms, looked up with wide, innocent eyes. “Yeah! How did you actually come back, Sil?!” Silarias looked from the bewildered, tense faces of the council to the small children beside him, while the silence in the room grew heavy and charged.