50. Chapter 50
Arwen
The academy feels different after the explosion.
Professors standing a fraction too still as I pass. Conversations cutting off mid-sentence. It’s like all the comfort and trust at the academy evaporated with a single blow.
In my second class, the seating chart has changed. My desk is no longer near Cleo and Tabby. It’s isolated. Visible from every angle of the room, like I’m on display. The girls look at me in confusion.
Two Council observers sit in the back row. They don’t take notes like normal class visitors. They just watch. Like everyone’s being evaluated.
In combat theory, it gets worse. Three observers now.
One with Gluttony insignia. One Pride. Another I don’t recognize at all.
They don’t speak. They just watch every move we make.
When I miss a defensive pivot, I notice one of them writes something down.
When I recover quickly from a strike, another leans forward like they’re interested.
Like they’re cataloguing me….
Or maybe it’s just my paranoia. It’s been a stressful week.
I reach the corridor outside my room and stop as realization hit. The buzz cut detail is still gone. Considering where I’m going, I guess that’s a positive thing. The door to Professor Nikolai Gabriel’s office is closed when I arrive.
I knock once, then hear his calm, controlled voice say, “Come in.”
Professor Gabriel is leaning over his desk with a pen, grading papers.
He’s wearing glasses, and that same damn adorable loose strand of brown hair has fallen across his forehead again.
When his grey eyes lift from the page and find mine, I forget what I came here to say.
“Arwen.” He straightens, squaring the papers in front of him into a neat stack.
“It’s been a while. I thought you’d decided not to come. ”
“Yeah, there’s been a lot going on,” I reply, closing the door behind me. “And I had to figure out how to ditch my escort team.”
A faint flicker of amusement crosses his face.
“Well, I’m glad Maddox has them watching over you after what happened with the explosion. We were lucky that only a few were injured. But I’m sure it puts a damper on your more nefarious activities.”
I huff a laugh, “Like I have nefarious activities?”
“So, no more late night excursions in pigtails, I take it?”
Embarrassment floods my face as I shift my bag off my shoulder and place it on the chair opposite him. I unzip it as I bite my lip, forcing my mind back to the task at hand and away from the mortifying night between his knees.
Fully clothed, of course. Fully drunk and fully unwanted.
“I brought the relics, as you asked.”
That sharpens his attention.
I dig them out of the bottom of my bag where they’re hidden under a jacket. Carefully, I place them one by one on his desk. Instead of moving to touch them, he assesses them intently.
He reaches for the smallest one first. A small jade green stone the size of a grape. As his fingers hover over it, a small energy pulses around it, and I can tell he’s analyzing it with his magic. Interesting…
“This one is pretty ordinary,” he says after a moment. “Or as ordinary as an illegal relic can be. It’s meant to preserve paper. Documents. Anything placed beneath it resists fire, water, and decay. Useful for ensuring the life of a contract or important records. Thankfully, not that dangerous.”
He sets it down.
“It also hasn’t been activated.”
I stay quiet as he continues his studies. Fascinated by the little things I’ve been carrying around and excited to know what they do.
He picks up the larger, orange one next. It’s about the size of a plum but flat, almost transparent and covered in etchings. He pauses before testing it, almost like he already knows what it is. Once his magic prods at it, his eyes narrow.
“Ah,” he murmurs. “This is interesting.”
He turns it slowly between his fingers.
“A truth stone. If activated, anyone within a limited radius experiences severe pain when speaking a lie.”
My eyebrows raise. “That’s… useful. And frightening.”
His gaze sharpens. “Highly useful. But you’re correct.
It’s also dangerous because they can reveal you are using a relic to others, since they would feel the pain.
They were used during the early Sloth uprisings to detect infiltration.
Once the rebels were eradicated, most of these relics were destroyed. ”
He sets it down with careful precision, like it might detonate. “Clearly, it’s not activated.”
My eyes drift to the last stone, a small, plain brown rock. It doesn’t look as mystic as the other two, but it’s the one I’m most familiar with.
Professor Gabriel reaches for it, and the moment he touches it, something in his expression changes. “…Ah,” he says softly. “This relic is active. Amazing, I can feel it without even using my magic to probe. It’s a healing stone.”
I nod, very familiar with its abilities from my time in Greed.
“I’m guessing this is the relic you could use.”
He studies it longer than the others, then exhales.
“Arwen,” he says carefully, “this pains me to ask, but I need to verify something. I need to know if it still responds to you.”
I stare at him. “Responds?”
He hesitates, like he doesn’t want to say. “Your ability to use it. Whether it still works for you.”
“Oh,” I say in understanding. “That’s no problem.” I reach for the scissors on his desk and slice the blade across my palm in one clean motion.
At the same time, he reaches a hand out to stop me and shouts, “No!”
But it’s already done. Blood beads across my skin. “It’s fine. It’s just a minor cut.”
He exhales sharply through his teeth, frustrated. “We could have used something less… violent. Something like a small pinch would’ve sufficed.”
I shrug through the sting. “This way you can watch it heal me versus taking my word for it.”
I pick up the brown stone before he can argue further. The moment I focus on it, I feel the familiar sensation. Warmth spreads across my palm first, then the cut begins to close. The skin stitching itself together.
Professor Gabriel doesn’t speak, just watches. Remaining completely still.
“Universe…” He stares at my hand. “That shouldn’t be possible.”
My chest tightens. “So… what does that mean? Why am I able to use it?”
He looks at me concerned, then stands, taking the stone from my hand. “I honestly don’t know. But I will look into this. Quietly. I can’t draw attention, so it may take time.”
My throat tightens.
He adds more softly, “I need you to leave these with me. You shouldn’t keep them. It’s too dangerous. If you’re caught with forbidden relics, they’ll do worse than throw you out of the academy. You should get a healer for any minor injuries, but you’re safe now that you are here.”
“…Okay.” The thought of not having the healing stone irks a bit, but hopefully I won’t need it.
Professor Gabriel places the relics into a locked drawer on his desk. When I turn to leave, his voice stops me.
“Arwen.”
I look back at him, and his expression remains composed, but there is concern in his eyes.
“Please be careful,” he says. “You may not believe me, but I want what’s best for you.”
My bond with him perks up, just a bit. Like it’s waking up momentarily from a deep sleep. I step out into the corridor with more questions than answers.