The moment Archscribe Helien's gloved hand dropped, the world cracked.
It was not loud, but it was final—a gesture that rang through the vaulted exam hall of Elorynth like the toll of an invisible bell.
A low hum followed, seeping through the floor and into bone. The light sources dipped their flames bending low as if in reverence or fear.
The exam papers on each desk began to glow.
Then—light.
Brighter than fire, colder than steel. It consumed the parchment before Emil in a flash of white-gold, and then—
Nothing.
The marble vanished beneath his feet. The air collapsed into void. Sound, sensation, weight—all stripped away in an instant.
He wasn't falling.
He was being rewritten.
And when the world reformed, it did so in ink and silence.
Emil stood in a place that had no floor, no sky—only a boundless horizon of pale light and shadowless air. Before him loomed a structure both alien and intimate: a floating platform made of blackened stone, cracked with glowing script.
Unaware of his movement, he slowly began walking towards it.
At its center stood a colossal inkwell, its surface rippling as if alive.
A quill, sharp as a dagger and as tall as Emil himself, hovered beside it, its feather etched with scarlet symbols that bled crimson as they shimmered faintly.
Unfurled before him suddenly and suspended midair a giant weathered piece of parchment, one whose appearance was worthy of scribing the truth of the universe upon.
On it, etched in black:
"Answer a single question."
A pause.
Then, the quill dipped into the inkwell.
The ink slithered down its shaft like blood, and the quill arched forward with surgical precision. It began to write—letters long and serpentine, curling into runes that glowed with the quiet, menacing warmth of old fire.
Draconic.
Emil felt the chill settle into his bones.
The language of dragons. Extinct for a thousand years. Not even the Archscribes of today could read it fluently. It was said that only the oldest of relics still bore the tongue, and only fools sought to decipher it without decades of training.
The only reason he barely recognized it was because of Liz poured a depth of knowledge into his sponge like mind very early on.
The quill finished its stroke.
And there it was—the test.
"Kelun aran torva eshar; ethar kelun yaret malkir?"
(That which creates order may also bind freedom; in what form does justice become tyranny?)
Except… that wasn't quite what it said.
Emil couldnt figure out why he was so bothered the more he looked at the question. He could not understand or recognize it yet, intrisically he knew shapes made no sense, not fully. They tangled in on themselves, overlapping...almost concealing.
While something primal within Emil felt their weight, his conscious mind stuttered and failed.
The question was nonsense. Not wrong in meaning—wrong in construction.
His breath came fast. He stepped back.
This was the trick. The trap. A question meant to fail him before he began.
His chest tightened. Panic itched at the back of his throat.
Though they didnt explicitly say it, Emil knew deep inside that everything that his father was doing was for his sake. Outwardly he had not mourned the passing of his beloved mother, yet inwardly he was battered. Now he was in a situation where he feared to disappoint the genuine desire of his success that his parents wanted for him...
The nobles had rigged the exams. Everyone whispered about it. Commoners were meant to try and fail—to be crushed by the spectacle of it, to be shown their place.
And now here he was, isolated in some cursed dimension, face-to-face with a question written in the tongue of extinct gods.
He did not understand the situation completely, but he had been awake the night his instructors had a discussion with his mom and dad. He was aware of the prejudice and disdain they would show him here in the capital for not being of noble birth.
Yet, he was still surprised to see it would go as far as this. To deny him an opportunity to even plant himself to grow.
You never stood a chance.
For one aching heartbeat, he believed it.
But then—
Liz.
Her voice, her memory: "Even if it's rigged, you answer anyway. You stand anyway. That's how you beat them."
And then, his father's:
"Don't burn the world, Emil. Conquer it."
His hands trembled… and then stilled.
He inhaled. Deep. Slow.
He looked at the question again. The words shimmered. Unknowable.
But…
Something whispered.
A voice—but not one he recognized. Not memory. Not instruction.
Something ancient.
A whisper in his mind like smoke winding through mountains.
He didn't understand it, but it didn't matter because he chose to trust it. This primodrial feeling almost, the same way he listened to mana whisper and followed its will, so too now did Emil do the same.
As he did so, he felt immense incomprehensible power begin to rise from deep within and settle upon his tongue. With every breath, every exhaled, it felt almost like an ebony or perhaps an unrefined gold of some kind left him.
Knowledge and Power.
It was hard to believe this was happening right now without explanation but it had to be true because the next moment, he spoke.
The words tumbled from his mouth
unbidden, melodic and sharp. They slipped into the void like knives drawn in moonlight.
His voice—his true voice—echoed in a language he did not know, yet belonged to.
Draconic.
The quill shivered midair and the parchment pulsed as an unfamiliar rough, coarse, yet refined sound left his lips.
And the runes began to rearrange.
Not change—clarify. They responded to him like a command long awaited, a lock recognizing its key. The flawed grammar straightened. The illogical phrasing reshaped itself.
And then, the question emerged in its true form:
"Define the moment when justice ceases to serve the many and begins to preserve the power of the few."
The question struck him like a blow, resonating deeply as it illustrated perfectly the situation he was finding himself in.
In recognition of this, he began to ponder. Still feeling that strange power on his mouth, he focused on it once again and let it seep into him. Longing to hear its whisper and follow its guidance as he did a second ago, Emil stood silently waiting...Then it happened.
He knew this.
A sageous wisdom unbefitting of his age began to flow into him. Not unraveling the mysteries of the world to overwhelm him, but instead teaching him the truth of what he was facing.
The empire called itself just. The schools, the courts, the noble-born titles—all draped in law. But behind the drapery was something older. Greed wrapped in legacy. Power polished into tradition.
He stepped forward.
He answered—not as a scholar, not even as a student.
But as a child who had watched his mother die while wishing so earnestly that he would do his best to move forward in life. As a son who wanted to protect his father after seeing how much he went out of his way to care for not just him, but Raphael and Liz too, his informal family.
And so intent and emotion turned into language, bringing life to his feelings.
He spoke in Draconic, each word weighted, unwavering.
"When law is no longer a shield, but a chain—when it protects those who write it, and not those it binds—justice becomes tyranny."
The parchment glowed.
The quill recorded his answer in sweeping, graceful strokes.
With the final mark, the ink shimmered like molten silver, then dried in an instant.
The void cracked and the air roared silently.
Suddenly and without warning Emil jerked awake. The sensation of gasping for air as if he had been submerged underwater for years overwhelmed him and he greedily sucked in air, filling his lungs as he began to take back and recognize reality.
He was back in the hall of Elorynth.
The marble beneath him. The vaulted ceiling above. The weight of the world returned to his limbs like a forgotten burden.
But something was different, and eerie silence still permeated the testing room.
It was only after looking around that Emil realized something.
He was… the only one back.
Around him, rows of students sat rigid in their chairs, eyes wide, mouths parted. Locked in some suspended struggle.
The other children had not yet escaped the World of Law.
Emil looked to the dais.
Archscribe Helien was staring at him. Her pale gloved hand had stilled. The quill floating beside her hung in the air, motionless.
Her eyes—frosted steel, sharp as winter—narrowed ever so slightly.
Emil said nothing.
He did not bow.
He did not smile.
He simply sat.
The hall, for the first time in centuries, was silent not from tradition, but from ill felt awe.
He had faced the language of dragons.
He had spoken it.
And he had answered the question that no one was ever meant to answer.
In two minutes, the world had changed.
And the Empire—chained in its own laws—had no choice but to take notice.
----
From her high seat, Archscribe Helien did not blink.
The air around her still carried the soft, dying hum of the World of Law—threads of magic drifting like unseen embers across the marble. Her fingers, clad in black velvet gloves etched with silver ink, curled ever so slightly on the arm of her chair.
She had felt it—the moment of breach.
The boy had not broken the spell. He had not resisted the enchantment or clawed his way free.
He had bent it.
Reshaped it.
As if the magic she had conjured—her domain, her world—had been no more than wet clay in his hands.
She watched him now. He did not fidget. Did not shrink. He merely breathed—steady, calm.
Dangerously calm.
Helien's mind moved like a ledger being balanced, like ink sinking into parchment.
The World Of Law, being her domain, she was aware of every instance and action that happened within. Because of what she just witnessed with the common born child, she was left perplexed and drowning in thought.
No scholar in the last four centuries has spoken Draconic aloud and lived.
No child—not even the royal-blooded ones—has survived the full phrasing of the World of Law without breaking.
He didn't translate the question. He corrected it.
He shouldn't be possible, he does not possess the knowledge or skill to manipulate infallible truth...so how?
And yet, there he sat.
A common-born boy with no name of legacy. No seal. No sigil. A shadow among the golden children of the Empire.
But now... he shone brighter than any of them.
Helien inhaled slowly.
There were truths the world had forgotten—truths buried beneath centuries of curated ignorance. Secrets bound by ink, sealed by pact, and bled into exile.
The language of dragons was not dead.
It had simply gone quiet, waiting for a voice bold—and foolish—enough to call it forth.
And now that it had answered…
Helien's lips thinned into something colder than a smile. She reached for her quill, but did not write.
The council will want him broken.
The nobles will want him erased.
But I...
Her pale eyes narrowed further.
I want to see what breaks him first: the Empire... or himself.
Emil looked up, meeting her gaze across the vast hall—one heartbeat of stillness between them.
Not defiant. Not afraid.
Just ready.
Helien inclined her head the smallest degree.
It was not permission.
It was a warning.
And somewhere in the secret chambers of her mind—the place where even oaths could not reach—she whispered the name of an ancient dragon god, long forgotten by the world.
A name which hadn't been spoken of in over a thousand years.
Themis.
According to legends and long lost records of empires and ages past...Such a being could intervene within the world. It wielded terrifying power and authority to do so should calamity threaten to rise...All myth however...or perhaps not? Certainly if she could confirm any truth within this, it would draw a rise of concern.
For the first time in decades, the Archscribe of the Empire did not feel alone.
---
The first breath tasted like ink and cold marble.
Franc Celvax staggered forward as the World of Law released him, its unseen grip finally loosening from his chest, his spine, his skull. He sucked in air greedily, as if returning from underwater, then straightened—regal and composed in a heartbeat.
He was a Celvax, after all. There were standards to maintain.
The Great Hall of Elorynth returned to focus around him: the polished blackstone floors, the towering arched windows, the great banners of the Council hanging like judgment from above. The exam desks remained exactly where they'd been—but the students sitting at them?
Still.
Frozen. Blank-eyed. Slumped forward or locked in rigid tension. Caught, each of them, in the grip of the Archscribe's trial.
All except one.
Franc's eyes found him immediately.
Emil.
That damned little gutter-born ghost.
Sitting upright. Breathing normally.
Looking... calm.
No, that couldn't be right.
Franc blinked, adjusting his footing. Maybe it was a trick—maybe Emil had been cast out for failing, for giving up. Maybe he—
But no.
The Archscribe's voice rang out, cool and resonant from her place on the obsidian dais.
"Franc Celvax. Completed. Time recorded: three hours, twenty-two minutes."
Applause did not follow. It wasn't supposed to.
But it didn't matter. Franc felt it.
He let the number roll through him, felt the satisfaction settle into his bones like warm wine. The World of Law, The Archscribes ultimate magic and domain, had been monstrous. Brilliantly constructed, suffocatingly difficult, yes—but conquerable.
Of course it had been. He had trained for this his entire life.
His tutors—each hand-selected from the Grand Archives of Duval. His memory drills—the best from the Royal Hermeneum. His father had commissioned replica copies of the extinct Law Codices for his private use.
He'd been decoding ancient languages before most children learned to spell their own names.
This test had never been beyond him.Not with his bloodline.Not with the house of Celvax behind him.
And still, he had to admit—only inwardly, of course—that parts of it had nearly bested him. The air had grown thin near the final hour, the weight of the last logical riddle pressing on his lungs like a drowning hand. His nose had bled at one point. His vision had blurred. But he had gritted through it.
Like a champion should.
He had passed the first trial.
He looked out at the frozen field of competitors and allowed himself a smirk.
Useless, the lot of them.Blinkered fools. Scrambling over a test none of them were born to survive.
He imagined how glorious it would be to rise from this room, the first and only to emerge from the trial unbroken. To hear his name—Franc Celvax—announced with proper reverence.
To see the Archscribe nod in approval.
To hear the nobles whisper about his inevitability.
But then… the silence shifted.
And Emil's face stayed still.
Unruffled.
Waiting.
The Archscribe continued on after having declared the completion time.
Franc's heart gave a single, sharp kick in his chest.
No. No, no, no...Why not declare first now? Everyone else was still performing the exam, so why?!
His gaze flicked to the Archscribe again, hoping—certain—there had been some mistake.
But her eyes found him, ice and calculation behind their pale sheen. Her next words sealed it.
"Second place."
There was no first name spoken.
Because first had already come and gone.
Already seated.
Already done.
Franc turned toward Emil, slowly now. As if afraid the boy might vanish if he moved too fast.
But Emil remained there.
Unremarkable. Unarmored. Still dressed in the same threadbare uniform that should've disqualified him from any room worth entering.
And yet... untouched.
Franc felt the twist of something unfamiliar bloom in his chest. Not fear—he didn't fear people like Emil.
But disbelief.Offense.
As he looked up to the massive board behind the Archscribe, he saw the floating quill fly up from the desk and furiously scribble upon it.
Two names so far graced it along with completion times.
Turns out it wasn't just that Emil had survived.It was that Emil had finished before him.
By hours.
Impossible.It had to be a trick.There's no way—
Franc's fingers curled at his sides, nails biting into his palm.
He forced himself to look away.
But even as he tried to refocus, the numbers echoed in his mind like a curse:
Three hours. Twenty-two minutes.
And Emil was already there.
The sound of another child whimpering inside the spell-locked trance reached Franc's ears.
He didn't even hear it.
All he could see was Emil, sitting like a king without a crown, like a wolf among blind lambs.
Franc's smirk had vanished.
And in its place… a storm was gathering.
---
Franc seethed in his seat, the taste of blood and bile warring at the back of his throat.
Emil. That commoner bastard. How had he—how could he—finish before Franc?
He drummed his fingers on the desk, each tap a silent snarl. The World of Law had tested every inch of him, threatened to grind him to dust beneath its cold logic. And yet—that—Emil—had emerged first.
The thought rotted in his mind like a festering wound.
He forced himself to breathe slowly, to contain the storm raging in his chest. No. This wouldn't stand. It couldn't stand. He was Franc Celvax. He carried the weight of centuries in his veins, the legacy of ten generations of noble blood—blood that had written the very laws this trial had been built upon.
And that upstart street rat had the gall to sit there, silent and calm, as if he belonged in these hallowed halls.
Franc's lips curled in disgust. No. He refused to accept this.
His thoughts turned to the others—those he knew would be arriving for the next stages of the entrance exam. Alric and Alina Vorenholt, whose twin blades could cut down spellbound shields like scythes through wheat. Celeste d'Orinth, whose magic ran in rivers of liquid fire, whose runes had shattered walls in the practice yards of the Royal Academy.
They would be here. They would be watching. And they would help him.
He would ensure Emil was reduced to nothing more than a cautionary tale. He would gather his allies—these true scions of noble houses—and together they would break that whelp. Crush him until even the memory of his name was drowned in ridicule.
Let him see how the world truly worked. Let him taste the dirt he'd been born to. Let him beg for the mercy of the privileged.
Franc's eyes narrowed, a smile—a cold, feral thing—twitching at the corner of his mouth.
He would see Emil's ruin. That much was certain.
But his dark reverie was broken by a crisp voice slicing through the hall.
"Third place: Sandra Nift, completion time—four hours, fifty-eight minutes."
Franc turned to the Archscribe as she spoke, her words as calm and impassive as a marble statue. He let out a low, derisive scoff.
Four hours, fifty-eight minutes? Pathetic.
Franc leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. He watched Sandra, her chin raised in false pride as she emerged from the spellworld, cheeks flushed with effort. A noble, true enough, but one who would never measure up to the iron of the great houses. She was just another forgettable name clinging to the edges of history.
He let the announcement fade from his ears and returned to his private brooding.
But then—another pause. The Archscribe's gloved fingers twitched, and she spoke again, her voice slicing the air like a scalpel.
"The official completion times for the first three are as follows," she began, her tone unwavering, her gaze sweeping the hall. "First place: Emil—two minutes, thirty-nine seconds."
For a heartbeat, Franc's mind went blank with anger at the embarrassing reminder of his failure.
Two minutes. Two minutes and thirty-nine seconds...
It felt as though the ground had cracked open beneath him. Emil hadn't failed. He hadn't skipped the question or collapsed under the weight of it.
He had completed it—no, mastered it—in less time than it took Franc to read the preamble of the question.
Franc's breath shuddered in his throat.
He didn't hear the rest of the announcement.
He saw only Emil, calm and unbothered, as though the impossible feat had been nothing more than a passing thought.
A spike of rage flared in Franc's chest so sharp it felt like a blade driven between his ribs.
He would break that boy.
He would ruin him so thoroughly that not even the streets would take pity on him. Franc's mind raced with possibilities—whispers of sabotage, of alliances, of whispered threats in candlelit halls.
Emil would learn. Emil would suffer. Emil would kneel.
By the time Franc was done, Emil's only future would be as a broken, deformed scrap of nothing—a reminder that the world had no room for illusions of grandeur among the lowborn.
The final student emerged from the spellworld, their face as pale as death, eyes wide with the trauma of the trial. The Archscribe's voice was as crisp as ever.
"Final completion time: forty-seven hours, seventeen minutes."
A hush fell over the hall as the weight of those hours pressed down on every shoulder.
"The first exam is concluded," she continued. "You will rest. You will return tomorrow for the trial of magic."
Franc's hands tightened into fists on his lap.
He did not hear the muttered relief of the others, nor the shifting of chairs. All he heard was the pounding of his own heart and the name that would not stop echoing in his skull.
Emil.
Tomorrow, he promised himself, would be the beginning of the end for that upstart.
The magic portion awaited.
And Franc would ensure that Emil would never see the end of it.