Chapter 297: Thank You Dorian Ashford’s room was on the fourth floor of Ashford Manor, overlooking the family’s private garden. Ivy crawled up the stone walls. Roses bloomed in neat rows. A fountain shaped like a snarling wolf spat water into a marble basin.
He sat at his desk, staring at the letter in his hands.
The ink was still wet. He’d written it twice, crumpled both versions, and was now on his third attempt. His father expected results. His mother expected discretion. His older brothers expected him to fail.
He couldn’t afford to fail.
Father, he wrote, then stopped.
Too formal. Too distant. His father hated formality from family. It reminded him of the court, of the politicians who smiled while they plotted, of the enemies who bowed while they sharpened their knives.
The Ceremony was eventful, he tried.
Better. His father liked understatement. It showed control.
A commoner from the outer districts manifested seven affinities. Fire, water, earth, air, space, time, and spirit. The crystal sang.
Dorian set down the pen.
The crystal sang.
He’d never heard of such a thing. No one had. The old masters who taught at the Academy, the ones with grey beards and dusty robes, they’d stood in stunned silence. One of them had wept. Actually wept.
Dorian hadn’t wept. He’d watched. He’d calculated. He’d realized, in that moment, that everything he’d planned for the next five years had just become irrelevant.
A street rat with seven affinities.
Seven.
Dorian had two. Fire and air. He’d been praised for it. Called a prodigy. His father had hosted a banquet. His mother had bragged to her friends. His brothers had stopped calling him "the spare" and started calling him by his name.
Now there was a boy with seven.
Seven.
Dorian picked up the pen.
He was accompanied by a man. No family crest. No introduction. The boy called him "teacher." I don’t know his name. I don’t know his origin. But he carries himself like someone who’s never had to introduce himself.
He paused. Added:
I’ll learn more.
He signed the letter, folded it, and sealed it with wax. The Ashford crest—a wolf’s head, jaws open—pressed into the soft red surface.
He rang a bell.
A servant appeared. Young, quiet, with the kind of face that didn’t remember what it saw.
"Send this to my father. Immediately."
The servant bowed and left.
Dorian turned to the window. The garden was dark now. The fountain still spat water. The roses still bloomed. Everything looked the same.
Nothing was the same.
---
Across the city, in a modest inn that had suddenly become the most watched building in the capital, Finn sat on his bed and stared at the ceiling.
"You broke the Academy," he said.
"I didn’t break anything," Lucian replied. He was sitting by the window again, watching the street below. "You did."
"The crystal sang."
"The crystal sang."
"Is that normal?"
"No."
"Then I broke it."
Lucian turned from the window. "The crystal is fine. It reacted to the presence of spirit affinity. Spirit affinity hasn’t been seen in this world for over three hundred years."
Finn sat up. "Three hundred years?"
"According to the texts. The last recorded spirit mage died in the Second Purge. The Council doesn’t like spirit magic. It’s hard to control. Hard to predict. Hard to suppress."
"Suppress?"
Lucian’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes got sharper. "The Council exists to maintain order. Order requires predictability. Spirit mages are unpredictable. So the Council... encouraged them to disappear."
Finn’s stomach turned cold. "They killed them?"
"They made it difficult for them to exist. Social pressure. Legal restrictions. Accidents." Lucian shrugged. "The usual methods."
"And now I’m a spirit mage."
"Now you’re a spirit mage."
Finn lay back on the bed. The ceiling was cracked. A small spider was building a web in the corner. He watched it work, methodical and patient, and wondered if he’d just painted a target on his own back.
"Is that why you taught me etiquette?" he asked. "To make me look like less of a threat?"
"To make you look like someone worth keeping alive." Lucian stood up. "The Council won’t kill you. Not publicly. Not after the Ceremony. Too many witnesses. But they’ll watch you. Test you. Try to figure out what you are and how to use you."