Carrying Sephira on my back, I finally reached the guards posted at the dining room doors. I gave them a nod and they pulled them open without a word.
As we stepped inside I felt the presence of two people already at the table.
Alexandra and Andromeda were both eating in silence, their expressions as composed and unreadable as ever. The two of them had always been similar in that way. Same posture, same stillness, same habit of making a room feel quieter just by being in it. Similar enough that someone who did not know the family might assume they were mother and daughter. They were actually aunt and niece, though I sometimes forgot which way that went.
They both stopped eating at the same moment and looked over at us.
Well. Not exactly at me.
More at Sephira, who was hanging off my back with her arms looped loosely around my neck and her chin resting on my shoulder like she had been there for years.
"Good evening." I greeted them. Sephira raised one lazy hand behind my head and waved it in their general direction.
"Evening, Auntie. Evening, Andromeda." She mumbled, already sounding like she was thinking about going back to sleep.
"Evening." Alexandra replied. Andromeda nodded once, eyes moving between the two of us with a look I could not quite read.
I hope she is not still annoyed that I ran away earlier. I thought, glancing at Alexandra as I lowered Sephira into a chair. She had already returned to her food, expression perfectly neutral, giving away absolutely nothing. That could mean anything with her.
We sat down to Alexandra's right and I finally got a proper look at what was on the table.
Potatoes.
My evening improved instantly. I did not care what form they were in. Roasted, mashed, it did not matter. Just the sight of them made the memory of every punch and bruise from today's training feel significantly less personal.
Londres's seat was empty throughout the entire meal. She was probably shut in her room somewhere, which suited me perfectly. I did not have the energy for her tonight and I was fairly sure my face would give away exactly how little patience I had left.
The meal was quiet, which I appreciated. Sephira occasionally said something. Andromeda responded with a word or two as usual and Alexandra ate without comment.
When the plates were mostly cleared I turned to Alexandra.
"Empress, would it be possible to assign me instructors for light, space, time and gravity? I want proper guidance for each of them."
***
The moment Lucas said those words both Alexandra and Andromeda showed a flicker of reaction, quick and quiet, gone before anyone less attentive would have caught it.
"You have already unlocked the sub-affinities under Cosmos?" Alexandra asked.
"Yes." He nodded.
She kept her expression still but the surprise was genuine. He had awakened three days ago. Three days. And he was already sitting across from her telling her he had unlocked not one but all of the elemental branches under his affinity. For a cosmos wielder, which appeared perhaps once in several generations, that kind of progression in this timeframe was not just fast. It bordered on absurd.
He really is something else. She thought, studying him.
Her vision shifted slightly the way it sometimes did when she focused properly, letting her see past the surface. Different types of energy moved around Lucas's body in distinct layers. Most of it she could identify easily. But one of them sat differently from the rest. It felt familiar in a way she could not explain, like hearing a voice you recognise but cannot name.
She filed it away and moved on.
"I will arrange instructors for each affinity." A pause. "However, we do not currently have anyone in the royal family with the time affinity."
There had been someone once. A brother. The thought arrived the way it always did, quiet and uninvited, and she let it pass without letting it show.
Now, I slightly regret killing him. He could have taught him, but whatever. She acknowledged to herself. But it changed nothing now. Lucas could start with the library. The head librarian knew more about obscure magical theory than most trained mages gave him credit for. And the military academy had a staff member with the time affinity. When Lucas reached that point he would not be without options.
When she looked back at him she caught a flicker of disappointment crossing his face before he pulled it back and nodded.
"Thank you, Empress."
"Even without a dedicated instructor for time, the palace library has extensive material on the subject. If you find yourself stuck or have specific questions, go to the head librarian directly rather than just the shelves. He is far more useful than he looks." She leaned back slightly in her chair.
"I will."
"One more thing." She held his gaze for just a moment. "Your cores have progressed noticeably since your awakening. Keep doing whatever you are doing."
Of course she noticed. I spent over a month inside Virgil's space absorbing mana constantly. It would have been stranger if she had not. I just hope she does not look too closely at the rate of it. Lucas thought, keeping his face even.
"I did not pick up on it earlier," Sephira said, nudging his arm, "but she is right. Your cores have moved forward quite a bit for someone who only awakened days ago. You really are something of a natural genius, Lu."
Lucas chuckled quietly. "Genius is too strong a word this early. I would not count on it yet."
He could hardly take credit for natural talent when the real reason was a dimensional space where months passed in the time it took a few hours to go by outside.
They stayed at the table a while longer, the conversation drifting through lighter topics before the evening wound down naturally. Everyone returned to their rooms.
And somehow Lucas ended up carrying Sephira on his back one final time before reaching his own door, setting her down outside hers and watching her shuffle inside without a word of thanks.
Back in his room, instead of going straight to sleep, he spent a couple of hours running through every spell he had learned, casting each one until the motions felt automatic rather than deliberate. He also worked through the basic spell books Evelyn had brought him. Simpler constructions, fewer runes, smaller circles. He moved through them faster than he expected and that alone told him how much the time in Virgil's space had changed his baseline understanding.
After that he got into bed, cursed Arthur quietly under his breath out of pure habit, and let himself fall asleep.
The next morning.
The sky outside was still dark when a man with blonde hair and golden eyes stepped silently into Lucas's room and stood watching him sleep.
Arthur observed him for a moment. Then an idea came to mind.
He opened his palm. A small blue magic circle formed above it and a ball of water took shape, hovering just above his fingers.
He threw it at the bed.
Lucas's eyes opened and his body was gone from the sheets before the water could reach him, reappearing in a flash of dark purple a meter to the right. The ball hit the pillow and soaked through the sheets.
Arthur stood very still.
He can already teleport.
Alexandra had told him about the affinities Lucas had unlocked. But knowing about them and watching him move through space cleanly, without hesitation and without any apparent discomfort, were two different things entirely. Teleporting your own body without error required real control over the space element. It was not something you stumbled into. And as far as Arthur knew, nobody had sat down and actually taught him yet.
He felt something settle in his chest that was close to pride.
A genius, maybe. Arthur thought, looking at the boy who was now standing in the middle of his own room in the dark, glaring at him with the kind of expression that needed no words.
Gifted people had always appeared across generations. But this era felt different. Talent was surfacing everywhere, across every empire and every bloodline, at a pace and scale that history had no real precedent for. Something was building. Whatever it was, it was going to demand a lot from the people at the center of it.
I will make sure you are ready. Arthur thought.
"Why," Lucas said, in a very flat voice, "can you not wake a person up like a normal person? The sun is not even out."
"My prince, the early bird gets the worm." Arthur replied, completely at ease. "And since you have asked the Empress for additional instructors, your days are about to become quite full. I need to get my time with you in before they arrive. You really did bring this on yourself."
Lucas opened his mouth.
A second water ball caught him across the cheek before the first word came out.
He snapped his head back on reflex and it only grazed him.
Swoosh.
Arthur was already moving. He closed the distance in under a second and drove a punch toward Lucas's stomach, low and fast.
Lucas's instincts had him moving before the thought formed. His left palm came up and caught the strike.
Thwack.
The impact ran hard up his arm and into his shoulder. Not pleasant.
He did not have time to let it register before Arthur drew his blade in the same motion, the steel catching the faint light from the window as it came around in a slash toward his side.
Lucas pushed off the floor and jumped back. The edge missed him by a margin he did not find comfortable.
He had barely landed when Arthur was already in front of him again, one step ahead, swinging in a wide horizontal arc straight at his midsection.
Fast. Too fast to simply dodge cleanly and reset.
Lucas weighed it in less than a second. He could teleport. But Arthur would read the pattern and push him until his mana dried up, and then the beating would just continue from a worse position. He needed something different.
He extended his left hand toward the training sword sitting on the table across the room, pushed the gravitational pull between his palm and the blade, and let it work.
The sword lifted off the table and crossed the room in a straight line, slapping into his grip.
He raised it and met Arthur's blade.
Clang.
Sparks jumped in the dark. The sound was sharp and clean in the quiet of the early morning.
Lucas redirected the momentum, spinning with it, and landed a few meters back with space between them and his sword up.
He shook out his blocking arm while he caught his breath.
Gravity was genuinely one of the more satisfying things he had learned. Pull an object toward yourself, adjust the force, and it moved like an extension of your intent. Precise and immediate. It had its ceiling when it came to people since anyone with enough strength could simply resist the pull, but for objects there was almost nothing limiting it.
"Was that gravity?" Arthur asked, his tone light and genuinely impressed. "Very nice indeed."
"Why are we doing this in my room?" Lucas said.
"From this point forward I will be attacking you whenever the opportunity presents itself. Morning, evening, in the corridors, during meals. Any place, any time."
Lucas stared at him.
"It sharpens your instincts," Arthur continued, without any particular urgency. "Most deaths in real fights happen because someone was caught off guard. I intend to make sure that is very difficult to do to you. I would genuinely recommend sleeping a little lighter from now on."
Lucas looked at him with the specific expression of someone who has accepted, fully and without remaining hope, that the person in front of them is simply like this.
Arthur disappeared without a sound.
The room went still.
Lucas turned slowly, scanning every corner. No movement. No presence he could lock onto. Nothing.
Then the hairs along his arms rose all at once.
Something was already moving. Behind him. Closing toward his neck fast.
Blue lightning crackled across his skin before the thought finished. His legs loaded and he dropped into a low pivot, swinging his sword hard behind him in the direction his gut told him Arthur would be.
The blades met air. But a sword was already angling up toward his stomach from below.
Arthur smiled and stepped around the thrust cleanly, redirecting toward the neck again in the same motion.
Lucas felt it coming and pushed through the space element. He reappeared on top of the table.
Arthur was already standing on it.
He had not guessed. He had known. Predicted exactly where Lucas would land and positioned himself before Lucas had even made the decision. His sword was already mid-thrust toward the chest by the time Lucas fully arrived.
"How did you—"
He threw his blade up to intercept. The collision hit harder than he was braced for and the force carried him straight backward through the window.
Glass burst outward around him. The night air hit him cold as he fell.
"WHAT THE HELL! That was my window! Arthur, I swear to god—!"
Arthur stepped through the broken frame without hesitation a moment later, dropping out after him into the dark with his sword in hand, his coat catching the air, and a wide smile across his face.
This was exactly what a good morning looked like.
****
Author's note: Shout out to Hasnein_Saleh for the power stones.