"Once you're truly ordained... you'll be reborn with a new status. What designs do you have for your future?" Eldra asked, her interest sharpening.
Seraph straightened his posture instantly. He locked eyes with the Grandmaster, his voice heavy with resolve. "There is a matter of grave import I wish to consult with you—"
"I won't surrender my granddaughter to you yet!" Eldra interjected with lethal finality. "If you cannot best me in a duel, don't even dream of claiming her hand!"
[Thud!]
Eldra's shout reverberated through the chamber, followed immediately by a dull thud against the side door—as if someone had just collapsed against the wood.
A cavernous silence swallowed the room, cold as millennial ice. Seraph stared at Eldra, stunned and speechless. The atmosphere grew stifling, a vacuum of sheer, awkward tension.
"Er... I actually wanted to consult you regarding the boy... Nahreb," Seraph clarified, his tone hesitant.
"Ah... Oh! That child... A matter of genuine import, indeed!" Eldra stammered, her composure visibly fractured.
She averted her gaze, hastily raising her coffee cup as a shield to hide from the young man's piercing stare.
"I've no prior acquaintance with him," Seraph noted, his uncertainty lingering. "But I sensed a profound anomaly. He is... far too quiet for a child his age. He possesses a frigid composure that defies the nature of a thirteen-year-old who just escaped a ritual slaughter. Furthermore... I have a grim premonition I can't yet put into words."
"Hmph... but hasn't Nahreb just endured a trauma that would fracture any psyche?" Eldra asked with an air of breezy dismissal. "The Illusory Fel would naturally leave a stain upon his spirit. It's hardly a marvel that he seems unstable. You must have faith in Marina; her restorative spells are peerless. They'll excise every shadow of those side-effects. Once the boy is back with his kin, he'll recover his vitality. Children are remarkably resilient. What is it that truly feeds your apprehension?"
"I don't know... my thoughts are a tangled web," Seraph replied, his expression clouded. "It's as if I'm grasping for a frayed rope in a total void."
"You're likely tethered to a sense of guilt over Rohtas," Eldra remarked, sipping her coffee with unbothered grace. "Cast it aside. You performed admirably. The Mission Department has concluded that had any other magis taken that contract, they would have fared no better. Their only grievances were minor: they wished you'd alerted the Lord of the City before commencing your purge, and they want you to be more mindful of collateral damage. Beyond that, your conduct was flawless."
The Grandmaster's tone was light, anchored in an ease that suggested the matter was settled.
In truth, Nahreb's identity held staggering weight for the Crown Prince of Arkflame. Seraph remained oblivious to this fact, yet he had inadvertently salvaged the honor of Sanctus and secured a debt of gratitude he could not yet fathom.
"Perhaps you're right," Seraph conceded.
Eldra's logic was sound. Moreover, as one who had been mended by Marina's exquisite art time and again, he could hardly deny its efficacy. In the face of such reason, he found no ground to press his suspicions further.
"You returned only yesterday from a grueling trial; I feel a sliver of guilt for summoning you so early. Go, take your rest," Eldra said, her smile laced with a heavy subtext. "Should you wish to return, you needn't await a formal missive. You have my leave to wander my home whenever the whim takes you."
"I'll take my leave, then," Seraph replied, rising to depart.
The young man moved toward the mageia gate, his head bowed in contemplation. He couldn't yet cast aside the shroud of his doubts; a lingering unease regarding Nahreb remained anchored in his mind. Though Eldra's words were crafted to soothe, they had failed to dismantle the labyrinth of his suspicions.
"Perhaps there truly is nothing to fear, as she says," Seraph whispered to himself, his voice echoing as the lift descended.
Yet, from the stygian depths of a corner, a pair of emerald eyes shimmered with a restless brilliance. A slender silhouette watched his retreating form, scrutinizing his every motion until the mageia lift vanished from sight.
✧ . ✶ . ✡ . ✶ . ✧
The Sanctum maintained a streamlined hierarchy, a lean architecture that granted them preternatural agility in their mandates.
Mere minutes later, a decree was posted upon the central notice board within the Grand Basilica. It proclaimed Seraph's exceptional ascension to the rank of magis within the Demon Hunter division.
Though the Sanctus Sanctum housed but a few hundred members, they were a collective possessed by a thirst for hearsay. The news of Seraph's irregular promotion ripped through the circles of the magis like wildfire—a fresh and exhilarating enigma for them to dissect.
A wave of virulent discontent rippled through the ranks of the acomages, their indignation curdling into a raw, unfiltered fury.
The Sanctum held a draconian mandate regarding the ascension of its members: only a solitary soul was permitted to reach the echelon of magis each year. By decree, once a promotion was finalized, the formal trials for that cycle were summarily abolished.
To many, Seraph's elevation appeared as a corrupt exercise of privilege and shadow influence—a theft of opportunity that left his peers disenfranchised. Among the initiates were elder acomages, silver-haired men who had languished at their current threshold for decades, clinging to the desperate hope that this winter would finally see their ascension.
The announcement of Seraph's appointment, manifested a full month before the scheduled trials, extinguished those hopes like a candle in a gale. The aspirations they had nurtured for years dissolved into a bitter, spectral mist.
A deluge of formal protests was funneled toward the Sanctus Council almost immediately. Yet, the decree had been drafted with clinical transparency; it laid bare Seraph's mission records and the rationale behind his promotion. The justification was unassailable.
Seraph had razed a demon nest and culled an entire brood of horrors single-handedly.
While most magis were forced to coalesce into massive cadres just to survive a hunt, Seraph had operated in isolation. Most magis functioned as living siege engines—capable of devastating mageia power yet frail and exposed, unable to endure the chaotic swarm of a battlefield alone.
They lacked the versatility of the rune architects, who strode through the slaughter guarded by mageia golems, achieving a sublime balance of steel and mageia. Though a rune architect could never manifest the absolute peak of destructive mageia that a magis possessed, their composite strength made them far more adaptable in the heart of the fray.
The intelligence and the living Piperclowns Seraph surrendered to the Sanctum bore a valuation exceeding a hundred gold crowns. Such a hoard surpassed the combined bounties of multiple high-rank contracts; it was a sum sufficient for a merchant prince to establish a sovereign trade guild without friction.
The mageia power Seraph had manifested placed him leagues beyond the reach of his fellow acomages. Had the formal trials proceeded as scheduled, the arena would likely have become a slaughterhouse, with Seraph maiming or slaying every challenger in his path. In truth, the cancellation of the exams was an act of mercy for those who would have opposed him.
When struck by the blunt force of these facts, the dissident acomages were forced to retreat, returning to their mundane duties with a newfound, bitter humility.