The heavy doors of Sebastian's private quarters swung open, and a blast of freezing air spilled out into the grand corridor.
Victoria dismissed the two heavily armored elite guards with a single, sharp wave of her hand. They stepped aside without a word, allowing the group to enter.
The heir's room was vast, with a strong scent. In the center of the chamber, resting on a massive canopy bed, was Sebastian.
He was entombed in a rough, translucent block of ancient ice.
"The Principal's endothermic stasis," Sophia murmured, her breath pluming in the freezing air. She stepped closer, her eyes narrowing as she analyzed the structure.
Even through the thick, magical ice, Arion could see it. The faint, chaotic grey mist of raw mana was violently vibrating against the frozen barrier, desperate to evaporate from the boy's chest. The stasis spell wasn't healing him; it was simply freezing time, holding the shattered pieces of his core together by sheer, brute-force cold.
"He is unspooling," Arion noted flatly, keeping his hands shoved in his pockets.
Sophia turned to Arion, her expression dead serious as she held out the dull silver ring.
"Listen to me," Sophia warned bluntly. "That ice is a territorial nightmare. If it senses even a single drop of your magic, it will violently repel you, kill him instantly, and probably level this entire wing. Drop your surrounding mana to an absolute zero before you reach inside. I mean it, Arion. Zero."
"Yeah, yeah," Arion sighed. "Got it."
For a normal mage, dropping one's surrounding mana to a perfect zero was the equivalent of willingly stopping one's own heartbeat.
Because Arion's mana was currently uncapped, he literally had to stop his heartbeat to pull it off. He needed to find the right time in milliseconds or even a nanosecond to put the ring on.
The massive, heavy presence of his uncapped mana vanished completely. He stepped up to the edge of the bed, his expression calm and incredibly focused. He extended his hand, pushing his bare skin effortlessly through the terrifying magical frost. He didn't shake. He didn't sweat. He moved with absolute, surgical precision, his fingers gently brushing past the freezing ice to reach Sebastian's hand.
In that moment, Arion just turned off his own mana like flipping a coin.
A few paces behind him, Victoria watched in total silence.
Her pristine, icy facade remained flawless, but her internal thoughts were spiraling into absolute chaos.
She could feel the absolute void of Arion's mana. In traditional magic, achieving a perfect 'zero state' so casually was impossible. The odds weren't odd at all. They were nonexistent.
Look at him, Victoria thought, her heart clenching dramatically in her chest. To erase his own presence entirely... to suppress his very soul just so he does not harm him. And the gentleness of his touch. He moves with such solemn, heartbreaking reverence. Such raw, unfiltered devotion.
She clasped her hands tightly together.
FWOOSH.
Arion smoothly slid the dull silver ring onto Sebastian's index finger.
The moment the metal seated against the boy's skin, the newly tuned geometric cage flared to life. A soft, steady golden light erupted from the ring. The terrifying grey mist that had been violently trying to escape Sebastian's chest was instantly and forcefully sucked down into the silver band.
The sharp block of stasis ice hissed, melting away into harmless, warm steam in a matter of seconds.
Sebastian took a sudden, sharp, gasping breath.
The chaotic, heavy hum of unspooling mana vanished from the room. The color slowly began returning to Sebastian's deathly pale cheeks. His chest rose and fell in a steady, natural, rhythmic slumber.
The bleeding had stopped.
Arion yanked his freezing hand back, shaking it out with a quiet breath. "Well. It fits."
THUD.
Behind him, Sophia let out a sound that was half-sob, half-cheer. She completely dropped her majestic, haughty prodigy act and literally collapsed against the wall, sliding down to the marble floor in pure, unadulterated relief.
"Oh, thank the heavens," Sophia wheezed, burying her face in her hands. "My velvet sofa is safe."
Victoria shot the crouching teacher a look of profound, aristocratic disgust.
Sophia froze, suddenly remembering where she was. She awkwardly cleared her throat, scrambled back to her feet, and aggressively smoothed out her Faculty robes. "I mean... the structural integrity of the surrogate anchor has proven sufficient."
Victoria ignored her. The acting Head of House Ambrose stepped forward, her posture perfect, her aristocratic aura fully intact. But when she looked at Arion, her icy eyes were unnervingly soft.
"The bleeding has stopped," Victoria noted quietly, looking down at her sleeping brother. "But he remains asleep."
"His pathways are stabilized," Sophia explained, quickly reclaiming her professional tone. "But his body is exhausted. He will wake naturally when his core has cycled enough mana through the anchor to repair the initial damage."
Victoria nodded slowly. Then, she turned her intense, piercing gaze fully onto Arion.
It was time to test her theory.
"You surrendered your own power entirely to save him," Victoria said, her voice dropping into a heavily loaded, formal whisper. "You risked your own life to breach the stasis. What compensation do you expect from House Ambrose for this... intimate sacrifice?"
Arion paused. He blinked at her, genuinely confused. "What do you mean by 'intimate sacrifice'?"
Victoria's icy composure wavered. A faint, highly uncharacteristic flush touched the tips of her ears. She struggled to find the aristocratic words to articulate such a scandalous, forbidden concept aloud. "I mean... you know. The... that. The illicit nature of your... or rather, the profound depths of your unspoken bond."
Arion tilted his head, his face a picture of pure, blank confusion. "Huh?"
"Your... devotions," Victoria tried again, waving her hand vaguely, her voice dropping to a harsh, desperate whisper. "The things you cannot say, but have proven today with your actions!"
"I don't know what you are talking about. I literally just want a nap," Arion deadpanned. "My compensation is nothing. Just keep him from blowing himself up next time. It's a massive hassle. Lastly, tell him not to do chantless magic again."
Victoria stopped breathing.
Her perfectionist, noble brain immediately translated his feigned ignorance and blunt rejection of reward as the ultimate, undeniable proof.
He is trying to protect Sebastian's reputation by playing the fool, Victoria realized, her chest tight with dramatic awe. He desires no gold, no status, no recognition from House Ambrose. He only cares for Sebastian's safety. He asks for absolutely nothing in return.
It is true love.
Standing quietly in the corner of the room, Kara's pale whirlpool eyes spun silently as she monitored the exchange.
Observation, Kara processed in her internal, clinical monotone. The Sister of the Heir has misinterpreted Arion's sheer apathy as tragic stoicism. Her romantic hyper-fixation has successfully bypassed all logical parameters and reached a critical point. She is now entirely convinced they are star-crossed lovers.
Kara paused. The crystalline logic of her core caught on to the concept.
Lovers?
Kara looked at Victoria, whose heartbeat was currently echoing with erratic, overwhelming emotion. She is feeling 'love', Kara analyzed. She is experiencing a profound, spontaneous reaction to Arion.
Kara then looked at Arion. He was currently sliding down the wall to sit on the marble floor, letting out a massive, unheroic yawn.
Slowly, Kara looked down at her own hand.
She raised it slightly, curling her slender fingers into a loose fist. She recalled the sensory data of the fistbump they had shared back in the labyrinth—the physical contact, the friction of skin, and the supposed human gesture of profound connection and trust.
She ran an internal inquiry through her own artificial core.
Checking for spontaneous mana fluctuations.Checking for an erratic pulse.Checking for romantic resonance.
Result: Void. Absolute stillness.
She didn't feel it. She felt exactly the same as she always did: cold, efficient, and analytically detached. There was no warmth. There was no flutter in her chest.
And yet... the very fact that she had intentionally checked her own core for it at all was an anomaly. A new, strange path was opening in her runic form.
Kara slowly lowered her fist, her pale eyes settling back on Arion. Her expression remained completely unchanged. She blinked once.
She chose to say absolutely nothing.