## CHAPTER 82: The Sovereign of Shadows
"If all of them are Grandmasters... then..." She paused. Lyra spoke, her voice dropping into a serious, intense whisper. "But Louisa evaded the question earlier, and you haven't mentioned him once. What about Silas? What exactly is he?"
Aurora took a deep breath, the calm, unbothered facade she had worn throughout their conversation shifting for a fraction of a second. A heavy, unreadable gravity settled into the lines of her beautiful face.
"Silas is different," she said simply.
Lyra leaned forward, every muscle in her body tensing as she expected more—expecting that same elaborate, prideful explanation Aurora had poured into describing the rest. Yet, the she didn't utter another word. A heavy, suffocating moment of silence passed. One, two, three seconds stretched into an agonizingly long block of time, but Aurora merely sipped her tea, her mind seemingly lost in a distant, painful thought as she stared down into the swirling amber liquid.
"That's it?" Lyra asked, her voice laced with genuine shock. She couldn't believe that was all the former Grandmaster of Endless Winter had to say about a boy who practically carried the weight of the academy's unspoken fears.
Aurora gently dropped her porcelain cup back onto the silver tray, the soft click echoing in the quiet room. She folded her hands, placing them neatly on her lap in a posture that exuded absolute, royalty.
"Were you expecting more than that?" Aurora asked, her light blue eyes locking onto Lyra's face with piercing intensity. "Because I am sure that even with your brief interactions at the academy, you would have noticed that Silas is not like the others."
"Yeah, I realize that," Lyra said, her sharp wit pushing past her hesitation. "But I really wish to know more. Who he is, what goes on in his mind, how he thinks... Why he broke down?"
The moment the words left Lyra's mouth, Aurora's face stiffened. The serene, noble composure she had maintained since Lyra stepped into the room fractured completely.
"Broke down?" Aurora asked, her voice dropping an octave, a sharp, dangerous spark of intrigue flaring in her light blue eyes.
"Yes," Lyra said firmly.
"Could you please tell me exactly what happened?" Aurora said, leaning forward slightly, the casual air of a host entirely vanished.
"Well... I challenged him to a duel, and..."
Before Lyra could finish her sentence, Aurora cut in, her voice sharp with disbelief. "You challenged him?" She sounded utterly shocked, as if the very concept of a student challenging Silas was a form of madness.
"I wouldn't really call it a win. I didn't touch him once," Lyra spoke honestly, her pride taking a backseat to the sheer gravity of the memory.
"Is that so?" Aurora's gaze softened, but the intense curiosity remained. "Then tell me, how was your fight against him? How did you feel?"
Lyra took a deep, steadying breath, closing her eyes for a brief second to recollect the details of the fight exactly as it had played out in the training hall. The phantom weight of her sword seemed to return to her palms.
"I remember striking first," Lyra began, her voice quiet but steady. "I remember going forward, my sword raised high to strike with everything I had. But with a simple, casual swing of his wrist, he blocked me effortlessly, without fail. Physically, I was completely outmatched. I was pouring my entire soul into my blade, and he used just one hand to ward off my attacks as if I were a child."
She opened her eyes, looking directly into Aurora's frozen gaze.
"He was empty..." Lyra continued, a cold shiver running down her spine at the recollection. "I locked eyes with him for a moment during the clash. All I saw was emptiness. No anger, no malice, no emotion whatsoever. Just a silent, terrifying calm that made my skin crawl. It felt like fighting a ghost."
"Then, as we fought..." Lyra's voice softened, the bizarre conclusion of the duel still haunting her. "Before he could finish me off, before he could land the final blow... he broke down crying."
The room went completely still. Aurora stared intently at Lyra's face, her eyes sweeping over the contours of her jawline, her calculating eyes, and the fierce spirit radiating from her.
"Hmm... well, you do look like *her*," Aurora said softly, her voice barely a whisper, a profound wave of melancholy washing over her features.
"Her???" Lyra asked instantly, her investigative instincts flaring. "Who is *her*?"
But Lady Aurora did not respond. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the ghost of whatever memory Lyra had triggered fade back into the shadows of her mind. When she opened them, she looked completely spent, yet more resolved than ever.
Lyra, realizing she wouldn't get an answer to that particular riddle, turned the conversation back to the central mystery. "Who is he, Lady Aurora?"
Aurora sighed, leaning back against the crimson velvet sofa. "Silas is different. A prodigy, of course... they are all prodigies in this house. Edna's overwhelming mana capacity can make her fight for hours on end without a single moment of rest, making her a force of pure nature. Caspian's techniques with the sword, whether he is wielding a dual or a single blade, were all meticulously crafted by his own hand. Louisa's aim and battle positioning are acute, surpassing even the top archers. And Zerav's overwhelming physical strength and durability are things that you simply cannot gain by mere training alone."
Aurora paused, her gaze drifting toward the grand staircase outside the doorway.
"However, Silas, on the other hand... is entirely different. A genius. A once-in-a-lifetime talent"
"I hear some call you that as well" Aurora spoke,
"But my dear you don't know the meaning of a once in a life time talent" she said then explains
" His exceptionally rare to come by in any era. He doesn't master concepts; he rewrites them."
"He was never like this before," Aurora said, her voice dripping with a deep, maternal sorrow. "But life happens... and that changed everything for him."
Lyra felt the weight of the words pressing down on her. "What Grandmaster is he?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, desperate to know what title could possibly belong to a boy that terrifying.
Aurora looked at Lyra, a subtle, highly complex smile returning to her face. It was a look that conveyed both caution and a strange, sudden glimmer of hope.
"Well... if you really want to know," Aurora said smoothly, "why don't you ask him yourself? It would really do him some good to finally have a guest."
Lyra's heart skipped a beat. *He's here?* She had assumed from Louisa's earlier deflection that Silas had left the estate.
"Lucy!!!" Aurora called out gently, her voice cutting through the heavy atmosphere of the reception hall.