"Vane... Wake up. You need to wake up, sweetie."
That familiar, warm scent of chamomile, his mother's silky voice... The second he heard that peaceful whisper, the young man gasped and snapped his eyes open.
But what greeted him wasn't his warm, wood-ceilinged room. It was blinding white light and the sharp, stinging scent of an aether salve.
"Vane! Thank god, you're okay." Elian's sweat-drenched, terrified face was hovering right above him.
Vane swallowed hard; his throat felt like sandpaper. Blinking against the glare, he looked at the pale, gray stone walls surrounding him. "E-Elian... Where am I?"
The scrawny boy tried to steady his trembling voice. "We're in the infirmary, Vane. You passed out after the collision. The professor had you and Caelum rushed here to the aether healers."
Vane slowly tried to sit up but instantly had to grit his teeth. His arms and chest felt like they were on fire. Looking down at his own body, he saw his arms wrapped in coarse linen bandages slathered with that pungent, greenish salve. The dark bruises and burst capillaries bleeding through the cloth summed up the severity of his condition, but at least nothing seemed broken.
His eyes scanned the room. Two beds down, behind thick white privacy curtains, lay a colossal silhouette taking heavy, wheezing breaths. Caelum.
"I..." Vane started, not needing to hide the genuine confusion in his voice. "Caelum's axe... I just wanted to block it, and then there was a massive explosion. Elian, what the hell happened out there?"
Elian pushed up his glasses, which kept slipping down his nose from the nervous sweat. "I don't know, Vane. It all happened in a flash. No one understood what happened. But Professor Vance... He called it a 'Kinetic Mirror'."
Vane winced in pain. Half of it was acting; the other half was the very real burning in his arms. "Kinetic mirror? What exactly does that mean?"
"A pure, dead, and dense mass of matter," Elian whispered, repeating the professor's exact words. "He said your weapon doesn't conduct aether. He said it rejects it. That's how the professor explained it to the whole amphitheater."
Elian nervously summoned his brass pocket watch and started twirling it between his fingers. "Caelum hasn't mastered pushing aether out of his weapon yet, Vane. He just applied raw, brute weight, and, well..."
Vane's stomach tied in a knot. Something bad was clearly coming. "Go on, Elian."
Elian took a deep breath, gathering his words. "Your weapon doesn't conduct aether, Vane. In fact, Professor Vance said... there isn't even a crumb of aether in your body. He said you have a pure, aetherless body."
A flawless look of shock appeared on Vane's face. "What do you mean, Elian! I—" Before the young man could protest in pain, a deep coughing fit pierced his lungs, doubling him over. As he coughed, that familiar metallic taste of blood filled his mouth.
"The professor said," Elian quickly interrupted, trying to calm his friend down. "Because your weapon rejects aether, the recoil of Caelum's power hit your body as a massive shockwave. If you had even a drop of aether inside you, your weapon would have instinctively leaked it out during that life-or-death moment to prevent such a devastating internal explosion. Vane... You don't have any aether. I'm so sorry."
While on the outside Vane looked like a devastated, helpless boy who had just had his dreams ripped away, deep within his mind, gears were turning rapidly with absolute logic. No aether in my body? The weapon rejects aether?
He replayed the moment of the collision in his head over and over, millisecond by millisecond. That exact instant the axe hit his dagger... He remembered perfectly well that the aether wasn't rejected; that alien, scorching heat had passed through the dagger and flowed straight into his own veins. The dagger hadn't repelled the aether. It had devoured it like a bloodthirsty monster. And when it reached capacity, it vomited it right back out.
Hahaha... A kinetic mirror. That's a good one.
As Vane's arms throbbed, every hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end. From the darkest, deepest pit of his mind where that rusted dagger slept, that ancient, metallic voice echoed directly inside his skull.
You again! Vane roared inwardly, fighting a massive battle not to break the innocent mask on his face. Who are you?
Not much longer, my pawn, whispered that ominous, spine-chilling voice. It sounded as if it had fed on the aether from the collision, growing stronger. Just be a little more patient... And just as it had come, the voice faded away in his mind like aether dissolving into the sea.
Pawn? Vane thought with an icy fury. Everyone thinks I'm a pawn. Let them think that.
"Vane..." Elian's voice pulled him back to reality. The skinny boy was looking with deep concern at the young man, whose eyes were locked on empty space, his face drained of all color.
Vane quickly gathered himself, forcing a weak smile onto his face. "I'm fine, Elian. It's just... what you told me was a shock. To be aetherless... That's a death sentence in this academy."
"It's not the end of the world, Vane," Elian said hurriedly, trying to give his friend some hope. "Even if we can't fight on the front lines, we can survive, and together we can—"
Elian's words were cut off like a blade when the heavy wooden door of the infirmary opened silently, shifting the atmosphere of the entire room.
The person who stepped inside was a complete contrast to the gloomy, bloody atmosphere of the infirmary. Her silver hair cascaded over her shoulders like a waterfall, gleaming even in the dim light leaking through the window. Pushed up on her head was a strange mechanical pair of goggles powered by aether, made of interlocking brass lenses. But what was truly striking were the eyes beneath those lenses: Deep, bright emerald-green eyes, brimming with intelligence, looking as if they were reading the inside of one's mind.
She was a captivating, elegant girl, but immensely eerie with that silent, mysterious aura constantly swirling around her.
The moment Elian saw her, he jumped to his feet in panic. Vane's eyes caught the familiar crest on the girl's collar. A silver raven. The Intelligence vassal of the Seventh Pillar, House Corvus, Vane remembered from the documents. The kingdom's eyes in the shadows. The spies. Even breathing in the same room as them meant you were one of their targets.
"Leave us alone, Vallis," the girl said. Her voice was soft, pleasant, and melodic like velvet; yet it carried an absolute authority that accepted zero objections. The slight, sweet smile on her face didn't lessen the sense of danger in the room; if anything, it amplified it.
Elian swallowed hard. His legs were shaking, but instead of heading for the door, he stayed rooted to the spot. "B-But Vane's c-condition..." he stammered. He didn't want to leave his newly made friend alone with this dangerous girl.
When Vane noticed this small but valuable moment of courage from the scrawny boy—something completely contrary to his usual character—a genuine, sincere smile touched his lips. Elian was a loyal kid.
"I'm fine, Elian, it's not a problem," Vane said, softening his voice. For his own safety, the boy needed to leave. "Thank you."
Receiving Vane's reassuring nod, Elian cast a cowardly glance at the girl, bowed his head, and quickly walked out of the infirmary. As the heavy door shut behind him, the only things left in the room were the hiss of the aether pipes and the emerald-eyed girl's calculating gaze piercing right through Vane.