The Dean remained motionless, his silver eyes fixed on the boy's hazel ones. He did not join the laughter. His mind, a cold and calculated engine of Elven intellect, was racing through centuries of recorded Spectrum theory.
By all laws of Aetheros, this child should have collapsed, Malanthir mused, his internal monologue a sharp contrast to his frozen, haughty exterior. I exerted a Tier-3 Aura Pressure. A human's skeletal structure should have buckled; their nervous system should have misfired into a seizure. Yet... he stands. His Spectrum is a void, yes. The staff is silent. But there is a density to his presence... Malanthir felt a strange, cold prickle at the base of his neck.
He looked at the obsidian dais. Around Aether's mud-caked boots, the stone hadn't cracked—but the dust was vibrating in a perfect, geometric circle.
"Silence," Malanthir commanded.
The word was a ripple of power that snatched the laughter out of the air. The amphitheater plummeted into a silence so sudden that it was painful.
The Dean pulled his staff back, the wood clacking softly against the stone.
He looked down at his long, elegant nose at Aether, his expression unreadable—masking the flicker of genuine, scientific interest that burned behind his eyes.
"As expected," Malanthir said, his voice flat and projecting a bored indifference he didn't entirely feel. "The staff remains dark. The human is, as history dictates, a Tier-Zero. A hollow vessel with neither the spark of Aetheros nor the forge-fire of Kraton."
He turned away from Aether, his robes billowing like a cloud of smoke.
"However," the Dean continued, pausing just long enough to let the tension stretch to a breaking point, "the Academy is a place of record. Even a void must be cataloged. You will be assigned to the sub-basement dormitories. You will attend the lectures. You will be the shadow that reminds the light of its brilliance."
Aether looked up, his lip wobbling. "So... I can stay?"
Malanthir didn't look back. "You will stay until the world decides what to do with a thing that has no purpose. Go. Before the sight of you offends the statues of the Gods any further."
Aether didn't wait. He turned and stumbled toward the exit, his head low. He didn't see the Dean look back at the spot where he had stood.
As Aether stumbled toward the exit—he saw two signs, Dormitory and Basement, he went to the Dormitory side because he thought that's where the mean man wanted him to be—but suddenly, a mechanical automaton stopped him.
"Human." The robot spoke. "Credentials Assigned: Aether, Six Years Old, Human Race. Your dorm is in the basement."
Aether was led away by a silent, mechanical automaton to the Sub-Basement Dormitories—a damp, dark place beneath the city's plumbing where the unusable workers and low-caste servants slept.
The mechanical automaton, a clanking assembly of rusted copper and hissing steam, stopped abruptly before a door of heavy, weeping iron.
With a metallic screech, the door swung open, and the machine gave Aether a cold, unceremonious shove into the darkness.
"Designated Living Space: Sub-Level 9. Occupant: Human. Do not exit during curfew hours," the machine droned before slamming the door shut. The lock engaged with a heavy, final thud.
Aether stood in a darkness so thick it felt like cold wool pressing against his face. The air here was a world away from the perfumed halls of the High City; it smelled of stagnant water, old grease, and the sharp, acidic tang of the city's plumbing leaking through the ceiling. As his eyes adjusted, he saw his new home.
The room was a narrow, vertical coffin of damp stone. Green slime, luminous and sickly, traced the cracks in the walls like the veins of some dying beast.
In the corner sat a heap of grey, matted straw that served as a bed, smelling faintly of mold and something metallic. A single, cracked basin sat under a pipe that rhythmically dripped blackish water.
plip... plip... plip.
Aether's bottom lip began to tremble uncontrollably. He stayed by the door, his small hands clutching his own arms, trying to make himself as small as possible.
I want to go home, his mind whimpered. It was the only thought his brain could hold, a repetitive, desperate prayer. It's too dark here. The walls are wet. Papa, the walls are crying. Why am I here? I didn't do anything bad. I climbed the stairs. I stayed quiet.
"Mama?" he whispered into the dark, his voice barely more than a breath. The silence of the stone swallowed it instantly.
He moved toward the straw mattress, his boots squelching in the thin layer of grime on the floor. He sat down, and the straw crunched under him, releasing a cloud of dust that made him cough.
As he tried to pull the thin, threadbare burlap sack over him to act as a blanket, his foot hit something hard beneath the straw.
Curiosity, a child's only weapon against fear, made him reach down. He pulled out a small, leather-bound book. It was stained and worn, the edges chewed by rats. He opened it, his brow furrowing in the dim, bioluminescent glow of the wall-slime.
As he traced the ink with a trembling finger, his father's voice echoed in his head, reminding him of the few symbols his father Kael had scratched into the dirt back home.
Human, a scourge of light beckoned by darkness.
Shall rise and take fight against our wrongdoings.
Human, fire the ones who wronged you.
Free those who are amongst the stars.
May the spectrum lead them all to their slow and inevitable downfall.
For the human might shall once more shine brighter than ever before.
Aether read those lines over and over. However, Aether is unable to grasp the true nature and the implication of the poem.
"H... u... m..." Aether whispered, squinting at the page. "H-u-m-a-n." He recognized that word. It was the word the guards said like a curse. It was the word his father said like a badge of honor. He saw other shapes—F-i-r-e, S-t-a-r-s, and a word that looked like a jagged mountain: S-p-e-c-t-r-u-m.
He hugged the book to his chest, the leather cold against his skin. It felt like a message from a ghost, a secret left in the belly of the beast.
"I'm Aether," he said to the empty room, his voice gaining a tiny spark of defiance. "I'm six. And I'm... I'm human."
He curled into a ball on the moldy straw, the book tucked under his chin. Outside, he could hear the distant, melodic chime of the High City's bells.
But down here, in the weeping dark, Aether closed his eyes and tried to dream of the forest, while his small fingers gripped the only piece of human history he had ever touched.