The Professor soon cleared his throat, as the chalk and the board disappeared out of thin air. "Now, I need students to please come and touch the Crystal Prism."
One by one, the students were called down. An Elven boy touched the crystal, and it erupted into a brilliant, steady blue. A Daemon girl touched it, and it flickered with a chaotic, violent crimson.
"Now," Chironis said, his eyes landing on Aether. "The human. Step forward."
A wave of snickering broke out. Aether walked to the pedestal, his heart thudding. He reached out a small, trembling hand. His fingers brushed the cold, vibrating surface of the Prism.
The Prism stayed dark.
The silence in the room was a heavy, suffocating blanket. Then, the first giggle broke, followed by a roar of derision. "Empty! Just like his head!" the Hyena-boy shouted from the back.
But Aether didn't hear them.
As his skin touched the crystal, the world around him didn't stay dark—it shifted.
The walls of the classroom didn't disappear, but they became secondary. He saw them: The Threads.
Vibrant, pulsing lines of light—violet, gold, and deep, bloody red—were woven through the air like the web of a cosmic spider. He saw the blue the Elven boy had produced, but he saw it for what it really was—a jagged, messy leak of energy. He saw the red of the Daemon, which looked like a frayed, screaming knot.
And then, he looked at the Professor. The Centaur was surrounded by a calm, rhythmic pulse of amber light.
Aether blinked, his hazel eyes widening. He wasn't lighting the Prism because he wasn't pushing anything into it.
Instead, he was absorbing the sight of it. He saw a thin, almost invisible thread of pure, shimmering silver snaking out from the center of the Prism, drifting aimlessly.
Without thinking, Aether reached out his other hand—the one without the shackle—and gently plucked the silver thread.
The Prism didn't glow. It shivered. A low, melodic hum vibrated through the floorboards, a sound so pure it made the Professor's ears twitch in shock.
It feels like Mama's song, Aether thought, a small, dazed smile touching his lips. It's not power. It's just... a string. And it wants to be played.
"What... what did you do?" Chironis whispered, stepping forward, his hooves clicking sharply on the stone. He looked at the Prism, which was now spinning with a terrifying, silent speed, though it remained stubbornly colorless to everyone else's eyes.
The silence in the classroom was a brittle thing, stretched to its breaking point by the unnatural, high-frequency hum of the Prism.
To the students, the crystal was a dead weight, a spinning void. But to Professor Chironis, the resonance was terrifying—it was the sound of a fundamental law of reality being gently nudged aside.
"He broke it!"
The shout shattered the tension like a stone through glass. Varg, the Hyena-boy, leapt from his cushioned bench, his hackles raised and his yellow eyes burning with a mixture of fear and predatory instinct.
He pointed a clawed finger at Aether, who was still staring at the invisible silver thread with wide, glazed eyes.
"The human did something foul!" Varg snarled, spittle flying from his snout. "He touched the Sacred Prism with his dirty hands and now it's screaming! He's polluting the resonance!"
Varg lunged forward, his Physical Spectrum flaring in a dull, muddy brown aura. He intended to shove Aether off the stool, to reclaim the hierarchy through violence. But as his hand neared Aether's shoulder, the silver thread in Aether's vision pulsed.
Aether flinched, his eyes snapping toward Varg. To Aether, the Beastman wasn't just a boy; he was a chaotic tangle of coarse, brown ropes of energy. Without thinking, Aether's hand twitched, instinctively pulling the silver thread between them.
The air between the two boys warped. A sudden, soundless pressure. Like the weight of a mountain compressed into a heartbeat—erupted. Varg wasn't just stopped; he was repelled, his body skidding backward across the floor as if he had run into a wall of solid ice.
"Enough."
The word didn't come from the Professor.
The heart-wood doors of the classroom didn't open—they dissolved into mist and reformed.
The High Dean, Malanthir, stood there, his presence alone dampening the lights of the room.
He didn't look at Varg.
He didn't look at the bewildered Professor.
His silver gaze was locked onto the iron shackle on Aether's wrist, which was now glowing with a faint, doomed luminescence.
"Professor Chironis," Malanthir said, his voice a cold blade. "Dismiss the class. Now."
"But Dean—"
"Now."
The students scrambled out, Varg casting a look of pure, unadulterated hatred at Aether before fleeing. Within seconds, the vast theater was empty, leaving only the ancient Elf and the small, trembling human boy.
"Do you know what you are looking at, little Aether?" Malanthir asked, stepping closer.
I want to go back to the dark room, Aether thought, his mind a whirlwind of static and fear. I don't like the colors. They're too bright. They feel like they're trying to pull my eyes out. The man with the silver hair... his threads are like knives. They're so sharp. If I touch them, I'll bleed.
"I... I see strings," Aether whispered, his voice trembling.
Malanthir's eyes widened a fraction—a monumental expression for an Elf of his age. He reached out and grabbed Aether's arm, not with cruelty, but with an iron-clad grip that brooked no resistance. "Then the Council must see you. The Sovereigns must decide if you are a miracle... or a plague."