Hedi Melvina.
The new nobles heard the name, and silence pooled like ink in a bowl.
Wind seeped in like clear water through a crack, and a pen tapped the desk like pebbles in a stream, giving the room an unreal shimmer.
They knew Melvina’s potential was fathomless, like a black swan on dark water, a Professor and Arcane Prize winner before her dawn was full.
Leave her unchecked, and a deep alliance between the old nobility and the Dark Realm Research Institute would surge like a tide, wrecking those fattened on machinery.
Kito Melinda thought in tight circles like a hawk on a thermal, and shot a wary look at Lilliana like a blade sliding from a sheath.
Her face wasn’t that distant imperial cool with a hidden blush, that moon beyond reach; nor was any single feature a comet blazing alone.
It was a familiar, plain kind of beauty, like a well-worn stone, yet it whispered of life once maimed by storm and iron.
Scars lingered like pale threads; most of all, her eyes, two frosted marbles, didn’t mirror color but laid bare a knife-cold drift within.
“Your eye—” Kito Melinda paused like a hunter tasting the air, “is viciously sharp.”
Lilliana smiled in on it like a lantern kindling, and tugged the old nobles into the water again. “Admiring a scholar shows our reverence for knowledge.”
“If that’s called vicious, I hope every noble here keeps such venom, to back more brilliant minds and raise the Empire’s magic, not hide it like a trinket.”
“We old nobles pride ourselves on patronage,” an elder said, voice like gravel in a brook, “but reckless pacts stir riots and shake the order’s spine.”
Lilliana dipped her chin like a reed in wind, accepting the point with a quiet ripple.
The old nobles tasted interest like wine on the tongue, yet clung to rank like moss to stone, warning of ‘unrest’ while testing Dark Realm Magic with gloves.
The new nobles, defending their lattice of power like watchmen on ramparts, would never stomach that alliance, which would crack their carefully laid advantage like ice.
“Dark Realm Magic won’t upend society,” Lilliana said, biting her forefinger’s knuckle like a tether, then breathing out fog. “It answers the Empire’s looming storm.”
She looked back through history like turning pages in a wind, where magic solved dead ends and nudged civilization forward like spring water through rock.
Now Dark Realm research offers a new path against the Dark Realm’s threat, a shield and spear for the Empire, not a pickaxe at its roots.
The hall sank into silence again, a lake under night, black and still.
Both camps knew she peddled a shared fate, a rope to draw them both into the same boat.
But the old nobles knit their brows like knots in rope, pinning their hopes to Dark Realm Magic, a bottomless well gulping coin and patience.
They feared it would only fatten the new nobles’ machinery like a furnace fed with oak, while returns stayed smoke.
The new nobles kept quiet as snow, yet inside they saw it clear as a knife: the old nobles would use Dark Realm Magic to shear their fleece.
Silence held, thin as frost and just as stubborn, clinging to every sleeve.
Only the softest breathing ground time like a stone mill, slow and implacable.
Unease first, then thought: what chance did a union of magic and machinery have, Lilliana wondered, when even a grain of imbalance could snap the truce?
These nobles measure the sky yet bow to appetite, like sailors charting stars then chasing a siren.
“Anything more to add?” A new voice cut in like a bell, rising from the hall’s center. “If not, split the talks. The Dark Realm isn’t a toy.”
Lilliana’s heart jolted like a deer, then she blinked fast and cocked an ear. “Your… Your Majesty?”
“Did I startle you?” The voice smiled like a warm coal.
“You hadn’t spoken,” she said, her tone a held breath.
Clifford VI shifted in his chair like a mountain adjusting, broad shoulders catching the light, age carving a heavy dignity across his face.
“This time I’m only auditing,” he said, voice steady as oak, “and you’re as quick as ever.”
Guilt pricked first, then plan: she’d come to blur Stratford’s fault like mist over tracks, then pivot eyes toward the Institute’s partnership with Hedi Melvina.
She had read Stratford’s file like a surgeon reading a chart, and she wanted Melvina with a hunger like winter for fire.
A person eroded yet free of side effects was a breach in the cliff, a path to the Dark Realm’s core.
“After all that talk, you must be hungry,” Clifford VI said, tone like warm bread. “Dine here, why don’t you?”
“Grateful for Your Majesty’s kindness,” she said, her voice a curtsey of air, “but Institute matters aren’t settled. I must take my leave.”
She nodded, and Daniele pushed her from the hall like a boat easing from a dock.
The wheels rolled over soft carpet like moths over velvet, making no sound at all.
After a stretch, Daniele sagged like a flag in rain. “So annoying. We won’t get Melvina.”
Resignation first, then stance: “I never meant to loosen them with one talk,” Lilliana said, her tone a banked ember.
“Can we tell the old nobles about Melvina,” Daniele asked, words flitting like sparrows, “and use that to spur cooperation?”
Protectiveness surged like a drawn bow, then words: “Don’t do anything that brings trouble to Melvina.”
“But without that, she won’t work with us,” Daniele said, frustration purling like a rough current. “The Institute’s name is mud. We hoped her status could rinse it.”
Lilliana laughed, light as chimes. “And who owns the newspapers? The nobles do.”
“We could still swing it,” Daniele said, face lifting like sun through cloud. “Stratford’s file says she and Melvina once cooperated.”
“As a noble and a Professor, secret dealings with the Institute would stain her like ink,” Lilliana said, cool as glass.
“So troublesome,” Daniele huffed, a kettle just shy of whistle.
“Then we hold more meetings,” Lilliana said, patience spreading like shade.
A beat of silence, then Daniele’s voice fell like a leaf. “We lack a decisive lever to make them yield.”
“If only they could feel the Dark Realm’s threat in their bones,” Lilliana said, the thought a cold wind through shutters.
“Shattered City?”
“That city sits on the border like a lone watchfire, and it sealed itself fast,” she said, then shook her head like a tree shedding frost. “Bringing it closer risks lives.”
Daniele neither agreed nor denied, just pushed the chair forward like a tide that knows its shore.
Resolve first, then plan: “We clean up Stratford’s mess,” Lilliana said, gathering thoughts like thread. “The Dark Realm at Shattered City must be solved.”
“Say the word, and I move,” Daniele said, voice like a drawn line.
“I will,” Lilliana answered, simple as a nod.
Their words stopped like a cut string.
Lilliana felt the glide of the chair, the tires brushing the carpet like moth wings, dissolving into the corridor’s hush.
Daniele’s steps faded too, swallowed by walls like rain swallowed by dust.
Time stretched thin as candy, until Lilliana’s count reached one hundred and twenty, and light, hurried footfalls fluttered from afar.
“Clara… Dean…” The voice arrived like a bird out of breath.
“What is it?” she asked, calm draped like linen.
“A call… came while you were in session,” the messenger panted, words skipping like stones. “Needs a callback.”
“Who do I call?” Her voice cooled like water in a bowl.
“Naghtown Police,” came the answer, crisp as frost.
