Chapter 21: Chapter 21. The Element They Laughed At
The moment Nicholas spoke, every student in the room straightened instinctively.
"Before we begin today’s lesson," he said, clasping his hands behind his back, "there is one matter to attend to. Your elemental affinities."
He let the words settle, his gaze sweeping across the room with that unhurried calm that seemed to be his default expression.
"As you are all aware, there are eight elements in total. The greater a mage’s affinity, the greater their capacity to wield magic. Chancellor Eric Jeldigor, for instance, commands seven elements, and you have all seen what position that has brought him to." A faint pause. "I myself hold affinity for six. So before we proceed with today’s curriculum, I will be conducting your affinity assessments. Class begins properly once we are finished."
He snapped his fingers.
A table materialized behind him as though it had always been there. Atop it rested a large crystal orb, faintly luminescent even at rest, and beside it stood a rectangular screen interface that hummed quietly in standby.
"This," Nicholas said, gesturing toward the orb, "is an Affinity Detector. By channeling your mana into the orb, it will identify and display your elemental alignments. Come forward one at a time, place your hand upon the surface, and channel."
***
The first student stepped up without hesitation.
He pressed his palm against the crystal, and immediately the orb came alive. Two distinct auras swirled within the glass: one a warm, flickering crimson, the other a deep and steady brown. A moment later, the screen beside it blinked to life.
FIRE. EARTH.
Two elements.
The boy stared at the screen a beat longer than he needed to. Something in his expression collapsed quietly, not dramatically, but enough to notice.
"There is nothing to be disappointed about," Nicholas said, before the student had even turned away. His tone was matter-of-fact, carrying no particular warmth, yet no cruelty either. Simply the weight of someone stating an obvious truth. "Two elements is the standard across the Empire. A number of our own faculty hold no more than that. Anything beyond two is the exception, not the rule."
The student nodded and returned to his place. Nicholas’s words had offered something, a foothold, at least, but the quiet dissatisfaction in his eyes didn’t fully leave.
***
The assessments continued.
One by one, students approached the orb and channeled their mana. The results bore out exactly what Nicholas had described: the vast majority registered two elements. A handful produced three. Quiet murmurs rippled through the room each time the screen displayed something unexpected, surprise, comparison, the subtle arithmetic of ambition being recalculated in real time.
Then Carlos stepped forward.
He placed his hand on the orb with the unhurried confidence of someone who had been waiting for this moment. The crystal responded immediately, and this time, it erupted.
Five distinct auras churned within the glass at once: a deep, blazing red; a cool and fluid blue; a grounded, steadfast brown; a brilliant, almost blinding gold; and threading through them all, a dark and suffocating purple-black that seemed to swallow the light around it.
The screen flickered, then resolved.
FIRE. WATER. EARTH. LIGHT. GRAVITY.
The room went still.
Then came the whispers, quiet at first, then layered, overlapping. Several students looked genuinely stunned. Others couldn’t quite hide the sting behind their eyes.
But most of them weren’t that surprised, in the end.
After all, this was the Magic Department’s Rank Second. Five affinities was extraordinary by any measure, but for Carlos, it almost felt like it was supposed to be this way.
Carlos himself, however, did not move.
His hand remained on the orb a moment longer than necessary. His jaw was tight. His fingers curled slowly, not into a fist, not quite, but close. His eyes, fixed on the five names glowing on that screen, were hard in a way that had nothing to do with pride.
Five.
Five, when I needed seven. When I needed eight.
The number settled over him like cold water. He wanted to reject it. Every instinct in him pushed against accepting it as the ceiling of what he was, as if yielding to the result would mean yielding to a version of himself he had no intention of becoming.
Slowly, his grip loosened.
He exhaled through his nose.
...Fine.
Five or eight, it doesn’t matter. The number doesn’t define where I end up. I will reach the top regardless. I have no other choice.
He withdrew his hand from the orb and turned back toward his place at an even pace, his expression already schooled back into something unreadable.
Nicholas watched him go. He said nothing.
***
Next, a girl stepped forward.
She had green hair, a small nose and mouth, and warm brown eyes, her features delicate in a way that drew a second glance without demanding one. But the hands she kept balled at her sides were trembling slightly, and her steps toward the orb were slow and careful, as though she were approaching something that might bite.
She came to a stop before the crystal and lifted her palm onto the surface. It was visibly damp with sweat.
The moment her mana channeled through, four auras bloomed inside the orb: blue, brown, green, and then something else. Something that coiled and writhed through the others like smoke with no source, a dark and formless black that seemed less like a color and more like an absence.
The screen flickered.
WATER. WIND. EARTH. DARKNESS.
That last word landed on the room like a stone dropped into still water.
A beat of stunned silence, and then the murmuring erupted all at once. Even Carlos, who had returned to his place with his usual composed indifference, visibly stiffened.
Because Darkness was not simply rare. Gravity was rare. Darkness was something else entirely, an element so seldom manifested that most mages went their entire careers without ever encountering a holder. Where Gravity appeared occasionally, if infrequently, Darkness was the kind of thing that existed mostly in old texts and older rumors.
Nicholas turned his attention to the girl with a focus he hadn’t given any previous student.
"Your name," he said. "And your family, do you have any ties to the Demons?"
The girl flinched as though she’d been struck.
She stood there a moment, clearly turning the question over in a panic, trying to find an answer that was both true and safe.
"...Sir, my name is Natasha Fenwick," she said at last, her voice quieter than it had been. "I come from a barony near the Capital. And... we have no connection to the Demons. None."
Nicholas regarded her for a long moment. Then he gave a slight nod and sent her back to her place.
***
The assessments resumed their rhythm.
Student after student. Result after result. The same distribution as before: two elements for most, three for a few, the occasional outlier drawing a brief wave of murmurs before the room settled again.
Then Arisa Verren walked up to the orb.
She moved without the hesitation that had characterized most of her classmates, placing her hand on the crystal with an ease that looked almost practiced. Four auras swirled in response: a swift, pale green; a vibrant amber-red; a grounded brown; and a clear, radiant gold.
WIND. FIRE. EARTH. LIGHT.
She was the second quad-element holder in the class.
The jealousy in the room, previously contained to meaningful glances and tightened jaws, was now barely bothering to hide itself. It sat openly in people’s eyes, sharp and unpleasant.
Arisa didn’t spare it a moment’s notice.
On her way back to her spot, she glanced over at Necrotize and offered him a small, bright smile, easy and uncomplicated, like it cost her nothing.
Necrotize didn’t respond. He was watching the proceedings with an expression of quiet, unhurried interest, as though all of this were simply an enjoyable diversion.
***
Then came Lyra’s turn.
She exhaled slowly through her nose and began walking toward the orb. Her hands had gone cold. She already knew, had known for some time, in a way she’d never said aloud, what the result was going to be. But there was still a small, stubborn thing somewhere in the back of her chest that hoped she was wrong. That begged to be wrong.
She stopped in front of the crystal. Placed her hand gently upon it.
Channeled her mana.The entire orb flooded white.
A pure, brilliant white, clean and total, swallowing every other color. And within that whiteness, there was nothing else. No second hue, no layered aura, no trace of anything else hiding beneath the surface.
The screen beside it displayed a single word.
LIGHTNING.
The room went quiet for a different reason this time.
Most students had assumed Lyra would produce several affinities. She carried herself with a steadiness that suggested capability, and she had already demonstrated lightning in the practical examination. But one element. Just one.
The silence broke on a laugh.
It started small, a stifled sound from somewhere in the back, and then spread, the way these things always did, feeding on itself until it wasn’t small anymore. Several students were laughing openly now, without much effort to conceal it.
Carlos allowed himself a faint smile.
So did Arisa.
Lyra did not react. She stood where she was and let the sound wash over her, her face still, her gaze fixed somewhere neutral.
But beneath that stillness, something was fracturing quietly. Her eyes had gone glassy, the faintest shimmer gathering at their edges.
I really am a failure, she thought, the words forming without her permission. I already knew this. I already knew.
Nicholas cleared his throat.
"You have only one element," he said, his tone clinical. "And of all the elements, it had to be Lightning, the most technically demanding to control, and arguably the least broadly effective in practice. You used it in the practical examination, which led us to assume there were other affinities alongside it." He paused. "Had we known this was the full picture, we would not have admitted you. There were far more talented applicants who didn’t make the cut. I’ll be speaking with the Chancellor immediately after class. The Magic Department is not the right placement for you. Given that your theoretical knowledge is adequate, I’ll arrange a transfer to another department."
Lyra said nothing. She simply nodded once, slowly.
Something in Necrotize’s expression shifted.
It was subtle, the way his gaze moved to Nicholas, the way it settled there and stayed. There was no dramatic change, no visible anger. Just a quiet intensity, like a temperature dropping.
And then the sky went dark.
Not gradually. All at once, as though someone had drawn a curtain across the sun. The training grounds were plunged into shadow, dense clouds churning overhead with a speed that had no natural explanation. Thunder rolled in from nowhere. A wind tore through the academy grounds, sudden and cold, forceful enough to send loose papers skittering across the courtyard.
Every living thing on the grounds seemed to feel it at the same moment, that deep, involuntary chill that had nothing to do with weather.
Then a bolt of lightning came down.
It struck the center of the training round in a single catastrophic flash, and the protective barrier, a Rank Seven magical construct, shattered on impact as though it were made of glass.
The students scattered. Half of them were already crying out, pressing back from the windows, some dropping to the ground instinctively. Even Carlos went rigid, a fine sheen of sweat breaking across his brow before he could stop it.
Nicholas watched all of it in silence.
"Professor."
The voice was quiet. Conversational, even. But it cut through the chaos like a blade.
"The claim you just made is incorrect."
Necrotize stepped forward, one hand still in his pocket, his pace unhurried.
"Lightning being ineffective is a common misconception," he continued, his tone carrying no particular emotion, just a calm, unhurried certainty that didn’t need volume to be heard. "In truth, Lightning is exponentially more powerful than the other elements. A single Lightning affinity is equivalent, in raw potential, to all seven of the remaining elements combined."
The room went very still.
Several students stared. A few exchanged glances, uncertain whether to be more unsettled by the claim or by the fact that they couldn’t bring themselves to dismiss it outright.
Nicholas’s composure, carefully maintained until now, cracked just slightly around the edges.
Necrotize was already moving, toward Lyra, his steps even and unhurried, each one punctuated by a distant flash somewhere in the storm overhead. The thunder answered each footfall like something listening.
Lyra watched him approach. The turmoil inside her had gone quiet, not settled, exactly, but transformed. The distress had receded, replaced by something she didn’t have an immediate name for. Curiosity, maybe. Or the very first edge of wanting.
He stopped beside her.
Without comment, he placed a hand on her shoulder.
She didn’t know why, and she couldn’t have explained it if asked, but the warmth of it was enough. Something that had been wound very tight in her chest loosened, just slightly.
Then Necrotize turned to the crystal orb. He reached out with his free hand and pressed it to the surface.
The orb blazed white.
Not the quiet white it had produced for Lyra. This was something else entirely. A light so intense and absolute that it swallowed the storm’s darkness whole, pouring out across the training grounds, flooding through every window, washing the entire academy in its glow. Students shielded their eyes. Hands flew up across the room. Even the thunder seemed to hesitate.
Nicholas did not look away.
Slowly, the light began to recede. The orb dimmed back down to its resting luminescence. Students lowered their arms and blinked the afterimages from their vision.
The screen beside the orb displayed one word.
LIGHTNING.
