Chapter 105: Chapter 105

The room was too small for how many of them were crammed into it.

Stone walls. Dim light. One long table.

No professors. No staff. No adults.

Luneth stood with her back to the wall, arms crossed, one foot pressed lightly against the baseboard like it could help her think faster.

Cassian sat in the corner, leg outstretched, wrapped in three layers of crystal-treated bandages. His shirt was torn, the color gone from his lips.

"…I should've done more," he said.

"No one could've," Nikolai mumbled, hunched on a stool like he was trying to disappear into the wood. "He told us to run."

"And we did," Rowan muttered. "Like cowards."

Valen said nothing. He hadn't since they got back.

Elara was pacing in slow, sharp circles.

Jack leaned against the table, one arm across his chest, jaw tight.

Vivienne was seated in the far corner, eyes shadowed. She hadn't spoken since they entered.

Luneth finally exhaled. "He's gone."

The words dropped like iron in water.

"He was taken," she continued. "We all saw it. And whatever those things were—they weren't trying to kill us. Only him."

"Which means this wasn't an attack," Rowan muttered. "It was a capture."

Cassian rubbed a shaky hand through his hair. "He fought. Gods, he fought. I saw him burn one of them straight through the chest."

"They didn't even flinch," Nikolai whispered.

Elara stopped pacing. "Where the hell was Thalorin?"

Jack straightened, finally. "That's what I want to know."

"There's no way he didn't sense that level of mana rupture," Valen said quietly. "Even if he were asleep. Even if he were drunk."

"He's not," Vivienne said.

Her voice was hoarse. Rough around the edges.

"He doesn't sleep much. And he doesn't drink. He's been preparing for something all year." She paused. Swallowed. "If he's missing…"

"…Then we're on our own," Luneth finished.

The room went still again.

That's all they were.

Kids in tailored uniforms.

Lindarion had been the constant.

The weird constant, sure. The arrogant, too-smart, too-poised-for-his-age constant who walked like he had already seen the ending and just hadn't told anyone yet.

"Do we… wait for the professors?" Cassian asked.

Jack scoffed. "For what? A briefing on how to write his obituary?"

"Enough," Luneth said.

The cold in her voice was worse than her affinity.

"No one's dying yet."

She looked at each of them in turn.

Vivienne, still burning from something no one could touch.

She hated not knowing.

Hated not understanding the variables.

But they were here. And Lindarion wasn't.

So she did what she always did.

Focused on what she could control.

"First," she said, "we figure out if he's still alive."

That was the only thing they could hope for now.

And Luneth would prove it one way or another.

That was the problem.

No professors. No headmaster. No orders. Just the slow rot of silence filling the academy like mold behind walls.

"Let's start from the beginning," she said. "Again."

Cassian groaned from his corner. "We've already gone over it four times—"

"Then five won't kill you," she snapped.

He didn't argue after that.

Across from her, Jack leaned back in his chair. One foot propped up, arms folded. Pretending he was relaxed. He wasn't.

Vivienne just stared at the table.

"Elara. Timeline," Luneth said.

Elara exhaled through her nose, cracking her knuckles like the facts offended her.

"Four minutes after the first tremor, the invaders came through the rupture. Eight of them. No visible mouths, no insignias, no vocal commands. They just moved around like dolls."

"Targeting Lindarion," Rowan added. "Like hounds on a leash."

"They ignored everyone else unless directly provoked," Elara continued. "One student cast a barrier. It was bypassed. Another attacked. Erased. Not killed. Just—gone."

"Which means spatial displacement," Luneth muttered. "Or total annihilation. Neither is good."

Jack's voice cut in, drier than sand. "You're welcome for the commentary, by the way."

He startled slightly. "Y-yes?"

He hesitated. "I… I didn't feel a specific affinity. Not really. It was—loud. Like a hundred sources clashing. And unstable. I tried to isolate the frequency but it slipped. Like it didn't want to be recorded."

Cassian blinked. "The mana didn't want to be recorded?"

"Don't look at me like that," Nikolai mumbled. "You didn't see it."

Silence stretched again.

Luneth tapped the table twice.

"So what do we know?"

"They came for him," Vivienne said quietly. "Not to kill. To take."

"And we let them," Jack added. "You missed that part."

"I didn't miss anything," Luneth said flatly.

The fire in her voice wasn't heat. It was pressure. Controlled. Focused.

"None of us were strong enough. That's not an insult. It's math."

"We saw him activate his domain," Valen said finally, speaking up for the first time in minutes. "It covered the courtyard. It warped the pressure. He wasn't stalling. He was trying to end it."

"And it still wasn't enough," Elara finished.

That landed heavier than anything else.

"I'm going to the Arcane Records wing."

Jack raised a brow. "You want to browse historical library stacks while our classmate's probably being—"

"Yes," she cut in. "Because someone built that teleportation method. Someone crafted armor that ignores ambient mana interference. Someone tested these things."

"And records leave residue."

She pulled her gloves tighter. Mana pulsed faintly beneath her skin—cold, steady.

"If I can isolate the spatial fluctuation signature," she said, "I can trace the fragment paths. There may still be residue left in the stone."

Nikolai blinked. "You mean you want to track them by mana echo?"

"That's… insane. You'd have to overlay a reverse-thread through a distorted fracture line. If you mess it up—"

It wasn't arrogance. Just fact.

She looked at the others.

"I'm not saying we can bring him back. Not today. Maybe not ever."

"But we can find out who took him. And where. And why."

Jack tilted his head. "And what if we find out more than we want to know?"

Luneth turned to the door.

"Then we adjust the equation."

And with that, she walked out.

No fire trailing behind her.

Time didn't pass in this place.

Lindarion didn't know how long he'd been left hanging—arms suspended by a thread of mana too precise to be physical, too cruel to be magical. It burned without leaving marks. It compressed nerves without rupturing them.

Whoever had made it wanted him conscious.

His right shoulder was dislocated.

Left knee twisted inward at the wrong angle.

One rib—maybe two—were cracked. Breathing hurt. Moving hurt. Thinking hurt.

The only thing that didn't hurt was giving up.

Which meant he hadn't done that yet.

The door didn't creak when it opened.

Just a gentle sigh of air, followed by the soft echo of polished shoes. That smell—leather oil and herbs—always came first.

"Good evening, Sir Lindarion."

The man never raised his tone.

He just acted was all a conversation over wine.

As if tying a child to a floating rack of force-threads was a matter of refined taste.

"I've brought something new for you today," the man said, setting something on the table.

Click. Metal on wood.

Not a whip. Not chains.

"Have you ever seen a mana conduit filament, Lindarion?"

'How much time has passed…'

He couldn't. His throat was raw from the last hour.

"Fascinating things," the man continued, lifting a thin silver coil no thicker than a hair.

"Normally used in advanced mana relay cores. But when applied correctly…"

Lindarion tried to brace for it.

The filament slid under his fingernail.

'It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.'

His back just arched with a sharp convulsion, and he nearly blacked out.

"Ah, yes. I thought we'd finally hit the pain threshold."

The man pulled something else from the tray—a tool like surgical pliers, but shaped to turn the thin wires once inserted.

The second filament went into the next nail.

He reached the fourth before Lindarion's body started convulsing too much to hold.

The entire cell had been wrapped in some kind of a field—no suppression, just perfect stabilization.

Enough to keep Lindarion's core awake, but not functional.

Cruel in its efficiency.

"You're a fascinating puzzle, young prince," the man said, wiping his gloves clean. "You endure too much, too early. I wonder who you learned that from."

Lindarion's head dropped.

His lips were trembling.

He was trying not to say anything.

That was the last thing they hadn't taken.

"You think this is cruelty, Lindarion," the man said.

"But it's just… adjustment."

He turned to the tray again.

This time, a small blade.

Coated in a viscous blue liquid that shimmered like condensed mana poison.

"Let's see how you hold up under organ targeting."