Rumors about the quadrangle confrontation spread among students at blinding speed. Felix, the enigmatic probe of the Orrery, had struck again. He hadn't just beaten Kael; he'd publicly flayed him with words and turned the Storm Blade's display of prowess into a lesson in his own ignorance. The tale grew with each retelling, but through it all was the core of the truth: Felix possessed a weapon that no man could best—an intellect sharper than any sword.In the observation rooms and the faculty lounges, the event did not pass unnoticed.Archon Therus watched the saved scrying orb video in his private office. The on-screen face mirrored Felix's calm dismissal, Kael's anguished fury, the moment when the crowd's mood shifted from terror to derision. His own mouth twisted into a happy, genuine smile."Great," he remarked to the empty space. "He does not fight their battle. He changes the field of battle.".He was not the only one who thought so. In another room, a group of younger faculty m

The High Council chamber was not a hall of knowledge, but of authority. A round room in the pinnacle of the central spire, the windows looking out over the dizzying view of Hafthor. The walls were lined with portraits of the former Head Archons, their disapproving eyes seeming to judge the current inhabitants. The air was thick with the weight of centuries of decision-making.Seated around a blackwood table of immense age were the seven most powerful figures in the Academy: the Council of Archons. At the head was Archon Therus, his face impassive. To his right sat Professor Lyra, her back erect, her eyes burning with cold fire. The others represented the various Colleges and the political might of the institution.On the tabletop, a silver scrying pool showed a repeating loop of images: Felix systematically dismantling the nobles in the Hall of Disputation. Felix verbally stripping Kael in the quadrangle. And finally, a fuzzy, long-distance image of Felix and Liora walking into the se

The aftershocks of the Great Debate rocked Hafthor for days. Felix's public image was now that of a polarizing figure. He was either a hero of vision who had the courage to speak truth to power, or a heretic whose views were dangerous and undermining the social order.He kept to his routine, haunting the library, though now he was never alone. Whispering followed his heels. stares bored into his back. He ignored them, seeking refuge in the oldest sections, the ones dealing with the immediate post-Sundering era, hunting for any scrap of evidence for his inflammatory theory.One day, as he trailed a finger down a census report from the First Reconstruction, a shadow loomed over him. He glanced up, expecting a hostile student or an annoyed professor.There, however, he found an old man. The style of his robes was antiquated, ancient, of surpassing, faded elegance. His back was stooped, but his eyes were clear and bright, with a suffering so deep it was as though it had been seared into h

The revelation of the "other Codices" filled Felix with a general sense of paranoia. Any shadow in the library seemed to hold a glint of evil green. Any glance from any professor was like an assessment from a hidden, ancient intelligence. He moved through his days like a ghost, his mind reeling with the vast, terrifying new scale of his life.This distraction was a weakness. And Kael, for all his crudeness, was an excellent hunter of weaknesses.He hadn't forgotten the embarrassment in the quadrangle. The jeering whispers that now followed him—the "Storm Blade who got schooled by a probie"—were a poison in his veins. But he had learned. A straight-up fight was what Felix wanted. It played to his strengths. Kael would have to strike from an angle Felix would never see coming.He watched Felix from a distance, his distraction, his jumpiness. He saw Felix spending more time than usual in the libraries, but his focus seemed divided, desperate. Kael didn't know what Felix was searching for

The final term at the Academy passed in a silence of tense suspense. Kael was gone, his family had taken him away under the cover of night, shamefaced. He was not expelled; his record simply registered a "voluntary withdrawal for personal reasons." What had happened in the Refectory was a story too dangerous to tell in whispers, and yet a story that everybody knew.Felix became a ghost. Fears. Admired. Avoided. He was a walking paradigm shift, and most students and faculty didn't know how to interact with him. He did his final exams not with explosive spectaculars, but with quiet, devastating accuracy. His answers weren't just correct; they were foundational critiques that left his professors with more questions than they'd posed.He had no friends, aside from Liora, whose loyalty was now as enduring and absolute as the silver cord that tied her to the Codex. She was his single and first disciple, her once-broken center now a wellspring of calm, focused power, a reflection of the wint