MY MENTOR CAN HEAR MY THOUGHTS

Chapter 6: The Archmage’s Most Embarrassing Secret

The round council chamber of Wintervale Sanctum was built to inspire discipline.

It failed whenever Nia was sleepy.

Seven seats circled a table of black stone beneath a dome of enchanted glass. First Archon Andrew Greyfell sat at the head with a stack of notes, a stern expression, and the patient disappointment of a grandfather who had expected better from everyone.

“Three months ago,” Andrew said, “we recovered several elven manuscripts from the western imperial ruins. Their language predates the fall of the ancient royal court. Today, each Archon will report their progress.”

Nia blinked.

Manuscripts.

Her mind produced one clear memory.

A heavy book wedged under the short leg of her tea table.

Oh no.

Andrew looked at her. “Nia, you begin.”

Nia stood by reflex. “Is the meeting over?”

Silence.

One Archon coughed into his sleeve.

Another stared at the ceiling with heroic determination.

Andrew’s eyebrow twitched. “No. I asked about your translation.”

“My translation,” Nia repeated.

“Yes.”

“Of the elven manuscript.”

“Yes.”

“The ancient one.”

“Nia.”

“I have made... progress.”

Lies tasted terrible when spoken in front of Andrew.

He narrowed his eyes. “Bring your notes tomorrow. You claimed great confidence when the task was assigned.”

Nia had no memory of claiming confidence.

That meant she absolutely had.

By the time she returned to her tower, she was flying too fast to land properly. Her broom smashed through an upper window, bounced off a staircase, and carried her down three floors in a cloud of smoke.

Elias watched from the courtyard as the tower coughed black dust.

“She missed the door,” he observed.

Predictable, he thought.

Nia emerged covered in soot, clutching the manuscript.

“Elias,” she said with heroic determination, “I will translate this entire text in one day.”

“Of course, Master. You can do anything.”

Always agree when she has that look. In thirty minutes, she will collapse face-first on the desk.

Nia’s forehead vein pulsed.

She stormed to her desk, opened the manuscript, dipped her pen, and stared at the first page.

Ancient elven characters stared back.

They were elegant.

Extinct.

And completely unreadable.

Thirty minutes later, exactly as predicted, her face hit the page.

“Impossible,” she mumbled. “No one can read this.”

Elias, reclining nearby with a cheap romance novel, glanced over.

Ancient elvish? he thought. Wait. Is that the book I used under the table leg?

Nia’s head shot up.

He can read it.

She nearly lunged across the desk.

Instead, she forced herself to remain calm.

“Elias,” she said, “come here and copy formulas.”

He looked suspicious but obeyed.

His eyes drifted to the manuscript.

Second-era elven script, he thought. Crude copy. The pages are out of order too. This is actually three different documents mixed together.

Nia’s breath caught.

Three documents?

She held up the page and pretended to examine it with authority.

“Repeat after me. Ah-bo-tzi-deh-leh.”

Elias stared.

Ah-bo-tzi-deh-leh? I have heard dying goats produce better elvish.

Nia’s face burned.

Then his thoughts shifted.

Elven Year 2021. By command of the Elven King, all warriors of the Violet Realm are summoned to the royal court. We answer the First King’s banner. We have become betrayers of gods, and we shall become god-slayers.

Nia stopped breathing.

The words echoed in her mind as clearly as spoken language.

Elias looked at the page with an expression she had never seen from him before.

Not amusement.

Not laziness.

Memory.

Nia lowered her pen to paper and began writing down everything he thought.

Before midnight, Nia discovered three facts.

First, Elias could read ancient elvish without effort.

Second, he had no idea she was stealing every translation from his thoughts.

Third, the manuscript was far more important than anyone in Wintervale had realized.

Elias sat nearby, pretending to read his romance novel. His eyes flicked to each page Nia turned, and his thoughts supplied what no dictionary in the Sanctum could.

The first section was a war record.

The elves had rallied behind the First King of Violet, an ancient sovereign whose name had been carved out of modern histories. They had rejected their patron god, taken up arms beside other mortal races, and prepared to strike at the upper planes.

Nia wrote furiously.

“Master,” Elias said suddenly, “your pen is smoking.”

“Scholarly passion,” Nia replied.

Suspicious. She was face-down on the desk an hour ago. Now she is writing like a historian possessed.

Nia slowed her hand.

Calm.

Subtle.

Do not reveal the secret.

She turned another page.

Elias’s thoughts continued.

We believed the First King would lead us to victory. Compared to the nature god who abandoned us, he was more father than ruler. He forbade worship, so of course the elves worshipped him harder.

Nia’s eyes widened.

The First King had forbidden worship?

Then Elias’s thoughts shifted again, sharp and bitter.

Idiots. Loyal, brilliant, doomed idiots. I told them to run. I knew after the first clash that we could not win. Even I had prepared to die.

Nia’s pen stopped.

I.

Not he.

I.

Elias’s face remained expressionless, but grief moved through his thoughts like ice beneath dark water.

They followed me anyway. All my clever schemes, all my useful alliances, all my excuses, and those fools still marched behind my banner into the gods’ knives.

Nia looked at him.

The useless apprentice.

The lazy liar.

The man who complained about homework and naps.

The First King of Violet?

Impossible.

And yet the Radiant Sovereign had known him.

The ancient elven text spoke of a ruler who had defied the gods.

And Elias thought about that ruler in first person.

Nia’s hand trembled.

“Master?” Elias asked.

She snapped her attention back to the page. “Nothing. Continue copying formulas.”

“I am holding a romance novel.”

“Then copy that. Quietly.”

He stared at her.

She is definitely losing it.

Nia turned another page, desperate to know what happened next.

Instead of history, Elias’s thoughts supplied something very different.

Midnight Secrets of the Elven Maiden? What idiot bound this page into a war chronicle?

Nia read the line again.

Her cheeks went red.

The manuscript was indeed three documents: a war record, a set of spell formulas, and an embarrassingly dramatic elven romance.

Elias leaned back.

Classic scribal disaster.

Nia sorted the pages into piles.

War.

Magic.

Romance.

By dawn, she had enough for a council report.

She also had a theory so dangerous she could barely bring herself to write it.

If Elias Vane was the First King of Violet, then Wintervale had not sheltered a failed student for three years.

It had sheltered a living weapon from the age of gods.