MY MENTOR CAN HEAR MY THOUGHTS

Chapter 7: The First King’s Forbidden Ice

The next morning, Nia walked into the council chamber with ink on her fingers, shadows under her eyes, and enough stolen knowledge in her head to terrify every historian in the Violet Realm.

Andrew Greyfell looked up from his notes.

“Nia. You are late.”

“Only slightly.”

“By an hour.”

“A scholarly hour.”

Several Archons exchanged amused looks.

Nia ignored them and placed three neat stacks of pages on the round table.

“The manuscript you gave me was copied out of order,” she said. “It is not one book. It is three separate texts bound together.”

The room quieted.

Andrew leaned forward.

Nia pointed to the first stack. “A war chronicle written shortly before the elven extinction.”

Then she touched the second. “A magical formula archive, including a complete version of the forbidden ice spell Glacial Purgatory.”

Finally, with visible reluctance, she tapped the third stack.

“And a terrible romance novel.”

One Archon blinked. “A what?”

“Irrelevant literature,” Nia said quickly.

Andrew’s gaze sharpened. “Continue.”

Nia drew a breath and began reading the translation she had copied from Elias’s thoughts.

“Elven Year 2021. By command of the Elven King, all warriors are to assemble at the royal court. We answer the First King of Violet, for we have become betrayers of gods, and we shall become god-slayers.”

The mood in the chamber changed at once.

The amusement disappeared.

Andrew opened his own notes and compared them line by line. With every sentence Nia read, his expression grew more serious.

“This matches the fragments I decoded,” he said quietly. “Exactly.”

The Archons looked at Nia as if they were seeing her for the first time.

She tried very hard not to look like a criminal.

“The chronicle confirms that the First King led mortal forces during the Divine War,” she continued. “The elves regarded him not merely as an ally, but as a protector. Several passages suggest that forbidden worship formed around him, despite his direct objections.”

“The First King of Violet,” one Archon murmured. “The oldest of the Seven Kings.”

Andrew nodded. “And the most mysterious. After the Divine War, he vanished. Most records claim he died.”

Nia thought of Elias asleep in her tower, probably using some priceless grimoire as a pillow.

No, she thought wildly. He did not vanish. He is avoiding chores.

“Nia,” Andrew said, “how did you translate this so accurately?”

For a moment, Nia felt her soul attempt to leave the room without her.

“Ah,” she said.

Everyone waited.

“A mysterious scholar,” she announced. “I met him during a mission. Very old. Very knowledgeable. He possessed rare materials on ancient elvish. I... borrowed some understanding from him.”

Technically, it was not a lie.

Elias was mysterious.

He was old.

And she had borrowed the understanding directly from his brain.

Andrew studied her for a long moment.

He knew she was hiding something.

Nia knew that he knew.

Finally, the First Archon sighed. “Everyone has secrets. If your source wishes to remain unnamed, I will not press.”

Relief nearly made her knees give out.

Then Andrew’s eyes dropped to a sheet on his desk.

“Still,” he said, almost casually, “another possibility comes to mind.”

Nia’s spine stiffened.

“What possibility?”

Andrew tapped a name written in her notes.

Elias Vane.

“This apprentice of yours,” he said. “He was present while you worked, was he not?”

Nia forgot how to breathe.

Andrew smiled faintly.

“Tell me, Nia. Your apprentice would not happen to be the First King of Violet, would he?”

Nia laughed.

It was an awful laugh.

Too loud.

Too sharp.

Far too guilty.

Every Archon stared at her.

Andrew raised one eyebrow.

“A joke,” Nia said quickly. “That was a joke, yes? My apprentice? The First King of Violet? Elias forgets where he puts his socks.”

“Genius often appears strange.”

“Elias once asked whether a defensive triangle could have four sides.”

“Concealment requires performance.”

Nia hated how reasonable Andrew sounded.

“He is not the First King,” she insisted.

Probably.

Maybe.

She hoped.

Andrew did not press further. Instead, he turned to the second stack of pages.

“You mentioned Glacial Purgatory.”

Nia brightened despite herself.

Glacial Purgatory was the dream of every ice mage in the modern era: a forbidden-grade spell said to turn an entire battlefield into a prison of absolute frost. The versions circulating outside Wintervale were incomplete. Even fragments were guarded by ancient families and old tyrant academies.

The manuscript contained the complete formula.

At least, Elias’s thoughts had said it did.

Nia recited what she had copied.

The council chamber went silent.

Andrew’s expression shifted from skepticism to shock.

“This is not merely complete,” he said. “This is older than every known version.”

One of the other Archons leaned forward. “Can you understand the structure?”

Nia swallowed.

“Broadly.”

That was also technically true. She understood the words.

The spell itself looked as if someone had written a blizzard into mathematics and taught it how to kill.

Back at the tower the previous night, Elias had glanced at the formula and thought, Oh. That old thing.

Nia had nearly snapped her pen.

I created that as a training exercise, he had added. Embarrassing work. Too small. Too inefficient. Modern ice mages actually value this garbage?

Garbage.

He had called Glacial Purgatory garbage.

Now the greatest mages in Wintervale sat around the table as if she had delivered a lost treasure from heaven.

“Nia,” Andrew said, “if you can fully reconstruct this spell, it may be the key to pushing you beyond city-breaker class.”

Nia’s heart beat faster.

She had worked toward that threshold her entire life.

And Elias had dismissed it as a beginner’s toy from an older, more terrifying era.

“I will continue studying it,” she said.

The council ended with praise she did not deserve and responsibility she desperately wanted.

When Nia returned to her tower, Elias was asleep in a chair with a book over his face.

The book was upside down.

“Elias,” she said.

He woke instantly and then pretended he had not.

“Master.”

“Do you know Glacial Purgatory?”

His expression did not change.

His thoughts did.

Why would she ask that? Did she see the formula? Careful.

Aloud, he said, “I have heard of it. A legendary spell, yes? Far beyond me.”

Far beneath me, actually.

Nia smiled.

“Then we will study it together.”

Elias stared at her.

No. Absolutely not. Studying my own embarrassing old spell with my suspicious mentor may be the worst idea she has ever had.

Nia’s smile widened.

“Tomorrow at dawn.”

Elias closed his eyes.

“As you command, Master.”