Sovereign Beyond Creation

Chapter 7

One moment, Adam was standing in the Great Library, surrounded by the smell of old paper and the gasps of shocked students. The next, his stomach felt like it was being twisted into a knot. His vision blurred into a swirl of white and deep indigo. The sound of the library—the whispers, the shuffling feet—was replaced by a roar of wind so loud it hurt his ears.

THUMP.

Adam hit a hard, cold floor. He fell onto his hands and knees. The air here was thin. It was so cold that every breath he took felt like he was swallowing needles.

He looked up, gasping. He wasn't in the library anymore.

He was in a circular room at the very top of a tower. There were no walls made of stone here; instead, the walls were made of thick, translucent ice. Through the ice, he could see the gray clouds of the storm outside. The room was filled with floating crystals that hummed with a low, blue light. In the center of the room was a large desk covered in scrolls, and behind it stood Catherine Cook.

She didn't look like a teacher anymore. She looked like a goddess of winter. Her hair was whipping around her face as if there were an invisible wind inside the room. Her eyes were glowing so brightly that they left trails of blue light in the air when she moved.

"Who sent you?" she asked. Her voice didn't just come from her mouth. It seemed to echo from the very ice walls around them.

Adam tried to stand up, but his hands slipped on the frost-covered floor. "Nobody nobody sent me," he wheezed.

"Lie," she snapped. She raised her hand, and the air around Adam turned into a cage of jagged ice spikes. They were inches from his skin. "Was it the Darkspire Coven? Did they find a way to mask a spy as a Null? Or was it the Shadow Ministry? They have been looking for a weakness in Bourbon for years."

"I don't even know what those are!" Adam shouted. He looked at the ice spikes. One of them touched his shoulder, and he felt his suit jacket freeze and turn brittle instantly.

[Warning! Warning!]

[Hostile Mana Environment.]

[Health: 38/100 and falling.]

[System Note: The target’s fear is turning into murderous intent. If you do not change her mind, you will be executed in 45 seconds.]

Catherine stepped toward him. Every time her foot touched the floor, a shockwave of cold air hit Adam. "Only three people in this entire kingdom know about my condition," she whispered. Her face was inches from his. He could see the tiny cracks of black energy pulsing in her pupils. "One is dead. One is the King. And one is me. So tell me, Adam Cook how does a boy who can’t even light a candle know that my core is bleeding?"

Adam looked into her eyes. He saw the anger. He saw the power. But because of the System, he saw something else. He saw the black smoke from her chest growing thicker. She was using her magic to threaten him, and that magic was making her curse worse.

"You're hurting," Adam said.

Catherine froze. Her eyes narrowed. "What?"

"The more you try to scare me, the more it hurts you," Adam said. He wasn't acting like a scared student anymore. He felt the System pulsing in his mind, giving him a strange kind of courage. "I can see it. The black smoke is spreading to your shoulders now. Your left arm is starting to go numb, isn't it?"

Catherine’s expression flickered. For a split second, the mask of the "Ice Witch" cracked. He was right. Her left hand was trembling slightly, hidden beneath her long sleeve.

[Skill Unlocked: Empathic Resonance (Level 1)]

[Description: Allows the Host to feel the physical and emotional pain of the target.]

[Activate? Y/N]

Yes, Adam thought. Do it!

Suddenly, Adam’s world changed. It was like a bridge had been built between his soul and hers.

He didn't just see her pain; he felt it.

It was horrible. It felt like his heart was being squeezed by a hand made of frozen iron. Every breath was a struggle. It felt like there were thousands of tiny glass shards flowing through his veins instead of blood. The cold wasn't just on the outside; it was an emptiness deep inside his bones that could never be filled.

Adam gasped, falling back against the ice spikes. He clutched his chest, his eyes tearing up from the sheer agony. "It it's so cold," he whispered. "How how do you live like this every day?"

Catherine stared at him. The ice spikes around him didn't vanish, but they stopped growing. "What are you doing?" she asked, her voice trembling. "What spell is this?"

"It’s not a spell," Adam said, his voice shaky. He forced himself to stand up. The pain was still there, echoing from her to him, but he used it as a guide. He took a step toward her.

"Stay back!" she warned. A wave of frost rolled off her, enough to freeze a normal man solid.

But as the frost hit Adam, a faint purple glow appeared around his body.

[Void Shield Activated.]

[Consuming 5 Mana per second (Current Mana: 20/20).]

The frost hit the purple light and simply disappeared. It didn't bounce off; it was eaten. Adam kept walking. He walked right through the blizzard she was creating.

"I'm a Null," Adam said, his voice calm and steady. "To the world, I'm empty. I'm a hole. I'm nothing. But that’s why I can help you, Catherine. A hole can be filled. I can take that black smoke out of you. I can eat the pain."

He was standing right in front of her now. He was much shorter than her, and he looked small and weak in his navy-blue rags, but his eyes were glowing with a violet light that matched the Crown of Thorns tattoo on his chest.

Catherine looked down at him. She had spent decades being feared. She had spent decades being alone because her power was too dangerous to touch. No one had stood this close to her in years.

"You're crazy," she whispered. "If you touch me, your soul will freeze. You'll shatter into a million pieces."

"Maybe," Adam said. "But you're already shattering. You’re the 'Ice Witch' of Bourbon. If you fall, this whole Academy falls. If you fall, Julian Martinez and people like him win. I won’t let that happen."

He reached out his hand. He didn't grab her; he just held his palm open, waiting. "Trust me," he said.