Diane snapped her fingers without another word.
Mana erupted from her hand, brilliant yet cold, sinisterly luminous. It crept toward Adam with the slowness of a predator, like fangs knowing which flesh to sink into.
A curse made of light. Original, rare—but weaker than Isolde's. Of course it would be. Training to dispel curses, she had said. But Adam's lips twisted. Not because he couldn't dispel it, but because his heart recognised the hissing threat before his mind could react.
A single thrum reverberated through his bones, louder than the others. His heart's Spellbinding Aegis triggered. Mana erupted, forming a shimmering sky-blue layer over his skin. The curse coiled around his uniform—only to burst apart at a wrathful pulse from the shield.
Motes cascaded around him like fireworks as he passed a hand over his face, biting his lip. Unplanned. Unnecessary. Trouble to explain.
And just as he feared, Diane's golden pupils flared with surprise. She stepped closer, torso leaning in, hands reaching for his arms.
The Aegis faded into him, dissolving into mana in his veins. When she lifted his arms and pulled his sleeves back, she frowned at his fair skin.
"What happened?" She murmured, running her thumb across its supple surface. She had felt it—a pulse of raw mana no student should be capable of. An artifact? Unlikely. Her lips pursed. "I have enough fools in my class. You're not one of them, are you?"
Clicking his tongue, Adam pulled away. "I hope not." He lowered his sleeves, voice dry. "Wouldn't feel good to be lumped in with someone like Elliot." A sigh escaped him as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I need stronger curses to train."
Diane crossed her arms over her chest. "And why is that?"
"Unaffected by weaker ones..." Adam's jaw tightened.
Before he finished, Diane hurled another curse—stronger, faster—but it only ruffled his hair before scattering harmlessly.
He watched her blow on her smoking fingertips, then wrap them around her chin. "Not a fool using artifacts. Feels like..." She mumbled under her breath for a moment.
The way mana erupted, his reluctance and frustration. Her earlier joke seemed the only reliable explanation now. Ancient and lost magic, an enchantment from within, far stronger than Adam was. "Haldris? Or Leviathan herself?"
As surreal as both deductions sounded, she leaned forward and grabbed his arms. Her lips brushed the shell of his ear as she murmured, "Aren't you quite the odd student? I wonder what other surprises your little body is hiding."
A shiver ran down his spine, icy despite her warm breath on his cheek. His throat seized as if a fist crushed his windpipe, his pulse hammering against it. Not from fear. From exposure. The voices of the students training around him faded into the background, inaudible murmurs beneath the deafening toll of his racing mind.
A mistake? Not really. He realised now that teachers would have found out sooner or later. If not for Isolde's curse, it could have been later, of course, but the issue remained. Hiding things from magi was too troublesome. They had seen too much, knew too much. Their eyes peeled back secrets with a glance. And if they dug deeper?
Secrets would become the last of his concerns.
He opened his lips, but she placed a finger on them, silencing him. "Small secrets, big secrets, deadly secrets." She traced her missing left lip and scarred cheek. "Everyone has a few they don't want others to pry into." She stepped back, grinning. "You're quite lucky I understand this simple rule. Don't tell me. Don't tell anyone. But you should know that students and most teachers are not that understanding."
Adam let out the breath he had been holding. Lungs empty, fists clenched, he nodded. "I understand."
"Good." She plunged her hand into a leather pouch at her belt, not stopping until half her arm vanished inside. She rummaged, as if searching for something. "Back to training. You wanted stronger curses? Hang on."
She fished out a wand like he had never seen. No magical timber—pure alloy that reflected light in fractal patterns. Its form was unusual enough to make Adam squint. Thorns lined the handle, leaving little space to be gripped. Instead of extending, the frame split into four curved fingers, each pulsing with a light that made swallowing hard. The source of this light, however, stole his breath for a heartbeat. A disgusting green fire as unholy as unholiness went.
He couldn't forget it even if he wanted to; the lake of liquid flames girding the demonic cleaver's island in his soul sea—the blaze of demonic fire. Yet, he somehow couldn't feel the corruptive influence it should have exerted on its wielder.
"Not quite to my taste, but what we need." Diane winked. "Secrets. Remember? And you just let another slip through. You know what it is. Rather, you think you know." She tapped the wand on her palm. "Demons can cast curses and hexes freely through their cores. I can only use this wand twice a month, but it'll spare me a week of blindness."
Adam's eyes widened, but she didn't give him time to speak. She drew the wand at him, the flame in the center crackling, the light casting malevolent shadows on his face.
"Let's up the stakes to match the difficulty. A hundred points if you succeed on the first try. Minus a hundred if you fail on the second."
"Wait!" Adam yelled as light blinded him. "Won't I be cursed if I fail?"
"Don't fail then." She merely smirked as light erupted from the wand. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ NoveI~Fire.net
Instantly, the students snapped their heads towards them. Eyes wide, they watched the light coalesce into the rough silhouette of a winged man. Then, a helmet covered its featureless face, two eyes blazing with the weight of judgment through the slit. When the man raised his palm, feathers fluttered in a spectacle that Adam would have found beautiful had he not been the target.
Now, he clenched his jaw, watching a cuirass, pauldrons, and gauntlets form on the man. "Shit."
That curse looked far more dangerous than Isolde's.
AN: Had trouble writing this one... Sorry if it drags a bit.