After the exhausting meeting in the deep amphitheater, the group slowly shuffled into the common area. The stone floor seemed to yield beneath their heavy, weary steps. The warm, soft orange light from the magical lanterns on the rough walls cast long, dancing shadows across the heavy oak tables.
Everyone was running completely on empty. The built-up tension of the past hours gave way to deep, physical exhaustion. Beat let himself fall backward onto one of the wide leather couches with a loud groan and closed his eyes immediately. Ren, one of the youngest members of the group, stood listlessly by a wooden chest, rummaging for some water and food. His shoulders hung low under the weight of his clothes. The fierce discussions about the schedules, the threat of the Monkeys, and the killers of Thung Zu died down one by one.
“I really can’t handle this anymore,” Ren muttered in a voice dull with fatigue. He rubbed his eyes firmly with his small fist and shuffled toward the corridor leading to the sleeping quarters. “If I don’t lie down right now, I’m going to collapse on the stone right here.”
One by one, most of them called it a night. The heavy doors in the hallway clicked softly shut until peace gradually returned to the great hall. Only the crackling of the hearth fire and the soft whistling of the night wind against the high window frames remained.
In the end, only two people were left by the broad stone windowsill at the back of the room.
Silarias leaned his shoulder against the cold stone wall. He stared outside at the gigantic trees of the Goated Outcasts domain, swaying gently back and forth in the dark. His arms hung loosely by his side, but his jaw was set tight. Nyx sat right beside him on the wide windowsill, her knees pulled up tight against her chest and her arms wrapped securely around them.
They remained silent for a moment. Outside, the moonlight drifted across the purple leaves.
“Two and a half weeks…” Nyx spoke softly. Her voice sounded piercingly clear in the quiet room, stripped of the harsh edge she had put on below in front of the rest. “It sounds like an eternity, but it’s going to fly by.”
Silarias turned his head slowly toward her. The warmth of the hearth fire reflected in her eyes, which were deep and restless. He took a step closer and slid his shoulder slightly against hers without saying a word, a silent gesture of support that needed no explanation. Nyx relaxed almost instantly under his proximity; her shoulders dropped a few centimeters and she rested her chin on her knees.
“We’ll manage,” Silarias said in a low, steady voice. “We’ve survived worse things than a bunch of seasoned elites.”
Nyx let out a small, almost invisible smile, but her eyes remained filled with concern. She shifted her face slightly and kept staring intently at him. Her fingers plucked nervously at the hem of her black fabric. The conversation fell silent once more, but the air between them grew palpably charged.
Nyx bit her lower lip. A light, warm glow rose across her cheeks, contrasting sharply against her pale skin under the shadow of her dark hair. She looked away toward the stone floor for a fleeting second, cleared her throat softly, and asked in a noticeably gentler voice: “What… what are you going to choose?..”
Silarias remained motionless. In his mind, the gears immediately began to spin. He looked at the way she held her breath for just a second, waiting for his answer. He thought of the different faculties, the division of hours, his own inner struggle, and the demonic energy that needed to be scorched deep within him.
If I tell her right away what I’m going to choose, he thought to himself, his gaze taking in her face softly, she’s going to adjust her own wishes to mine. She’ll choose whatever I choose, purely to stay by my side.
He released a small, reassuring breath, leaned slightly closer to her, and gently turned the question back on her. “I don’t know for sure yet… What was your idea?”
Nyx sighed softly and slid her legs off the windowsill, letting her feet rest on the stone floor again. “Honestly? I just don’t know… I was thinking. I understand that the Occult Faculty is essential for you, because of… well, because of what resides deep within you.” She looked at him intently, her gaze full of profound concern for his safety and a palpable fear of losing him. “But Arcane and Spiritual… Pure magic and soul powers, Sil. Don’t you think those could give us insane control? That we could support each other so much better if things go wrong?”
Silarias stared at her. Their eyes locked and held for seconds on end. The raw concern in her eyes touched him deeper than he let on.
“And then there’s also Anomaly and Cryptid,” Nyx added quietly, planting her hands on the stone edge. Her voice trembled ever so slightly from the suppressed tension. “Because what if we end up facing creatures we’ve never seen before? What if one of us collapses?”
At the sound of those words, a spark shot through Silarias’s eyes. He pushed his hands deep into his pockets, turned around, and began pacing tensely back and forth over the wooden floorboards. His footsteps sounded rhythmically through the empty hall. His mind was razor sharp, his thoughts racing over the possibilities of the schedule and the loopholes in the system.
Nyx tracked his every movement. Her head turned slowly along his path, a blend of emotional intensity and deep fascination in her gaze as she watched his mind work at full capacity.
“Sil…” she spoke softly, a slight hesitation in her voice. “What are you coming up with?”
Silarias stopped abruptly in his tracks. He spun around on his heels, took two rapid steps toward her, and leaned over her slightly, his arms resting on the stones of the window frame on either side of her body. His eyes burned bright with drive.
“Well…” he began, his voice trembling with contained energy. “It might sound crazy… but what if we simply request three cores? Three main disciplines, and alongside those, two or even three secondaries? Don’t you think we could learn an insane amount in these two weeks?”
Nyx looked up into his face. She was so close she could feel the intense warmth of his breath against her skin. Her heart skipped a beat. The thought of carrying such a crushing load brought her no fear, as long as she was the one standing by his side. She didn’t care how many hours it took or how grueling the nights would become.
Her expression relaxed completely, and a warm, deep smile appeared on her face, lighting up her eyes with a soft glow.
“Yeah…” she said softly, placing her hand right beside his on the stone for a moment, not quite touching but close enough to feel the heat radiate. “You know… that would be really amazing. We can ask Leonardo directly tomorrow… But which three become the cores, and which ones the secondaries?”
Silarias lowered himself slightly to get to eye level with her. “If we play it smart… we pick Occult, Arcane, and Research as our three cores. Pure magical knowledge, mastering the dark powers, and understanding the deepest runes.”
Nyx nodded slowly, weighing the logic in her mind while her eyes seemed to search across his face. “And as secondaries, we take Spiritual, Anomaly, and Beast.”
“Exactly,” Silarias said. “And we don’t have to worry about physical combat. We already get Combat through the mandatory schedule and the standard classes anyway. And during the free hours of Open Practice, we’ll have plenty of time to refine our martial arts together.”
They looked at each other. The silence that followed was no longer cold or laden with fear for the tournament, but filled with an unspoken, bedrock confidence and a deep undercurrent of emotion. They needed no words to know what the next step was.
“Tonight we rest,” Nyx said in a tone that sounded almost like a promise.
Silarias nodded slowly. “But tomorrow night after classes, we go straight to the table.”
They didn’t need to specify what they meant. Not a wooden table in this physical hall, but the round table in the Astral Plane, where their spirits could train and meditate undisturbed while the rest of the world slept.
Nyx rose slowly from the stone windowsill. She reached out her hand and took hold of his fingers. Silarias closed his hand around hers, and together they strolled through the quiet, dark corridors to their shared quarters.
In the room, Silarias blew out the last candle wick. The moonlight spilled diagonally across the heavy wooden bed standing against the rock wall. Without a word, they crawled under the thick, warm blankets. Nyx turned toward him and laid her head gently against his chest, listening to the steady, powerful heartbeat that always brought her peace. Silarias wrapped his arm firmly around her shoulders and pulled her closer against himself, his chin resting on her dark hair.
In the safety of the night and the familiar warmth of each other’s presence, they finally released the weight of the day. Their breathing slowly merged into a single, calm rhythm, ready for the battle that would begin tomorrow.