Chapter 116: The Inherited Spirit (3)
By the time Lucien stumbled back into his dorm room, his lungs burned with each breath, the sharp ache settling deep in his chest from the hurried climb up the stairs. His hair was plastered to his forehead, darkened and heavy from the drizzle that had thickened into a persistent, needling rain.
Droplets clung stubbornly to his collar and sleeves, sliding slowly down the fabric and leaving cold trails against his skin.
The door clicked shut behind him with the solemn finality of a prison gate.
The sound echoed faintly through the small room, sharper than it should have been, sealing him away from the damp corridors and frantic noise of the library. Inside, the space felt quiet, dim, and faintly smelled of old wood and fresh parchment.
The familiar scent settled over him like a blanket, grounding and reassuring in a way he hadn’t realized he needed.
He stood there for a moment, catching his breath, listening to the rain tap softly against the windowpane.
Then he dropped his satchel beside the desk with a dull thud, books shifting inside with tired resignation.
Reaching into his coat, he pulled out his one remaining wooden figure and held it up between his fingers, studying it like a captured fugitive that had somehow slipped through every net except his own.
The tiny construct wriggled violently in his grasp, its limbs creaking and clicking as if trying to bite him with invisible teeth.
“Don’t give me that attitude,” Lucien muttered, squinting at it.
“You’re lucky I even saved you.”
The figure continued to squirm.
“Right. Enough of that.”
He opened his small suitcase, the one tucked neatly under his bed, and gently, though not too gently, placed the animated figure inside.
Before he could close the lid, the little thing made a frantic leap toward the edge, only for Lucien to slam the suitcase shut with a snap.
The latches clicked in place like the sound of a coffin sealing.
Immediately, the scratching began.
Thump.
Thump-thump-thump.
The lid rattled faintly.
Wooden limbs scraped against the inner lining in a rhythm that was unnervingly human, like a desperate man pounding on his tomb.
Lucien sighed and rubbed his temples.
“You’ll thank me later when I figure out how to stop you from developing sentience.”
He pushed the suitcase under the desk for good measure.
The dull knocking continued, muffled but insistent.
He collapsed onto his bed.
The wood groaned, and his limbs felt like they’d been replaced with lead.
He stared up at the ceiling, where faint reflections of the stormlight shimmered through the rain-blurred window.
“How exactly am I going to explain this to Professor Taiga…” he groaned.
“ ‘Sorry, Professor, I lost half your assignment when it jumped out the window and committed suicide’?”
He rolled over, burying his face in his pillow.
“And the other half is currently trying to break out of my luggage. Perfect. I’m definitely getting expelled.”
He tried to tell himself he still had time.
The night classes didn’t begin until well past midnight, and it was barely noon.
Plenty of time to fix things.
Plenty of time to figure out something.
The scratching beneath the desk grew softer, then slower, until it faded entirely.
Lucien’s mind drifted.
His breathing slowed.
The sound of rain against the window melded into the rhythmic whisper of wind brushing through the trees.
His thoughts blurred, heavy and dull, until he slipped quietly into the embrace of sleep.
For a while, there was peace.
But elsewhere on the island, peace was quickly becoming a luxury.
***
At the far end of the academy grounds, beyond the dormitories and study halls, past the spire of the central clocktower, stood the administrative complex, a stern cluster of slate-gray buildings huddled against the rising wind.
Inside, in a wide chamber filled with long tables, paper stacks, and brass instruments that ticked and hummed with mana pulses, a council of faculty and staff convened.
The sound of rain had deepened into a low, steady roar.
Lightning flickered across the tall, glass-paned windows, turning the room briefly white before retreating into shadow again.
A middle-aged man in an emerald vest, Director Callen, Head of Logistics, stood by a long chart table, his fingers drumming nervously against the polished wood.
The sheets laid before him were weather diagrams, lines of mana flow across the coastline, shifting with the pressure fronts of an approaching storm.
“The readings from the western scrying towers are consistent,” he said, his voice calm but tight.
“The stormfront’s shifting northward faster than expected. It’ll reach the island by tomorrow evening, possibly sooner if the winds strengthen.”
A younger clerk, barely older than some of the academy’s senior students shifted uncomfortably.
“Will the wards hold, sir?”
Callen hesitated.
“They should. The coastal barriers were last reinforced three months ago. Still, we’ll activate the inner mana conduits just to be safe. Better an inefficient flow than an overloaded one.”
Another staff member, a stern woman with an insignia of the administrative wing pinned to her collar, spoke up.
“Do we alert the students?”
The question hung in the air for a moment, crackling faintly with tension.
Callen glanced toward the windows.
The rain had thickened into sheets, slamming against the panes hard enough to make them tremble.
Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled a long, guttural growl that seemed to come from beneath the sea rather than above it.
“Not yet,” he said finally.
“We don’t need to cause unnecessary panic. This is an island, not a fishing village. The facilities are reinforced, the stores are stocked, and we have an emergency circle for teleportation in case of extreme situations.”
“Still,” the woman pressed, “if the outer barriers fail-”
“They won’t,” Callen interrupted a little too quickly.
“The clerics will begin channeling power into the teleportation circle. Make sure it’s fully charged and maintained for at least the next seventy-two hours. Have maintenance crews double-check the backup conduits. And make sure all professors are informed privately of the situation, so they can assist in evacuation procedures if necessary.”
A murmur of quiet acknowledgment passed through the room.
Quills scratched.
Papers rustled.
But even as the officials went about their bureaucratic duties, there was an unspoken dread that moved beneath their words, a primitive, almost animal awareness that something wrong was coming.
It wasn’t just the storm’s size.
It was its silence.
Between the thunderclaps, the world outside had grown unnaturally still.
The sea birds that usually circled the cliffs were gone, vanished inland.
The wind had a strange undertone, a distant, low whine that vibrated faintly through the glass panes, like a sound too deep to be heard properly.
One of the younger aides turned toward the window and froze.
“Sir… is it just me, or does the sky look-”
“Don’t look at it,” murmured one of the older clerics without raising his head from his scroll.
“When the clouds start turning like that, it’s best not to watch. Makes your head ache.”
“What do you mean turning?”
But the cleric said nothing.
Outside, the storm was gathering itself.
The wind rose and twisted, forming strange, circular motions above the sea.
The clouds thickened into layered spirals, shot through with veins of blue-white light, like veins pulsing under translucent skin.
The ocean below churned restlessly, waves rising higher and slamming into the cliffs with dull, resonant booms.
Somewhere, deep beneath the academy’s foundations, ancient wards flickered, runic circles that hadn’t glowed in centuries humming faintly to life as they sensed the pressure of mana building in the air.
The storm wasn’t ordinary.
The land itself seemed to hold its breath.
Callen cleared his throat, trying to dispel the sudden heaviness in the room.
“Right, everyone knows their duties. Keep reports updated every three hours. And someone, please, make sure the inner courtyard drains are cleared. The last thing we need is flooding in the student housing again.”
His tone was brisk, efficient, businesslike.
But his fingers trembled slightly as he adjusted his spectacles.
The meeting dispersed.
One by one, the faculty members left the room, their robes whispering softly as they moved, their measured footsteps echoing down the long corridor beyond the chamber.
The sound lingered longer than expected, bouncing off stone walls and high ceilings before slowly fading into the distance.
No one spoke as they departed.
No final remarks, no quiet reassurances, just the steady retreat of authority leaving the space hollow in its wake.
When the last door shut, it did so with a heavy, deliberate thud that seemed to settle the air itself. Silence followed, thick and watchful, broken only by the relentless, rhythmic drumming of rain against the tall glass windows. Water traced uneven paths down the panes, gathering and falling in soft, irregular streams that distorted the dim light beyond.
And beneath it, if one listened closely, something else.
Not loud. Not distinct.
Just a faint, irregular disturbance layered beneath the rain’s steady cadence, subtle enough to be dismissed, unless one had already begun to listen for it.
A faint, low hum.
Like the earth itself exhaling.
