Chapter 23: Two Unexpected Guests

Arthur stood frozen, blade still raised, chest heaving.

The second intruder’s body had just collapsed sideways, limbs folding in a way no living person folds. The ice spear was still jutting from the back of his shattered skull, pinning his head to the cold stone at an unnatural angle. A thin sheet of frost had already spread from the point of impact across his hair and the side of his face, even as blood pooled at his feet, thick and dark, still slowly spreading across the seams in the marble. It moved with terrible patience, finding every tiny groove in the floor.

The coppery smell filled the air, sharp and immediate, mixing with the faint ozone left over from the broken vault circles and the cold, clean scent of Selene’s ice.

He was still shaking.

It was not fear. Or not only fear. The mana drain from his failed second strike had left him hollowed out. His large mana pool, which had been humming and full and eager only a minute ago, now felt like an empty well scraped dry. The emptiness made his limbs heavy and his vision blurred at the edges, a grey vignette closing in. His face had gone completely pale. Sweat ran down his temples and into the collar of his shirt. He could feel his own heart hammering against his ribs, too fast, too loud.

He had killed people in seconds. With a perfect Heart Piercer he had learned from Talia. He had watched the first man’s eyes go wide as the training blade went through his heart. The reality of it was only now catching up to the adrenaline.

And now he was standing in an open vault with the two intruders staring back at him, dead.

A soft creak came from the door behind him.

Slow, deliberate footsteps. Heavy boots on stone. Not running. Not sneaking. Walking. Someone was walking in like they owned the place.

Arthur’s head snapped toward the sound so fast his neck twinged. His grip tightened on the blade until his knuckles went white and the dulled edge trembled in the air. He tried to pull mana and found nothing. The well was still empty.

A figure stepped through the half-open vault door, through the thin veil of cold mist still hanging in the doorway.

Professor Selene Frost.

The Ice Queen herself.

Her silver-white hair was pinned neatly back as always, not a strand out of place, her instructor coat immaculate, the high collar sharp. Her ice-blue eyes were sharp as ever, scanning the room with a precision that made Arthur feel like he was being dissected. She had clearly been running to get here. A faint sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead and at her temples, and her breathing was a little too quick, controlled but not calm. A faint frost still clung to the fingertips of her right hand, melting slowly.

She had not come here in secret. She had not slipped through a side entrance. She had come because she had followed the same two intruders Arthur had seen slipping toward the central tower.

Selene’s gaze swept the chamber in one smooth motion. Two dead bodies on the floor. The black crystal vault door standing slightly ajar, its ancient protection runes still sputtering gold where the intruders’ circles had forced them. The spreading pool of blood. And Arthur standing in the middle of it all, pale as death, holding a bloodied training blade that should not have been able to do what it had just done.

Her expression did not change. That was her way. But her eyes flicked to him and for a fraction of a second, the sharpness softened with quiet concern.

"Are you alright, Vance?" she asked. Her voice was low, clear, the same voice she used in lectures when she was explaining a dangerous formula.

Arthur swallowed. His throat was completely dry. His voice came out hoarse, scraping.

"I... I’m fine. Just mana drained. I... I killed him. The first one. The second one was going to kill me."

He did not know why he was explaining. The words just fell out.

Selene nodded once, calm as ever, as if students killing intruders in the treasury was a scenario she had already modeled. She stepped fully inside the treasury, her boots making no sound, and closed the heavy vault door behind her with a soft, deliberate thud. The sound echoed strangely in the quiet chamber, sealing them in. The blue runes on the walls seemed to pulse a little brighter in the enclosed space.

"I was heading to help the other instructors when I saw those two sneaking around the outer wall," she said, voice low and steady, eyes never leaving the corpses. "Near the east aqueduct. They kept to blind spots. They knew where the detection wards are. So I followed them instead."

She took another step closer, her gaze flicking to the broken Grimoires on the floor, their pages still smoking faintly.

"There are dozens of attacks happening right now across the academy, Vance. Diversions. Fires in the lower archives, skirmishes on the sky bridges, someone tried to breach the second-year dormitory. But these two were moving like they had a target. I had to make sure no one else was coming this way. I sent a pulse to the main tower, but with the interference, I am not sure it went through."

She glanced at the corpses again, then at the open vault.

"They were after something valuable, weren’t they?"

Arthur hesitated, then nodded. The movement made him dizzy. "The vault door was opening. They had magic circles on the lock. Two different kinds. Emerald and violet. They looked ready to steal whatever was inside. The crystal was actually opening."

Selene’s gaze softened for a split second, and then the Ice Queen was back. She knelt briefly, not touching the bodies, just looking at the circles that had been carved into the air and were now fading.

"There are valuable artifacts and Grimoire fragments in here, yes," she said, almost to herself. "Third-tier relics. Old imperial seals. But not that valuable. Not enough to start a full-scale attack on the academy and risk war with the capital. Lily always carries the most important items with her. Her personal Grimoire, the Founder’s Key. She would never leave them in a vault that can be forced."

She looked at the two bodies, then back at Arthur, and her eyes narrowed slightly.

"These two must have been after something else. Or someone else. Or they were meant to be found."

She stood, brushing invisible dust from her coat, and looked toward the vault door. "I should close the inner door properly. We don’t want the whole academy coming here once the fights die down and looters get ideas. And we need to preserve the scene."

As Selene turned to walk back toward the outer door, her steps slowing, her hand already beginning to gather a faint blue light to seal the mechanism, another set of footsteps suddenly echoed from behind them.

Not one set.

Two.

One light, almost silent, like a cat. One heavy, measured, familiar. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

A girl stepped through the vault door first. She had pushed it open again. She wore a black cloak with golden lining along the edges, the hood lowered to reveal a calm, composed face. She looked no older than a third-year student, maybe nineteen, with dark eyes that took in the blood and the bodies without flinching.

Beside her walked a man in the standard academy instructor uniform, the grey coat with the silver buttons.

Professor Tom.

Selene Frost froze mid-step. Her hand, still glowing faintly blue, stopped in the air.

Arthur’s blade twitched toward the newcomers on instinct, even though his arm screamed in protest.

The two groups stared at each other across the blood-stained floor, the open vault between them.

Professor Tom.

The same Professor Tom who had stood beside the old headmaster during the Sorting Ceremony, smiling benevolently at all the first-years.

The same Professor Tom who had just followed the intruders into the academy’s most guarded vault, not chasing them, but arriving with a girl in a golden-lined cloak.

Selene’s ice-blue eyes narrowed to slits. The temperature in the chamber dropped several degrees in an instant. Frost began to creep across the floor from where she stood.

"Tom," she said. Her voice was no longer concerned. It was ice.

His face did not change. Calm. Professional. Almost polite, as if he had just run into colleagues in the hallway.

"Vance," he said, his voice even, looking first at Arthur and the bloodied blade, then at the two dead intruders without any surprise at all. "Professor Frost. I see you’ve been busy cleaning up. We heard the disturbance."

He took one more step inside and let the heavy vault door swing shut behind him with a soft, final click.

The air in the treasury chamber suddenly felt very, very small.