Lucen
Night crept cold over the Arcane Spire, and the two of us—me and the stubborn boy named Ezric—were still threading through its shadowed corridors.
All traces of Lana—Rae—had long vanished, lost either to some strange magical shielding or to kidnappers who knew exactly how to hide their trail.
Ezric walked beside me, his steps slightly faltering—his body not yet fully recovered, though his stubborn face betrayed no sign of surrender.
"I've done everything I could," he said suddenly, his raspy voice cracking through the silence of our footsteps. "I even sabotaged that magic display during the exam."
I glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. "The display?"
He snorted, a bitter smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Yeah. When Lana's... I mean, Rae's face appeared on the screen. I hacked the Arcane Spire's crystal—made her face all blurry and glitched."
I paused for a moment, staring at him.
