Torin was honestly a little taken aback. He'd laid the bait out there, shameless and thick, but he hadn't actually expected the proud Altmer mage to bite so completely. He'd bragged like that mostly because it felt less embarrassing than outright begging for an exception.
A little theatrical arrogance was just part of the game. But the raw, icy fury radiating from Faralda was… well, it was more than he'd bargained for.
Still, an open challenge was an open challenge. And he'd never been one to back down.
He didn't chant. He didn't gesture. He simply willed it.
His magicka, a deep and well-practiced reservoir, surged from his core in a silent, powerful current. It wasn't the flashy, outward burst of Destruction; this was an internal reshaping, a command issued to the very flesh and bone that comprised him.
The change began instantly. Feralda, already tall and imposing, had to tilt her head back as Torin's form swelled. It wasn't a violent growth, but a steady, impossible inflation. Leather straps groaned. Steel pauldrons shifted on broadening shoulders.
In a matter of seconds, he loomed over her, twice her height, a veritable giant carved from Nord flesh, his head brushing against the lower wisps of the howling blizzard. The Gigantize spell, an expert-level Alteration feat, hummed with settled power around him.
Feralda's mask of icy contempt shattered. Her golden eyes widened, her lips parting in silent shock. The wind tore at her hood, but she didn't seem to notice.
Torin didn't stop. With the same effortless concentration, he spread his massive arms wide, palms open to the sky.
On his left, Echo let out a confused grunt as she was gently lifted from the snow-packed ground. On his right, the colossal, silvery head of Mourn-Ward rose from where it had been leaning against a rock.
Both bear and axe hung in the air, suspended not by ropes or tricks, but by pure, invisible force. Not just levitated, but held with a stability that spoke of absolute control.
Telekinesis, another cornerstone of expert Alteration, and he was wielding it on two massive, disparate objects simultaneously.
The blizzard raged around the silent tableau: a giant man holding a bear and a weaponized anvil aloft with his mind, and a Master of Destruction who looked as if someone had just rewritten the laws of physics in front of her.
The outrage, the fury, the condescension—it all drained from Feralda's face, leaving behind pure, unadulterated astonishment.
Her mind, usually a fortress of logic and layered knowledge, scrambled for a foothold. Adept-level. Not one, but two separate expert-tier Alteration spells. Cast sequentially without strain. The control… the sheer reserve of magicka…
She finally regained herself with a sharp, involuntary intake of breath that was lost to the wind. She closed her mouth, her analytical mind re-engaging with a furious, fascinated click.
What she had just witnessed wasn't a parlor trick or a hidden enchantment. It was profound, disciplined, advanced magic. The kind that took even gifted Altmer decades to master. For a human, especially a Nord, to achieve this… and at his claimed age? It was nearly unheard of.
Such prodigies existed only in the annals of the oldest Summerset families, coddled from the cradle with every arcane advantage imaginable.
Yet here stood the contradiction in flesh and fur: a mountain of muscle who looked like he should be cleaving trolls, not bending reality with a thought. A boy who had just casually demonstrated a mastery that would earn him respect in the highest circles of the College.
Her gaze on him was no longer dismissive. It was sharp, piercing, alight with the fierce curiosity of a scholar presented with an impossible, fascinating theorem.
"I see," Feralda said, her voice quieter now, stripped of its earlier venom. It was the measured tone of a scholar reassessing a flawed but fascinating hypothesis.
"It would be a profound waste to let you fumble about on your own with talent such as this. I will speak to the Archmage. An… exception ought to be made."
Torin's face broke into a wide, genuine grin. "I would appreciate that. Truly."
Feralda gave a single, brisk nod, already mentally drafting her argument to Mirabelle. "Right. The hour grows late, and this storm won't abate before dawn. I will take you to the guest quarters." She gestured toward the looming bridge, its far end swallowed by snow and the College's protective shimmer.
"The Bosmer can take the formal entrance test tomorrow. As for you…" She paused, eyeing Torin with a mix of professional curiosity and lingering disbelief.
She let out a short, almost imperceptible sigh. "…someone will summon you once we've decided how to best… direct your talents. Throwing you in with the novices would be a waste of your time and a disruption to them."
Her gaze then shifted to Echo, who was sitting placidly in the snow, watching the exchange with dark, intelligent eyes. Feralda's expression turned practical again. "Your beast, however, cannot be allowed inside the College proper. The Hall of the Elements is no place for wildlife. We can arrange for a stall in the town's stable. It will be warm and secure."
Torin shook his head immediately, a fond look on his face as he glanced at the bear. "No need for that. Echo doesn't care for cities unless she has to. She gets restless with walls and roofs."
He gave the massive bear a solid pat on her broad head. "She'll roam the tundra. She knows to come when I call."
Feralda was taken aback. The bear was clearly more than a simple animal, but this level of understanding and independence from a tamed beast was… unusual, to say the least.
She gave Torin a deeply skeptical look. "Are you certain? The wastes are not kind. In the stables, she would be fed and sheltered."
Torin didn't answer her directly. Instead, he crouched down slightly, meeting Echo's gaze. "How about it, girl? Nice warm stable? Soft hay, a roof, meals delivered right to you?"
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the howling, white wilderness. "Or… out there?"
Echo let out a low, rumbling huff that sounded distinctly unimpressed. She bumped her head against his shoulder once—a farewell—then turned without a backward glance. Her powerful form padded silently into the teeth of the blizzard, the swirling snow swallowing her dark fur until she was nothing but a shadow, and then nothing at all.
Feralda stared after the vanished bear, then back at Torin, who was already brushing snow from his shoulders as if this were the most normal thing in the world.
A slow, amused smile touched her lips, cutting through her usual stern demeanor.
"How… peculiar," the Altmer murmured, the word laced with genuine wonder. She shook her head slightly, as if clearing it.
"Very well. Follow me. Try not to touch anything on the bridge. The wards dislike surprises." She turned and led the way onto the ancient, ice-sheathed span, the magical barrier at its end parting for her like a curtain of melting glass.
Torin and Auri fell into step behind her, leaving the storm—and a free bear—in their wake.
...
Feralda closed the heavy oak door to the guest quarters with a soft, definitive click. The muffled silence of the College's stone corridor enveloped her, a stark contrast to the howling chaos outside.
She didn't move.
She stood there in the dim glow of the magelight sconces, her back to the door, her mind a whirlwind of cold, sharp calculation.
This young Nord… No. Not just a Nord. This… specimen.
He was the other, unspoken reason she'd volunteered for the miserable, wind-blasted duty of gatekeeper. Sure, she told herself and others it was because she alone had the discipline to stand watch while weaker mages huddled by the fire.
And that was true. But it was only half the truth.
Her true purpose was to be the first filter, the first point of contact. To spot raw, uncut talent—or better yet, forged talent like the boy inside—before anyone else in the College's political ecosystem even knew it existed.
She wanted to be the one who ushered it in, who became its first patron, its first point of connection.
Ambition was a quiet, steady flame in Feralda's chest. The atmosphere within the College was a subtle, constant chess game. The position of Master Wizard had been vacant for months now. On the surface, she is competing for it, however...
If she were being brutally honest, there would be no competition if that eccentric, beloved old fool Tolfdir had any interest in administrative power. But he didn't.
Festus Krex, for all his power, was famously ill-tempered, and dark rumors about his… extracurricular research… were beginning to make even the Archmage uneasy. He was not a viable candidate.
That left Mirabelle Ervine.
Feralda's lips thinned. Mirabelle. Her own former student. The Breton had a mind like a prism—sharp, clear, and capable of refracting knowledge into something brilliant and new.
Feralda had taught her much of what she knew, and in some areas, Mirabelle had not only matched her but surpassed her. The girl—no, the woman now—was probably the most likely candidate.
She was capable, respected, and far more politically adept than Feralda cared to be.
The realization had been a bitter pill, but Feralda had swallowed it. She was centuries old. She had seen prodigies come and go. Chasing a title she might never win was a fool's game, especially when more talented mages would always keep arriving.
So her ambition had… evolved. Shifted from a position of direct power to the building of a legacy. Her name wouldn't just be in the records as a Master of Destruction. It would be etched into the foundations of future greatness.
She would be the patron, the guide, the first hand extended to the next generation of archmages and luminaries. And having those powerful, grateful mages in her debt?
That would secure funding for her own private research for years to come. That would ensure her theories, her discoveries, her name, persisted long after Mirabelle or anyone else had faded from memory.
The giant Nord boy—Torin—wasn't just a talented oddity. He was a potential cornerstone in that legacy. A human who wielded expert Alteration like it was second nature? Who had, against all logic, trained himself?
His potential was staggering, and more importantly, he was unclaimed. He had no faction, no prior patron within these walls.
Him, she thought, a slow, satisfied smile touching her lips as she finally pushed away from the door and began walking down the silent hall, her robes whispering against the stone. Him indeed.
...
In the Archmage's quarters, Savos Aren sat surrounded by a fortress of books and scrolls, the air thick with the scent of old parchment and cold stone. The Dunmer's face was etched with the deep, weary lines of a man who'd been managing crises longer than most people had been alive. He was halfway through a dense treatise on Aetherial resonance when Feralda's proposition finally cut through his concentration.
He stopped reading. Slowly, deliberately, he lowered the tome and turned his red eyes toward her, the dim magelight catching the grey in his hair.
"Absolutely not."
His voice was dry, flat, final. "The rules exist to be followed, Feralda. Making an exception for one strapping lad who can do a few party tricks is bound to stir resentment among every student who's ever sweated through the entrance trials. We are balanced on a knife's edge here. We cannot afford new waves, not inside these walls, and certainly not outside them."
He rubbed his temples, the gesture speaking of a profound, bone-deep fatigue. "It is hard enough maintaining the status quo as it is. The Jarl barely tolerates us. The townsfolk whisper. We do not need a special case, not now, not anytime soon."
Feralda's frown was sharp enough to cut glass. "Who cares about bruised egos and peasant gossip? This 'strapping lad' reached expert-level Alteration on his own. Do you have any conception of what that signifies?"
Savos gave her a long, measured look, the kind a patient tutor gives a bright but stubborn pupil. "It signifies he is talented, certainly. But Feralda, we do not have a shortage of talented students. We have a shortage of peaceful, quiet days."
He shook his head, his decision clearly made. "Give him a few spell tomes to further his… independent study. Then send him on his way with our compliments and the promise of a warm welcome should he return after fulfilling the necessary conditions."
He turned back to his book, a clear dismissal.
Feralda did not move. Her voice, when she spoke again, was lower, sharper, aimed like a dagger at his unspoken knowledge. "You, of all people, Archmage, should know it takes more than mere talent to achieve what he has. Here. In Skyrim."
Savos's hand, which had been reaching for his tea, stilled. He didn't look up, but his posture changed, grew stiller, heavier.
She was right, and they both knew it.
One of the College's most critical, if thankless duties was the collection and safeguarding of magical knowledge above the apprentice level. And it was about preservation just as it was about control.
A journeyman mage with a grudge could level a village with a well-placed fire spell. An expert in Illusion could turn a town against itself without drawing a single blade. That knowledge was dangerous, volatile. It was kept locked away in these towers for a reason.
For a boy of fifteen to have clawed his way to expert-level mastery in not one, but two schools… it was statistically near-impossible. It spoke of a dedication so fierce it bordered on obsession.
Or, and this was the thought that now coiled, cold and suspicious, in Savos's mind, it spoke of resources and teachers he wasn't advertising.
Extremely talented and dedicated… or he has some very powerful friends.
Friends who might have their own reasons for placing a supremely gifted agent inside the College of Winterhold.
To think he'd be so overworked, that he'd fail to notice something so obvious... his station as Archmage certainly had its advantages, but the disadvantages were just as heavy, especially without a Master Wizard to help him with the burden.
Savos finally lifted his gaze from the page, his red eyes meeting Feralda's golden ones. The weariness was still there, but it was now layered with a sharp, wary calculation.
"Describe the spells again. In precise detail," he said, his voice devoid of its earlier dismissal. "And tell me everything he said. Everything."
...
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