Nikolai watched as silence took over the room, and attention fell upon him like a ton of bricks.
He took a deep breath. He knew this moment would come.
As much as he had been neglected all his life, now, finally, he could speak — and someone would listen.
Even if it was just to hear what he had to say, that was enough. Just that already made him happy. It was more than he had ever been allowed his whole life.
"The Three Dragons once had different names in the past."
Nikolai's voice sounded steadier than he had expected, filled with a conviction that even surprised his own ears.
"The stories say that, unlike us and our beasts — who reign side by side, in a symbiosis reflected in every race of this continent — they settled in the center of our continent, coming from a distant land, many years ago."
They chose the great mountains at the heart of the continent and remained there — like absolute gods, above all, with no one to command or obey.
Though free and considered beings of immeasurable power, they chose to live a secluded life. The reason? No one has ever been able to say for certain.
For decades, they ruled that territory by their presence alone. The locals called them Zho'Rathul, whose explicit meaning was: Those Who Devastate.
Curiously, they never caused harm to the region's inhabitants. In fact, except for the rare moments when they appeared hunting, they were hardly ever seen.
Even so, they were feared — not for their actions, but for their very existence.
A murmur crossed the room, muffled like the cold wind passing through cracks in a wall. Some shifted in their seats; others frowned — after all, that story wasn't unfamiliar to anyone.
"They were always indifferent to what happened on the plains."
He continued, undeterred.
"Too powerful to care. Too arrogant to listen. Or simply… uninterested."
The old songs say that immortality gave them a new light in their eyes, a gleam that set them apart from mortals.
"But one day, against all odds, that impartiality ended."
"And for some unknown reason… they took a side."
The Blues' eyes narrowed. Some stared at him with disdain, as if waiting for him to stumble over his own words — or irritated by the repeated story, but still without the ending they longed for.
Others, however, couldn't hide the curiosity of those who recognized in Nikolai someone capable of explaining difficult things in simple terms.
"And that was the downfall of all the races of our continent."
Nikolai's voice now echoed like restrained thunder.
"It shook the hegemonic balance of the entire continent."
"The problem wasn't choosing a side… it was the side they chose."
"They didn't ally with the just, nor with those who watched over harmony."
"They joined the cruelest. The most expansionist and impious."
For a moment, it seemed even the torches lighting the room flickered at those words. Nikolai took a deep breath, feeling the weight of each memory and each suspicion that had brought him here.
"When word of that alliance reached the farthest plains, everyone trembled."
His eyes swept over his peers, but no one dared to laugh.
"For they knew: the alliance would be the harbinger of the end of an era of peace among the peoples of the continent."
He paused. The silence that followed was so thick it felt tangible, like stone pressing on shoulders. Even the black bear tamers in the back, used to imposed silence, subtly raised their eyes, attentive to what was coming.
"But the Dragons did not march to battle."
He continued, in a lower tone, though each word carried the force of a vow.
"Hidden in their mountains, they said their magic was far too great to stoop to such things."
"So, they created lesser beings."
"Smaller creatures, weaker… but sufficient."
"They introduced themselves to their allies and enemies as the Three Benefactors of the Mountains and imposed an invisible pact with the Empire — a simple yet devastating pact: destroy any enemy and conquer the continent."
"The reason? No one truly knows."
One of the Blues couldn't hold back the sarcasm and laughed loudly, shattering the tension.
"Shut up… we all know that story already."
"Honestly, I don't need some cripple with no leg and a black bear tamer to teach me something someone from my caste knows by heart."
"Why don't you just answer the question already or accept your place and go back to where you never should've left — the pigsty?"
The sound echoed like shattering glass. But before it could draw laughter from his remark, Marya raised her staff. The dry crack against the floor was enough. Silence returned, heavy and absolute.
Nikolai took a deep breath and, without wavering or hesitation, continued:
"I told all of that because it's what every book says, in those exact words: that there are three of them, that they created their minions in their own image and likeness, and that they do not come from a place we know with absolute certainty."
The truth is, because we've heard this story repeated to exhaustion, we've stopped seeing the obvious — what's around us.
"All the mythical creatures we know are governed by a Quaternity: bears of the North, griffins of the East, centuriae of the South, sphinxes of the West... all follow the same order."
"The rule of four. Static. Unrestricted. White, blue, brown, and black."
Some of these races don't differ by color, like the griffins — who vary by fur and tails — or the sphinxes, whose differences lie in the inorganic material that composes part of their bodies.
Even so, they all carry the same specific trait: four.
Some nodded in agreement, satisfied. Others merely waited for the mistake to come.
It was then that Marya, until then impassive, raised her eyes to him. The glint in her pupils revealed she was assessing not just the words, but the boy's soul.
"Boy…"
She said, with the sharp calm of a blade.
"That information is clear and objective. It's in the books."
"I don't understand why you'd question something that was studied long before our time."
A wave of relief passed through the room. Some scornful smiles returned. When Marya took on the arrogant tone, the conversation almost always ended in humiliation — whether for the student who dared speak too much, or for herself, who tolerated no questioning.
But Nikolai didn't back down.
"That's exactly where we go wrong."
His voice echoed firmly, without hesitation.
"We cling so tightly to their exceptions that we blindly ignore the rules of our own environment."
A murmur spread through the back of the room, among the Blacks. The Blues, however, shifted uncomfortably, irritated that the boy with the gray bear dared challenge a dogma.
Marya arched an eyebrow. For the first time, her eyes revealed something beyond indifference. There was a spark of interest.
"…Alright."
She said slowly, each syllable weighed down.
"Go on."
Nikolai swallowed hard, but didn't look away.
"The strongest wyverns are the ones of fire, lightning, and water…"
His voice was now full of conviction.
"They are considered the primordial descendants, the closest to their creators."
"It is from them that all exceptions branch out."
"They are the pillar, the core, the spark from which every deviation of the rule was born."
"That's what everyone accepts. But… they're not the only ones."
A chill swept through the room. Even the Blues, always arrogant, leaned in to listen.
The noble Blues exchanged confused glances. They didn't understand where he was getting that from. But the tamers of black bears… they knew. They had seen with their own eyes the wyvern Pavel fought the day before: stone and poison.
Marya tilted her head slightly, as if savoring the boy's boldness, but wasted no time in cutting off his line of thought.
"It is common knowledge that the so-called stone wyverns are nothing more than genetic aberrations stemming from the fire dragon."
"The same goes for poison wyverns, descendants of the water one."
Her voice was firm, unyielding.
It was restricted yet widely accepted knowledge that stone wyverns were, in fact, fire wyverns without enough magic to envelop their bodies in flames. Thus, their skin took on a basalt-like appearance.
Everyone also knew that a wyvern's wings only allowed them to glide — what truly made them cut through the skies at high speed was magic, and nothing else.
For this reason, the stone wyvern, without magic, could not fly — only glide.
Of course, to compensate, it trained its legs, becoming so different from its peers that it almost seemed to belong to another species.
Poison wyverns... extremely rare. Nothing but imitators. They manipulated water like their brethren, but due to low magical concentration, they preferred to corrupt it to cause harm — turning what gives life into venom that takes it away.
Even though she was curious to see how far that one-legged boy would go, Marya could feel her patience thinning.
Something had to happen — or disappointment would be the only thing she would offer him.
So she decided to press the newcomer.
"It's an interesting theory, boy: to suggest the exceptions stem from some infamous fourth element hidden somewhere in that mountain."
"But it's extremely limited."
A slow, cruel smile spread among the Blues, like fire through dry straw.
"What an idiot… if I were him, I'd never speak again."
"Yeah, but with a trash bear like that, what do you expect?"
"Hey, stop!"
"Leave him alone. He's already going to be my court jester one day!"
Laughter exploded, far too loud to be masked. It echoed through the hall like hammers pounding Nikolai's honor.
Marya didn't stop them. Her expression wasn't joyful or angry. It was simply… neutral. Distant. As if all of it was the natural course of life, the silent law no one dared defy.
But then Nikolai raised his gaze. His heterochromatic eyes gleamed with unexpected determination. When he spoke, his voice cut through the laughter like a blade slicing flesh.
"Who said I was talking about the wyverns from yesterday?"
His breath quickened, but he didn't waver.
"I'm talking about the wyvern of shadow and light."
The hall froze.
The laughter ceased instantly. The air seemed to vanish from the room, as if every torch had suddenly lost its heat. The Blues looked at one another, stunned, unable to believe what they had heard. The Blacks, silent, felt as though an ancient secret had been unearthed before them.
Marya didn't move. She merely closed her eyes for a moment, as if ancient words, buried beneath centuries of oblivion, echoed in her mind. When she opened them, the rigidity that had always defined her had given way to something rarer: astonishment.
Marya, who was rarely surprised, stopped. The silence in the room became suffocating, as if even the air waited for her reaction. The texts on the subject were old… far too old. Fragments of scrolls forgotten in dusty archives, manuscripts that only obsessive scholars dared to cite in footnotes.
To speak of them aloud bordered on academic heresy. It wasn't just questioning a dogma, but touching a taboo, a secret not even the elders of the North dared to whisper.
For how could there exist a being that would create a creature that opposed itself?
A wyvern that carried within its essence the ultimate contradiction. Dystopian and unique powers, shaped directly from primordial magic — that which existed at the beginning of all things, that which controlled shadow and light with the same breath.
It was an impossible concept, paradoxical, almost blasphemous. But as she heard Nikolai's steady voice, Marya felt something she hadn't in decades: a crack in her certainties.
If it was only legend, why did those words sound so true?
She narrowed her eyes, weighing each of the boy's breaths. For the first time, it didn't seem like she was standing before a mere student… but someone who carried a truth she herself didn't know.
"No one alive has ever seen a wyvern of shadow and light."
"We're talking about primordial magic, not elemental and opposing — magic capable of shaping reality… or destroying it."
"Nothing in this world could withstand something, or someone, with such power."
She murmured, her voice suddenly low, as if testing the weight of her own words.
"The only account we have of such an encounter was once… at the beginning of the first war."
"Said by a madman, long dead in his own madness."
Nikolai didn't look away.
"Actually, I must disagree with you, ma'am. There were two accounts in all of history."
His breath sounded heavy, almost as if he carried something greater than himself.
"I'm not talking about Yozavar the Mad."
"I'm talking about me."
Silence. An absolute silence, unlike any other. Even the Blues, who had been ready to laugh, shrank into their seats. The Blacks, meanwhile, opened their eyes halfway, restless, as if a forbidden secret had just been revealed before them.
Marya, for the first time in a long time, seemed… unsettled.
Nikolai remembered little of the battle scene. But how could he forget him? That haunted him in relentless dreams, night after night. Just speaking about it out loud felt strange, almost forbidden. After all, no one had survived that massacre… except him, the last remnant.
Marya, stunned, took a step back. Her eyes — always firm and impassive — now trembled slightly. She was scouring her memory, as if trying to match the boy's words to something real, some buried recollection.
And then it came.
First like a faint spark, barely there.
Then like wildfire, spreading out of control, consuming everything.
She remembered.
Time had not erased it. It couldn't. It had merely been pushed into the abyss of the mind, like an unspeakable secret. Few had known. Fewer had dared to record it. It had been so unreal, so impossible, that history itself fell silent before the account of the innocent.
The betrayal that took the Northern Czar to his grave.
Marya slowly raised her gaze, fixing it on Nikolai with an attention she had never given any student before. She was never one to care for politics. To her, the North could survive with anyone on the throne.
But that case… that case had been far too unusual. A mystery so deep that even she, with all her magic and knowledge, had never been able to decipher it.
It was as if some ancient force — a forgotten magic — had worked to obliterate the memories, cover them in fog, bury them far too deep.
But now, with the boy's words, the chains had broken. The memory returned.
And with it, the truth no one wanted to hear.
The only survivor.
The only one who saw it all.
An innocent boy who had been ignored for lack of proof — and for being too young to be taken seriously.
Marya drew a deep breath, and her voice sliced through the silence like a blade:
"Then… you are him."
She raised her hand to her mouth, as if reaching for the name. And when it finally came, it was as if all the puzzle pieces locked into place.
The innocent who survived.
Dismissed as someone too traumatized to speak sense. Forgotten for his naïveté and fantasy.
But now, nearly five years later, he was no longer a boy.
She remembered. The survivor had a unique feature, something that still stood out clearly in her mind: heterochromatic eyes. But… what was the full name?
Marya searched her memory until she finally murmured to herself — loud enough for all to hear:
"You are Nikolai Romanov. The sole survivor of the Blood Moon."