The procession of Great Houses continued. After the spectacle of the first three heroines, the subsequent demonstrations felt almost mundane, even from powerful houses. The heir of House Kaelum showed his mastery of wind, creating a miniature, controlled cyclone in the center of the arena. He earned a solid Rank 6. Various other scions displayed their inherited powers, each performance a carefully rehearsed display of their family's pride and power.
I watched them all, my mind a silent, whirring engine of data collection. Each student was a piece on the board, a potential threat or asset. I cataloged their strengths, noted their weaknesses, and cross-referenced their abilities with the roles they would play in the novel I remembered. It was a grim, meticulous process, the work of a general preparing for a war no one else could see.
Then came the turn of the House of spies, assassins, and secret-keepers.
"House Noctis, student Elsa. You are next."
If Roselle's entrance had been quiet, Elsa's was practically non-existent. She seemed to simply… appear on the platform, without anyone quite noticing how she got there. One moment the stage was empty, the next she was standing there. She was unremarkable by design, her features pleasant but instantly forgettable, her dark brown hair in a simple style, her posture relaxed and unassuming. She looked like a librarian's assistant, not the heir to a house of shadow-weavers.
She gave the panel a small, shy nod, her eyes cast slightly downwards. She seemed nervous, out of her element, a stark contrast to the supreme confidence of the other Great House heirs. It was a masterful performance.
"Proceed, Miss Noctis," the lead instructor said, his tone gentle, as if speaking to a frightened deer.
Elsa's demonstration was, in its own way, as shocking as Isabella's and as complex as Elara's. It was a demonstration of pure, absolute absence.
She took a single step back, into the shadow cast by the instructors' own platform.
And she vanished.
She didn't fade or dissolve. There was no puff of smoke or flicker of light. One moment she was there, the next the shadow was just a shadow. She was gone.
The auditorium fell silent. The students looked around, confused. The instructors on the panel stiffened, their senses probing the arena, searching for her. They found nothing. No life force. No magical signature. No spatial distortion. It was as if she had ceased to exist.
One minute passed. Then two. The silence grew heavy, uncomfortable. Students started whispering to each other. Had something gone wrong? Was this part of the test?
Even I, who knew what her abilities were, was impressed. This was not simple invisibility. This was a complete removal of self from all forms of detection. She had become shadow. She was not hiding in it; she *was* it.
After nearly three minutes, just as the lead instructor was about to call a halt to the proceedings, she reappeared.
She didn't step out of the shadow she had entered. She emerged, silent as a thought, from the shadow cast by Headmaster Archiron Valewing's own ceremonial chair, high up in his private viewing box at the very top of the auditorium.
There was a collective, sharp intake of breath from everyone who saw it. The Headmaster himself, who had been watching the proceedings with a weary detachment, jolted in his seat, his ancient eyes widening in genuine alarm for a fraction of a second before recognition set in.
To have bypassed the Academy's layered security, the Imperial guards, and the Headmaster's own formidable passive wards to manifest literally at his back… it was a feat of stealth so audacious, so profound, that it was tantamount to treason. It was also the most impressive demonstration of Shadow affinity anyone had seen in a century.
Elsa stood there for a moment, then simply melted back into the Headmaster's shadow, reappearing a second later back on the platform, in the exact spot she had vanished from, her expression still one of shy, apologetic nervousness, as if she had done nothing more than trip over her own feet.
The Assessment Orb had barely flickered. It glowed with a dim, uncertain grey light. It couldn't measure her. How do you quantify absence? How do you assign a rank to someone who can, for all intents and purposes, cease to be?
The instructors on the panel were in a heated, whispered conference. This was a problem. Shadow affinity was notoriously difficult to rank because its power was entirely contextual. In a brightly lit room, it was useless. In a city full of secrets and shadows, it was godlike.
Finally, the lead instructor stood, his face a mixture of deep respect and profound unease. "Miss Noctis,"; he said, his voice strained. "Your demonstration was… illuminating. Due to the contextual nature of your affinity, a standard power-level assessment is insufficient." He paused. "The panel assigns you a provisional rank of **Mid Sovereign (Rank 6)**." He quickly added, "With the official notation that your practical applications in the field may far exceed this assessment."
It was a compromise. A rank that wouldn't draw too much attention, but with a caveat that acknowledged her terrifying potential.
Elsa accepted the rank with a small, grateful-seeming nod, as if she were relieved to have not failed completely. She scurried off the stage, melting back into the crowd, her unremarkable face once again becoming instantly forgettable.
She had no interest in rankings. The test had been a success for a different reason. In her brief moment in the Headmaster's shadow, she had heard things. A whispered conversation between two Imperial guards about Prince Valerius's "unusual interest" in the Vex'Arak. The Headmaster's own weary, subvocal sigh about the "wrongness in the stones." She had learned more in those ten seconds of observation than she would have from a year of lectures. Her demonstration had not been for the panel; it had been for herself.
My own assessment was swift and certain. *Subject: Elsa Noctis. Power profile: Absolute stealth, information warfare. Her abilities are not for direct confrontation but for infiltration and intelligence gathering. She is the ultimate spy.*
The analysis sharpened. *She has been watching me. She is the only other person who seems to be actively investigating the Vex'Arak. She saw me in the archives. She saw me in the library. She knows I am more than I appear.*
This made her the most immediate and significant variable in my plans. She was not a rival to be beaten like Isabella, or a fortress to be bypassed like Elara, or a moral hazard like Roselle. She was a mirror. A fellow shadow-dweller. A watcher who was watching the watcher.
She was either my greatest threat or my most valuable ally. I had to decide which, and soon. Because if she decided I was a threat first, I would never even see her coming.