Chapter 69: Sorting Part Three
Dean slides back into his seat, looking damned pleased with himself. The Luxor students, all hundred thirty or so of them, are already whispering among themselves, congratulating or sizing each other up, eyes darting to see which of their peers might be a threat or an asset. The rest of us are left to stew in anticipation, wondering which fate the proctors have chosen for us.
Evanora doesn't waste time. She lifts her hand and points to another proctor, this time directing our attention to a woman I remember all too well the one who swept up Alaster's body after our duel with disgust, like it was just another chore on her list. She's medium height, long purple hair cascading down her back, and eyes the color of mindaro, that eerie yellow-green.
I wonder, just for a moment, what kind of house this woman would run. My mind starts to drift—maybe something cold, clinical, the kind of place you send people when there's nothing left but the rules. Then she speaks, and the idle curiosity sharpens to attention.
"My name is Proctor Eve Melnyk," she says, her voice flat, almost bored, as if she's being inconvenienced by being here. "I am in charge of House Melruth."
Evanora flicks her wrist again, and the lights dim once again, shadows stretching long and sinisterly across the floor. All the banners ripple and shift, the colors all bleeding away to bone white, violet, and black. The funerary mask appears half of it cracked, the other side smooth and cold wreathed in thorny laurel. From the mask's eyes, blood-red tears trickle, catching the low light, making it look almost alive. The room feels colder, the air heavy with something like expectation or grief.
I lean forward, more interested than I'd admit. There's something about the quiet menace of the mask, the subtlety of the colors. Maybe I'll be picked for this one, I think. It would make sense, in a twisted way, for me to end up with the House that wears death on its sleeve.
Eve's eyes scan the crowd unreadable. She speaks again, her voice low but carrying. "A word after a word after a word is power."
I frown. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
"Those of you who join House Melruth," she continues, "have been observed to show respect. Duty. You understand that the ends justify the means. Ours is not a House for the loud or the flashy. Some Houses are content to parade their virtue, to chase glory. We do what is necessary, and we carry the weight others won't. Melruth shapes Elites that become the Empire's backbone the part no one sees, but everything depends on."
I glance around. A few of the other proctors are rolling their eyes or shifting impatiently, apparently unimpressed by Eve's speech. That makes me smile. If the rest of the academy finds Melruth so irritating, maybe there's something to admire about them after all.
Eve doesn't even glance at the other proctors shifting and making faces behind her. Her focus is on us and only us, her eyes burning with that strange, dark light. She surveys the crowd, chin lifted, and when she speaks again her voice rings out with the certainty of someone who doesn't care if you love her or hate her, only that you listen.
She raises her chin, and for a moment her eyes catch the light, cold and bright "Remember, my dear students: Ideas are more powerful than magic. We do not let our enemies have magic, why should we let them have ideas?" The room goes still at her words, the kind of silence that crackles with discomfort and fascination. It's the sort of line that gets quoted in history books or in war tribunals.