Chapter 776: I Appreciate It
After returning to his room, Liam closed the door behind him, walked straight to the bed, and dropped onto it with his legs still hanging over the side. He lay there with his eyes closed, one arm resting loosely across his stomach, and let out a slow breath.
The day had been exhausting, which was ridiculous when he thought about it. He had not trained. He had not fought seriously. The spar with Gabby barely counted, and the conversation with Thion, while unpleasant, had not been physically demanding.
"I should have just trained," he muttered.
The moment he said it, he knew it was not true.
Compared to what he would have put his body through if he had gone down to the underground hall again, this day had been nothing. The tiredness he felt was not from exertion. It was from people. Dylan’s endless talking, Charlotte’s teasing, Ariana’s concern, Sheila’s presence, Asher’s silence, students staring at him, Sasha’s shamelessness, Gabby’s intensity, Lucia’s summons, Thion’s office, all of it had piled together until it became its own strange kind of exhaustion.
’Social exhaustion,’ he thought with faint irritation.
But even that realization did not remain the center of his thoughts for long.
One thing overshadowed everything else.
The Headmaster.
Thion.
Liam opened his eyes, then slowly sat upright at the edge of the bed. The room was dimmer now, the last traces of evening light fading beyond the windows as the academy began settling into night. He rested his forearms on his thighs and replayed the conversation from the beginning, not the official part about the Berserker, but what came after.
Thion’s tone. His words. The way his composure had briefly cracked when he spoke about dark magic as something alive. His claim that his grandfather had been a dark mage. His hunger to see living dark magic breathe.