Chapter 47 : Chapter 47
Chapter 47 : Ishtar
The morning class was 《Analysis of Intermediate Mana Constructs》. Professor Horne, strict and gray-haired, was drawing a complex composite cooling rune cluster on the blackboard. Chalk scraped against the slate with a steady rustling sound.
Most of the students had their heads down, taking notes. Every now and then, someone would let out a faint groan after failing to keep up.
Ryan sat in his usual seat near the front by the window. One hand supported his chin as his gaze rested on his notebook. Beyond the content Professor Horne was explaining, it also held a number of his own annotations and associative thoughts, written in a more concise set of symbols.
Sunlight filtered through the window and cast a faint glow over the ends of his dark brown hair and the pale line of his profile. He was so quiet that he seemed to melt into the classroom’s rather stifling air.
The moment the bell signaling the end of class faded away, the students began packing up, preparing for the brief break or quietly discussing the complicated assignment Professor Horne had just left them.
At that moment, there was another knock on the classroom door.
Professor Horne, who had already reached the doorway, stopped, frowned, and pulled it open.
There was more than one person standing outside. Besides the familiar academic affairs officer, there were two striking figures.
“Professor Horne, apologies for the interruption.” The academic affairs official wore a smile even more cautious than usual. “There are two new transfer students who need to be placed into your class. These are the special approval documents from the academy and the academic affairs office.”
The door hinge gave a faint creak as it moved.
The scattered conversations in the classroom stopped. Quills were set down on paper. Half-turned pages froze in place. Dozens of eyes turned toward the door.
The middle-aged academic affairs official stepped aside by the doorway, and the figure behind him walked in.
The first to enter the classroom was a young girl who looked even younger than a second-year student.
First came the platinum-gold hem of her skirt brushing over the threshold, the satin glowing with a soft pearly sheen beneath the classroom’s gloomy light. Then came her slender waist, her straight back, and finally her face.
Her golden hair, as radiant as melted sunlight, was loosely tied behind her head. A few loose strands fell beside her neck, while others were pinned neatly by an exquisite white-gold hair ornament at her ear, revealing a smooth and lovely forehead.
Her skin was as fair and fine as polished porcelain glaze. Her features were so delicate they looked like the painstaking work of a dollmaker who had poured all their devotion into a single creation. Her blue-green eyes were large and bright, her lashes long and curled, her nose straight and refined, and her lips a soft, tender pink.
She stood in the doorway and calmly swept her gaze across the classroom.
“Wow...” someone softly breathed.
A few boys widened their eyes slightly. Even the girls stared, and someone instinctively touched her own hair.
Ryan set down his pen and looked up. His gaze passed over the shoulders of the students in the front rows and landed on that touch of platinum gold.
Taken as a whole, she looked like a carefully crafted doll that had stepped straight out of a fairy-tale picture book.
And yet what she wore was not Saint Roland Magic Academy’s standard deep blue uniform.
She wore an obviously custom-tailored, extravagantly luxurious dress in shades of white and gold.
The style of the dress was elegant and noble. Fine silver-thread lace trimmed the collar and cuffs. The skirt flared just enough, and the fabric shimmered with a soft but impossible-to-ignore pearly glow beneath the classroom’s magic lamps. Extending below the skirt were a pair of pure white tights wrapping her slender legs, their texture delicate and flawless, and on her feet were small white low-heeled ladies’ shoes.
She did not appear at all surprised by the stunned looks from the crowd—or perhaps she was simply accustomed to them. A perfectly proper smile rested on her face.
At that moment, another figure stepped out from behind the official.
A deep blue academy uniform. A skirt hem that fell just to the knees wrapped in black over-the-knee stockings. Black hair drawn back in an immaculate low ponytail.
She was slightly taller than the blonde girl. Her skin was a different kind of white—the pale, bloodless kind. Her head was lowered, and in her arms she carried several brand-new textbooks and a dark pencil case. Her lashes were very long, casting faint shadows over her face and making her eyes impossible to read. Her lips were pressed into a flat, straight line. Her entire face was expressionless.
She quietly took her place slightly behind the blonde girl, keeping exactly the proper distance, like a silent shadow.
The academic affairs official made a polite gesture of invitation. The two of them entered the classroom one after the other.
The white-gold skirt swayed gently with each step, the extremely fine silver patterns embroidered into it appearing and vanishing with her movement. The blonde girl’s heels were not high, and the sound they made on the floor was very light. Around her neck hung a thin silver chain, with the pendant hidden beneath her collar.
The black-haired girl behind her wore standard student leather shoes. Her uniform jacket was buttoned all the way to the top, and her collar was pressed perfectly straight.
Under everyone’s gaze, they walked down the aisle and stopped in front of the lectern.
The academic affairs official cleared his throat. “Everyone, these two are new students transferring into this class.” He turned to Professor Horne and handed him a file. “Professor, all the procedures have been completed.”
The blonde girl stepped forward half a pace and gave Professor Horne a standard noble curtsy.
The movement was elegant and fluid. Her skirt flared and then settled again.
The black-haired girl bowed as well, at a slightly deeper angle and for a slightly longer time. She was still holding her books, and they remained pressed to her chest as she bowed.
Then the two of them turned toward the class. The blonde girl curtsied again, and the black-haired girl bowed again.
When the greetings were complete, they straightened.
“Good day, everyone. I am Cecilia Ishtar,” the blonde girl said. Her voice was clear and bright. “I will be studying in this class from now on. Please take care of me.”
She dipped her head slightly, and golden strands of hair slid over her shoulders.
The classroom went silent for an instant.
“Ilis,” said the black-haired girl.
Her voice was lower than Cecilia’s, flat and without inflection.
“Please take care of me.”
After saying that, she lowered her head again and stared at the cover of the textbook in her arms.
“Ishtar...” In the back of the classroom, a boy with short brown hair quietly repeated the name. He frowned, as though trying to remember something.
The girl beside him turned her face and whispered, “Ishtar... the royal family’s surname?”
The brown-haired boy’s eyes suddenly widened. He jerked his head up to stare at the blonde girl at the front of the room, his lips parting slightly.
That reaction was like a stone thrown into still water. The expressions of several noble students in the rows before and behind him changed at once. Some sat up straighter. Some instinctively adjusted their collars. Whispered discussion spread from every corner of the room.
“...A princess?”
“The Second Princess... Her Highness Cecilia?”
“No way...”
“Who’s the black-haired one? A maid?”
“Can a maid wear the school uniform?”
Professor Horne pushed up his glasses. He took the file from the academic affairs official, scanned it, and nodded.
“Your seats are over there.”
He pointed his thumb toward the empty seats near the window in the middle-rear section of the classroom.
Cecilia nodded once more. She turned, her white-gold skirt drawing an arc through the air, and walked straight toward that side. Ilis quietly followed half a step behind, her head always lowered.
Ryan watched them approach. He watched Cecilia sit down in the empty seat across the aisle beside him. He watched Ilis place her textbooks on the seat diagonally behind, then step back half a pace and stand with her hands lowered at the side and slightly behind Cecilia’s chair.
Purple eyes.
A moment ago, when Ilis had raised her head to look toward the seats, those eyes had faced in this direction for an instant. They were like the purest amethyst—cold, crystalline, and utterly devoid of emotion.
Ryan withdrew his gaze and looked back down at the paper in front of him.
Fragments of discussion still lingered in the classroom. The clouds outside had sunk even lower, and gray-white light spilled in, washing desks, chairs, and human figures into blurred shades of gray.
It was so quiet that one could hear the wind brushing through the treetops outside.
...