Chapter 97: A Sudden Proposal
Three days had passed. Three long, restless days.
Velren sat at his desk, staring blankly at the open Codex projection before him. The words blurred together, an incomprehensible mess of text that should have been easy to process. And yet, his mind felt slow, distant—just like his body.
Ever since that night in the training hall, sleep had eluded him. It wasn’t just the nightmares, though they came in fragments—pain, static-riddled messages, the weight of something pressing down on his very existence. No, it was something deeper, something more insidious. His body felt... cold. Not physically, but as if a part of him was untethered, wavering like a candle’s dying flame.
He exhaled quietly, rubbing his temples as the lecturer continued speaking. It wasn’t even that he didn’t want to listen—he just couldn’t focus. The faint hum of magic from the instructional glyphs, the scratching of pens on parchment, even the occasional cough from a fellow student—everything felt distant, like he was observing from just outside himself.
And then there was the wakizashi. He had left it in his dorm room since that night. Just the thought of strapping it to his waist made his stomach churn. Even looking at it felt like inviting something back into himself that he wasn’t ready to face.
A sharp breath. He straightened slightly, attempting to shake off the creeping sensation of weight pressing on his thoughts.
"You don’t look so good."
Velren blinked.
He turned his head slightly to the side at the sudden voice, finding Eterna beside him, book in hand. Her eyes, calm yet observant, didn’t waver from the pages, but he could tell she was studying him in that subtle way of hers.
She was always like this—keenly perceptive in a way that was almost unnerving. It was difficult to tell whether she actually sensed something off about him or if he just looked that terrible. Either way, it was enough to be noticed.
He let out a breath and shrugged, offering the most nonchalant response he could muster.