Chapter 48: first class
On his way to class, Zephyr walked beneath long arching halls where morning light bled in through tall crystalline windows. The academy’s vast corridors gleamed, lined with portraits of figures he didn’t recognize—heroes, innovators, perhaps murderers polished by time. The echoes of boots and voices trailed from every direction, and the soft hum of hovering elevators added a futuristic tension to the antique grandeur of the building.
His path twisted once through an open courtyard where students in various uniforms moved in clusters, laughter and conversation weaving between the trimmed hedges and ornamental fountains. No one paid him much attention here. Or rather, they paid too much attention. He heard the murmurs again. That was fine.
When he finally arrived at the General Knowledge lecture hall, sealed his insulting mouth and kept his phone which had been his guide to the lecture hall.
The door slid open and inside was a high, circular room with tiered rows of desks rising like steps in an amphitheater. The back wall was lined with a massive transparent board, faintly glowing with diagrams and aether-maps, but the real curiosity was the seating.
Each student had a pod seat—a one-seater desk molded from pale metal and smooth synth-wood, hovering slightly above the floor. As Zephyr stepped in, one of the unoccupied pods hovered toward him and gently lowered itself.
It was designed to respond to proximity. Once he sat, the desk front automatically expanded, revealing a thin touch interface, quill slot, and a small projection field for books or notes.
He had barely begun to take in the class when he felt it.
Her gaze.
From the opposite side of the curved seating ring, Lunethra stared down at him—like a blade made of ice and silence. Her unnatural striking purple eyes, seemed to strip the layers off his body, down to thought and bone. She didn’t blink.