Chapter 25: A Promise
THIRD PERSON POV
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Evelina lay on the cold stone floor of the training hall, her body aching, her mana core utterly exhausted.
The raw scream of frustration had torn from her throat, echoing in the vast, empty space. "It’s not enough! I’m not good enough! I need to be stronger! I need to be the best! I need to do it! I need to become the first Sapphire’s Mage Knight! It needs to be me!" Her voice was hoarse, thick with tears and a profound sense of inadequacy.
Her eyes, red-rimmed and desperate, fell upon the small, dark vial of the Knight’s Trial Elixir resting on the stone ledge. It glowed with an unsettling green colour, a silent, tempting promise of power, of an edge, of the strength she so desperately craved. Kai’s warning, his insistence that she destroy it, creeped faintly in her mind. His exact words—a bad feeling, corrupted mana signature, do not consume.
But what was at stake? Her future. Her family’s legacy. Her very purpose. She knew the risks of using a high-level consumable artifact without proper mana core tempering. It could damage the mana core beyond any alchemical repairs, leaving a practitioner crippled, unable to wield mana ever again. The thought was terrifying, a fate worse than death for an aspiring Mage Knight. Yet, the Academy Entrance Exam was unforgiving. It demanded perfection, demanded strength. And she felt so utterly, hopelessly weak.
A memory, soft and old, then clear and painful, bloomed in her mind, pulling her back in time. A moment of her childhood.
She was eight years old, a whirlwind of bright blue hair and youthful energy. The sun streamed through the arched windows of Lord Sapphire’s study, illuminating the dust motes that filled the air. Her father, stern and imposing, sat behind his massive desk, a thick tome open before him. Beside her, fidgeting on a much smaller chair, was Prudee. Her blood brother. Six years old, with hair the same vibrant blue as hers, and eyes that sparkled with an irrepressible curiosity.
"...and so, during the Great War of Unification, the once-vassal states of Liberal, Eudenia, and Calvados waged a righteous rebellion against the tyrannical Tumedia Empire," Lord Sapphire said, his voice even and measured, reading from a history scroll. "It was a conflict that spanned decades, finally freeing our lands from the Tumedian yoke, and forging the Kingdom of Ostina as we know it today."
Prudee, however, was not listening to the lesson. He was a boy of action, not dusty scrolls. "Father," he interrupted, bouncing slightly in his seat, "was that when Saint Sapphire made the first battle move? The one that rallied everyone?"