THE QUIET HOURS
971 Words
The days that followed the stormy night were… normal.
So normal that it felt suspicious in hindsight.
No gazes followed me as I walked through the hallways. No whispers followed my steps. No sudden glances or shifting expressions when I entered a room.
The academy moved as it was supposed to. Methodical. And boring.
I attended my lectures. Took notes. Asked questions when I had them.
Magic Theory II was less dramatic and fanciful than Professor Llyen’s sessions.
The focus there was comparative analysis between old magical frameworks and modern rune-enhanced applications.
We usually spent the class sessions debating whether runes had ever truly been magic, or merely a sophisticated system of amplification that humans had misunderstood and mythologised.
The unanimous agreement was that it was the latter.
“Magic,” the lecturer said dryly, “is a convenient word people use when they lack the data to explain a phenomenon.”
I wrote that down.
Not because I agreed, but because I had to.
That was the point of colleges.
After Magic Theory II, I had another class session. Rune Logistics.
It was a practical class. And it was a very dense class.
Our department wasn’t the only one taking the course.
The practical was in a way that dulled the imagination. Load limits. Stability ratios. Environmental interference.
It was the kind of knowledge that stripped mystery from power and replaced it with rules.
I appreciated it more than I expected.
There was comfort in rules.
By the third day, my reading sessions with Professor Llyen resumed their quiet rhythm. The parchment has long been thrown to the back of my mind. No probing questions.
Just books.
Stacks and stacks of them.
Foundational texts. Comparative rune lexicons. Fragmented translations of ancient parchments that spent more time contradicting each other than explaining anything useful.
Professor Llyen didn’t hover around me.
He usually did his own thing. He would sit at his desk, absorbed in his own work.
Occasionally, he would slide another book toward me without any comment.
The unspoken message was clear.
Read. Read. Learn.
I also complied.
I enjoyed this more than I should have.
I liked that I was able to learn many things that I didn’t understand before.
Especially things about this world that my parents or Kaelith didn’t think were important enough to tell me.
Elowen joined me on the second afternoon.
She arrived carrying so many papers that I was half-convinced she might collapse under their weight.
When she dropped into the chair opposite mine, she exhaled like someone who had been holding her breath since birth.
“I swear,” she panted, pushing stray curls out of her face, “if I see one more marginal annotation written in pre-reform syntax, I’m going to start screaming in ancient dialects.”
I smiled despite myself.
“You’d enjoy that,” I said.
She brightened immediately. “You think so? I do have the lungs for it.” She chirped.
She talked while she worked. Constantly.
Not about anything important. Not really. Observations. Complaints.
She also talked about obscure scholars whose names meant nothing to me, but apparently had ruined her week.
At first, I found it grounding.
Then overwhelming.
I didn’t want to douse her enthusiasm, so I didn’t stop her.
By the end of the session, my head buzzed not with magic theory but with the echo of her voice layering itself over every thought I tried to form.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said suddenly, without looking up.
I paused. “Why?”
She shrugged. “You’re quiet. It’s a good counterbalance.”
That startled me more than it should have.
Then I chuckled.
She was right.
Her chatter was something I really appreciated in my otherwise chaotic life.
Ironic, right?
My life was too... I don’t know. Too uncertain.
But the certainty and confidence in every word of hers filled me with a sense of comfort.
It brought me away from all the unanswered questions I always have running through my head.
We walked out together when the bell rang, the corridor flooded with students shifting between classes. Elowen waved and disappeared into the crowd, already muttering to herself about footnotes.
I stood there for a moment, oddly reluctant to leave the calm.
The academy felt peaceful.
Too peaceful.
Liriel was nowhere to be seen.
I didn’t see her in the lecture halls. She wasn’t lingering where she usually positioned herself like an ornament meant to be admired.
I noticed her absence on the third day.
Not because I missed her.
Because she never missed an opportunity.
I expected her to show up, judging by the parting remark she left that day.
It unnerved me. It hinted at something I needed to know.
I didn’t ask Kaelith about it either, because I knew that I would get a refined answer from him.
Instead, I told myself she was busy. Entertained by something else.
Which was probably true.
By the fourth day, even my thoughts about her had dulled. They were replaced by assignments. Readings. And the quiet routine of study and sleep.
Kaelith also didn’t appear randomly in my school after that day.
He only sent me a message once while I was on the school grounds. Brief. Neutral.
Rest. And don’t push yourself.
I obeyed.
The stormy night also faded from my mind.
If I dreamed, I didn’t remember it.
By the end of the week, I almost believed that whatever tension had been building was nothing more than nerves.
That the parchment had been a coincidence.
That Liriel’s words had been nothing more than provocation.
That my life, strange as it was, had settled into a manageable rhythm.
It was a comforting lie.
And like all comforting lies, it lasted just long enough to make the truth devastating.
- Writer
