"No"
The voice came broken, trembling not from Maximus, but from the woman who had raised him.
His mother.
She took a shaky step backward, her eyes wide with disbelief.
"No, that's a lie."
Her voice cracked.
"He can't be... he can't be from that bloodline!"
Her hands shot forward and yanked Maximus toward her, as if shielding him from the truth itself.
"My son… is not from that traitorous blood! You're lying!"
Maximus blinked, confused.
Max blinked, confused. "…Traitorous blood?"
He frowned slightly, trying to place the words.
He remembered stories half-laughed myths told by drunk village elders to scare children into behaving. Warnings. Rhymes. Old tales about someone with a cursed name.
Stormhart
A name that made mothers pull their children inside when he walked past.
Maybe that's why the village never let him close. Why even the other boys avoided his eyes.
"I think I heard something like that before" he muttered. "Someone who betrayed all the races? A man with blue eyes?" he thought
The old man beside Endeved nodded mysteriously. His voice was quiet, but unwavering.
"It's true, child. Fate does not always choose gently. This boy's destiny was never meant to be normal."
He turned to the trembling woman at Max's side.
"Look at his eyes. The blue. The red. You may remember more than I do."
Max's mother stared up at him frozen.
Then something inside her snapped.
"NO!" she screamed, eyes wild. "That's impossible! That was thousands of years ago!"
Her voice was shrill, hysterical.
"And even then, the legends say that man never married! He died alone. If he even existed!"
Her hand clutched Max's arm tighter. "He didn't have a bloodline! That blood is dead it has to be! My son's eyes are just just natural or maybe from magic or sometbut not that!"
She pulled Max closer, her grip now trembling.
"It doesn't mean he's that man's descendant."
Max stared at her.
He'd never seen her afraid like this.
Not like this.
Her fear wasn't for herself it was for him.
But not fear that they'd hurt him.
Fear of what he might.
The old man raised his hands slowly in peace.
"Please," he said gently. "We are not here to harm either of you. Even if he is the descendant of a traitor, we've made no move to strike him. We came because of the family magic something ancient, something we haven't sensed in lifetimes."
Endeved stepped forward with measured calm.
"When we arrived, we didn't attack. We saved him too from further harm. Please try to understand. Let us talk."
But the woman wasn't listening.
Her eyes were locked on Max.
Her body trembled.
Her heart had already made its choice.
"We have to go," she whispered to him. "Now."
Max blinked.
"Mother?"
Her hand gripped his wrist tightly.
"Please, Max. We have to leave. These people… if they believe that name, they'll take you from me."
And in that moment, Maximus realized
She wasn't afraid of them.
She was afraid they were right.
And that fear
Was deeper than anything Max had ever seen in her.
Just as she was about to pull Maximus and flee, Fledrock stepped forward, shaking his head with a calm, deliberate motion.
"Allow me to introduce myself properly."
His voice was soft, almost amused. Then ~tap.
Click.
He brought the tip of his cane down gently on the wooden floor.
And in that moment the world shifted.
It began as a ripple, as if the floor had turned to water Waves of soft distortion spreading outward from where the cane touched.
Maximus and his mother froze.
The walls dissolved. The ceiling vanished. Even the floor beneath them faded.
Everything turned black.
Not empty but cosmic.
A void like the heart of space swallowed the room, infinite and silent. Stars~ no, particles began to appear all around them. Floating, drifting, glowing.
Blue.
Purple.
Red.
Gold.
Thousands of lights, like living stardust, flickered across the endless night.
"What is this?" Maximus whispered, stepping back instinctively. His mother clutched his arm tighter.
Max looked down, but there was no floor only stars.
He looked up, and it was the same.
They were standing in a sea of infinity, where time had no weight and space had no end.
And then colors bloomed.
Around Fledrock, the particles glowed with radiant rainbow light, swirling and orbiting him like galaxies caught in slow motion.
Each shimmer painted him in a hundred hues, casting dancing reflections that made him seem both ancient and impossibly alive.
"My name," the old man said, his voice now echoing slightly, "is Magnus Fledrock."
"Headmaster of the Saladors Arcane School of Magic and Knowledge."
He extended a hand toward the green-haired man beside him, who now stood at the heart of a swirling green inferno an aura so intense it looked like the very concept of nature had been set ablaze.
"And this will be your professor," Magnus continued, "Sir Julian Endeved, Professor of Magical Ethics and Mysteries."
At the sound of that name, Max's mother gasped.
Her lips moved without thought.
"The Living Grimoire…"
Her voice was little more than breath reverent, instinctive. Goosebumps raced along her arms. Her eyes wide, unblinking.
The colors around Magnus flared brighter, casting arcs of prismatic light across the void.
She stared at him, heart thundering in her chest.
"The Headmaster... of the Majestic Arcane."
That name didn't belong in a small, snow-covered hut.
It belonged in legend. In cathedrals of spellwork and towers of time.
Even his title carried weight.
The most ancient, most powerful magic school in the world.
Whispered in stories. Etched in tomes.
Her lips trembled.
Even she who never doesn't know much about magic knows this name.
One can fathom just how~
"Are you really…" she began, her voice faltering.
Then she swallowed hard.
The look in her eyes changed from fear, to awe.
Meanwhile, Maximus barely noticed.
He was still staring up.
Still lost in the colors.
Still breathing in the impossible beauty.
His eyes gleamed. Wonder-struck. Weightless.
For a moment, the pain on his body scratches, cuts, splinters none of it existed.
He'd forgotten it all.
His world had become stardust and color.
Julian watched him, something soft flickering behind his eyes.
Those eyes… just like his.
The same wide-eyed hunger. The same untamed curiosity. A reflection from a long-gone past.
Magnus watched too, the corner of his lips curling.
Like watching a child fall in love with magic for the very first time.
Max's mother looked at her boy. Really looked.
At the small wounds on his face. At the way he bled without noticing. At the stupid, pure, giddy smile lighting up his face.
He didn't even realize he was hurt.
He loved this.
She saw it.
And her heart broke, quietly.
"He loves magic…" she whispered inwardly, eyes glistening with both pride and sorrow.
Her hand anxiously rubbed her other arm.
He loves magic.
She smiled faintly but her eyes... were sad.
This dumb idiot of mine... she thought.
She looked toward the old man, as if to speak, but Magnus raised a single hand, eyes never leaving Max.
A silent gesture: Let him be.
Maximus reached again another floating light.
It vanished at his touch.
They weren't solid. Just magic. Just dreams.
Ideas in motion.
"Wait… you said my professor?" Max turned to Magnus, eyebrows pinched.
"What do you mean my professor?"
Magnus's smile deepened.
Exactly what I said, young Stormhart."
Magnus's voice carried a quiet certainty, like a book being closed on a truth too old to deny.
"Yours."
Maximus stared at him, trying to make sense of the weight behind that one word.
Magnus let the silence breathe before continuing.
"After deep consideration," he said, tone light but deliberate, "I've decided to invite you to Saladors under my personal authority, and through a special scholarship."
His gaze shifted toward Max's mother as he added gently, "Of course… only with permission."
The word permission wasn't just a courtesy. It was a thread pulled tight between what was being offered… and what might be lost.
Max's mother flinched.
Her hand twitched in Max's grip just barely but he felt it. Like something inside her caved in, quiet and unseen.
"What's that?" Max asked, voice low. Curious. Guarded.
He didn't understand why her shoulders tensed at the mention of this place.
"Saladors," Magnus said softly, "is not just a school. It is the school. The oldest sanctuary of magic, the beating heart of arcane thought. A place where knowledge lives, and power is shaped."
Then he looked Max in the eyes and smiled.
"It's where you'll begin to understand who you are, Maximus son of—."
---