Reincarnated as an Elf Prince

The last echoes of footfalls faded against the high vaulted walls. Mana, still faintly charged in the air, hung like the afterimage of lightning.

Cassian gave Lindarion a sympathetic grimace as he slunk out, whispering something about "survivor's guilt."

Then it was just him and Nyx.

She hadn't moved. Her arms were folded behind her back, spine rigid, posture so perfectly composed it seemed sculpted from tension.

She didn't look at him when she spoke.

"Where did you learn it to that degree?"

'Oh so I was too good..'

Lindarion said nothing at first. His expression remained neutral, but not blank. Watching. Measuring Nyx.

Nyx turned her head slightly, one strand of hair falling across her cheek.

"I asked you a question."

"I practiced, Professor." he said.

A twitch at the corner of her mouth. It wasn't amusement.

"Practice," she repeated. "You think I haven't trained obsessives before? Students who lived in the combat halls, burning their cores dry just to get one more step quicker?"

Her voice didn't rise. If anything, it grew softer.

"You didn't do it like someone who learned through repetition. You did it like someone who's done it for years. Decades."

Lindarion didn't blink. "Then I'm a prodigy, I guess."

"No," she said. "You're something else."

She stepped closer. One footfall. Two. The edge of her boot scuffed the chalk lines on the floor.

"Do you know what Combat Circulation actually does to the body?"

Lindarion's voice was steady. "Overuse leads to nerve damage, internal tearing, cognitive degradation if sustained past limit thresholds."

She smiled faintly. "Good. You know some information at least."

She closed the distance, slow and deliberate, until they were nearly eye to eye.

Up close, her mana didn't feel like heat or pressure. It felt like a blade held sideways—silent, but always ready to turn.

"But you didn't read about it. It's more like you embodied it. No stutter in your flow at all. No overcompensation. No micro-shakes in muscle response. That only happens when mana bonds with the body before the body even knows what it is."

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You were born with it."

Lindarion's jaw flexed.

"I'm just lucky to have talent," he said.

"No. Your flow isn't normal at all."

The words hung in the air like a challenge.

A truth spoken not as accusation—but recognition.

He looked at her, silent, and the silence felt heavier than any argument.

Nyx leaned in just slightly. Not threatening. Not warm.

"Do you think I wouldn't notice?" she murmured. "Of all people?"

She reached out—lightly, without force—and tapped two fingers to the side of his neck. Right where his pulse beat faintly beneath the skin.

"The way it moves here. That's not human." Her voice dropped further. "Or even elven."

Lindarion didn't pull away. Didn't flinch.

"…Then what is it?"

She stared at him for a long moment.

When she finally spoke, her voice was calm. Barely more than breath.

"That's what I intend to find out."

She stepped back then, all sharpness again, as if the moment hadn't happened.

"You're interesting, Lindarion Sunblade," she said.

He didn't move.

So she added, quieter now, "Good job returning from the assignment."

Then she turned and walked toward the far door, bootsteps echoing in a hall that suddenly felt colder than before.

Lindarion remained standing, eyes fixed on the spot she'd touched, as the sound of her departure faded into silence.

Nyx's heels clicked a sharp rhythm as she moved toward the back exit of the training hall—the one reserved for instructors, the one students were never meant to use.

Her coat flared behind her like a drawn blade. She didn't turn. Didn't speak.

Until Lindarion called out.

"…Why were you angry, professor? Are those questions the only things you wanted to ask me?"

She stopped.

It wasn't hesitation. It was calculation. One breath. Two.

Then she turned slowly, the frost still in her expression—but it wasn't aimed at him.

"I'm not angry at you specifically, Lindarion."

Her voice was flat, but not cold. Just tired.

"You think I'm mad you showed them up?" she said, tilting her head, one brow arching just slightly. "Or that you mastered something they couldn't? That you embarrassed them?"

'It does seem like that.'

Lindarion said nothing.

Nyx's jaw flexed. "You came back alive."

And for the first time since the lesson ended, there was something else in her eyes.

Relief.

"I'm glad you came back alive," she said. "All of you."

She walked closer, not enough to threaten, but enough to be sure no one overheard.

Then her tone changed.

"But I'm furious that you were sent at all."

'Huh?'

Lindarion met her eyes. "You didn't know?"

"I knew it was dangerous." Her lip curled slightly.

"But what he wrote in the assignment profile? Temporal disturbance. Mana distortion. The usual language. Like it was just another anomaly. Minor instability. No mention of trans-dimensional collapse. No mention of a beast that doesn't recognize the rules of existence. No mention of what it could do to you. I don't even know how you managed to beat that thing."

She folded her arms, tightly enough her knuckles whitened.

"Thalorin signed it. He approved of it. He knew what he was sending you into."

"He always knows about everything." Lindarion said quietly.

"Exactly." Her voice dropped to a bitter whisper. "That assignment was goddamn elimination run."

She looked past him now, toward the chalkboards still scrawled with circulation diagrams.

"You don't send an unstable talent to scout time-ruined ruins unless you want to see which ones don't make it back."

"You think it was a test."

"I think it was worse," she snapped. "A test at least implies he wants you to succeed. I think he wanted a cull."

'He wouldn't be conspiring against me, no way.'

She took a breath—steady, measured. Her control was always perfect. But even then, Lindarion saw it. The tremble at the edge of her restraint.

"I've taught multiple classes for years," Nyx said. "I've lost more than twenty students to missions. Some because of mana collapse. Most to combat. The rest? Assignments just like yours. Ones they were promised were within scope."

"You're not responsible for what he decides."

She met his gaze sharply. "If I'm not responsible, then why am I always the one standing at the gates when they bring the bodies back?"

A silence stretched between them.

Finally, she exhaled. Her arms dropped back to her sides.

"You're different," she said. "And he knows it. But that doesn't mean you're disposable."

Lindarion's voice was low. "You're the first person to say that."

Nyx smiled bitterly. "Then the rest of them are cowards."

She turned back toward the private corridor but paused just before the door.

"I don't care what he says," she murmured. "Next time he signs a death sentence, I'll know about it first."

"And if he sends us anyway?"

She glanced over her shoulder.

"I can't do much about it, but I'll teach you how to survive it."

And she was gone.

—

Lindarion walked alone, the faint thrum of residual mana still buzzing under his skin.

He had pushed harder than he meant to. Harder than he should have.

'Things are starting to turn troublesome already.'

The marble underfoot didn't echo with his steps—only with the last fragments of Nyx's voice, still lingering in memory like frost on glass.

He heard the sound before he saw her. A sharp, deliberate click of boots.

Vivienne stepped out from behind a column, posture relaxed, but her eyes said otherwise.

"I was starting to wonder if you were going to vanish again."

'Great, another troublesome thing.'

He stopped. Looked at her. Waited.

"You weren't in the dorms, in recent classes," she continued, walking slowly toward him. "You weren't anywhere."

She stopped just short of him and raised a brow.

"So. Where were you?"

'In a ruined city killing a monster that technically was alive and wasn't at the same time? Would that he a great explanation?'

He didn't answer instead.

Vivienne exhaled through her nose and gave a short laugh, like that was exactly what she expected. "Right. Secrets. You're very good at hiding stuff."

She started pacing, a few steps back and forth. Then she stopped. Her expression sharpened.

"Anyways, I don't care where you went," she said. "But you need to hear this."

'You clearly care if you asked..'

Lindarion's gaze didn't waver.

She looked past him, down the empty corridor, before continuing in a lower voice. "The upper years. Fourth and fifth years. Some of them have been watching you, after hearing some interesting rumors about you embarrassing multiple upper years."

'Again..?'

Nothing in his posture changed—but his silence turned heavier.

"And they don't like it. If you don't earn your place publicly, they'll assume you stole it."

"I didn't, and I don't want any kind of place, or anything to do with them at all." Lindarion said quietly.

"They don't care." Vivienne's jaw tightened. "They're already calling you nicknames.. Whispering that you're getting favored treatment. Special access. Secret knowledge. That you're dangerous."

Her eyes locked on his.

"They're not going to come at you in the open. That's not how the upper years work. They'll push. Probe. Isolate. They will use their connections."

Another pause. "You're not untouchable."

Lindarion studied her.

Then said, evenly, "Why are you telling me this?"

Vivienne blinked once. Then smiled without humor.

"Because I don't like watching people walk into blades they don't see coming."

And with that, she turned and left him standing alone in the corridor, the distant hum of conversations overhead murmuring like voices behind a door.