The city did not feel like a city anymore.
It felt like a courtroom where reality had already chosen a verdict and was now patiently waiting for everyone to accept it.
Ardent stood in the center of the plaza like the calmest catastrophe ever sculpted.
He was no longer fighting.
He was correcting.
One by one.
By wish.
A commander prayed that his soldiers would never betray him.
Ardent granted it.
They lost the ability to lie to him.
Every hidden fear.
Every grievance.
Every crime.
Spilled out of their mouths in uncontrollable honesty.
The commander screamed.
His command structure collapsed.
A cleric wished the enemy would understand the will of God.
Ardent granted it.
The cleric suddenly understood that God loved the people he'd just harmed, and the realization broke him to his knees.
A mage wished reality would obey.
Reality obeyed.
His magic did not.
He wept.
None of them died.
Not yet.
That was the cruelty.
They had to live with who they truly were.
And it was breaking them faster than death.
Liora watched.
Bleeding.
Shaking.
Barely conscious.
Learning.
This was lesson number two.
Lesson one:
Wishcraft is never neutral.
Lesson two:
Mercy can be horrifying.
Ardent lifted his hand again.
His pupils were haloed gold.
His voice too soft.
"Let's finish cleaning."
Something tightened in her chest.
That tone—
He'd warned her about it once.
"There is a point," he had said quietly over tea once, "where I stop being a teacher… and become a myth. And myths do not care who survives the story."
He was walking toward that line now.
He was inches away from it.
"A… Ardent…"
Her voice cracked like broken glass against stone.
He did not turn.
He did not stop.
He moved delicately toward a line of high-administrative officials, the ones who never bled for the consequences they ordered.
Their faces were white.
Their legs gone weak.
One of them—the worst, she could feel it in her bones—was glaring through terror.
Ardent smiled gently.
"There," he murmured. "The mind that rationalized children as leverage. The hand that signed it. The heart that found a way to believe it was noble."
He lifted his fingers like a pianist ready to begin.
"You wished to save this city through control," he whispered. "Let me show you what perfect control truly feels li—"
"STOP!"
His hand hovered.
Very slowly,
very reluctantly,
he turned.
Liora was standing.
She shouldn't have been able to.
Her wound soaked her clothes.
Her legs trembled.
But she stood.
She walked.
And she did it without magic.
Without pride.
Without fear.
Just stubborn humanity.
Ardent watched her like he was witnessing something infinitely rarer than power.
He smiled softly.
"Child," he said gently, "sit down before gravity remembers you."
She shook her head.
"No."
She kept walking.
Blood trailed behind her.
"You don't get to finish this lesson."
His brow arched.
"Oh? And what lesson am I teaching?"
She stopped in front of him.
Close enough to see the flickering storm behind his politeness.
"That if they do something unforgivable… then you get to become worse."
Silence.
Wind stopped.
Even the city waited.
Her voice didn't rise.
It softened.
"You told me once real monsters aren't born. They're justified."
His jaw tightened.
She swallowed.
"And you are very, very good at justifying."
He laughed quietly.
A wounded sound.
"Liora…"
She stepped closer.
Reached up.
Touched his sleeve.
Her voice broke.
"Don't become the example you warned me about."
For the first time since the plaza began breaking,
Ardent did not look ancient.
He looked tired.
So tired.
He closed his eyes.
For a heartbeat, the monster beneath the gentleman… exhaled.
Golden light dimmed.
The lattice whined in confusion.
The air remembered oxygen.
He breathed.
"…annoying child," he whispered softly.
Then he sagged.
Just a fraction.
But he stopped.
He did not destroy the officials.
He didn't redeem them either.
He simply left them with what they had done.
No narrative rewrite.
No poetic justice.
Just truth.
And sometimes, that is the most terrifying punishment imaginable.
Boots pounded.
Doors shattered.
Aiden burst into the plaza with Seris at his side.
He didn't need context.
He felt it.
He smelled fear.
He tasted magic in the air.
He saw broken men sobbing over their own honesty.
He saw Liora barely standing, blood running down her arm, hand on Ardent's sleeve.
And then he saw Ardent.
Not smiling.
Not amused.
Something undone.
"Aiden," Seris whispered, breath catching.
He swallowed.
"Yeah," he said quietly.
They had walked into a nightmare.
A structured, articulate, beautifully executed nightmare.
A dangerous truth dawned in Aiden's chest:
His mentor was not just powerful.
He was something the world begged politely not to anger.
And Liora?
Liora had just stopped him.
Not with strength.
Not with magic.
With choice.
With humanity.
With love that wasn't romantic or heroic—
just stubbornly refusing to let him be alone in the dark.
Ardent finally opened his eyes.
Not blazing anymore.
Just weary.
He looked at Liora.
Then at Aiden.
Then at Seris.
Then at the city.
"…Class dismissed," he whispered.
And for the first time,
he looked like he wished someone else had been the teacher.