Seraphina sighed.
"Yes, I know… but I can't tell you."
Kaen's eyes widened.
'So she knows.'
"Can I know the reason?"
His voice was calm.
Seraphina didn't look at him. She stared straight ahead—at the drenched plants, the wet cobblestones.
"It's none of your business."
Kaen sighed in turn.
"Anything. Anything that might help me?"
"I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do for you. I don't know why you want so much information about the third trial—is it because you want to get into that academy, or something else? Either way, I really can't help you."
'She can't. Or she won't.'
"I see," Kaen said simply.
They walked the rest of the way in silence.
'I don't even know what to think anymore.'
Behind them, Solvane was talking. Kaen wasn't listening.
The buildings came into view right in front of them.
Students were entering, some in groups of friends and some alone; some had their noses buried in their books, still studying, while others walked with their heads held high, their gaze determined, like warriors heading into battle, fully aware that they might not return home.
At the entrance, a woman in uniform was checking names off a list. Her pen paused for a split second when Kaen gave her his name.
She looked up at him, the look of someone who seemed to have heard that name not long ago.
'Huh… why does this woman look like she knows me, too?'
Solvane passed by right after him. The woman smiled at him. Azriel next—no smile, just a nod. Seraphina wasn't checked. A slight bow was enough.
They entered.
The hall was immense. Hundreds of tables, entire blocks separated by empty aisles to ease movement. The windows let in the silent morning light.
Solvane let out a small groan.
"I'm going to die here."
"You'll get through," said Kaen without looking at her.
"You keep saying that."
"Because it's true."
Seraphina left them at the entrance without a word and joined the proctors' platform. As a sophomore, she wasn't taking the exam. She was proctoring it.
Azriel stopped next to Kaen.
"Three."
Kaen turned his head toward her.
"What, three?"
"Three troubles. The word. The brother. The test."
'She caught everything.'
"Not now," he said.
Azriel nodded once and walked away to her seat.
Kaen finally found his table and sat down. He set his things down and glanced around. On the platform, he saw Seraphina exchanging a few words with another proctor; she was completely focused on her duty.
'Older than the others. A teacher, surely. They don't let just anyone proctor this room.'
Closer, a few rows in front of him, Kaen recognized someone sitting at a test-taker's table.
Lucien.
He met Kaen's gaze and smiled slightly.
Kaen looked away.
'Of course he's taking the exam too. But why did he have to be sitting so close to me?'
A loud voice echoed through the room.
"The exam will begin in five minutes. Pens, ink, paper. No books, no notes. Any attempt to cheat will result in immediate expulsion. And a debt that would take you a lifetime to repay."
Kaen picked up his pen and waited.
The papers were handed out. He looked down at the first question.
Question 4 — Applied Physics.
An object of mass m is dropped from a height h with no initial velocity. Neglecting friction, calculate its velocity at the moment of impact with the ground.
'Seriously.'
He sighed.
'The world may change, but the system keeps its inertia.'
Kaen wrote the answer in thirty seconds. He didn't even need to think—it was middle school level on Earth, and his memories of physics were perfectly intact.
He moved on to the next one.
Question 11 — History of the Empire.
In what year was Stellaris Academy founded?
Kaen knew the answer. He wrote it down without lingering and moved on.
Right next to him, separated only by an aisle, a student was sweating. The kind of student too unsure of himself, one of those who cram crouched in the hallways so as not to disappoint their parents. His trembling, clammy hands were trying to grab something from his sleeve.
A scrap of paper. Tightly folded.
Kaen didn't move. It wasn't his problem.
But someone else had seen.
A proctor stepped down from the platform and crossed the room without a sound. He laid a hand on the young man's shoulder before he could even read what was written on it.
"Stand up."
The student paled.
"No—wait, it's not—"
"Out."
The silence in the room became absolute. Hundreds of eyes followed the student as he was dragged toward the exit. No one said a word. No one needed to.
'They're making an example of him.'
But it wasn't his concern.
He picked up his pen again.
He glanced up at Azriel for a second.
She was writing.
She wasn't writing slowly or quickly. With her, even writing seemed like an art. Her hand glided across the paper, as if it were all natural, as if these questions weren't worth her time.
'She's answering as if she's already taken this exam.'
Kaen stared at her a moment too long.
Azriel didn't look up. But her pen stopped. For a second. Then started again.
'She knows I'm watching her.'
He looked down at his own paper. One question at a time.
Question 19 — History of the Great Families.
What event marked the Empire five years ago?
Kaen set down his pen.
'My own family.'
He knew the answer. The disappearance of Duke Celestain, five years earlier. Officially declared dead during a secret mission.
Officially.
Kaen picked up his pen again and wrote down the version he had been taught. Not the one that was true.
That was when the room changed.
Nothing visible happened. No one spoke. But the air grew heavier, as if the room itself were holding its breath. Kaen felt the pressure before he even saw its source. A presence that crushed everything, calm, immense.
And he recognized it at once.
'What is she doing here?'
The proctors on the platform rose as one. Below, among the candidates, even Lucien set down his pen.
The door at the back had opened.
A woman entered: black hair, red eyes, a refined gait. She wore no insignia of rank, and yet everyone in the room knew who she was.
Elisabeth von Celestain. Vice Director of Stellaris. The second most powerful person in the academy, right after the Director.
She moved slowly between the rows, her gaze sweeping the room. The students froze in her wake. Some stopped writing, as if to behold what a goddess looked like. Others stared at their papers with sudden, desperate focus.
Elisabeth lingered on no one.
Until Kaen.
Her gaze stayed on him a few seconds longer than on the others.
She showed no emotion. She looked at him the way she would have looked at any other candidate, then moved on to the next ones, without stopping this time.
But a few heads had turned.
The whispers began. Muffled, quick, just close enough to reach his ears.
"Wait… isn't that the Butcher?"
"The Celestain. The unworthy prince, the one everyone was talking about yesterday."
"And the Vice Director lingering on him… could they be related?"
'Great. Just what I needed.'
Kaen gripped his pen slightly. As a child, he'd been seen everywhere—the receptions, the balls—the Celestain heir everyone fought over. Then his parents had died, and he'd vanished from that world. Five years. Long enough for a face to be forgotten. And then there was the Butcher — a ridiculous video, a fork, a knife, and a nickname that stuck. But that the Butcher was also the unworthy heir of the Celestains—that, they'd only learned the day before.
The problem was the attention. And he'd just drawn a little too much of it.
Elisabeth reached the platform. She exchanged a few quiet words with a proctor, then turned back toward the room.
A few rows ahead, Kaen saw Lucien watching the scene. He wasn't smiling this time.
He was looking at Kaen. Then at Elisabeth. Then at Kaen again.
And slowly, he lowered his eyes to his paper and wrote something in the margin.
'That snake.'
Kaen looked down at his paper. There were still questions. There was still time. And now there were also a few students wondering whether the good-for-nothing Celestain would be given an advantage by his own sister. And others starting to doubt that this whole Butcher business was even true.
He picked up his pen again.
One question at a time.
Elisabeth stayed a little longer. She walked the rows one last time, exchanged a few words with the proctors, then headed for the exit.
Her path took her past his row.
Kaen kept his eyes on his paper. He didn't look up.
She didn't slow down. But as she passed behind him, so quietly that only he could hear, she spoke.
"You look more and more like him."
Then she walked through the door and was gone.
Kaen didn't move. His pen stayed motionless above the paper.
'Who?'
He had an idea who. He just wasn't sure.