The sharp, piercing screech that tore through the autumn evening air sounded like metal ripping against stone, vibrating through the thick stone walls of the East Faculty Tower and rattling the loose panes of glass in Nikolai Reindhart’s office window. Beneath the heavy folds of his fur-lined cloak, Nikolai let out a long, pathetic groan that sounded like the dying wheeze of an old bellows. He had just managed to achieve a state of comfortable semi-consciousness, his breathing slowing down to match the quiet rhythm of the late-night hours. The glowing broadsword had left the room, Garon was safely on his way back to his dormitory, and peace had supposedly returned to the realm. "Must be Tuesday," Nikolai muttered into the dark padding of his collar, refusing to move a single muscle. "Every time I manage to help a student, some ungodly creature decides to announce its presence in the central courtyard just to ruin my evening. If I ignore it, maybe it will assume the academy is closed and go terrorize the administration building instead." A second screech followed, sharper and closer than the first, accompanied by the chaotic sound of shouting voices and the unmistakable hum of high-tier elemental spellcraft discharging in the distance. Nikolai sighed, a profound, shuddering exhalation of pure spiritual defeat. He knew how this story went. If he stayed in his chair, whatever was screaming outside would eventually tear through the faculty doors, wreck the antique furniture he hadn't cleaned in years, and force him to fill out triplicate accident reports for Dean Alistair. Slowly, painfully, Nikolai unfolded his long limbs from the sagging leather armchair. He dragged his feet across the floorboards, grabbing his ivory-handled walking cane from the umbrella stand near the door—not because he needed it for support, but because it made an excellent prop for looking like an exceedingly fragile, deeply inconvenienced aristocrat. He pulled the heavy oak door open and stepped out into the dimly lit stone corridor. The air outside was biting cold, carrying the faint, metallic scent of ozone and scorching earth. Nikolai shuffled down the spiral staircase at a geological pace, his boots clicking softly against the steps. By the time he reached the ground floor and pushed open the heavy side exit leading out toward the grand courtyard, the scene unfolding under the silver glow of the twin moons was entirely chaotic. The sprawling, manicured lawn of the academy's central courtyard looked like a war zone. Scorched patches of grass smoked lazily under a light dusting of frost, and several stone benches had been splintered into fine debris. In the center of the open lawn, a swirling tempest of crackling, violent energy was thrashing wildly. Surrounding the tempest were half a dozen advanced students from the storm-weaver and lightning-conduit departments, their hands glowing with dangerous arcs of blue-white electricity as they tried to subdue the anomaly. Among them, desperately trying to maintain a crumbling defensive barrier, was a young student with unruly blonde hair and soot-stained robes named Julian. Julian was a third-year lightning specialist whose family had scraped together their last copper coins to buy him a set of high-grade copper conduction bracers. Yet, every time he tried to channel lightning through his conduits, the current twisted out of control, sparking wildly in random directions and threatening to incinerate his fellow classmates. "Keep your focus!" shouted an older supervising proctor from the sidelines, his voice laced with panic as he raised his own wand. "The containment ward is failing! If that elemental core overloads, the entire courtyard will blow sky-high!" Julian’s face was pale, his eyes wide with absolute terror. His arms shook violently under the immense weight of the electrical current surging through his body. The lightning wasn't obeying him; it was tearing through his spiritual pathways, burning his skin and threatening to shatter his internal core. "I... I can't hold it!" Julian screamed over the deafening roar of crackling energy. "The current is too fast! It's rejecting my conduit!" The proctor raised his wand, preparing to unleash a destructive suppression spell that would undoubtedly blast Julian backward and permanently shatter the young student's arcane pathways, effectively ending his magical career forever in the name of institutional safety. Nikolai stopped walking near the edge of the shadow cast by the colonnade. He took in the entire scene in a single lazy glance. He saw the panicked proctor, the terrified classmates, and, most importantly, the trembling, weeping boy standing at the eye of the storm, about to be sacrificed on the altar of sloppy spellcraft. Damn it all, Nikolai thought, his heart sinking under the unbearable weight of his own persistent empathy. Can't a man enjoy a single night of uninterrupted misery without having to save someone's career every ten minutes? With a slow, exaggerated sigh, Nikolai raised his ivory-handled cane and tapped it sharply against the stone flagstones. Clack. The sound wasn't loud, but the moment the tip of the cane touched the ground, an absolute, overwhelming wave of passive, transcendent authority rippled outward across the courtyard. It wasn't an explosion of magic; it was a profound, suffocating drop in pressure—a universal command for everything in the immediate vicinity to instantly shut up and calm down. The violent, roaring tempest of crackling electricity stopped dead in its tracks. The arcs of blue-white lightning froze mid-air, sputtering out like candles caught in a sudden vacuum. Silence descended upon the courtyard so abruptly that the crickets in the nearby bushes seemed too afraid to chirp. Every single head snapped around toward the shadows of the colonnade. The proctor lowered his wand with trembling hands, his mouth hanging open in sheer disbelief. In the center of the lawn, Julian collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath as the scorching heat draining his energy vanished completely. Nikolai stepped out of the shadows, his dark fur-lined cloak sweeping softly across the grass. He moved with an excruciatingly slow, unbothered gait, looking more like an aristocratic gentleman taking a leisurely evening stroll than a grandmaster capable of suppressing a magical catastrophe with a single tap of a stick. "Master Julian," Nikolai drawled, his voice carrying clearly across the quiet courtyard, dripping with profound, aristocratic boredom. "Is this your idea of a late-night light show? Because frankly, the choreography is terribly unrefined, and the noise level is deeply disrespectful to those of us trying to sleep." Julian looked up from the grass, his amber-streaked eyes wide with tearful astonishment as he stared at the notoriously lazy professor who had just pulled him from the jaws of permanent ruin. "P-Professor Reindhart..." Julian choked out, his voice shaking. "I... I lost control. The lightning... it wouldn't listen to my conduits." Nikolai stopped a few paces away from the kneeling student, leaning casually on his cane. He looked down at the smoking copper bracers strapped to Julian's forearms. "Of course it wouldn't listen, you absolute fool," Nikolai sighed, shaking his head. "You're trying to shove lightning through a metal pipe like water through a garden hose. Lightning isn't water. It isn't a physical stream you can force through a narrow channel. Lightning is pure, unadulterated impatience. It's the sky trying to touch the earth in a fraction of a second." The proctor stepped forward, his face flushed with a mix of embarrassment and defensive authority. "Professor Reindhart! This student's conduit configuration violates standard lightning-conduit protocols! If he doesn't use rigid metal channels to ground the charge, he's a danger to the entire academy!" Nikolai didn't even bother to look at the proctor. He kept his gaze fixed entirely on Julian, raising one hand lazily and gesturing toward the sky. "Protocols," Nikolai muttered dismissively, rolling his eyes toward the twin moons. "Written by old men who are terrified of a little spark. Listen to me, Julian. Take those clumsy copper bracers off your arms right now." Julian blinked, hesitating for a fraction of a second. Then, with trembling hands, he unbuckled the heavy metal bracers and let them drop clattering to the grass. "Now," Nikolai commanded softly, his voice dropping into a low, resonant register that vibrated straight through the student's chest. "Close your eyes. Stop trying to fight the current, and stop trying to build a cage for the storm. Just... invite the sky into your fingertips. Be the lightning." Julian took a deep, shuddering breath. He closed his eyes, letting his arms hang loosely at his sides. For a heartbeat, the courtyard remained utterly still. Then, a soft, harmonious hum of golden-blue light rippled across Julian’s skin. The wild, destructive arcs of electricity didn't explode outward; instead, they smoothly wove themselves around his fingers like gentle ribbons of starlight, perfectly controlled, utterly silent, and unimaginably powerful. Julian opened his eyes, staring at his bare hands in sheer, unadulterated awe as the swirling energy danced at his command without burning so much as a single hair on his arms. "I... I feel it," Julian whispered, a radiant smile breaking through his tear-stained face. "It's... it's weightless." The proctor and the surrounding students stood frozen, paralyzed by the sheer impossibility of what they were witnessing. Nikolai let out a long, heavy sigh, turning back toward the East Tower with a sluggish wave of his hand. "Yes, well, save the light show for your practical exam tomorrow," Nikolai drawled over his shoulder as he ambled away. "And please, next time you decide to summon a thunderstorm, do it somewhere far away from my bedroom window." He shuffled back into the shadows of the colonnade, muttering complaints under his breath, utterly unaware that as he turned the corner toward the staircase, a cloaked figure was standing in the dark archway, watching his every move with narrowed, calculating eyes.

Chapter 18: The Screech in the Courtyard