AETHON:Demons in steel

The classroom hummed with the quiet energy of first-year students, their robes still crisp, their wands untouched by true magic. At the front, Professor Eldrin—a man whose silver beard seemed to contain entire constellations—leaned against his oak desk, which was carved with runes that flickered faintly in the dim light.

"Tell me," he said, his voice like wind through ancient parchment, "how many Schools of Magic shapes our world?"

Silence. Then—

A hand shot up Lirien, her blonde braids pinned back with a silver clasp, adjusted her round glasses. "Eight, Professor," she said, clear and confident. "Warding, Summoning, Divination, Enchantment, Invocation, Illusion, Alteration, and Necromancy."

" yes, you are right young magus " Eldrin's eyes twinkled. "Though most people agree there are eight but in some instance there have been some cases where some argue there are nine… but we'll discuss that later." His gaze lingered on a shadowed corner of the room before turning back. "These are not just categories—they are living philosophies, each with a will of its own."

His murmur rippled through the class was like the first stirring of leaves before a storm—soft, but charged with something electric. Eldrin's voice dropped lower, weaving through the silence like smoke.

"Divination," he said, "is not mere fortune-telling—it is the art of listening to a universe that is always speaking. The stars hum. The wind carries secrets. Even the cracks in the floorboards whisper, if you know how to hear them." He tapped his temple. "A true diviner does not seek answers. They learn how to be asked."

A shiver ran through the room.

"Enchantment?" His lips curled, not quite a smile. "Ah. The most dangerous of all, for it does not bend the world, but the mind. A sword can kill a man, but a word can make him want to die. A whisper can turn a friend into a foe, a king into a puppet. And the cruelest trick?" He paused. "The enchanted rarely know they've been changed."

The students exchanged uneasy glances.

Then Eldrin raised his hand. A tongue of blue flame curled from his fingertips, dancing like a living thing. "Invocation," he said, and the fire pulsed in time with his words, "is the school of raw creation. It does not manipulate what is—it pulls power from the unseen, from the spaces between breaths, from the dark behind your eyelids. To invoke is to demand that the universe yield its secrets."

The flame twisted, forming a shape—a bird, a serpent, a rune none could name—before vanishing in a wisp of smoke.

"Illusion," he continued, "is truth wrapped in lies. The greatest illusions are not those that deceive the eye, but those that make you question your own senses long after the spell has faded. And Alteration?" His fingers brushed the edge of his desk, and for a heartbeat, the oak rippled like water. "It is the defiance of nature's laws. To alter is to say: This world is not fixed. I will remake it."

The wood stilled. Eldrin's expression darkened. "And Necromancy…" The word hung like a corpse on a noose. "Ah, but we will devote an entire term to that. For now, remember this: Death is a door. Necromancy is the art of knocking."

A beat of silence. Then, from the back of the room, a hesitant voice:

"Professor… you said some argue there are nine?"

Eldrin's smile was slow, enigmatic, the kind that made the air itself feel heavier. "Indeed. The Ninth is… debated. Some call it Forgetting. Others, the Unschool. The magic that erases itself from memory, that slips through the cracks of the known." His eyes flicked to the shadowed corner again—just for an instant. "It is the spell you cannot remember casting. The name that dissolves on your tongue. The door in the hallway that wasn't there yesterday."

A few students shifted in their seats. Someone swallowed audibly.

"But that," Eldrin said, straightening, "is a lesson for another day."

The bell tolled, its deep chime shattering the tension. The students stirred, their minds buzzing with possibilities, with half-formed questions, with the creeping sense that the world was far stranger than they'd ever imagined.

"Has it always been like this in his classes, strange?" aethon asked his seat partner