Chapter 14: Mirror of Chaos

“What is more terrifying for an architect: an error in their own blueprint, or the realization that the meticulously designed blueprint is merely an illusion?”

“Wake up, sleepyhead!” Catherine’s voice sounded before my body had managed to restore its required rhythm of rest.

She leaned over me, her face so close I could feel the warmth of her breath on my cheek—a living, chaotic warmth that had become a familiar intrusion into my calibrated space.

“What is it, Catherine?” I asked, my voice slightly hoarse as I continued to analyze the fragmented data from the interrupted sleep cycle.

“Have you forgotten?! Rector Terren isn’t canceling the Duality Ball!”

She was beaming, like a child promised an entire universe. Her emotional field was abnormally high, and it was impossible to ignore. However, the “Duality Ball” was, to me, merely a ritual saturated with entropy—a senseless waste of time on dancing and obsolete traditions.

“And?… Do you think I find that interesting?” I responded, shaking my head slightly on the pillow.

Catherine recoiled sharply. Her radiance vanished, replaced by an almost painful disappointment. And in that moment, something shifted inside me. Not just shifted—it cracked. A cold, alien knot materialized from nowhere, a dissonance in the perfect geometry of my essence. My internal balance, calibrated over trillions of years, had failed. I tried to classify the sensation. Anxiety? I had never experienced anything like it. This sensation belonged neither to Order nor to Darkness. It was… other. Wrong. A virus in a flawless code.

Chaos, a glacial thought raced through my consciousness. It has seeped inside. I am corrupted…

Catherine planted her hands on her hips, and her voice, full of unconcealed disappointment, interrupted my calculations. “What do you mean—not interesting?!”

She held my gaze, and a sinister chill ran through me, sending my entire being into a logical dead end. The question “why am I feeling this” became key, and the most paradoxical thing was that I could not block these chaotic impulses…

“I am not one for dancing, believe me…” I managed to answer, trying to close the subject of the ball as quickly as possible. “And I do not appreciate invasions of my personal space.”

“Hey! Was that a jab at me?!” She turned sharply to the window, crossing her arms over her chest. Her offense was predictable, which could not be said for my internal reaction to it.

“It is not about you,” I replied, my voice becoming even more level, detached, and cold—a dead giveaway of my deception. “I am stating a fact: I am not going to the ball.”

Catherine spun around.

“Arta! How can you say that?! I was imagining how we would choose dresses—you in something dark and gold, and I… it doesn’t matter! How we would spin in a dance to the music, and everyone would watch! Do you even understand, I’ve dreamed of this for years, and instead, every evening I’m swinging a sword like a soldier!” Her voice trembled with emotion. “Please!” She pressed her palms together and rested her cheek against them, as if begging a parent for a gift.

A foolish, inefficient tactic. My decision should have remained unshakeable, even as the internal anxiety continued to grow, like rust corroding a perfect mechanism.

“Catherine, if you want to go—go. I have never restricted you in anything,” I replied, hoping to close the matter.

She took her hands from her face, a sharp smirk on her lips. “Not restricted? Perhaps.” She paused. “But let’s be honest, Artalis, you are always acting like an egoist! Is it really so hard to just go with me? I’m not asking for much!”

She did not understand. It was not about egoism, but about inefficiency and… and now, about my internal state. Her emotions were affecting my structure, and it was unbearable. It was proof of my vulnerability. Of my corruption.

“I said I will not dance,” I forced out, turning my head to the wall so I wouldn’t have to look at her.

“Is that so?…” Catherine clenched her teeth, her gaze hardening, but it held not anger, but determination. “Well, you just wait. I’ll show you.”

She turned and left the room decisively. The door closed behind her with a sound slightly louder than was necessary at such an early hour.

I was left alone. The anxiety did not subside; it pulsed within me, a quiet but insistent dissonance. There was no point in trying to sleep. I got up from the bed, dressed in my academic uniform, and, taking my coat, went out into the corridor. I needed space, air, and silence. I needed to understand how to excise this alien feeling from my structure before it consumed me entirely.

***

The walk outside was not aimless—it was a search. A search for silence, for a space where I could isolate and analyze the alien internal dissonance that had been pulsing within me since morning. The cold stone walls, the familiar rhythm of my steps, the vaulted archways… I walked until I reached the inner park between the dormitories. It was well-kept even in winter: the paths were neatly cleared, and the bare branches of the shrubs, covered in frost, stuck out from under the snow like the bones of a dead garden.

Walking further, toward the blocks of the ordinary dormitories, I came across her—Lilian Grace.

Her, of all people. A living embodiment of what I feared most. Dissonance. A conflict of incompatible systems, dressed entirely inappropriately for the weather. No hat, a thin scarf, as if deliberately taunting the cold. It was foolish. To sit on a frozen stone at her age was a symptom of either stubbornness or a lack of basic self-care. The latter was more likely. My internal sense of anxiety—this elusive “itch” within my own structure—only intensified. She was a mirror. A grotesque, but accurate mirror of what could happen to me if this “Catherine virus”—this irrational attachment—finally merged with my structure and tore it apart from within.

I did not want to stop, but she rose and quickly approached me.

“Hello, Artalis!” she said with a cautious smile.

“Hello, Lilian,” I responded, without the slightest desire to engage.

Her cheeks flushed slightly. “I just… wanted to congratulate you on your transfer to the second year! You and Catherine are true heroes!”

“One does not become a hero for passing examinations. A hero alters the trajectory of history,” I corrected her, my tone leaving no room for debate.

“But still… for me, you are heroes. Especially Catherine. She seemed… before the prosthesis,” she hesitated, “and now she has become amazing and unattainable. And you… You control Order magic in a way I can’t even explain.”

“I assume you did not approach me for these words,” I clarified in a more serious tone. “May I ask why?”

“I… I need help.” She lowered her eyes. “I can’t manage either Chaos or Order magic. Everything falls apart. I’m only asking for five minutes. Please…”

Her words were not a request for help. It was a request for an autopsy. She was offering me her chaos to dissect, so that I could understand the nature of my own corruption. And I… I could not refuse.

“Lilian, what specifically do you want to know?” I asked, resigned.

“Umm… I didn’t think you’d agree so quickly!” she exclaimed cheerfully. “Uhhh… well, I wanted to know how to make my magic more stable?…” she finished uncertainly.

I sighed. The question was predictable. “You know, Lilian, that is a complex question that delves into an art I do not advise you to use. Therefore, the most effective solution is to renounce either Chaos magic or Order magic. Together, they will destroy you.”

A flicker of reproach crossed her gaze. “And I thought you were so strong…”

“I am strong,” I replied. “But only because I know the fundamentals. One should not mix what is not meant to be mixed.”

“But what should I do? I really don’t understand, Artalis…” she froze.

“I have already said everything.”

Understanding that words were not enough, I stepped back a few paces and extended my hand. Golden threads of Order began to converge, forming an energy blade. Each line fell into place—perfectly, as absolute logic dictates.

“Do you see?” I asked. “This is the power of control.” I made several swings with the blade. “Now, you try. Imagine the structure. Clear your head. Let the form be born.”

“But how? I don’t know such a spell,” Lilian tried to resist.

“You do not need to create a perfect blade. Just imagine the structure of a sword in your hand, free your head from emotions and noise, and then imagine how the structure in the form of golden threads takes shape.”

Lilian nodded and extended her hand. A golden light flared in her palm—an almost coherent stream, but in the next second, scarlet sparks bit into it like poison. From this mixture, something… unnatural began to form. It was not a fusion, but a grotesque grafting—as if someone were trying to stitch together fire and ice. For a moment, it seemed to me that this monstrous chimera would find stability, but then it shuddered, as if realizing its own impossibility, and collapsed in on itself. The air trembled. The sparks died. Everything vanished.

“I suppose the lesson is over,” I replied, shaking my head slightly, imagining how my own perfectly calibrated essence would fall apart in a similar manner.

Lilian was silent, tears welling in the corners of her eyes.

“You are not failing because you are weak,” I said, “but because you are trying to control two currents while standing on different banks of a river. You must choose one bank. Either you are structure, and then you cut off emotions. Or you are impulse, and then you forget about logic. There is no third way. At least, not for you.”

She continued to remain silent.

“You must try, Lilian. Otherwise, it will end very badly. This is no joke,” I added.

Lilian nodded, turned, and walked away quickly. Perhaps it was her way of saying goodbye, or perhaps it was a simple fear of losing face in front of someone she called a “hero.”

After walking a few more circles around the park and failing to rid myself of the feeling of anxiety, I decided to return to my room. The warm air from the fireplaces of the prestigious building quickly warmed my skin, but my internal state remained unchanged.

***

When I returned to my room, it was still empty. Catherine had not come back, and the silence in the room became dense, almost tangible. It brought no relief, but rather pressed down, like the weight of an unlived day. I sat down in a chair, placed my hands on the smooth, cold surface of the writing desk, and began to observe the flawlessly plastered white wall that Catherine and I had wiped down from dust a few days ago. And then a memory surfaced in my consciousness—a bright, unbidden flash: Catherine, laughing at an inkblot on the floor when she accidentally knocked over an inkwell, her face illuminated by the lamplight… And my reproach, when I told her she had created extra work for us, which she had simply brushed off.

At that moment, as I was immersed in the analysis of memories, I felt the “itch” recede… It did not disappear completely, but its insistent vibration subsided, replaced by a warm, almost palpable calm.

It lasted only a moment, but it was enough. The realization struck with the cold precision of a scalpel. The relief was not brought by my effort of will, not by a protocol of control. The relief was brought by the chaotic, irrational image of a mortal girl.

My structure had found solace in what was supposed to destroy it.

I tried to regain control. To restore the initial state—a cold, clean void. To erect a wall. But the wall would not be built. This peace, this warm spot in my essence, was not an external enemy that could be cut off…

I clenched my fist and shook my head like an incurable patient, and my body’s reaction was a cold chill…

Perhaps I would have remained in this state longer, had the door to the room not opened quietly. Catherine was not alone. Her face was serious, without the morning’s enthusiasm, but also without the offense with which she had left. She approached and stood behind me, forcing me to turn.

“Meet Eloisa Garci.” Catherine gestured with both hands at the girl standing in the doorway.

The brown-eyed student with a shock of chestnut hair braided into two pigtails waved at me.

“Hello, Artalis!” she said brightly, not hiding her inner excitement.

I nodded in response, mechanically raising my hand. I recognized her; it was the same girl from the music circle whom I had seen at the beginning of the year.

“So…” Catherine began. “Forget about the ball. There’s another idea that even you might like. I understand you don’t want to dance, but what about playing the piano?”

“Yes, Artalis, Madame Grunsier is looking for someone to perform the main composition, ‘Duality,’ at the ball,” Eloisa chimed in, hesitating slightly. “It just so happens that this year in the music circle, there’s no one who can play the piano, and it’s not quite right for the teacher to perform herself.”

“Yes, Arta, tell me, can you play the piano?” Catherine asked, a fragile hope flickering in her eyes.

I looked into her blue eyes, which reflected the cold light from the window, and exhaled through my nose. Of course, I could play the piano, as I could any other musical instrument, but I had absolutely no desire to do so.

Eloisa took a few steps forward, and soon she and Catherine had surrounded me. Her sincerity was almost painful, and I understood that another emotional attack was being prepared against me.

“Catherine said you might refuse, but, Artalis, you really have beautiful hands. With fingers like these… Please, just go to the audition! Even if you can’t play, I’m willing to practice with you even at night! We’ll just memorize the sequence without knowing musical notation,” Eloisa said, and her voice trembled, as if this were even more important to her than it was to Catherine.

I sighed again and shifted my gaze from Eloisa to Catherine, who was silently awaiting my decision.

“Tell me, Catherine, you’ll be offended if I refuse, won’t you?”

She froze, her hand clenching into a fist.

“You’re already planning to refuse? Seriously, Arta?” she shook her head.

“I can play the piano,” I said, making a decision. Not for them. For myself. This would be an experiment. The only way to analyze the anomaly was to provoke it under controlled conditions. The hypothesis was simple and terrible: if her positive emotional state stabilized my internal dissonance, then a connection between our structures existed.

“Is this catastrophe caused by the prosthesis and the particle of my essence within it?” another cold thought flashed through my mind. No, I was absolutely certain that this particle was isolated and served only to enhance Catherine’s abilities in Darkness and Order magic.

“Really?!” Eloisa babbled, almost jumping up and clapping her hands from her overflowing emotions.

“Arta, please, just try…” Catherine added quietly.

I nodded.

“Alright,” I said coldly, maintaining a mask of indifference. “Since it is necessary, I will try. Just do not place high hopes on me.”

Catherine’s face lit up with such sincere joy that I noted an instant change in her vector. And in that same moment… the “itch” inside me ceased. The anxiety disappeared, as if it had been cut out with a scalpel, as if a fever that had lasted for days, of which I had not even been aware, had broken. The experiment confirmed the terrible hypothesis. And from this, a cold chill ran through my shell again, having nothing to do with temperature. I am vulnerable. My internal stability now depended on the emotions of another being. My internal state depends on this mortal creature… I, Order-Darkness, have become a victim of Chaos.

“Then, see you in Eltar!” Eloisa babbled. “Catherine, thank you!” She smiled broadly and looked at me. “Artalis, in that case, I will come to you in the morning.” She looked at Catherine again. “And yes, Catherine, if you go with Artalis to get dresses, make sure Arta gets a fitted dress. The requirements for musicians are quite strict,” she said, as if she considered me completely unreliable for such a task.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. She will be irresistible,” Catherine placed a hand on my shoulder, as if everything had already been decided for me.

Eloisa smiled.

“In that case, I’ll be off! Catherine, you should come to the audition too!” Eloisa waved, shifted her gaze to me, smiled mysteriously, and slipped out of our room as if she had never been there.

I looked at Catherine, who still held her hand on my shoulder like a victor.

“I hope you’re satisfied?” I clarified, checking my internal sensations.

“Very!” Catherine placed her other hand on my other shoulder and smiled sincerely. “Tomorrow, we’re going for dresses!”

She wanted to say something else, when suddenly someone knocked on our door.

***

Catherine went to the door, opened it unhurriedly, and, upon seeing the person behind it, straightened up like a string. Standing at the door was the rector—Major Terren himself.

“Good morning, Rector,” Catherine said reservedly, stepping aside.

Terren surveyed the room. His gaze was swift but not superficial—he was not looking for disorder, but for vulnerability. Finding none, he fixed his gaze on me.

“Miss Nox. Please come with me,” his voice, despite its calmness, concealed a multi-layered undertone, as if something were greatly troubling him.

Catherine looked at me—with an unspoken “be careful.” I nodded.

All that was left was to follow him. We both knew that any words in Terren’s presence were already politics.

His office had changed. It had taken on new features—harsher, almost militaristic. The air smelled of polished wood, expensive leather, and a stale, unspoken rage. The walls had been repainted a deep burgundy, which seemed to absorb the light. Instead of the portraits of the twin queens, a single, severe visage of the first king, Greyvan, now hung, his gaze seeming to condemn all that was happening. Terren was no longer just managing the academy. He was demonstrating: he was power.

He sat down at a massive mahogany desk that seemed more like a barricade than furniture. His posture was slightly deliberate, but that did not make him any less dangerous. Especially considering my “pact” with Evelina.

“Miss Nox,” he began. “What do you think I have summoned you for?”

I shrugged, feigning sincere incomprehension. Simplicity sometimes works better than the strongest defense. “I hope it is not because I am going to play the piano?”

He grunted. “Artalis Nox. If I spent my time on such nonsense, the country would have already fallen.” He smiled slightly. “I want to talk. I heard what you did in Sumerenn. It is worthy of respect. Consider that you saved the royal family.”

“I acted in accordance with tactical necessity, Mr. Rector.”

“Do not brush it off,” his voice grew harsher. “Do you understand what is happening in the country right now?”

“I am aware of the general situation. However, as you know, my status as a foreigner imposes certain restrictions on my participation.”

“Stop it, Artalis!” He struck the desk with his fist, softly, but with weight. “You yourself agreed to be Evelina Valtheim’s mage-guardian.”

“My appointment was dictated by necessity. I have no other comments.”

He leaned forward, and the light from the window fell on his face, highlighting the deep wrinkles around his eyes. “Listen. I do not care who you are or where you are from. But tell me, do you have even a five percent idea of why you are here?”

“I have no idea. Please explain.”

He exhaled, taking a short, tense pause. “I cannot speak directly. But you, as a woman, should understand what other women are capable of. And right now, I am not talking about Evelina.”

“Vespera Tenemhbright?” I clarified, without a hint of interest.

“Yes, that whore!” he barked. His aristocratic composure cracked, revealing the raw fury of a soldier. “She is sleeping with Frederik and twists him around her finger as she pleases! Manipulates him like the last puppet!”

Ironic. It was not her influence that angered him. It was his own powerlessness. He was not looking for an ally. He was looking for a weapon. And I was not the one who was meant to become it.

“You want me to separate them? Do you think I have nothing better to do?”

“No! I want someone who still can to do something!” He leaned back, then forward again. “I trained Frederik when he was six. Now he is under the influence of a woman whose only goal is power. This is a tragedy, Artalis.”

“How exactly can I help?” I clarified politely.

“You are the only one, besides Evelina, whom I can trust. You are not quite one of us. Just keep your eyes open. Intervene, if you can. Even a little.”

“I understand your concern. However, my direct influence on this situation is limited.”

“If you had not destroyed those cultists in the capital, I would not have thought to turn to you!” He leaned forward, his eyes drilling into me, as if trying to bore a hole in my impenetrability. “If nothing is done, we will lose the country. And I am not talking about the throne. But about the structure.”

“And are you sure that I, as a ‘foreigner,’ should care?” I deliberately smiled with the corners of my lips.

“No. But I remind you: you are studying at my academy. And if you do not want to be expelled—you will cooperate.”

He was playing on the edge. But in such negotiations, concessions are tactically correct decisions.

“I will try. I promise nothing. But—I will try,” I nodded, agreeing to his ultimatum.

“That is something,” he nodded and smirked with satisfaction. “For now, you are free to go.”

Terren leaned back in his chair, and the mask of his serenity concealed everything that had been said before.

I left his office, and the cold of the corridor seemed warmer to me than the atmosphere inside. I was being drawn into a web. All of them—the rector, Evelina—were foolish not because of a lack of intelligence. They were foolish because they were trying to apply the laws of physics to a phenomenon that existed outside of them. They were trying to play chess with a hurricane that extended far beyond the bounds of this world. And the echo of their irrational actions would long resound in the capital. For Chaotic-Darkness would crush them like insects.

As for me… I was not going to help them sincerely. But I would play their meaningless game, to prove to myself that I could still control this reality.

Even if control over my own soul, now warmed by another’s irrational heat, was already slipping away, like water seeping through my fingers.