Free Web NovelChapter 773: A Man’s Obsession (1)
Liam did not answer immediately.
The office remained quiet after Thion’s words, but the silence no longer felt administrative. Whatever official shape the conversation had carried moments ago had been pushed aside with the report and pen on the desk.
Now, with the Headmaster seated across from him, hands folded loosely over the polished wood, eyes calm but sharpened by something far more personal than school business, Liam understood that the real conversation had only just begun.
Thion watched him carefully.
Not like an instructor watching a student.
Not like a ruler’s servant watching a political danger.
Like a starving man sitting before a locked door he had spent decades trying to open.
Liam’s expression did not change, but his guard rose.
"That sounds concerning," Liam said.
Thion’s smile widened faintly, though there was no offense in it. "It should."
Liam said nothing.
Thion leaned back in his chair, his gaze drifting briefly toward the window again before returning to Liam.
"You see, most people who speak of dark magic speak with fear first and understanding second, if understanding comes at all. Kingdom records describe it like a disease. Combat reports describe it like a calamity. Religious scholars, political historians, and war chroniclers all have their own language for it, but most of them make the same mistake."
"And what mistake is that?" Liam asked.
"They assume terror is the same as knowledge."
Liam’s eyes remained fixed on him.
Thion tapped one finger lightly against the arm of his chair, a small, controlled rhythm that did not match the stillness of the rest of him.
"For decades, I have read everything I could find. Old archives, kingdom reports, family records, battlefield accounts, biological theories, forbidden studies, royal investigations, and the surviving fragments of magical research that were not burned or altered beyond use. Many of them speak with absolute certainty. They say dark magic does this. Dark mages behave like that. Their bodies react this way. Their cores evolve that way. Their shadows move according to these limits."
He paused, and for the first time, his smile thinned into something colder. "But most of it is nonsense dressed in confidence."
Liam stayed silent, though his attention sharpened.
Thion noticed and seemed pleased.
"They sound," Thion continued slowly, "like people describing shadows while standing in the sun."
The words settled between them.
Liam did not miss the way Thion said it. There was frustration there, old and well-preserved, hidden beneath polish for so long that it had become part of his composure.
Thion was not speaking as someone who had simply studied dark magic because it was rare or dangerous. There was something beneath it, something with roots deeper than academy curiosity.
Liam’s voice remained flat. "You have spent decades studying dark magic."
"I have."
"Why?"
Thion’s gaze held his.
For a moment, the Headmaster did not answer.
Then, with a calmness that made the admission feel more unsettling rather than less, he said, "My grandfather was a dark mage."
Liam became still. fгeewebnovёl.com
Not visibly startled. Not in a way most people would notice. But something behind his eyes tightened, and Thion saw it at once.
’There it is,’ Thion thought, almost with satisfaction. ’Not fear. Calculation.’
The Headmaster let the silence breathe for a moment before continuing. "I inherited lightning. Not darkness. My father inherited lightning as well. The bloodline carried both possibilities, or perhaps that is too simple a way to put it. Affinities are rarely so obedient to family expectation. But my grandfather carried dark magic, and when I was a child, I saw traces of it firsthand."
Liam’s guard did not lower.
If anything, it sharpened further.
Thion looked almost amused by that, though his eyes had grown distant in a way that suggested memory rather than performance.
"He was not the monster most records would have preferred him to be. He was severe, certainly. Private. Difficult. But not monstrous. His magic was..." He stopped, and for the first time since Liam entered the office, Thion’s composure cracked in the smallest possible way. His fingers curled once against the chair arm, then relaxed. "It was alive in a way I have never seen another affinity behave."
Liam watched him closely.
Thion seemed to realize he had let too much show and smoothed himself back into calmness, though the intensity did not disappear. It only became quieter.
"I was young enough to be fascinated before I was old enough to understand why others feared it. I saw darkness crawl across his hand like ink with intent. I saw shadows hold shape when no light should have allowed them to. I saw him call something from beneath his feet that moved as if it had breath, weight, hunger, and patience all at once. I asked him questions. Too many, probably. He answered some. Refused others."
"And you never inherited it," Liam said.
"No," Thion replied. "I inherited lightning."
There was no bitterness in the statement, not exactly. But there was something close.
"Lightning is not a weak affinity," Liam said.
Thion chuckled quietly. "No. It is not. And I have never been ungrateful for it. But gratitude and hunger can exist inside the same person."
Liam’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Thion continued, "When dark mages began vanishing, I was old enough to understand what was happening, and young enough to believe the world could not possibly allow an entire branch of magic to disappear. By the time they were declared extinct, I was already in my mid-thirties. Old enough to have access to records. Old enough to know how much was being buried. Old enough to understand that the world had not simply lost a dangerous people. It had lost a form of magic almost no one had ever truly understood."
His voice remained steady, but there was a pressure beneath it now, something held on a leash.
"So I studied," Thion said. "I studied because I could not inherit it. I studied because my grandfather’s answers were incomplete. I studied because every archive I opened seemed to contain fear pretending to be scholarship. I studied because the more the kingdoms insisted they understood dark mages, the more obvious it became that they did not."
Liam leaned back slightly in his chair. "And then I arrived."
Thion’s gaze fixed on him.
"Yes," he said softly. "Then you arrived."
Liam did not like the way he said it.
There was no hatred there. No disgust. No fear. That should have been better than what Liam usually received from others, but somehow it was not. Fear was predictable. Hatred had shape. Suspicion could be managed. Thion’s interest was something else entirely. It was sharp, hungry, academic, personal, and old enough to have become part of who he was. He did not look at Liam like a threat that needed to be controlled. He looked at him like an answer the world had no right to hide from him.
That might have been worse.
"I do not know everything you can do," Thion said, as if sensing the path of Liam’s thoughts. "Let us make that clear before you assume I am claiming more knowledge than I possess. I know what the academy has seen. I know you can solidify shadows to a degree. I know you can merge darkness with fire. I know of that delayed tearing attack you used, the one that resembles dark arcs before erupting after contact." His eyes glinted faintly. "Shadow Rend, I believe some older descriptions might call something similar, though records are often inconsistent and maddeningly imprecise."
Liam said nothing.
Thion smiled faintly. "I have read descriptions of other applications. Movement through shadow. Weapons drawn from darkness. Binding techniques. Forms of concealment. Constructs. Things that sound like myth until one compares enough accounts and realizes the myths are probably misnamed observations. But I do not know which of those are real, which were exaggerated, which were misunderstood, or which you can perform."
Liam’s face remained blank, but inwardly, he noted every word.
Movement through shadow.
Weapons drawn from darkness.
Concealment.
Constructs.
Thion knew descriptions, not names. Fragments, not certainty. He did not know about Void Passage. He did not know about Extraction. He did not know the true shape of Liam’s arsenal. That was important. It meant the Headmaster’s interest was dangerous, but not omniscient.
Thion leaned forward slightly. "That is precisely what makes this so intolerable."
Liam’s eyes sharpened.
Thion seemed to catch himself and sat back again, his composure returning over the brief intensity like a curtain drawn over a flame. "Apologies. Poor phrasing."
"No," Liam said. "It was honest."
For a moment, Thion looked almost delighted.
"Yes," he said. "It was."
The silence that followed carried more tension than before.
Then Thion spoke more carefully. "My request is not official. It is not political. It is not an academy report, nor a demand from your Headmaster. I am not asking you to perform in front of the instructors. I am not asking for public demonstrations, combat trials, or anything that would expose you before your peers. What I want is personal."
Liam’s gaze cooled. "Personal is usually worse."
Thion’s smile returned, but this time there was something almost appreciative in it. "Often, yes."
"What do you want?"
"I want to witness dark magic directly."
