Rime was in a dreamless sleep when he was awoken to a teary voice asking him a simple question. "Where you go?" His dark blue eyes snapped open and he took a deep breath trying to lift the pressure that was there only to realize Cyra was resting her head on his chest as she continued to cry. He tried to raise his hand up to rub her head and clear her hair out of her face but his body felt stiff. "Ri, where you go?"

"...No..." Was all he was able to croak out when he opened his mouth, Cyra's platinum blonde hair flew up in the air when she snapped her head back to look at her brother with her teary sapphire blue eyes. A small smile curved her lips as she looked into his soft blues; she scrambled up further on the bed and threw herself on him unknowingly knocking the wind from his lungs. Rime took a deep breath and slowly raised his hand placing it on her head; he cleared his throat. "I go... nowhere."

He was able to wrap his arms around her as she began to sob into his neck, every time she asked the question he would give her the same answer, he wasn't going anywhere. He promised that he would never leave her and he planned and keeping that promise no matter what. Rime ran his hands through her hair letting her cry as much as she wanted, he planned to calm her down and then try and find out what the hell had happened that would make her cry like this.

The head healer was sitting in her office writing out some request for new herbs when a bell went off, she looked up and touched the bell jumping up when she heard the message. She quickly ran from her office and went down the hall to see one of the other healers waiting for her before they pushed open the door to see the boy trying to sit up while holding on to his sister who appeared to be asleep. She quickly went in and took his arm helping to pull him up as she placed a large pillow behind his back.

Rime looked up at the woman that was wearing a white dress that had a hood extended over her dark brown hair. Her grey eyes watched him over as she sat on the bed placing her hand on his chest, she whispered something and then nodded collecting a pen and notepad from a woman that was standing dressed similarly to her. She wrote something down and the looked at him mumbling something else before nodding and taking more notes.

Some time passed before the woman finished and told the other woman something who then rushed out the door, Rime's eyes wet back to the woman that was sitting next to him with a soft smile on her face. "Good to finally see you awake young Rime; you gave everyone quite the scare." Rime gave her a questioning look and she smiled sadly nodding. "I guess you wouldn't know since you've been unconscious for the past two weeks." Rime's eyes widened and the woman nodded again. "Yes it's the truth and everything will be explained to you properly when the others arrive."

The woman got up going to the table and poured a large glass of water. "Your throat must be feeling dry, here have some water." Rime slowly took the glass the woman holding his hands to ensure he had a tight grip on it before letting go. He slowly drank the water until there was but a drop left; the woman collected the glass asking if he required another when he shook his head she placed the glass down. "Okay so we'll have you eat something before the other's arrive." With that the woman left the room.

+

Professor Harlan was in his class room writing notes on the board. "Okay so you're to take down the twelve principals and put them in the correct order, then you're to write the date of their establishments and what their purpose was, followed by the effects. The s is bracketed because one of these principles only had one effect but that is up to you to figure out which one. I'll be giving a special treat to whoever gets all correct including the proper spelling and next to the names state the proper pronunciations, even if you get one wrong you're disqualified from the treat."

He cocked his head to the side at the sound of a quiet voice. "Permission to enter, Professor Harlan." He flicked his finger and the door opened revealing a young healer and he nodded and she quickly walked over him and signaled for him to lower his head so she could tell him something, when he did she quickly whispered. "Mr Rime Tagon has finally awoken and Master Healer Jessi Ssen is requesting your presence." Harlan nodded and watched as the woman quickly left the room.

He looked forward to his class. "Okay students, I want you to complete the exercise I just gave to you and then you may all leave for a break, I don't know when I'll be back so take your time." With that he turned and left the class. Professor Harlan quickly walked down the hall and went to the supervising teacher and gave her the information then headed for the medical building; he went to Rime's room and hummed at the sight of him slowly eating some soup.

He looked at the small bundle that was curled up next to him and smiled slightly he was happy to see the small child finally in peace since her brother's accident. He walked down the hall going to the Master Healer's office; he knocked and entered when she hummed. Professor Harlan went and took a seat in the corner of the room as he watched her quick hand as she took some notes. It took a few minutes before Professor Drugi walked into the room carrying a glass case that held the stone that the boy had touched.

Professor Drugi nodded politely to both of them, the elf and he had decided to put aside their differences until the situation with the boy could be settled. He placed the case on the Healer's desk after clearing a small space. “So who else are we expecting?" He grumbled while dropping into a chair in front of the healer desk.

She glanced up at them for a second before returning to her writing. "The Grand Head Master, of course and then surprisingly the Arch Mage will be coming as well for reason's unknown to us. Then a specialist in dark magic that was requested by Professor Harlan, I myself did suspect it might be that and the only reason the boy gave such a reaction to it was because he was simply too young to control it. If, from what you both said, for some reason the little girl wasn't there he would have died, but that's purely suspicion, we'll have to wait for confirmation of course."

It was another hour before the Head Master came walking into the room he gave a quick apology stating he was in a meeting, soon after a tall woman with long silver hair, almost white eyes and long pointy ear entered the room, she gave everyone a small bow. "My name is Master Solji Grace and expert on dark magic, my presence was requested because of the appearance of a possible dark master, such as myself."

Professor Harlan stood and went over to the woman who gave him a soft smile. "Well if it isn't big brother Harlan, it has been many years since I was in your presence; it’s a blessing to see you again." She spoke with a smile on her face and he nodded returning the smile before leading her to sit in a chair next to his.

A bright flash came from outside the office followed by a loud thump; the Healer Jessi's eyes widened and she jumped up from behind her desk and rushed to the door opening it. She sighed at the sight of the Arch Mage, the old man loved to make quite the entrance. She stepped aside and allowed him to enter, he walked briskly going and taking a seat in her office chair making her pout, her old professor was quite the ass, but she would never say it out loud.

"Well what's all this I hear about a new dark master appearing in this school?" He asked without giving a single greeting to anyone. “I got the news from a friend of mine on the board about a boy being contaminated by a stone and them not being sure if it was not the other way around." The healer nodded the Professor Harlan who stood up causing the arch mage to look at him. "Ah an elf, wonder what one of you buggers is doing on our continent, what looking to steal a new prodigy from us, what the last one died too soon for you?" He said sarcastically causing both the elf's to sigh in unison.

Professor cleared his throat. "Let's not bring up matters that any of us in this room at the time would have been too young to be present for." The Arch mage huffed but nodded. "Okay so I'll recount what happened for the thousandth time since the past two weeks." The elf spoke with an exasperated sigh earning a snicker from the dwarf. "I had taken my students to the Alchemy building to test their magic affinity, some of them had either high affinity for magic and some poor affinity, the boy, Rime Tagon, was the last to test his affinity.

"At first when he touched the stone there was no reaction, so I thought that maybe he wasn't focusing and gave him some advice. It took a bit of time before anything happened making me think that the boy had zero affinity and I stepped forward to stop him from further hurting his pride, but was stunned at the sight of that very stone turning pitch black. It was quite scary and the boy didn't look as if he knew what was going on, everyone was frozen. His little sister, Cyra Tagon , who was in the room at the time ran out and touched the stone, it then glowed a bright pink before going back to its original color. The boy collapsed and the girl screamed bringing everyone from their stupor to which I quickly brought him over to the healer."

The female elf stood up and went to the stone she lifted the glass case off and handed it to the dwarf that had moved to stand next to her. Grace picked up the stone and channeled her magic into it checking it for any defects before handing it to the Arch Mage who did the same thing but shook his head. "The problem isn't the rock, it's as fine as can be, I need to see this boy the suspicion of him being a dark master grows closer to being the truth, where is the little one?"

"Follow me." The healer said before leading everyone out of her office and heading down the hall, the female elf collected back the stone and pressed her palms against it causing it to turn black. "Was it as dark as this?" She asked turning to Professor Harlan who shook his head.

"It was much, much darker." Solji's eyes widened and she quickened her pace; if it was the case then she had to meet the child as soon as possible for his dark magic might have been greater than hers.