When Tekla woke up once more, her room was plunged into darkness. It was difficult for her to estimate how much time had passed. The first thing she felt was her throat sore and parched as if it had never tasted water. Instinctively, she reached for the pitcher of water she knew to be at her bedside. This also was made difficult because her body was taken by a sudden and uncontrollable bout of shivers. Tekla could feel something deep in her chest and her bones, like a cold that had truly settled in her body and no warmth, could ever get rid of. When her arms finally stopped trembling, she seized the handle and winced at the contact. The first thing she remembered when she first woke up was her hands being bandaged. The burns she had sustained by trying to contain the Fire Elemental had been severe.

The thought of the Fire Elemental triggered another bout of frissons and she had to clench her teeth hard to stop them from rattling.

Tekla was trying to make sense of what had happened but her exhausted mind was struggling. She had a confused recollection of the Elemental, but then things turned blurry and scattered. The only thing she remembered for sure was the voice of the Elemental. It had spoken to her and made her ears and her soul tremble. The things it evoked… the True Essence of Fire… Even now, she could still hear it; it was as if it had been seared permanently in her mind.

As far as she knew, it may have been the case.

The doors of her room opened which startled her. Was that Tutor Tchepwa coming to check on her once more? No, it didn’t look like it. Tekla squinted at the darkness. Someone had indeed entered and even in the dimness of the room, she should have been able to see them. But somehow, the cloak that was thrown over them made them hard to discern. It was as if the cloak was leeching on the surrounding colours to better conceal the wearer.

“It’s me,” the person said and Tekla recognized the voice immediately.

It was Isyd Wybrany.

Somehow, this did nothing to reassure her.

“You…” she croaked, but her voice failed her.

She stumbled and fumbled to find the Lightsphere on her table and switch it on.

Isyd walked further into the room and snapped his gloved fingers. At once, all the Lightspheres present in the room burst alight. The one resting on the bedside burned the brightest but so did the two smaller spares in the drawer, the chandelier, and the one in the pocket of her vest uniform across the room.

The sudden light blinded Tekla and Isyd waited for her to recover before he dragged a chair to her bedside and plumped down. He didn’t miss her flinching and retreating more into her pillows.

“We need to talk, Tekla,” Isyd said without preamble.

“I… I have… n-nothing to say… to you…” she struggled to say.

Isyd took the pitcher and poured her a glass before handing it to her.

“I beg to differ.” He waited for her to finish her glass before pouring her a new one. “You know who attacked us. I want to hear it from your mouth.”

“Who do you think—”

“Enough, Tekla,” Isyd said softly.

In those words, there was a cold warning. She looked up at him and she felt something tense in her when she met his eyes.

“You fail to understand your situation, Tekla. I’m done playing according to your rules. Trust me, it is in your best interest to cooperate with me. Otherwise, you will regret that the Fire Elemental didn’t finish you.”

Tekla’s hands were trembling once more. As she tried to put down her glass, she realized that the water in it had entirely disappeared as if it had evaporated.

“Wh-Who are you really…?” she rasped to Isyd.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he fetched inside his cloak and pulled out a stack of papers. Tekla recognized them immediately.

“You were so brazen in your betrayal that you didn’t bother to cover your traces,” Isyd said. “I have here the correspondence with the Baron Kazkan. Your exchanges with him concern the Blysht, the Atelier and the Academy as a whole, all of it subject to a confidential clause you betrayed. Those are all the evidence I need to take you down, Tekla. And do not believe for a second that the Baron will protect you; today’s events are proof enough that he doesn’t care about you.”

Isyd put down the bundle between the two of them. Tekla looked at them as if they were a burning fire and didn’t dare move an inch.

“I am pressed by time so I do not have time to play around,” Isyd continued in the same calm voice. “You will speak one way or another, Tekla, but I offer you a choice. Either you tell me everything I want to know and in exchange, I will keep quiet on your betrayal, destroy the letters and other proofs so that you can keep your Artystic License. Otherwise, you can decide to remain silent. Then, I will be forced to ‘convince’ you. I have my ways and I am determined to have what I want. Nobody knows that I am here, nobody will know anything of what will transpire here.”

The lights of the Lightspheres flickered off and on, punctuating Isyd’s words.

“I do not know who they are…” Tekla said. “The people who attacked us, I mean. I don’t know their names, where they’re from, and for what purposes. Until yesterday, I didn’t know they had been hired at all.”

“How did you come into contact with Kazkan?”

“They contacted me first. I… I was corresponding with other Arcanysta at first after you came back with the Blysht. I-I thought that some other people could have known about it and you just stole it from them. So, I asked around if anyone knew or worked on the Blysht. Somehow, the Baron heard about it. He was interested in the Blysht so we started exchanging letters.”

“Did he hide his identity from you?”

“No, he presented himself as the Baron from the get-go. He said that he was an amateurish Arcanyst, that he never attended the Academy per se, but had been doing research as a hobby. He was curious and asking questions about anything related to the Arcanic Arts, not only the Blysht! He was interested in what we were doing here in the Atelier, he wanted to learn more about how Tutor Hidrss ran things and the project we were working on. I told him everything he wanted to know… and more.”

“You tried to impress him by going over and beyond. You shared all the discoveries we made about the Blysht, passing them as yours.”

Tekla didn’t answer further than with a weak nod.

“You were conned,” Isyd said. “All of this was only an act on his part and you fell right in it.”

“I don’t… How?”

“The Baron already knew about the Blysht before you shared whatever you knew. He had first learned about it from the early work of the Ravasz back in Blotnia. The reason why he pretended to be ignorant was so that he could judge how far we had pushed our research. I suspect that he didn’t expect we discovered so much already and was taken by surprise by our pace. When Hidrss left the Academy, he found his opportunity to stop us.”

“But why? Why would the Baron want to stop the Blysht?”

Isyd had wondered the same thing. He thought back to Old Ziemia, where the Blysht had only been discovered much later, ten years into the War. He recalled when in Blotnia, he had stumbled into the two hired goons searching for the precious crystal. This led him to a conclusion.

“The Baron Vladymr Harkon Kazkan doesn’t want to stop the Blysht, he wants to control it,” Isyd said. “Once the Blysht is known by everyone, once people learn that Holy Grace can be stored and transported and used with ease, the Blysht will go from being worthless to being worth its weight in gold. Everyone will need it; everyone will want it. He who controls the Blysht controls the world.”

Isyd saw Tekla slowly understanding. Her green eyes went wide and glinted with greed.

“Before you let your imagination run wild, I’m sorry to disappoint, but it is impossible to build a stranglehold on the Blysht,” Isyd said. “It is too abundant. It is unfeasible to entirely control it. The Baron doesn’t know that, or he doesn’t care. As we speak, he is probably trying to amass a huge amount of the Blysht while it is still dirt-cheap as well as buying salt mines around the Commonwealth. This must take him a lot of time. So, he needs to delay the reveal of the Blysht as long as possible. This is why he forced the Ravasz out of Blotnia. This is why he attacked us today. Hidrss left intending to spread the news of the Blysht discovery to his colleague down South. The Baron probably panicked at this news and this is why he hired those thieves.”

Silence fell between them, as Tekla took full grasp of the situation and the role of the pawn she had played. Isyd rose from his seat and picked up the bundle of letters. Tekla panicked seeing him leave.

“Wait! None of it is right! I mean, it’s a crazy plan! People must know about this!”

“Oh, really? And how so? Are you going be the one to accuse him, Tekla?” Isyd retorted, scathingly. “Nobody is going to believe you unless you use those letters as proof and incriminate yourself in the process. Are you willing to put yourself through that? Obviously not!”

Tekla tried to speak up, but Isyd didn’t let her. He had now turned to face her fully and his calm expression had given way to loathing.

“You have no right to be offended by the situation; you are far from innocent! You did not break the non-disclosure agreement for any noble purpose. After all, it’s not like you believed for a second that the Blysht is in better hands in those of an amateur rather than in Hidrss’s. Instead, you were only motivated by jealousy, greed and selfishness! And now you dare stand here and act offended by the Baron’s actions? You are pathetic ! I cannot believe you consider yourself an Artyst! You see yourself as victimized by everyone for no other reason than that they don’t give you the respect you think you deserve. Know this, Tekla Dumnchory: you are not special. Whatever talent you may have is eclipsed by your sense of entitlement. The truth is that there are bigger things at play than your fragile ego, that in the great schemes of things, you are nothing !”

The woman flinched back and retreated deeper into her bed. Tears were rolling down her face and her body was shaken by silent hiccups. Isyd regained his calm but he did nothing to hide the disdain she inspired him.

“Hidrss was right,” he finally said. “Arrogance must be replaced by humbleness. It’s a lesson you failed to learn and today we must all pay for your mistakes. The Blysht and the associated Hexes are stolen, a building went into flames, people were injured, a man died and a promising kid was left Disgraced. It is time you face the consequences of your actions, Tekla. You shall submit your resignation from the Academy by three days from now and leave Vilriver as soon as you can. Use whatever justification you can come up with, it is in your best interest. If you fail to do so, I shall come for you. The loss of your Artystic License will be the last of your worry, this I promise you…”

With those final words, Isyd left the chamber. The moment he stepped passed the entrance, all the Lightspheres turned off as if their light had been maintained by Isyd’s presence, leaving Tekla alone, crushed by the darkness of her bedroom and the weight of her thoughts.