"Good. Now — who is the class representative and secretary?"
Several students exchanged glances. Then Nicola Storm and Viola Storm both rose from their seats simultaneously — smooth, practiced, as if they had been waiting for exactly this question.
"I'm the class representative, sir," said Nicola. Her voice was calm. Measured.
"And I'm the secretary," Viola added, with a smile that suggested she considered both positions to be beneath her actual importance but was gracious enough to fill them anyway.
"I see."
Leith crossed to the teacher's desk, picked up the attendance book, and handed it to Nicola.
"Hold onto this. Every week, come to my office and report on the class's progress."
"Understood, sir."
He handed Viola a separate set of documents. "If any students break the rules or cause problems, report that as well."
"What qualifies as a problem?"
"Depends on the problem."
Several students laughed quietly. Viola blinked, recalibrating.
"So I can't discipline them myself?"
"No."
"That's unfortunate."
"Viola." Nicola's voice was a quiet warning.
"I'm joking."
"I hope so."
Leith looked at both of them for a moment — long enough to suggest he was forming an opinion, not long enough to suggest he intended to share it.
"The class representative and secretary are generally held to a higher standard than other students," he said. "I'd expect you to work well together."
"Of course," said Nicola.
Viola shrugged one shoulder. "As long as she doesn't bore me."
"And as long as you don't cause problems."
"Mm."
Viola clicked her tongue softly and returned to her seat. Nicola exhaled in a way that suggested she had done this many times before, and followed.
Leith picked up a piece of chalk and turned to face the board.
"Then let's begin."
The room settled.
"This is the syllabus for the semester. Before we start the material, I want to understand your Veyra levels."
He began to walk as he spoke — a slow circuit of the front of the room, unhurried, each word arriving with the calm authority of someone who never had to raise his voice to be heard.
Liyn's pen was already moving. She wrote quickly — capturing terms, making note of gaps in her understanding, flagging things she would need to research later. The material felt completely foreign. Everything here did. But that was what notes were for.
"Veyra is an energy produced through practice and development. The higher your Veyra level, the greater your stamina and the larger the amount of magic you can use."
"Magic..." Liyn murmured, writing the word and underlining it.
She exhaled slowly.
There was so much she didn't know yet. The mountain of it was genuinely daunting.
This was an era in which Syntara had become the pulse of civilization. The stronger a person was, the closer they were to victory, to honor, to the kind of recognition that opened doors.
From the age of seven, every child underwent the Ritual of Determination — an initial examination that measured the strength of the Veyra current flowing through their body.
Veyra itself was a natural energy. It was said to be born from the roots of life itself — growing alongside the soul of its bearer, strengthened through practice, through experience, through the particular crucible of real conflict.
But not everyone was born equal.
Those with a Veyra level below five were considered untalented. Their futures tended to branch in one of two directions: an ordinary life entirely outside the world of Syntara, or a strategic education — researcher, planner, resource manager, decision-maker — supporting the Syntara users from behind the scenes.
They couldn't fight. But they weren't nothing. They occupied a rung above those who had no connection to this world at all.
Because here, in this age, power was everything.
And those born without enough Veyra had to find other ways to survive in the shadow of those who had been given more.
"What is your current Veyra level?"
The voice arrived too close.
Liyn's pen nearly flew out of her hand. She looked up sharply —
Leith was standing directly beside her desk.
The distance was small. Closer than a teacher usually stood beside a student. His silver eyes were focused on her with an attention that had no business feeling this intense during a simple classroom exercise.
It was the same look he had given her at the window yesterday.
The same look that made her feel like something was being calculated behind those eyes, some equation she wasn't meant to be aware of.
The discomfort she had managed to push down came flooding back.
She didn't know why his proximity affected her this way. She didn't know what he was looking for. And she didn't know why not knowing what he was looking for was the most unsettling part.
For a moment, the classroom around her seemed to dissolve. There was only the question, and those eyes, and the particular quality of waiting.
Then Leith smiled — barely, a faint curve at the corner of his mouth, unreadable — and slowly bent forward, leaning slightly toward her desk.
Liyn felt the hair rise on the back of her neck.
Not from fear, exactly.
Something else. Something she couldn't name and didn't particularly want to examine.
But she didn't look away.