Failure

The room was quiet.

Not the peace of silence.

But the kind of quiet that waited.

Reynald sat alone in the center of a perfectly square chamber carved from deep, dark stone. Smooth walls pulsed faintly with containment glyphs—soft runes etched into the walls like veins, shifting gently with blue-white light. Not enough to blind. Just enough to remind.

You are not free.

It had been a day and a half.

Thirty-nine hours, by his count.

He had not been questioned.

He had not been summoned.

Not a single mage had stepped through the reinforced threshold that sealed the only door. No instructors. No judges. No Crown-bearers.

Just silence, and the quiet hum of restraint wards working endlessly overhead.