Chapter 24: A Glimmer of Doubt

Adrian's footsteps echoed softly across the stone courtyard as he walked toward the exit, the confrontation with Lucian already fading from his mind. The nobles were still watching, but their whispers had quieted as he left the training grounds, his focus shifting away from the encounter.

He had faced mockery, taunts, and doubts before—and none of it had broken him. Today was no different. Yet, something lingered in the air, an intangible presence Adrian couldn't quite place.

A strange sensation prickled along his skin, a subtle shift in the atmosphere, as if the air had thickened. It was brief, almost imperceptible, but it made him pause.

His senses flared instinctively. A pulse of energy—faint, distant—brushed against his awareness.

No. That wasn't right.

Adrian furrowed his brow, closing his eyes for a moment, reaching out with his senses. The Eclipse Pulse stirred within him, a quiet tremor.

But it wasn't like before. This wasn't his own power. It felt different. Dark. Unsettling. A faint trace of something ancient, something malevolent.

His heart skipped a beat.

Impossible.

He couldn't be sensing it—not here, not now. He had been through too much to mistake his own power for something else. The Eclipse Pulse, when it activated, was always a distinct presence—one he could recognize without a doubt. But this? This felt too distant, too subtle. A brief flicker, a whisper of energy that vanished almost as soon as it appeared.

Adrian glanced toward the knight who had intervened during the confrontation. The man stood still, his posture as stoic as ever, eyes locked ahead. No sign of anything unusual. Nothing to suggest the dark energy Adrian had felt.

It must have been nothing.

A trick of the mind. The aftereffects of his heightened state, his senses stretched too thin. It wasn't possible. The Eclipse Pulse hadn't reacted like this before. He hadn't felt anything like this before.

Adrian shook his head, trying to dispel the thought.

The knight was just a knight. The Aldrin family was ambitious, but there was no reason to suspect they were involved in anything dangerous. They had no connection to the darkness that had once threatened him.

Yet... that faint trace of energy, that whisper, still echoed in the back of his mind.

No. He wasn't going to chase after ghosts. Not today.

Adrian squared his shoulders and continued walking, pushing the thoughts aside. The Eclipse Pulse faded, and with it, the lingering doubt. He wasn't ready to entertain such things—not now.

There would be time for answers later. For now, the only thing that mattered was the next step.

And that, as always, lay ahead.

---

The silence after Lucian's words was thick, palpable. Adrian could feel the eyes of the nobles on him, their attention drawn like moths to a flame. They were waiting—waiting for him to snap, to show that he had been wounded.

But Adrian gave them nothing.

He kept walking.

Lucian's smirk remained firmly in place as he stepped forward, his posture eager, as if expecting Adrian to crumble.

The thought brought a flicker of amusement to Adrian's mind, but he didn't let it show. Instead, he let his silence speak for him.

There was no need to respond. Lucian wasn't worth it.

The sting of his words was nothing. Adrian knew better than to let someone like Lucian Aldrin get under his skin.

But even so, something in the air felt off. The tension between them was thick, but it wasn't about Lucian's words. It was something deeper. Something Adrian couldn't quite place.

He would deal with the doubts later.

For now, there was only one thing he could focus on.

The next step.