"[angry]I told you—you absolutely cannot tell anyone! Promise me!" An autumn dusk draped the thirteenth tier of Celestia, the Mage Tower Academy. In a third-floor classroom, Vanheim Elise gazed up through the window. Her long platinum-blonde hair was bound up with precision, and her ice-blue eyes fixed on the tower. Her high-collared spellblade uniform was trimmed with fine silver thread, its deep indigo fabric hugging her slender frame. The lecturer's chalk raced across the blackboard. "Overloading a mana furnace corrodes both the caster's mind and body." Elise pretended to take notes, her eyes dropping to the memo in her hands. *Day fourteen. Seizure intensity: increasing. Seizure duration: now extending into weekdays. Average sleep: three hours. Countermeasures: none.* Neat handwriting. But what it recorded was nothing more than the chronicle of her own collapse. The chime rang, and students rose to their feet. "The Vanheim lady got full marks again this month." "She's hard to approach, isn't she." "Top candidate, prestigious family, beautiful—and kind of terrifying, right?" Those voices stabbed into Elise's back as she walked down the corridor. Her expression was stone-still. But deep in her chest, she was rigid with tension. Tonight would come again. That night of the full moon. Night deepened. The streetlamps of the academy district glowed faintly. Elise had grown up in the upper wards of Star Capital Lux, but now she lived alone in a dormitory in this student quarter. From the shadows of the hallway, she confirmed every other student had returned to their rooms. From deep within her chest, heat crawled upward. *(It's here.)* Her fingertips went numb. Her vision warped, just slightly. The searing brand of the contract—the curse-seizure Elise had first known on a full-moon night when she was thirteen. As if seeping out from inside her, patterns of light surfaced from her collarbone. Beneath her clothes, they spread to her shoulder blades, almost like a beautiful star map. But to Elise, it was nothing but a brand of shame. She hurried down the corridor, memories of the past surfacing. When she was small. That night, when her body first burned hot with fever, she had been so terrified she cried. An elderly maidservant had gently rubbed her back. But her mother— "Do not shame the pride of House Vanheim." With those words, she hadn't even allowed a doctor to be consulted. The family name had swatted away every hand that might have helped. The daughter of a prestigious mage house holding a seat on the Star-Guiding Council could not be carrying a curse. The servant who had shared her secret was gone now. She had died of illness the year before. Elise was alone. The Grand Library, seventh floor. It should have been locked at night. But Elise knew a hidden passage. Behind the bookshelves, pressing a protrusion in the wall produced a click, and the passage opened. She descended the stairs to the basement. The stairs were cold and damp, reeking of mildew. Her footsteps echoed. No one was there. There should have been no one. The Veil Archive—a strictly controlled forbidden library housing research materials on seal-designated curse arts. Elise fled into the small room just before it. She had come here many times, using an old spare key she had taken from home. She dropped to her knees on the cold stone floor. In that instant. A heatwave surged through her entire body. "[scared]Ah…" Unable to suppress it, a sweet sigh escaped her. Platinum-blonde hair clung to her cheeks with sweat. Her ice-blue eyes glistened with pleasure and terror. She loosened the collar of her high-necked uniform. Her collarbone, where the glowing pattern surfaced, lay exposed. With trembling fingers, she traced her own skin. "[whispers]Nn… ah…" She tried to stifle her voice, but it was no use. Every time her fingers traced the pattern, a sweet numbness raced up her spine. Her head grew hazy, and she couldn't think of anything at all. This sensation—even though it was a curse. Even though it was shameful. Still, just a little. Just the tiniest bit, it felt good. And that, more than anything, terrified her. "—What's the honor student doing in a place like this?" Her heart stopped. From the shadow of a bookshelf, a man emerged, looming. Carelessly grown-out black hair. Mocking golden eyes. A flashy red scarf at the chest of his sloppily unbuttoned student uniform. In his hand, he held what looked like a duplicate key. Ashford Rion. A dropout barely scraping by on attendance. A frivolous man notorious for womanizing. "[angry]—!" Elise sprang to her feet as if struck. In the same motion, she drew the spellblade at her hip and leveled its tip at Rion. A moment of silence. Elise's face was flushed crimson with shame and terror. But Rion's flippant smirk didn't waver. "[serious]I'll kill you. Right here, right now." Her voice trembled. The tip of her blade trembled, too—faintly. Rion raised both hands. "Terrifying. But swinging a sword around dressed like that—isn't that a bit rough?" Elise looked down at herself. Disheveled hair. Open collar. The glowing pattern of the curse. She clutched at her neckline. In that gap, Rion swiftly put distance between them. He casually plucked a single old tome from the shelf above. "I just came to get a book." "[angry]Liar! Duplicating a key is trespassing!" "Takes one to know one. You, too—that key. You took it from home, didn't you?" He was right. Elise faltered for words. Anger, shame, and the heat of the seizure had her mind in chaos. "[cold]…Forget everything you saw. Right now." "[laughing]Too bad—my memory's pretty good." Rion shrugged, grinning. *(This bastard—he's really mocking me.)* Murderous intent nearly boiled over. But she couldn't act. If she caused a scene here, the secret of the curse would spread through the entire academy. "[whispers]…What do you want?" Without lowering her blade, Elise asked. "Nothing in particular. Just—thought I'd seen something interesting." Rion tucked the old tome under his arm and headed for the door. Without looking back, he spoke. "The honor student Miss Vanheim, in the seal-designated archive—what she was up to. Sounds like it could make an interesting story." He vanished into the dark corridor. Alone in the room. Elise pressed her hands against the floor and clenched her back teeth. In the aftermath of the seizure, her body still refused to obey. Her knees trembled. But her mind was racing at full speed. Ashford Rion. A dropout playboy. A man like that now held the secret of the prestigious House Vanheim. If the curse was found to violate seal-designated curse arts, it wouldn't just be expulsion—it would be the mage prison. Her family would fall. Her mother's face flickered through her mind. *(What do I do…)* She slowly rose to her feet. Tonight's humiliation could no longer be erased. But maybe it wasn't too late. *(Ashford Rion—I have to silence him.)* In Elise's ice-blue eyes, the faintest seed of a feeling—"needing someone"—took root for the very first time. But that "someone" would probably tease her again tomorrow with that same flippant grin. Thinking of that, she felt furious. And just a little, relieved. A strange feeling.