FROST
Chapter 91: The Legendary Alibi

Chapter 91: The Legendary Alibi

The Professor Chambers of the Moonstone Academy were not built for comfort—they were designed for power.

Located high within the northernmost spire of the Citadel Tower, the chamber overlooked the central training courtyards and the Moonstone, where snow perpetually fell regardless of season.

The room itself was circular, spacious enough to fit two dozen high-backed chairs carved from magically reinforced darkwood, arranged around a large, floating crystalline table that constantly shifted between the ancient languages of mana theory, elemental seals, and ethereal maps of the academy’s leyline grid.

Massive stained-glass windows arched across the northern wall, depicting scenes of the gods raising the Academy from the ruins of the Titan Realm after the Great War.

The glass shimmered faintly with protective runes, casting blue and gold patterns across the marble floor that hummed with residual enchantments.

Spell-torches flickered along the jasper walls, illuminating shelves filled with ancient scrolls, grimoires bound in dragonhide, and vials of sealed, rare aether. The scent of aged parchment, frost-laced mana, and burning sage clung to the air.

A massive hearth made from silverstone crackled with blue flame, magically sustained and always cold to the touch—an ironic centerpiece gifted by Frost himself centuries ago.

The professors rarely used it for warmth but often as a means to send encrypted messages through its smoke to the Guardian Realms.

It was in this solemn and regal atmosphere that Professor Aelith’s lilting voice broke through with mischief.

"See? I knew you were just being paranoid, Professor Cedric," she giggled, elbowing him in the ribs with a kind of brash familiarity that earned her more eye-rolls than reprimands.

Professor Cedric didn’t respond with words. Instead, his cutting glare slid sideways, as if warning her that one more push and he’d consider channeling Professor Thaddeus’s infamous habits—though the man himself was far less particular about propriety.

Of course, Professor Cedric didn’t strike women... but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t entertain the thought of shocking Aelith with a taste of her own playfulness.

Across the room, seated near the arched window veiled in frost-spun curtains, Professor Mordic sighed deeply. The heavy weight of thought clung to him like dust. His thick, raven robes trailed the floor, shimmering with faint elemental glyphs.

"You know he was there, Professor Redbourne," Mordic muttered, his gaze fixed on the horizon beyond the glass. "His ice was there. His frost was there. His mana lingered—before and after the seal broke. You could feel it. A mana signature that dense doesn’t vanish without intent."

"And yet we couldn’t prove that," Professor Sylphaera said, stepping forward. Her heel clicked softly against the floor.

Her long hair danced behind her, agitated by the minor air currents her mana stirred naturally. "We tried mana cross-matching and it still didn’t match prince Frost’s registry. Not even the demonic half."

"The High Circle will brush off this kind of report," she added, voice cooling like her dominant element—air, precise and unsentimental.

"I completely agree," said Professor Ilyra, lifting her hand slightly to draw attention. Her robe was elegantly layered in robes of twilight blue, stitched with constellations. "We are all aware of what prince Frost was capable of. But this..."

Her gaze swept the room, noting the expressions of all present. Even Thaddeus, who normally flirted with decorum, looked grim.

"The prince vanished," Ilyra continued, "and all we have is a trail of conflicting mana threads. That’s not escape—it’s manipulation."

"Perhaps," Professor Harry groaned, pushing his spectacles higher up his nose, "the mana he left behind wasn’t his at all. He was a half-demon... that we have confirmed. What if we’re tracking the corrupted side of him rather than the Guardian one?"

"Wrong," Professor Verena snapped from her velvet Victorian chair. Her gaze was as pointed as the icicles that decorated her own sleeves. She sat beside Professors Bramble, Alaric, Elowen, and Thaddeus, her voice as firm as a ward seal.

"The Academy has both strands—prince Frost’s divine and demonic mana. Neither matched the residual left behind back in the chamber."

Professor Cedric finally spoke, his voice low and contemplative. "I couldn’t even think of how he was able to do that. Mana threads don’t mutate without severe ritual corruption, and even then... traces remain. In prince Frost’s case, his mana might have already been blended, but what was left behind... it wasn’t just distorted. It was foreign."

"Exactly," Professor Aelith cut in. "That’s because maybe it wasn’t really him inside that sealed chamber. Maybe Grandmaster East wasn’t lying. Maybe the Winter Guardian truly was in the Human Realm the entire time."

The room fell silent for a heartbeat, the only sound the low hum of the crystal table pulsing in slow rhythm. Then, Professor Thaddeus cleared his throat dramatically, leaning back in his chair with his usual cocky slouch.

"I just can’t help but notice," he began, tone oozing mockery, "that everyone defending the Winter Guardian happens to be women."

His eyes scanned the room like a predator scenting blood. "This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Prince Frost is an objectively attractive creature, would it? Glacial beauty, chiseled cheekbones, that whole broody-I-might-kill-you-aura?"

His grin widened as Professors Aelith, Sylphaera, Ilyra, and Verena simultaneously diverted their attention toward the ceiling—suddenly and unanimously intrigued by its ornamental carvings of celestial dragons and woven runes.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Professor Alaric cleared his throat awkwardly.

Professor Elowen stifled a laugh.

And Professor Bramble muttered, "Stars help us if Thaddeus ever learns tact."

Outside the chamber, the spires groaned faintly as if the Academy itself were listening—and wondering whether Frost’s vanishing was truly a matter of misplaced loyalty... or a harbinger of something much greater. Something that had already begun unraveling beneath their very feet.

The tension in the chamber thickened like a winter storm about to break. Frost’s name still hung in the air, tangled with doubt, accusation, and something unspoken—grief, perhaps, or a fear none dared voice. The professors sat or stood in their places, murmurs dying down as the crystal table’s pulse slowed... and then stilled.

Suddenly, the chamber doors opened with a soundless motion—an enchanted courtesy reserved only for members of the Council.

In stepped a young messenger draped in immaculate white robes, the hem etched with glowing golden figures of allegiance and purity.

The hood obscured the face, but the aura of reverence that followed him made it clear he wasn’t here on his own accord. He bowed deeply at the threshold and raised a pale, rune-etched hand.

"All rise," the messenger intoned with great drama, his voice echoing with the kind of flamboyancy usually reserved for ancient royal decrees or extremely dramatic dinner announcements. "By decree of the Celestial Accord, representative of the High Circle, guardian of harmony and balance—Grandmaster East—enters the cha—"

"You can skip the entire musical," East interrupted, already halfway through the door. His robes barely had time to flutter behind him before the messenger’s mouth hung open in a silent "oh."

The poor messenger blinked, deflated, and bowed so low it looked like he was trying to find a dropped contact lens on the floor.

East gave him a consoling pat on the shoulder, gently nudging him toward the door like a polite parent guiding a kid off the stage at a talent show gone wrong.

As soon as East turned to face the room, all the professors stiffened like they’d been caught gossiping by the headmaster—which, to be fair, they had been.

It took a full, awkward second before everyone scrambled to rise in a flurry of startled motion: chairs scraping, papers flying, and Professor Thaddeus nearly tipping over the tea he had pulled out of his robe.

"Oh, please," East raised a hand with a gracious smile that looked suspicious. "Don’t be too formal."

Then, his smile vanished faster than Professor Aelith at budget meetings. His eyes sharpened as he slowly scanned each face, one by one. Suddenly, the air in the chamber was less ’oh, friendly visit’ and more ’surprise audit by the divine.’

East strolled—no, glided—to the head of the table, the spot normally reserved for the Chair of the Council or people with a death wish.

He could’ve just teleported in with a flash and dramatic wind gust even when entering the chamber, but no—East believed in manners. Besides, teleporting in would’ve looked desperate. And if there was one thing East wasn’t, it was desperate. He was majestic with boundaries.

He waved a hand and conjured a crystal chair out of thin air—delicate, elegant, gleaming like enchanted crystal. Everyone watched in awe... until Professor Cedric, in true Cedric fashion, swooped in and sat on it like it had always belonged to him.

East didn’t comment. He simply arched a brow in a way that made Cedric look suddenly very interested in the grain of the table. After all, East took his self-proclaimed-owned-chair.

Once all the professors had managed to sit again—some more gracefully than others, notably not Professor Bramble, who tripped over his own robes—East didn’t waste time.

"I’ll be direct with all of you," he said, his voice smooth like silk-wrapped steel.

The way the professors immediately avoided eye contact was something to behold. Professor Aelith pretended to read a nonexistent document. Professor Verena was apparently very concerned with her nails. Professor Thaddeus tried to maintain eye contact but his eyelids had been twitching.

Only Professor Cedric looked up, arms crossed, daring East to drop the bomb.

Which, of course, he did.

"You broke academy protocol. You used forbidden spells," East said bluntly. "You made enough magical noise to almost wake the Founding Grandmaster, and he’s been dead since the Great War."

Professor Aelith gasped. "There was a Grandmaster before you, Your Highness? Was he hot, too?"

"Borderline blasphemous, Professor Redbourne," Professor Ilyra muttered under her breath.

There was a long pause.

"But do we... get points for creativity?" Professor Aelith tried, raising a hopeful hand.

East didn’t even blink.

"I’m not here to assign grades, darling," he said. "I’m here to stop the academy from collapsing in on itself because a group of tenured geniuses thought it’d be a good idea to summon mana echoes with an unstable anchor point in front of an ancient beast!"

Everyone flinched. Even the crystal table hummed.

"A-Ancient beast?" Professor Cedric’s brows met.

East nodded. "Yes, ancient beast. And thanks to all of you, it had escaped. That was the Winter Guardian’s favorite monster who consumes their owners emitted mana to live."

Everyone exchanged glances. On the corner, Professor Thaddeus and Professor Bramble stifled a laugh.

"Was that the reason why the mana thread remaining in that chamber feels like the Winter Guardian’s?" Professor Verena asked and East nodded.

"Yep and I believe the reason why you all went there to look for the Winter Guardian, yes?"

None of the professors answered, but the way they looked down and exchange glances, deep inside, East could only hope they’d buy the alibi for... even at least for now.

"So," East folded his hands. "Who wants to explain why you decided to break three laws, seven guidelines, and the laws of physics all in one afternoon?"

The silence was deafening. Somewhere in the rafters, a crow cawed awkwardly.

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