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Another nod. "Also widely accepted."

A siren speaks next. "My people believe they were spirits."

A Medusa student adds "My mother insists they were a disease."

Professor Aldren writes each answer beneath the word. Magic. Myth. Spirits. Disease. The list grows longer. No two answers match.

Finally— Nyra raises her hand. Professor Aldren gestures for her to continue. She hesitates only briefly.

"I don't think anyone actually knows."

Professor Aldren smiles. "The most accurate answer so far." He begins walking slowly between the rows. "The Hollowborn remain one of the greatest historical mysteries in Varethia." His voice is calm. Measured. "We do not know how they came into existence." He stops beside the windows. "We do not know whether they were created, born, or discovered." A few students exchange curious looks. "We do not know why they appeared." He turns back toward us. "Nor do we know why they disappeared."

That surprises me. If they were truly dangerous surely someone would have recorded how they were defeated. Professor Aldren continues before anyone can interrupt. "The earliest texts describe them as creatures." He writes the word.

"Later records insist they had no physical form." Another word. Phenomenon. "Some accounts describe armies."

Another. One. "Others describe only a single Hollowborn."

The classroom has become completely silent. Professor Aldren folds his hands behind his back. "There are hundreds of surviving records." He lets that sink in. "Almost none agree."

I raise my hand. His eyes meet mine immediately. "Yes, Miss Vaelith?" He says.

"If every account contradicts the others..." I glance toward the board. "...how do historians know the Hollowborn were real?"

The room turns toward him. Professor Aldren doesn't answer immediately. Instead, he walks back toward the map. With a gentle movement of his hand, glowing lights appear across ancient Varethia. Villages. Sanctums. Roads. Then one after another they vanish. Not violently. Not dramatically. Simply gone.

"The details disagree." His voice is quieter now. "The existence does not." He lets the last light disappear. "What survives across every known record is absence." He looks around the room. "Entire villages emptied." A point on the map fades. "Forests abandoned." Another. "Sanctums left without guardians." Another. "Places where something clearly existed and then did not." He closes his hand. Darkness. Not a single light remains. No one speaks. A wolf near the front finally breaks the silence.

"So they killed everyone?"

Professor Aldren considers the question. "Perhaps." The wolf frowns. "You don't know?"

Professor Aldren shakes his head. "We know people disappeared." He pauses. "We do not know whether they died." That sentence hangs heavily over the classroom.

Another student raises her hand. "If nobody knows what happened why are we still studying them?"

Professor Aldren's expression softens almost imperceptibly. "Because history remembers consequences long after it forgets causes."

He walks back toward the board. "The Hollowborn shaped the world you inherited." He gestures toward the invisible borders. "The Academy emerged after the Age of Silence. The Council was formed after the Age of Silence." His eyes sweep across the classroom. "Whether the Hollowborn were monsters, a magical disaster or something else entirely... They changed history." He pauses. "And that alone makes them worthy of study."

Nyra looks thoughtfully at the board. Then raises her hand again. Professor Aldren nods.

"Do scholars believe they could return?" Several students laugh quietly. Not because the question is foolish. Because it sounds like asking whether dragons might suddenly forget how to fly.

Professor Aldren doesn't laugh. He simply answers. "There is no historical evidence suggesting they survived." Nyra nods. Satisfied.

"So..." He continues. "The accepted scholarly position is no." The room visibly relaxes. Then he adds "History has a complicated relationship with certainty." A faint smile. "Which is why historians rarely use the word never." The laughter this time is warmer. The tension eases. The lesson moves forward.

Professor Aldren erases the board. The map returns. Modern kingdoms glow once more. "Open your texts to Chapter Nine." Books open throughout the classroom. Pens begin moving. The Hollowborn disappear from the lecture as naturally as they arrived. As though they are simply another piece of ancient history. Another mystery scholars may never solve.

I lower my eyes to the page. Yet I find myself glancing once more toward the word that had been erased. Hollowborn. An entire civilization changed because of something no one truly understands. I can't decide whether that's fascinating or deeply unsettling.

A knock echoes through the classroom. Three precise knocks. Professor Aldren stops speaking. Every student looks toward the doors. They open immediately.

The Headmaster enters. No one tells us to stand. Every student rises anyway. Even Professor Aldren. The silence feels different now. Not tense. Respectful. The Headmaster's silver hair catches the morning light as he surveys the room. His gaze moves across the first-years. Measured. Calm. Then he speaks.

"Be seated." We obey instantly. He remains standing. "First-year students." His voice carries effortlessly through the hall. "In three mornings." A brief pause. "The First Trial of the academic year will begin." No one moves. "You will report to the Eastern Courtyard before sunrise." Another pause. "Further instructions will be given upon your arrival." A few students exchange uncertain glances. "The purpose of the Trial..." He looks around the room. "Is not to determine who among you is strongest. It is to determine whether you possess the qualities required to remain at this Academy."