​"You may stop reaching for your toy sword, little anomaly. Nothing here will harm you unless I permit it."

​Khaos adjusted his grip on the rough grey fabric of Silas’s robe.

"I am not afraid. I am looking for the kitchen. Where are the sweet buns you promised?"

​"I promised you an audience, not a bakery. Keep walking."

​"Sheesh, Arcania feels very sticky. It tastes like old milk."

​"No, It tastes like potential. Though I suppose to an unawakened palate, it might seem overwhelming. You are walking through the filtered runoff of the city’s central core. It keeps the city afloat, powers the laboratories, and disintegrates garbage."

​"Like those two wardens at the gate?" Khaos asked with a bright smile.

​Vespera stopped abruptly. Silas bumped into her back, immediately bowing in apology.

Khaos just looked up at her, tilting his head.

​"Listen closely, child. Arcania is a meritocracy built on knowledge and order. You possess raw power, yes, but so does a volcanic eruption. We study eruptions here; we do not allow them to dictate policy. The Grand Council will decide if you are a student or a containment threat. If you wish to see a sweet bun ever again, I suggest you let Silas do the talking."

​Khaos stared, "I do not like being threatened, white-hair woman. My father says threats are just promises made by weak people who are about to lose a fight."

​Silas dropped to both knees this time, "Archmage, please. He knows not what he says. He is a child of the wild, untutored and ignorant."

​Vespera looked down at the trembling monk, then back at Khaos. The arrogance in the boy’s face was matched only by the terrifying depth of void energy she could feel humming just beneath his skin. It was a chaotic, hungry force, and it was entirely unrestrained.

​"Ignorant, perhaps," Vespera conceded, "But untutored? I felt how he unmade that halberd. That was not just raw output. That was intent. He did not simply push the magic; he ordered it to cease existing. Who taught you that, Khaos?"

​Khaos shrugged, kicking at a loose piece of gravel that promptly disintegrated into white dust.

"Nobody taught me, miss. I just do it. When I want something to go away, I make it heavy, or I make it empty. The halberd wanted to cut me. I wanted it to be dust. I won."

​Vespera exchanged a look with Silas, who was slowly standing up, clutching his staff like a lifeline.

"I fear you do not understand the magnitude of what you have brought to our gates, Brother Silas. This is not a prodigy. A prodigy is a musician who plays perfectly. This is the instrument that can rewrite the song."

​"Umm, he just needs guidance, Archmage" Silas pleaded. "I brought him to the wisest beings in the realms."

​"Wisdom often dictates that a disease must be quarantined before it spreads. Anyway, walk. We are close."

​They entered a massive, circular foyer at the base of the tower. There were no stairs, just floating platforms of light that carried robed scholars and mages from one level to another in silence.

Everyone stopped to stare as Vespera led the mud-covered boy and the blind monk through the pristine hall.

​"Why is everyone looking at me?" Khaos asked, "Do they want to fight, Monk?"

​"They are looking at you because you smell like wet dog and you are covered in dirt. Be quiet."

​Vespera led them to the central lift.

"Grand Council Chambers," she commanded the air.

​The platform shot upward instantly. It was faster than the ascender rock on the cliff, and Khaos let out a loud whoop of delight, enjoying the stomach-dropping pull of gravity.

"Again! Let’s do that again!"

​"This is not an amusement park, child," Vespera said as the platform locked into place on the highest level of the spire.

​The massive glass door opened.

​Inside was a vast, circular chamber. The floor was a map of the known constellations, constantly shifting in real time. Hovering in the air, arranged in a semi-circle, were seven thrones made of different elemental materials: fire, ice, rock, wind, iron, light, and shadow. Six of the thrones were occupied. The throne of shadow was empty.

​Vespera led Silas and Khaos to the center of the constellation map.

"Grand Council. I present the anomaly that triggered the void warning."

​Silas dropped to his knees, pressing his forehead against the shifting stars of the floor.

"Supreme Archmages, I am Brother Silas, a humble servant from the lower realms. I pray for your mercy and guidance."

​Khaos did not bow. He stood in the center of the room, looking at the floating thrones.

"Your chairs are very silly," he announced to the six most powerful beings in the city. "Why are you floating so high? Are you afraid I will step on your toes?"

​

Silas was covered in cold sweat.

Vespera stepped back, crossing her arms, curiously waiting to see what would happen.

​All of sudden, the man sitting on the throne of fire, his beard literally made of dancing flames, leaned forward.

"This is the cataclysm you warned us of, Vespera? A four-year-old peasant with a vocabulary consisting entirely of insults?"

​"Archmage Malakor. Do not let his stature fool you. He destroyed a high-tier runic halberd with a touch and vaporized the active mana within it. His core is not aligned with any element. It is void."

​The elderly woman on the throne of light squinted her Violet eyes.

"Void? That is impossible. Void is a theoretical concept, the absolute absence of mana. It cannot exist in a physical form, let alone as a living core."

​"I invite you to test him, Archmage Carmine," Vespera said.

The massive man made of living rock rumbled from the throne of earth:

​"TCH. This is a waste of council time. The boy is a mutant. A mistake of nature. Quarantine him in the lower levels and study him. We do not need the Grand Council to deal with a toddler."

​"I am right here," Khaos called out, crossing his arms and tapping his foot. "I can hear you, rock-man. You are very rude. When I learn to make the fire, I am going to melt your chair."

​Malakor laughed, "Haha, I like him. He has spirit. A dangerous, arrogant, foolhardy spirit, but spirit nonetheless."

​"Spirit is irrelevant," Carmine said, her voice like a cool breeze. "Vespera, if what you say is true, this boy represents a threat to the stability of Arcania itself. Our city is held aloft by a massive core of positive mana. If a void entity interacts with it..."

​"He will not intersect with it. Not unless we fail to teach him control. And that is why they are here. The Atrai Kingdom was hunting him. Silas brought him here to learn."

​Malakor leaned back in his fiery throne.

"You want us to train the apocalypse? Vespera, your ambition has always bordered on madness, but this is a leap too far. We train mages, not monsters."

​Silas lifted his head,

"Your majesty, he is not a monster! He is a child with a mana core he does not understand! If you turn him away, he will die, and the darkness inside him will explode, consuming everything in his reality! Is that the wisdom of Arcania? To ignore the fire until it burns down your own house?"

​"Watch your tone, defector," the Archmage of Iron growled, "You are in no position to lecture us on wisdom."

​Khaos looked down at Silas, then up at the council. He was bored with the talking. They were just like the grownups back in the village, arguing about things that did not matter. He wanted to see magic. He wanted sweet buns.

​"Argh, I am hungry. Which one of you lazy old people is going to get me some food?"

​Malakor laughed again, but this time it was a dangerous sound. He raised his hand, and a small, perfectly contained sphere of intense white fire appeared above his palm.

"You want food, little anomaly? Catch."

​Malakor flicked his hand, sending the sphere of fire directly at Khaos. It was not a killing blow, but it was fast, hot, and meant to terrify.

Silas screamed, scrambling backward.

Vespera tensed, ready to intervene if necessary.

​Khaos did not flinch. He did not dodge. He looked at the incoming sphere of fire with absolute disdain. It was beautiful, yes, but it was trying to hurt him.

​He raised his tiny left hand, palm outward.

​"Stop," Khaos commanded.

​He did not use mana. He did not chant. He simply pushed his intent, unsealing the heavy black door in his soul just a tiny fraction further than he did at the gates.

​The sphere of white fire struck his palm.

​It did not explode. It did not splash. It simply ceased to be.

​The intense heat vanished instantly. The brilliant white light was snuffed out like a candle in a vacuum.

​For the first time in centuries, absolute, stunned silence reigned in the Grand Council Chambers.

The six Archmages stared at the toddler standing in the center of the constellation map, his tiny hand still raised. S

ilas cowered on the floor, weeping silently. Vespera breathed a slow sigh of relief, a triumphant smile touching her lips.

​Malakor slowly lowered his hand. The flames of his beard flickered and dimmed.

"Hmm, Vespera was telling the truth."

Carmine stared at Khaos speechlessly.

​"He didn’t just absorb the magic. He disintegrated it. He canceled the mana composition at a fundamental level."

​