The Return Of The Exiled Villain

The days after that passed in a flash.

Atrinae emptied the guest shelves until the steward stopped restocking them without asking the princess first.

Gray trained in the black-crystal room until his ribs stopped reminding him of Vhar’Zul.

And just like the princess warned him, Gray didn’t touch any other doors.

He ate when food was left outside his room and spoke when the princess passed him in a hallway, which was rare and never for long.

She looked at him like a problem she had invited in and could not put back out.

And soon...

The morning finally came.

The academy bells started before the sky had finished turning.

Ring....

A low, layered sound that rolled off the dark towers and into the mansion as if the building next door had decided the whole street now belonged to it.

Gray was already dressed.

Atrinae flicked her tongue once against his wrist and vanished back into the bonded space.

[It’s today...]

’Today.’

He left the guest room and found the princess already in the foyer.

She was not in the coat she had worn through the capital streets.

The Crimson Moon colors sat cleaner on her now, spear at her back, hair bound, expression locked into the version of herself the academy expected to see.

She looked at him once.

”You are coming to the entrance exam?”

It wasn’t really a question.

”That was the point of the bed,” Gray said.

Her mouth tightened. Whatever she had decided about the alley, she had not found a way to unsay the invitation.

”Stay behind me at the gate. Do not speak unless you are asked. If someone from a house tries to pick a fight before the exam starts, you do not answer it in the street.”

Gray nodded.

They crossed the courtyard together.

The mansion gates opened onto the same stretch of stone as the academy entrance.

The crowd was already there: heirs in clan colors, caravan students with travel dust still on their boots, inspectors taking tokens, flying beasts circling the inner wall.

Vessa would be in that mess somewhere. Riven too. House Veyth, if they had any pride left after the alley, would be looking for a face.

The princess walked toward the dark arch as if the line did not apply to her, and naturally... Gray followed behind.

The first whisper started before they even reached the inspectors.

”Is that... an incubus?”

”Walking with... the Crimson Moon Princess?”

”No... impossible, no chance! The Crimson Moon Princess does not walk people in!”

A girl in silver-thread robes covered her mouth and still failed to keep her voice down.

”Look at the horns, and that heart-shaped tail. That is an incubus... Why is he behind Her Highness like a retainer?”

”Maybe he is a retainer.”

”Does he look like a retainer to you? His clothes are cheap... his swords is merely an emperor-grade... the princess does not keep cheap things.”

A taller student from a horned clan snorted.

”Then he is a pet. Incubi are good for that. Pretty face, no house, easy to throw away after the exam.”

Someone laughed too loudly and then pretended it had been a cough.

Gray did not turn his head, and simply ignored her.

The princess did not either, treating them as merely passersby.

The three guards were enough to keep the crowd from becoming a wall, but not enough to stop the talk from sliding along it.

”I heard she fought someone in Vhar’Zul.”

”That was a rumor.”

”...Wasn’t the rumour said to eb an incubus that had fought against her? Does that mean... that incubus next to her was the one who apparently got a draw against her?”

”House Veyth said an incubus put hands on her.”

”And she brought him here? That would mean Veyth is lying, or did she lose her mind?”

”Or he is stronger than he looks.”

That last one made a few people go quiet for half a second.

”Peak Saint at most. You can feel it easily... If he was worth the attention, he would not be walking two steps behind her.”

They passed under the first banner.

The academy’s dark stone took the red sky and gave nothing back.

More students packed the inner yard, tokens in hand, family crests on their sleeves, all of them pretending not to stare while staring anyway.

The talk changed, because an incubus could only carry a conversation for so long.

”Forget him. Did you see the Veyth heir?”

”Cael? He has been in a mood since he arrived. Someone said he got embarrassed in Vhar’Zul.”

”Good. He needed it.”

”Do not say that where his protectors can hear you.”

Another cluster, closer to the registration tables, had already moved on to the names that actually mattered.

”The Ashrend twins are here. Both of them. Late Monarch, and they have not even taken the inner exam yet.”

”That is not the problem. House Nethar sent their third daughter. People say she already touched Archduke pressure once and lived.”

”Lived is not the same as won.”

”Still. I am not standing near her in the first trial.”

A boy with a ledger instead of a weapon spoke like he had been paid to memorize the list.

”Sable Fang’s young master came from the western abyss last night. He killed a peak Monarch beast on the road and dragged the core in as a greeting gift. The inspectors accepted it... which means the academy definitely wants him.”

”What about the Hollow Bell girl?”

”She is already inside. She does not wait in yards with the rest of us.”

”And the Emberveil bastard?”

”Not a bastard if Emberveil claims him. Do not let that family hear you say it.”

Vessa’s voice did not appear in the noise.

Neither did Riven’s.

Gray caught a flash of violet hair far to the left, too short to see over the crowd, and then it was gone.

The princess stopped at the priority desk.

The inspector behind it bowed so fast his token stamp nearly hit the wood.

”Your Highness. The Crimson Moon line is already cleared. Your... companion?”

The yard leaned in without moving.

Gray felt the attention settle on his horns, his cheap coat, the fact that he had arrived from the mansion gate instead of the caravan line.

The princess did not look at the whisperers.

”He enters with me,” she said.

”Register him.”

The inspector swallowed.

”Name?”

”Gray.”

Just then...

THRUUUM!

A sudden pressure filled the whole place.

The conversation all around instantly died down.

A few first-time students took an unconscious step back and then pretended they had only been adjusting their stance.

Swoosh...!

Four wings opened above the steps, causing a wind so strong that a few people even had to defend themselves.

Black and broad...

The membranes caught the red sky and turned it darker. The woman who owned them did not hurry as her presence practically did everything for her.

’...An Archduke,’ Gray thought inwardly.

Black hair fell straight down her back, unornamented except for a single bone clasp at the crown.

Her face was sharp in the way old demonic bloodlines liked to be sharp: high cheeks, a mouth that did not bother smiling, eyes like cooled magma with a slit of gold through the center.

Horns curved back from her temples, longer than any student’s, ridged and matte.

Her robe was academy black, cut to move, marked at the collar with a crest that was not a house crest.

It was the academy’s... headmistress.

An actual Archduke, standing in front of children who still thought a Monarch heir was the top of the world.

”...That’s our legendary headmistress, the one who was said to have fought multiple Seraphins and get out of there without a single scratch.”

Someone near Gray whispered and then had the sense to stop talking.

She looked over the yard the way a butcher looks over a table, assessing every single student with her eyes alone.

When she spoke, the sound carried without a formation and without a shout.

”Quiet.”

The last whispers died.

”I am Headmistress Vael’Zira. This academy does not care what name you dragged through the gate. It does not care which mansion you slept in last night. It does not care whether the street is already telling a story about you.”

Her gaze passed the Crimson Moon banner, the Ashrend twins, the Nethar girl, the cheap incubus standing two steps behind a princess.

It did not linger long enough to be kindness.

”You are here for the four hundred and seventy-first entrance examination of the Demon Academy.”

A ripple went through the younger students. The number made it feel older than any of them.

Vael’Zira’s wings folded once, then settled.

”Some of you will enter. Most of you will not. Those who fail will leave the grounds before night. Those who pass will learn why this place has outlived the houses that keep sending children to it.”

She let that sit.

Then her mouth curved, just barely, and it was not a welcome so much as a warning with manners.

”Welcome... to the four hundred and seventy-first entrance exam.”