Seraphina's Secret

The air in the Great Hall was thick with the scent of old parchment and the low hum of a thousand minds at work. Dust motes danced in the shafts of light that pierced the high, arched windows, illuminating the hushed reverence that permeated the space. I sat at a table near the back, ostensibly poring over a faded treatise on elemental bindings, but my attention was a kite with a frayed string, tugging insistently towards the other end of the hall.

Seraphina.

She was at her usual table, a solitary island in the sea of students, her dark hair pulled back severely from her face, accentuating the sharp angles of her cheekbones and jaw. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, her slender fingers tracing lines on a scroll that seemed to shimmer with an inner light. She worked with an almost ferocious intensity, a creature perfectly attuned to the arcane energies that pulsed within these ancient walls.