Astral Chroma's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Astral spent the evening in her studio preparing arguments for the council, but her hands kept reaching for her mother's unfinished portrait instead. The snow fox stared back at her, painted in dawn colors that still glowed faintly. She'd started it the day before her first expulsion. That academy had expelled her for painting a sunrise across the entire east wall of the dormitory—cascading colors that shifted with the light, ice crystals forming wherever the orange met the blue. She'd meant it as a gift, something beautiful to wake up to. But the headmaster called it vandalism, and the other students packed their things and moved to a different wing because the wall sang at dawn. Her roommate had cried when the guards came. The girl pressed a silver locket into Astral's palm before she left, the one with both their portraits inside. Astral opened it now, wincing at the crack that split their painted faces apart. She'd carried it through two more expulsions, a reminder of what her art cost other people. She set the locket on her workbench and looked at the snow fox again. Tomorrow she'd tell the council that her magic worked better because it created beauty, not just power. But she couldn't make herself believe it when she remembered her roommate's tears. She closed the portrait and put it away. The council didn't need to hear about the wall or the locket. They needed to see what her magic could do right, not what it had ruined. She picked up a fresh canvas instead and began sketching containment runes, her arguments shifting from beauty to control.