The Last Godfall: Transmigrated as the Young Master

The scrape of benches quieted as Professor Thalverin walked into the hall with a girl following behind. Students stood quickly, though a cluster of nobles remained seated. Among them, Vencian and Elíasstayed still.

Vencian's eyes were on the folded paper in his hand. The name on it had not left his mind since he had read it. Roselys Marendil.

That surname…

The answer came to him immediately without effort.

The High Preceptor's daughter?

He finally tore his gaze from the document to the front. The professor's assistant set chalk and ledger on the desk. Elías leaned closer, voice lowered. "See her? Roselys Marendil. She's the one who wrote that hypothesis." He gestured at the paper.

Vencian's glance moved toward her. Their eyes met for a brief instant before he broke it with practiced ease, making it seem like nothing.

Well, that certainly escalated quickly.

He had never spoken to her, and held no memory of crossing paths with her. She differed from Seris, whose name and face had completely disappeared from his memory. He remembered Roselys from hushed talk and fleeting references.

A few seconds ago, he had already been wrestling with the coincidence of the strange sign appearing on the moon during the night of his arrival. Now another coincidence placed itself before him. Roselys Marendil.

Yet one thing was certain. She hadn't been Thalverin's assistant last term. That role was new. Which meant she had joined recently.

What are the chances…

He wanted to press her about it. But the lecture hall wasn't the place, and he suppressed the impulse before it showed on his expression.

Professor Thalverin set his notes upon the lectern and cleared his throat. "Welcome back. I trust you did not spend the entire break dulling your minds. If you did, today will remind you of what you've lost."

A faint ripple of laughter rolled through the benches.

"Since we return from a break, we begin with familiar ground." He wrote on the board in measured strokes. "Cathedral architecture. Today we examine what the Church calls Architectural Radiance."

The chalk made a faint scraping sound as he drew three figures: a circle, a triangle, and a square. "What do these signify?"

Hands shot up. A girl near the front row spoke first. "The circle stands for eternity."

"Correct."

Another student answered. "The triangle for the Threefold Radiance."

"Good."

A boy in the back added, "The square represents the mortal realm."

"Yes." Thalverin tapped each figure in turn. "Builders drew their plans from these signs. Columns, arches, bays. Ratios that spoke of meaning, not only function. The work involved more than mathematics alone. It was conviction placed into stone."

"Every arch, every column was bound to these shapes. Circles, triangles, squares — the builders called it Sacred Geometry of Radiance."

Vencian studied the board. His former self would have called it superstition. But after crossing worlds and witnessing impossible things, such judgments had become more complex.

Thalverin gestured to Roselys. She drew a regulating circle, then a triangle inside, lines precise and quick. "The Illuminars — those chosen builders of the early cathedrals — held that design revealed truth. Structure bent to meaning, not the reverse."

"In our canon," he continued, "How did architects apply the doctrine of Daysdeath?"

He motioned for Roselys. She read from her ledger without hesitation. "The moon remains as a lesser guide. Architects used this doctrine when arranging windows, clerestories, and colored glass."

The word Daysdeath struck Vencian's thoughts.

The faith of True Light taught that the God once kept the world in unbroken day. When mankind first denied Him, darkness entered, and the moon was left as a lesser light so mortals would not be lost. That turning point became known as Daysdeath.

After his experiences, denial proved more difficult to such tales. His inner resistance to religious concepts struggled with accepting what exceeded human understanding.

"The doctrine guided not only sermons but plans. The Cathedral of the Luminous Star in Draal is our clearest witness, raised by Illuminars over the fallen star. Its geometry was fixed so the sun and moon would both speak through it."

"It stands as the clearest architectural witness to Daysdeath, raised above the grotto where the King of Angels entered his trance."

Thalverin let the silence settle for a breath before his gaze shifted across the benches and fixed on him.

"Vencian. Why was its design bound to both sun and moon, rather than either alone?"

The room stirred at his name.

Roselys's eyes lifted from her ledger at the sound of his name. Her attention lingered, measured, before she returned to her notes as if nothing had changed.

While he questioned his inherited memories about people and relationships, he trusted the knowledge from books completely. Theory and study remained untouched. Knowledge sat in his mind with precision.

He kept his voice calm. "Because the covenant began there. The sun marked what was lost, the moon what was left. To choose only one would be false to that place."

The certainty in his answer came not from belief but from those exact lessons embedded in memory. On Earth, such questions would have stumped him, but here he answered as if the knowledge belonged to him.

A brief silence followed before Thalverin nodded once. "Well put."

The chalk tapped lightly against the board as the lecture moved on.

A student by the window raised his hand. "When applying the doctrine of Daysdeath, were cathedrals aligned with real cycles of sun and moon, or was it only symbolic?"

"Measured cycles," Thalverin replied. "Symbol alone would lack weight. At the Cathedral of the Luminous Star, midday light strikes the meteorite at its center and scatters into fixed lines across the vault. At night, angled windows draw the moon's glow into the nave. That precision shows intent."

Pens scratched across parchment.

Vencian kept the detail in mind. His memory of grotto lore remained complete, but hearing how structures aligned like measured devices gave it another perspective.

Thalverin turned to a new diagram. "If walls dissolve into glass, how do they still bear weight?"

Students answered in sequence. "Ribs for the vault." "Piers for vertical load." "External supports for thrust."

"Correct," he said. "Thus, the skeleton. Walls gave way to glass so that light could teach."

The explanation settled in his thoughts. The work showed cleverness, yet tied every solution to one faith.

Thalverin shifted the diagram to a simple floor plan. "Orientation mattered as much as form. Now, why did the builders always turn their cathedrals east, and what meaning lay behind it?"

"Sunrise," a girl stood to answer. "It represented renewal, light returning after darkness."

She was a familiar face. Vencian recalled her standing with another girl when they came to offer condolences yesterday.

"Good. Also, east provided a fixed reference across cities. It aligned the altar with the first service of the day."

She sat back down after answering, her eyes drifting his way.

When he glanced in her direction, their gazes met. She dropped her eyes quickly, almost startled.

Resisting the urge to call her a weirdo, he pulled his attention back to the lecture.

A boy asked, "What of other alignments?"

"Feast days. Equinoxes. At Coraeis, the moon at equinox enters through the oculus and lands at the crossing. Evidence shows calculation, not chance."

Vencian kept his focus on the lecture. Thalverin pressed on with more examples and called on him several times.

Each question he answered coolly, without pause, and each time the professor accepted it with a nod before moving on.

The exchanges drew some glances from the nearby rows, but Vencian paid them no mind.

The bell rang, marking the close of the session.

Thalverin placed his notes back on the lectern. "For your work this week, read the opening of Rational Astronomy on alignment methods. Bring questions you cannot resolve by observation." His eyes swept the benches once more. "You may leave for now. If you have doubts, there is nothing that Miss Marendil will not be able to answer."

With that, he gathered his materials and left the hall. Voices rose as students collected their belongings. Roselys remained at the desk, closing her ledger and setting chalk back in order.

Vencian lingered, his thoughts circling between the lecture, the scarlet trail, and the woman whose name had unsettled him.

He remained seated. He fixed on the coincidence that had linked her name with the sign in the sky, and the sense that neither was chance.

The benches around him stirred with movement. Books slid into satchels, chairs scraped against stone. Elías gathered his things with the others but paused when he noticed Vencian had not risen. Vencian rubbed the folded edge of the hypothesis paper between his fingers, gaze shifting toward Roselys before falling back to the text.

"So, the lady's caught your fancy?" Elías asked.

Vencian raised an eyebrow without answering.

Elías let out a chuckle. "Well, you always had a thing for smart women."

Vencian's eyes flicked sideways toward Roselys, who was still arranging notes at the front. He answered casually. "Well, she is certainly… striking."

Elías paused, surprise flashing across his face before he hid it. Vencian caught it.

"What?" Vencian asked.

Elías shook his head. "Nothing…"

Strange. He acted like I had said something wrong.

"Anyways, do you want to discuss the papers with her?" He tilted his chin toward the document in Vencian's hand and shifted his glance toward Roselys.

Vencian looked back down at the page and shook his head. "No."

Not now.

He stood, sliding the paper into his satchel. "Let's go."

Together they joined the stream of students filing toward the exit.