Chapter 141: The Presentation

Astrid Liora Vale

I woke that morning already thinking about the presentation, my stomach tight with a nervousness that had nothing to do with grades. Liora’s note sat tucked carefully inside the folder we’d prepared, safe between two protective sheets of paper Ivy had insisted on adding after I’d nearly panicked about creasing it further.

"You’re going to be fine," Ivy said, watching me straighten the folder for the third time.

"I know."

"You don’t look like you know."

"I’m not worried about the grade," I admitted. "I’m worried about getting it right. About doing right by her."

Ivy’s expression softened, and she reached over to squeeze my hand. "You already have. Whatever happens today, you’ve already done more for her than most people would ever think to do."

I let that settle as we walked toward the lecture hall together, my first real return to ordinary academy life since everything had happened. Students noticed me almost immediately, some offering quiet smiles, others whispering behind hands the moment they thought I wasn’t looking. A few classmates I barely knew stopped to welcome me back, one girl pressing a small bag of sweets into my hand with an awkward but genuine smile. Even Selene, of all people, caught my eye across the hallway and offered a nod that carried something surprisingly sincere.

"I’m glad you’re back," she said, and I found myself believing her.

It struck me, walking through those familiar halls, how much I’d missed simply being a student, worrying about ordinary things like assignments and gossip rather than survival and ancient curses buried beneath the earth.

Reed found me outside the lecture hall, checking through our materials one final time with the same careful attention he brought to everything. "You have the note?" he asked.

"Right here," I said, patting the folder.

"You’ll be fine," he said, and something steady in his voice helped ease the last of my nerves.

Xander appeared a moment later, nudging my shoulder with his own. "You look like you’re about to face a firing squad," he said. "Relax. Worst case, Aldric hates it and we all fail spectacularly together."

"That’s not helping."

"I’m not trying to help. I’m trying to make you laugh so you stop looking terrified."

Despite myself, a small laugh escaped, and something in my chest loosened at how normal this all felt, the three of us standing together without anyone treating me like something fragile that might shatter if handled wrong.

Aldric called us forward once class began, introducing our delayed presentation with the same measured formality he brought to everything, and the four of us, Reed, Xander, Ivy, and I, took our places at the front of the room.

Ivy’s group had presented without her days ago, so she had to join ours.

We started with the history we’d initially uncovered, the old Moonshade settlement predating the current academy, the abandoned ruins hidden just beyond the modern grounds. Reed walked the class through the ancient records methodically, careful to distinguish confirmed fact from educated speculation. A few students shifted in their seats, treating it as interesting but distant history, the kind of academic curiosity that rarely felt personally relevant.

Then I stepped forward to introduce Elaris.

"The City Beneath the Moon," I said, watching the room’s attention sharpen slightly. "This isn’t simply a lost civilization documented in old records. Elaris is real, and its people are still alive today, living beneath the very ground this academy sits on."

The room went quiet in a different way now, genuine interest replacing polite academic attention.

I walked them through what we’d learned, the ancient war that had driven an entire population underground, the curse laid upon their bloodline by the Moon Goddess for a mistake made generations before any currently living Elarisi had been born, their society built out of desperate necessity into something that functioned, however imperfectly, against conditions that should have made survival impossible. I was careful to separate what we knew with certainty from what remained speculation, unwilling to present guesswork as established fact.

Then I paused, and reached for the folder holding Liora’s note.

"Their history isn’t only about war and curses," I said. "It’s about people. Ordinary people, living ordinary lives underground, dreaming about a world most of them will never get to see."

I told them about Liora. Not as a tragic figure, not as a victim whose death should evoke pity. I told them about a girl training to become a doctor because she’d watched too many of her own people suffer and wanted to help. A girl who asked endless questions about rain and clouds and stars, fascinated by a world she’d only ever known through secondhand descriptions and old drawings passed down through generations who’d never seen it either.

"She believed her people deserved to be remembered," I said. "Not as a myth, or a mistake, or a curse to be feared. As people."

I opened the folder and carefully unfolded the note, my hands steady despite the tightness building in my chest.

"I want to read something she wrote," I said, and the room fell into a silence so complete I could hear my own heartbeat.

I read her words slowly, carefully, letting each sentence land the way she’d intended it to. I miss things I’ve never even seen. I hope someday someone from the surface knows we existed down here. Not as a curse, or a warning, or a mistake. Just as people.

My voice wavered slightly on the final line, but I finished it, refusing to let the moment collapse before I’d given her everything I’d come here to give.

"History isn’t only about kings and wars and famous bloodlines," I said, folding the note carefully back along its creases. "Sometimes it’s about ordinary people whose existence the world simply forgot. Liora didn’t want to be saved. She wanted to be remembered."

For a long moment, nobody moved.

Then someone started clapping, and the sound spread quickly through the room until the entire class had joined in, students who’d walked in knowing nothing about Elaris an hour earlier now looking genuinely moved by everything we’d shared. Ivy wiped at her eyes beside me, and Xander wore an expression of such open pride that I had to look away before it undid my own composure. Reed simply watched me, quiet and steady, his expression carrying an understanding that needed no words at all.

Aldric waited for the applause to settle before speaking, his own expression carrying something more genuine than his usual academic neutrality. "This is precisely the kind of scholarship this academy hopes to encourage," he said. "You’ve supported an extraordinary discovery with physical evidence, historical documentation, and firsthand testimony, rather than allowing speculation to stand in for fact. That distinction matters enormously."

He gave us our grade without further preamble. "An A-plus-plus," he said, "the highest mark this project has ever received in my tenure here."

Then he continued, something almost reflective in his tone. "Moonshade has a long-standing tradition of preserving the histories of civilizations that history itself chose to forget. Given what you’ve uncovered, I intend to establish a permanent exhibit dedicated to Elaris within our historical archives. Their story deserves a place here, alongside everything else this academy has chosen to remember."

Something warm settled deep in my chest at that, a promise made concrete in a way I hadn’t fully expected.

After class ended and students filed out around us, I stayed behind a moment longer, looking down at our scattered materials, at Liora’s note resting safely once more inside its folder.

She had wanted someone to know her people existed.

Now an entire academy knew.

Reed and Xander waited for me just outside the lecture hall, giving me the space to have this moment fully to myself before I finally walked out to join them, something settled and whole finally taking shape in my chest that hadn’t been there since I’d woken up in that colorful, unfamiliar room days ago.

I had finally given Liora the goodbye I hadn’t gotten to give her at her grave.