A labyrinth of polished oak floors, this hushed expanse contained its own peculiar ecosystem of young men. Three dozen souls, each navigating the delicate, treacherous currents of Aethelgard Academy.
Here, beneath vaulted ceilings, every student had lived precisely eighteen days since term began. Each morning, the tension stretched taut, a silken cord threatening to snap. Survival was a precarious dance, a constant calculation.
This exacting vigilance had begun for Elias at twelve years old, when he first grasped the art of strategic association. That intricate balancing act had become the rhythm of his life, a silent compulsion shared by many.
This chamber of scholastics, with its precisely arrayed desks, was nothing less than a social pyramid, cunningly concealed.
“Ah…”
His arm, numb from being pressed against the cool wood, prickled with returning sensation. Elias flexed his fingers, a faint tremor running through them. A quiet sigh escaped his lips. His gaze drifted over the slumped shoulders of his classmates, past the dark green slates, to the peach-colored napes of their necks.
At the raised dais, Master Thorne, our Rhetoric instructor, sat engrossed in a rumpled gazette, folded neatly in half. Some students scribbled diligently at the assigned problems, while others, having surrendered, lay collapsed in a state of feigned slumber.
“Wake yourselves, gentlemen, this is not a dormitory,” Master Thorne announced, his voice carrying an edge of weariness as he turned a page.
Fifth period already. Elias had been grappling with the fifteenth problem, the intricate turns of an ancient Aethelgard dialect. He paused, raking an index finger through his dark hair, before setting his lead pencil down. His eyes inevitably found the empty seats. Two, in particular, stood out with their silent accusation.
Julian Vance. Thomas Finch. Both absent, as expected. They would likely remain so tomorrow, unless Julian’s volatile temperament shifted, or some new, unarticulated drama unfolded between them. The specifics eluded Elias, as did everyone else.
His gaze returned to the convoluted script, the arcane runes blurring slightly before his eyes.
Once, Elias had believed he knew everything about Julian Vance. He’d convinced himself he understood Julian better than anyone in this entire academy. He’d cherished that conviction, clinging to it even when observing Julian’s easy camaraderie with Jasper Croft, who seemed to share a more profound bond.
Truthfully, that secret pride had been the fragile scaffold that allowed Elias to endure watching Jasper and Julian so intimately entwined. A quiet, venomous satisfaction had simmered within him, the notion that his understanding of Julian surpassed even Jasper’s.
Chin propped on his hand, Elias felt a wave of self-loathing. The capacity for such thoughts, such insidious calculations, sickened him.
What would others think if these twisted reflections churned forth from his mind? The answer was chillingly clear. He would be cast down, pushed to the very base of the pyramid, occupying its widest, most despised plane.
Such a prospect was terrifying. This particular strain of insidious desire, a serpent coiling in the heart of a young man, had to remain buried. Deep. So deep that not even its object could sense its foul breath. Ultimately, he needed to conceal it so thoroughly that even he might forget its existence.
Julian Vance, however, bore no such compunction. His desires, his volatile whims, were an open secret, known to every student in their year.
Elias shifted, lifting his head almost imperceptibly. Heads remained bowed, shoulders hunched. His lips pressed into a tight line. He looked forward, then.
Between the rows of desks, a forgotten textbook lay forlornly on the polished floor. Its leather cover bore faint, dusty footprints, a testament to neglect, perhaps even contempt.
Suddenly, a prickle of paranoia. Had someone noticed his lingering gaze? He buried his head, mimicking the others, his face pressing into the crook of his arm.
Then, a slow turn of his neck. His eyes found the back row. A face lay partially obscured by an arm, as if its owner had succumbed to sleep mid-collapse. The features appeared delicate, sorrowful, almost pallid, like those of a sculpted effigy.
“...”
Elias found himself staring at Jasper Croft’s face. His gaze then drifted to Jasper’s arm. Had the already towering Jasper grown further? The uniform, impeccably tailored at the term’s outset, now left his wrists fully exposed. Around one, a braided leather cord was wound, punctuated by small, polished iron runes—an unmistakable, weighty symbol of his adherence to the Orthodoxy of the Iron Veil.
Before learning more of his circumstances, Elias had always presumed Jasper resided in the wealthier districts of the capital, much like Thomas Finch.
Despite his intimidating presence, Jasper did not exude overt opulence. His eyes, set deep in shadowed sockets, always seemed to hold a haunted quality. Faded irises, rimmed by thin sclera beneath his pupils, sharpened his gaunt appearance. A perpetual melancholic heaviness clung to him.
Jasper’s aura was one of grim, quiet intimidation, lacking the polished veneer of inherited wealth. His face seemed etched with deprivation, though Elias knew this was misleading. Combined with his formidable height—undoubtedly the tallest student at Aethelgard—it made him doubly imposing.
Fortunately, unlike Julian Vance, Jasper’s sharp features possessed a classically austere symmetry. Without that, he might have been actively avoided. Even so, Jasper’s face remained unsettling, intimidating, imbued with a nervous, almost predatory energy.
Yet, Jasper’s declared temperament was a stark contrast.
He seemed not merely indifferent, but actively to excise events from his memory, whether by will or by some strange, inherent dissociation. He carried an air of “detached ownership of nothing,” a trait that, ironically, deepened his mystique.
Most notably, Jasper seemed unconcerned with coin. He never paid heed to the spending habits of others, nor to their requests for funds. If the mood struck him, he might casually toss a handful of shillings to a nearby classmate, as though currency held no intrinsic value. Sometimes he lent sums and promptly forgot the transaction. There were tales of students returning borrowed silver, only for Jasper to regard them with a puzzled frown, questioning the gesture.
Still, he did not offer his largesse to all. He might indulge a sudden whim for a stranger, yet coldly refuse those in genuine desperation.
Even with companions, Jasper could be ruthless. Elias once overheard a story of Alaric, upon seeing Jasper’s prized hunting hound—a magnificent, rarely displayed Irish Wolfhound—excitedly reaching to pet its formidable head without permission. Jasper, without a word, had simply unclipped the leash, allowing the hound to send Alaric sprawling to the ground with a single, sharp shove, like a startled frog.
At the apex of this social hierarchy, figures like Jasper Croft and Julian Vance shared a singular trait: a complete disregard for the opinions of others. This profound indifference, in its own peculiar way, was precisely what allowed them to perch so serenely at the pyramid’s summit.
Why did the others, with their own trembling hands, surrender the keys to their world to these untamed predators? No matter how Elias pondered it, the logic remained elusive.
And yet, Jasper Croft proclaimed himself a devout follower of the Orthodoxy of the Iron Veil.
He was the sort of scion who slept with a tome of scripture beneath his head, yet claimed adherence to a doctrine that seemed to bend to his convenience. He did not partake of spirits, nor did he touch tobacco. He abstained from base urges and never stooped to theft or extortion from his peers. Yet the tenets he followed were flawed; anyone could see that, especially regarding the Orthodoxy’s permissive stance on earthly pleasures.
The Orthodoxy, they said, condemned affections outside the sacred union of man and woman. Was this why Julian Vance’s open deviancies stirred such revulsion in Jasper Croft? Elias licked his suddenly dry lips.
He felt a strange, cold relief at not being entangled in their visible dramas. If he had been, he might have ended up like that textbook, trampled and discarded. And yet, even in that moment, a flicker of doubt: if Julian and Elias had remained close, as they were mere months ago, would Julian have offered him protection?
That thought surfaced against his will, dragging with it memories Elias desperately wished to drown. A deep breath caught in his throat, a wave of nausea rising, as if the austere midday meal threatened to return.
No, of course not.
How laughable, that he had once entertained such arrogance. To Julian, Elias was nothing. A fleeting acquaintance, a diversion. He knew this now, knew it from the cold dispassion in Julian’s eyes when he’d been thrown to the ground. The truth, stark and undeniable, had been staring him in the face.
Julian sinned openly. Elias, too, carried his own secret transgressions, but they remained hidden. And so, Julian, in his blatant disregard, seemed destined for divine retribution, while Elias, by his cunning, remained ostensibly spared.
A faint, bitter laugh escaped Elias’s lips, so soft it was audible only to himself.
“…So, as long as I don’t get caught, that’s all that matters.”
Perhaps the Almighty possessed a personality not unlike Jasper Croft’s.
His gaze drifted to the empty desk near the dais. Unusually, today, Elias felt a pang of pity for Thomas Finch. Poor, fragile soul, ensnared in Julian’s cruel magnetism. You lacked the strength to resist that monstrous, seductive power. Helpless Thomas, despite his robust physique. You should have fled the moment Elias had, subtly, warned you, fool.
Elias knew he was no virtuous soul. He was selfish, self-serving, and perhaps that was his own punishment. Sometimes, he even harbored this thought: If one must find solace in masculine affection, why not choose someone sly and calculating like him? Life, then, would be simpler, less prone to pain. Why fall for someone so innocent, so earnest, only to be utterly ruined?
These days, his thoughts had shifted.
Yes. Of course, no one could ever truly care for someone like him. He knew himself too well to believe otherwise.
There had been a time when he believed he could grasp everything. Arrogant, conceited Elias Thorne. Elias, who at eighteen, presumed he understood the labyrinthine complexities of the world. Wicked, vile Elias. Pitiful Elias, who found no solace, no comfort, and so endured everything alone.
That day, Elias could not conquer the fifteenth question. He feigned a sudden malaise, slumping over his desk. At least, he thought, I am not as utterly ruined as Julian or Thomas.
Whispers about Julian and Thomas, their entangled fates, spread like wildfire through the academy’s hushed halls. Whether exaggerated or rooted in truth, no one could say with certainty. And no one dared investigate. Julian’s inner circle had vanished from the school’s orbit, as if ripped out by the roots. The few who remained were too absorbed in forging new allegiances to dwell on old rumors, inadvertently fueling the inferno of speculation.
“Master Hawthorne, may I ask, who was closest to young Vance?”
“Ah, Jasper… Jasper Croft, I believe.”
Elias overheard this exchange as he passed the master’s study, returning to the Chamber of Scholastics before dismissal. Pretending not to have heard, he walked into the room. The master glanced nervously between Elias and the empty seats, his fingers drumming against the podium. Then, as if abandoning some unspoken worry, he announced:
“Let us conclude.”
The moment dismissal bells rang, Elias gathered his satchel. As he slung it over his shoulder, a hand tapped his back. Jasper Croft.
“Elias. Join me after our duties.”
Elias looked at Jasper’s face. He knew. Having meticulously observed Julian and Jasper’s every interaction, he understood that Jasper’s invitations were almost exclusively extended to Julian. After a brief pause, Elias offered a vague gesture of refusal.
“Cannot. I have private tutoring.”
“After that, then?”
“Further studies. Find one of your usual companions.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Clinging to dross only hinders one’s ascent.”
“Ha.”
Elias let out a short, hollow laugh at the stark absurdity of it all.
Right. This, precisely, was why he found a strange, unsettling resonance with Jasper. Their twisted values, their brutal pragmatism, seemed to align in unexpected ways.
“So, Alaric, Rhys—they’re dross? Even young Cormac?”
“If you insist on such precise terminology, then, yes, largely. But you, Elias, you are different.”
The backhanded compliment left Elias feeling a peculiar discomfort, a prickle beneath his skin.
“What is that supposed to mean? You are quite awful, Jasper.”
“No, I am not.”
“You are. Truly.”
“Hmm. It is in the Sacred Edicts. ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.’ I am merely honest, Thorne.”
Honestly, Jasper was worse than Elias. At least Elias did not overtly treat his companions like refuse.
“That is why I am a righteous man.”
“…Indeed.”
“Since I am such a righteous man, may I accompany you to your residence?”
Jasper Croft blinked, his gaze unblinking. Elias met his eyes for a moment before giving a small, almost imperceptible nod.
“Very well. Why not.”
As long as Jasper did not actively impede his own carefully constructed equilibrium, there was no reason to refuse. To secure one’s place in the rigid structure of the academy, one sometimes had to make curious allowances.