A labyrinth of polished obsidian floors, this silent expanse housed nearly three dozen aspirants. Each was a scion of a Lesser House, a seeker of forgotten lore, a pawn in the intricate gambit of the Crimson Spire Arcanum. Here, hierarchy was etched into every shadowed corner, and alliances shifted like desert sands. Every aspirant had endured precisely eighteen cycles within these hallowed, hostile walls, their ambitions stretched taut, a blade’s edge away from snapping. The tension, a constant, low thrum, vibrated through the very stones, making survival a perilous, whispered art. For Lysander, this quiet siege had begun when he first grasped the brutal mechanics of forming a ward-circle, the delicate dance of gaining favor and warding off rivals. This daily balancing act had become his very breath since—and, he suspected, everyone else’s too. A geometric puzzle concealing a power struggle. That was the Lore-Scriptorium in the Third Tier. “Ah...” His arm, cramped from hours of painstaking runic inscription, tingled as he flexed his fingers. Lysander tapped his tightly wound stomach lightly with a fist, the familiar ache a dull counterpoint to his racing thoughts. A weak breath escaped him as he surveyed the hunched backs of his peers. The iridescent sheen of living-chalkboards glowed faintly, illuminating the pale napes of necks bowed in concentration or exhaustion. At the Lore Master’s dais, Master Elara sat, engrossed in a crumbling, millennia-old scroll, her spectacles perched on her nose. The apprentices, meanwhile, were either meticulously solving the runic theorems she had assigned or, utterly defeated, slumped over their desks in a trance-like sleep. “Rouse yourselves, you slumbering dolts,” Master Elara’s voice, surprisingly resonant, cut through the quiet as she turned a brittle page of the ancient text. It was already the fifth period of study. Lysander had been wrestling with the fifteenth runic problem, a particularly gnarly sequence that defied easy deciphering. He scratched his temple with an index finger, setting his arcane stylus down with a soft click. His eyes drifted to the empty seats, two in particular catching his attention. As expected, neither Hadrian Thorne nor Theron Valerius had appeared for the Lore-Scriptorium. They likely wouldn’t show tomorrow either, not unless Hadrian’s mercurial temperament shifted unexpectedly, or some new, unknown intrigue had ensnared the two of them. What that intrigue might be, Lysander could only guess. He lowered his gaze back to the intricate problems, his vision filling with the complex, shimmering strokes of forgotten runes. There had been a time, not so long ago, when Lysander had believed he understood everything about Hadrian Thorne. He had convinced himself he was the one who knew Hadrian best in this entire tiered academy. He’d taken a perverse pride in that, even when comparing himself to Kaelen Varr, who seemed to orbit Hadrian with an effortless grace. In truth, that quiet pride had been the anchor that allowed him to endure watching Kaelen and Hadrian move so harmoniously. Deep down, Lysander had savored the secret knowledge that he held a deeper, more profound understanding of Hadrian. He propped his chin on his hand. The very fact that he was capable of harboring such calculating thoughts disgusted him. This was the dark undercurrent of the Arcanum, the truth no one spoke aloud. What would the other scions think if they knew these insidious desires swirled in his mind? The answer was chillingly obvious. He would be cast out, pushed to the very bottom tier of the Spire’s intricate social pyramid, occupying its widest, most despised plane. It was a terrifying prospect. This kind of insidious ambition, unique to a scheming adept, had to remain hidden at all costs. He had to bury it deep, so deep that not even its object would sense it. Ultimately, he needed to hide it so well that even he might forget it existed. But Hadrian Thorne had never bothered with such discretion. Everyone in the Crimson Spire knew about his boundless, audacious desires. Lysander glanced around, subtly lifting his head. Everyone remained hunched over their desks, lost in the pursuit of arcane knowledge or the oblivion of sleep. Pressing his lips tightly, he looked straight ahead. Lying forlornly between the rows of desks was a cracked slate tablet, its runic symbols smudged by scuff marks, as if someone had deliberately trampled it. Suddenly, as if sensing an unseen observer, Lysander buried his head in his arms like the others, feigning exhaustion. Then, he slowly turned his neck, angling his gaze towards the back row. There, partially obscured by a long arm, lay a face, as if its owner had collapsed mid-thought. The features were delicate and sorrowful, almost ethereal, like a funerary mask carved in pale marble. “...” Lysander found himself staring at Kaelen Varr’s face before his gaze drifted to Kaelen’s arm. Had the already tall Kaelen grown even more? The ceremonial robes that had fit him perfectly at the start of the cycle now left his wrists fully exposed. Around one of those wrists was a braided leather thong, from which hung a cluster of polished obsidian beads—an ancient warding charm, a heavy, unmistakable symbol of Kaelen’s lineage and his adherence to an archaic pact. Before hearing the rumors, Lysander had assumed Kaelen hailed from one of the warrior-mage Houses of the outer cantons, far from the capital, similar to Theron Valerius. Despite his intimidating aura, Kaelen didn’t exude the outward opulence of the truly wealthy Houses. His eyes were perpetually shadowed by heavy lids, and his faded irises gave him a perpetually haunted, intense look. The way his thin sclera showed beneath his pupils added to his sharp, almost gaunt appearance. Kaelen’s overall presence was one of grim, controlled power, though it lacked the refined, polished veneer often associated with the Spire’s most privileged scions. Instead, his face seemed marked by a profound sense of deprivation, exuding a melancholic heaviness. Combined with his formidable build—he was undoubtedly the tallest adept in the entire Arcanum—it made him doubly imposing. Fortunately, unlike Hadrian Thorne, Kaelen’s sharp features included a classically handsome symmetry. Without that, people might have actively avoided his unsettling presence. Even so, Kaelen’s face was unsettling, intimidating, and crackled with nervous, coiled energy. But Kaelen’s character couldn’t have been more different from his forbidding visage. It wasn’t just that he seemed indifferent to nearly everything; it was as if he actively pruned events from his memory, whether intentionally or not. He possessed an air of “detached stewardship of nothing,” a trait that ironically added to his mystique within the Arcanum. Most notably, Kaelen didn’t seem to care about material wealth or political influence. He never paid attention to how much others bartered for artifacts or how much they sought in patronage. If the mood struck him, he’d casually part with a rare rune-shard or a forgotten spell-scroll to someone nearby, without a second thought, as if the concept of material worth didn’t exist for him. Sometimes he’d loan invaluable research notes and forget about them entirely. There were even tales of apprentices attempting to return borrowed magical components only for Kaelen to ask, puzzled, why they were offering him such gifts. Still, he didn’t lend assistance to just anyone. He’d indulge random requests when in a good mood but coldly refuse those who were truly desperate, those who had nothing to offer in return. Even with his chosen allies, Kaelen could be harsh. Lysander once overheard a story about how Lorian, a scion known for his reckless ambition, upon seeing Kaelen’s prized wind-glider—a construct he rarely showcased—excitedly tried to hop onto its passenger perch without permission. Kaelen had kicked him off on the spot, sending Lorian sprawling to the obsidian paving like a startled roc chick. At the apex of the Arcanum’s social hierarchy, adepts like Kaelen Varr and Hadrian Thorne shared one chilling trait: a complete lack of concern for others’ opinions. This profound indifference, in its own way, was what allowed them to sit at the Crimson Spire’s peak. Why did they, with their own desperate hands, hand over the keys to their world to these uncontrollable predators? No matter how much Lysander pondered it, he still couldn’t understand. And yet, Kaelen Varr claimed to uphold the ancient, strict tenets of the Creed of the Iron Vow. He was the type of formidable adept who slept with a tome of forgotten Lore under his head, yet he still claimed to follow the ancient teachings. He didn’t traffic in forbidden blood magic, didn’t dabble in chaotic elemental summoning, abstained from manipulative mind-arts, and didn’t extort other students for arcane secrets. Yet the doctrine he followed was often flawed—anyone could tell from the very first Scroll of Abstinence alone. Lysander had heard that the Creed, in its older forms, permitted certain ritualistic bloodletting and even pacts with lesser elementals. They said the Creed viewed unchecked ambition as a grave sin. Was that why Hadrian Thorne’s overt, ruthless actions disgusted Kaelen Varr so much? Lysander licked his dry lips, a strange sense of irony washing over him. He felt a strange, bitter relief that he hadn’t been caught in Hadrian’s shadow any longer. If he had been, he would have ended up like that trampled slate tablet, lying forgotten on the Script-floor. And yet, even in that moment, he wondered—if Hadrian and he had remained close, as they were just a few cycles ago, would Hadrian have protected him from such a fate? The thought surfaced against his will, dragging with it memories he desperately wanted to suppress. He took a deep breath, trying to push down the wave of nausea that rose in his chest, as though the potent alchemical elixir he’d drunk earlier were threatening to resurface. No, of course not. How laughable, that he had once been so arrogant as to think he would. To Hadrian, Lysander was nothing. Just a convenient ally, a temporary fixture to pass the time with in the Arcanum. He knew this now because of the way Hadrian had looked at him when he had verbally flayed him, shattering their pretense of friendship. Hadrian’s eyes had said everything. Lysander hadn’t wanted to know the truth, but it had been staring him in the face. Hadrian sinned openly, his ambition a burning pyre visible to all. Lysander, too, was a sinner—but he hid it beneath layers of quiet diligence and feigned apathy. And so, Hadrian was punished by reputation, by the watchful eyes of the Houses, while Lysander was spared. For now. A faint, self-deprecating laugh escaped Lysander’s lips, so soft it was only audible to himself. “...So, as long as I don’t get caught, that’s all that matters.” Perhaps Fate, or the very Weave of Arcana, had a personality much like Kaelen Varr’s. His gaze shifted to the desk near the Lore Master’s dais. This was unusual, but today, Lysander felt a pang of pity for Theron Valerius. Poor soul, caught in the clutches of Hadrian’s monstrous charisma, his seductive power. Fragile, helpless Theron, unlike the towering figure of his House’s legacy. He should have fled the moment Lysander had warned him, the fool. Lysander knew he wasn’t a good person. He was selfish and self-serving, and that’s why he had suffered. Sometimes, he even thought this: If you’re going to succumb to the dangerous allure of another scion, why not pick someone sly and deceitful like me? At least then life would be simpler, predictable. Why fall for someone so innocent and earnest, only to end up suffering for it? These cycles, Lysander thought differently. Yeah. Of course no one could ever truly value someone like him. He knew himself too well to believe otherwise. There was a time when he thought he could have it all—arcane mastery, recognition, a place among the Spire’s elite. Arrogant, conceited Lysander Vance. Lysander, who thought he understood the world at eighteen cycles. Wicked, vile Lysander. Pitiful Lysander, who had no one to comfort him, so he endured everything alone. That day, he couldn’t get past the fifteenth runic question. He used his supposed mental exhaustion as an excuse to lie slumped over his desk, thinking to himself: *Well, at least I’m not as ruined as Hadrian or Theron.* Rumors about Hadrian and Theron spread like wildfire through the tiered academies. Whether they were exaggerated whispers or grounded in bitter truth, no one could say for certain. There was no way to find out either. Hadrian’s inner circle had vanished from the Arcanum’s social eye, as if ripped out by the roots. The few who remained were too preoccupied with forming new alliances to worry about anything else, inadvertently fueling the rumors even further. “Lysander, forgive me, but who was closest to Scion Thorne?” “Hadrian... No, Kaelen Varr.” Lysander overheard this as he passed by on his way back to the Lore-Scriptorium before dismissal. Master Elara had asked, and one of his classmates, a nervously ambitious adept, had answered. Pretending he hadn’t heard, Lysander walked into the room. The Lore Master glanced nervously between him and the empty seats, drumming her fingers against the polished stone dais. Then, as if giving up on some unspoken thought, she announced: “Let us conclude for the cycle.” The moment dismissal was announced, Lysander gathered his scrolls and implements. As he slung his satchel over his shoulder, Kaelen Varr tapped him on the back. The touch was surprisingly light, yet firm. “Vance. Let us delve into the ancient texts after this.” Lysander looked at Kaelen’s face. He knew. He had always watched Hadrian and Kaelen’s every move, so he knew that the person Kaelen most frequently invited to such esoteric study was always Hadrian. After a brief pause, Lysander waved him off. “I cannot. I have further personal research to conduct.” “What of after that?” “Rune-crafting. Go seek out your other companions for company.” “Unnecessary.” “Why not?” “Getting too close to a lesser adept only dulls one’s own aptitude. It is an inefficient use of limited time.” “Ha.” Lysander let out a short, hollow laugh at the sheer absurdity of Kaelen’s bluntness. Right. This was precisely why he’d been able to tolerate Kaelen Varr better than expected. Their twisted values, in some strange way, aligned. “So, Lorian, Jace—they are lesser adepts? Even Lyra Vane?” “If you frame it thus, then yes, largely. But you are different, Vance.” The backhanded compliment left Lysander feeling a strange mix of discomfort and a sliver of something akin to cold satisfaction. “What is that supposed to mean? You are vile, Varr.” “No, I am not. I merely speak the truth.” “You are profoundly vile.” “Hmm. It is etched into the First Scroll of the Creed. ‘Thou shalt not deny the truth of the Arcana.’ I am simply being honest, Lysander.” Honestly, Kaelen Varr was worse than he was. At least Lysander didn’t blatantly treat his acquaintances like refuse. “That is why I am a practitioner of true virtue.” “...Indeed.” “Since I am such a virtuous practitioner, may I accompany you to your personal quarters?” Kaelen Varr blinked twice, his faded irises unwavering. Lysander looked at his face for a long moment before giving a slow, almost imperceptible nod. “Very well. As long as you do not interfere with my current research, I see no reason to refuse.” To secure one’s place in the hierarchy, one had to know when to open one’s door, even to a serpent.

A Serpent in the Spire