Veridia’s Imperial Academy felt less a sanctuary of learning and more a meticulously constructed vivarium. Thirty young men, packed within these polished oak walls, moved with a predatory grace. Each day, unseen claws sharpened, hierarchies shifted, and the faint scent of ambition permeated the air, thick as dust motes dancing in the morning light.
Elias understood this delicate ecosystem. Survival here, for the sensitive and the observant, was a constant, calculated performance. He had learned the art of group dynamics at an age when most boys still played with tin soldiers. He knew the precise angle of a averted gaze, the subtle shift in a shoulder’s breadth that signified a new alliance, a nascent threat. It was a tedious, exhausting ballet, and it never ceased.
His arm, pinned beneath his textbook for too long, pricked with pins and needles as he shifted. A low thrum of unease vibrated in his stomach, a familiar companion these days. He swallowed a breath, eyes sweeping over the bowed heads of his classmates. Peach-fuzz napes, the glint of meticulously oiled hair. At the lecturer's rostrum, Professor Beaumont, our Ethics tutor, rustled a broadsheet, his attention far removed from the intricate moral dilemmas he’d set before them. Most students scribbled furiously. A few, utterly defeated by the philosophical knot, simply slumped into slumber.
“A modicum of intellectual engagement, gentlemen, if you please,” Beaumont boomed, turning a page with a theatrical snap.
Fifth period. Elias had been grappling with the fifteenth syllogism, a particularly obtuse problem on utilitarian ethics. He paused, index finger tracing the sharp line of his brow, before settling his pen. His gaze drifted, drawn by absence. Two seats in particular. Empty.
As anticipated, neither Lysander Thorne nor Finn had presented themselves. The air around their vacant chairs seemed to hum with the recent silence, a void quickly filling with speculation. Lysander’s moods were mercurial, a storm front that could descend without warning. Something had transpired, undeniably. Something Elias himself had witnessed, had *felt*.
He lowered his eyes, the elegant script of the problem blurring. Elias had once believed he held the key to Lysander, a secret cipher to his brother’s convoluted nature. He had fostered a quiet pride in that, a hidden strength, even as he watched Lysander’s easy camaraderie with others – Cassian, Alaric Vance. That private understanding had been a fragile shield, deflecting the subtle pangs of jealousy, of being merely one among many.
His hand curled into a fist, pressing against his jaw. The sheer perversity of such thoughts, even now, chafed at him. What would these polished, judging eyes see if they could peer into the shadowed corners of his mind? The answer was chillingly simple. He would be cast out, plummeting to the widest, lowest stratum of this intricate pyramid, his name synonymous with ruin.
A cold dread coiled in his gut. This insidious longing, this inconvenient truth, had to remain buried. So deep, not even Lysander himself could sense its lingering presence. He needed to forget it himself.
But Lysander never bothered with such discretion. His desires, his transgressions, were emblazoned for all to see. Elias felt a bitter twist in his mouth.
He lifted his head, a subtle movement, surveying the hunched figures. They remained oblivious, engrossed or feigning it. His gaze settled on the polished floorboards, where, between the rows of desks, a forgotten treatise lay, its leather cover smudged with shoe prints. A phantom chill pricked Elias’s skin. He felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to duck his head, to disappear into the anonymity of bowed shoulders.
Turning his neck, his eyes gravitated to the back row. A figure slumped, face partially obscured by a forearm, as if the weight of thought had overcome him. The visible curve of a cheekbone, the faint shadows beneath an eye, lent him a delicate, almost mournful air, as though carved from the pallor of a tomb.
Alaric Vance.
Elias found himself scrutinizing Alaric's profile before his gaze moved to the arm. Vance, already possessed of an imposing height, seemed to have stretched further still. The Academy uniform, tailored at the term’s start, now left his wrists fully exposed. Around one, a dark, braided cord—not a rosary, but a knotwork of ancient Veridian lineage, a symbol of esoteric philosophy, stood out starkly. It was heavy, unmistakable, an integral part of Alaric’s formidable persona.
Before knowing Alaric, Elias had assumed he hailed from the industrial districts, a counterpart to Finn’s urban upbringing. Yet Alaric Vance bore no mark of the struggling merchant class. His eyes, deep-set, perpetually shadowed by his lids, held irises of a faded, almost washed-out hue, giving him a haunting, perpetually tired aspect. The sliver of thin sclera visible beneath his pupils only heightened his sharp, gaunt intensity.
Alaric Vance exuded an aura of grim intimidation, devoid of the cultivated polish that marked true wealth. Instead, his features bespoke a profound, almost primal deprivation, a melancholic gravity that, combined with his sheer physical presence, rendered him doubly imposing. Yet, unlike Lysander, Alaric’s sharp features aligned with classical proportions, granting him an undeniable, if unsettling, handsomeness. Without it, he might have been actively shunned. Even so, Alaric’s countenance was unsettling, intimidating, imbued with a restless, nervous energy.
But Alaric’s temperament was a stark contrast to his outward intensity. He seemed not merely indifferent to the currents of Academy life, but actively dismissive, as if consciously erasing events from his personal ledger. He possessed an air of ‘dispassionate ownership of nothing,’ a trait that, ironically, amplified his mystique.
Notably, Alaric held no regard for wealth. He rarely noted the expenditure of others, nor the sums they requested. Should the whim seize him, he might casually toss a handful of coins to a nearby peer, as if the very concept of currency were an amusing trifle. There were tales of loans forgotten, of borrowed funds returned, only for Alaric to inquire, genuinely perplexed, why such tokens were being presented.
Yet, his generosity was as capricious as it was rare. He would indulge a frivolous request on a whim, only to coldly refuse one born of genuine desperation. Even with those he considered associates, Alaric could be brusque, even cruel. Elias once overheard a story of how a younger student, Marius, upon seeing Alaric’s prized racing cycle – a vehicle Alaric rarely displayed – impulsively tried to mount the saddle without permission. Alaric, without a word, delivered a precise kick, sending Marius sprawling into the cobbled courtyard like a startled frog.
At the zenith of the Academy's social hierarchy, individuals like Alaric Vance and Lysander Thorne shared a singular trait: an absolute disdain for others’ opinions. This profound indifference, in its own paradoxical way, was precisely what allowed them to occupy the apex of their world. Elias often wondered: why did the rest of them, with their own willing hands, grant the keys to their gilded cage to these uncontrollable predators? No matter how deeply he pondered it, the answer remained elusive.
And yet, Alaric Vance considered himself a devotee of a forgotten, austere sect of the Emperor's True Path. He was the type of scholar who slept with ancient scriptures beneath his pillow, yet claimed adherence to their purest tenets. He abstained from spirits, from exotic stimulants, from carnal indulgence, and never sullied himself with theft or extortion. Yet the doctrine he espoused felt flawed, a selective interpretation. Even the most casual student of the True Path knew that moderate enjoyment was not forbidden.
They said this ancient sect viewed certain desires as a corruption of the spirit. Was that why Lysander’s open profligacy, his recent scandals, provoked such palpable disgust in Alaric? Elias licked his dry lips, the taste of fear and dust clinging to his tongue.
A strange sense of relief washed over him that he hadn’t been caught, truly caught. If his entanglement with Lysander had been fully exposed, he would have ended up like that trampled treatise. And yet, even then, a flicker of a treacherous question surfaced: if he and Lysander had remained close, as they were just months ago, would Lysander have shielded him?
A deep breath shuddered through him, pushing back a wave of nausea. No. A cold, hard certainty settled in his chest. How absurd, how utterly arrogant, to have ever believed such a thing. To Lysander, Elias was a mere convenience, a temporary companion for idle hours. He knew this now, from the flat, pitiless gaze in his brother’s eyes as he had struck him down. The truth had been there all along, undeniable and brutal.
Lysander sinned openly, without compunction. Elias, too, carried a sin, but he hid it. And so, Lysander faced the judgment of the Academy, while Elias, for now, remained untouched.
A faint, self-deprecating laugh escaped him, barely a whisper on the air.
“As long as I’m not discovered,” he murmured, “that’s all that matters.” Perhaps the Emperor’s divine judgment, like Alaric Vance, possessed a chilling, detached indifference.
His gaze drifted to the lectern, then to the empty seat beside it. A pang of unexpected pity pierced him for Finn. Poor soul, caught in Lysander’s orbit, ensnared by that monstrous, seductive power. Fragile, helpless Finn, despite his deceptively solid build. He should have heeded Elias’s quiet warnings, should have fled the moment the danger became apparent.
Elias knew he was not a good man. Selfish, self-serving, a product of his own fears. Sometimes, a darker thought surfaced: *If one must fall for another man, why not choose someone calculating and discreet, like me? At least then, the suffering might be simpler.* Why entangle oneself with someone so earnest, so transparent, only to be crushed by it?
These days, a different truth resonated. *No one* could ever truly love someone like him. He knew himself too well to believe otherwise. There had been a time when Elias Thorne, at eighteen, had believed he could navigate the world, control its currents. Arrogant, deluded Elias. Wicked, calculating Elias. And beneath it all, pitiable Elias, with no one to offer solace, enduring everything in desolate solitude.
That day, the fifteenth syllogism remained unsolved. He used a feigned cough, a sudden malaise, as an excuse to slump over his desk. A grim comfort settled: *At least I am not as publicly ruined as Lysander or Finn.* Not yet.
Rumors about Lysander and Finn spread like wildfire, twisting through the Academy’s hallowed halls. Whether exaggerated or painfully true, no one could say for certain. Lysander’s clique, once a formidable presence, seemed to have evaporated, its remnants scrambling to forge new alliances, inadvertently fueling the whispers further.
“Elias, my boy, who among your peers was closest to Thorne?”
“Lysander… No, Alaric Vance, Professor.”
Elias overheard it as he walked back to the classroom before dismissal, a fleeting fragment of conversation between Professor Beaumont and a classmate. He feigned deafness, pushing open the heavy door. Beaumont glanced nervously between Elias and the twin empty seats, drumming his fingers on the podium. Then, with a sigh of unspoken resignation, he announced, “That concludes our session, gentlemen.”
The moment dismissal was official, Elias gathered his satchel. As he slung it over his shoulder, a light tap landed on his back. Alaric Vance.
“Thorne. Care to accompany me after Academy hours?”
Elias met his gaze. He knew. He had, for years, observed Lysander and Alaric, knew that Alaric’s invitations were almost invariably extended to his brother. After a brief hesitation, Elias shook his head.
“Cannot. I have a private tutor this evening.”
“And following that?”
“Further study. Go find one of your usual associates, Vance.”
“Unnecessary.”
“Why not?”
“To associate too closely with those who are foundering only drags one down.”
“Ha.” Elias let out a short, incredulous laugh. This was it. This chilling pragmatism, this brutal honesty, was why he and Alaric, despite their differences, often found a strange, twisted kinship. Their values, however dark, aligned in unexpected ways.
“So, Marius, Lord Davies’s son—they are foundering? Even young Master Calthorpe?”
“If you wish to phrase it thus, then yes, largely. You, however, are different, Thorne.”
His backhanded compliment felt less like praise and more like a warning. Elias’s jaw tightened.
“What is that meant to signify? You are truly awful, Vance.”
“No, I am not.”
“You are. Undeniably so.”
“Hmm. The Imperial Code states, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.’ I merely speak with candor, Thorne.” Alaric’s worse than I am, Elias thought, a bitter taste on his tongue. At least he didn't openly scorn his own supposed friends.
“Hence my virtue, you see.”
“...Naturally.”
“As I am so virtuous, may I call upon your residence?”
Alaric Vance blinked twice, a slow, deliberate movement. Elias held his gaze for a long moment, weighing the implications, the potential risks and unforeseen benefits. Then, he gave a curt nod.
“Very well. Why not?” As long as Alaric did not interfere with his carefully constructed isolation, there was no reason to refuse. To solidify one’s place in this treacherous hierarchy, even a dangerous ally was better than none.