The dawn light, usually a pale wash across his study, seemed sharper, almost accusatory. Elias woke with a faint ache in his jaw, a phantom throb where Julian’s fist had landed. He rose, crossing to the ornate mirror. The bruise had faded, a ghost of purplish-yellow lingering beneath his skin, easily dismissed by a casual glance. It was, he mused, a manageable wound. A physical indignity, nothing more. Yet the humiliation clung, a stubborn, invisible stain.
He dressed in the Academy’s somber uniform, the stiff wool a familiar constraint. The short walk to the lecture hall felt like traversing a gauntlet. A heavy quiet pressed down on the assembly, a palpable tension thickening the air. Elias’s eyes, without conscious command, swept the room, searching for Caleb Vance.
Just as the heavy oak doors began to close, Caleb slipped in, a shadow against the grand entrance. Elias felt a sudden, sickening jolt. Caleb’s face was a ruin: a split lip, crudely mended with a strip of plaster, and one eye almost entirely swollen shut, a grotesque purple bloom against his pallid skin. Elias’s earlier, bitter thought – a fleeting, childish wish that Caleb might share in his pain – dissolved into a profound, suffocating guilt.
He had considered it a jest. Now, the sight of Caleb, so utterly broken, twisted his gut. A raw, unbidden remorse for his own petty spite. Caleb’s gaze, furtive and haunted, darted across the room, snagging on Elias for a fraction of a second. A flicker of something unreadable – fear? shame? – before he flinched, turning sharply, almost stumbling to his assigned desk. He sat, hunching his shoulders, as if trying to fold himself out of existence.
What in the name of the Ancestors? That desperate evasion sent a chill through Elias. He glanced instinctively, and the reason became horribly clear. Julian Roth sat several rows ahead, his profile a study in cold indifference, but Elias felt the weight of his stare, a silent, venomous threat. A familiar dread coiled in Elias’s stomach. Perhaps, he thought, he should have simply feigned illness. The day had barely begun, and already, a crushing regret.
During the morning’s brief respite, Caleb moved like a ghost, avoiding all eye contact, speaking to no one. When the midday bell chimed for luncheon, he vanished from the hall, presumably with Julian. Elias watched them go, a leaden weight in his chest.
He found Marcus Finch already seated in the refectory, a plate piled high with roasted pheasant and potatoes before him. Marcus’s usual boisterous humor was subdued, a subtle shift that Elias noted. A part of Elias wanted to pursue Julian and Caleb, to find out what fresh cruelty had been inflicted. But a colder, more honest part of him admitted the truth: he was afraid. Afraid of what he might witness. Surely, Julian wouldn’t be so brazen as to repeat the violence in plain sight, not again?
Marcus, ever the pragmatic observer, nudged a roll towards Elias. “A rather subdued affair today, wouldn’t you agree? The air in Dr. Albright’s lecture was thick enough to chew.”
“You seemed perfectly capable of enjoying your plum tart yesterday,” Elias replied, reaching for a goblet of watered wine.
Marcus winked, a spark of his usual irreverence returning. “One must maintain appearances, Thorne. A connoisseur of fine pastries always finds a way.” He gave a small, self-satisfied chuckle. Elias, attempting a small, retaliatory kick under the table, misjudged the distance. Marcus merely rubbed his chin, a hint of something uncharacteristically sheepish in his eyes. Elias dismissed it. Marcus was rarely sheepish.
---
Life possessed a cruel, elegant unpredictability. Elias had never intended to forge a bond with Marcus Finch. Their initial encounters had been marked by a mutual, if unspoken, disdain. Yet, here he was, sharing silent understanding with the very person he had once dismissed as a frivolous distraction. Marcus’s easy wit, his almost flippant approach to the Academy’s rigid strictures, proved an unexpected anchor. He possessed a rare gift for preventing Elias from sinking too deeply into the quagmire of his own anxieties.
In the past, Elias had scorned such levity, branding Marcus as superficial. Now, that very quality was a lifeline. Had Julian remained the constant in Elias’s orbit, he might never have recognized this quiet, profound need for Marcus’s presence. Julian’s behavior grew more erratic. He distanced himself from their former circle, sometimes taking Caleb, other times Jasper and the younger cadets, on unexplained excursions. Some, Elias noted, began to refuse Julian’s summons, their expressions uneasy, whispers trailing in their wake.
Jasper, a usually jovial third-year, confirmed Elias’s unease. Elias had found him scaling the stone wall of the Academy’s inner courtyard, a shortcut taken to avoid a passing tutor. Jasper, with a grimace that bordered on amusement, recounted Julian’s escalating cruelty: ordering the others to strike Caleb, one blow at a time. Elias felt his face twist in disbelief. Jasper, sensing his horror, quickly explained he’d been avoiding Julian’s clique entirely. He was off to the public libraries with Cedric, a former associate of Julian’s from their first year who had since drifted away. “Don’t misunderstand, Thorne,” Jasper had called out, before vaulting over the wall.
During the afternoon break, Elias and Marcus sought refuge in the Academy’s modest confectionery, purchasing chilled raspberry sorbets. The cold, sweet fruit offered a momentary balm, spreading across Elias’s tongue, a fleeting relief from the bitter knot of unease tightening in his chest. He held his ground, determined not to let the turmoil show.
“Good, isn’t it?” Marcus asked, his own vibrant orange sorbet already half-devoured. He eyed Elias’s cup with a covetous glint. “Care for a taste?”
Elias, with a rare, impish impulse, offered the spoon, sticky with his own saliva, towards Marcus’s mouth. Marcus grinned, a flash of white teeth, and without a moment’s hesitation, took a surprisingly large bite. “Hey! You actually did that?” Elias exclaimed, genuinely surprised.
“You offered,” Marcus replied, shrugging a shoulder, a smudge of raspberry on his chin. “And it was just one bite.”
It was a small, peaceful interlude, a fragile bubble of normalcy. Outside, the crisp autumn air was clear, the sky an undisturbed blue. A stark contrast to the churning storm within Elias. Where were Julian Roth and Caleb Vance now? A few desolate corners of the Academy grounds came to mind, but Elias did not go looking. He was, still, too afraid of what he might find.
He tried to banish Julian from his thoughts. But the harder he tried, the more acutely he realized how much space Julian occupied, a persistent, unwelcome tenant in the architecture of his mind. How long, he wondered, would it take to dismantle an attachment like this? How much effort, how much pain, would it demand? It felt like wandering lost in an endless, barren desert, not merely suffocating, but terrifying, an unbearable desolation.
Sometimes, Elias retreated into the vast archive of his eidetic memory, sifting through fragments of old conversations, old smiles, trying to make sense of the fractured landscape. When the weight became too much, he would, occasionally, speak with Marcus. And that, for now, was all he could manage. A sudden, uncharacteristic question spilled from him. “Marcus?”
“Yes, Thorne?”
“Do you… do you believe flowers can ever bloom in a barren desert?” The words felt embarrassingly raw, almost childish, the moment they left his lips. Elias scratched at his temple, an awkward gesture. But Marcus, to his surprise, did not mock him.
“They must,” Marcus said, his voice unusually quiet, devoid of its customary flippancy. “Life’s quite dire enough as it is.” Hearing such an earnest, almost vulnerable sentiment from Marcus, a person Elias had never considered capable of such profundity, solidified the futility of his own desperate hope. How much longer would it take to relinquish these meaningless feelings?
“Yes,” Elias murmured, the words hollow. “Life’s quite dire.” Julian Roth. That heedless, brutal bastard. Why did he seem so intent on destroying the last vestiges of loyalty Elias harbored? Julian, who now sauntered in and out of the Academy halls with a cavalier disregard for discipline, always with Caleb Vance, a pale, trembling shadow, clinging to his side. The situation escalated, the classroom atmosphere buzzing with unease and intrigue. Julian’s violence, it became clear, was spiraling. And with it, a creeping resentment towards him, slowly poisoning the student body.
So, when Elias saw Julian dragging Caleb by the wrist down the grand hallway, he stopped dead in his tracks. He watched them, his gaze flitting between Julian’s rigid back and Caleb’s downtrodden face, before he finally spoke. “Your father, Julian, he’s concerned about you.” It was a calculated falsehood, a subtle barb, knowing Julian’s strained relationship with his family. But it served as a means to an end, a fragile shield of pride. And even if Julian saw through it, Elias could always argue that, given Julian’s current trajectory, his father would soon have genuine cause for worry. Elias always left himself an escape route.
“If someone must bear the brunt of your displeasure, let it be you alone. What has Caleb done to deserve this?”
“Move aside, Thorne.” Julian’s voice was a low growl, his gaze, sharp and dangerous, locking onto Elias. Elias felt his chest constrict. He despised Julian, despised the contemptuous indifference in his eyes. And yet, pitiful Caleb Vance stood glued to Julian’s side, his tear-filled eyes wide, fixed on Elias with a desperate, pleading gaze.
“Unless you’re eager for a repeat of your last lesson, step aside.”
“J-Julian, please,” Caleb stammered, his voice thin and trembling, pulling gently at Julian’s arm. Only then did Julian pause, his gaze shifting from Elias to Caleb, a moment of silent, unreadable exchange. He turned his head, presenting Elias with the rigid line of his back. “Your father, I repeat, is worried—” Elias began again, pressing his advantage.
Caleb, on the verge of tears, clung to Julian, his small, desperate hands gripping Julian’s sleeve, trying to hold him back. The sight was unbearable. It was so excruciatingly painful that Elias closed his eyes, a familiar despair washing over him. When he opened them, Julian had turned, pulling Caleb with him, and was walking back towards the classroom. For the rest of the day, Julian remained there, a captive presence, just as he had weeks ago.
---
The long-anticipated day of the Imperial Academy’s annual cultural excursion had arrived. A chartered coach waited in the courtyard, ready to transport them to the Veridian National Museum, an institution renowned for its collection of ancient imperial artifacts. While a few disgruntled scholars grumbled about dragging the junior cadets away from their studies, most were electrified by the prospect of even a single day’s escape from the Academy’s cloistered walls. There was no need to pack provisions; they would return by evening. The tutors offered only perfunctory warnings before releasing them.
They were no longer mere boys, after all, easily swayed by the giddy excitement of a school outing. Elias regarded it with detached indifference: leave without a satchel, return without a satchel. He had no premonition that this would be the day his carefully bottled frustrations would finally rupture. He had expected such a breaking point, eventually, but not with such sudden, brutal clarity.
He had always, by unspoken tradition, occupied the seat beside Julian whenever they ventured beyond the classroom. He had not even considered Marcus’s seating arrangements, having never shared a coach with him. A fleeting apprehension had pricked him: a fear that Marcus, in his casual way, might claim the seat closest to Julian. Now, in retrospect, Elias recognized the pathetic absurdity of such a worry. Neither he nor Marcus would occupy that particular spot.
Elias made his way to the bus, a behemoth of polished brass and dark wood, already idling in the Academy courtyard. He climbed the steps, searching for their assigned seats. The back five benches were already claimed by a raucous group of cadets, among them Jasper, who waved a casual hand before hesitating, his gaze flicking towards Julian’s usual place. “Thorne! There’s a space here!”
“Ah, yes.” Of course. That spot. His spot. He had always been the one beside Julian. Yet today, Elias hesitated, a strange reluctance gripping him as he approached Julian’s row. A small gasp of relief escaped him when he saw the seat beside Julian was still empty. He swallowed hard, a flicker of desperate resolve hardening his jaw. It was his. His pride, the last stubborn remnant of his former self, demanded he claim it, even after the bruising, even after Caleb.
He tentatively touched the plush velvet of the seat back, scanning the coach’s interior, then quietly asked, “Julian… this seat…”
“It’s not yours. Find another.” Julian’s voice was flat, dismissive, cutting Elias off mid-sentence. His gaze remained fixed on the entrance, watching. Following his line of sight, Elias saw Caleb Vance timidly making his way up the steps. Elias clenched his fists, swallowing the words that burned in his throat. “Fine. Whatever.” He managed to inject a brittle indifference into his tone, though his heart felt as if it had been shredded into a thousand pieces.
He quickly retreated, scanning the remaining seats. He spotted an empty space near Marcus’s group, just in front of where Marcus sat slumped. Relief, sharp and unexpected, flooded him. He rushed over, collapsing into the seat, speaking without preamble. “Marcus. Sit here.”
There was no answer. When Elias looked closer, Marcus was already asleep, head lolling against the window pane, gently jostling with every slight vibration of the idling engine. Elias shook his head at the undignified posture, then carefully unfolded his cravat, tucking the soft silk between Marcus’s head and the cold glass as a cushion. He leaned back into the uncomfortable, stiff upholstery.
Across the aisle, obscured by the other cadets, Elias caught a glimpse of dark, unruly hair. Julian’s. He was taller than most, making him easily identifiable. Elias couldn’t see clearly, but he knew Caleb would be settling into the seat beside him. His rightful seat.