A cavern of hushed stone, this sprawling hall cradled near thirty souls.
Everywhere, apprentices formed their fleeting allegiances, carving invisible lines of deference and disdain. In this great chamber, each had weathered the Scholarium’s demands for precisely eighteen cycles of the moon, their nascent careers stretched taut like a lyre string at its breaking point. Tension, an invisible draught, coursed through the very air, making daily survival a perilous performance.
For Elaraeth, this ceaseless strain had begun at twelve, when first he learned the intricate art of navigating the social currents. This delicate balance, a grim charade, became his routine then—and, he suspected, that of all who dwelled within these hallowed, yet unforgiving, walls.
This Grand Lecture Hall, a veritable labyrinth of learning, was in truth a hidden scaffold, upon which one either climbed or fell.
“Ah…”
His arm, numb from poor circulation, tingled as Elaraeth stretched it, a whisper of pain tracing his ribs. He tapped his tightly wound stomach lightly with the side of his fist, a weak breath escaping his lips. Ahead, rows of slumped backs presented a landscape of disinterest. Faintly shimmering arcanum-slate boards glowed a verdant green, reflecting on peach-colored napes. At the Master Scholar’s podium, Master Aerion, a man whose tenure surpassed memory, sat reading a crumpled petition, folded in half. Apprentices, meanwhile, either diligently scrawled glyphs in their scrolls or, having surrendered to mental fatigue, leaned heavily upon their desks, lost to slumber.
“Awaken, ye slumbering minds!” Master Aerion called out, his voice surprisingly robust, as he turned another page of the petition.
Fifth period had arrived. Elaraeth had been laboring over the fifteenth problem set, a complex runic translation, and paused to scratch his temple with an index finger, setting his stylus beside the parchment. His gaze drifted to the empty seats, drawn to two in particular.
Just as he anticipated, neither Kaelen nor Jorin had appeared for the day’s lecture. They likely would not return tomorrow, either, unless Kaelen’s unpredictable humors shifted, or some new, unknown event had transpired between the two of them. Whatever that event might be, Elaraeth had no means of knowing.
Lowering his eyes, Elaraeth returned to the intricate problems. His vision filled with the elaborate strokes of ancient symbols, a language he understood far better than the unspoken words of the Scholarium’s social stratum.
There had been a time, not so long ago, when Elaraeth truly believed he understood Kaelen. Convinced himself, he did, that of all within this Hall, he alone possessed the deepest insight into Kaelen’s mind. A secret pride he held, even when comparing himself to Lord Caspian Thorne, who seemed to share a far closer companionship with Kaelen.
Truthfully, that very pride had been a bitter solace, helping him endure the sight of Caspian and Kaelen in their easy camaraderie. Deep down, he had savored the quiet, insidious belief that he held a secret advantage, a superior understanding of Kaelen that no one else possessed.
Propping his chin in his hand, Elaraeth felt a wave of self-loathing wash over him. The very capacity for such thoughts filled him with revulsion.
What judgment would descend upon him, were his inner turmoil laid bare? The answer was chillingly clear. He would be cast to the lowest tier of the Scholarium’s hierarchy, pressed beneath the heel of every foot, relegated to its widest, most despised plane.
Such a thought brought with it a frigid terror. This insidious longing, unique to a scheming young scholar, had to remain concealed at all costs. He must bury it deep, so utterly profound that not even the object of his desire could sense its foul presence. Ultimately, he needed to hide it so perfectly that even he might forget its very existence.
But Kaelen, Elaraeth knew, had never bothered with such concealment. His desires, his cruelties, were an open secret, known to all within the Scholarium.
Glancing around, Elaraeth raised his head fractionally. Still, every apprentice remained hunched over their desks. He pressed his lips together, his gaze fixed forward.
Lying forlornly between the rows of desks, near the foot of an empty seat, was a dust-laden scroll, its parchment stained with muddy boot-prints. A discarded lesson, perhaps, or a relic of some forgotten apprentice.
Suddenly, as if someone might have caught him staring, Elaraeth buried his head in his arms, mimicking the others, feigning exhaustion.
Then, he turned his neck, subtly shifting his gaze. His eyes fell upon the back row. There lay a face, partially hidden by an arm, as if its owner had collapsed mid-slumber. It belonged to Lord Caspian Thorne, and it looked delicate, yet sorrowful, almost like the face of one recently departed.
“...”
Elaraeth found himself staring at Lord Caspian’s face before his gaze drifted to the arm resting upon the desk. Had Caspian, already tall, grown even further? The academy robes that had fit him precisely at the start of the term now left his wrists fully exposed. Around one wrist, a heavy, obsidian sigil ring, carved with the intricate crest of House Thorne, caught the faint arcanic light—a potent, unmistakable symbol, integral to Caspian’s very identity.
Before hearing more of him, Elaraeth had assumed Caspian’s family demesne lay in the distant, older quarter of the capital, the same isolated district as Apprentice Theron.
Despite his intimidating aura, Caspian didn’t outwardly exude the obvious markers of excessive wealth. His dark eyes, always shadowed beneath heavy lids, and his faded irises, gave him a perpetually haunted look. The way his thin sclera showed beneath his pupils added to his sharp and gaunt appearance, a stark contrast to his family’s known opulence.
Caspian’s overall demeanor was one of grim intimidation, though it possessed a certain austere refinement. His features seemed etched with a profound sense of deprivation, exuding a melancholic gravity. Combined with his formidable build—he was undoubtedly the tallest apprentice in the Scholarium—it made him doubly imposing.
Fortunately, unlike Kaelen, Caspian’s sharp features included a classically handsome symmetry. Without that, apprentices might have actively avoided him. Even so, Caspian’s face was unsettling, intimidating, and crackled with nervous energy.
But Caspian’s true nature, Elaraeth knew, differed wildly from this imposing facade.
It wasn’t merely that he seemed indifferent to everything; it was as if he actively expunged events from his memory, whether intentionally or not. He possessed an air of “detached ownership of nothing,” a trait that ironically added to his mystique.
Most notably, Caspian seemed to care little for monetary coin or social credit. He never paid attention to how much others spent or how much they accumulated. If the mood struck him, he’d casually toss a purse of aurum to a nearby apprentice without a second thought, as if the concept of currency held no meaning. Sometimes he loaned funds and promptly forgot about them entirely. There were even tales of apprentices returning borrowed coin only for Caspian to ask, puzzled, why they offered him such gifts.
Still, he didn’t lend to just any supplicant. He’d indulge random requests when in a good humor but coldly refused those who were truly desperate.
Even with his chosen companions, Caspian could be harsh. Elaraeth once overheard a story about how Apprentice Lysander, upon seeing Caspian’s prized Arcane-runner—a vehicle he rarely displayed—excitedly tried to hop onto the passenger seat without permission. Caspian, with a single, swift motion, kicked him off on the spot, sending Lysander sprawling onto the cobblestones like a startled frog.
At the zenith of the Scholarium’s social pyramid, apprentices like Caspian Thorne and Kaelen shared one common trait: a complete lack of concern for others’ opinions. This indifference, in its own way, was what allowed them to sit, unassailed, at the pyramid’s apex.
Why do we, with our own hands, concede the keys to our very existence to these uncontrollable predators? No matter how deeply Elaraeth pondered, he still could not comprehend.
And yet, Lord Caspian Thorne proclaimed himself a devout follower of the Ancient Rites, his House known for its piety. A paradox.
He was the type of scion who slept with a tome of ancestral teachings beneath his head, yet he still claimed adherence to the tenets. He abstained from spirits, eschewed mind-altering herbs, avoided carnal excess, and would never stoop to theft or extortion of weaker apprentices. Yet the doctrine he followed seemed flawed—anyone could discern the contradictions from the strictures against revelry alone. Elaraeth had heard that many ancient faiths permitted certain indulgences.
They say the Ancient Rites viewed desire outside the sanctioned unions as a grave transgression. Was that why Kaelen’s overt predilections repulsed Caspian so profoundly? Elaraeth licked his dry lips.
A strange sense of relief washed over him, that he hadn’t been utterly exposed. Had he been, he would have ended up like that trampled scroll, lying forgotten on the floor. And yet, even in that moment, a whisper of a question persisted—if Kaelen and he had remained close, as they were but a few moon cycles past, would Kaelen have protected him?
The thought surfaced against his will, dragging with it memories Elaraeth desperately wished to forget. He took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to suppress the wave of nausea that rose in his chest, as though the meagre lunch he’d eaten earlier threatened to return.
No, of course not.
How laughable, that he had once been so arrogant as to think Kaelen would. To Kaelen, Elaraeth was nothing. Merely a convenient, passing companion, a distraction. This truth he now knew, seared into his memory by the very way Kaelen’s eyes had regarded him, devoid of all warmth, as he lay battered on the ground. The truth had been staring him in the face, a brutal, undeniable fact.
Kaelen transgressed openly. Elaraeth, too, was a transgressor—but he concealed his failings. And so, Kaelen was punished by the unyielding hand of social judgment, while Elaraeth, for now, was spared.
A faint, bitter laugh escaped his lips, so soft it was only audible to himself.
“...So, as long as I do not get caught, that is all that truly matters.”
Perhaps the Scholarium’s true deity possessed a personality akin to Lord Caspian Thorne’s.
Elaraeth’s gaze shifted to the desk near the Master Scholar’s podium. Most unusual, but today, he felt a pang of pity for Apprentice Theron. Poor soul, caught in the clutches of that daemon Kaelen. Theron lacked the strength to resist that monstrous, seductive power. Fragile, helpless Theron, unlike his deceptively towering physical presence. He should have fled the moment Elaraeth had warned him, fool.
Elaraeth knew he was not a good person. He was selfish and self-serving, and that, he sometimes thought, was why he had been punished. Sometimes, a darker thought surfaced: If Kaelen must desire other males, why not choose someone sly and deceitful, someone like Elaraeth? At least then life would be simpler. Why fall for someone so innocent and earnest, only to condemn them to such profound suffering?
These cycles, he thought differently.
Indeed. Of course, no one could ever truly love someone like him. Elaraeth knew himself too well to ever believe otherwise.
There had been a time when he believed he could have everything. Arrogant, conceited Elaraeth. Elaraeth, who thought he understood the world at eighteen. Wicked, vile Elaraeth. Pitiful Elaraeth, who had no one to comfort him, so he endured everything in solitude.
That day, Elaraeth could not get past the fifteenth question. He used his supposed illness—a feigned weariness—as an excuse to lie slumped over his desk, thinking to himself: Well, at least I am not as utterly ruined as Kaelen or Theron.
Whispers about Kaelen and Theron spread like wildfire through the Scholarium. Whether they were exaggerated or grounded in truth, no one could say for certain. There was no way to discover the full truth either. Kaelen’s usual coterie had vanished from the academy, as if uprooted by some unseen force. The few who remained were too preoccupied with forming new alliances to worry about anything else, inadvertently fueling the rumors even further.
“Master Aerion, pardon, but who among the apprentices was closest to Kaelen?”
“Apprentice... No, Lord Caspian Thorne.”
Elaraeth overheard this as he passed by on his way back to the lecture hall before dismissal. The Master Scholar had asked, and another apprentice had answered. Pretending he hadn’t heard, Elaraeth walked into the room. Master Aerion glanced nervously between Elaraeth and the empty seats, drumming his fingers against the podium. Then, as if abandoning some unspoken thought, he announced:
“Let us conclude.”
The moment dismissal was granted, Elaraeth gathered his scrolls. As he slung his satchel over his shoulder, Lord Caspian Thorne tapped him lightly on the back.
“Apprentice Elaraeth. Let us seek out some diversion after our studies.”
Elaraeth looked at his face. He knew. He had always watched Kaelen and Caspian’s every interaction, so he knew that the apprentice Caspian most frequently invited to join him was always Kaelen. After a brief pause, Elaraeth waved him off.
“I cannot. I have supplemental studies.”
“What of after those?”
“Further scholarship. Pray, find one of your own companions.”
“Nay.”
“Why not?”
“To draw too close to a losing prospect merely drags one down.”
“They are your companions.”
“Existence is a calculation of maximizing gain. To cling to that which is naught but waste ruins one’s own life.”
“Ha.”
Elaraeth let out a short, hollow laugh at the sheer absurdity of it. Right. This was why he had, in the past, found a strange, uncomfortable kinship with Caspian. Their twisted values, though different in origin, seemed to align in unsettling ways.
“So, Apprentice Lysander, Apprentice Gareth—they are naught but waste? Even young Apprentice Renwick?”
“If you articulate it thus, then verily, precisely so. But you, Elaraeth, are different.”
The backhanded compliment left Elaraeth feeling a cold unease. “What is that meant to signify? You are odious.”
“Nay, I am not.”
“You are truly odious.”
“Hmm. It is inscribed in the Ancient Rites: ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.’ I merely speak with candor, Elaraeth.”
Honestly, Caspian was worse than Elaraeth. At least Elaraeth did not so blatantly treat his acquaintances as utter dross.
“That is why I am a righteous man.”
“...Indeed.”
“Since I am such a righteous man, may I accompany you to your dwelling?”
Lord Caspian Thorne blinked twice, his dark eyes unwavering. Elaraeth looked at his face for a moment, weighing the implications, before finally nodding.
“Aye, why not.”
As long as Caspian did not interfere with Elaraeth’s intricate machinations, there was no reason to refuse. To secure one’s precarious place in the Scholarium’s unforgiving hierarchy, one often had to make strange bedfellows. And a direct, visible connection to House Thorne, however temporary, was a considerable gain. The cold calculation of it settled in Elaraeth's gut, sharp as a blade. What price might such an alliance demand?
His heart, an erratic drum against his ribs, offered no answer.
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