A cool breath of pre-dawn air, thick with the scent of aged parchment and cold stone, filtered through the open vent of Elias’s alcove. Relief, a fragile thing, settled over him. The application of the arcane poultice had worked its quiet magic; the bruised swelling on his cheek, a stark purple yesterday, had receded to a faint, mottled blue. He could almost pretend it was a clumsy bump against a shelf, a common hazard in the poorly lit lower archives. It was manageable.
He moved through the hushed corridors of the Grand Athenaeum, the ancient stones absorbing all but the soft scuff of his worn boots. Morning duties awaited, but a leaden anticipation pressed upon his chest. Ahead, the Great Scriptoria hummed with the muted industry of early risers, but today, an unfamiliar tension clung to the air.
Instinctively, Elias scanned the desks. Where was Acolyte Kael? A knot tightened in his gut. Just as the Senior Scribes began their roll call, Kael slipped through the heavy oak doors, barely avoiding a reprimand for tardiness.
A gasp caught in Elias’s throat, unheard amidst the rustle of robes. He froze, his meticulous notes forgotten. A wave of sickening guilt washed over him. He had, in a moment of bitter frustration, half-wished some karmic justice upon the instigator of his own injury. But this… Kael’s face was a ruin. A lip was split, swollen and crusted, and one eye was a grotesque, purpling lump, nearly shut. Shame, hot and acrid, burned in Elias’s stomach. Such childish, petty thoughts.
“By the Star-Reader’s beard…”
Kael entered tentatively, his gaze darting across the room, avoiding all contact. Then, as if pulled by an invisible tether, his eyes snagged on Elias’s. For a long, agonizing moment, he stared, then his bruised face contorted into a startled grimace. He flinched, turning his head sharply, shuffling quickly to his usual study alcove, leaving Elias’s gaze untouched.
“What in the name of the Eldest Scripts?”
That strange aversion left Elias unsettled. His eyes instinctively sought answers. Across the grand hall, Hierophant Cassian sat amidst his favored retinue, his expression a cold, sharp blade. Cassian’s eyes were locked on Elias, promising retribution.
Curse the morning stars. He should have feigned illness. Regret, bitter and sharp, surged through him.
For the rest of the morning, Acolyte Kael, who had previously sought Elias’s advice on minor textual errors, avoided any interaction. During the mid-morning respite, he vanished with Hierophant Cassian, destination unknown.
Left alone, Elias found himself gravitating towards Scholar Joric in the common refectory. A part of him yearned to seek out Kael and Cassian, to understand, to intervene. But a cold apprehension held him rooted. He hated to admit it, but he feared what he might witness. Would Cassian’s cruelty continue, even here, within the Athenaeum’s hallowed walls? It wasn’t his burden, yet Kael’s battered face was a haunting specter.
Joric, ever a bastion of carefree irreverence, chattered amiably, oblivious to the tumult in Elias’s mind.
“See? I told you the Great Scriptoria felt like a crypt this morning. I nearly choked on the oppressive silence.”
“You seemed perfectly content with those candied ember-roots yesterday.”
“Give me some credit, Elias. I endure the gloom with professional aplomb.”
Joric winked, a wide, unburdened smile on his face.
“Candied ember-roots are meant to be consumed with professional aplomb.”
Annoyed, Elias nudged Joric’s shin with his foot as the other scholar chuckled at his own jest. Joric rubbed his chin, a flicker of something uncharacteristically sheepish in his eyes. Elias dismissed it. Impossible.
---
Existence unfolds in unexpected currents. From their first, rather abrasive encounter, Elias had harbored no intention of cultivating a friendship with Scholar Joric. Indeed, he found Joric’s flippant nature almost grating. Yet, here they were, sharing the solitude of the refectory, Joric now the closest confidant Elias possessed.
Joric’s lighthearted demeanor, his perpetually irreverent tone, possessed a peculiar knack for deflecting the crushing weight of Elias’s anxieties. He provided a brief, vital reprieve.
In earlier days, Elias had disdained these very qualities, labeling Joric shallow, unserious. Now, he found himself clinging to that levity, a flimsy lifeline in a sea of encroaching dread. Had Hierophant Cassian and he maintained their brittle alliance, Elias might never have realized the profound necessity of Joric’s presence.
After that day, Cassian began to distance himself from his usual circle. Sometimes, he would disappear with Acolyte Kael into the deeper, less-frequented parts of the Athenaeum. Other times, he would compel a few other junior scribes to accompany them. A disquieting pattern emerged; there were moments when some of the scribes flatly refused, their faces etched with unease.
Scribe Perrin was one such instance. Elias encountered him scaling a forgotten stairwell, clearly trying to avoid a Senior Custodian patrol. Perrin, with a mix of strained amusement and genuine apprehension, confessed that Cassian had been ordering the others to strike Acolyte Kael, a single blow from each. Elias’s face twisted in disbelief. Perrin, sensing his reaction, quickly added that he had been actively avoiding Cassian’s company. He muttered something about heading to the Hall of Illuminated Texts with Scribe Gareth and begged Elias not to misinterpret his absence. With that, he scurried away.
Scribe Gareth, once a close associate of Cassian during their first year as initiates, had drifted from the Hierophant’s orbit after being assigned to a different scholastic guild.
Later, Joric and Elias found themselves in the Athenaeum’s small provisions alcove, purchasing chilled moon-blossom drops. The cold sweetness spread across Elias’s tongue, a fleeting balm. Beneath that fragile relief, however, a bitter knot of unease tightened in his chest. He held his expression neutral, determined to reveal nothing.
“Is that palatable?” Joric, munching on his own brightly colored star-fruit confection, eyed Elias’s moon-blossom drops hungrily. Half-teasing, Elias brought his drop, still faintly sticky with his saliva, close to Joric’s mouth. Without hesitation, Joric smirked, lifted one corner of his lip, and took a large, deliberate bite.
“Joric! You truly consumed that?”
“You offered it.”
“That’s… unsanitary. And why such a prodigious bite?”
“A single sampling.” Grinning, Joric shrugged. It was a moment of fragile peace. The crisp autumn light, filtering through the high clerestory windows, was clear and calm, a stark contrast to Elias’s internal tempest.
Where were Hierophant Cassian and Acolyte Kael now? Several secluded chambers and forgotten passages came to mind, but Elias did not seek them out. Perhaps he feared what he might discover.
He tried diligently to banish Cassian from his thoughts. Yet, the harder he strove, the more vividly he realized the vast, suffocating space Cassian occupied within his mind.
How much time, how much effort, would it require to sever such a bond? He did not know. It felt like being lost in a boundless, arid desert, not merely sad and suffocating, but terrifying, unbearable.
Sometimes, Elias retreated into himself. Like a scholar attempting to discern faint ink on ancient, faded parchment, he stepped back, striving for clarity. When the weight became too much, he would, occasionally, confide in Joric. And that, for now, was all he could manage.
Suddenly, a question escaped his lips.
“Joric?”
“What is it, Elias?”
“Do you… do you believe lumiflora could ever bloom in a barren rock-face?”
The question felt absurdly sentimental, and Elias felt a flush creep up his neck the moment the words were uttered. He scratched his head awkwardly. Joric, however, offered no mockery.
“They will.”
“...”
“They must. Life, in its essence, is bleak enough.”
Hearing those uncharacteristic words from Joric, a scholar he had never considered capable of such profundity, pierced Elias with a chilling realization: his own desperate hope was perhaps just as futile. How much longer would it take for him to relinquish these meaningless attachments?
“Indeed. Life is bleak.”
Hierophant Cassian. That useless, arrogant scion. Why did he seem so intent on crushing the loyal, fawning apprentice Elias felt himself becoming whenever Cassian’s shadow fell upon him? Cassian, who seemed to have abandoned all the basic tenets of scholastic discipline, now came and went from the Athenaeum’s classes as he pleased. And always, by his side, was Acolyte Kael.
As the situation grew increasingly suspicious, a low hum of unease and intrigue pervaded the junior scribe ranks. It became undeniable—Cassian’s brutality was escalating. And so, too, did a fog of resentment toward him slowly spread through the cohort. None of it felt right.
One afternoon, spotting Cassian dragging Kael by the wrist down a quiet cloister, Elias stopped dead. His gaze flickered between their faces, then he spoke, his voice surprisingly steady.
“Your House-Elder has inquired after you.”
It was not an apology, nor flattery—it was a calculated fabrication. Such was the extent of Elias’s pride, a desperate, fragile thing. But Cassian, notoriously distant from his ancestral House, would likely not discern the lie. And even if he did, Elias could always argue that, at this rate, his Elder would indeed have ample cause for concern.
Elias always ensured his retreat was planned.
“If blows must be struck, let them fall upon you alone. What has Acolyte Kael ever done to merit this?”
“Move.”
The moment Kael’s name left Elias’s lips, Cassian’s gaze locked onto him, sharp as a drawn blade. Elias’s chest felt as though it would burst from the crushing weight of that stare. He despised Cassian. Yet, pitiful, trembling Kael stood glued to Cassian’s side, his tear-filled eyes fixed on Elias, on the verge of spilling over.
“Unless you wish to receive another lesson, like last time, move.”
“C-Cassian, please,” Kael stammered, his voice trembling as he tugged at the Hierophant’s sleeve. Only then did Cassian’s cold gaze break from Elias. It fixed solely on Kael now. Elias saw only the rigid line of Cassian’s back as he turned away from him.
“As I said, your Elder is worr—”
“...”
Kael, on the verge of tears, clung to Cassian, attempting to dissuade him. Watching that pitiful tableau unfold was unbearable. It was so excruciating that Elias closed his eyes, a dull throb beginning behind his temples.
After a prolonged moment, Cassian looked at Kael, then, with a curt turn, walked back into the refectory. For the remainder of the day, he remained there—a rare occurrence, reminiscent of weeks past.
---
The long-anticipated day of the Archival Retrieval Expedition had finally arrived. A stout, enchanted travel-barge had been chartered to transport the junior scribes to the Sunken Labyrinth, a remote annex rumored to contain obscured records. While a few senior apprentices grumbled about the disruption to their specialized studies, most junior scribes buzzed with excitement, eager for even a single day’s reprieve from the Athenaeum’s confines.
There was no need for elaborate provisions; they would return shortly after the day’s work. The Senior Scribes offered only a few half-hearted warnings before granting permission to board. They were not green initiates anymore. The giddy anticipation of childhood was long past. Elias regarded it as merely another obligation—depart without a heavy satchel, return without one. He had no premonition that today would be the day his suppressed frustrations, carefully bottled and secured, would finally erupt. He had anticipated its inevitability, but not its abruptness.
As was customary, Elias would sit beside Hierophant Cassian whenever their assignments took them beyond the main Athenaeum. He was, after all, Cassian’s designated companion for such excursions. Elias had not even considered where Scholar Joric would sit, having never traveled on a long-distance barge with him before.
At first, Elias felt a flicker of apprehension regarding Joric, a foolish fear that he might claim the seat closest to Cassian. Reflecting on it now, such a thought was pathetic. Neither Elias nor Joric would occupy that particular spot.
Approaching the designated travel-barge in the Outer Courtyard, Elias climbed aboard, searching for their assigned places. The aftmost five benches were already claimed by a boisterous group of scribes, including Perrin, who waved at Elias, then hesitated, a nervous gesture toward Cassian’s usual seat.
“Elias! A place here!”
“Ah, yes.”
Of course. He had always been the one beside Cassian. But today, a tremor of hesitation ran through Elias as he approached Cassian’s seat. A small sigh of relief escaped him when he saw the bench beside Cassian remained empty. Swallowing hard, he felt a spark of defiant resolve.
It was his place. His pride—the singular, stubborn facet of his being—compelled him to sit there, even after the humiliation, even after the pain inflicted indirectly by Cassian due to Kael.
He nervously touched the smooth, cold wood of the bench for a moment, his gaze sweeping across the crowded barge. Then, he spoke, his voice hushed.
“Hierophant… This bench…”
“It is not for you. Seek another seat.”
Before Elias could finish, Cassian cut him off, his gaze fixed intently on the barge’s entrance. Following Cassian’s line of sight, Elias saw Acolyte Kael timidly making his way toward them. Elias clenched his fists, swallowing the words that caught in his throat.
“Fine. As you wish.”
He attempted to inject indifference into his tone, though his heart felt as if it had been meticulously shredded, piece by agonizing piece.
Quickly, Elias vacated the seat and scanned the bustling barge. He spotted an empty space near Joric’s group, directly in front of where Joric sat. Relieved, he rushed over, dropped onto the bench, and spoke without waiting for a response.
“Joric. Share this bench with me.”
No answer came. When Elias looked closer, he realized Joric was already deep in slumber. Joric always seemed to drift into unconsciousness during morning transit, and today was no exception. His head rested against the small, reinforced window, bouncing gently with every subtle sway of the barge. Shaking his head at Joric’s ridiculous sleeping posture, Elias slipped his heavy scroll tube between Joric’s head and the window-frame, then leaned back into the uncomfortable seat, a deep sigh escaping him. Across the narrow aisle, he caught a glimpse of dark, neatly styled hair. It was Cassian’s—the Hierophant stood taller than most of their cohort, making him easy to identify. Though he could not discern the exact details, Elias knew Acolyte Kael was now seated beside him.