A curious lethargy clung to me when I roused, yet a faint relief stirred beneath it. The poultice, a foul-smelling concoction from the Guild of Healers, had worked its silent sorcery. My left cheek, a swollen, livid orb mere hours prior, had receded to a mere bruise – a faint, bruised blossom that one might dismiss as an unfortunate collision with a doorframe. Manageable. A sigh, barely audible, escaped my lips. Down the ancient, shadowed thoroughfares of Aethelburg I walked, the perpetual twilight softened by the glow of the distant Clockwork Spires. Each intricate gear and piston, powered by forgotten runes, hummed a low, constant thrum against the stone. My steps, usually deliberate, felt lighter, imbued with a nascent hope. This fragile optimism, I knew, was a foolish indulgence. Inside the Grand Scholarium, the air itself seemed to thicken, heavy with an unspoken tension. It pressed against the arched ceilings, coiled around the students gathered in the central hall. Every gaze seemed weighted, every whisper muted. Lucian Vance, I thought, a name that tasted of ash. Instinctively, my eyes sought Kaelen. He slipped into the lecture hall just as the first bell tolled, his form a study in hesitant movement, a phantom against the bustling backdrop. He barely avoided the tardiness mark. My breath hitched. My eyes, which often saw too much, locked onto his visage. A morbid jest had once played in my mind—that a shared affliction might teach him a grim lesson—but the sight of him now quelled such juvenile malice. His mouth, usually quick to smile, was a raw, split line. One eye was swollen shut, a grotesque parody of my own healed injury. A cold, suffocating remorse seized me. I felt a sudden, profound disgust for my earlier, childish thoughts. “By the Architect’s grace…” I murmured, the words lost in the hushed chamber. Kaelen navigated the rows of desks with an averted gaze, his eyes darting, seeking purchase on anything but me. Then, as if drawn by a cruel, invisible tether, his gaze snagged mine. He stared, wide-eyed, for a long moment, his face contorting into a startled grimace. He wrenched his head away, almost violently, and shuffled to his assigned carrel, a palpable barrier between us. “What in the Abyss…?” That peculiar aversion, sharp and immediate, left a sour residue in my mind. My glance swept the room, and the reason became clear as a bell. Lucian Vance, seated at the far end, fixed me with an unwavering stare. His eyes, usually cold, now burned with a murderous intent that chilled me to the bone. “Ah, damnation take it all.” I should have simply feigned a lingering malady and remained within my chambers. Regret, a bitter flood, washed over me, drowning the last vestiges of my morning’s fragile peace. Throughout the morning’s discourses, Kaelen, who once had clung to Lucian's shadow, now became a phantom himself, flitting away during moments of repose. At the noon meal, he vanished entirely with Lucian, swallowed by the labyrinthine corridors of the Scholarium. Where they went, what torment transpired, my mind dared not fully conceive. Bereft of companionship, I found myself sharing a meal with Silas. A nervous itch plagued me, a persistent urge to seek them out, to pierce the veil of secrecy. But the thought dissolved, curdling into a knot of dread. I would not pursue them. I hated to admit it, even to myself, but I was too afraid of what grim tableau might greet my eyes. Surely, Lucian would not strike him again? Right? It was not my burden to bear, this escalating cruelty, yet Kaelen’s battered face haunted the periphery of my vision, making disinterest an impossible luxury. Silas, ever the carefree spirit, maintained his usual banter, his voice a light counterpoint to the storm brewing within my skull. “See? I told you the air was thick enough to carve. Nearly choked on my own nerve, I did.” He spoke with a grin, tossing a candied plum into his mouth. “You seemed quite content devouring sugar-laced confections yesterday,” I observed, my voice betraying none of the turmoil. “Give me some credit, Elias. I swallowed my fear like a true Guildsman.” Silas winked, a glint of mischief in his amber eyes. “Arcane confections are meant to be swallowed, are they not?” I retorted, a faint, sardonic curve to my lips. My foot, with a light tap, met his calf beneath the table as he chuckled at his own jest. He rubbed his chin, a flash of something akin to sheepishness crossing his features. Impossible. Silas was never sheepish. Yet, it was there, fleeting as a phantom’s touch. --- Life possessed a cruel, capricious streak. From the moment our paths crossed, I harbored no desire for proximity to Silas. Indeed, I found his boisterous disposition and flippant mannerisms grating. Yet, here we were, two mismatched cogs in the vast machinery of Aethelburg, and he was the closest confidante I possessed. His lighthearted mien, his pithy observations, possessed an uncanny knack for preventing me from succumbing entirely to the crushing weight of things. Once, I had despised these very qualities, dismissing them as the superficial trappings of a shallow mind. Now, I found myself clinging to that levity, a desperate anchor in a turbulent sea. Had Lucian and I remained close, I might never have fathomed the profound necessity of Silas’s unexpected presence. After that grim day, Lucian began to withdraw, a shadow separating from the larger group. Sometimes, he’d vanish with Kaelen. Other times, a handful of lesser acolytes would accompany him, their faces a mixture of obligation and unease. There were even instances when some flatly refused, shaking their heads with visible discomfort, their fear warring with their conscience. Varro, a boisterous acolyte with a penchant for mischief, was one such instance. I chanced upon him clambering over a low wall near the Scholarium’s periphery, ostensibly evading a Master-at-Arms. He confided, with a strange brew of amusement and disquiet, that Lucian had taken to ordering the others to strike Kaelen, each a single, deliberate blow. My face twisted, a visceral reaction to the sheer depravity of it. Sensing my revulsion, Varro hastily added that he had been avoiding Lucian’s circle of late. He mentioned he was bound for a purveyor of arcane curiosities with Alden, then implored me not to misunderstand. With that, he scrambled away, leaving me to my grim thoughts. Alden, I recalled, had once been a close companion to Lucian in our first year, but a shift in class assignments had caused their orbits to diverge. At the noon meal, Silas and I sought the relative quiet of the Scholarium’s outer court. We procured frosted sugar-ices from a vendor, the cold sweetness a fleeting balm upon my agitated tongue. Beneath that momentary relief, a bitter knot of unease tightened its grip in my chest. Still, I held my ground, determined not to let the turmoil show on my face. “Is that palatable?” Silas asked, his own brightly colored confection held aloft. “Would you like a taste?” I offered, half-teasing, bringing my sugar-ice – glistening with my own saliva – close to his mouth. Without hesitation, he smirked, a corner of his lip lifting, and took a robust bite. “Hey! You actually consumed it?” I exclaimed, a genuine surprise lacing my tone. “You extended the offer,” he shrugged, a mischievous glint in his eye. “That’s… unseemly. And why such a prodigious bite?” “It was but a single bite, Elias.” He grinned, shrugging a shoulder, a picture of insouciance. It was a moment of unexpected, profound peace. In stark contrast to my internal tumult, the crisp Aethelburg air was clear and calm. Where were Lucian and Kaelen now? A handful of grim locations sprang to mind, yet I made no move to seek them. Perhaps I was truly afraid of what I might uncover. I tried with a fierce, almost desperate resolve, not to think of Lucian Vance. But the harder I strove, the more apparent it became how vast a dominion he still held within my mind. How much time would it demand to excise such a persistent phantom? How much arduous effort would it require to sever such an insidious connection? I did not know. It felt akin to being lost in a fathomless, barren desert, not merely steeped in sorrow and suffocation, but utterly terrifying and unbearable. Sometimes, I retreated. Like an ancient arcanist struggling to decipher faded script, I found myself stepping back, seeking distance to make sense of the burgeoning chaos. When the burden grew too overwhelming, I would, on occasion, share a few words with Silas. And, well, that was that. Suddenly, a question, unbidden and raw, spilled from my lips. “Silas,” I began, my voice quiet. “What is it, Elias?” “...Do you believe that flowers will ever bloom in a barren desert?” The question was so steeped in an uncharacteristic emotionality that I felt a blush creep up my neck the moment the words departed my mouth. I scratched my head awkwardly, bracing for his usual jest, but Silas did not mock me. “They will,” he said, his voice unusually devoid of levity. “...” “They must. Life is wretched enough as it is.” Hearing those words from Silas, a person I never would have thought capable of such solemnity, brought a stark clarity to my own desperate hope. How much more time, I wondered, would it take for me to relinquish these meaningless feelings? To surrender to the inevitable barrenness? “...Aye. Life is wretched.” Lucian Vance. That useless, venomous bastard. Why did he seem so intent on slaying the loyal, tail-wagging creature I became every time he appeared? Lucian, who seemed to have cast aside every basic tenet of Guildsman conduct, now came and went from the Scholarium as he pleased. And always, a pitiful shadow, by his side, was Kaelen. As the situation grew increasingly suspicious, the lecture hall buzzed with a low hum of unease and morbid intrigue. It became clear—Lucian’s casual cruelty was escalating. And so, too, was the fog of resentment toward him, slowly permeating the entire class. None of it felt good. Not a single thread of it. So, when I saw Lucian dragging Kaelen by the wrist down the polished obsidian hallway, I stopped in my tracks. My gaze flickered between their faces, Kaelen’s a mask of fear, Lucian’s a stony indifference, before finally speaking. “Your father sends his regards. He worries.” It was not an apology, nor flattery—it was a lie. Such was the paltry extent of my pride. But Lucian, estranged from his own father, would likely not discern the falsehood. And even if he did, I could always parry, arguing that, at this rate, his father would indeed have ample cause for concern. I always ensured a hidden escape route, a clever twist for my sharp wit. “If someone is to suffer, let it be you alone, Vance. What wrong has Kaelen committed?” “Move, Thorne.” The moment Kaelen’s name escaped my lips, Lucian’s gaze locked onto me, his eyes twin daggers of ice. My chest felt like a constricted cage, the air stolen from my lungs. I hated him. And yet, pitiful, pathetic Kaelen remained glued to his side, his eyes brimming with unshed tears, looking at me as if poised to shatter. “Unless you yearn for another taste of my fist, as before, move.” Lucian’s voice was a low growl. “L-Lucian, please,” Kaelen stammered, his voice trembling like a plucked lute string, as he reached for Lucian’s arm. Only then did Lucian cease speaking. His gaze, now devoid of menace towards me, fixed solely on Kaelen. All I could see was the rigid line of his back as he turned away from me. “A-as I said, your father is concerned—” “…” Kaelen, on the precipice of tears, clung to Lucian, trying with desperate, fragile hands to halt his progress. Witnessing that pitiful scene unfold, the raw agony of it, was unbearable. It was so excruciating that I closed my eyes, a silent plea for oblivion. After a long, drawn-out moment, Lucian looked at Kaelen, then, with a sharp turn, walked back into the classroom. For the rest of that day, he remained within its confines—a rare occurrence, a temporary cessation of his cruel wanderings, just like weeks ago. --- The long-anticipated day of the Guild-sponsored excursion had finally arrived. A grand, mechanized coach, its brass fittings gleaming dully in the perpetual twilight, stood ready to transport us to some obscure exhibition of ancient clockwork artifacts. While a few weary acolytes grumbled about being dragged away from their arduous studies, most hummed with a quiet excitement, eager for even a single day’s reprieve from the Scholarium’s cloistered walls. There was no need for cumbersome satchels of provisions, as we were due to return swiftly. The Masters-at-Arms offered only a few half-hearted admonitions before granting us leave. We were no longer fledgling apprentices. There was no giddy excitement keeping me awake through the night. I approached it as merely another day—leave without a burden, return without a burden. Yet, I had no inkling that this particular day would be the crucible where my long-bottled frustration would finally fracture. As was the unspoken custom, I had always been seated beside Lucian whenever we ventured beyond the classroom. After all, I had once been his closest companion. I had not even considered Silas’s seating arrangements, having never embarked on a journey with him before. At first, a cautious trepidation gnawed at me, a fear that Silas might unwittingly claim the coveted seat closest to Lucian. Reflecting upon it now, the thought was pathetic, imbued with a childish possessiveness. Neither I nor Silas would find ourselves in that hallowed spot. When we arrived, the mechanized coach loomed in the Scholarium yard. I climbed aboard, my gaze sweeping the interior for our usual places. The rearmost section, a cluster of five seats, was already claimed by a boisterous group of acolytes, Varro among them. He caught my eye, offered a hesitant wave, and then, with a strange gesture, pointed towards Lucian’s usual seat. “Thorne! There’s a place here!” Varro called out, his voice slightly muffled by the coach’s interior. “...Ah, yes.” Of course. It had always been my designated spot. But today, I hesitated, a tremor of apprehension running through me as I approached Lucian’s seat. My gaze darted. I sighed, a silent gush of relief, upon seeing the seat beside him still empty. Swallowing hard, a renewed spark of defiance ignited within me. It was my spot. My pride—that stubborn, unyielding ember that I clung to with desperate tenacity—compelled me to sit there, even after the humiliating blow I had received, all because of Kaelen. It was a foolish, desperate assertion of a bond already severed. I nervously touched the velvet-worn top of the seat, my fingers tracing the outline of untold journeys. I glanced around the coach, noting the expectant faces, then quietly, tentatively, I spoke. “Lucian… This seat…” “It is not yours, Thorne. Seek another place.” Before I could finish, Lucian cut me off, his voice flat and devoid of inflection. His gaze remained fixed, unyielding, on the coach’s entrance. Following his unwavering line of sight, I saw Kaelen, small and timid, making his way gingerly toward us. My fists clenched, my unspoken words dying in my throat. “...Fine. Whatever.” I strove for indifference, yet my heart felt as if it had been shredded into a thousand tiny pieces, scattered to the wind. I quickly retreated from the seat, my gaze sweeping the coach with a frantic urgency. I found an empty space near Silas’s group, directly in front of where he sat. Relief, cold and sharp, pierced through me. I rushed over, collapsing into the seat, and spoke without waiting for a reply. “Silas. Sit with me.” There was no answer. When I looked closer, I realized he was already deep in slumber. Silas always seemed to succumb to morning’s embrace, and today proved no exception. His head rested against the window, bouncing gently with every lurch of the mechanized coach. Shaking my head at his utterly ridiculous posture, I carefully wedged my leather-bound wallet between his head and the unforgiving window pane, a small, uncharacteristic gesture of kindness. I leaned back into the uncomfortable, aged seat. Across the aisle, through the veiled light of the coach, I caught a glimpse of dark brown hair. It was Lucian’s—he was taller than most of our acolytes, making him easy to spot. Though I could not discern their faces clearly, I knew who sat beside him. The serpent had found its coil.

Chapter 3.1: The Serpent's Coil