Polished obsidian flagstones stretched, a silent, menacing expanse. This grand Chamber of Arcane Theory housed thirty young acolytes, each a delicate knot of ambition and fear.
Everywhere, hierarchies formed, subtle as a shadow, yet rigid as forged iron. Acolytes clung to groups, their lives stretched taut by the relentless grind of arcane study and the cycles of the lunar phases. Eighteen such cycles had passed since their arrival, each day a dance on the edge of a chasm. Tension thrummed in the air, a constant, low hum.
This unending pressure had begun for Kaelen at twelve, when he’d first learned the unforgiving art of alliances. This precarious balancing act had been his routine ever since – and, he suspected, everyone else’s too.
A crucible of ambition, molding its own dark hierarchy. That was the Academy’s Chamber, a place of eighteen such unforgiving spaces.
“Ah…”
Blood returned to Kaelen’s numb arm, a painful prickle, as he shook it. He tapped his tightly wound stomach, a dull ache gnawing at him, before letting out a weak breath. His gaze settled on the slumped backs before him. Obsidian instruction slates gleamed dully, mirroring the peach-colored napes of strained necks. At the tutor’s podium, Master Eldrin, our Ethics instructor, sat poring over a crumpled scroll, one of Eldoria’s daily arcane decrees.
Students, meanwhile, either wrestled with the complex runic matrices he’d assigned or, having long surrendered, sagged over their desks, lost to uneasy sleep.
“Rouse yourselves, those who slumber,” Master Eldrin boomed, turning a page of the crackling scroll.
It was already the fifth period bell. Kaelen had been tracing the fifteenth inscription, a particularly brutal sequence, when he’d paused to scratch his head, setting his runic stylus beside the parchment. His eyes drifted to the empty seats.
Two, in particular, stood out, like gaping wounds in the order.
As anticipated, neither Lysander nor Finnian had graced the chamber with their presence. They likely wouldn’t tomorrow, either, unless Lysander succumbed to one of his unpredictable shifts in whim, or some fresh discord erupted between them. That ‘something,’ whatever it might be, remained a dark mystery to Kaelen.
He lowered his gaze to the intricate runic problems, their delicate strokes blurring on the parchment. Once, Kaelen had believed he understood everything about Lysander. He’d convinced himself he was the one who knew Lysander best in this entire chamber. Pride had swelled in his chest then, even when comparing himself to Valerius, who walked closer to Lysander than any other.
That false pride, in truth, had been a bitter salve, allowing him to endure watching Valerius and Lysander’s easy camaraderie. Deep down, Kaelen had savored the quiet, corrosive knowledge that he held a secret understanding, a hidden vantage point into Lysander’s true nature.
His chin rested in his palm. The capacity for such thought, for such petty, venomous introspection, disgusted him.
What judgment would rain down if others knew these thoughts, like coiled vipers, writhed in his mind? The answer was chillingly clear. He’d be cast to the bottommost stratum of the academy’s pyramid, relegated to its widest, most despised plane.
A terrifying prospect. This insidious desire, unique to a scheming young acolyte, had to remain buried, deeper than any ancient vault. So deep that not even the object of his obsession would sense its existence. Ultimately, he needed to conceal it so thoroughly that even he forgot its wretched presence.
But Lysander hadn’t done that. Every acolyte in the chamber knew of his desires, his boundless, terrifying ambition.
Kaelen glanced around, a slight lift of his head. Everyone remained hunched, lost in their own struggles. He pressed his lips tightly, looking forward again.
Lying forlornly between the rows of desks, a dusty treatise on Lesser Summoning lay splayed, its cover marked by dusty boot prints.
Suddenly, as if sensing an unseen eye, Kaelen buried his head in his desk, mimicking the others, his breath catching.
Then he turned his neck, a subtle shift, towards the back row. There, partially hidden by an arm, lay a face. It seemed to belong to someone who had collapsed mid-task, fallen asleep to escape the chamber’s demands. Delicate and sorrowful, it held an almost spectral pallor.
“…”
Kaelen found himself staring at Valerius’s face before his gaze drifted to his arm. Had the already towering Valerius grown further? The Academy tunic, perfectly tailored at the cycle’s start, now left his wrists fully exposed. Around one, a dark wood amulet, carved with a forgotten sigil, stood out vividly. It was a heavy, unmistakable symbol, an integral part of Valerius’s enigmatic identity.
Before Kaelen had learned more, he’d assumed Valerius hailed from the less affluent districts, the same scarred wards as Finnian.
Despite his intimidating aura, Valerius didn’t exude the typical scent of wealth. His sunken eyes always seemed shadowed, his faded irises lending him a perpetually haunted look. The sliver of thin sclera visible beneath his pupils added to his sharp, gaunt appearance.
Valerius projected an atmosphere of grim intimidation, yet it lacked the polished refinement often associated with the magically privileged. Instead, his features seemed etched by a profound sense of deprivation, exuding a melancholic heaviness. Combined with his imposing stature – he was undoubtedly the tallest acolyte in the Academy – it made him doubly formidable.
Fortunately, unlike Lysander, Valerius’s sharp features possessed a classically handsome symmetry. Without it, acolytes might have actively shied away. Even so, Valerius’s face was unsettling, intimidating, and crackled with nervous energy.
But Valerius’s disposition couldn’t have been more different.
It wasn’t merely indifference; it was as if he actively erased events from his memory, whether by design or accidental magic. He carried an air of “detached ownership of nothing,” a trait that ironically amplified his mystique.
Most notably, Valerius seemed utterly detached from material wealth. He never noted how much others spent or requested. If the mood struck him, he’d casually toss a handful of coin-chips to an acolyte nearby without a second thought, as if the concept of currency held no meaning. Sometimes he lent coin and entirely forgot the transaction. Stories circulated of acolytes returning borrowed sums only for Valerius to ask, puzzled, why they were offering him money.
Still, he didn’t aid just anyone. He’d indulge random requests when in a good humor but coldly refuse those in genuine desperation.
Even with his chosen circle, Valerius could be brutal. Kaelen once overheard a tale of how Gareth, upon seeing Valerius’s prized arcane hover-bike – a relic he rarely displayed – excitedly tried to clamber onto the rear seat without permission. Valerius, without a word, kicked him off on the spot, sending him sprawling on the cobbled street like a startled frost-toad.
At the apex of the social hierarchy, figures like Valerius and Lysander shared a common trait: a complete disregard for others’ opinions. This chilling indifference, in its own twisted way, was precisely what allowed them to perch at the pyramid’s unforgiving peak.
Why did they, with their own hands, surrender the keys to their world to these uncontrollable predators? No matter how Kaelen pondered it, he couldn’t grasp the collective madness.
And yet, Valerius called himself a follower of the Ancient Oaths. A devout one.
He was the type of unruly acolyte who slept with a tome of forgotten rites beneath his head, yet still claimed adherence to their teachings. He abstained from potent elixirs, avoided forbidden herbs, held no claim to stolen runic diagrams, nor did he extort coin from junior acolytes. Yet the doctrine he followed seemed flawed – anyone could see it from the elixir and herb rules alone. He’d heard that the Ancient Oaths, properly interpreted, permitted both.
They said the Oaths viewed certain affinities as defilements. Was that why Lysander’s actions so deeply repulsed Valerius? Kaelen licked his dry lips.
He felt a strange, cold relief that he hadn’t been caught. If he had, he would have ended up like that trampled treatise, cast aside on the floor. And yet, even in that moment, the insidious question lingered – if Lysander and Kaelen had remained close, as they were just a few cycles ago, would Lysander have protected him?
The thought surfaced against his will, dragging with it memories Kaelen desperately wanted to bury. He took a deep breath, trying to suppress the wave of nausea that rose in his chest, as though the bitter lunchtime rations threatened to resurface.
No. Of course not.
How laughable, that he had once been so arrogant as to believe it. To Lysander, Kaelen was nothing. Just a convenient high-ranking acolyte, a passing diversion. He knew this now because of the way Lysander had looked at him when he’d beaten Kaelen to the ground, not with fists, but with cruel words and public humiliation. His eyes had spoken volumes. Kaelen hadn’t wanted to know the truth, but it had been staring him in the face, undeniable as etched runes.
Lysander transgressed openly. Kaelen, too, was a transgressor – but he kept his secrets hidden. And so, Lysander was punished by the consequences of his arrogance, while Kaelen remained, for now, spared.
A faint, self-deprecating laugh escaped Kaelen’s lips, so soft it was only audible to himself.
“…So, as long as I don’t get caught, that’s all that matters.”
Perhaps the Ancient Keepers had a disposition akin to Valerius’s.
Kaelen’s gaze shifted to the desk near the tutor’s podium. This was unusual, but today, he felt a pang of pity for Finnian. Poor soul, ensnared in Lysander’s grasp. Finnian lacked the inner strength to resist that monstrous, seductive power. Fragile, helpless Finnian, unlike the formidable presence his name evoked. He should have fled the moment Kaelen had warned him, fool.
Kaelen knew he wasn’t a good person. He was selfish, self-serving, and perhaps that was his own hidden punishment. Sometimes, he even harbored this thought: If one was to pursue such forbidden paths, why not choose someone sly and deceitful, like Kaelen himself? At least then life might be simpler. Why fall for someone so innocent and earnest, only to end up suffering for it?
These cycles, his thoughts had shifted.
Yes. Of course no one could ever truly love someone like him. Kaelen knew himself too well to believe otherwise. There was a time when he believed he could possess everything. Arrogant, conceited Kaelen. Kaelen, who thought he understood the subtle currents of the world at eighteen cycles. Wicked, vile Kaelen. Pitiful Kaelen, who had no one to comfort him, so he endured everything alone.
That day, Kaelen couldn’t push past the fifteenth runic sequence. He feigned a sudden malaise, slumping over his desk, thinking to himself: *Well, at least I’m not as utterly ruined as Lysander or Finnian.*
Whispers about Lysander and Finnian spread like wildfire through the Academy’s hallowed halls. Whether exaggerated or rooted in dark truth, no one could say for certain. There was no way to ascertain the facts, either. Lysander’s inner circle had seemingly vanished from the Academy, as if ripped out by the roots. The few who remained were too preoccupied with forging new alliances to worry about anything else, inadvertently fueling the rumors even further.
“Master Eldrin, pardon, but who was closest to Lysander?”
“Lysander… No, Valerius.”
Kaelen overheard this exchange as he passed by on his way back to the chamber before dismissal. The homeroom tutor had asked, and one of Kaelen’s classmates, Eamon, had answered. Pretending he hadn’t heard, Kaelen walked into the room. Master Eldrin glanced nervously between Kaelen 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 ended, Kaelen grabbed his satchel. As he slung it over his shoulder, Valerius tapped him on the back, a deceptively light touch.
“Kaelen. Join me after studies.”
Kaelen looked at his face.
He knew. He had always watched Lysander and Valerius’s every subtle interaction, so he knew that the acolyte Valerius most frequently invited was always Lysander. After a brief pause, Kaelen waved him off.
“Cannot. I have advanced runic refinements.”
“What of after that?”
“Further study. Go find Gareth or Ronan.”
“No interest.”
“Why not?”
“Clinging to lesser acolytes only drags one down, hinders true progress.”
“Ha.”
Kaelen let out a short, hollow laugh at the sheer absurdity, or perhaps, the brutal honesty of it.
Right. This was precisely why he’d found an unexpected, unsettling kinship with Valerius. Their twisted values seemed to align in strangely similar, self-serving ways.
“So, Gareth, Ronan – they are ‘lesser acolytes’? Even Eamon?”
“If you phrase it thus, then yes, largely. But you are… different.”
The backhanded compliment left Kaelen feeling a strange prickle, a mix of discomfort and a dark, secret gratification.
“What is that meant to mean? You are quite awful, Valerius.”
“No, I am not.”
“You truly are so awful.”
“Hmm. The Ancient Oaths dictate, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.’ I merely speak what is true, Kaelen.”
Honestly, Valerius was worse than Kaelen. At least Kaelen didn’t blatantly treat his acquaintances like refuse.
“That is why I am a good acolyte.”
“…Indeed.”
“Since I am such a good acolyte, may I accompany you to your dwelling?”
Valerius blinked twice, his faded irises unreadable. Kaelen looked at his face for a moment before giving a slow, almost imperceptible nod.
“Yes, why not.”
As long as he didn’t interfere with Kaelen’s delicate balance, there was no logical reason to refuse. To secure one’s place in the unforgiving hierarchy of Eldoria, there was sometimes no better strategy than to draw closer to the very shadows that threatened to engulf one.