Kaelen cultivated composure like a rare, delicate herb, tending it with meticulous, almost obsessive care. Years had taught him to forge every tremor of fear, every flicker of anger, into a resilient, unyielding sheath. His parents, pillars of the Academy’s arcane order, had sculpted his early life into a rigid lattice of duty and expectation. This quiet discipline, a stark contrast to the volatile displays of power common among his peers, often earned him descriptions of being aloof, perhaps even dull. They mistook his stillness for apathy.
Yet, beneath the polished surface, a tempest brewed. It wasn’t an absence of feeling, but a deep, churning maelstrom, trapped behind a self-imposed ward. Each emotional disturbance, each slight, each wave of self-doubt, layered itself into this internal fortress. Now, little could truly breach it. His magic, intricate and precise rune-weaving, mirrored this inner restraint – potent, but subtle, easily overlooked.
This same hardened resilience allowed him to endure proximity to Rhys and Lyra. He still occupied a respectable, if diminished, position in their intricate social web, a standing he had fought to preserve. Losing it would mean casting himself adrift, a fate he dreaded more than any insult.
“Hey, Kaelen.”
“Yes?”
“What’s that tone? It’s grating.” Lyra’s voice, sharp as fractured ice, cut through the midday din of the Refectory.
“More grating than your perpetual glare?” Kaelen replied, his voice flat, a well-worn retort.
“Hilarious.” She offered a sarcastic smirk, not truly offended. Lyra thrived on provocation, a wildness in her that Kaelen both admired and feared. Her own raw, untamed magic pulsed around her, a sharp, untamed edge.
“Lyra, don’t you know any decent students?” Rhys’s voice, heavy with bored disdain, drifted from the table next to them. He toyed with a half-eaten loaf of Arcane bread, eyes scanning the room, predatory and languid.
Lyra shrugged. “What’s ‘decent’?”
“Don’t play dense, you witch.” Rhys’s gaze lingered on a solitary figure at a far table—Theron, the quiet new student, hunched over his meal, a small ward against loneliness humming faintly around him.
Rhys was a force of nature—impulsive, brutal, thoughtless. His magic was loud, unrestrained, a testament to raw, inherited power that dwarfed Kaelen’s subtle craft. His cruelty, unrestrained by any pretense of subtlety, intensified with each passing week. By this summer’s end, Theron had become utterly isolated, yet it was never enough to sate Rhys.
Rhys’s immediate cronies, Joris and Fenris, usually waited for him long after the bell. But other circles, like those from the West Wing, would bolt from the Refectory the moment the lunch bell chimed.
Kaelen remembered his first year, a blurry time spent perpetually on the fringes of Rhys’s inner orbit. But second year, that shifted. Joris, a lanky boy with an overly confident smirk, had remarked, “Kaelen eats with Lyra now, doesn’t he? Man, you’re so slow.” Just like that, without Kaelen’s input, he was quietly excluded.
The most stinging part? Rhys hadn’t even noticed. Kaelen’s presence or absence made no difference to him. A hollow ache settled in Kaelen’s chest. He cast a quiet glance at Rhys, a question forming on his lips.
“Am I truly that slow at eating?”
“Of course. You chew like an ancient grimoire being deciphered, while we finish in five minutes.” Joris didn’t even look up from his meal.
“Yeah, we’re always late for practice because of you,” Fenris chimed in, equally dismissive.
“Oh.” The word felt brittle, a shard of his dignity.
“We’ve got a skirmish with the next class today. Go eat with Lyra.”
A bitter taste coated Kaelen’s tongue. His pride, a thin, fragile shield, kept him from pleading. Besides, the frantic pace of first-year meals with Rhys had given him perpetual indigestion. The thought of clinging to Rhys’s attention, like a desperate supplicant, repulsed him. He did not beg. He did not protest.
And just like that, he was out. His will, his silent yearning, held no sway.
Trying to project indifference, Kaelen met Lyra’s eyes across the table. She lounged against the seat back, idly tracing arcane symbols on the worn tabletop, her gaze sharp. “When are you eating?” she asked, a casual challenge in her tone.
“...”
“I usually go in about ten minutes.”
“Yes, that works for me too.”
The truth was, Kaelen had never eaten that late. But survival instincts, honed by years in the cutthroat academies, screamed at him to adapt. He needed *some* group, even Lyra’s. The first time they ate alone, Kaelen left half his food untouched, feigning a lack of appetite. Lyra raised an eyebrow, a mocking glint in her eyes.
“What are you, sixteen and still picky?”
“What’s it to you?” Kaelen snapped, irritation pricking at him.
“Honestly, you’re like a child. Still afraid of a few enchanted greens?”
“Even adults don’t eat Arcane fish stew with that much kelp extract.” He shot back, a petulant glare. Her jibes always felt so personal.
In their first year, Kaelen and Rhys had been almost inseparable. By second year, those moments had dwindled, largely due to Lyra’s influence. Still, Kaelen knew he had no right to complain. Lyra, for all her wildness, held a higher, more secure standing than he did.
Lyra’s and Rhys’s circles often overlapped, mostly consisting of students whose magical lineage granted them power without the discipline. They were the sort who forged dismissal charms or vanished from classes, exploiting the lax oversight of tutors too weary to confirm their whereabouts.
Rhys, mindful of his parents’ powerful influence, usually remained until the end of classes. Lyra, whose reputation was equally infamous, Kaelen had once dared to ask why she bothered with the formal lessons. Her response, delivered with a chilling certainty, had stayed with him.
“Do you think I’m that pathetic?”
“No, but all your ‘friends’ are.”
“Friends? What is this nonsense? They are not my friends. They are dregs.”
“What?”
“A student’s duty is to attend and learn, isn’t it?”
“That’s true.”
“Don’t lump me with trash like them. It rankles.”
“Yes, apologies.”
“I wasn’t asking for an apology.”
A reasonable statement, Kaelen had thought, but coming from Lyra, whose usual companions skipped classes at least once a cycle, it felt absurd. Regardless, Kaelen spent most of his second year with Rhys and Lyra. He considered it a fragile, sacred space, impenetrable to others. It would have been perfect without Lyra, but surprisingly, they coexisted better than expected. He didn’t particularly like her, but she wasn’t so intolerable that he’d storm off. She was just… annoying.
But Theron’s arrival had turned even those days into a fresh nightmare.
Today felt different. A tremor of unease, like a fault line shifting beneath ancient stone, rippled through the Refectory as the fourth period neared its end.
“Damn it. Joris and Fenris, those bastards,” Rhys cursed, clutching his head. His frustration rippled out, a faint distortion in the ambient magic of the hall.
Rhys’s voice caught Kaelen’s attention. He turned, a flicker of anticipation, faint as a dying ember, sparking in his chest. “They’ve abandoned you again?”
“Fucking cowards.”
“That’s a shame. Who will you eat with, then?” Kaelen asked, his voice carefully neutral, yet his fingers trembled, a subtle betrayal as they gripped the back of his chair. A desperate hope, a fleeting dream of recaptured camaraderie, surged within him.
Rhys let out a heavy sigh, turning his gaze to Lyra, who merely watched him with a bored expression. “Hey, I’m eating with you two today.”
“Don’t. No one invited you,” Lyra replied, her tone flat, devoid of warmth.
“Keep that mouth running, and I’ll silence it for you.” Rhys’s hand clenched, his raw power simmering just beneath the surface.
“Gods, today’s really making me want to scorch your face, Rhys.” Lyra leaned forward, a challenge in her eyes.
“Go ahead and try, simpleton.”
“Big talk for a wretch who’d otherwise eat alone.”
Kaelen couldn’t hold back. The words spilled from him, desperate. “Come on, let’s all eat together. We can’t just leave Rhys to eat alone.”
His desperation, a raw, exposed nerve, must have been evident. Rhys smirked, a triumphant glint in his eyes, glancing at Lyra with a sly grin. “See? I have wonderful friends.”
“....” Lyra merely scowled and shoved Rhys’s charmed stylus case off the desk, sending it clattering to the floor. Lyra’s disdain for Kaelen, or lack thereof, mattered little. What mattered was Rhys joining them. It had been so long since they’d eaten together. Kaelen felt a thrill, sharp and intoxicating, that he even forced himself to consume the acrid side dishes he despised.
But Rhys wasn’t focused on his food. His eyes, keen and predatory, scanned the Refectory like a hunting beast. Kaelen, too fixated on Rhys, barely registered Lyra pilfering enchanted berries from his own tray. Then, without warning, Rhys’s chopsticks clattered to the table. His free hand shot out, seizing the arm of someone passing by.
Kaelen looked up. It was Theron. His small, anxious face tightened.
“Sit here,” Rhys commanded, nodding toward the empty seat beside him. “You have no one else to eat with, anyway.”
Theron’s face flushed crimson. His eyes darted around, briefly snagging on Kaelen’s, before he bit his lip and slowly, reluctantly, sank into the designated seat. Kaelen felt a shock, cold and disorienting. When had Rhys ever cared if Theron had friends? Theron’s isolation was, in fact, entirely Rhys’s doing. Rhys hated anyone getting close to Theron.
A bitter bile rose in Kaelen’s throat. A tremor ran through his hand. Unconsciously, he slammed his spoon onto his tray, the clang loud and jarring in the sudden hush. Only Theron reacted, flinching, his eyes wide and fearful. Rhys, however, remained fixated on Theron, a cruel smile twisting his lips.
Damn it. In that moment, the carefully constructed protective shell Kaelen had built over the years began to crack. He fought against it, but the fissure widened. He was nearing a breaking point he hadn’t realized existed. Desperately clinging to denial, Kaelen snapped at Theron.
“Theron. Just leave.”
“H-huh?” Theron stammered, bewildered.
“Don’t listen to Rhys. Just go. It’s fine.”
“Hey, Kaelen,” Rhys growled, his voice a dangerous rumble. Rhys, who had ignored Kaelen’s earlier outburst, now ground his teeth, his glare burning. That glare, far from intimidating Kaelen, hardened his resolve. He fixed his eyes stubbornly on Theron.
“I’ll handle it. You can go.”
“Uh, o-okay.” Theron’s voice was barely a whisper.
“And Rhys, knock it off already.”
“Yes, I think so too,” Lyra chimed in through a mouthful of enchanted mushrooms, her words barely intelligible. Her sudden interjection felt misplaced, an odd disruption of the tense moment. She chewed and swallowed deliberately, slowly, before glancing between Kaelen and Rhys, continuing with an irritating smirk. “What are you staring at? You’re ruining my appetite.”
As always, Lyra’s unnecessary provocations grated on Kaelen’s nerves. The girl was insufferable, no matter how he looked at her. Ignoring her, Kaelen turned back to Rhys.
“Leave Theron alone.”
“Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?” Rhys shot back, his eyes narrowing.
“It’s tiresome for the rest of us to watch.” Kaelen did not blink, his gaze unwavering. Rhys slammed his fist on the table. The sudden impact made Theron, sitting awkwardly, flinch and squeeze his eyes shut. Lyra, on the other hand, chuckled lazily, raising a hand as if in surrender.
“Count me out of this. I’m neutral. Kaelen wants him gone, and Rhys says he stays.” Lyra licked some moisture from her lips, a glint of mischief in her eyes. “Let’s decide by majority vote.”
Kaelen found her casual use of his shortened name irritating. “Stop butting in. Your vote doesn’t even count.”
“Why not? There’s another person right there.” Lyra, unfazed, smirked and pointed at Theron, motioning with a casual flick of her hand. “What? Is Theron not a person?”
“You’re mad.” Kaelen sighed, ignoring her.
“Why’s he quiet? Let him say what he wants.” As if Theron could possibly speak in this charged atmosphere. Kaelen picked up his spoon, idly stirring his Arcane grain bowl. That’s when Rhys tapped his finger on the table, a chilling sound.
“If you say you’re leaving, you’re dead starting today.”
Tears welled in Theron’s large eyes. They glimmered as he looked at Kaelen, a silent plea for help. Kaelen pressed his lips together, a surge of protectiveness, unexpected and fierce, rising within him. “It’s fine. I’ll stop him,” he said, trying to reassure Theron, though his own voice felt tight.
“Hey, Kaelen,” Rhys growled, his voice tight with anger.
Kaelen forced himself to meet Rhys’s gaze, feigning calm, but he felt an overwhelming urge to collapse. To suppress it, he glanced at the high, arched ceiling for a moment, then lowered his head, replying nonchalantly, “What?”
“You…” Rhys clenched his fist, glaring at Kaelen with an intensity that felt like a physical blow. Still, Kaelen had to endure. His instincts screamed that he couldn’t leave Theron with Rhys. But Rhys’s focus, for a moment, shifted back to Theron.
“I-I’ll go,” Theron stammered, his voice trembling.
“...”
“Th-thanks, Kaelen.” Theron hurriedly rose, his footsteps unsteady, and practically fled the Refectory. As soon as he was gone, Rhys turned abruptly, his gaze, sharp as a freshly honed blade, snapping to Kaelen.