A chill, colder than Eldoria’s perpetual mists, settled over the Grand Study Hall two days after the incident. Alaric Thorne’s meticulously organized research notes, once piled high on his favoured desk, were gone. A faint, acrid scent still clung to the air near the archives’ great hearth, where whispers said charred fragments of parchment had been seen. The culprit was no mystery. Young Lord Percival, a gaunt, snivelling sycophant, preened openly, his triumph a foul odour in the hushed chamber. Later, students spoke of him boasting in the ablution chambers, his voice reeking of crude satisfaction.
“How very brave,” a low murmur escaped my lips. I traced the worn, etched pattern of my desk. The empty space where Alaric’s presence had dominated now felt hollow, a testament to a quiet, brutal war fought and lost without a single clash of steel.
Two days past, Alaric Thorne had fallen, not with a roar, but with a whimper only I seemed to fully perceive. He hadn’t even known the blade was already at his throat.
The motive had become horribly clear. At first, I had dismissed it as mere collegiate rivalry, a jostling for position. But then, an unsettling undercurrent began to ripple through the student body. Alaric’s own clique had grown uneasy, sensing his increasingly volatile temper, the dark obsession that simmered beneath his proud facade. When I witnessed his venomous confrontation with Cassian—a spat that went far beyond fraternal discord—I understood. A tide of contempt had turned against Alaric, yet no urge stirred within me to defend him, to explain his frenetic unraveling. Guilt was a luxury I could not afford.
Only a fool would willingly sever the precarious thread of his own existence for another. I knew the narratives that would spin around my actions, should I attempt to champion a lost cause. They would paint me as noble, loyal. Yet in this labyrinthine institute, where every whispered word held a thousand subtle interpretations, even a single, curious glance would begin to question.
‘Why?’
That chilling query, like a shard of ice, pierced my carefully constructed calm. It terrified me.
I rested my head against the cool, polished oak of my desk, closing my eyes. Perhaps a moment of oblivion. For a fleeting instant, I wished that, upon opening my eyes again, the world would conform perfectly to my desires. Sleep, a temporary reprieve, began to beckon. Had I been left undisturbed, I surely would have drifted into its silent embrace.
Then, a sharp, metallic tap against my skull startled me awake. I sat upright, rubbing the tender spot, to find Cassian Thorne doing the same, a rueful smirk playing on his lips.
“Gods, that stung,” he muttered, his voice a low thrum.
“Why do you sleep so early in the day?” My own words were sharper than I intended.
“My business. What was that for?”
“Ah, this?” Cassian grinned, a flash of white teeth in the dim light. He lifted the polished obsidian cane he had tucked beneath his arm. Its silver tip gleamed. “A recent acquisition. Found it abandoned by the archives. Seemed a waste to leave it.”
A familiar irritation coiled in my gut. Cassian Thorne, always so confoundingly… himself.
The tap hadn’t truly hurt, but I ran a hand through my dark hair, an anxious flutter in my chest that it might have been dishevelled. Cassian, meanwhile, spun a heavy oak chair away from a desk with a careless kick. He sank into it with fluid grace, his long frame settling before the chair could even wobble. His satchel, a worn leather affair, landed on the desk with a thud, promptly becoming his pillow as he flopped forward onto it.
“You wake me simply to sleep yourself?”
“Just ensuring your scholarly diligence wasn’t compromised by sloth, Blackwood. My own standing is already beyond reclamation. A lost cause, you see.”
“Nonsense,” I grumbled, twisting to face him. Everything Cassian uttered seemed to provoke a retort from me. I nudged his foot with my own, a spark of defiance, and he smirked, though his face remained buried.
“Tell me, is it proper to prod an injured man? You wretched soul.”
The playful sarcasm in his voice, the mocking lilt, made me scoff. This time, I aimed a kick at his cane. It clattered towards him, but without lifting his head, he merely raised a hand and caught it, a movement effortless and precise. Even with my interruption, his face stayed hidden in the satchel. A silent chuckle vibrated from him, then his voice, muffled but sudden.
“Something I’ve been meaning to ask.”
“What?”
“That wasn’t an accident, was it?”
Damn him. Was it so obvious? My cheek still throbbed faintly, a bruise I’d hoped to conceal beneath the shadows of my perpetual fatigue.
I hesitated only for a heartbeat, then swept a casual hand over my face. “A misstep. Nothing more.”
“Hah.” Still resting his chin on his satchel, Cassian let out a soft, knowing chuckle.
“Indeed?”
His eyes, now lifted, flickered to mine. He pointed a long finger at me, a theatrical gesture of accusation. His intent eluded me, unnerving in its ambiguity.
“What?” I managed.
“You are quite shameless, Julian.”
The moment his lips curved into that subtle smile, his obsidian cane leaning against his side, my thoughts scattered like startled ravens. What in the blazes was he implying?
“…Shameless in what?”
“I suspect you did not merely stumble…”
……
Cassian’s words, often cryptic, now carried a quiet, unsettling menace. His gaze was unnervingly still, his bright irises holding a dark pupil that fixed on me with an almost predatory intensity. It was like watching the tip of an arrow, waiting to see its trajectory. And this time, it was aimed squarely at my heart. My mind went blank. Two words echoed, cold and insistent: *No way. He couldn’t have. No way. He couldn’t have.* His knowing eyes narrowed further.
“It looked more like you *ran* into something, Blackwood.”
His long, serpentine eyes curved upward, a chilling, triumphant gleam. My throat dried. Breath caught in my chest. I swallowed, a harsh sound in the sudden quiet. While his lips parted again, I found I couldn’t even blink.
“Should others find out, how terribly inconvenient that would be.”
……
“I shall, of course, keep your secret.”
Then, raising the hand that held his cane to his lips, he whispered the words, punctuated by a slow, deliberate wink. The breath I had been holding slammed against my ribs like a trapped beast. He didn’t wait for a reaction. With another casual sweep of a hand through his dark, artfully dishevelled hair, he pointed at me once more.
“But did you truly attempt to copy my coiffure? That is rather… pedestrian.”
I was speechless. Cassian crinkled his nose in exaggerated disapproval. “Anyway, my slumber calls.” He yawned, a wide, languid stretch, and buried his face once more into his satchel. Staring at the back of his head, I finally found my voice, a raspy whisper.
“I did not copy you. And I have not cut my hair.”
“Oh, really?” His muffled voice rumbled from the depths of his bag.
---
“Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,” Cassian intoned, clutching a parchment in one hand, his posture theatrically mournful. It was the fourth period. As the Master Tutor of Rhetoric dismissed us, the dreaded Term Evaluations, summarizing last month’s progress, had been distributed. Cassian buried his face in his opened report, scanning the arcane script of his scores, before unleashing his muttered prayer. He then threw his head back dramatically, a deep, despairing sigh escaping him.
“Ah, I am utterly bereft.”
I glanced at my own evaluation, crisp and folded, then slipped it into the inner pocket of my robe. When I looked back at Cassian, he was still sighing, his Adam’s apple prominent, bobbing heavily, almost chastising me for staring at his throat. “That is hardly the intended purpose of that particular invocation,” I said, my voice flat.
“Who cares? A prayer remains a prayer.” Then, abruptly, he asked, “Tell me, is it ‘God’ or ‘Lord’?”
A peculiar truth about Cassian Thorne, I realised then, was his utterly irreverent approach to faith.
“Why ask me? It’s your… chosen theology.”
“Julian, my dear Blackwood, do not be so severe. You are a repository of such profound wisdom, I assumed you would possess all such esoteric knowledge.”
“I do not. Nor am I devout.”
Cassian, who had been leaning back precariously, suddenly shot forward. Our eyes met, and before I could think, I instinctively averted my gaze towards the stained-glass window, pretending not to have seen. Yet, a sharp prickle, like a thorn in my chest, told me I’d been caught in some private transgression. I stared absently out the window, then shifted focus to the stiff collar of Cassian’s impeccably tailored tunic. The crisp, white linen rested against his neck, but with every exaggerated movement, his elegant collarbone flashed into view.
“So? Fancy joining one of my… gatherings this weekend?”
“What? No.”
“Ah, why ever not? Come along. There are always… unique artifacts. Forgotten lore. Perhaps even a taste of the institute’s forbidden wine reserves, should one be fortunate…”
“Wait, do not tell me you attend these merely for such earthly delights?”
“Of course, I do.”
I finally allowed my eyes to meet his. He had a quill, one of his prized raven quills, balanced precariously on his upper lip. At first, pride had prevented me from admitting it, but at that moment, I had to acknowledge it: Cassian Thorne was disturbingly handsome. A smug, insufferable bastard.
The quill, wedged between his nose and upper lip, distorted his voice into a slurred, disgruntled mumble. “But the way you phrase it, it sounds as if I am pilfering. If they are offered, what transgression is there in accepting them?”
“Can one even call it belief if it stems from such selfish motives?”
“That is how all souls begin. None commence with grand epiphanies. They think, ‘Ah, there is tantalizing knowledge to be gained. That speaker seems rather intriguing.’ And then, little by little, their interest in the ‘intriguing speaker with knowledge’ transforms into a profound, unshakeable faith in the principles they espouse. The beginning and the process are irrelevant. What matters is that now, I believe.”
Cassian Thorne often spoke such eloquent nonsense. Even Alaric had been ensnared by his rhetoric on occasion. Sometimes, it was pure, unadulterated sophistry. But sometimes, it possessed a dark allure that even I, Julian Blackwood, found myself dangerously tempted by. This, undeniably, was the latter.
I ran a hand through my dark fringe, brushing it back from my forehead. But it stubbornly fell back into my eyes, so this time, I shook my head from side to side, my thin strands swaying stubbornly. I gathered them near my temples, and finally, the persistent tickling lessened. So distracted I had been lately, I’d quite forgotten the necessity of a proper trim.
With Alaric Thorne’s ignominious departure, the front of the classroom felt stark, empty. No reason now to glance in that direction.
Six days past, Master Eldrin, the Head Tutor of Ancient Lore, had summoned me to his study. He inquired if I had heard from Alaric.
“No, Master,” I answered, my voice steady, honest. “I have not.”
“You have not yet reconciled with young Thorne, I presume?”
A small, bitter smile touched my lips, perfectly calculated. In truth, I felt no inclination to smile. “No. Alaric… he grew rather vexed with me.”
“Alaric grew vexed with *you*?” Master Eldrin’s brow furrowed.
“Indeed.”
Rumours, like Eldoria’s mists, already swirled. Master Eldrin was hardly oblivious to the unspoken implications of my words. “Very well, Blackwood. You may go.” As I turned to leave, he settled back into his high-backed chair, muttering beneath his breath. The snippets I caught were mostly laments about Alaric’s insolence and frustration over the stern reprimand he’d received from Lord Thorne, Alaric’s father. I feigned deafness to that pathetic monologue, but my ears, ever keen, captured the essence of the tutor’s office’s shifting atmosphere.
Later, after the evening bell, while I was immersed in my private language exercises, a comm-crystal chimed. It was Lord Thorne himself. He echoed Master Eldrin’s query, asking if I knew Alaric’s whereabouts. I delivered the same answer.
“No, Lord Thorne. Alaric has not seen fit to contact me since his… departure.”
“I see…” his voice, grave and resonant, responded.
“I am truly sorry I cannot be of greater assistance.”
“No, young Blackwood. There is nothing for you to apologise for. It is… understandable.”
Lately, Lord Thorne had been calling with increasing frequency. Each conversation unfolded with the same, unsettling formality. A deliberate thread, I sensed, was being woven, attempting to re-tie Alaric and myself together. I hurried to end the call.
Honestly, I truly had nothing to apologise for. Yet, I offered my apologies anyway – a subtle artifice, designed to cultivate favour. It was the same ingrained instinct that compelled one to praise an ungainly newborn’s charm. A social convention. A form of etiquette, vital to the smooth functioning of a civilised society. And so, I did not believe the adults perceived my actions as manipulative.
If anything, my politeness was more akin to a crude pantomime, performed by a dedicated court jester. I always knew my place. And since I diligently poured my efforts into being liked, I was destined to become a truly beloved jester. Even if, one day, I committed an error so egregious it caused even the most forgiving audience to frown, they would, I knew, grant me their absolution. This, I understood, was the groundwork I meticulously laid.
Unlike some hapless souls, I was navigating the treacherous waters of Eldoria with shrewd acumen. Perhaps, from the lofty perspective of the Institute’s elders, my thought process was merely a narrow, petty stratagem to evade trouble. But among my peers, my ability to deftly handle volatile situations was undeniable. For proof, one need only observe Lysander Thorne.
Lysander, once Alaric’s most ardent follower, now sought desperately to ingratiate himself with Cassian. Because of this, he now affected a particular camaraderie with me, Julian, in the eyes of others, had already secured my place alongside the enigmatic Thorne brother. Lysander, quite transparently, wished to mimic my ascension.