The courtyard was no longer a sanctuary. It was a crime scene. It was an interrogation room. Seraphina's parting words—"a coward, after all"—hung in the air, a final judgment that felt more true and more damning than any of Damien's cruel praises.
I remained on my knees for a long time, the damp grass seeping through my trousers. The adrenaline from the confrontation had vanished, leaving behind a cold, hollow dread.
She knew.
She didn't just suspect. She knew. She had seen the threads, followed them back to my hands, and looked me in the eye as she confirmed it. My secret, the one I had guarded with my very soul, the one that kept me alive, was now in the possession of a person who was a close friend of my primary target.
A new, sharper terror, colder and more immediate than my fear of Damien, settled over me. What would she do? Would she tell Leonidas?
The image that thought conjured was terrifying. Leonidas, in his current state of grief and white-hot rage, learning that I—the sneering, arrogant sidekick he already despised—was the specific architect of Thomas's crippling and Mara's torment. He wouldn't challenge me to a duel. He wouldn't report me. He would simply find me in a dark corridor and tear me apart with his bare hands. And I wouldn't have the strength to stop him.
My secret training ground was compromised. I couldn't come back here. Seraphina knew this place. She could be watching. She could bring others.
I forced myself to my feet, my legs shaking. I felt utterly, completely exposed. My life at the academy had been a tightrope walk in the dark. Seraphina had just turned on a spotlight, illuminating me for all to see. I was no longer a shadow. I was a target.
The walk back to the dorm was an ordeal of paranoia. Every flicker of movement in the cloisters, every distant footstep, was her. I felt a thousand eyes on my back, even in the empty, moonlit halls. I made it to my room and locked the door, leaning against it, my heart hammering. The room felt smaller, the walls closer. It wasn't a sanctuary. It was a cell. A glass cell.
That night, I did not practice my swordsmanship. I sat cross-legged on the floor in the center of my locked room, the silence suffocating, and forced myself to perform the Mana Breathing. But there was no peace. My mind was a chaotic storm. Every time I tried to find the world's rhythm, Seraphina's cold, pitying eyes would flash in my mind. "Prisoner." "Coward."
The next morning, I was a wreck. I had not slept. My body ached, not from training, but from a bone-deep, soul-crushing exhaustion. I had to go to class. I had to maintain the routine.
I saw her in the Grand Hall before the first lecture. She was standing with a small group of other students, not Leonidas or Mara, who were conspicuously absent. Our eyes met across the crowded expanse. I froze, my blood turning to ice.
She did not smile. She did not scowl. She did not point. She simply looked at me with that same, awful, clinical disappointment... and then she looked away, as if I were a particularly distasteful insect she had decided not to crush.
She wasn't talking. Not yet.
This, I realized, was its own special kind of torture. She held a sword of Damocles over my head, and I would have to live, day in and day out, never knowing when or if she would choose to let it fall.
My reprieve, such as it was, lasted until just after my midday meal. I was heading to the library, my new, less-secure hiding place, when one of Damien's inner circle—Marcus Thorne—intercepted me.
"Lord Vrael requests your presence. His quarters. Now," he sneered, clearly annoyed at having to play messenger to someone he viewed as an equal at best.
The familiar dread returned, but it was now competing with the new paranoia. I navigated the halls to Damien's room, my nerves raw. I knocked.
"Enter."
Damien was in an excellent mood. He was standing by his desk, reading a letter, a faint, pleased smile on his lips.
"Ah, Lucian," he said, folding the letter. "Perfect timing. I've just received word from the administration."
"Sir?" I asked, my voice carefully neutral.
"It seems our two little lovebirds, Aris and Stonecroft, made a desperate and emotional appeal to the Headmaster's office this morning. They petitioned for an emergency leave of absence to the capital." He chuckled, a low, dry sound. "They were, of course, denied. No proof of hardship, no noble writ. Just the frantic babbling of a commoner. She is well and truly trapped."
He was reveling in it. He was savoring the "harvest."
"Her... distress... is apparently causing quite the problem for Aris," Damien continued, his tone shifting to one of strategic focus. "He's distracted. He's volatile. He is, by all reports, a walking inferno of misplaced rage. A man in that state is not a strategist. He is a beast. And a beast is easily baited."
He turned his full attention to me, his golden eyes gleaming with that now-familiar, chilling brilliance.
"The Mid-Term Practical Duels are next week," he said. "It is the perfect venue. The entire academy will be watching. It's the one place where a public, full-force confrontation is not only allowed, but encouraged."
My stomach sank. I knew what was coming.
"I have already made the arrangements with the proctors," Damien said, his smile widening. "Your success in our... private ventures has earned you this opportunity. You will not be fighting some random noble. I have ensured you get a far more interesting opponent."
He paused, letting the moment hang, savoring the reveal.
"You, Lucian, will be fighting Leonidas val Aris."
.
.
.
[ Author's Note- Hey guys! How are you all doing?If you're enjoying the story so far, please support it with your Power Stones. Your support would really mean a lot and would motivate me to keep writing and updating regularlyThank you so much for reading. ]