The silence in the crevice was absolute, apart from the distant crackling of the dying mana-fire in the basin miles away. Aleric materialized in the brambles, his crimson eyes scanning the darkness for the violet aura of the girl he'd hidden in place. The air was thick with the smell of charred ozone and pine needles.
The stone was cold. The girl was gone.
Aleric made no sound as he rose to his feet. He made no search for her in the surrounding brush. He knelt and touched the earth, sensing that there was neither struggle nor frantic footprints from a second hunter. She hath departed toward the gate or been collected by a recovery team, he thought to himself, stripping all emotion from the event. Her presence is no longer a variable in my ledger. Aleric rose to his feet, his eyes shifting to the southern horizon where the sky was discolored from the dying sunset. He pondered to himself: Shall I remain in or out? He felt into the lining of his coat, his fingers touching the cold, hard shapes of the Obsidian Owl, the Silver Compass, and the Jade Key. Beneath these, stacked in a neat column of fifteen, were the black handbands, their material still imbued with a faint, residual magic from the hounds. He had all the materials necessary to pass the audit with a score far beyond all others. The reasoning behind staying was illogical. To stay was to invite an anomaly whose outcome was beyond his ability to predict. Aleric chose to out himself.
At the edge of the forest, where the ancient roots at last gave way to the neatly arranged stone of the Academy grounds, there was a small hut, worn from years of weather. A lantern hung outside its door, casting a flickering golden glow over its stone porch. Inside, a proctor sat at an ironwood desk, scratching a steady, weary rhythm over a piece of parchment.
Aleric stepped into the light, unremarkable in every way except for a scattering of ash on his shoulders. He moved silently across the threshold and began to arrange the treasures of his audit upon the proctor's desk.
The proctor did not look up at first. "Name?" he mumbled.
"Aleric," he said.
Then came the first object, clanking loudly upon the desk. The proctor's quill paused in its steady scratch. Then came the second. The third. At last, a thick stack of black bands appeared, fanned out like a deck of dark, cursed cards.
The proctor's eyes grew wide, his glasses sliding slightly down his nose as he peered over the frames at the equipment. "Fifteen black bands. Three Master relics. Boy, you've broken the curve of an entire generation." His hand extended, running over the black leather of the equipment. "Do you even have any idea what this total means?"
"Yes, meaning that I have passed," Aleric replied, his tone deadpan, almost a monotone. "Record the points. I want to return to the recovery wing."
The proctor signed the ledger, his wrist trembling slightly, and Aleric walked away, leaving the wet ink to dry as it would. The points had been recorded, an unusual tally that would make its way through the faculty at an unknown time, but Aleric's mind was already focused on something else.
When he arrived the following day, the announcement echoed through the halls of the Academy. The final exam, the grand combat tournament, would now take place in three or four days' time. The Academy would use the time to ensure the Great Guests, the high lords, the foreign masters, the dignitaries, would arrive in time to take their seats in the grandstands and watch the proceedings. The examinees would be told to take their rest, to recharge their mana, while the guests would start their long journey.
On the second day of the layover, the halls were quiet, the students either resting or attempting to recharge their mana reserves after the intense combat of the exam. Aleric spent the morning in his quarters, carefully reviewing his mana channels, coaxing tenderness back into the weave of his magical network that had been stretched to its limits by the fiery onslaught of the Vile-Hounds.
A sharp, rhythmic knock at the door broke his concentration.
He opened the door to find Kaelen sitting on the threshold, her eyes dulled slightly by the weariness that seemed to weigh her down. Bandages were visible at the collar of her tunic, and her step was stiff, something she hadn't had before.
"Did you pass the second exam?"
"I hit the minimum needed," Aleric replied, his voice smooth and even. "So, yeah, I basically passed." The word 'minimum' was just the threshold to the next stage to Aleric; the fact that his minimum had outstripped everyone else's maximum was just data, nothing more.
"I suppose you could say the same for me," Kaelen admitted with a tired, honest sigh. "I reached the bare minimum to stay in the rankings. But I won't take the last test. My injuries are just too severe, and my mana veins will take more than four days to knit back together. Besides, the final stage is just a show—a display of strength for the guests and a gamble for the nobles. It isn't necessary for my standing, and I'm confident I'll pass the overall test without the display."
She raised herself a little, a spark of determination returning to her eyes. "The air is thick with the scent of salves and the whispers of anxious students. Come. I'll lead thee somewhere to while away the time—a forest in a forgotten place where the proctors don't wander and the Academy's rules are only a murmur." Aleric trailed behind Kaelen without a word; there was no reason to refuse. The Academy's outskirts were a map he hadn't yet drawn; Kaelen knew the unofficial geography of the school.
They slipped past the southern rampart, slipping through a gap in the stone wall worn by generations of students seeking a taste of freedom. The deeper they ventured into the secondary forest, the more they ran into other students—friends and faces Kaelen knew who had slipped into these "rest zones," hidden from the watchful eyes of the faculty.
A trio of students trailed behind them, their auras a blend of tired blue and gray. Among them was the girl Aleric had pulled from the crevice. When she caught sight of him, she paused a step, cheeks flushing as her gaze dropped to the ground.
Kaelen blinked in surprise, his gaze moving between the girl and Aleric. "Ye— you know each other?"
The girl gazed up at Aleric, still visibly shaken from fear she had accumulated from the forest. She had not managed to thank him then, speech failing when he materialized before her—a blazing spirit of vengeance. She moved closer to the group as they moved deeper into the forest toward the deserted site.
"I… I didn't thank you," she breathed, her voice so quiet that it was almost lost beneath the rustle of the dry leaves.
"Don't worry about that," Aleric answered, not turning to face her. "It's done and gone. Your survival is documented."
Her lips compressed, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "But why? You didn't even know my name. You didn't have to come after me. Why did you save me?"
Aleric slowed to a stop, turning to face her with an emotionless glint in his brown eyes. "Because I determined that if I didn't act, you would die. And so I acted. A life is a significant variable; to allow you to die when the tools to save you were readily available would be to waste potentially valuable data."
The girl stared at Aleric in shock. She had expected a kind word, or perhaps a lecture about student responsibility, but found only the hard, unyielding truth of a man who did what was required because it was required. Behind her, Kaelen's other friends whispered to one another, regarding Aleric with a mix of awe and growing alarm.
"Need?" Kaelen said from the front, her voice carrying a small smile. "Truly, Aleric, thou art a terrifyingly honest man."
"We are here," Kaelen said, stepping through one final curtain of twisted ivy.
They stepped into a clearing, where a vast, grey stone structure rose. An old, abandoned building from the days before the Academy was moved to its current location. Once, it was a hall of learning, before the old Academy was forced to deal with the containment of the Verdant Abyss. The roof was slightly crooked in places, and the windows were like empty eyes gazing out into the wild forest. Ivy clung to the cracked stone like veins full of emerald. The air was thick with an old, unrefined magic.