Most of Aetherion's lessons hid beneath the ones openly taught. Soren watched the shadows lengthen as second bell tolled, and wondered which would cut deeper in the end: the blade, or the people wielding it.

The remainder of the day passed in a blur, a drift of lecture, mess, then the library where he pretended to study theory but really traced the stamped-through pages of last year's dueling logs.

Someone, probably Cassian, had torn out the outcome pages, as if the idea of anyone remembering old defeats was intolerable. Soren did the math in his head, reconstructed the outcome anyway.

Cassian had beaten every cohort member at least once, except the then-first rank. Soren wondered which would sting more: the loss, or the memory of its existence.

In the evening, dorm corridors swarmed with tired voices, and Soren retreated to the empty north stairs. Here, he could see the lamps lighting up the main quad, pools of gold in the growing dusk.

He traced each lit window with a mental catalogue: library, instructors' quarters, refectory, then the distant, always-lit glow from the Arcanists' upper tower. Someone was up there, always, working beyond the sanctioned lights-out.

He let his mind drift, only half listening as Valenna's presence curled in:

"You hold so much in," she said, her voice not quite voice, "but the night will teach you to reveal."

Soren said nothing. He preferred her like this: half warning, half reassurance. It reminded him that what he carried, hidden even from himself, was both asset and liability.

Curfew bells rang, three in succession. He wandered the hallways, delaying return to his dorm until the last possible minute. Even in the hush of after-hours, the building felt alive, floorboards shifting, the steady tick of some ancient clock, the far-off sound of someone practicing lutes poorly and alone.

He slipped into his room, found it still absent of roommate; just the mess of scattered books and the faint hint of medicinal liniment used to rub bruised shins or wrists. He sat on the bunk, unwrapped Refraction, watched the shifting patterns in the steel. Not quite a mirror, but strangely close.

He thought of the day: the drills and the lectures, the minute shift in how his name had appeared on the roll. The way the world, for an hour or two, had seemed to acknowledge his existence.

He flicked the blade up, caught it on soft palm, and let the edge rest balanced, perfectly, on the line between flesh and air.

Not the edge. Not yet.

But closer.

Evening wore on in blue stripes across the courtyard's melting snow. By the time Soren reentered the north stairwell, the dorms throbbed with the low-grade chaos of mealtime and simulative freedom.

He wound upward, tracking the scent of bath soap and freshly boiled noodles, the sound of a dozen conversations tangled in the stair's echo chamber.

His own door, last on the landing, stood fractionally ajar. The handle circled with subtle fingerprints. A low, even voice carried from within.

Soren pushed gently and entered.

Cassian Dorelle sat at the battered desk, half-shadowed by a guttering candle. He wore the uniform like a tailored insult, every button aligned, the badge on his breast freshly polished. The silver fall of his hair shone against the desk's scratched oak.

On the desktop, a folded sheaf of instructor memos sat dead center, spine lined with the pressure of Cassian's forearm.

The only other chair was upended, resting on the bed with its legs spiked to the ceiling. Soren read the message and did not acknowledge it. He closed the door behind him, a deliberate click.

Cassian watched Soren's reflection in the window rather than watch Soren himself. "I wondered when the ghost would finally appear," he said. His voice had the same weight as the knife collections Soren had once seen catalogued for sale, expensive, brittle, meant for a single-use demonstration.

Soren placed his satchel on the floor, quietly, resisting the urge to correct the angle. "Busy," he replied, taking care not to match Cassian's eyes in the glass.

"Busy," Cassian echoed, lips opening around the word as if rolling a pearl across molars. "Your name's at the top of the scoreboards, then not at all, then top again three days later. Is the game to make us guess whether you'll turn up at all?"

"Drills, theory, and meetings," Soren said, letting the words flatten in the air. "Same as everyone."

"Not everyone gets the Swordmaster's direct attention." A soft ruffle of paperwork. "Not everyone gets Valeira's. Or the private meetings with Dane in the Chamber." A flick to the candlewick, a long moment of silence. "It's a pattern. Some of us notice patterns."

Cassian's uncanny reflection in the window, sharp, precise, almost too symmetrical, regarded Soren with all the patience of a taxidermied cat.

"I don't choose the meetings," Soren said, unlacing his boots, one thump each as he dropped them under the bunk.

Cassian lifted a single sheet from the sheaf and traced a line on it with his index finger. The gesture was so calculated it bordered on performance art.

"I believe you," he said, almost warmly. "But I don't think you realize what it does to the cohort. You're either a plant, or something hungrier. Neither explanation makes the others sleep better."

Soren shrugged, nothing to add.

Cassian turned, pushing off the desk and swinging to face Soren, both feet flat on the warped floorboards. "What did Dane want?" There was no threat in the voice, only genuine, almost clinical curiosity.

Soren met the question head-on. "Corrections, mostly."

Cassian's right eyebrow twitched. "To what?"

This time, Soren calculated the pause, letting it hang, feeling the tension in his own jaw before he answered: "Old habits."

Cassian looked at him, truly looked, and for the first time Soren saw actual uncertainty in the other boy's face. It was subtle, a muscle at the left temple, the flick of a nostril—but unmistakable.

The moment lasted a heartbeat longer, then Cassian looked away, placing the sheet back in the stack.

"Takes effort not to hate your guts," he said, with something that might have been humor. "But it helps to know you're not clever enough for conspiracy."

He rose and peeled his uniform tunic off in a single practiced motion, folding it with machine regularity. His back was even more perfectly constructed than the front, lean muscle under pale skin. Soren found the spectacle mildly exhausting.

Cassian turned back as he stowed the shirt. "You don't belong here, you know." It was plainly said, utterly free of venom. "But then, maybe neither do I."

He hung the shirt in the wardrobe, then reset the chair from the bed to the desk with a single, precise motion.

"Lights out in fifteen," he said, not turning around as he lit a new candle from the stub of the old.

Soren lay on his bunk, staring at the ceiling in the shadow-play of two candles burning at different lengths.

He listened to the shuffle and breath of Cassian moving in methodical patterns, to the distant arguments and jokes from down the hall, to the way the building seemed to exhale as the hour grew late.

In the dark, Valenna whispered: "Two mirrors in one room. See which blinks first."

He closed his eyes and let the last of the day's noise dissolve into the shallow rhythm of sleep.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.