The rest of the day was free activities. Celia left the Academy early, heading to the Guild for a minor request. Tomas wandered off on his own, but something about him was different. He kept glancing left and right before each step, shoulders tense, moving like he was navigating hostile ground rather than a school corridor.
Vel stayed behind but couldn't settle into anything. He drifted between the courtyard and the library without opening a single book. Being near other students no longer felt the same.
By mid-day, he gave up. He wanted somewhere quiet to finally read Landre's letter.
Home.
He swung by the servant quarters. The Academy allowed servants to pick up work here for extra coin during free hours.
Hileya was carrying a stack of plates from the counter to the shelf, arranging each one with quick, precise hands. Vel paused at the doorway. There was something different about the way she moved. Economical, deliberate, each motion flowing into the next without wasted effort. Had she always been like that?
"Heading back, Young Master?"
He nodded.
She untied her apron, folded it neatly on the counter, and fell into step beside him. They passed through the Academy gates and onto the streets of Lona, the afternoon crowd thinning as they neared the residential quarter.
"You look tired," Hileya said, glancing sideways at him.
"Long day."
She didn't press further.
The lodging house was quiet when they arrived. Most occupants hadn't returned yet. Vel climbed the stairs to his floor, Hileya a step behind.
He reached for the handle and stopped. The latch gave before he turned it. Unlocked.
He always locked it.
Vel pushed the door open slowly. The room beyond was unrecognizable.
His desk had been overturned, drawers yanked out and emptied across the floor. Books lay splayed open, pages bent and torn. The bedframe had been shoved aside, the mattress flipped and slashed open. His bag had been gutted, its contents scattered in every direction.
Even the small box of wooden figures tucked below the wardrobe, the ones he used to practice precision magic on, had been pulled out and rummaged through.
Vel stood in the doorway, his body rigid. This was his space. The one place in this world that was supposed to be his alone, and someone had torn through every corner of it.
"Young Master."
Hileya's voice came from behind him, low and tight. She'd already turned her back to the room, facing the corridor. One hand held neatly in front of her, a maid's posture. But the other had drifted lower, near the dagger hidden against her thigh.
"The lock wasn't forced," Vel said quietly. He checked the window latch. Intact. "Whoever did this had a key, or knew a way to bypass the door lock."
"Was anything taken?" Hileya stepped inside, pulling the door half-shut behind her.
Vel crouched down beside the overturned desk, scanning the debris. His notes scattered across the floor. His spare uniform crumpled in the corner. Even Konomi's crystal, tossed aside but left behind.
Nothing was taken. Nothing was broken for the sake of breaking it. Every surface had been searched, every hiding spot checked with purpose.
This wasn't vandalism. Whoever did this was thorough — methodical, even. They came looking for something specific. And Vel had no idea what.
"We should report this," Hileya said. She stood angled beside the door with her back against the wall. Every few seconds her head turned. To him, then to the narrow gap, then back again. She hadn't stopped since she walked in.
Vel didn't answer immediately.
He rose from the floor. His gaze drifted across the wreckage, steady, taking it all in one more time.
Who did this?
Severin's people came to mind first. They'd made their intentions clear just this morning.
Maybe a contracted Infiltrator? Could someone have been hired to dig into me?
Nema had warned him. Unnamed nobles and merchants asking questions. After recent events, those kinds of inquiries would only multiply. In this city, knowing someone's secrets was its own currency.
The Pegasus Knights?
Unlikely. They operated in silence, unseen by most. But after his last encounter with Knight Elana, they'd gotten what they wanted. There was no reason to come back for more.
Or...
A chill crawled down his spine.
Or my actions have finally reached their ears.
His eyes found Hileya, glancing between him and the gap of the door.
A sudden knot tightened in his chest. Not for himself. For her. For what they might do to someone standing this close to him.
Vel's hands clenched at his sides, then loosened, then clenched again. Every danger he'd faced since leaving Oakhaven had been one he chose to walk into.
This was the first time it came looking for him, in the one place he thought he'd be safe. Broken.
---
[***]
Kein's eyes were fixed on his fortress. Exposed on the chess board, Eldrin's cavalry already in position for the take. One move and it was gone. The prince tilted his chin toward the piece, but neither the gesture nor the quiet of the royal quarter reached him.
His mind was still on that seat in the arena.
—
From his elevated position in the elite section, he'd had a clear view of the entire arena below.
Celia was locked in exchanges with Karsten near the center, their weapons clashing in tight, rapid bursts. Vel kept his distance on the far side, but every time he tried to set up a spell, Sylwen's arrows forced him to abandon the cast and reposition. Thornwood and Tomas held their ground further out, both shifting for an angle to fire a spell without catching their own teammates in the crossfire.
Kein's gaze drifted upward. The dark clouds had been there since the start of the match, pouring rain across the arena without interruption.
"And that rain," Kein murmured, not taking his eyes off the sky. "I haven't seen any of the elite pull off weather manipulation. Not without active concentration."
Prince Eldrin plucked a single, low note. Acknowledgment, nothing more.
To his left, Lysithea sat with her fan raised just below her eyes. She hadn't looked away from Celia since the match began. The contempt was there. She'd never been good at hiding it completely, no matter how carefully she held the fan.
Kein turned his attention back to the fight below.
He knew Karsten. Not personally, but enough. Karsten Delmar held his position among the elite for one reason: his battle instincts were sharper than almost anyone in the Academy. He rarely lost a one-on-one exchange. Even Kein himself would struggle to beat Karsten cleanly.
Yet Celia was keeping pace with him. Her opening Thundercrash had failed to land the decisive blow it was meant to. That technique was supposed to be her ace, the strike that would take Karsten out of the fight before he could settle. It hadn't worked. Karsten had read it and held his ground.
But she didn't falter. She adjusted, switched approach, and kept pressing.
Where did she learn to fight like that?
Not from the Academy instructors alone. Not in this amount of time.
Kein didn't believe in prodigies. Even someone born into a house of warriors, like himself, needed years of hard work and someone willing to push them past their limits in every session. That kind of growth didn't happen on talent alone. Someone had been training her. Drilling her. Forcing her to adapt under pressure until it became second nature.
Could it be Vel?
The thought seemed absurd. An unstable attunement student training a swordswoman to match an elite combatant. But Vel had been proving he didn't belong in that classification ever since that first duel with Thornwood. Every fight, every match, the gap between what his label said and what he actually demonstrated kept widening.
—
A sharp chord from the harp snapped Kein back to the present.
The harp rested against the side of Eldrin's seat while he sat with arms crossed, leaned back. As Kein's focus returned, Eldrin shook his head once. Slow, deliberate disapproval.
"My apologies, Your Highness."
Eldrin studied him for a moment. Then his hand reached for the harp, casually, one-handed, fingers brushing the strings without lifting it from where it leaned.
"Thinking. Of. Your. Friends?"
Before Kein could respond, the door opened. Lysithea entered without knocking, her stride unhurried, the folding fan fastened neatly around her wrist.
"Childhood acquaintances," Kein corrected, loud enough for her to hear.
Lysithea settled into a cushion across from them, tucking one leg beneath her. "Your 'childhood acquaintances' put a student in extreme care."
They'd agreed to drop formalities in private, a practical decision when spending this much time strategizing together, but the casualness still caught Kein off guard. Her family's noble ranking sat well below his, let alone the prince's. Yet here she was, lounging on a cushion and holding conversation without so much as meeting their eyes.
"Is it serious?" Kein asked.
"The entire ward was called in. High-ranked healers, the lot of them." Lysithea unfolded her fan with a flick and waved it lazily. "You should have seen Baron Thornwood's face."
"And the ice phoenix?" Kein asked. "Have you found out anything?"
Both the prince and Lysithea shook their heads.
Kein set the question aside and turned back to the chess board. His mind finally registered what was in front of him. Eldrin's cavalry hadn't just taken his fortress. The prince had built a sequence behind it. Check in three moves, no clean escape.
"Good match," Kein conceded.
Eldrin waved a hand in dismissal, as though the outcome held no satisfaction. The gesture said enough. A win against a distracted opponent wasn't a win worth having.
"But regardless," Kein continued, straightening in his chair. "It doesn't change the fact that they actually made it to the finals."
Lysithea made a sound low in her throat, a sharp exhale caught between frustration and disbelief. Of course she'd react that way. She would be facing Celia again. Her rival since the day the Academy started. The girl who refused to stay beneath her no matter how many times Lysithea tried to put her there.
"As long as we put that common girl in her place, the fight should be easy."
Kein had a few things to say about that assessment. He held them back.
"Taking out Celia doesn't mean Vel would be an easy opponent. You saw what happened."
Lysithea's fan paused mid-wave. "Lord Atherwind. You just called them by their first names." Her gaze sharpened. "Are they really just acquaintances?"
Kein caught himself a beat too late. He looked down at the chess piece he'd been turning between his fingers and set it on the board slowly.
"Just an old habit I haven't corrected."
Or maybe, somewhere beneath the years of etiquette and distance, he didn't want to correct it. A memory he refused to let go of, even if he'd never admit how much it still mattered.
Prince Eldrin's fingers found the strings again. "Our. Strategy?"
Two words, but Kein heard both questions inside them. What do we do about the old plan, and what replaces it?
"They used our own strategy against Thornwood's team," Kein said. "Anyone who can replicate it knows where it breaks."
He paused, then answered the second question.
"We should reconsider. Build something new so we're not caught using the same technique against people who've already picked it apart."
"I'll consult with our strategist tomorrow," Lysithea said, folding her fan shut with a crisp snap.
Kein said nothing to that. It was another thing he'd grown to quietly disagree with but couldn't change. This tournament was supposed to test their own strategic thinking and ability. Asking outside help defeated the point. But Lysithea didn't see it that way, and arguing with her over principle had never gotten him anywhere.
He reached for his sword, propped against the side of his chair. "Let's turn in for today. Thinking about it now won't yield anything useful."
Prince Eldrin responded by dropping himself flat across the couch, one arm draped over his eyes. He seemed perfectly content to sleep right there.
"We shall reconvene tomorrow morning," Kein said, rising to his feet.
At the door, he looked back one last time at the chess board. A checkmate in a few moves, inevitable no matter which piece he'd moved. Hysterical, really. How many different paths could have led him somewhere else, yet here he was, facing his "childhood acquaintances" in the finals.
As if someone had been playing chess with his fate all along.
He closed the door behind him.
The sun sat low on the horizon, pushing amber light through the tall windows at shallow angles. Kein adjusted the sword at his hip and headed for the main gate. Hans would be waiting at the usual spot. He'd tell the old man to go home without him tonight.
He rounded the corner toward the main walkway, but voices caught him mid-step.
Not loud, but sharp enough to echo off the stone walls. Three, maybe four people, already in the middle of something.
Kein slowed his steps.
A group of students stood in the corridor near the side entrance. Three of them, forming a loose half-circle around someone pressed against the wall.
Isn't that Vel's teammate?
Tomas. He stood with his back nearly flat against the stone, shoulders squared but feet unsteady.
The one at the front of the group, tall, broad-shouldered, a short sword hanging at his waist, was doing most of the talking. His arms were crossed, his chin tilted upward in a way that said he'd already decided how this conversation would end.
The scene was familiar. Too familiar. Kein had stood on that side before, back in Elnor, with a boy named Theo pinned under the same kind of silence.
"Everyone saw it." The leader's voice carried easily down the hall. "You two did too, right?"
The two behind him nodded without hesitation.
"No first-year should be able to pull something like that. Especially not from the Clouded group." He leaned forward slightly. "So let's skip the part where you act offended. Was it a black market scroll? Some forbidden artifact your instructor snuck in?"
Tomas's jaw tightened. His voice was steady, though quieter than it should have been.
"Neither. We're different from what people think we are, but we won by our own strength."
"So stubborn." The leader uncrossed his arms. His voice carried a tone almost pleasant, like he was offering advice. "Maybe this can help."
He stepped closer. One hand came up and tapped Tomas's shoulder, almost friendly.
Then his knee drove into Tomas's stomach.
The sound was dull, muffled by cloth and flesh. Tomas doubled over immediately, both hands catching his knees as the air left him in a single broken exhale.
"All you ever did was hide behind your friends."
Tomas stayed down, one hand pressed flat against the floor, the other clutching his midsection. His breathing came in short, ragged pulls. But even through it, his voice came.
"I... didn't."
Raspy. Weak. But he said it.
The leader glanced down. Something had rolled free from Tomas's belt when he folded. A wand, spinning once across the stone before stopping a few steps away.
He tilted his head toward one of his companions. A silent gesture. The friend stepped over and picked it up, turning it between his fingers like a curiosity.
"Really?" The leader crouched just enough to meet Tomas's eyes. "You've been walking around carrying something like this, acting like you deserve it?"
He straightened and stepped back, arms wide in mock invitation.
"Then prove it. Right now. Defend yourself and show us what you've got."
Tomas said nothing. He didn't accept. He didn't deny. He just stayed where he was, breathing through clenched teeth, his gaze fixed on the floor between his hands.
"Come on." The leader's fingers danced along his sword hilt. A grin spread across his face, slow and deliberate. "How about a duel, huh?"
Kein had heard enough.
Leaving them alone isn't going to lead anywhere good.
Even if Tomas defended himself, the moment he cast a spell on Academy grounds without sanction, it was over. Three witnesses against one Clouded student. They'd frame everything on him. Kein knew this play too well.
His footsteps were unhurried. Deliberate. The sound of boots on stone carried ahead of him before his voice did.
"An unsanctioned duel? With no instructor supervision?"
The leader's head turned sharply. Whatever expression he'd been wearing vanished the moment he registered who was standing at the end of the corridor.
"Well. If it isn't the Atherwind prodigy."
"Thacian."
"Kein."
He clearly hadn't expected anyone to step in. The look on his face said as much — someone who'd never been told no before, trying to figure out why it was happening now.
"Go on ahead, don't trouble yourself." Thacian waved a hand loosely. "We were just having a friendly chat."
Kein didn't stop walking. He closed the distance by another few steps, hands resting at his sides.
"Actually, I happen to have a personal interest in fair competition." He kept his eyes on the leader. "The person on the ground is set to stand in the finals. I'd like him to arrive there in one piece."
Thacian's grin flickered but held. He didn't step back.
"Come on. You really want to waste your time on something like this?" He lowered his voice, leaning in just slightly. "Turn around and walk away. Next time our fathers share a table, maybe I'll—"
"You misunderstand." Kein cut him off before the sentence could finish. "It isn't just my preference."
He let the pause settle.
"Prince Eldrin has always valued a proper contest. I'm sure you know what kind of talk could spread, that a royal member's victory wasn't earned, but handed to him."
The two behind Thacian exchanged a glance.
"Surely a proper lord would know the current royal family's tensions." Kein let that sit for a moment. "I trust you can imagine how the other heirs would frame it."
Thacian's jaw worked once, twice, before the grin finally dropped.
He exhaled through his nose.
"...Fine."
He turned, gesturing to his companions with a flick of his wrist. The one holding Tomas's wand hesitated, then set it on the stone floor before following the others down the corridor. Their footsteps faded around the far corner without another word.
Silence returned.
Kein lingered. His eyes settled on Tomas, still on the ground. Both palms pressed flat against the stone, head bowed. His expression was unreadable. Not pain, not anger, not relief. Something deeper than all three, buried under a stillness that refused to crack.
"You should head home before anything else finds you."
Tomas didn't respond.
Kein turned and walked away.
His footsteps carried him a fair distance down the corridor before the sound reached him.
A single, heavy thud.
Kein didn't stop. Didn't look back.
But he knew the sound of a fist hitting stone.
And if anyone else had been watching, someone closer, someone who lingered a beat longer than Kein had, they might have seen it.
The stone beneath Tomas's hand — broken. Faint lines of molten light traced through the fractures, glowing a deep, angry orange before slowly cooling back to grey.
[Ch38 2/3]