17
Lucien.
I didn't like the fact that I'd started noticing things.
Noticing him, specifically.
It wasn't supposed to happen. Adrian was supposed to be just another first-year; unremarkable, replaceable, temporary. The kind you forget as soon as they're rotated out. And yet, for some reason I couldn't entirely pin down, I kept tracking him in my periphery.
I keep telling myself it was about the dorm's reputation. That was the logical explanation. If a human tripped over his own feet in a duel, or couldn't survive a week without collapsing in the courtyard, it reflected on all of us. I had no interest in hearing the whispers about Lucien Vale's dorm producing the weakest link. That kind of talk had a way of sticking.
So I watched him. Made sure he wasn't dragging us down more than usual. Intervened, sometimes, when Kael's training got too close to outright injury. And maybe, maybe, corrected his stance once or twice, but that was just to stop him from making a fool of himself.
