The academy was a palace of silence. Every morning I crossed the courtyard where statues of long-dead judges stood in rows, their faces carved into masks of stern authority. Their eyes followed us, or so it felt, as though they measured our worth before we ever stepped into a courtroom. I told myself they watched me with approval. I was wrong.
Lectures filled my days. We studied case law, philosophy, the weight of precedent. I devoured every word, scribbling notes until the bones of my hand ached. My classmates often sat slouched, their heads resting on their palms as though justice were a dull subject. They had the luxury of boredom. I had only hunger.
In the library, I memorized the constitutions of nations older than ours. At night, when the gas lamps burned low, I traced legal codes until my lips whispered them like prayers. "Equality before the law." "Justice delayed is justice denied." These phrases became my heartbeat.
Yet I began to notice the cracks. A wealthy boy named Dorian sat near the front of our class. His father owned factories, his name often printed in the papers. Dorian rarely listened. He whispered jokes to his friends, laughed in the professor's face, even skipped assignments. But when grades were handed back, his marks were always higher than mine.
One evening, after lecture, I approached Professor Halden. His suit was immaculate, his hair combed back with oil. I asked why Dorian received distinction for work that was unfinished. The professor's eyes sharpened. He leaned close and said in a low voice, "Elias, you must understand. Some families give more to the academy than others. It is the way of things."
I stood frozen, my paper clenched in my hand. It was covered in corrections, red ink bleeding across every line. I had worked for weeks on that essay. Dorian had handed in three pages of nonsense. Yet he was praised. I was scolded.
That night, I walked home with the words "it is the way of things" echoing in my skull. My father's cough reached me before I saw the door. He spat blood into a cloth, trying to hide it, but I saw. My mother gave me the last of her dinner, saying she wasn't hungry. Their bodies were breaking so I could sit in rooms where truth bent under gold.
Still, I told myself to endure. I told myself one man's corruption could not erase the promise of justice. I buried the anger beneath layers of study, pressing it down until my chest hurt.
Weeks stretched into months. I learned courtroom procedures, memorized the rights of the accused, and argued mock trials with a fire that startled even my professors. Yet I saw how easily others coasted past, lifted not by talent but by the wealth of their fathers.
Each day I swallowed my bitterness with dry bread. Each night I swore the same vow: one day I would stand in the courts, not as a boy from the alleys but as a man unbent by their games. One day I would show them the law was not theirs to twist.
But the statues in the courtyard seemed to smirk when I passed. Their stone lips curved as if they already knew the truth I had yet to learn, that the marble was cracked all the way through.