The diary was still in Lucian's hand, a dead weight that seemed to want to drag him to hell.
Sister Elena's maternal smile disappeared.
"Give that back to me, Lucian," she said, and her voice wasn't a sweet murmur anymore, but the low hiss of a snake.
"You shouldn't have read what wasn't yours."
She took a step toward him, hand extended, not to caress, but to snatch.
Lucian stepped back by pure instinct, crashing against the desk. He pressed the diary against his chest as if it was a shield.
"The Source? St. Sofia's? Sister, this is heresy!"
"Heresy?" Elena's laugh was a dry sound, without joy.
"You call it heresy. I call it enlightenment, the Church of Zhalyr is weak, it drowns in useless dogmas while the true power, the true healing, slips through our fingers."
Another step.
She was closer.
The smell of herbs from her office now seemed mixed with something else, something rancid, like graveyard dirt.
"You have potential, Lucian. I saw it from the beginning, that fire in you... it's not for reciting empty prayers. The Source could give you a real purpose, a power you can't even imagine."
Her hand shot forward, fast like a whip, aiming for the diary.
Lucian moved out of panic, turning his body and using the book to block the grab.
"Get away from me!" he shouted, voice broken by terror.
Elena's facade disintegrated completely. Her face twisted into a grimace of pure fury.
"Insolent brat! You don't know the blessing you are rejecting!"
She lunged at him, and this time it wasn't an attempt to grab, it was an attack.
Her movements were surprisingly fast for a woman of her age, agile and predatory.
Lucian stumbled back, cornered against the desk, with his heart hammering in his ears.
She was on top of him, one hand looking for his throat while the other tried to rip the diary away.
Without thinking, in a burst of adrenaline and desperation, Lucian lifted the diary with both hands and smashed it against Elena's face with all the strength he could gather.
CRACK!
The hard leather edge impacted right on her forehead. Elena let out a sharp scream, a mix of surprise and pain, and staggered back.
She brought a hand to her eyebrow and, when she pulled it away, her fingers were stained with blood that contrasted horribly with her pale skin.
"You... little brat!" she hissed, voice loaded with poison. "You'll pay for that!"
She launched herself at him once more, with nails extended like claws, but before she could reach him, the office door burst open.
"Ah, Sister Elena," said a familiar voice, with a carefully neutral tone.
"I was looking for my friend. Curfew is about to start, and I wouldn't want him to miss the night prayers."
Raziel was standing in the threshold, and his gaze moved from Lucian's pale and trembling face to Sister Elena's disheveled body, who was still pressing the bleeding wound on her forehead.
He analyzed the scene in an instant.
Lucian cornered against the desk.
Elena's eyes burning with fury and the open diary thrown on the floor, with its pages scattered like fallen leaves.
He had been looking for Lucian, because a persistent restlessness, a prick on the back of his neck, told him something was wrong.
He couldn't explain it, not even to himself.
And now, seeing Lucian trapped and Sister Elena's expression twisted into something profane, he realized his instincts had been right.
"What is happening here?"
"Nothing, Raziel," she answered quickly, forcing a smile that didn't fit with the blood on her face.
"Just a small disagreement. Lucian was asking for additional guidance on his botany studies."
She pointed at the scattered pages of the diary.
"And I... I was just showing him some advanced techniques."
Raziel nodded, with a carefully neutral expression.
He didn't believe a word, but he couldn't challenge her directly, not now, not with Lucian present.
"Of course, Sister," he said, with a touch of irony in his voice.
"Your dedication to your students is admirable."
He entered the office and his eyes swept the room, catching every detail: the overturned chair, the spilled inkwell, the faint smell of something sour mixed with the usual scent of herbs and beeswax.
He crouched down, picked up the diary from the floor, whose leather cover was stained with Elena's blood, and handed it to Lucian.
"Let's go, Lucian," he said, voice soft but firm. "It's time to leave."
Lucian took the diary, fingers trembling slightly, and his gaze met Raziel's with a mix of gratitude and something else. Something Raziel couldn't quite decipher.
They left Sister Elena's office, and the door closed behind them with a thud that resonated like the breaking of Raziel's last illusions about the sanctity of St. Celeste.
As they walked down the hallway, Lucian remained silent, gaze fixed on the diary he was clutching in his hand.
Raziel watched him, mind working at full speed.
He wanted to ask, to understand what had happened between his friend and Sister Elena, but he felt that Lucian wasn't ready to talk, not yet.
"Lucian," he said finally, in a low voice. "Are you okay?"
Lucian nodded, although he didn't look up. "I'm fine,"
"Just tired, I think... I think I'll go straight to bed."
He turned towards his dorm, shoulders slumped, and pressed the diary against his chest as if it was a shield against the darkness that seemed to loom over them.
Raziel watched him walk away, and a wave of desperation invaded him.
The Church, the institution he had once believed in, the very foundation of his faith was corrupt.
Stained by a darkness that ran much deeper than he had ever imagined.
He thought of Seraphina, of the Necromancers, of the whispered conversation he had heard between Father Gareth and the hooded figure and now, Sister Elena.
He was no longer fighting just for his own redemption, for the chance to change the future he had already lived.
He was fighting for the soul of Phaedra, for the very essence of the Zhalyrian faith.