The class schedule had been posted overnight. Cale found it displayed on a holographic board outside the dining hall — a long list of courses and times. Most students had clustered around it, pointing, arguing, and planning how the schedule would affect their days.
Cale scanned the list. Combat Training. Constellation Theory. History of the Fracture. Practical Applications. Constellation Prep. And then, at the bottom, tucked between electives no one seemed to notice:
Anatomy of Zodiac Creatures – Room 14, 7:00 AM.
No professor was listed. No prerequisites. No notes about credit or grading. Just the time and a room.
He looked at the crowd around him. No one was pointing at that line. No one was talking about it. He thought about Rourke's lecture, about the Glimmerwings, and about the way knowing their weaknesses had kept them alive. Anatomy of Zodiac Creatures. Knowing where to strike, how to kill, what to expect.
He made a note of the room number and walked away.
He went back to his room. The dormitory was rowdy and noisy. He didn't care. He took a bath, read a few webtoons, and began preparing for his lectures the next day.
Room 14 was in the oldest part of the main building, a corridor Cale had never walked before. The doors were narrow, the walls unadorned, the floor worn smooth by decades of footsteps. He found the room at the end of the hall and pushed open the door.
The room was smaller than the other lecture halls. And like the other halls the desks were arranged in a half-circle around a raised platform where a table held the preserved remains of something Cale didn't recognize — a creature with too many limbs, its skin translucent, its organs visible through the glass case. The windows were high, letting in pale morning light that did nothing to warm the space.
And in the back corner, at a desk separated from the others, a boy sat alone. He had an earpiece in his ears and his eyes were fixed on his phone.
He was lean, with dark hair that fell across his forehead, and eyes the color of slate — grey and flat, like stones in a river. He didn't look up when Cale entered. He was scrolling on his phone, held with one hand, his posture relaxed, as if he had all the time in the world.
Cale took a seat near the middle, leaving two desks between them. The boy still didn't look up.
The minutes passed. No other students came.
At five past seven, a door at the side of the room opened, and a woman walked in. She looked old, her hair white, her face lined with years, but her eyes were sharp. She wore a white coat over a simple dress, and her hands, when she set them on the lectern, were steady.
"Anatomy of Zodiac Creatures," she said, her voice dry, like pages turning. "I am Professor Harlow. I've been teaching this course for forty years. In that time, exactly seven students have taken it." She looked at the two of them. "Now there are nine."
She didn't wait for a response. She turned to the preserved creature on the table and began to speak.
"Many students fail to see the importance of Fallen anatomy. They just rush off to learn how to swing cool swords — the kind of thing young people love." She paused, took a breath, and looked the boys straight in the eyes. "But you have made one of the best choices you could make at this academy. People fail to understand that as Astral Wardens, you are practically hunters — fighting against monsters way stronger than you. Though you have tools, you need an unfair advantage. And most times, knowing your enemy's weakness when they don't know yours is the best unfair advantage a human gifted with the Zodiac System could possibly have against these Fallen beasts." She looked at the boys and felt like she was boring them out of their minds. "So now, enough with the boring introduction. Let's learn."
The lecture was dense, detailed, and utterly absorbing. Professor Harlow moved through the creature's anatomy with the precision of a surgeon, naming bones, organs, and systems that Cale had never heard of. She explained how the Fallen Constellations adapted, how their weaknesses were built into their strengths, and how knowing where to strike was more important than how hard you struck.
Cale took notes. He wrote down everything he could, filling pages in the journal Valeriana had given him. He asked questions — about joint structures, about nervous systems, about the differences between sign-affiliated creatures. Professor Harlow answered each one with the same dry patience, and sometimes she looked almost pleased.
The boy in the back didn't ask anything. He didn't take notes. He just listened, his grey eyes fixed on the creature, his expression blank.
When the lecture ended, Cale gathered his things and stood. Professor Harlow was already preparing for the next lesson, her hands moving over the preserved remains.
The boy was still sitting.
Cale hesitated at the door. He looked back. The boy's gaze was on him now — flat, assessing, not hostile but not friendly either.
"You're in the Anómalos faction, right?" the boy said.
It wasn't a question.
Cale nodded. "Cale."
The boy considered this for a moment. Then: "Riker."
"Just wondering. Why'd you decide to take this class?"
"Uh, nothing. Just thought it would be fun," he replied dryly, laziness in his voice.
He didn't offer anything else. His gaze dropped back to his phone, and the moment passed.
Cale walked out into the corridor and closed the door behind him.
He saw Riker again at lunch.
The dining hall was crowded, as always. Cale had found a table near the windows, away from the clusters of Aethel and Koinos students. Val was sitting across from him, picking at her food, and Ethan was across from her, eating with the steady efficiency of someone who had learned not to waste anything.
Riker walked past their table. He didn't slow, didn't look at them. He carried a tray with a single piece of bread and a cup of water, and he walked to a table at the far end of the hall, where no one else sat.
Val looked up. "Who's that?"
"Riker. He's in one of my classes."
"What class?"
"Anatomy of Zodiac Creatures."
Val raised an eyebrow. "Never heard of it, but it sure sounds incredibly boring."
"It's not." Cale watched Riker take a bite of bread, his movements slow and deliberate. "He's the only other one who showed up for the class."
Ethan glanced over. "Is he middle class?"
"I think so."
Val shrugged. "Maybe he's just antisocial."
Cale didn't answer. He watched Riker eat in silence, alone at his table, and something about it felt familiar.
The days settled into a rhythm. Mornings with Professor Harlow, afternoons with combat training and other courses, evenings in the library or the training yard. Cale saw Riker in class three times a week, and each time they sat in the same arrangement — Cale near the middle, Riker in the back, two desks between them.
Riker never spoke unless spoken to. He answered Professor Harlow's questions when she called on him, his voice quiet, his answers precise. He didn't take notes, but he never missed a detail. When Cale glanced back during lectures, he was always watching, always listening, his grey eyes fixed on the specimen with an intensity that belied his stillness.
Once, after a lecture on the nervous systems of a multi-limbed Fallen creature, Cale found Riker waiting outside the classroom. He was leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets, his gaze on the window at the end of the hall.
"That was a good question," Riker said. "About the nerve clusters."
Cale stopped. "You think so?"
Riker nodded once. "Most people don't think about how the Fallen feel pain. They just want to hit harder." He looked at Cale, his expression still flat, but something in his tone had shifted. "You think about where to hit. Weird."
It wasn't a question.
Cale considered his answer. "Aldus taught me that. My uncle. He said strength isn't always everything."
Riker was quiet for a moment. Then he pushed off from the wall and walked toward the stairs. "Your uncle was probably right."
Before Cale could respond, Riker disappeared around the corner, his footsteps fading. Cale stood in the corridor for a moment, watching the empty space where he had been.
"He's a strange one," Iris said.
"Maybe. Define strange."
"You like him."
Cale started walking. "What kind of question is that? I don't even know him."
"Do you want to?"
He didn't answer. Iris was fond of asking unnecessarily stupid questions. But as he walked toward the dining hall, he found himself looking for Riker at the empty table, and when he saw him there, alone as always, he felt something settle in his chest.
It was not friendship. Not yet. But recognition. Two people who understood what it was like to sit apart, to watch, to wait.
He sat with Val and Ethan, and he didn't look back again.