The courtyard had emptied faster than usual.
Afternoon sessions were over, but no one lingered. No half-ford study groups. No clumps of students wasting ti before dinner. Just abandoned gear and scattered footprints in the grit.
rlin stood still, letting the breeze pass through the gap between the west and north wings. The leaves from the hedge rustled dryly, twitching in odd pulses. Not rhythmic. Not natural.
His boots scraped lightly as he moved again. No plan. Just instinct. A slow circle around the edge of the courtyard, eyes flicking across the ground.
No new cracks. But the ones from earlier looked worse in shadow. More like veins now. Hairline fractures that branched off in directions stone shouldn't break.
He paused near a lamp post. Old brass. Lightly dented near the base. He ran a finger along its surface, feeling for heat.
Cold.
Too cold.
It had been sitting in sunlight for hours.
He didn't look up. Didn't want to. A familiar instinct whispered that if he turned fast enough he'd see it.
The wrong thing. Standing just outside peripheral reach. Wearing a borrowed face. Breathing behind glass.
He forced himself to breathe through his nose.
'It's not full. Not stable. Not yet. If it were, the air would already be screaming. I'd taste tal. I'd see bloom patterns in the shadows. I wouldn't have to look for it. It would already be bleeding through.'
Still. It was close.
His foot brushed a broken arrow shaft half-buried in dust. He crouched, brushing dirt away from the point.
The fracture wasn't clean. Not a snap from pressure or mishandling. The wood looked splintered inward, like it had collapsed against resistance that wasn't there.
He straightened and turned slowly, eyes scanning the windows above.
No one watching.
No security posted.
'It's not triggering alarms. It's threading itself in quietly. Like a parasite that learned how to breathe with the host.'
His fingers twitched, brushing against Keryx beneath the coat. The weapon vibrated faintly at contact. Not a warning. A hum. Recognition.
'It knows. These types of weapons aren't supposed to react like this unless they're near domain-level pressure. Which shouldn't be possible this deep inside the Academy. Unless sothing on the other side is pushing.'
A stone clicked under his heel.
He turned, quickly this ti.
Nothing.
Just a loose paving tile.
Still, his breath didn't quite settle.
Across the field, a second-year girl was walking briskly with a wrapped bundle under her arm. She glanced at him once. Didn't smile. Just kept walking with her head slightly down, like she didn't want to catch reflections.
He kept his pace steady. Casual. Calm.
At the east end of the courtyard stood a rusted maintenance gate. Half-open. Padlock dangling unused from the side.
He stepped toward it, pushing gently.
Hinges creaked with a low tallic groan.
Inside was storage. Nothing serious. Spare training dummies, torn sandbags, discarded weapons that hadn't passed inspection. The scent of dried sweat and old leather hung close to the walls.
But the air changed inside.
Cooler. Heavier. Just slightly.
He stepped through and let the gate ease shut behind him. The quiet clicked in instantly.
No wind. No insects. No background clatter from the main field.
It felt like he'd stepped through a sheet of gauze.
He reached into his coat and drew Keryx, keeping the blade low. Just a precaution. His hand didn't shake.
He paced a slow circle around the storage crates, letting the tip of the sword trace the dirt. No reaction. No pull.
Then he stopped.
One section of floor had sagged.
Just slightly.
Enough to look like the boards had taken too much moisture. But this part of the academy was treated with spellless alchemy. It didn't rot. Didn't warp.
And there were footprints in the dust.
Not deep. Not clean.
But off.
Too symtrical. Like soone had walked in perfect placent, heel to toe, no variation. Not even the slight lean people did when they turned.
'That's not soone walking. That's a trace. A repeat. A loop.'
He didn't step on it.
Just stood there.
Breathing. Listening.
There was sothing here. Sothing faint. Not anchored. Not finished.
But it had eyes.
And they were starting to open.
—
Sothing jabbed the middle of his back.
rlin straightened. Not fast. Just enough to look over his shoulder with that sa flat stare he always used when caught off guard but trying to pretend he wasn't.
Elara stood behind him, one hand still raised. Her finger hovered like it might poke him again.
"Seriously?" she said.
He said nothing.
She stepped around him, brushing past a crooked pile of wooden shields stacked against the outer wall of the old supply shed. There was dust in her hair, like she'd ducked under a few hanging cloths to get here.
"Every ti I turn around, you're in so random corner of the campus looking like you're about to break in."
"I wasn't breaking in," rlin said.
"Good, because if you were, you'd be bad at it. You're standing in full view of the courtyard."
She looked around the storage area without moving further inside. Her eyes skimd over the cracked floor, the splintered broom handles near the edge of the racks, the faint dark streaks near the back wall.
"You looking for sothing?"
"No."
"Right."
Elara tilted her head slightly, studying him.
"You've got that look again," she added.
rlin didn't answer.
"That 'if I stay quiet long enough, you'll forget I exist' look," she went on. "It only works on people who don't know you. Which is basically no one anymore."
"I was just checking sothing," rlin said.
"Like what?"
He looked at her. His expression didn't shift. His tone didn't sharpen. Still even. Still plain.
"I thought I heard sothing earlier. Just wanted to be sure."
Elara didn't blink. Her eyes narrowed just slightly, the corner of her mouth twitching.
"You always carry your sword when you hear weird noises?"
"Sotis."
She looked him up and down. Not suspicious. Just asuring.
"Let guess. You're gonna say it was a rat."
"Could've been."
"Or a bird."
He didn't reply.
There was a pause. Elara's shoulders dropped the tiniest bit. She turned toward the door but didn't leave.
"You know," she said, voice lighter now, "you can just say you don't want to talk about it. Saves us both ti."
rlin's fingers rested against the leather-wrapped hilt of Keryx. He didn't draw it, but the weight of it was a presence at his side.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"There we go."
She stepped out first, pushing the loose door open with her boot. The hinges groaned again.
rlin followed a few seconds later.
Sunlight hit the stone path outside, sharp and slanted. The afternoon had started to dip, and the air had cooled enough that the distant chatter from the field had faded. No training session. No drills. Just wind and the creak of distant shutters.
Elara slowed her walk without saying anything. Just enough that rlin caught up.
"You're not good at hiding things," she said.
"I'm not trying to."
"Even worse."
He glanced over. She kept walking, hands tucked into her jacket pockets now.
"Just don't drag us into sothing without warning next ti," she added.
He didn't promise anything.
She didn't ask again.
Behind them, the door to the shed drifted closed. No pull. No glow. Just old hinges and a gust of wind.
—
The alleyway between the dorm arches slled like bread crust and too much listone. rlin followed half a step behind Elara, who didn't explain where they were going.
She just walked with the kind of confidence that ca from either knowing exactly what the plan was or knowing she'd make one up before anyone noticed.
They turned past the north gate.
Stone gave way to cobbles. The Academy fell behind in the corner of rlin's vision like a drawing slowly erased.
Nathan stood at the corner of a shuttered drink stall. His jacket was half-unzipped and his hair was already doing that thing where it tried to curl at the edges when the wind picked up.
"Look who finally showed," he said.
"I didn't know we were doing anything," rlin said.
"You never check your phone."
Nathan flicked a small piece of dried fig at him. It missed by a wide margin.
Elara stepped to the side, hands tucked into her coat pockets.
"You're the one who said you were bored Nathan" she said.
rlin looked past them.
Lanes twisted out in three directions. Smoke from one of the roadside grills curled high and caught the light. A few students in civilian coats wandered past, laughing too loudly about sothing that didn't matter.
He didn't walk away.
Nathan gestured with a jerk of his head.
"Co on. We're getting skewers before the good ones are gone."
'Skewers?'
They walked and rlin followed after.
The market was open, but thin. Late enough in the day that so stalls had already started packing up, early enough that the lighting crystals hadn't flared on. Foot traffic stayed light.
Just enough chatter to feel like a crowd without being pulled into one.
rlin stayed slightly behind the others, watching as Elara stopped to eye a table of cheap silver pendants shaped like bird bones. She didn't touch them. Just tilted her head and kept walking.
Nathan bought two skewers from a cart shaped like a shield on wheels and handed one to Elara without asking. She took it, then turned it upside down to check how far the oil had soaked through.
rlin stopped beside them.
"You didn't get one."
"You're a grown man," Nathan said. "Figure it out."
'Seriously?'
A few minutes later, rlin walked back from the sa cart, chewing sothing that might have been grilled pear or might have been sothing else pretending to be grilled pear.
"You didn't miss anything," Elara said, glancing at his stick. "They overcooked it."
rlin shrugged.
They wandered past a gas stall where rings had to be thrown onto old wine bottles. Nathan threw three and missed every ti.
"Rigged," he muttered.
"You aim like a ghost with vertigo," Elara said.
rlin didn't try.
They found a low brick wall near the fountain square and sat for a while. The water had stopped running weeks ago, but soone had stuck a wind chi in the empty basin. It clinked quietly whenever a breeze cut the right way.
Nathan leaned back on his hands.
"You ever think about leaving after all this?" he asked, casually.
"Leaving the Academy?" Elara asked.
"Yeah."
"Where would you go?"
He shrugged. "Sowhere they don't make you morize fifteen types of sword grease."
'You'll need them.'
rlin let the skewer stick dangle between his fingers.
"You'd be bored."
"I'd be free."
"You'd be unemployed," Elara said.
Nathan grinned.
rlin looked across the square. A girl was arguing with a rchant over the price of dried berries. A pair of boys were trying to get a makeshift kite off the ground using twine and curse words.
A dog with three legs and half a tail lay asleep beside a sandal shop's entrance, twitching its ears now and then like it was dreaming of sothing fast.
It was loud in a different way than the Academy.
Not with shouting or fights.
Just life.
Elara was watching him.
He noticed, but didn't say anything.
She didn't either.
They just sat there, letting the mont breathe.
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