The low hum of magical lanterns cast a flickering amber glow across the dormitory study hall. High-vaulted ceilings stretched over mahogany beams, and enchanted quills scribbled softly in the distance where a few diligent students worked late into the evening. The space was built for quiet contemplation, but for Kael and Seret, it felt like a war room.
Their shared desk in the corner was already cluttered with open grimoires, crumpled parchments, and three empty mugs of bitterroot tea. Seret was slouched back in her chair, arms crossed, glaring at the glowing rune array Kael had drawn in the air above the table.
"That's not how refraction nodes work," she muttered.
Kael rubbed his eyes. "I'm telling you it is. If you braid the energy strand before it passes through the amplification gate, you get less mana bleed."
"You get static feedback. The gate destabilizes."
"I tested it."
"On what? A suicidal squirrel?"
Kael scowled. "On paper. In theory."
Seret groaned, yanked the glowing rune aside, and started sketching her own. "This is why Meran told us to explain, not experiment. We're supposed to analyze why things fail. Not build a magical landmine in a dorm full of hormonal adolescents."
Kael grinned, just a little. "Admit it. You think mine looks cooler."
"It looks like a fireball with commitment issues."
He laughed and leaned back, letting the tension bleed from his shoulders. For the first time all day, things felt... almost normal. Not easy. Never easy. But familiar.
Seret glanced at him, expression softening. "How's the arm?"
Kael hesitated. Slowly, he pulled back the sleeve of his tunic. The scar was thick, jagged, and ran from his wrist to his elbow like a bolt of red lightning. The skin around it was still raw, still adapting to the new magical tissue. Seret didn't flinch when she saw it. That alone made him feel less monstrous.
"Looks better than it did last week," she said gently.
"Hurts like hell," he replied. "But... I think it's more than just flesh."
She arched an eyebrow. "Magic residue?"
"No," he said quietly. "A reminder."
They sat in silence for a few heartbeats. The air in the dormitory was still, save for the occasional scribble of distant quills and the crackling lanterns. Kael reached for his notes, flipping through half-scorched diagrams and spell theories.
"Do you ever miss it?" he asked suddenly.
Seret looked up. "Miss what? The caves? The blood rites? The sleep deprivation?"
He smirked. "You forgot the murder."
"Oh, right. My favorite part."
But her sarcasm faded as she studied him. He wasn't joking. Not entirely.
"Sometimes," he admitted. "Not the pain. Or the fear. Just... knowing who I was. What was expected of me."
"You mean knowing you were a weapon."
Kael didn't respond.
She sighed, pulling her legs up into the chair. "Yeah. I get that. It was hell. But it was our hell. Structured. Predictable in its own twisted way."
He nodded slowly. "Now it's like... I'm pretending to be normal. Pretending to be just another student."
"You're doing a great job of it," she said, nudging his knee with hers. "Terrible rune design. Distractingly handsome. Bit of a know-it-all. Classic student behavior."
He snorted. "Thanks."
They both leaned over the table again, letting their shoulders touch slightly as they focused on the array Seret had drawn. It was elegant, tight curves, interwoven mana channels, a restraint Kael often lacked. She didn't rush to impress. She aimed to understand.
"Yours might actually work," Kael murmured.
She smiled faintly. "Because I'm smarter than you."
"Please. I let you think that so you'd stop crying at night."
Seret's eyes widened in mock outrage. "You mean all those tears were for nothing?"
He nodded solemnly. "Wasted, tragic."
They both laughed, quietly, but fully. Like the world outside didn't exist. Like there weren't a thousand secrets trailing behind them.
Then Seret turned serious again. "Kael... when we get strong enough. When we figure out our next move. You still want to destroy them, don't you?"
He met her gaze. There was no hesitation in his eyes. Just the simmering certainty of someone who had bled for every inch of his freedom.
"I want to erase them."
She nodded, slowly. "Good. Just checking."
The moment passed like a thundercloud drifting on. The weight of their unspoken pact returned, quiet but solid.
Outside, the distant bells tolled midnight. The study hall had nearly emptied, and the lanterns dimmed ever so slightly, signaling curfew.
Kael stood, stretching his back. "We'll finish the rest tomorrow?"
Seret yawned. "Yeah. After class. I need sleep, or I'll start seeing mana arrays in my dreams."
"You already talk in your sleep."
"Lies. I'm a graceful sleeper."
"Sure. Like a dragon in a pottery shop."
She smacked him with a rolled-up scroll, and he chuckled all the way to the dorm exit.
Their dorm room was a narrow chamber on the third floor of the east wing, tucked behind an arched corridor of decorative runestone vaults. While others in the academy boasted single rooms or sprawling suite-shares, Kael and Seret had opted to stay together, partially out of practicality, partially out of necessity. Neither of them liked being alone. Not anymore.
The room was modest, if not a little cramped. Twin beds flanked either side of the walls, separated by a thin writing desk, two battered trunks, and an enchanted basin that occasionally burbled like it resented being ignored. Thick velvet curtains muffled the sounds of the academy outside, and the soft hum of distant warding runes gave the room a gentle, static warmth.
Seret dropped her satchel on the desk and flopped face-first onto her bed. "Dead. I'm officially dead. My soul has passed. Do not resuscitate."
Kael smirked, undoing the clasps of his academy uniform. "It was just one day."
"One day with three different lectures, a practical spell drill, sword combat, rune theory, and a surprise written exam so long it had footnotes. I've been tortured less by actual cult rituals."
"You remember the Bone Pit trial?"
"Fondly."
Kael chuckled and pulled off his boots with a grunt, setting them neatly by the wall. The bone-deep fatigue had settled into his muscles like a second skin, but it was the mental exhaustion that hit harder. Pages of arcane theory buzzed behind his eyes. Every time he blinked, he saw fractal glyphs and the scowling face of Professor Meran.
He glanced over. Seret was curled into a blanket, one arm hanging off the bed, muttering something about kinetic matrices in her sleep. He smiled faintly and lit the small wall lamp beside his bed with a flick of his finger. The flame bloomed into a soft, blue glow, cool, clean, gentle.
It reminded him of the stars above the Cult's training grounds. The only time things ever felt safe there was when the sky watched and the screams had stopped.
Kael sat on his bed, back against the cold wall. His eyes wandered, eventually settling on the rough-hewn scar along his arm. He hadn't fully gotten used to it. The flesh was still tight, still itched when he overexerted the limb. It wasn't just skin, it was a brand. A mark of what he'd endured. What they'd done to him. What he'd done to others.
He glanced again at Seret. She stirred in her sleep and turned onto her side, the moonlight catching the line of an old scar across her collarbone, the one from the acid chamber trial. She rarely spoke of it. Rarely spoke of any of the wounds that didn't bleed anymore.
He leaned back, sighing through his nose.
"Do you think this is what being free feels like?" he asked quietly.
There was no answer. He hadn't expected one.
Freedom, as he'd been taught, was illusion. You were either in the chains you could see, or the ones you couldn't. Yet here, at this academy, among spoiled noble children and magic-drenched hallways, he was beginning to feel something different. Not free. Not safe. But unbound.
He picked up one of the textbooks from the desk, Rune Construction for Combat Applications. The corners were already worn from Seret's endless page flipping. He smiled to himself, flipping to a section she'd annotated with tiny margin scribbles:
"Avoid feedback loops. Only idiots try to channel raw flow."
He chuckled again.
But beneath the amusement, there was a gnawing fear. They were hiding in plain sight. Wearing the faces of students. Yet they'd been forged as weapons. Could they truly play the part? Blend in? Or would they slip, be discovered, cornered, and caged again?
Kael set the book down and pulled out a small, creased parchment from his trunk. He unfolded it carefully, revealing the rough sketch he'd made of the royal family, the one he'd hidden in a hollow section of his boot for weeks. The mother. The father. The son.
He stared at the boy's face. His own, mirrored in noble ink.
The resemblance was uncanny. Enough to make him sick.
Seret stirred again. "You brooding or plotting murder?" she mumbled groggily.
Kael snorted and folded the paper away. "Little of both."
She peeked at him from under her blanket. Her eyes, sleepy but sharp, lingered for a moment too long. "You've been doing that more. Looking at them."
"I need to know who they are," he said. "If we're going to survive here, I need to know everything."
"Kael," she whispered, voice softening. "You sure that's all it is?"
He didn't answer. Because he wasn't sure.
Some part of him wanted to understand them. The people who'd lost him. The people who might have searched. Or might have forgotten. And if they had… what did that mean about him?
"I'm going to find out," he said eventually. "One way or another."
She watched him for a while, eyes dimming with sleep again. "Just don't lose yourself doing it."
"I won't."
"You always say that," she murmured, and rolled over.
Kael sat in the blue lantern glow, listening to the rhythm of her breathing and the faint magical buzz of the walls. His thoughts drifted, past the runes, the exams, the lectures, even past the faces of his supposed parents.
Instead, he saw firelight in the snow. A dagger held too tightly. And Seret's hand pulling him back from the edge.
She was right. This wasn't freedom. But it was something.
And he'd fight to keep it.