The
Praetorian Hall – Captain Julianus Caepio’s Office – Continuous
Caepio
inhales slowly through his nose. The datapad trembles almost
imperceptibly in his grip, only someone with Korvin’s eye would
catch it. The Captain sets the device down with deliberate calm,
aligning it with the neat stack of papers he hasn’t touched in
minutes.
Lucille’s heart thuds so
violently she swears they all must hear it. The silence in the room
feels like a blade held just above her throat.
Finally, Caepio lifts his
gaze.
He looks at Lucille first.
Not with anger. Not with
disdain. But with something far colder. Something exhausted.
Something calculating.
“Cadet Domitian.”
Lucille straightens
automatically, chin low, hands clasped behind her back to hide the
tremor in her fingers.
Cain shifts beside her, jaw
tight, ready to speak if she collapses. Korvin subtly angles his
stance between the children and Caepio, protective without seeming
insubordinate.
Caepio studies Lucille for
several long seconds. His dark eyes flick to the faint outline of
bandages beneath her sleeve, the way she presses her arm into her
torso, the lingering pallor of someone who lost blood hours ago.
He sees it. He understands
it. He says nothing about it.
Instead, “Do you know,” Caepio
begins quietly, “how many hours I spent last night reviewing
reports?”
Lucille’s throat bobs. “N-no, sir.”
“Eight.” He leans back in his chair. “Eight hours. Cross-referencing every statement submitted by your instructors. Every discrepancy. Every omission.” His gaze sharpens. “Every lie.”
Lucille’s breath snags.
Cain frowns. Korvin’s jaw locks.
Lucille opens her mouth, then closes it. She could tell him. About the shrine. About the offering. About the God whose presence still clings to her skin like smoke. But her voice dies in her throat.
Korvin steps forward slightly. “Captain—”
Caepio silences him with a raised hand. “I am speaking to the cadet.”
Lucille’s knees weaken.
Her mouth feels full of ash.
“I…” she whispers, voice trembling, soft drawl coloring every word, “…I… went fer a walk.”
Caepio stares at her as though peeling her apart piece by piece.
“A walk,” he repeats softly. “In the cold. Alone. For hours.”
Lucille nods once. Slow. Mechanical. Terrified.
Cain moves before he seems to think, stepping half a pace forward. “Sir, she wasn’t in a good state. She—”
Caepio snaps his head toward him. “Cadet Aurellius, you are not permitted to speak.”
Cain falls silent immediately, but his hands clench.
Korvin watches Caepio carefully. He sees something shifting behind the Captain’s eyes. Something not entirely controlled.
Caepio rubs a hand over his face, suddenly looking older, as if last night aged him a decade.
“Cadet Domitian,” he says, voice low, “I cannot protect you if you refuse to tell me the truth.”
Lucille’s breath catches.
Her fingers curl into fists. Protect? Caepio? Protect her?
She doesn’t understand. And that makes her even more afraid.
Caepio continues, quieter, “Because if you lie to me again…” He pauses. “…I will have no choice but to follow through with the disciplinary measures I outlined yesterday.”
Lucille sways. Cain steps closer. Korvin tenses.
Then Caepio sighs, long and sharp, as if the weight of the entire Academy presses against his spine. “Tell me where you went, Lucille.” A command. A plea. A verdict hanging by a thread.
Lucille’s lips part. Her heartbeat screams. The shrine’s shadows whisper. The scar beneath her sleeve burns, faint, pulsing, like a brand.
She whispers, soft, almost breaking:
“…I… I prayed.”
Caepio freezes.
Korvin inhales sharply.
Cain blinks.
Lucille’s voice trembles, Southern lilt heavy with fear and exhaustion: “…I prayed… t’ them Astral gods, sir.”
Caepio’s expression is unreadable. “Which one?”
Lucille swallows, throat clicking. A lie flares at the back of her tongue, instinct, survival, but the scar on her arm gives a slow, pulsing throb. A reminder. A warning.
She opens her mouth, and Korvin steps forward, voice cutting clean through the tension. “With respect, Captain, cadets are not required to disclose their private devotions. The gods they choose and the prayers they offer are sacred matters. She owes you no answer to that question.” His tone sharpens. “What she does deserve is your verdict. Have you made a decision, or is this interrogation simply meant to intimidate?”
Cain stiffens beside
Lucille. Caepio stares at Korvin for several long, freezing seconds,
measuring him. The room feels thinner, air pulled tight like a wire.
Then Caepio leans back in
his chair, fingers tapping the armrest once… twice… before he
snatches up his datapad again. He makes a show of glancing at the
reports, flipping pages that are already seared into his memory.
He sets the pad down.
“There is substantial
evidence,” he says slowly, “to prove Lucille Domitian did not
murder Cadets Ilara and Maelia.”
Lucille’s breath catches.
Cain’s shoulders sag with sudden relief, too sudden.
Caepio raises a hand,
halting any reaction. His voice drops, cold and practiced. “So. You
are free to go.”
Lucille almost crumples
with relief, a shaky exhale slipping from her. Cain grips her arm
gently, grounding himself and her both.
But Caepio isn’t
finished.
He steeples his fingers.
“However,” he adds, “you would be a fool to think this is
over.”
Lucille blinks. “Sir?”
“You are still a
Domitian,” Caepio says, eyes darkening like storm clouds rolling
over stone. “And your… connections,” his gaze flicks briefly,
pointedly, to Cain, then to Korvin, “will only protect you for so
long. Influence is not infinite. Even the Aurellians have limits.”
Cain bristles. Lucille
stares at the floor, confusion and unease churning under her ribs.
She doesn’t understand what he means, not fully, but she’s too
exhausted to question it.
Caepio gestures
dismissively. “Get out of my office.”
Korvin nods curtly and
places a hand between Lucille’s shoulder blades, guiding her toward
the door. Cain keeps pace on her other side, close enough that his
scent, worry, adrenaline, iron, presses into her senses.
Lucille looks back once.
Caepio is already reaching
for his datapad again, but his jaw is tight, his knuckles white.
As if he knows something is
coming. As if he feels a storm forming. And Lucille, with her
god-given scar hidden beneath her sleeve, wonders if he’s right.
The Academy Corridors –
Continuous
Korvin
leads them out of the Praetorian Hall and into the quieter corridor
beyond, the echo of Caepio’s warning still hanging heavy in the
air. The moment they’re out of sight of the armored giants, Cain’s
composure shatters.
He spins to Lucille and
grabs both her hands, squeezing them so tightly her fingers press
together. His relief pours off him in waves, bright, overwhelming,
unrestrained. His breath trembles; the smile on his face is raw and
real.
“Lucille,” His voice
cracks. “You’re innocent. You’re actually— I mean— you’re
safe.” He looks like he might lift her off the floor or crush her
to his chest, but he restrains himself by the thinnest thread. His
eyes shine with relief he can’t hide.
Lucille’s breath
stutters. Her face burns instantly, violently red, heat flooding her
cheeks and ears. She isn’t sure she can breathe. Not with Cain’s
hands wrapped around hers like she’s something precious. Not with
him looking at her like that.
“I-I—yes, I’m—”
she manages, but the words choke off, tangled in her throat. She
stares at their joined hands because she can’t bring herself to
look higher.
Korvin exhales, long and
quiet, tension loosening from his shoulders. It worked.
Their reports, their collective pushback, everything had chipped
away at Caepio’s hammer. He has no idea that Fulvia Aurellius
detonated the rest of it last night, but he’s grateful all the
same.
Cain leans down, trying to
catch her eyes. “You don’t… you don’t seem excited.”
There’s worry in his voice. Panic, even. “Lucy, what’s wrong?”
“I-I am
excited,” she stammers, still staring at the floor. “I just—”
“What?”
“You’re h-holdin' my
hands so tight,” she blurts, barely above a whisper.
Cain freezes. His eyes
widen. He immediately drops her hands like he’s releasing a live
grenade. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean...did I hurt you?”
Lucille shakes her head
quickly, clutching her hands to her chest, knuckles brushing her
jacket sleeves. “No. I’m fine. Really.”
Cain studies her fingers
anyway, looking for bruises or fractures, as if he has any reason to
doubt the girl whose hands are always mottled from training, split
and raw from fists that never rest.
“You’re sure?” he
asks, softer now.
Lucille nods.
Cain exhales, shaky with
leftover fear and relief.
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Korvin hides a small smile.
Not mocking, just quietly moved.
Lucille keeps her gaze
down, heart hammering, cheeks flaming, the ghost of Cain’s warmth
still burning across her palms. She’s free. Alive. Unpunished.
As the trio make their way
down the hall, movement breaks around the far corner ahead, Renn,
nearly jogging, and Alera Voss in front of him, cutting through the
corridor like a storm given flesh. The theology master’s stride is
sharp, deliberate, the kind of pace that makes lesser instructors
flatten themselves against the wall.
Korvin feels the shift in
the air before she even sees them. Instinct crawls up his spine. He
reaches out and lays a steadying hand on Lucille’s shoulder.
Lucille stiffens.
As soon as Voss spots
Lucille down the hall, her pace accelerates. Renn does his best to
keep up, but he’s practically breathless by the time the two groups
collide in the center of the corridor.
Voss
closes the distance like a blade thrown with purpose.
“Brace,” Korvin murmurs
under his breath.
Lucille doesn’t
understand why at first. Then she feels
it, an approaching storm, all holy fire and righteous fury, crackling
in the air like static. She inhales, and the scent hits her: burning
herbs, old stone, and the iron-weighted intensity of a devoted
priestess on the brink.
Cain doesn’t sense it
until it’s almost upon them.
“You.”
Voss’s hand snaps out. Her fingers latch around Lucille’s wrist
with startling strength. Lucille flinches, instinctively twisting
back, but Voss holds firm, unyielding, unrelenting. “Let me see
it.” Her voice is low but vibrating with urgency.
Korvin steps forward
immediately. “Master Voss, explain yourself—”
But Voss isn’t listening.
She’s already dragging Lucille’s sleeve up her arm. Wrong arm.
Nothing.
Her frustration flares.
She seizes Lucille’s
other wrist, Lucille gasps, Cain moves instinctively to intervene,
but Korvin blocks him with one arm, shaking his head once.
Then Voss shoves the sleeve
up.
The breath leaves her body.
The fresh scar crosses
Lucille’s forearm like a red brand, angry, clean, healed by
something no mortal medic could claim credit for. Faint traces of
dried blood still cling to her skin.
Voss inhales sharply, and
in that breath, she understands everything.
“Oh… stars…” she
whispers. Her grip loosens, not from lack of strength, but from
shock. “Valroth Kyr.”
Lucille tries to pull her
arm back, bewildered and embarrassed under the scrutiny, but Voss
holds her just long enough to be sure.
Renn, breathless from
catching up, tries to speak. “I tried to explain – (pant) - she
prayed – (pant) - Voss wanted to confirm—”
“Confirm?” Voss snaps,
her voice sharp enough to cut. “This shouldn’t be possible.”
Lucille stiffens.
Voss notices, winces, tries
again, softer this time, though panic still trembles beneath the
words. “You foolish, foolish girl…” She shakes her head, not in
anger, but in horrified disbelief. “The God of Sacrifice? Do you
have any idea what you—” She stops abruptly, biting her tongue.
The words hit her all at once, the memory, the knowledge of why
Lucille was desperate enough to kneel at His shrine. Capital
punishment. A child facing death alone. No support. No protection. No
mercy.
Voss exhales, visibly
reeling. Her voice drops to barely more than a whisper. “…I’m
sorry, child.”
Lucille says nothing. She’s
frozen, uncertain whether to be afraid or ashamed or simply
exhausted.
Cain steps closer, placing
a protective hand on her shoulder, glaring slightly at Voss. “She
didn’t do anything wrong.”
Voss ignores him. Her eyes
remain locked on the scar, on the symbol burned into flesh by an
ancient god no sane soul invokes lightly.
“She should not have been
driven to this,” she murmurs. “No cadet, no child, should ever
stand before Valroth Kyr alone.”
Her voice trembles, not
with fear, but with something deeper. Reverence. Awe. And dread.
She releases Lucille’s
arm at last, her fingers shaking. Then she looks at Korvin. “We
need to talk,” she says gravely. “All of us.”
Alera Voss’ Office –
Minutes Later
The
three step inside Alera Voss’ office, and Lucille’s breath
catches. The room is dense with the weight of incense and old
parchment, every shelf sagging beneath tomes bound in cracked leather
or etched metal. Charms hang like tiny bones from the rafters.
Shrines glimmer in candlelight, the only lit ones belonging to Oris
Talmarin, the
Star-Sage, and Veidros
the Whispering Gate.
Their statues watch silently, a many-eyed mask and a twin-flamed
lantern staring down like judges.
Voss
moves with purpose, skirts whispering sharply across the floor,
already rifling through stacks of books. She mutters under her
breath, pulling volumes free with decisive flicks of her hands,
discarding some, keeping others. Her pace borders on frantic. Korvin
and Renn follow her to the desk, tension sharpening their
silhouettes.
Cain
leans down toward Lucille, voice dropping to a whisper warm against
her ear. “Last night… that’s where you went, ain't it? To
pray?” His brows draw tight, worry flickering like a fading candle.
“Lucy, why? You ain't ever prayed outside class. Not once.”
Lucille’s
fingers instinctively curl around her sleeve, rubbing over the scar
beneath the fabric. The flesh beneath tingles, warm, too warm, like
an ember pressed under her skin. “I didn’t mean to,” she
murmurs. “I just… needed air. Needed space. And then I started
walking and—” She cuts herself off abruptly. Her jaw snaps shut.
She almost said it.
The
great black beast with green eyes that she has seen over and over
again, standing in the treeline, silent, watching. No one ever
believes her. Every time she mentions it, she’s told wolves don’t
roam Tennessee. That she’s imagining things. Dreaming. Lying.
So
she clamps her mouth shut.
Cain
frowns but doesn’t push further. He recognizes the way her
shoulders tense, the way her eyes shutter. Whatever she almost said,
she won’t say it in front of anyone else.
Across
the room, Voss slams a heavy tome onto her desk. Dust blooms upward
like ash. Renn leans in at her side, Korvin standing tall behind
them, arms folded tightly, jaw set.
“There,”
Voss mutters, flipping pages with quick, practiced motions. “There
has to be something, some precedent, some record…of Valroth Kyr
responding like this. Healing wounds. Claiming scars.” Her voice
trembles between frustration and awe.
Renn
clears his throat softly. “Alera… this is unprecedented enough.
Don’t strain yourself.”
“Unprecedented?”
she snaps without looking up. “Renn, people don’t pray to the God
of Sacrifice and come back walking. They don’t wake
up after offering blood
at His shrine. They certainly don’t leave with scars that close in
minutes. And they absolutely do not—” She flips a page harder,
the paper cracking. “—do not get chosen
unless He intends something of them.” Her eyes lift, sharp,
burning, and land on Lucille.
Lucille
instinctively shrinks, clutching her opposite arm, nails digging
against fabric.
Cain
steps closer, subtly placing himself between Lucille and Voss, not
aggressively, but protectively.
Korvin
shifts as well, steady and deliberate. “Voss,” he warns quietly.
“She’s been interrogated enough for one morning.”
Voss
exhales hard through her nose. Then, calmer, she nods. “I know,”
she murmurs, voice softening. “I know. I’m sorry, Lucille.”
She
turns another page, slower this time, as though the book itself might
break beneath her fingers. “But whatever happened last night,”
she says, gaze flickering between the instructors, “we need to
understand it. And quickly.”
Lucille
rubs the scar again beneath her sleeve, warm, insistent, almost as if
something inside it stirs in response to its own name.
Voss’s
eyes soften at the sight of her, but her urgency does not falter. She
closes the distance fast, breath tight, worry sharpening her
features. When she reaches them, she doesn’t raise her voice, nor
does she scold. Her tone is firm only because she’s fighting her
own fear.
“Lucille,” she says,
steady but urgent. “I need you to tell me everything that happened
last night.”
The question hits Lucille
like a blow. Her breath stutters. Her eyes dart away. She hesitates,
not because she wants to hide anything, but because saying
it aloud makes it real. And there’s a part of her,
fragile and terrified, that wants desperately to keep those feelings
locked away.
Cain sees the tension in
Voss’s posture. He sees the fear in Lucille’s eyes. And he
understands, finally, just how serious this is.
He steps in, voice careful,
deliberate. “We were together in the cadet lounge for most of the
night. Studyin'.” He rubs his neck, embarrassed. “I, uh… fell
asleep.”
Voss nods, but her eyes
return to Lucille, waiting.
Lucille swallows hard. It
takes her a long moment before she finally speaks, voice low.
“I… put a blanket over
him,” she murmurs. “Then I left. I wanted fresh air. I thought…”
Her fingers curl at her sides. “I thought I’d go to the trainin' grounds. Hittin' somethin' usually helps clear my head.” Her
throat tightens. Her fingers curl reflexively against the edge of her
sleeve, nails grazing the hidden scar beneath. She keeps her gaze
lowered, fixed on the mosaic tiles at her feet as if they might offer
her an escape.
Voss steps closer, her tone
soft but heavy with the weight of expectation. “But you didn’t.”
Lucille shakes her head
once, slowly.
Cain watches her carefully,
worry etched across every line of his face. “Lucy,” he murmurs,
“just tell her. It’s okay.”
It isn’t. Not to Lucille.
Not when she can’t explain it, not when even thinking about it
makes her pulse stutter.
Lucille swallows hard. “I…
started walking' and the further I went, the more everythin' felt…
wrong. Too loud. Too close.” Her voice trembles, barely audible.
“My chest hurt. My head felt like it was goin' to break. I just
needed to breathe.”
Korvin exchanges a glance
with Voss, silent communication between instructors who know the
signs of a cadet pushed too far, too fast, too young.
Voss takes a slow breath,
patient. “And then?”
Lucille hesitates again.
This is the part she fears saying aloud; the part no one ever
believes.
“I just walked,” she
murmurs. “I kept walkin'. And then… I thought I heard somethin'.”
Renn frowns. “Heard
what?”
Lucille’s eyes flick
toward him, then away. Shame burns at her ears. “Footsteps. Or…
maybe not footsteps.” She squeezes her sleeve tighter. “Somethin' heavy. Slow. Breathin'. And I felt—” Her words catch, stopping
her.
Voss gently prompts, “Felt
what, Lucille?”
Lucille closes her eyes.
The memory pulses through her like a distant heartbeat, cold wind,
the scent of deep forest, the earth vibrating under an unseen weight.
“Watched,” she admits.
“I felt watched.”
Cain stiffens beside her.
Renn’s brows knit. “By
who?”
Lucille shakes her head. “I
don’t know. I just… followed it.”
She doesn’t dare tell
them the truth. About the wolf. The great black shape with green eyes
she has mentioned before, the one adults always dismissed with
annoyance or disbelief. She doesn’t dare mention that the exact
same feeling, the weight, the pull, the breath of something ancient,
had led her all the way to the Hall of Sacrifice.
She keeps that to herself.
“I walked without
thinkin',” she says. “And when I finally noticed where I was… I
was already inside the hall.”
Voss exhales slowly,
pressing a hand to her temple. “Lucille… that hall is one of the
least visited on the grounds. No one wanders into it by accident.”
Lucille’s voice cracks.
“I didn’t mean to go there.”
“No one ever means to,”
Voss replies softly, but the way she says it chills the room.
Cain moves subtly closer to
Lucille, shoulder brushing hers, grounding her.
Korvin steps in then, his
voice steady. “Lucille, when you reached the shrine… what made
you pray?”
Lucille’s breath
shudders. Her hand squeezes unconsciously the place on her sleeve
where the scar sits beneath.
“I… I don’t know,”
she whispers. “I just...felt like I had nothing else. Like
something inside me snapped. And everything hurt so much I… I
didn’t think. I just… asked.” Her voice becomes a raw rasp.
“For help. For strength. For a chance.”
The room goes still.
Voss, flipping slowly
through the ancient tome, finds the passage she was looking for. When
she looks up, her expression is pale, stricken, almost reverent.
“Lucille,” she says
quietly, “do you understand that Valroth Kyr does not answer
prayers?” She places a hand flat on the open page. “He does not
comfort the weak. He does not pity the desperate. He takes. He
bargains. He marks those who offer what is theirs to give.”
Her eyes flick briefly to
Lucille’s arm, where the scar lies like a brand.
“And yet,” Voss
breathes, “He answered you.”
Lucille’s heart pounds
painfully against her ribs.
Cain’s hand finds the
small of her back.
Korvin’s jaw tenses.
Renn looks between them all
with growing dread.
And Voss closes the ancient
book with a soft, heavy sound.
“Lucille,” she says,
voice low and unwavering, “tell me, child… exactly what
you offered Him.”
And the room holds its
breath.
Lucille finally breaks.
Her voice trembles, the
words torn out of her like pieces of flesh. “I… when I reached
the shrine, I collapsed.” She squeezes her hands together so
tightly her knuckles blanch. “There was this… sharp pain in my
head. Like something split me open from the inside. And then...then
it was like I was dreamin'.”
Korvin’s eyes narrow,
sharp as razors. Renn shifts uneasily. Voss stands utterly still,
waiting.
Lucille forces herself to
continue. “I was kneelin'. I couldn’t move. The mud was draggin' me down… like quicksand. And Valroth Kyr was above me.” Her
breath hitches. “Floatin'. Just… watchin' me drown.”
Cain inches closer, but he
doesn’t touch her yet.
“In front of me,” she
whispers, “there was a helmet. Black comb. And a knife.” She
swallows hard, her throat dry. “And I knew… I knew the only way
out was blood. Mine.” Her voice cracks. “So I cut my arm. And my
blood fell onto the helmet. And the comb... it turned from black to
red.”
Korvin’s jaw flexes, the
slightest twitch. Renn’s brows knot together. Voss’s lips press
into a line as she turns back to her desk, flipping through the pages
of the open tome with practiced urgency.
“And the next thing I
remember,” Lucille says, voice barely a ghost, “is wakin' up.
With Instructors Korvin and Renn standin' over me.”
A long, heavy silence
hangs, thick as smoke.
Cain finally rests a hand
on her shoulder, gentle, grounding.
And that’s what breaks
her a second time.
Lucille’s breath
stutters, and the words rush out, unbidden and raw. “I didn’t
just wander there.”
Three sets of eyes snap
toward her.
“I—” She shakes her
head, squeezing her eyes shut. “I followed something. Someone.”
“Lucille,” Voss says
softly, but there’s an edge beneath it, fear, maybe.
“It was a wolf,”
Lucille whispers. “A black wolf. With green eyes.” She opens her
eyes, haunted. “It led me there. I don’t know how. I don’t know
why. But I chased it. It guided me. Straight to the shrine.”
Voss freezes.
Korvin stares at her,
really stares, like he’s reassessing her entire existence. Renn
sucks in a sharp breath.
Cain blinks, slow, stunned.
“The wolf?” he murmurs. “You… you’ve seen it again?”
She nods.
Cain rubs his temple. He’s
heard this before, heard her talk about seeing a wolf since
they were children. But just like every instructor they’d ever had,
he’d dismissed it. Because Tennessee has no wolves. Because it made
no sense.
But now…
Now, in this room full of
adults who suddenly don’t look so certain of anything…
It feels very, very real.
And very, very wrong.
