Raziel made it around the corner before his composure cracked.
'Idiot. Complete idiot.'
He leaned against the cold stone wall and pressed his palms against his eyes until he saw spots.
He'd been trying to play the mysterious, untouchable loner, and all he'd accomplished was confirming every suspicion Lara already had.
Now she knew his power was wrong.
She knew there was something dark inside him.
And she knew he was scared.
'If she goes to the Inquisition, they'll use me as kindling for their next bonfire.'
[MENTAL STATE: UNSTABLE]
The System flashed red letters at the edge of his vision.
He wanted to punch the wall until his knuckles bled just to have something physical to focus on.
But he didn't have time for a breakdown.
There was another fire that needed putting out first.
He pushed off the wall and headed for the outer training grounds, following the sound of wood splintering under repeated blows.
CRACK. THUMP. CRACK.
The courtyard was empty except for Lucian, who was in the middle of demolishing a training dummy with a wooden practice sword.
Sweat soaked through his tunic and his form was terrible, all brute force and wild swings.
The kind of fighting style that would get you killed in thirty seconds against anyone with actual training.
Raziel watched from the shadows for a moment, reading the tension in Lucian's shoulders and the desperate fury in his movements.
This wasn't practice. This was a tantrum.
He stepped out into the moonlight.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you bring up my power in front of Lara?"
Lucian spun around, and Raziel saw steel flash in his hand a fraction of a second before the dagger was coming at his shoulder.
He moved without thinking, his hand closing around the blade before his brain caught up with what was happening.
Blood welled up immediately, running down his fingers and dripping onto the stone.
They both froze, breathing hard.
Lucian's hand still gripping the dagger's handle while Raziel's grip on the blade kept it from moving.
"I wanted to see how fast you really are," Lucian said, and his voice was strange, caught somewhere between accusation and wonder.
"Those aren't normal reflexes. Nobody should have been able to catch that. Who are you, Raziel? What are you?"
"Let go of the dagger, Lucian."
"Answer me first."
Raziel's patience snapped.
He twisted his grip, wrenching the weapon free.
Before Lucian could react, drove his foot into the noble's stomach hard enough to send him staggering backward into the wall.
"I told you to stop!" Raziel's voice came out louder than he intended.
"Do you want the Inquisitors to hear us? This isn't a game, Lucian. The Inquisition is watching both of us. Marius has me in an isolated room so he can keep tabs on everything I do and you're out here making noise and pulling knives because you can't handle not knowing something?"
Lucian slumped against the wall, the fight going out of him.
His eyes found Raziel's bloody hand and something that might have been guilt flickered across his face.
"You think you're the Paragon," he said quietly.
"That's what this is about. The golden light, the things you can do. You think you're the one from the prophecies."
Raziel shook his head.
"I don't know what I am. The light matches the descriptions, but to be the Paragon you need to master all of Zhalyr's gifts and have a pure spirit."
He laughed, and it came out bitter. "My spirit is about as far from pure as it gets."
Lucian studied him for a long moment, and something shifted in his expression.
"Then what do you need?" he asked.
"Your help." Raziel met his eyes.
"I can't do this alone. I don't know how the Church works from the inside. I don't have connections or protection or any of the things you were born with but something is coming, Lucian. Something bad and if we don't figure out what it is and how to stop it, everyone in this academy is going to die."
The silence stretched between them, heavy with everything that wasn't being said.
Finally, Lucian nodded. "Alright. I'm in."
A noise from the shadows cut the moment short.
Oriel stepped out from behind a pillar, another novice, his face pale and his eyes wide.
Raziel's stomach dropped.
He forced a smile onto his face. "Oriel! What are you doing out here at this hour?"
Oriel's mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.
His eyes kept moving between Raziel's bloody hand and Lucian's disheveled state, putting together a picture that would be very hard to explain away.
"Oriel, listen—" Raziel started.
Lucian's fist connected with the back of Oriel's neck before Raziel could finish the sentence.
The novice crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
"What the hell?" Raziel hissed.
"What were you going to do?" Lucian demanded.
"Tell him everything? We don't know who we can trust. He could be one of Marius's informants for all we know."
Raziel wanted to argue, but he couldn't.
Lucian was right.
They couldn't afford witnesses, couldn't afford loose ends, couldn't afford to trust anyone who hadn't proven themselves.
He looked down at Oriel's unconscious form, then at his own bleeding hand.
"You better know how to fix this," he said.
"Because if Marius sees this wound and starts asking questions, we're both done."
Lucian looked at the blood dripping onto the stone and had the grace to look uncomfortable.
"I thought your golden light could heal it."
"My golden light is broken, remember? That's the whole problem."
They stood there in the moonlight, two boys bound together by circumstance and desperation, an unconscious witness at their feet and too many enemies to count.
'This is the path now,' Raziel thought. 'No going back.'
"We need to move him before someone else comes," Lucian said quietly.
Raziel nodded and reached down to grab Oriel's arms.
The night wasn't over yet.