Chapter 82: The List (2)
There were knocks at Lucien’s door.
Soft, polite ones.
Just enough pressure to be heard over the gentle rustle of midnight wind slipping through the stone corridors of the dormitory.
Nothing urgent.
No thumping, no yelling.
Just... tap-tap.
A pause.
Then tap-tap-tap, again.
Lucien, buried in his blanket like a disgruntled corpse in a cocoon, opened one eye and stared at the ceiling with all the fury of a man who’d just fallen asleep twenty minutes ago.
He didn’t move.
Another knock came.
Slightly more persistent, still gentle.
‘Whoever it is,’ he thought, ‘they’ll give up eventually.’
Lucien turned onto his side, face buried into the pillow, groaning softly.
He had spent the entire evening studying the ridiculous list of classes his counselor had tossed at him, trying to cross-reference them with lecture timings, classroom maps, and a half-functional orientation pamphlet that somehow forgot to include half the building names.
He’d just started dreaming about setting the counselor’s office on fire when.
Rustle.
A faint noise.
Something slid under the door.
Lucien frowned, slowly pushing himself upright.
The room was quiet.
Moonlight spilled in through the narrow window, silvering the floorboards.
He waited a moment, listening.
No further knocking.
Still half in dreamland, he shuffled across the room and picked up the note.
It was a piece of thick cream-colored parchment, the kind used in the academy’s official documents.
Just one thing was scrawled across the center in neat, sharp handwriting:
"Open. Please."
Lucien blinked.
“That’s ominous.”
He looked around for a pen.
Maybe he could write something dumb like
“Sorry, wrong portal.”
He was halfway to digging through his desk drawer when a long, weary sigh echoed from the other side of the door.
“Lucien,” a familiar voice said, muffled but unmistakable.
“Stop scribbling on that paper and just open the door already.”
Lucien froze mid-step, lips twitching.
He moved to the door, unlatched the bolt, and opened it just a sliver.
Vaelira stood in the hallway.
She was wearing a dark oversized cloak and had her hair tied up in a messy bun.
Beside her was a canvas duffel bag almost as large as she was, slung awkwardly against the wall.
Her expression was as flat and unreadable as always, but there was a faint pink in her cheeks and a certain stubborn determination in the set of her jaw.
Lucien raised a brow.
“...Are you running away?”
Vaelira stared at him.
“What?”
He gestured to the bag.
“I mean, if you are, I hope you packed rations. And a good map. And maybe some rope.”
“It’s training equipment,” she said dryly.
“Weights. Padding. Practice gear. You know. Things you clearly haven’t touched in years.”
Lucien blinked.
“Harsh.”
She stared him down.
“Are you coming, or am I sparring against the wall?”
Lucien sighed, glanced at the clock ticking above his desk and then back at her.
“Let me put on pants,” he muttered, closing the door.
***
The night air was cool and sharp against their skin as they crossed the quiet courtyard behind the main dormitory halls, cutting through shadows and silver-lit grass.
The back of the gymnasium loomed like a sleeping beast, broad, windowless, and cold.
One of the side doors had been left propped open with a wooden wedge.
Inside, the air was still, heavy with the scent of old wood, dust, and dried sweat.
The training mats were empty.
So were the sparring platforms, the weapons racks, and the observation benches.
Lucien stood at one end of the room, barefoot, stretching his arms out.
His shirt was wrinkled from sleep, and his hair stuck out at odd angles.
Across from him, Vaelira stood with both feet planted firmly, sleeves rolled up, and a wooden sword balanced lightly in her hands.
Lucien looked at her, one brow raised.
“You really couldn’t wait until morning?”
“No,” she said simply.
He rolled his shoulder, cracking his neck.
“Figures.”
Her fingers tightened on the hilt of the practice blade.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
She said, voice quieter now, almost thoughtful.
Lucien looked at her.
For a moment, the world narrowed to just the two of them.
A room long emptied of eyes and expectations.
A space where the rest of the academy didn’t exist.
Where history, memory, and what came next could be suspended in a single breath.
Then she moved.
Fast.
Lucien’s eyes barely had time to widen before Vaelira lunged forward, the tip of her blade cutting through the air in a clean, practiced arc.
He raised his sword to block, their wooden blades clashing with a solid crack that echoed through the empty hall.
And just like that, it had begun.
***
Wood clashed against wood with a sharp crack that echoed through the otherwise quiet gymnasium.
Lucien winced, arms trembling slightly as he parried another of Vaelira’s relentless strikes.
She moved with the grace and momentum of someone completely at home in her skin, measured footwork, economical movement, no wasted breath.
Meanwhile, Lucien was beginning to feel like a scarecrow doing ballet with a broomstick.
“You sure this is sparring?”
He muttered between shallow breaths, twisting out of the way of a side swipe that whistled past his ribs.
“Because it’s starting to feel like I’m your personal stress relief dummy.”
Vaelira snorted.
“Please. If I were using you for stress relief, you’d already be unconscious.”
He barely blocked her next strike, his wrist rattling from the impact.
“Comforting.”
“Also,” she added, not missing a beat, “I know you haven’t picked up a sword since you left the D’Claire estate.”
Lucien grit his teeth and backed away a few steps, resetting his stance.
“Yeah, well… I’ve been busy.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Doing what? Brooding? Scheming?”
“Hey,” he deflected, “I’ll have you know brooding is emotionally exhausting.”
Vaelira let out a sharp breath, half-laugh, half-disbelieving exhale, as she circled him.
“You’re not moving your hips,” she said, jabbing forward. Lucien blocked, barely.
“What?”
“You’re swinging with your arms. Not your body. You’re not cushioning the blows either, every impact is traveling straight into your shoulders. You’ll be winded in minutes. That’ll kill you faster than any blade.”
Lucien panted, lowering his blade just slightly.
“Noted.”
She hesitated.
“But your reaction time… that’s gotten sharper. You’re reading me better than you used to.”
Lucien blinked.
Then grinned, genuinely, almost boyishly.
“Oh? A compliment? From the ever-icy lady Vaelira? I must be dreaming.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” she replied, adjusting her grip.
Lucien swiped a wrist across his forehead and glanced down at the padding on his arms and legs.
“Seriously though, where’d you get all this? These guards are top-notch. And the swords aren’t training hall standard, they’ve got actual weight.”
“Sparring club,” Vaelira answered.
He squinted.
“You borrowed them?”
She didn’t answer immediately.
Just tilted her head slightly.
Lucien narrowed his eyes.
“...Do they know you borrowed them?”
Vaelira’s response was a grunt and a pivot, and a sudden sharp kick straight to his knee.
“Hey-!”
He started, but his balance was already gone.
Lucien stumbled, falling backward onto one knee as Vaelira’s wooden blade came whistling downward, stopping just a breath away from his face.
He stared at the tip of the sword.
Then looked up at her.
“You are terrifying,” he said with a laugh, catching his breath.
Vaelira wiped her face with a towel, her breathing more controlled than his.
“Most fights won’t be this clean, Lucien. They won’t happen in a polished room. They won’t have rules. And they definitely won’t end with the loser walking away with just a few bruises.”
Lucien sat up, still winded, as she tossed a towel his way.
He caught it with one hand, draped it over his face, and groaned into the fabric.
She was right, of course.
As always.
He was about to say something back, some clever remark or maybe even something sincere, when he heard it.
Footsteps.
Vaelira’s head whipped toward the direction of the sound.
Lucien froze, ears straining. It was coming from the hallway outside, the soft shuffle of slippers or boots, getting closer with every second.
They exchanged a glance.
No words.
Just a shared instinct.
Move.
Vaelira scooped up the swords while Lucien rolled up the towels and yanked the padded gloves off his arms.
They crammed everything into her bag in seconds.
She flung the strap over her shoulder and bolted for the exit.
Lucien followed, muscles aching but adrenaline overriding the burn.
They slipped into the courtyard just as the gymnasium door creaked open behind them.
Moonlight bathed the stone paths and neat gardens in pale silver.
The hedges and flower beds cast long shadows.
Lucien grabbed Vaelira’s hand and yanked her toward a tall bush near the east wall.
Footsteps followed them, soft but deliberate.
Still chasing.
They dove behind the hedges, ducking low into the shadows beneath a flowering arbor.
And landed directly beside.
Two other students.
A boy and a girl.
Pressed close.
Much too close.
The boy had one hand on the girl's waist.
The girl had her face nearly buried in his collar.
Their eyes widened in tandem at the sudden company.
Lucien blinked.
Vaelira stared.
The girl let out a muted yelp.
The boy frantically made a shushing gesture.
Lucien lifted a finger to his lips.
"Quiet."
Vaelira, for once, looked speechless.
All four of them crouched in absolute silence.
The footsteps, now unmistakably adult in pace and weight, stopped just on the other side of the hedge.
A shadow fell across the garden path, unmoving.
Lucien’s breath caught.
Leaves rustled.
A breeze danced through the flowers.
Somewhere, an owl hooted in the distance.
The tension was thick enough to choke on.
And as the silence stretched, four very different students, hiding for very different reasons, found themselves trapped together in the same ridiculous bush, unified by sheer panic.
And just above them, someone waited in the dark.
