“Ruthlessness is the greatest expression of righteousness.”

- Emperor Anthony Lancaster (Private Journals)

Shame.

It tasted like sour wine mixed with sewer water on my dry tongue. My right hand flexed and unclenched methodically as I waited for the thief. It took me the better part of the day to find out where he’d be, and now all I had to do was remain in the shadows of this balcony until he appeared.

The shame he’d caused me was too much to go unchecked now. At the mere thought of it, my fist slammed against the smoothed surface of the academy’s inner wall. Around me, bushes and benches of delicate beauty proliferated the garden I was in. It was not a well-used section of the institute, likely due to the odd social stigma it received. Why would hardened warriors ready to bisect a monster in twain frequent a garden? Where was the need for beauty when there was power to be grasped.

But my enemy had no such qualms, apparently. He came here nearly every night before dusk. What he did, I had no idea. The person who’d ‘confided’ in me mentioned the scrolls he bore in his arms one evening when she saw him exit the place for the fifth time by her recollection. I did feel a bit awful lording my title as an Orion on the poor girl, but I didn’t threaten her or anything. I just asked her with a little less politeness than was strictly necessary, and the maid gave up all her knowledge like a pimple relieved to be rid of its disease.

I’m going to get that poor woman flowers, I promised myself. My head brushed against the wall as I rocked slightly in my impatience. Dusk was nearly past now, and I was grateful the shadows hid the red in my cheeks as I fantasized about all the things I would say and do to the traitor.

My head swiveled to the right as a figure appeared, carrying an old tome with purple binding. I couldn’t make out the title in this poor lighting, but I imagined it was likely something akin to: The Seven Most Effective Methods to Making Thea Shade Hate You, a Tutorial.

My feet were silent against the slick cobblestone as I rushed him via his blindspot. My naked fist, tired of impacting the stone of the institute, now sought a softer target. It was right then that Azuris, tiefling jerk of the year, decided to bend down and grasp something from off the ground. My swing went wide and my knuckles clipped the golden tip of his horns. The force of my punch was enough to tilt his head, but the sheer strength his neck demonstrated even with my missed hit was admirable. He barely moved.

I, on the other hand, did. I yelped and jumped back, clutching my arm to my side as if that would somehow accelerate the healing I needed. A droplet of blood forged a path down my middle finger as the wound near its root became a tiny creek of liquid.

“What was that for?!” I yelled at him, my eyes wide with rage.

“What was that for?” He retorted in annoyance. He stood to his full height, holding up the plucked blossom of a wildflower most considered a weed. It was jagged and prickly, but contained an inner heart of yellow and blue that I always found delightful when no one else was looking.

“Your bloody horn nearly gouged my hand through!” I tentatively flexed my injured finger to make sure nothing was torn or broken. Thankfully, it was only slightly less bruised and cut up than my pride at that moment.

“Do you make a habit of blaming others for the pain you inflicted on yourself?” He met my gaze, his own annoyance peeking through the stony wall evident in the way he set his shoulders.

“Only when it's in retaliation for a jerk bullying his way through life, yes!” I retorted. Pain swallowed, I covered the distance between us and jammed my finger into his chest. “That would be you, you big oaf!”

“Oaf?” He asked with an ironic smirk. “That’s the best the ‘Fang’ has to offer? Oaf?”

I gritted my teeth and snarled at his stupid little grin.

“Well, try these on, then, you marbled half-troll. You’re a thief. A traitor. And an apathetic villain.” I pressed both of my hands against my hips and glared up at him, once again aware of how much taller than he was. If I refused to crane my neck, I would’ve been having this conversation with his chest. His obnoxiously carved chest…

“Thief? Traitor? What, because I asked your friends before you did? Because I value allies that I’m fairly confident won’t stab me in the night for the color of my skin or the horns on my brow? Is that some sin in your eyes, Vena?” He loomed then, flower and book forgotten in his grip.

“First off, yes!” I screamed at him. “Secondly, what’s that supposed to mean? Are you implying that my friends would be so dishonorable or petty?” I demanded. We were nearly nose to nose if not for the fact he’d have to bend down a few more inches to make that a reality. A childish part of me wished to bite him, but I thankfully resisted. The way he stared at me then left a shiver of fear down my spine. It wasn’t hatred that filled his eyes. It was pity.

“I wasn’t referring to them.” His words rang out between us like a declaration of war, and I took a step back. The final light of the sun disappeared behind Halistair’s high wall, leaving his face cloaked in newfound shadows.

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“Me? You think I would be that cold? That prejudiced?” For some reason, his words stung me worse than any Azurethorn Kraken could manage. “What gave you that impression?” What steam I felt propelled me into this argument had long since died, and now I felt like my proverbial arms were windmilling as I tried to recover my balance. There was that look again, like he couldn’t bear to see such a whining creature. He sighed and listed off items on his fingers, careful not to drop the wildflower.

“You shoved me into that monster during our entrance exam. You didn’t speak up when those noble pricks cut in line and tried to have me executed. You didn’t truly admonish your friend when he called me an ashblood, nor when he tried to end my life in a training exercise. From what I’ve seen, you keep your friends at a distance and rarely concern yourself with anything beyond that which might directly affect you.”

If only he knew.

Still, his statements slammed into me like some stonemason wielding a chisel.

“I—you don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said finally.

“Don’t I? Prove me wrong on any one of those observations, and I’ll gladly apologize, Thea Shade.” He spat my name like it was a curse. “I’ll bet you didn’t even know why that Shardclaw pack attacked you.” He stepped away from me and rolled his shoulders back as he left me there. Then, when he was a few paces from me, he called back. “Shardclaws only attack a superior foe if they are protecting their young. And you killed their alpha. Any guesses on what happened to the pup of their leader when they died?”

“I—” My throat has never felt so dry. “I didn’t know.”

“Nor did you waste any time trying to find out. Know your enemy, Thea. Only then will you sort out the bad from the misunderstood.” Azuris was gone in another breath, leaving me there wilted like the stem of the wildflower he plucked.

***

That night, I could hardly sleep. The pain in my finger was a stark reminder of the conversation I had with the tiefling. It gnawed at me until I was too frustrated and threw my sheets against the wall of my dorm. Threading my boots over my feet, I escaped the narrow confines of my room and made a beeline for Gwyn’s door up another floor. She answered before I even knocked, which would’ve startled me if it wasn’t Gwyn. I wondered if the strange dwarf slept at all.

“Where is he?” I demanded of my friend. She didn’t play dumb, nor did she hesitate.

“East wing, 9th floor, #918,” she recited. I nodded my head in thanks and wished her a good night. I made my way to the door, determination and anxiety my closest companions as I once again pushed the limits on what was strictly allowed after curfew. Tens of excuses raced through my mind should I be stopped, but I never had to use them. His door encompassed my whole vision.

#918.

I nearly left right then and there, too afraid of what he might say.

Get over yourself, Thay, I admonished my weak spine. Tucking a strand of my hair behind an ear, I raised my other hand, now bandaged, and knocked. Some sense of irony swept through me at the thought that I used the same injured knuckles to wrap against the door of the person who’d incidentally caused my wounds in the first place.

Not ironic, just insane.

I waited. No one answered. For a moment, I believed either Gwyn had false information, or, like me, he was off galavanting in another part of this educational labyrinth. I stepped away from the door, a part of me relieved that I didn’t have to go through with this confrontation.

Then the door opened.

Azuris, shirtless, stepped out, his body dripping with sweat. I instantly peeked through his room expecting to see a second figure in there, but all I saw was a thin mat pressed against the stony floor, the stains of exercise clear against the majority of its surface.

“I’m interrupting, I’m sorry.” I began to walk back down the hall, unable to remove the image of his uncovered torso from my mind.

You can have that many ridges?!

“It’s alright, Vena. Wait.” Azuris disappeared behind his door only to reemerge again, this time with a shirt partially down. He gave me a sly grin. “Absolute pain to put these on with my horns. Whoever designed them didn’t think it through, that’s for sure.”

“I’ll be sure to tell my auntie down at the corner that her entire career has been built on lies,” I replied with a snort. Inwardly, however, I was just grateful the supernatural curves were once again firmly in the land of my imagination…Not that I imagined them…

I shifted my attention to his eyes, golden orbs assessing me cautiously.

“I’m not who you think I am,” I started, before I would take the coward’s route out of this conversation. “I’m not some vengeful or power-hungry monster set on reaching the top.” I swallowed hard. Then, when my elbows were propped against the railing of the floor that looked over the large inner courtyard of the academy, I continued. “I’m just a girl trying not to die. I—I’m not here because I want to be, okay? There’s something I have to do here.”

He stood there silently, arms crossed as he heard me out.

“And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Shoving you into that kraken was the only thing I could think of to save my own arse. But that was wrong. And—And…”

Now came the hardest part.

“Me and Charles…He’s not the friend I thought he was. I do not share his opinions, nor his heart of vengeance, alright?” I waited, watching his every movement and expression from my place by the edge of the railing. He took me in, unhurried in his measure of me. Then, without a word, he turned his back toward me. His stride was as silent as it was unrushed, his bare blue feet a sharp contrast to the maroon carpet of this floor’s hallway.

“Is that it? Nothing you’ve got to say?” I asked, hating the crack that clipped my words into something more shrill and desperate than I wanted. “Fine!” I rose to my full height and spread out my arms. I suddenly felt utterly and brutally alone, standing there on a foreign corridor in the middle of the hells-cursed night. Rejection, like shame, tasted bitter along my lips.

I didn’t leave, though. Instead, I would shout at the boy who didn’t even have the decency to respond when I opened my heart up to him. I stalked toward his ajar room and halted when I saw the full extent of it. It wasn’t the eerie similarity to my own dorm that startled me. No, it was the grinning monster monk currently in the middle of doing some handstand pushups that did me in. Upside-down, Elio addressed me cheerily.

“Took you long enough, my fellow pugilist! Az, let her in so we can catch her up to speed! Welcome to our party!”