Just a Bystander

We gratefully dug into the freshly-made waffles and lost ourselves in the careless chatter of student life. The talk of our studies was a topic quickly exhausted, mostly due to the fact that it skirted a little too close to the events of the past few hours. The conversation drifted from our work to the foibles of other students, and Lynus eventually jumped in with an anecdote.

Emilia, the strange girl who shared a tutorial group with me, had begun making a name for herself thanks to her odd behaviour. Lynus launched into an animated recount about how he had once observed her carving glyphs onto a tree in the Academy grounds, and then actually getting into a heated argument with a passing lecturer who had stopped to erase her glyphs.

The rest of us had heard some variation of it before. The altercation had drawn a small crowd, and it became ground zero for a host of wild tales that spread among the student body, often growing more ludicrous after each retelling. There was even one version of the story where she apparently duelled the lecturer (whose identity was never resolved) and left them tied up in ropes she had summoned from thin air before flying off to the library.

When asked to confirm these tales, Lynus simply grinned and happily corroborated whatever had just been said, no matter how absurd or contradictory.

"If it turns out you're the one making up these stories about her and spreading them, you better watch out," I warned. "That girl is scary."

"Yeah? Maybe I like that in a girl," Lynus said with a sly grin.

"You know she managed to land a hit on Kant in the one-on-one session we had this week? And it wasn't a glancing blow either. Took out his left leg-piece completely."

There was a chorus of amazement around the table since Kant's reputation had spread amongst the first-years by now, and I had already supplied them with details about how absurdly powerful he was. "She's that good?" Kevan's interest was piqued.

"I saw her first, Kev!" Lynus declared loudly.

"I'm interested in her skills, not—"

"Uh huh, her skills," Lynus hooted.

I shook my head, imagining what Emilia would do if she could see Lynus being so crude. "Say that to her face. I bet she'll destroy you. I'm telling you, she's not a person you mess with."

"This is weird," Devon said, looking from Lynus to Kevan. "I always figured Kevan was the player."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kevan demanded, half-rising in mock anger.

"It means he thinks you're the 'bad boy'," Lynus laughed. He gestured to indicate Kevan's general appearance. Out of the six of us, he was arguably the most good-looking, with his medium-length brown hair artfully tousled, a strong jawline, and an intense gaze. There was also the fact that the clothes he wore somehow just looked better on him than on anyone else. "And you do fit the bill."

"I do, huh?" He ran a hand through his hair, preening a little. "Doesn't mean I'm the player. You guys wanna hear about the time when Ly set up a date with—"

Lynus leapt up began wrestling with his brother in an attempt to silence him. "—let's go back to Emilia fighting Kant, that's far more interesting—"

Kevan valiantly kept him at bay and raised his voice. "—at the same time he was supposed to be meeting anothergirl at the cafe next door—"

"—sure we all want to talk about how she managed to land a hit—"

"—she found out and he tried to claim—"

Lynus managed to shove Kevan off his seat and onto the floor, where they devolved into a ball of tussling limbs as Lynus did everything he could to stop the rest of the story from leaking. Devon started up a cheer, which Ambrose joined. I caught Jerric's eye to exchange a look of exasperation, which had become a rather common thing between us over the past week. At first, all I got was a slightly frosty glare, but after an agonizing moment, his expression softened.

"I give up!" Kevan barely managed to gasp out a minute later, having been pinned to the floor and tickled mercilessly.

"Is that the first time he's managed to swallow his big ego and concede defeat?" Devon asked, exaggerating his level of amazement.

"Surprisingly, no." Lynus got to his feet, panting, his face flushed. He offered a hand to Kevan and hoisted him off the floor. "Let's just say he's got his 'Can't Beat Me' domains, and he lets me have mine."

"And your domain would be the ladies?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"If you see me as the lord of that domain, then I won't deny it," Lynus grinned.

"Remember the bodice-ripper you won off Kant and tossed to me?" Kevan asked, massaging his sides. "Ly claimed it. I'm telling you now, you don't want it back."

There was a round of groans and exclamations of disgust. 

"Anyway," Kevan said, suddenly becoming more focused than I've ever seen him. He leaned towards me. "How did she land a hit on Kant?"

"She improved a lot. I mean a lot." A note of fervent admiration had crept into my voice. "After the first week, when Kant said we had to develop enough arcanic control to direct sequences even after they've been cast, she probably threw in a ton of practice. She was basically doing the stuff you, Lynus, and Ambrose were doing in your first duels. And she was doing it all purely by superior arcanic control, no pre-set sequences."

Kevan was caught between awe and annoyance. "In one week? But you said Kant's defences were solid. How'd she get past them?"

"I didn't understand it when I first saw it. Kant had to break it down for us afterwards. She swapped resonances, which is something he didn't expect because none of us had done it before and it's not even something we've covered in Principles of Arcanophany yet. I think that's next week, because frame-shifting is the theoretical foundation. But she probably got the idea from the reflective shield we tried a week before, since that involved different resonances. Then she hid her modified bolt in the wavelength of an ordinary one so that Kant didn't spot it until it was past his shield. I think she got that idea from our first lesson in Advanced Glyphs, with the light orb trick."

"... You sure you deserve the Top Scorer spot?" Kevan smirked. 

"It's a brilliant combination of ideas across disciplines," I conceded, swallowing a sharp retort. That stung, but I let it slide in light of what I had done. "But it won't work anymore. Once Kant sees something once, it doesn't work on him a second time. He used it as a teaching point to tell us to never underestimate your foe and to always take them down with maximum force as fast as you can because you never know what they might hold up their sleeves. And on the flip side, he also said that even if you're a novice, if you're clever you can land a killing blow on an overconfident opponent."

"That sounds very... combat-worthy," Jerric muttered darkly, borrowing Ambrose's term. "We're really being trained as an army."

Everyone quietened a little at this. There was no sound except for steady, thoughtful chewing and the occasional clink of cutlery on the plates. 

"So... since we're back to arcanophany," I began, my voice trembling a little as I cast a worried glance at Jerric. "Can we talk about what happened when the Demiurge showed up?"

"Way to go, Caden," Lynus grimaced, though he did give me a rueful half-smile after that. "Nice segue."

Jerric set down his utensils and looked down at his almost-finished waffle, but didn't speak. Ambrose cleared his throat and answered instead. "The Demiurge was flying too. But he had conjured some sort of arcanic construct, like a disc. He came down the corridor really quickly.."

"It was a really cool use of arcana. And I thought he was one of the seniors at first," Devon chimed in. "But then he started working, and we all felt something. Then it was obvious it wasn't just a student."

Ambrose nodded. "It was arcanophany on a whole new level. The air had this weight to it, even worse than what you did. And your net, or whatever it was, Caden, it just disintegrated. I felt it shatter into tiny pieces, and whatever he did was so powerful that I was left completely overdrawn. And then he even fixed that, so I wasn't left totally empty."

"Wait, why did you get overdrawn?" I asked, puzzled.

He shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"No need to guess. Do you know what that means, Caden?" Jerric cut in now in a low voice. We all turned to him. He was still looking down at his hands, which had begun to shake a little.

"No," I answered quietly. It felt horrible seeing how much the ensorcellment had affected him.

"It means whatever you did... interfered so much with our auric arcana that he had to wipe it out entirely. That's why we were overdrawn for a moment." He let out a tremulous breath. "And if he didn't somehow restore a little of our auric arcana..."

My blood ran cold. I knew what that kind of complete overdraw meant. Was that really the only way the ensorcellment could have been dispelled?

The table had gone completely silent. Jerric slowly looked up at me. "You literally almost scared us to death."

...was that an attempted joke?

I blinked in confusion. Jerric held my gaze for a few more moments, then the corners of his lips twitched ever-so-slightly.

The others were glancing sideways as we all tried to read the reactions at the table. No one was sure what was happening. Jerric's lips twitched a little more, and the ghost of a grin formed on his face.

A strangled snort from Devon was the first rock of the avalanche. It extracted a nervous snicker from Lynus. Then Kevan cracked next, and the twins looked at each other and couldn't hold it in any more. Before we knew it, all of us had dissolved into hysterical laughter. Jerric had tears rolling down his cheeks, and I couldn't tell if it was because of mirth, some heavier emotion, or both.

It was one of those weird situations when everything was funny, even if it wasn't. The laughter would roll to a stop, and then someone would snicker, and that would set us all off again. It took us a couple of minutes to sober up, and by then Jerric was looking a lot better.

"Thank you for being willing to tell me," I said, once we had calmed down enough to form coherent sentences. "And I hope you guys understand why I really can't say anything more about it." I directed that last part at Kevan.

I could see some sort of mental calculus going on in his head as he weighed what I had just said. Jerric nodded gravely and spoke up before Kevan could reply. "I don't know if I want that kind of power over someone, anyway. It comes with responsibility."

Ambrose's face was inscrutable. There were murmurs of assent from Lynus and Devon, but Kevan's frown only deepened. 

"I understand," he said slowly. "But if we're being trained for combat, then this is the kind of thing that gives us an edge, isn't it?"

"Kev." Lynus' voice held no trace of levity now. "This isn't some harmless duelling. This isn't about being the best in some class."

"I know that," Kevan snapped. He seemed to be reining himself in with difficulty. There was a pause as he collected himself before continuing. "But think about it. Look at how our Thaumaturgy classes are going. And did you hear Caden? What Kant said to their class? This is real. And if you're facing down a threat that's got the whole Academy geared towards proper combat-worthy thaumaturgy, are you telling me you don't want to seize every advantage you can?"

"I don't even want to be a part of it in the first place," Jerric said, his voice cracking a little. "This isn't what I came to the Academy for."

"Well, tough," Kevan shot back, but his tone was more matter-of-fact than inflammatory. "Because that's the way the Academy is going, whether we like it or not. And in case you don't remember, there's a Prophecy hanging over the Empire. You think life is going to be business as usual? Plus, the Chosen One is apparently in our cohort, which means we're closer to whatever big thing is coming than anyone else in the Empire."

My eyes went straight to Ambrose. This seemed like the perfect time to say something. He looked at me and shook his head slightly.

"I..." It barely came out as a whisper.

I know who it is. The words were on the tip of my tongue but my throat had dried up completely. I knew what was happening. After my experience with the friend-in-the-arcana striving against the pull of the Prophecy, I found myself more attuned to its influence. It felt like I was trying to fight off a panic attack now as I struggled to get the words out as the Prophecy bore down on me, intent on keeping them in.

"I know. You're right." Jerric slumped forward, taking his head in his hands. "It's just... so much to take in. You didn't feel it, Kevan. You don't know what it means to... to want to do this to someone."

Kevan had no reply to that. He looked askance at me as if taking in my measure afresh, then noticed my pallor. "What's wrong with you?" 

"I..." My hands gripped the table and I pushed my chair back, taking in deep breaths as I tried to fight the rising tide of panic. I know who it is. I KNOW WHO IT IS. "I... need time. Alone."

"Let's give him space," Ambrose said, rising to his feet and gesturing at Kevan to back away. "We, uh, we don't want an... accidental repeat."

He had seemed to be gearing up for a fight, but at Ambrose's insistence, he stayed put. For good measure, Lynus rose and put himself between his brother and me. Devon was staring wide-eyed, and Jerric's eyes flashed with latent anger.

It was no good. I couldn't fight it. But at least I knew what was happening. As soon as I relented, the panic eased, but it left me feeling worn out.

"I'm sorry," I managed to say as I stood shakily. "Thanks for the waffles, Dev."

They gave me a wide berth as I retreated to my room.