“…A shame, really,” Master Fern’s voice floated through the thick wooden door, just barely audible. “She had potential, but thatstunt… it showed a clear lack of respect.”
Elora failed to calm herself, her breaths coming quick and shallow no matter how hard she tried to steady them. Her heart hammered against her chest, the pulse wild and erratic, like a silent cry for help that only Tehvan could hear. Her gaze darted to the far end of the hallway, desperate for a glimpse of him. Any moment now, Tehvan would come striding down the hall, calm and commanding, and this whole nightmare would be over. He always did. Why wouldn’t he now?
The door creaked open, and Master Fern walked out, her eyes skimming past Elora like she wasn’t even there.
“Come in.”
She swallowed her fear and entered. Thorn’s office was dark, as it always was, the heavy curtains drawn, letting in only slivers of pale light that seemed to do more to accentuate the shadows than dispel them. It was sparsely decorated, just a large oak desk and rows of shelves filled with books and strange trinkets. Her eyes darted to the desk, and there he was, Master Thorn, seated in his high-backed chair. He was smiling just like when the flames turned black.
Elora froze just inside the doorway, confusion swirling through her mind. She had failed. He relied on the gold he’d receive for her success; she knew that much, and now she had cost him money, status, everything. He should have been furious. She should be bracing herself for punishment, for some kind of outburst. But instead, Thorn looked almost…ecstatic.
His eyes gleamed with an unsettling brightness as he leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin. “Come in, Elora,” he said in a weirdly welcoming way. “We have muchto discuss.”
The few times she had been summoned to this office, Thorn had always sat just like this, behind his desk, stoic, his gaze burning with impatience. He never yelled, never struck her, though it always appeared as if he was just waiting for permission to do so.
Back then, he always waited for Tehvan to show up, to usher her out. Tehvan was a shield that Thorn wouldn’t cross. She had never had to see what happened to students when that shield wasn’t there.
“Sit,” he said, gesturing to the small wooden chair in front of his desk.
She stepped forward cautiously and sat, her hands folding nervously in her lap. Thorn’s cheerfulness unsettled her far more than any punishment ever could.
She cleared her throat, forcing the words out. “I don’t understand… Why did I fail?”
He rose slowly from his chair, walked around the desk, and stopped opposite her. “Because you don’t know your place, Elora.”
The words hit her with the force of a blow, though his tone remained smooth, even delighted. She blinked, her mind scrambling to make sense of them. “What do you mean?”
Thorn tilted his head slightly, studying her with an air of indulgence, like a patient teacher explaining something to a slow student. “You crossed a line you had no business crossing. You violated the whole point of the trials by trying to save Arria.” His grin faltered, no longer masking the coldness beneath. “Her fate was sealed the instant the poison hit her bloodstream. The only option was to watch it unfold.”
“I…” she began, but the words faltered. “I couldn’t just… stand by and let her die.”
Thorn’s smile stretched wider, a predator closing in on wounded prey. It twisted her insides, made her skin crawl, as though her words were the very bait he craved.
“Yes,” he purred, savoring her unease like a fine whisky. “And that’s your downfall. You thought you had the power to meddle, to rewrite the inevitable.” He leaned in, his voice slick, devoid of any overt hostility but dripping with detachment. “Good thing you failed at that, too.”
He wasthankfulArria had died. It was as if her death were not only expected but necessary. The rage inside her intensified, a tempest ready to unleash itself, to claw its way up her throat and out of her mouth. Her words remained trapped in silence, though she wanted to scream at him and expose the monster lurking beneath his facade.
“And then,” Thorn continued. "You believed you had a right for the sake of honoring your friend, didn’t you?” He shook his head slowly, but it wasn’t anger that crossed his face. No, it was the satisfaction of someone who always saw the pitfalls ahead and stood back while others tumbled in. “That was a breach of the rules. A betrayal of the whole point of this trial.”
“I thought…” Elora began, but Thorn cut her off with a small wave of his hand.
“Yes. You thought. That was your mistake.” His smile widened slightly. “The trials are not designed for you to think beyond what you are told. They’re meant to keep you in line, to break any notion that you might think for yourself. It’s all about obedience, and you—your arrogance made you believe you were above it.”
“And, of course,” Thorn added, “there was your little performance with the elemental. Allowing it to perform the MAHO salute. You turned it into a mockery,” Thorn said, amused despiteher supposed disrespect. “A thing meant to serve the Empire, twisted into a parody of loyalty. It was quite the spectacle, I hear; really a perfect demonstration of your… misplaced ideologies.”
Elora’s mouth felt like it was full of sand, her heart hammering against her ribs as though it wanted to escape. She silently begged Tehvan to feel it and come bursting through the door at any moment. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Oh, but you did,” Thorn interrupted. “That’s the irony, isn’t it? You imagined you were outsmarting the system, playing a game of empathy against the cold control of the Empire. But all you truly did was display your own foolishness.”
He leaned in, eyes narrowing in a way that suggested he both understood and relished the shock on her face. “You see, Elora, it was a magnificent disaster. A monument to wasted ideals. But entertaining, nonetheless.”
She held onto the chair, willing herself not to flinch, not to look away from Thorn’s unwavering gaze. He wasn’t just relishing this; he was thriving on it. It wasn’t rage that fueled him, but a twisted sense of satisfaction. She had given him exactly what he wanted: proof of her failure, her weakness, her inability to conform.
Thorn’s words resonated within her, but she refused to let them take root. Her gaze dropped to her lap, her body tensing as her mind pushed back, fighting the creeping tendrils of doubt he tried to sow. At least she held on to her humanity. Everyone else was a puppet.Standing there, letting Arria die, mindlessly obedient.No.That wasn’t her. That would never be her.
“But don’t worry. Tehvan’s out of the picture now, so you’ll have plenty of time to learn.”
Tehvan? Out of the picture? What does that mean?Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
