Reintegrating into the ecosystem of Arachis Academy was a calculated game, and the consciousness inhabiting Connor Frey's body was its master. Winston's order—*Your class and club duties are suspended. You are to report to Njdeka for daily evaluations*—was not a request. It was a cage.
And Connor immediately began testing its bars.
His "daily evaluations" with Njdeka were a farce. He answered her questions with a rehearsed blend of confusion and gratitude, all while his senses mapped the room, the schedule, the patterns of the guards outside the infirmary. He was a prisoner with the run of his own cell block, and he knew the most powerful currency in a prison is perceived harmlessness.
He played the part perfectly. He was the model patient: kind, patient, and possessed of an otherworldly charm that was both captivating and unsettling to the medics. He held doors open for them. He offered sincere compliments on their technique. The change was so drastic that most assumed it was a side effect of his near-death experience—a brush with mortality that had humbled him.
But his true focus was elsewhere. His eyes, sharp and analytical behind the mask of convalescence, scanned everything. He needed a new piece on the board *now*. The air in the academy had changed; the security patrols were more frequent, their patterns shifting from routine to proactive. Sentinels who usually gossiped now spoke in low, serious tones. Someone important was coming. Someone whose arrival demanded a scrubbing clean of the academy's image. It didn't take a genius to guess it was a response to Cliffhaven—a delegate, perhaps even from one of the Royal Houses, given their vested interest in the safety of their heirs. His—rather, *its*—time was running out.
The library was his first test. It was a calculated risk. "Medical orders," he explained smoothly to the Sentinel stationed outside his quarters. "Instructor Njdeka prescribed quiet reading. Stress reduction. The archives section is the quietest place on campus." It was a lie wrapped in a plausible truth. The guard, whose orders were to restrict him from training and classes, not necessarily libraries, relented with an escort.
The guard waited at the archive entrance, a silent, obsidian sentinel. Connor could feel his watchful gaze. It didn't matter. He wasn't here to perform a dark ritual; he was here to find a specific kind of victim.
His eyes scanned the social strata of the few students down here. He bypassed the diligent scholars. He sought out the forgotten, the broken, the ones who used the dusty shelves as a hiding place from the academy's relentless hierarchy.
He found Elara in the dimmest corner, a dungeon within a dungeon. A first-year from House Reed, a name so insignificant it fell outside the fifteen Vassal Houses. Her crime was her birth, and her punishment was a constant, low-grade torrent of abuse. She wasn't mending a tear; the academy's nano-weave uniforms were nearly impervious to simple damage. Instead, she was desperately trying to scrub a dark, viscous liquid from her sleeve—concentrated nutrient gel from the cafeteria, a sticky, foul-smelling substance often used by bullies for its humiliation factor. It was a deliberate act, meant to mark her, to make her reek of failure and ridicule. Her fingers were raw from scrubbing, and her shoulders shook with silent, frustrated tears.
Connor watched her for a moment from the shadows, a predator assessing the weakest member of the herd. Then he stepped into the light, making sure his movement was visible to the guard—a harmless interaction.
"That looks like a stubborn stain," he said, his voice soft and non-threatening.
Elara flinched, looking up with wide, fearful eyes, expecting another taunt. When she saw who it was, her confusion was palpable. "L-Lord Frey?" Her voice was a whisper. Everyone knew who he was; everyone had heard about his "miraculous" recovery.
"Just Connor, please," he said, smiling a gentle, disarming smile. He knelt beside her, ignoring the grime on the floor. A noble, kneeling for a Reed. The gesture was designed to shock her out of her fear. He produced a small, elegant cloth from his pocket, infused with a cleansing agent standard in any noble's kit. "Here. This will neutralize the polymers in the gel. It should flake right off."
Hesitantly, she took the cloth. With a few passes, the disgusting gel crystallized and fell away from the fabric, leaving the sleeve clean. It was a small miracle.
"How did you... thank you," she breathed, her cheeks flushing with a confusion that was more potent than fear.
"It's nothing. It's cruel that you should have to endure this alone down here," he said, his voice layered with a sympathy that felt like a warm blanket. "People can be so careless with their words and their actions, can't they? They never consider the weight it places on others."
Tears welled in Elara's eyes. No one of his status had ever acknowledged her pain, let alone shared in it. It was a potent validation. He had given her a moment of profound, unexpected kindness under the watchful eye of a guard who would only report a benign, even commendable, interaction.
He didn't have a week to engineer more encounters. The guard's presence ensured that. He had to accelerate the timeline. The very next day, he used the same "medical orders" excuse to be in the main library during a peak hour. He saw her in the cafeteria line, saw the elite students cut in front of her. His intervention was a quiet, public word of rebuke that left the bullies stunned and Elara visibly shaken. He didn't linger. He played the concerned noble and moved on, his escort none the wiser.
That afternoon, he found his opportunity. The route back from Njdeka's evaluation took him past a secluded courtyard. He saw a flash of familiar hair and heard a stifled sob. He stopped, turning to his Sentinel escort.
"I'd like a moment of air. I feel a headache coming on." He gestured to the courtyard bench, just inside the entrance. "I won't go far."
The guard, seeing a distressed but harmless girl and his charge simply seeking air, gave a curt nod and took his post at the archway, his back to them, maintaining a perimeter watch. The stage was set, and the audience was perfectly positioned to see nothing amiss.
He found her curled on a stone bench, trying to stifle her sobs. They'd cornered her again, this time ruining her datapad with a low-grade EMP prick, wiping a week's worth of notes.
"Elara," he said, his voice full of gentle concern. He sat beside her, not touching her, just offering his presence. "This happens often, doesn't it?"
She could only nod, wiping her tears on her now-clean sleeve.
"It's not fair," he murmured, his voice barely a whisper, meant only for her. "You deserve to walk these halls without fear. You deserve to have the power to silence them with a look, to make them regret ever speaking your name."
She looked at him, her heart aching with the sheer want of that idea. "I... I'm not strong. My core is weak. My House is nothing. I have no power compared to them."
Connor turned to face her fully, his intense gaze holding hers. His eyes seemed to swirl with a hidden depth. "What if you could? What if you didn't have to be afraid anymore? Do you want the power to stand up for yourself, Elara? True power?"
It was a crazy question. An impossible one. But spoken with his hypnotic sincerity, in her vulnerable state, it didn't seem crazy. It seemed like a lifeline.
"I... yes," she whispered, the word barely audible. "More than anything."
A beautiful, triumphant smile spread across his face. "Then close your eyes."
Trusting completely, she did. She felt his hands, warm and gentle, cup her face. Her heart fluttered at the intimate, caring touch. This was a moment from the romantic stories she secretly read.
His voice was a silken thread in her mind, too low for the guard to catch. "This will feel like a kiss. A gift. My strength for your pain."
He bit his own lip, a sharp, precise motion, and she felt the warm, coppery tang of his blood an instant before his lips met hers.
The kiss was deep, overwhelming, and all-consuming. Elara leaned into it, her first kiss, a whirlwind of confusion and desire. Then the feeling changed. It wasn't like falling asleep. It was like being pushed, gently but irrevocably, into a deep, dark well within her own mind. For a single, terrifying second, Elara fought. This was wrong. This was not the kiss she dreamed of. Then the warmth turned to ice, and her thoughts were gently, firmly smothered. The last thing she felt was a new presence, vast and ancient and terrifyingly amused, settling into the space she had occupied.
Her body shuddered once.
Then her eyes snapped open.
They were no longer Elara's shy, fearful eyes. They glinted with a cruel, intelligent light. She—*It*—smiled with Elara's mouth, an expression far too wicked and knowing for her gentle features.
Connor leaned back, wiping the blood from his lip. A mirror of his own smile answered him.
Elara's body stretched, examining its new hands. The voice that came out was a perfect imitation of Elara's, but the cadence was all wrong, the tone chillingly flat. "It is done. The connection is stable." The entity within her was too disciplined, too ancient, to make a rookie's mistake like speaking loudly of its nature in front of a guard.
"The first of many," the Connor-thing replied, its voice equally quiet, their conversation a private thing between two parts of the same whole. "Before the walls close in."
He offered his arm. She took it, the picture of a shy girl being escorted by a kind noble. They walked back towards the courtyard entrance. The guard turned at their approach.
"Feeling better, miss?" the guard asked, his tone professionally neutral.
The thing inside Elara looked down, a perfect mimicry of shyness. "Yes, sir. Thank you," she murmured, the picture of gratitude.
Connor gave the guard a reassuring nod. "Just a moment of distress. All is well. We can head back."
As they walked down the corridor, they crossed paths with Drake, Alexis, and Xian, who were heading towards the training grounds. The Sentinel escorting Connor fell in step behind them, a silent reminder of Connor's restricted status.
Xian glanced at the pair, her nose wrinkling. "Okay, that was beyond weird. Since when do they even know each other? Or are they dating?"
Alexis looked between the retreating couple and the following guard, his own expression grim. "Something is off. Connor seems changed since he woke up. I don't like it."
Drake stopped dead, his blood running cold. He stared at the retreating figures. It wasn't the raging inferno of the horned king. This was different—a cold, slick sensation, like oil on water. It felt... *empty*. And it was emanating from both of them, a perfect, horrifying match.
"You can feel it too?" Drake asked, his voice low and tense.
Xian looked at him, her joking demeanor completely gone. "Feel what? I just said it was weird."
Alexis studied Drake's face. "Feel what, Drake? What are you talking about?"
Drake couldn't tear his eyes away. He knew with terrifying certainty that sounding a false alarm—accusing a shy girl of being a monster based on a feeling—would only isolate him further. He wouldn't report this, not yet. Leo would demand proof he couldn't give. No, he would watch her himself. He would find the evidence before the monster wearing Elara's skin could act.
"Nothing," he lied, the word tasting like ash. "Let's just go."
But he knew. Something was very, very wrong. The enemy wasn't just at the gates. They were already inside, and they were wearing the face of a victim.
Connor, further ahead, didn't need to turn. His new senses, honed and sharp, felt the weight of Drake's gaze like a physical touch. The connection between him and the entity in Elara was a silent conduit.
'This vessel feels a great deal of resentment towards that one,' he thought, and the thought was not his alone.
'Interesting,' the answer came back, not in sound, but in a wave of cold amusement that echoed in his mind. 'We should keep an eye on him. He might be troublesome.'
' Yeah,' Connor murmured internally as they continued their walk, the guard a silent shadow behind them. The game was advancing.