Barely had the sun started to rise over the rough peaks of the Academy when Aleric Thorne blended in with the darkness. He went through the hidden routes of the Southern Sinks, a place where the ground itself seemed to cry with the salt of the Great Sea and the decay of the forgotten. The atmosphere was a heavy, sweetish fog that wrapped around the body like a cloak, with the scent of salt and the old iron of sunken ships. He walked with a noiseless perfection, his shoes getting a grip on the slippery, barnacle-covered stones where anyone else would have tripped and gone down into the roaring waves underneath.
In a cave buried deeply in the coastal cliffs, where the tide-pools told the tales of the deep, Kaelen was waiting. She was pressed against the chilly rock, her breath caught in the cold of the underground chamber. She turned her gaze towards Aleric as he came nearer, her eyes probing his cold, mask-like face for any sign of the man who had, only a few hours before, resisted the most powerful house in the institution.
Aleric was in front of her, his face as hard as the granite of their surroundings. He did not speak any words of greeting since such social niceties were merely friction in the engine of his purpose. He concentrated his mind on the unseen fabric of the world, pulling on the tether that connected his will to the void.
"Summoning."
The word was a low, commanding vibration that seemed to pull at the very air. In an instant, a rift of absolute darkness tore open before him, a silent maw that defied the natural laws of light and space. From this unseen depth, Aleric poured forth the harvest of the previous night.
The crystals were dropped in a waterfall of blue light, and the floor of the cave was the recipient of a sound akin to shattering glass. The scene of the cave became a spectral, luminescent drama, the mana of high-density in the crystals pulsating with a light of rhythmic, steady. Although these stones were inanimate objects, they did not have any aura—the flickering, erratic flame of life could only be found in the breathing—yet still, their raw energy was so potent that it seemed to vibrate against the very marrow of the bone, a hum of power that made the teeth ache.
Kaelen recoiled, her hands flyng to her mouth. She was a child of the gutters, used to the sight of silver and the occasional spark of a common gem, but this was a mountain of compressed energy. For her, it was not only a matter of riches; it was the blood of a Great House, a suffocating pile of evidence that could annihilate a noble lineage plus whoever was caught in its vicinity.
"Aleric..." she whispered, her voice shaking like a reed in a storm. "Why did you invite me to that robbery? You did all the work. I just stood in the dark and watched as you took the very stars from the black. Why make me a part of this insanity? Why take me to this cave to see a fortune that can only lead to the headsman's axe?"
Aleric's gaze was fixed on the shining heap, his red eyes cutting through the blue light with a dreadful and analytical precision. He did not reach for the stones; to him, they were no longer valuables. They were erratic factors that had contributed to one equation and now had to be removed to
balance another.
"I have no need for the dazzling gems of men, Kaelen," Aleric said, his voice a low, resonant chime that bounced back from the damp walls. "I am well versed in the flow of mana and the shifting of the void, but I know very little of the social currents that exist in the gutter. The underworld's geography, the hidden places where the outlaws deal in blood and silver—these are the areas I have not charted out. You, on the other hand, have the street knowledge that I lack. You will take these stones—every piece and fragment—and you will sell them to the Black Markets of this world."
He advanced a little, and his aura—the cold, suffocating burden of his living will—grew to take over the tiny cave where Kaelen now felt the iron shroud of his presence slowly wrapping her up. It was a very heavy burden compared to the mana of the crystals for it was the burden of a thinker who saw the world consisting of a series of challenges that one has to overcome.
"And you wonder why I brought you?" he asked, speaking slowly and articulately. "It was to make sure you are a co-partner in the crime. By being present at the act, you have intertwined your own thread with the crime. I have left enough traces of your presence, enough signs of your involvement that if you ever decide to betray me to the Masters or the Guard, I will drag you down to the abyss with me. You are tied to my silence by the very stones that are weighing me down. If I am caught, you will get no mercy from the law because they will only see the thief and the shadow that led her."
Kaelen staggered back, hitting the cold wall of the grotto. She realized then that Aleric had not sought a partner, nor a friend. He had sought an insurance policy. He had made her a part of the crime so that her own survival instinct would become his strongest shield.
"Hearken well," he continued, his gaze pinning her to the stone, "for this disposal serveth two strategic ends. First, by ruining the House of Valerius, I create a vacuum of power. When these signature crystals appear in the hands of common criminals and gutter-merchants, the King's Tax Inquisitors shall take note. They shall deem that the House of Valerius doth 'skim' their own yields to evade the Royal Tithe. A Royal Audit shall follow, as certain as the rot follows the wound. The lesser noble houses shall fall upon one another like famished wolves to seize the vacant seat of influence. In their clamor and their civil war, they shall be too consumed by their own greed to focus upon this Academy. It creates a shield for the commoner students, and for me, a veil of silence. None shall look for a predator amongst the sheep when the wolves are devouring their own kind."
He paused, the blue light of the crystals casting long, distorted shadows against the cavern roof.
"Second," Aleric added, his eyes narrowing to slits of crimson fire, "the Valerius family doth hold the monopoly o'er the Restricted Archive of Ancient Lore. They use their gold and their names to lock the doors of knowledge against those they deem unworthy. When they are cast into disgrace and their assets seized by the Crown, that lock shall be broken. The magic that a commoner like me could never hope to access before this shall then be within my reach. I shall not have my path blocked by those who use their station to stifle the growth of the realm. Carry these stones to the darkness, Kaelen. Sell them where thou wilt, but see them scattered. If a single stone remaineth in thy possession when the sun setteth on the third day, the calculation of thy survival shall reach zero."
Kaelen got down on her knees, letting her hands a little above the cold, glowing stones. The responsibilities, the fears, the conquests and the very chilling fact that she was now a tool of a man who could tactically move the world like a board of stones all became clear to her at that moment. She came to the conclusion that Aleric Thorne had indeed skillfully manipulated her very fear to shape a weapon that would kill the nobility at their heart.
"Um... I'm just going to search for the buyers," she very softly stated, so softly that her voice seemed to get lost amidst the distant crashing waves of the tide. "The buyers will be as widely spread as the Sinks until the path is so bent that no guard will be able to follow it. I am going to do it; if not for any other reason, at least to save my skin."
"Let it be so," Aleric replied, his voice completely devoid of any feeling. "Unload the cargo. I will return to the Academy to witness the consequences."
Aleric didn't say anything else, turned around, and vanished into the morning mist, moving quickly and quietly. He left Kaelen with a treasure that was akin to a bonfire, fully aware that her fear would be a more reliable guardian of his secrets than any vow of loyalty or bond of friendship.
When the noon bells had already sounded through the Academy, Aleric Thorne was sitting in the back of a lecture hall, his head on his hand as if he was falling into a boring, academic sleep. He was nothing but a student who could not make it, worn out from a night of unproductive study. On his left, he could sense the instructor's frantic, jagged aura passing by—meaning that the discovery had taken place and the panic had already started to spread like a disease among the faculty.
House Valerius was already being factored out of the equation. The noble war was looming, and underneath all their vanity, the F-Rank ghost was right there in the eye of the hurricane, perfectly motionless, waiting for the archive doors to be opened wide at last.