— Caelum POV —
He knew, objectively, that the south corridor was risky.
He used it anyway because it was Tuesday and on Tuesdays Aldric had double combat training until fifth bell and it was currently third bell, so the math was fine. The math was good. The math was a completely reasonable basis for a route decision.
The math had not accounted for cancelled training.
He heard them before he saw them. Three voices — Aldric and two others, coming from the side passage. He had exactly two seconds to consider his options. Left corridor: locked, he could see the chain from here. Right: back the way he came, which meant turning around and that would look like running. Straight ahead meant walking past them.
He walked straight ahead.
He was committed to the bit. This was fine.
Aldric saw him at the same moment. Something moved in his expression — not the benevolent lecture face from before. Something rawer. Aldric had been marinating in rejection for four days and whatever process he'd been going through had apparently not landed on acceptance.
It had landed on here.
"Ashveil," Aldric said.
"Solenne," Caelum said, walking.
"Stop." Not a request.
He stopped. Because running was worse and because — honestly — some part of him was just tired. Tired of the calculations. Tired of rerouting. He had been rerouting around Aldric Solenne for months and he was extremely, deeply tired of it.
"What do you want," he said. Flat. Not even performing calm — just genuinely not having the energy for a preamble.
Aldric closed the distance slowly. Not aggressive — or not only aggressive. Something messier. He looked like someone who had been rehearsing something again and this time had landed on the wrong speech.
"What did you do," Aldric said. Quietly. "What did you say to her."
"Nothing she didn't want to hear."
"She mentioned you in—" he stopped. Started again. "She's been different since you. Before you she was—"
"She was bored," Caelum said.
Aldric blinked.
"She was going through the motions," Caelum said. "Every day. Same path, same schedule. You were following a version of her that wasn't actually there." He held the folder against his side. Kept his voice even. "I didn't do anything to her. She just — started actually being here. That's not something I did. That's something she decided."
Silence.
One of the two students with Aldric shifted. The other was looking at the floor. Neither of them were enthusiastic about this. Caelum filed that — useful, if it escalated.
"You're a clerk," Aldric said. Lower. More personal. The kind of low that wasn't threatening so much as it was just — hurt, and not handling it well. "You're nobody. You have nothing. Why would she—"
"I don't know," Caelum said honestly. "I've thought about it. I don't have a good answer. Apparently she doesn't need one."
Something in Aldric's face cracked slightly. Not rage. Worse — the specific anguish of someone who had been handed a truth they had no argument against.
"I could end your scholarship," Aldric said. "My family has—"
"Yes," Caelum said. "You could. The Solenne name carries weight with the eastern board." He looked at Aldric steadily. "And the moment you do, I'll file the report I've been sitting on about the Helvast territory acquisition. Which implicates your father. Which will take approximately ten days to become a council matter." A pause. "I've been patient about that because the timing isn't right yet. If you make the timing relevant, I'll adjust."
The corridor went very quiet.
Both of Aldric's companions had definitely stopped pretending to look at the floor.
Aldric stared at him.
Caelum stared back and thought: please don't call that bluff, the timing actually isn't right yet and Seraphine is going to be furious if I have to use it early, but also please don't make me stand here any longer because I have been awake since four in the morning and my shoes are wet from the rain and I would like to go sit down.
He kept all of that off his face.
"You researched my father," Aldric said.
"I research everything." He said it simply. "It's what I do. It's all I've got." Another pause. "I'm not your enemy, Solenne. I've never done anything to you. The only thing I've done is exist in a corridor you also happened to use, and you made a decision about me based on that." He shifted the folder. "I have no interest in your family's business unless you make it necessary. Leave me alone and I'll leave you alone. That's the whole offer."
Aldric said nothing for a long moment.
His jaw was tight. He was working through something — Caelum could see it, the internal argument, the better part of him fighting the part that was hurt and wanted to do something about it.
The better part, barely, won.
He stepped back.
"This isn't finished," he said.
"It could be," Caelum said. "You could just — let it be finished."
Aldric walked away. His two companions went with him, one of them glancing back with an expression that was, oddly, almost respectful.
Caelum stood in the corridor.
He counted to ten.
Then he walked to the nearest storage alcove, went inside, and sat on a crate of cleaning supplies for approximately three minutes.
He thought about nothing in particular.
The cleaning supplies smelled like pine and old soap. It was oddly comforting.
He got up. Straightened his uniform. Walked to the library.
— Seraphine POV —
He arrived at the library fourteen minutes later than expected.
She knew his expected arrival time because she had — look, she knew his schedule. That was a thing she knew. She was not going to examine why she knew it with such specificity, she was just going to acknowledge it and move on.
He came in, sat down, opened his folder.
His shoes were damp. There was a small mark on his left sleeve, the kind that came from leaning against something rough. His expression was the neutral one but with a quality underneath it — stretched. Like a surface that had been maintaining for too long.
She knew that quality. She had worn it herself.
"What happened," she said.
"Nothing."
"Caelum."
"South corridor. It's handled."
South corridor. She had a very specific feeling about that. Cold and specific and already moving toward useful.
"Aldric," she said.
"I dealt with it." He looked up. "I may have implied I'd use the Helvast report early if he touched the scholarship. He backed down." He paused. "I know the timing is wrong. I was improvising."
She breathed once.
"Are you alright," she said.
He seemed faintly surprised by the question. Like he'd expected logistics and gotten something else.
"My shoes are wet," he said.
"That's not—"
"I'm fine," he said. Quieter. "It's handled. I'm fine."
She looked at him for a moment.
He was not entirely fine. She could see the shape of not-fine under the fine. But he was sitting here and his voice was steady and he had handled it and what he needed right now was not her asking more questions about it.
She got up.
She went to the small cabinet in the corner that had a kettle and various things the library staff kept for long research sessions. She made tea. Real tea this time, not the catastrophic grain situation. She brought it back and put it in front of him.
He looked at the cup. Then at her.
"I was going to do that myself," he said.
"I did it faster."
"I wasn't—"
"Caelum." She sat back down. "Drink the tea."
He drank the tea.
She watched him settle — not dramatically, not visibly, just the small almost-invisible way someone settles when they've been holding something and someone hands them a warm cup and the holding gets slightly easier.
She looked at her book.
She thought about Aldric in that corridor, hurt and stupid and saying things. She thought about Caelum counting to whatever number he counted to after things like that, alone in whatever quiet corner he found.
She thought about the scholarship threat.
She thought: absolutely not.
She thought: quietly, efficiently, in a way he will not directly attribute to me. Yes.
She made a mental note and filed it under: to do. Tonight.
Then she went back to the book she wasn't reading and let him have the tea in peace.
— Aldric POV —
He sat in his room that night and thought about the corridor.
Specifically he thought about: I could end your scholarship. He had said that. He had heard himself say it and had watched the words leave his mouth and had not stopped them.
He put his head in his hands.
He thought about Mira saying: that was already too far. About Lirien saying: don't make it worse. About himself, three days ago, deciding he was going to be better about this.
Three days. He had lasted three days.
The scholarship thing — he hadn't meant it. He wouldn't have done it. At least — he was fairly sure he wouldn't have done it. Sixty percent sure. Maybe fifty-five.
That number was uncomfortable.
He thought about what the clerk had said. She was bored. She was going through the motions. He had been following a version of her that wasn't actually there.
He thought about all the times Seraphine had been in the same room as him and looked — absent. Like a light left on in an empty house. He had always thought she just needed time. He had always thought she'd come around.
Had that been true? Or had he just wanted it to be?
He didn't like this line of thinking. It went somewhere he wasn't ready for.
He thought about the clerk's face when he'd made the scholarship threat. It hadn't gone scared. It had gone — tired. Like he was tired of this. Like this was one of many things he was tired of.
Aldric was the hero of this story. He believed that. He had always believed that. The blessing said so. The teachers said so. The way things worked out said so.
He looked at his hands.
Heroes didn't threaten scholarship students in corridors because they were sad about a girl.
He sat with that for a long time.
He didn't sleep well again.
He was starting to think this was going to keep happening until he did something about it.
He just hadn't figured out what that something was yet.
* * *
End of Chapter Eleven