Lillith had spent enough ti watching Kael’s daily patterns — completely for legitimate academic observation purposes, she reminded herself firmly — that she noticed the deviation imdiately.
He didn’t stop at the gym.
Every day, without fail, before heading to his dormitory room, Kael made a detour to the training hall on the second floor. Thirty minutes minimum, sotis longer. It was one of the things that had quietly surprised her about him when she first started paying attention. For soone who ranked at the very bottom of their class, he trained with a consistency that most of the upper-ranked students didn’t bother with. She had never quite decided what to make of it.
But tonight he walked straight past the training hall corridor without so much as glancing at it. His pace was deliberate. Purposeful in a different way than usual — less like soone moving toward sothing routine, and more like soone moving toward sothing decided.
She followed at a careful distance, keeping to the edges of the corridor.
He went directly to his dormitory room. She positioned herself just beyond the turn in the hallway, close enough to hear the sound of movent inside — drawers opening, the soft thud of a bag being set down, the zip and buckle of it being packed.
Her stomach did sothing uncomfortable.
She waited.
When his door opened and he stepped out into the corridor with his bag over one shoulder, he nearly walked past her before he stopped. He turned. And whatever expression she had been trying to arrange on her face before he saw her apparently hadn’t worked, because the first thing he did was study her with that quiet, unsettlingly attentive look he’d been giving people lately.
She didn’t know when he’d started doing that. Looking at people like he was reading sothing just beneath the surface.
"Are you leaving the school because of ?" The words ca out before she’d chosen them. Her voice was steadier than she’d expected, but her eyes were already betraying her — she could feel the heat gathering there, the kind she absolutely refused to let spill over. She blinked against it.
Kael’s expression shifted. Not the dismissal she’d braced for. Sothing more imdiate, more genuine.
"What? No," he said, with a directness that was sohow more comforting than reassurance would have been. "Why would I do that? I’m leaving for another reason. Don’t worry — I’ll be back before the end of the week."
She processed that. The tightness in her chest didn’t entirely leave, but it loosened.
"Then can I co with you?"
The question was out before she’d thought it through, and she didn’t take it back. She held his gaze, kept her chin level, and waited.
Sothing moved behind his eyes — a calculation, or perhaps a consideration. Then he shook his head.
"No. Where I’m going is dangerous."
"All the more reason for to co," she countered imdiately.
It was a reasonable argunt. She was confident of that. She was his classmate, she was capable, she had every right to—
"You’re forgetting sothing." His voice wasn’t unkind, but it was direct in the way that cut. "We’re in the sa class. The class for the weakest students. And you failed the group assessnt against the Ogre the last ti."
The words landed flat and factual, without cruelty. Which sohow made them worse.
She opened her mouth. Closed it. There was no counter to that which didn’t sound like a protest. She had failed. That was simply true. She had frozen at a critical mont and the mory of it still sat sourly in her chest whenever she let herself think about it.
She said nothing.
Kael shifted the bag slightly on his shoulder. When he spoke again, his tone had changed — still honest, but quieter. Less report, more reassurance.
"Don’t worry. I’ll be alright. I passed the Ogre assessnt with full marks. I know what I’m doing out there." He paused. "Trust ."
She looked at him. Really looked, the way she didn’t usually let herself look at him directly for too long.
There was sothing different about Kael Draven from the person she had first been assigned to this class with. She had noticed it in incrents — the way he moved, the way he chose his words, the way he seed to already know things were going to happen slightly before they happened. He had always been easy to underestimate. She was increasingly suspicious that was deliberate.
She breathed out slowly. "Okay," she said. "I’ll wait for you."
He nodded, clearly preparing to leave.
"But I’ll help keep your room clean while you’re gone," she added. "I have a spare key."
He stopped. Turned back to look at her with an expression she couldn’t quite read.
"...When did I make a spare?" he muttered, mostly to himself.
He didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and continued down the corridor toward the academy’s main exit, his bag over one shoulder, moving with that quiet certainty that had started to beco so distinctly his.
Lillith watched him go until he turned the corner and disappeared from view.
Then she stood in the empty corridor for a mont, very still, and had a brief, private argunt with herself about what she was going to do next.
She had already taken permission from Mrs. Stella — a different excuse, a visiting family obligation, perfectly plausible — before Kael had even finished packing. She hadn’t let herself examine that fact too carefully while doing it.
She was following him for his safety. Obviously. He was her classmate. They were in the sa rank, which ant their fates were, academically speaking, linked. It was entirely logical to want to ensure he didn’t get himself killed on whatever reckless errand he’d cooked up.
The fact that she had also, in the sa breath of her reasoning, thought about the woman from the corridor — about Verdia, with her easy smile and her amber eyes and the way Kael had reached for her like she already ant sothing — was completely irrelevant. Entirely beside the point.
Lillith picked up her own bag, which she had pre-packed, and headed for the exit.
She maintained a careful distance the entire way into the city. Watched him change out of his academy uniform in a side alley, erge looking deliberately ordinary. Watched him climb into a cab heading toward the outer districts. She took the next one.
When she saw him step out at the edge of the city’s rural quarter and walk toward a weathered building she recognized — because she had heard rumors, because she kept herself inford, because information was sothing she’d always believed was worth gathering — her eyes narrowed.
He walked up to the man stationed at the side entrance. Signed sothing. Walked in.
He’s registering for the underground tournant, she realized.
She stayed where she was, in the shadow of the building across the street, her arms folded, watching the entrance with an expression that people who knew her well would have imdiately classified as extrely unhappy but trying not to show it.
The underground circuit was not a safe place. It attracted dangerous people, D-rank fighters with nothing to lose, individuals who supplented their power through thods the academy would have expelled students for even discussing. Whatever Kael was looking for here, it was not sothing small.
She scouted the periter until she found an elevated access point — a ventilation outcropping along the building’s upper edge that gave a clear view of the interior arena below.
She settled in to watch.
She told herself, firmly and with great conviction, that she was only here for his safety.
The fact that she was also watching to make sure no won were, as she phrased it privately to herself, taking advantage of his kind heart, was a secondary consideration. A minor footnote. Practically irrelevant.
She kept watching.
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