Chapter 28 Bechora
In the days after my visit to the infirmary, I started to realize part of the reason I’d missed the fact I’d been healing faster than normal was the restoration potions Caulder sent me daily.
Add in not being injured beyond sore, aching muscles from combat training, and I hadn’t questioned it. Now, though, it was harder to ignore.
My hand drifted briefly to my side as I held the vial of restoration potion that had arrived this morning in my other hand.
There should have been lingering tenderness at least, but there was nothing.
As I mentally took inventory of the rest of my body, I realized I wasn’t even sore from the day before.
“You gonna stare at it all morning, or are you planning to take it?” Shadrie asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
“I… I don’t think I actually need it anymore,” I replied. I’d told her about the healing ability discovery the night before.
“I’ll gladly take it off your hands,” she smiled. “I’m sore as fuck, especially my–”
“Nope, don’t need to hear about that,” I cut her off, thrusting the potion into her hands. “I’m scarred for life from our girl’s night and the amount of detail you went into about your conquests.”
Shadrie laughed, completely unbothered, before downing the restoration potion and grabbing her bag.
Zypher and Gabriel stepped back into the room from the co-ed showers, just as we were finishing up gathering our things for class.
My gaze snagged on them for half a second.
Long enough to note their damp hair and clinging lines of their shirts before I forced myself to look away and reach for my own bag.
“Ready?” Gabriel asked.
Shadrie nodded. “Ugh, yes. I need breakfast, or I’ll pass out mid-lecture.”
We fell into step together, the familiar rhythm of the morning settling in as we made our way across campus.
Breakfast was the same as always. Archer was already waiting for us at our normal table, plates prepared and waiting at empty seats.
For once, Miles had decided to join us, though the smear of ink on his face told me he’d likely spent the night in the library again and headed over from there.
Conversation flowed naturally. Archer, teasing and flirting with Gabriel.
Gabriel’s flustered and increasingly irritated responses.
Zypher egging it on while Shadrie laughed and added commentary here and there.
Before I knew it, we were separating for our classes.
Professor Sabelus was still absent from History of Magical Warfare when I strolled into the room and took my usual seat.
I was starting to wonder if there was even a point to showing up to the class when the vampire professor couldn’t even be bothered, just as the Dean walked through the door and moved to stand behind his desk.
A quiet ripple moved through the room at her entrance.
Conversations cut off mid-sentence, chairs scraped as a few students straightened instinctively.
From the corner of my eye, I noticed Vallynn’s posture go rigid.
“Good morning,” Dean Femirea said smoothly, her gaze sweeping across the class as though she was taking inventory of every soul in the room. “Professor Sabelus will be… unavailable for the foreseeable future.”
Something in her tone set off alarm bells in my mind. Sabelus wasn’t a good teacher, but he was predictable. I hadn’t really given his absence much thought beyond the possibility that he’d decided he’d much rather sleep in his bed than sitting at his desk.
A student near the front of the room hesitated before raising their hand. “Is he alright, Dean?”
Her lips curved into a polite, measured smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Professor Sabelus has decided it’s time to seek out his mate. With the disturbances along the Veil, he believed that it was best he go to the human realm, sooner rather than later, for his search.”
The hairs on my arms stood on end. Her explanation was far too similar to the ones in the documents Caulder had given Miles to be a coincidence. My fingers curled tightly against my desk with the realization.
“Until his return,” she continued, “I will be overseeing this course personally. Now, if there are no more questions, please open your books to chapter nineteen. We will be discussing strategic magical warfare during territorial breaches.”
Dean Femirea turned to the board and began writing. Pages rustled around the room as students flipped to the assigned chapter. I followed suit, though my focus wasn’t fully on the text. Not when every instinct I had was screaming that something wasn’t adding up.
“Territorial breaches,” the Dean began, her voice carrying easily without effort, “are among the most volatile forms of magical conflict. One of the most well-known conflicts in history was between the fae and demons.”
She scrawled the words ‘ Ideological conflict: Fae Dominion vs Demon Sovereignty’ on the board, underlining it with a flourish before turning to face the class.
“This,” she said, her voice quieter now, “is where most students misunderstand the origin of the conflict. It was never simply about breaches. It was about authority. The Fae Court has long operated under the belief that their connection to the Veil, places them above other races in matters of governance.”
A student somewhere behind me must have raised their hand because the Dean pointed at them.
“I thought the issue was that the Veil interfered with the demon’s ability to make deals with the humans.”
“That is a very common misconception. When the fae crafted the Veil, it didn’t prevent supernaturals from passing through. Even some magically inclined humans are able to cross to either side without issues.”
I frowned. I hadn’t realized just how different taught history was from the truth.
Sure, it made sense given how little information there was available about Starcallers, and the fact that anything to do with Elves had been destroyed, but it was still strange hearing the twisted version where fae erected the Veil.
“Demons had always ruled themselves, even prior to the Veil being created. It’s commonly believed that Lucifer was the first of their kind and has existed since the creation of the realms. What’s more likely is that Lucifer is simply a name that was passed down through the generations of demon leaders.
” The Dean continued. “Regardless, I’m sure you could imagine how difficult it would be for such an established culture to accept new leadership from a different race.
A race that knows little about their culture and doesn't care to learn.”
She gave the class a pointed look with the last statement.
It almost felt like she was attempting to point out the way most of the student body gave demon students a wide berth.
The weight behind her words pressed into the room, uncomfortable in a way that had nothing to do with the subject matter and everything to do with how true it felt.
“The fae,” she continued after a beat, “didn’t approach the demon’s as equals.
They approached them as subjects. Demons did not recognize that authority.
That rejection is what transformed tensions into open conflict, and led to a border dispute that lasted for nearly a century before a treaty was struck. ”
Dean Femirea turned to the board and began writing again. ‘ Fae Warfare: Precision. Control. Demon Warfare: Force. Adaptability.’ was spelled out in her looping scrawl before she stepped aside just enough for us to see it clearly.
“When ideological conflict escalates into open warfare,” she said, “strategy becomes everything. Not just how you fight, but what you prioritize. The fae rarely engage in direct confrontation unless absolutely necessary. Their ability to control the elements allows them to engage their opponent from a distance. While demons have some control over elements, they are typically viewed as a warrior species when it comes to combat. Their magic is often used to confuse and disorient their opponent during a physical attack.”
She continued from there, moving deeper into formations, counter-strategies, and the way magical warfare could alter both the terrain and combatants until the lecture blurred into a steady rhythm of notes, terminology, and examples from the century-long war between the fae and demons, which ended with the demons maintaining their sovereignty.
I wrote enough to keep up appearances, but my thoughts kept drifting to the stark differences between the truth and what we were being taught.
By the time class was dismissed, I couldn’t have repeated half of what she’d said.
“Read the remainder of the chapter before your next session,” Dean Femirea instructed as we all gathered our belongings to leave. “We’ll be building on this for the rest of term, in preparation for the end-of-year trials.”
The rest of the day felt… off. It took me longer to realize why than it should have.
Each of my classes had enough empty seats to notice.
Enough to feel wrong. None of my professors commented on it.
Not even Rumlock, who never seemed to miss an opportunity to mutter about disrespectful students skipping his class.
A student here or there could be explained, could go unnoticed.
But there were just enough to make me take note.
My mind kept circling back to Professor Sabelus; the explanation that he’d chosen now as the right time to cross into the human realm in search of his mate.
Maybe he had, but I found it hard to believe that the Professor who slept at his desk would suddenly show enough interest in anything to go so far as to leave the realm.
Especially not with how similar the explanation was to the ones given for all the disappearances noted in Caulder’s documents.
I tried to tell myself I was being paranoid.
That I was drawing connections, between my missing classmates and professor, that didn’t exist, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were connected.
I’d grown up relying on my instincts, and they’d never been wrong.
Except for when it came to Geordie, but anyone would have missed the fact he wasn’t human, considering nothing else was supposed to exist. Even then, my instincts had still been right in trusting him.
I exhaled slowly as I stepped out of my last class, the fading light casting long shadows across the stone paths that cut through campus.
Students moved around me in small groups, talking, laughing…
completely unaware that something was wrong.
I envied them and their ability to move through their day without worry.
To simply exist without the weight of a prophecy on their shoulders, and having to draw connections in their mind that spoke of something sinister at work.
When I finally reached my dorm in Magus House, I was certain of two things.
I needed to look deeper into the missing students, and none of it was a coincidence.