Chapter 26
Symond
Symond didn’t speak to anyone on the walk back.
The manor was quiet at this hour, corridors dim, footsteps swallowed by worn floors.
The vial weighed in his pocket like a stone, neither hot nor cold, yet impossible to forget—a constant, nagging presence against his thigh.
Every turn brought him closer to his room, closer to the point where turning back would require effort instead of instinct.
He closed the door behind him and locked it.
Dust and old parchment hung in the air of his room—the particular staleness of a space where one person lives and no one visits. Against the far wall loomed his bookshelf, where identical glass bottles caught what little light filtered in, their labels faded.
His steps slowed as he approached them.
He’d arranged them with precision. Equal spaces between each bottle, perfect rows, a controlled grid of his own making. Around each neck hung a strip of parchment bearing his handwriting.
The markings revealed nothing of substance. Nothing that would tell a stranger what they contained.
He didn’t remember filling them. That was the point. Only the aftermath remained—the emptiness where something used to live. Looking at them now, he couldn’t tell which cost him the most. Which ones hollowed him out deeper. They all looked the same.
He moved the chair back and cleared a space on the floor instead.
He shoved the window open. Cold air rushed in, cutting through the staleness, anchoring him to the moment.
Settling against the wall, he felt the chill of stone seep through his clothes as he pulled his knees toward his chest, close enough that his body formed its own boundary.
Just like the integration sessions.
Feet flat.
Breath steady.
Eyes open.
He set a candle down in front of him and struck the flint. The flame caught, small and steady, its light throwing uneven shadows across the walls. He fixed his gaze on it, letting his breathing slow to match its rhythm.
Inhale.
Exhale.
He thought—briefly—of setting the vial on the shelf. Just for tonight. To tell himself that another integration session wouldn’t hurt. That there’s time. That slow is safer.
That healing doesn’t have to mean now.
The thought barely finished forming before something sharp cut through it.
I didn’t get that choice.
Elora’s voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. It landed with the weight of truth, clean and unforgiving.
Neither do I.
The room seemed to recede then—the bottles, the shelves, the careful order of everything he built to avoid this moment. The excuses fell away with them. There was no more preparation to be done. No version of this where it didn’t hurt.
Only the choice.
He lifted the vial.
And drank.
∞∞∞
The last bell tolls like it does every night. He draws his shoulders in close, breath stuttering between shallow shakes.
He listens for footsteps, never allowing himself to believe they won’t come just because most nights they don’t. And when he hears them, he knows they won’t pass by.
The room closes in until only the door remains.
He turns, staring at the wall. The door opens. Closes.
He doesn’t look.
Eye contact wasn’t dangerous—not here, not with him. It’s an invitation.
Running never crosses his mind. Fighting is never an option, not anymore. Only staying still. No resistance. No defiance.
He can feel the presence behind him before he hears anything else. His heart races, lungs seizing as he braces for what tonight will bring. Where the pain will be.
It’s never the same. That’s the worst part.
The only constant is that he can’t say no.
And as his hands shake beneath the covers, he knows that tonight will be no different…
The fear doesn’t fade—it shifts, sharp and expectant, until the smell of disinfectant cuts through it.
He knows he’s in the alchemy lab before it takes shape around him.
The counters loom too high, surfaces cluttered with glass and metal he can barely make out. Curiosity tugs at him anyway. He drags a stool across the floor, the scrape loud in the quiet, and starts to climb.
Elora is nearby, he can hear her, even if he can’t see her clearly yet. She’s talking fast, rambling about something Tehvan showed her, hands probably moving the way they always do when she’s excited.
He feels light.
Unburdened.
This is wrong, a distant part of him realizes. I don’t feel like this anymore.
The memory shudders.
Words cut through the air, sharp and sudden.
“What are you doing in here?”
The lab vanishes.
He’s in the hall now, Thorn towering over him. Only him.
Elora stands at his side, eyes fixed on the floor.
Tehvan appears almost immediately. His hand settles on Elora’s shoulder, gentle, guiding her away. Symond watches her go, waiting for her to look back.
Expecting her to speak.
To argue.
To pull him with her.
She doesn’t.
Thorn’s office closes in around him next, every piece of furniture too large, too tall, designed to make him feel smaller. Pain flares across his cheek—sharp, disorienting—and he can’t tell where it came from before it’s already fading.
“You knew better,” Thorn says. “You will learn restraint, or you will be taught it.”
Symond swallows. “What about Elora?”
“Elora’s curiosity is… tolerated,” Thorn replies. “Yours is not.”
The words don’t fit together.
Not logically.
But something settles anyway, heavy and undeniable.
When they do the same thing—
She is removed. He is corrected.
When rules are broken—
She is protected. He is alone.
The imbalance doesn’t resolve. It widens…
“You are requiring more correction than I can reasonably provide.”
Thorn’s voice echoes through a blurred impression of his office. The edges won’t hold—just the desk, the height of the shelves, the way the room presses down on him.
Symond stands rigid, heat crawling up his spine. He’s older now.
“I have other students,” Thorn continues. “Other duties. I cannot afford to devote disproportionate attention to one imbalance.”
Symond swallows. “Yes, Master.”
“Your resilience allows for… delegation.”
The word lands heavy in his chest.
Delegation.
He turns it over in his mind, searching for meaning. Nothing fits. Nothing makes sense. Thorn is already worse than anything he can imagine—what could possibly come after that?
“I have given the guard captain authorization to handle your punishments.”
The sentence ends.
So does the conversation.
Thorn doesn’t explain. He doesn’t clarify. He doesn’t look at Symond again.
The decision has already been made.
Symond doesn’t ask questions.
Questions require choice.
And there is none.
The anger grows until it has nowhere to go. Until—
There is nothing but red.
Fury burns through him, threaded into bone and breath and blood. Thorn’s voice cuts through the haze, clear and devastating.
“Every punishment she earned was inflicted on you instead.”
The words split something open.
Then there is only her.
Elora is crumpled against the wall, blood running from the corner of her mouth. She looks smaller than he remembers. The spark of defiance—the girl who tested Thorn, who never flinched when threatened—is gone.
Her eyes are wide.
Wet.
They flick past him, toward the door. Then back again.
She knows Tehvan isn’t coming.
“Please,” she says. “Just… leave.”
The words reach him through a thick, muffled haze, like he’s underwater.
Everything slows.
He sees the tremor in her hands.
Hears the hitch in her breathing.
Feels the weight of the moment settle, heavy and unmistakable.
This is where it could stop.
The thought arrives without mercy or guilt—just clarity.
This is where I leave.
For a heartbeat, the choice hangs there.
Then he steps closer.
The decision doesn’t come from instinct or confusion. It comes clean and deliberate, carried on the certainty of what he’s doing, and the knowledge that he will not be stopped.
The moment fractures there, with the quiet, irreversible shift of choosing to continue.
Afterward, there is no relief.
No satisfaction.
No justice.
No balance restored.
Only a hollow, ringing emptiness opening in his chest—one that refuses to close.
The memories don’t hold to an order anymore…
The door opens, and he sits up immediately.
Spine straight. Posture exact. The way Thorn demands it.
He knows the routine now. Knows what is expected of him if he wants it to end quickly. The fear is still there—it hasn’t vanished—but it has changed. Quieter. Sharpened by anticipation.
When Gerard enters, Symond doesn’t flinch.
His body doesn’t panic anymore.
It prepares.
He feels himself detach slightly, attention narrowing to what will get him through the next few minutes. Breathing shallow. Muscles locked tight. His mind recedes just far enough to dull the edges.
Gerard’s presence fills the room. Casual. Unhurried.
This is still punishment, but it isn’t correction anymore.
Symond registers details he didn’t before: the way Gerard positions himself, the practiced efficiency, the certainty that no one will interrupt. No voices outside the door. No footsteps passing in the hall.
No end unless he makes it one.
When it’s over, Symond doesn’t collapse.
He stays upright. He always does.
He knows better than to show weakness afterward. Weakness invites escalation.
Silence.
Compliance.
That’s what keeps it contained.
∞∞∞
Consciousness returned to Symond like a tide—not the violent crash of waves, but the steady, inevitable creep of water over sand. There was no startled awakening, no moment of disorientation. Just the slow reintroduction to his body after the mind had been elsewhere.
Cold stone pressed against his back. His legs were numb, folded beneath him at an awkward angle, muscles locked tight enough to ache. His hands clenched in his lap, fingers stiff, nails bitten down to crescents in his palms.
His throat burned.
He swallowed once. Then again. Each movement felt deliberate, like his body was checking whether it was still allowed to exist.
The candle sat in front of him, its flame reduced to a thin, wavering thread. Wax had pooled and hardened around the base, overflowing onto the floor.
He dragged in a shallow breath through his nose. The air was cold, sharp where the window still stood open, grounding him even as his head throbbed with a dull, spreading pressure. His thoughts didn’t scatter the way they used to. They didn’t flee.
They settled.
He closed his eyes.
Elora’s fear was still there.
Not a moment replaying itself. Just the certainty of it, lodged somewhere beneath his ribs.
How her breathing had hitched. The way her eyes had tracked the door even when she knew no one was coming.
That fear didn’t dissolve when he opened his eyes again.
It didn’t soften. It existed with the same weight whether he looked at it or not.
Permanent.
His stomach turned violently. He pitched forward, bracing a hand against the floor as nausea crests and breaks, leaving him dry and shaking. Nothing came up. There’s nothing left to empty.
He stayed where he was.
The instinct to reach for something—to numb, to quiet, to bury—was there, familiar and insistent. He recognized it now for what it is. A reflex. A habit. Not survival.
He let it pass.
The bookshelf loomed at the edge of his vision. Rows of glass catching the candlelight. He turned away and leaned forward until his forehead rested against the cool stone wall. He exhaled and let his weight settle there, grounding himself in the solid, unyielding surface.
He stayed like that.
Didn’t move.
Just tried to exist in the knowledge that there is no going back, and that this time, he isn’t trying to.