Chapter 5 Five

The academy stayed sealed for three days.

No one was allowed outside after dark. Guards walked the halls in pairs, checking rooms twice a night. Every instructor said the same thing. Stay indoors, stay in groups. Report anything unusual.

Kaien spent most of it alone in his room. He sat on the floor by the window most nights instead of the bed, back against the wall, running the tunnel over in his head. He kept landing on the same blank spot. No shape to it yet, just a feeling that something was wrong and he couldn't point at where.

Rowan knocked on the second night. Three quick raps, then a pause. Same pattern since they were kids.

Kaien opened the door.

Rowan stood there with his hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders up near his ears like he was cold, even though the hall wasn't. His eyes moved over Kaien fast, checking him over the way you'd check a wound.

"Can I come in?"

Kaien stepped back.

Rowan didn't sit on the bed. He hopped up onto the edge of the desk instead, feet swinging a little, the way he used to when they were younger and he wanted a conversation to feel lighter than it was. It didn't work this time. His leg kept bouncing.

"I heard you and Lyra found him. Tobin."

"We did." Kaien leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

"What happened down there?"

"You already know what happened. Everyone's talking about it."

"I know what people are saying happened." Rowan's leg stopped moving. "I want to know what you actually saw."

"His cultivation was gone." Kaien kept his eyes on a point somewhere past Rowan's shoulder.

"That's it."

"That's not nothing, Kaien."

"Didn't say it was nothing. Said there's nothing else to tell you."

Rowan's jaw worked like he wanted to argue and thought better of it. He looked down at his hands instead, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve.

"You've been different," he said, not looking up. "Since before all this. Before Tobin, even."

"I've had a lot on my mind."

"That's not an answer."

Kaien didn't give him one, he couldn't exactly tell him that he knew Rowan would stab him in the future. He watched Rowan pick at the thread until it came loose in his fingers, and neither of them said anything for a while.

Then Rowan looked up, and something in his face had changed. Less worried. More careful.

"You've been spending time with Lyra."

Kaien's arms tightened where they were crossed. "We were assigned to the same trace."

"That's not what I heard." Rowan almost smiled. It didn't get very far. "Heard you two walked back from the Council chamber together, twice."

"We were both being questioned. It's a schedule, not a coincidence."

"Sure." Rowan rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture Kaien had seen a thousand times growing up, always right before something that actually mattered to him. "I'm not trying to make something out of nothing. It's just, this is the first time I've ever seen you around her at all. You've never even said her name to me. Not once."

Kaien said nothing.

Rowan slid off the desk and stood there for a second, weight shifting from one foot to the other.

"I like her," he said. " I have for a while now."

Kaien kept his face still, but his hands, still crossed against his chest, curled slightly into the fabric of his own sleeves.

"Everyone used to say you liked her too," Rowan said. "Before any of this. I never brought it up because it didn't seem to matter. But you two found the body together. You're the ones the Council keeps calling in. So I figured I'd actually ask instead of just wondering about it."

"Ask what."

Rowan looked right at him. "Is it true? That you liked her."

Kaien held his gaze without blinking.

"No," he replied.

Rowan's eyes searched his face for a second, the way you'd look for a crack in something before you decided to trust it.

"I want to pursue her," he said. "That's really why I came. Not just to ask about Tobin. I wanted to tell you first. You're still my brother, whether you act like it lately or not, and I didn't want you hearing it some other way."

Kaien didn't answer right away.

"So." Rowan's hands went back into his pockets. "Do you mind?."

"Do what you want, Rowan."

It wasn't a yes. Rowan's shoulders didn't drop the way they should have if he'd gotten the answer he wanted. He nodded anyway, slow, and turned toward the door.

"I should get back before the guards come around again."

He had his hand on the door when he stopped, back still to Kaien.

"For what it's worth." His voice was quieter now. "I'm glad you weren't down there alone In that tunnel."

He left before Kaien could say anything back.

Kaien stayed against the wall a long time after the door shut, listening to the guards' boots pass outside the window, arms still crossed, jaw tight thinking about a boy who had once put a sword through his chest without hesitating and was now standing in this same room asking permission to fall in love.