Chapter 12: The Veil and the Void
Chapter 12: The Veil and the Void
The carriage rolled toward Lorian Academy, its spires now looming like the jagged teeth of some great beast. Jack watched them through the window, his fingers drumming a slow rhythm against his knee.
Elara sat across from him, her gloved hands folded neatly in her lap, but her gaze never left him. She had seen the way he consumed the demon—how effortless it had been. How wrong.
And now, he was offering her a piece of that power.
"I have a gift for you," he had said.
Darkness had swallowed the carriage, thick and suffocating, before condensing into a single, pulsing mass in his palm.
"The Void saw everything that had been unmade, and behold, it was ravenous."
The demon's essence had taken shape—an eyeball, still glistening with residual malice.
Elara had taken it without hesitation.
Now, the small wooden box in her purse hummed faintly, its golden runes straining against the thing inside.
"A year. That's how long the academy's wards could delay the Abyss from reclaiming its lost fragment." , Elara said, explanation the demon box's function.
"Seems like there are many smart people in the academy," Jack had mused.
Elara wasn't sure if that was a compliment or a threat.
---
Jack exhaled, then pressed his palm to his forehead.
"Celestial Deception."
The words slithered through the air, and something inside him shifted.
Elara recoiled.
One moment, he was a storm of contained violence—his presence thick with the weight of stolen power. The next?
Nothing.
He was just a man. A handsome one, yes, but utterly mundane. No scent of magic. No aura of danger. Even his scars seemed less pronounced, as if the shadows had retreated from his skin.
Her breath caught. "What did you do?"
Jack lowered his hand, the faintest imprint of an upside-down cross flickering on his forehead before vanishing. "Nothing. Just a minor trick." He met her gaze. "What will you tell the academy if they sense a demon inside me? If I'm not in their records?"
Elara's lips parted, then closed. He was right. Lorian's wards would shred an unregistered demon-host on sight or he'd be captured and be experimented on.
But this?
This was something else entirely.
---
The carriage halted before wrought-iron gates, their bars twisted into the shapes of screaming faces. Beyond them, the academy rose—a monolith of black stone and stained glass, its windows gleaming like the eyes of a predator.
Elara stepped out first, her boots clicking against the cobblestones. Jack followed, his movements deliberately unremarkable.
One of the guards—a broad-shouldered man with a jagged scar across his nose—bowed slightly at the sight of her. "Lady Elara. Welcome back." His gaze flicked to Jack, and his hand drifted toward the sword at his hip. "Why have you brought a normal human here? You know it's against the rules for the ungifted to know of the Veil."
Elara waved a dismissive hand. "Don't worry. He's gifted. Just... differently." She smirked. "I saw him fight a demon barehanded. Couldn't even see it—said he smelled its movements."
The guard's eyebrows rose. He pulled a crystal from his belt—a bloodstone, used to register new students. "Drip your blood. Then Lady Elara will take you to the registrar."
Jack bit his thumb without hesitation.
A single drop of red fell onto the crystal.
It sizzled.
No darkness. No corruption. Just ordinary human blood.
The guard nodded, satisfied. "Proceed."
As the gates groaned open, Jack leaned toward Elara, his voice a whisper.
"Let's go inside."
---
The moment they crossed the threshold, the air changed.
Oppressive. Cloying. Like breathing in the exhalation of something ancient and starving.
The halls of Lorian were vast, their ceilings lost in shadow. Torches flickered with pale blue flames, casting eerie reflections on the walls—walls that were not quite stone, but something older. Something that pulsed faintly, as if alive.
Students moved through the corridors in clusters, their robes marking their ranks. Some whispered as Elara passed; others averted their eyes entirely.
But none of them looked at Jack.
To them, he was nothing.
Invisible.
Elara led him deeper, past classrooms where professors dissected still-twitching demon limbs, past libraries where books *screamed* if opened incorrectly. The further they went, the heavier the air became—thick with the scent of iron and something sweetly rotten.
"This place is a tomb," Jack murmured.
Elara's smile was thin. "No. Tombs are for the dead. This is a feeding ground. This is where humanity gets strong."
---
The registrar was a gaunt man with hollow cheeks and too many fingers. His desk was cluttered with vials of black liquid, each one swirling faintly as if stirred by unseen hands.
"New student?" he rasped, not looking up.
"Yes," Elara said smoothly. "Jack. Special case. Blood-registered at the gate."
The registrar's too-long fingers twitched. He pulled a ledger from the shelves, its pages stitched together with what looked like sinew. "Surname?"
"None."
A pause. Then the man dipped a quill into an inkwell filled with something too dark to be ink. "Provenance?"
"Emag Village."
The quill hesitated. "That place was—"
"Gone," Jack finished. "I'm what's left."
The registrar's eyes flicked up for the first time—pale, pupil-less. For a heartbeat, Jack thought he *saw* something—a flicker of recognition.
Then it was gone.
"Very well." The quill scratched across the page. "You'll be assigned a dormitory. Classes begin at dawn. Fail, and you become fodder."
Jack smirked. "Understood."
---
Elara left him at the door to his assigned room—a cramped cell with a narrow bed, a desk, and a single, slit-like window overlooking the academy's inner courtyard.
"Tomorrow," she said, "you'll be tested. They'll try to break you."
Jack sat on the edge of the bed, the frame groaning under his weight. "Let them try."
Elara studied him for a long moment. Then, softly: "What are you, Jack?"
He looked up, and for the first time since entering Lorian, he let the Celestial Deception slip—just for an instant.
His eyes turned black.
Full.
Hungry.
Then it was gone.
"Someone who doesn't break."
Elara exhaled, her gloved fingers tightening around the demon box in her purse.
"Good," she whispered. "Because this place breaks everyone."
She left, the door clicking shut behind her.
Jack lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
Somewhere in the depths of Lorian, something stirred.
And for the first time in centuries—
It was afraid.
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