The coin was still on the nightstand when Revan opened his eyes. In the gray morning light, the wilted flower on it looked almost black.
For a while now he had been awake. Sleeping on his back in last night's bloody shirt had glued the fabric to the gash along his spine. Even flexing his fingers sent a sharp sting from his knuckles to his elbow.
'Still attached. Good start.'
It took three tries to sit up. The cut on his back had stopped bleeding hours ago. Around it, though, the skin felt hot and tight. Probably infected, because he hadn't cleaned it. Black spots filled his vision when he stood. They didn't go away, so he walked anyway.
His reflection showed him what he expected. Pale skin, sharp bones, dark circles deep enough to hide secrets in, and a bruise climbing up his jaw like ivy. Cold water on his face helped a little and woke him up. Dried blood washed off his hands and down the drain in pink streaks.
'At this rate I should get a loyalty card. Ten near-death experiences, the eleventh one is free.'
Part of him had expected not to wake up here at all. Last night he had half believed he would open his eyes in that endless white void again, with the park bench, the silence, and that kid sitting with his back turned like a ghost who had given up on haunting anyone.
Strangely, that hadn't been the worst possibility. Even worse was opening his eyes to find Sylvia at the foot of his bed, arms crossed, face empty, the air in the room three times heavier than normal.
So. You left your dorm.
Just imagining it made his skin prickle and his stomach clench. After turning off the water, he slowly turned and checked the room.
Wardrobe closed. Desk untouched. The chair in the corner empty. No black envelope on the pillow, no pressure in the air, no smell of winter roses and old paper, which always reached a room a second before she did. Only dust floating in the sunlight.
Sylvia didn't know.
'...Thank God. Let's keep it that way.'
But his relief didn't last long. Last night's elixir had stopped the bleeding and done nothing else. Torn muscles still sat under the closed skin, so one wrong move could open everything up again. Sylvia could summon him at any moment, with a sealed letter or a word through the communication seal. She would expect him ready to work and alert. One look at him would tell her everything, because she never missed anything.
Before she called, he needed to be healed.
The infirmary was out, because a student who was supposed to be resting in his dorm, showing up with stab wounds, meant paperwork. Paperwork meant questions. Sylvia herself was obviously out too, since she was the one he had disobeyed.
'My Lady, I broke your direct order and got jumped by assassins. Could you patch me up? Those would be my last words.'
That left Elara.
Elara asked a lot of questions, but she usually answered them herself before he could. Give her a wound and she would make up a story about how he got it and believe it without digging any deeper. That made her one of the very few people Revan trusted not to use what they knew against him.
Putting on a clean shirt hurt enough that he bit his cheek until he tasted iron.
'Right. Time to visit the one person in this academy who heals people for fun.'
***
Mornings at the academy were busy. Staff swept the stone walkways, the smell of fresh bread drifted out of the kitchens, and half-asleep first-years shuffled to class. Head down, Revan walked at a steady pace and kept to the edges of the paths. He leaned just enough off his left side that nobody would call it a limp.
Elara's lab was an old storage room near the east wing. Through the half-open door he could see towers of books that defied architecture, rows of colored vials, and handwritten notes pinned to every surface, connected with colored string into a web that only one person alive could understand.
Revan stopped at the door and knocked twice on the frame.
"Lady Elara."
There was a yelp, then the sound of glassware wobbling. A face popped up from behind a fortress of medical textbooks, green eyes huge behind oversized glasses, a smudge of blue ink on one cheek.
"R-Revan! I didn't... you scared... I was just—"
Halfway through the sentence, Elara stopped. She looked from his face to his posture: the weight on one leg, the stiff left arm, the sweat on his temple even though the morning was cool.
Her stammer disappeared.
"Sit down."
Revan had only heard her use that voice a few times, and always when someone was hurt. It belonged to the prodigy, the daughter of the Imperial Grand Sage, who could figure out a medical problem faster than doctors twice her age.
Without arguing, he sat on the edge of her examination table. The wood creaked.
"Shirt off."
After one second of hesitation, he pulled it off, hissing through his teeth as the fabric tore away from the dried blood. Green light was already glowing in her hands, pulsing with her heartbeat. Elara moved behind him and went still.
"...These are deep."
On the opposite wall hung a chart of mana circulation pathways, covered in cheerful little notes. Revan stared at it so he wouldn't have to watch her face.
"Looks worse than it feels."
"You have a seven-inch cut across your trapezius and two puncture wounds in your lateral oblique."
He turned his head and glanced over his shoulder.
"It does not look worse than it feels."
Elara sighed. "Fair point."
Her magic sank into the wounds like warm water into dry earth. The Elixir had forced his body back together. Elara's healing was slower and gentler, finding the damage first and then fixing it.
Then, as the deepest part of the cut began to close, her hand stopped.
Behind him came a small, confused sound.
Revan's heart jumped. He kept breathing evenly and didn't take his eyes off the wall, because he knew what she had found. The last trace of Sylvia's healing magic was still in him, more than a week old now: gravity mana woven into regeneration. Only one person in the kingdom healed like that.
After a moment her magic flowed again, more carefully now. This trace was too faint for her to recognize, so she kept going. A week earlier, she would have known it was Sylvia's. Then she would have asked why Lady Vespera's healing magic was inside a servant Lady Vespera supposedly ignored.
"How long ago?"
"Last night."
"And you waited until morning?"
"I'm a deep sleeper."
In the glass of the cabinet across the room, her reflection made it very clear she didn't think that was funny.
After that, Elara worked in silence. Green light pulsed on the walls while the pain in his back went from screaming to muttering. At the punctures in his side, her lips pressed into a thin line. Revan could tell she was angry, but none of it was aimed at him. Her fingers traced the air above the wound.
"This pattern. They aimed right next to the organs. They weren't trying to kill you. They just wanted it to hurt."
When she straightened up, she looked like what she was, a sixteen-year-old girl trying very hard not to cry.
"It was them again, wasn't it?"
Revan blinked. "...Them?"
Her voice shook, but she forced it steady.
"Erison's group. They keep getting worse. Everyone knows it, and nobody does anything, because his family pays for half this academy."
'Oh. She thinks I got beaten up by bullies.'
Honestly, it made sense. Revan was the academy's favorite punching bag, so the story fit. Erison's gang did aim for places that wouldn't kill. Night attacks in groups were their favorite, too. Last night's group, though, had carried Aura blades and poison in their teeth.
"It's fine. Nothing I haven't handled before."
"It is not fine!"
The glow in her hands went out as she came around to face him. This was the girl who could barely ask to share a lunch table. Right now she looked ready to fight the whole academy.
"I'm reporting this to Instructor Valen. I have physical evidence now. Wound depth, tissue damage, impact patterns. They can't ignore it this time."
"Elara."
Her fists shook and her shoulders rose. Tears stood in her eyes. Over a story she had made up herself, she was ready to go to war.
Revan sighed.
"Do what you think is right."
His calm seemed to confuse her.
"You're not going to argue?"
"Would it change anything?"
"...No."
"Then save your energy for the report."
With a small, fierce nod, Elara went back to his side. Then the green light returned to her hands. When she pushed up her sleeve to work, Revan saw the gray line on the inside of her forearm. Two days ago, in the Restricted Section, it had stopped before her wrist. Now it went past the wrist bone, thin as a pencil line, creeping toward her palm.
Every time she healed someone, the curse ate a little more of her.
'And she's spending it on me.'
Before she caught him staring, he looked away. Guilt sat heavy in his chest because he couldn't tell her why.
Closing his eyes didn't help. Erison van Caldris's face came to mind uninvited. Yellow eyes, smug grin. The fourth son of Duke Alaric and the family disappointment, stuffed into Class A like a defective product nobody bothered to recall.
'Sorry, Erison. Someone has to take the blame, and between you and a secret assassination squad, you're the safer choice. Think of it as community service.'
And it would work. Caldris money still paid for half the academy, but the family had stopped protecting Erison years ago. Duke Alaric didn't even acknowledge him anymore. His three talented brothers acted like he didn't exist. So nobody would come to defend him. Once a report with medical evidence reached Instructor Valen's desk, the academy would come down on him hard.
It had happened twice before. Manual labor on the training grounds, a public scolding in front of the whole class, no combat lessons for a semester. Both times Revan had watched from the back row and enjoyed every second.
'Erison. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.'
'Actually, it will. Immediately. But it's the thought that counts.'
Outside, the morning bell rang. Elara hummed as she worked. Old paper and herbs scented the lab.
Under the humming, footsteps came down the corridor and stopped outside the door.
Eyes still closed, Revan listened and counted. One. Two. Three. Nobody knocked. Then the footsteps walked away, and at the same moment something pulsed warm against his thigh.
The coin, in his trouser pocket. Just once.
When he opened his eyes, the corridor beyond the gap in the door was empty.