17. Chapter Seventeen

That night was the first time I dreamt about Kieran Vistarii.

By the time I woke up the next day, I barely remembered anything, but I did distinctly recall that he’d been in it. That man, his smirk, and his Shadows.

Fucking Hel.

While our lunch had been perfectly pleasant, and I’d legitimately enjoyed his company, the fact that I was already so eager to see him again was… a problem.

Sure, there was nothing wrong with making friends while I was here at the Studium, but there was a distinct urge to be more than friends with him. And that? That just couldn’t happen.

It was one thing to consider dating casually around Sophrosyne, to enjoy myself in my spare time. It was another thing entirely to consider dating an extremely attractive, extremely perceptive scouting captain of the Elder Guard who would be duty-bound to report my secret to the Convocation if he ever discovered it. And as a Shadow Conduit? He could easily discover it, if I let my guard down. The urge to let my guard down around him was a little too strong, as is.

As much as it pained me, as much as I really didn’t want to, I set my mind to actively avoiding places where we’d already encountered each other. This was rather irksome for my sweet tooth, but I could find other restaurants, shops and cafés to frequent. It was a big city.

Several days passed, and it seemed like so far, my efforts had worked. Three days went by, then four, then five, and I had yet to run into Kieran again. For some reason, I wasn’t particularly pleased with my own success, and found myself more moody than anything else.

I knew that he hadn’t really been stalking me, but a pathetic part of me had wished he would. There was no avoiding it at this point: I was lonely.

I missed home, I missed Amaretta and all of her lectures and clucking about. I missed the children of the village and the way they’d ask me to participate in games of tag and hide and seek, even though I was twice their age and size. I even missed the stable boys and their dirty minds, if only because it was all so familiar.

Sometimes, I even missed Graysen.

I hadn’t really found a niche or a social group at the Studium. I had made a single friend in Laurel Ansari, sure, but the woman was a social butterfly. She was constantly preoccupied, and we only had one course together.

Occasionally, I would share classes and familiar nods with some of the people who had been on the ship with me when we’d arrived in Sophrosyne, but people such as Percy weren’t exactly thrilling to be around. That was the thing, I supposed. A great many of the Conduits attending the Arcane Studium, at least in my current route of coursework, came from exceptional privilege, and I found that hard to relate to.

It was common sense, honestly. While any human with Resonance could make the journey to Sophrosyne and seek entry to the Studium, said journey was often long and arduous—and long, arduous journeys were expensive. Had it not been for Amaretta’s generosity and connections, I would have never been able to purchase my ticket for the journey from Elswiere to Port Sofia. And there were many in this realm that had far less than I ever did, even in my simple village life.

When you took into consideration the rarity of Conduits—who were only a small fraction of the overall population—and then divided that small fraction by those who had the means to even make it out to Sophrosyne, it shouldn’t have surprised me that so many of my peers were the sons and daughters of exceptionally wealthy and powerful families.

It left me homesick in a very odd sort of way. I never quite fitin the village either, but at least I knew how to play by their rules. At least there was common understanding, a sense of community, and mutual aid.

I knew next to nothing about Kieran or his upbringing, but he was easy to talk to. In our few exchanges, I felt like I could relate to him more than anyone else I’d encountered so far in this city of gods and scholars. Whether that was because he was a guard and not a student, or because of how naturally it had felt to build a rapport within minutes of meeting the man, I wasn’t certain. I really didn’t know what it was that drew me to him, specifically. It was likely many things at once.

I mean Hel, he was even a Shadow Conduit, my parallel on the spectrum of aetherflows. Perhaps I could blame the compelling nature of his presence on science alone. I had far too much pride to actively seek him out now, but maybe I’d stop trying to avoid him entirely.

If I got lucky and ran into the guardsman again, I would simply focus on being his friend. Surely, we could be that much. We couldn’t ever be more than that, but I could at least use a friend.

No harm in that, right?

Apparently I’d been lying to myself when I said I had too much pride to seek him out. It only took a few more days for my loneliness to get the better of me.

I had tried this week, I really had. I went out of my way to converse with a few peers before and after class, forcing fake smiles and dull conversation in hopes of finding somebody else who I clicked with in the same way Kieran and I had. Preferably someone whose company I could enjoy without wanting to jump their bones.

I even managed to hunt down Laurel, who I barely saw outside of our Bios lectures lately. The poor woman had looked way too overwhelmed with coursework for me to dare pester her for some company. Her latest girlfriend also shot daggers at me with her eyes the minute I’d said hello in the Biblyos, which was awkward to say the least.

I hated every second of this miserable reminder that I was the odd one out in a sea of thousands of other people from all over the world. It wasn’t that I was shunned, disliked, or singled out—I generally found that people were friendly, polite, and even nice, especially when they heard that I was a Light Conduit. But I found it hard to stay interested in conversations about ambitions, about how our budding arcane expertise would one day convert to comfort and riches, or the latest petty disputes between those in power.

It was becoming clear to me that in order to fit in around here, at least with the students who were my age, I would have to put up a bit of a facade. I’d have to don a polite little mask and participate in a song and dance I still hadn’t really mastered, and in the meantime, hold my true self back—biting down on the snark, the enthusiasm for the mundane, the simple pleasures of a girl from the Brindlewoods of Samhaven.

And the thing was… I had no real interest in trying to fit in. There wasn’t an ounce of drive within me to maintain that facade, to keep the ribbons on that mask tied. I wanted companionship, not acceptance from the noblesse. Even if I could never be entirely open with anyone here, I at least wanted easy conversations, some laughter and fun in between all the coursework and my efforts to find answers to impossible questions. I wanted a certain degree of comfort, a certain ease—the ability to be some semblance of my true self.

And I think I had found that in Kieran.

I couldn’t help myself. I asked one of the guards about him on my way home from class.

Our few encounters had been happenstance, and if I didn’t actually seek Kieran out, I wasn’t sure I’d run into the man again. It had been sheer dumb luck that we’d repeatedly run into each other before in a city-state of thousands. So when I spotted a guardsman who looked fairly young and naive, I figured I might as well ask him.

“Hey there. I’m looking for Captain Vistarii, are you familiar?”

I flashed the guardsman what I hoped was a charming smile.

“The captain? You’re looking for Kieran?”

“Yes, is he around?”

“Erm, no. We’re not really able to provide that information to strangers, even if he were. Sorry, miss, it’s just protocol.”

“That’s fine. Would you be able to give him a message, perhaps?”

“Eh? I mean, I suppose we could, yes. No guarantees on timing or an answer, hope ya can understand.”

“Of course. If you do encounter him any time soon, could you just let him know that I was looking for him? My name is Arken. He’ll know who I am.”

He raised an eyebrow, but nodded.

“Arken. Got it. Will do, miss.”

He was giving me the strangest look, as if it was extremely abnormal for anyone to be asking about his captain. Kieran didn’t really strike me as a solitary creature, though. He was far too charming and extroverted. Surely, people had come around for him before?

“Thanks, uhh?”

“Grant Kraiggson, miss. I should be headin’ back now.”

“Thanks again, Grant.”

He dipped his head respectfully before striding off towards the gates.

I wasn’t sure what to expect next. I had next to no information on where he lived, where his typical station was for work, or what his habits were outside of the occasional bakery or café run. Truth be told? I knew very little about Kieran at all, other than the few basics I had gleaned from our conversation the other day. My little observations from every chance encounter.

He was young for a captain, implying high degrees of skill and martial prowess. He was a Shadow Conduit, and had at one point been a student here in Sophrosyne. He was tall, clever and devastatingly attractive. He had a nice voice and a penchant for poking fun at me. He liked croissants and cheese sandwiches. That was about it.

Not particularly helpful information to track someone down and attempt to befriend them.

I cringed, realizing that it all sounded a little pathetic, even in the privacy of my own thoughts. Because here I was, the bright-eyed new student, chasing down a literal senior guardsman of Sophrosyne in hopes to, what? Hang out more?

But I liked Kieran, and I was tired of pretending that I didn’t. I was tired of pretending like I hadn’t clearly found a kindred spirit in that cocky bastard.

And so it was decided, then. The next time I ran into Kieran, I’d invite him to lunch again.

Just friends. Just lunch.

That was fairly harmless, right?