Chapter Text
The day is a simple one, filled with traveling and talking and little else. Simple, and boring, and warm. He spends his hours seated in the back of the cart, a book in hand and his coat tugged up over his head in a vain attempt to ward off the beating sunshine. The paper is rough against his palm, and Nott a little ball curled against his side; Jester, as expected, leans over his shoulder and tries relentlessly to badger him into conversation. Caleb is too fond of her now to brush her off like he used to, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying, so he compromises by graciously letting her use his shoulder, and making sure to sigh every few seconds so she knows that yes, Jester, I can still hear you, please stop talking.
Across from him, Beauregard and Fjord are in deep conversation over a map, jumping back and forth between planning and half-hearted griping about the road. Caduceus, driving the cart, hums a cheery tune under his breath. In this way the time passes by them, lazy and kind.
They set up camp late, in the fading hours of the sun, and Caleb draws the thread of his alarm spell across their surroundings less from actual paranoia and more from habit. Beau takes first watch; Fjord takes second; Jester and Nott conspire together to take the third. The night divided, their evening set. Caduceus stirs up a stew and his ever-present tea, and Caleb settles by the fire, book in hand and ears open to their conversation. By the time the sky is dark, the book is closed on his lap, and his voice has joined with the others.
He goes to sleep early, the pale flicker of the fire dancing behind his eyes. He is calm, and happy. His dreams are quiet.
When the alarm spell snaps under the wave of a blistering magical attack, one hour out to dawn, he has barely seconds to throw up a shield before the earth buries them all.
.
From the moment he is old enough to know what it is, Bren is in love with magic. He hounds the few travelers that come through their town for stories and shows, digging through old books for any hints of the arcane, swiping his fingers through fire as if that is enough to learn it. He loves the idea of it, the feel of it, the singsong thrill of it. Magic can do anything. Magic can do everything . Maybe if he learns enough, he can do anything too.
His mother laughs, when he tells her that. Pushes back his hair, and kisses his forehead. “I’m sure you will,” she says, soft and proud, and he smiles up at her so wide his cheeks hurt. “My dear boy, I have always believed you could do anything you wanted, magic or not.”
“But magic will help!”
She laughs again, her hand warm on his shoulder. “That is true, too,” she says, and he feels warm, inside and out. If his mother says he’s right, then surely it is so.
That night, he sits before the fire and swipes his fingers through. The flames flicker and the heat prickles. And for a brief moment, the flames cling to his hand like a glove.
Bren snatches his hand back, and smiles.
.
The alarm spell is almost too late—he has seconds after it snaps him awake to react, and seconds are not enough. But for once, his ever-present paranoia serves him well. Seconds are not enough, but he has cast this spell so often he could almost do it in his sleep. His hands raise up, words of power hissed under his breath, the shield spell rising to his defense—
(The others, he thinks, a horrified mantra in the back of his mind, but there is nothing he can do.)
The earth upheaves and topples them, and Caleb is almost too late.
His head is spinning, his nerves screaming, suspicion and fear and ever-present terror beating beneath it all. More than that: anger, low and sour under his tongue, burning behind his ribcage. They are being attacked, there is someone out there trying to kill them, and if anyone gets hurt on this morning Caleb is going to burn those responsible alive, catatonic aftermath be damned.
He throws the strongest fire spell he knows at the figure he can see approaching from about a mile off—the distant humanoid silhouette of the spellcaster that threw their camp into chaos—and his mouth runs dry when it fails. Counterspell. There will be no fire here.
The causal strength of their attacker only serves to terrify and anger him more. They are so strong—but damn them for it, for taking a spell Caleb has such fond memories of, and using it against him.
The next tremor in the earth is targeted, direct. The force of it sends him to his knees, and he uses the moment to grab his diamond from his pouch, murmuring under his breath. From the corner of his eyes, he can see his friends—Fjord, hefting up his sword with gritted teeth; Jester with her eyes blazing, a gleaming radiant lollipop manifesting above her head, Caduceus looking dazed but standing steady on his feet. Beauregard sets her feet, fists raised, ready to fight; Nott is by her side, her crossbow unlatched and loaded—
—and then, someone else. Someone new, someone right behind them —and Caleb blanks, his breath stuttering. There is someone behind them, and his mind is whirling, remembering a foe they couldn’t see, Charm Person and the awful aftermath, and fuck , this is bad, this is an enemy spellcaster with Invisibility and Bren knows this strategy—
He is already turning to shout a warning, the fire spell completed on his tongue, feeling the magic build up in the air—they’ll slaughter each other, gods, he has to hurry—and the spell falls apart in his hands.
It is a mistake. It is a slip. It is a critical error in judgment, and it doesn’t matter, because the enemy stops too. The stranger choking on his tongue, going silent, going still, going dead quiet. Staring right at Caleb.
.
His one year at the Academy flies by faster than he can blink. He is young, and brilliant, and bright. He reads ahead and picks up spells faster than he can snap, asks questions that leave the teachers stuttering for an answer, and spends night after night in the library. He reaches for anything he can find. He takes all he is given. He wants to know it all, he wants to know everything; he wants to prove he belongs.
One day, he will leave this place. One day, he will be more. He will reach heights only dreamed of, and he will fulfill every promise, every childish wish. He will succeed in every expectation.
It is who he’s meant to be. Who he’s meant to become. From the moment he swiped his hand through the flames, from the moment magic came at his call, he’s known this. Bren is meant for more.
.
He thinks: Eodwulf.
He is frozen. His breath stilled. His hands shaking. Eodwulf. It—it must be. He is older, grimmer, taller, and yet—gods, he knows that face. He knows it.
And by the way Eodwulf is staring, he knows Bren, too.
He knows him, and the recognition seems to gut him. All the color has drained from Eodwulf’s face; his dark eyes are wide and listless. “No,” Eodwulf breathes, and Bren is still, he’s stone, he’s frozen cold.
Eodwulf’s voice is distant, fearful. Bren’s silver-tongued friend, now reduced to a stuttering whisper. “No,” Eodwulf says, and he doesn’t even seem to notice the way Nott and Beauregard jump, the way the rest of the group whirls around, alerted to his presence. Eodwulf’s eyes are fixed right on him. His voice wavers, stuttering and horrified. “Wait, you can’t be, you are—are you—?”
Beauregard launches herself at Eodwulf with a yell and a fist held high.
Caleb snaps out of it. He moves on autopilot, throws open his hand to aims a firebolt at Eodwulf’s head, but his hands have started to shake and his mind is tunneling, and the blast hits the earth instead. The rocks explode out in a blistering wave. Caduceus throws out another spell and Nott releases her crossbow, and in the crossfire Eodwulf cries out and then goes silent, falling forward, motionless in the dirt.
He has to move, Caleb thinks. He has to move, to speak—he tries to talk and the words catch in his throat, language gone, words stolen. His breathing has gone funny. His ears are ringing.
Beauregard catches him around the waist. “Get down!” she shouts, and the world flips once again.
.
He sends his parents letters, when he can. Writes to them about his lessons, his day, his thoughts and fears. They send him advice and well wishes and homemade bread wrapped in thin cloth, and those meals are his favorite. He shares the bread with Astrid and Eodwulf, less because he knows them well and more because they are all from the same place and as such will appreciate it, and those same meals draw them together.
They were friends once, as children, and in those academy nights they become friends again. Remembering old stories and old neighbors, ribbing each other over silly antics from when they were young, correcting each other’s coursework. He learns to love it—the night air, cold against his face; his parents’ cooking, warm in his belly; Astrid’s clipped speech but warm eyes, the dimple in her smiles and the severe slant to her nose; Eodwulf’s nervous habits but sly and charming speech, his broad shoulders and open hands. He learns to love them.
And in those quiet nights, Bren thinks he always will.
.
He hits the ground hard and gasps for breath, his mind blank, thoughts swarming. Eodwulf. Eodwulf is here, he is unconscious and spelled asleep and he is here and that means—that means—
The earth shakes and his heart goes cold. Astrid, he thinks, and tears up onto his feet. Memories and knowing and stone-cold certainty: she has always been the most destructive of them, barring Bren himself, and if he doesn’t hurry—
He throws up a shield and the ground breaks apart seconds after, shrapnel scattering around them. Fjord cries out; Nott gives a yelp of pain. By his side, Beauregard hisses a vicious curse under her breath. Caleb barely notices. He’s on his feet, already running forward; she’s caught up to them, she’s here, and Eodwulf’s body has already vanished.
His thoughts have gone dark, his words lost. There is no logic in why he runs forward, no rhyme or reason, just knowing. Astrid is here. She will kill them. He can’t—he can’t let her—
She’s turning, her hands raised, her eyes flinty. Dressed in a pressed red uniform, her hair cut short and fine, slicked away from her face. She looks older. Colder. Just as handsome, and just as deadly, and he has never been so terrified.
He knows the instant she sees him, too. She stops the same way Eodwulf did, and for a brief, awful moment, her expression flickers. Cruel hatred giving way to shock. To surprise. To grief.
“Bren?” she says, and he stands there, silent, and says nothing at all, his words wrung dry and empty.
Stands there, and does not answer.
.
There are no doubts. There is never any doubt, until it is too late. Bren is certain and if he is certain then he must be right. He is too clever, too smart, to be wrong. He knows too much. (His mother said so.)
He smiles when they get drawn from class, smiles wider when he hears the news. They have been chosen, all three of them. Bren, Astrid, and Eodwulf—the new students of Trent Ikithon. It is expected. It is flattering. He remembers magic and power and knows it is exactly what he’s always wanted.
There are no doubts. Astrid and Eodwulf’s place by his side and at his back, the weight of Master Ikithon’s proud hand at his shoulder. The congratulations of his teachers, and the beaming pride of his parents. There are never any doubts at all. Bren has always been meant for this. He has always meant to become this. He has always been meant for great things.
He stands tall under the weight of his new teacher’s gaze, and knows this is exactly where he’s meant to be.
.
She realizes her mistake too late, the same time Bren does. Her hands fly up, but Fjord is already swinging, and when she dodges his blade all it does is bring her right into Beauregard’s path. Beauregard is already prepared to strike—so fast, always so fast, and some quiet part of him is helplessly grateful for it—and he watches, numb, as the quarterstaff cracks across Astrid’s skull.
Astrid staggers and drops, but even then, Bren can see her eyes flicker, her consciousness returning. He snaps a hand to his pocket, digging fitfully—sees Astrid rise, her teeth grit, her eyes wild—closes his fingers around loose cold grains of sand, and casts.
She is too dizzy to dodge. Too injured to realize. The sleep spell hits her head-on.
Astrid staggers again, the strain visible on her face. He can feel it—her will fighting his, and he thinks, gods, this is it, she will beat me, because he knows Astrid and he knows she is strong, and if Beauregard’s blow wasn’t damaging enough, then—
Astrid stumbles. She slips. She falls to her knees and stares blindly up at him, and then her eyes flutter closed and she slumps.
There is no relief. He feels struck, stabbed through, glued to the ground. When a small hand tugs at his coat sleeve, he almost topples.
“Caleb?” Nott asks, and her victorious smile is fading. “Caleb, are you all right?”
He can’t look at her, or Beauregard, or Jester. The three that would recognize the name. He claps a hand over his mouth and breathes through his fingers, drags himself together, and then forces the words through his teeth.
“Astrid,” and then, before they can freeze or shout or—or— or anything else, he says, “We have to—Vollstrecker— chain her.”
“Caleb—”
“Hurry,” he whispers. He feels like ash in the wind. “Take her spellbooks, chain her hands—hurry. Hurry.” They only have a minute. They have no time, and at his reminder the group shifts—grabbing chains, Nott slipping forward like a shadow for Astrid’s body, ready to steal her weapons, Beauregard positioning them in a circle, her hand heavy on his shoulder, her voice a low hiss in his ears.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Caleb.”
He stands there, looking at Astrid, counting down the seconds. Reading all the years between them in her aged face. Cold all the way to his bones, to his heart, to his blood. Breathing. Trying to breathe. Trying to think. Trying to stay in the here and now, rather than the then, the last time he saw her, the last time he called her friend.
He curls his hands into shaking fists, and pretends he can’t see flames.
.
.
.
When he lunges for the door, Astrid and Eodwulf catch him almost at once. They drag him back and pin him to the ground, merciless, angry. Their hands like a vice around his arms, their voices a din in his ears. Even then, he can still hear it. The screaming. His parents, his lovely parents: dying.
“Bren,” Astrid snarls, and she is cold, she is furious, she is ugly in a way he has never known her—her face twisted in a snarl, her eyes bright and cruel. “Bren, stop it! Shut up! What are you doing!?”
“Let them go, Bren,” Eodwulf is saying, beside her. His mouth pursed, his eyes disappointed. His voice is soft, and the pity there makes his skin crawl. “You’re stronger than this, my friend. Stop fighting. You know this needs to happen.”
They speak, but Bren isn’t listening. His mind is blank, roaring with the rising flames. The screams ringing in his ears, his mother’s voice gone hoarse and thin, calling his father’s name. His father, crying. Just crying.
“Una, please, Una, run!”
“The door! Oh gods, Leofric, the door is—!”
There is fire, and ash, and voices crying out. There is a house, burning down to embers, and as his friends drag him away and throw him ruthlessly on the ground, Bren lies in the dust and thinks: I’m killing them.
I did this, he thinks. I set the fire. I am burning this house to the ground, and I am killing them.
There is a reason. He knows there is. A reason he came here today, a reason he set this fire with steady hands and a cold determination. The reason Astrid and Eodwulf are so angry, their voices so betrayed. So many reasons, so many meanings. But now that reason is gone. His certainty like smoke in the wind.
He grew up in this house. He ran through the halls and skidded down the stairs, slammed shut the burning door. His father used to carry him on his shoulders so he could reach the ceiling; his mother used to swing him up and around whenever he came racing home. He used to dart his hands through the flames in the fireplace, and his father would scold him and his mother would laugh, push back his hair and say—
Bren’s parents are dead. He has killed them. He set this fire with steady hands, and watched the blaze burn gold against the black night. He did it with a smile. He did it with righteousness in his heart.
He did this.
His fingers curl in the dirt. His face is wet, his throat sore. His screams have run out, his voice finally silenced. Astrid and Eodwulf drag him to his feet, and he stands with shaking hands. His eyes empty. His heart cold.
I did this , he thinks. I did this.
And deep inside, behind the eyes, beneath the smoke and the screaming and the flame—
He shatters.