The demon prince they erased

CHAPTER 4: A TEACHER'S DOUBT

By lunchtime, I’d figured out the name of the security officer: Garran Voss. He wasn’t some powerful noble just a guy with a reputation for writing up students over things nobody else cared about. I overheard two noble kids gossiping about him at a nearby table. They said he’d already reported my name after the vault mess. Apparently, that report would probably collect dust in a desk for weeks before anyone with real authority even looked at it.

I didn’t buy it. Luck that easy just doesn’t exist, not for me. After three hundred years, I know luck’s a thin thread.

The rest of my day, I played the role I was supposed to Rian Ashe, mostly invisible. I sat in classes I could have taught better than the teachers, took my meals alone at the far end of a table, and moved through the school like a shadow: nobody noticing, nobody caring. If you don’t have money or a famous family here, you’re basically wallpaper. There’s a kind of peace in that, actually. If no one expects anything, you can exist undisturbed.

Except one person was paying attention and by the evening, she started digging.

How I found out? The usual way at Eclipse Academy: by accident. I was heading back from the dining hall when I caught Sorren’s voice through a partly open door.

“The orphan registry has no match,” she was saying to someone hidden from view. “No birth record, no relocation papers, nothing before eight months ago. He turned up in an eastern border camp, claimed memory loss, intake report says. Not too strange, except the officer who filed it retired that week and I can’t find him.”

There was a pause. Then, an older man spoke, sounding tired, like they’d had this argument one too many times. “Beata, you’re doing this again.”

“I’m doing my job.”

“Your job is combat theory. Last time you did detective work, it cost you your Alliance position.”

Her voice sharpened. “Last time, I found six sealed war crime reports that never made it to court. I’m not asking you to dig up old cases. I’m asking why an F-rank orphan just corrected an unpublished war-era technique, and why Ashveil lit up for him inside a sealed vault.”

Long silence. I nearly kept moving, but then the man spoke again, voice low. “You think he’s connected to Draven.”

“I think I don’t know what I think,” Sorren said quietly. “That’s exactly why I need his real file not the fake one in the registry.”

I didn’t wait around for more. I’d heard enough. Beata Sorren wasn’t just suspicious; she was already pulling at the threads I least wanted anyone to notice. And, well, I know exactly where unraveling those threads can lead.

I went back to my dorm and spent most of the night calculating how much time I had before someone tied together a nobody orphan with a fake intake record and a three-hundred-year-old execution. Not much time, I decided. Sorren was sharp she’d spotted in one day what everyone else had missed all week. Six years as an investigator hadn’t dulled her skills. I couldn’t stay ahead of her, not for long, but maybe I could understand her. That’s usually easier for me than hiding.

Turns out, I didn’t have to wait long.

Two mornings later, I found a folded note under my door. No signature just a line: Combat theory hall, before first bell. Come alone.

The handwriting matched the sketches she drew on the board.

She was waiting for me in the empty classroom, perched on a desk with a battered file folder on her lap. Morning light slanted through tall windows. No small talk.

“I requested your intake file from the eastern border,” she said, holding up the file. “Took three days to arrive funny, for a routine archive document. When it finally came, half the pages were water-damaged and unreadable. Supposedly from a storage flood, and guess what, only the wing holding your paperwork. I don’t believe in coincidences, Mr. Ashe. I’ve seen too many cover-ups.”

I stayed quiet. There was no version of the truth I could give her that wouldn’t explode in both our faces.

She went on, almost weary. “I won’t pretend I know everything, but I’ve made a career spotting when records and reality don’t line up. Yours don’t line up with anything not your rank, not your technique, not how that sword reacted to you in a room where it should have been dead quiet.” She looked right at me, and for a moment, I saw something shift in her face. Less accusation more plea. “I spent six years on the Draven case. No answers, just questions. I hate open questions, especially when they start responding to a sixteen-year-old orphan in my class.”

“What do you want from me?” I asked.

“The truth,” she said, voice calm. “That’s all. I’m not out to expose you before I know what I’d be exposing. But know this: I don’t let go of threads. That’s who I am. You’d be safer choosing what you tell me, rather than having me dig it out piece by piece. I’d rather not make a mistake that gets either of us killed.”

Her honesty was almost shocking clear, direct, dangerous. Opening up now could help or cut right into a trap.

“I need time,” I said. Which was true. There were still things about myself I couldn’t explain, even to me.

She hesitated. Something like disappointment crossed her face. Or maybe just resignation. I’d just confirmed that something was hidden, and gave her nothing useful. “Time,” she echoed. “Not something I have in abundance, Mr. Ashe. Garran Voss filed a report. Reports like that don’t sit forever, especially not when a relic linked to Draven is involved.”

The first bell rang across the courtyard. She rose, tucking the ruined file under her arm like none of this mattered. But she’d just spelled out exactly how close we both stood to a trap.

“Think hard about how much time you really have,” she said at the door, hand on the frame, not quite looking at me. “And Mr. Ashe whatever you’re hiding, I hope for both our sakes that it’s worth it.”

She was gone before I could answer.

I stood there in the silence, replaying what she’d said, and felt it: the clock I’d spent three centuries outrunning had started up again and this time, it was ticking even louder.