Chapter 49: A Friend
The figure coming through the cave entrance had that same steady walk she remembered from the dorms. Petra thought her exhausted mind was playing tricks on her at first. Three days alone would make anyone start seeing familiar faces in shadows. The fire threw dancing shapes everywhere, and every flicker looked like it could be something dangerous or maybe salvation.
But when the silhouette got closer, she couldn’t mistake that Academy uniform anymore. Blood stained and torn, with darker stuff she didn’t want to think about. The rips looked purposeful though, like someone had modified it for better movement instead of getting it shredded in a fight.
Gareth Thorne stepped into the cave, and Petra’s world went sideways.
"Oh, Petra. You’re awake." Same quiet voice from their few conversations at the Academy. No shock at finding another survivor, no relief he wasn’t alone. Just calm recognition, like he’d been expecting her. "Didn’t want to wake you. Looked like you needed the rest."
She stared, katana half-raised in a defensive position she’d forgotten she was holding. This was Gareth Thorne. The quiet duke’s son she’d torn apart in front of eight hundred students. The boy whose earth ability had crumbled like wet paper against her blade work. Kael Ashford’s unremarkable roommate who’d challenged her in what she’d figured was desperate stupidity.
Standing in the flickering light though, something was off. Gone was that careful deference from the Academy, how he’d kept his eyes down when they passed in halls. Now he moved with quiet confidence, his gaze direct and measuring in a way that made her skin crawl.
"Gareth?" His name barely came out as a whisper. "How are you... what are you doing here?"
’This can’t be real. Of everyone who could’ve survived this nightmare, it’s him? The boy I destroyed publicly?’
He walked past her with casual familiarity, close enough she caught the metallic scent of blood on his modified uniform. Not his blood. The wounds from their duel had been minor, and he showed no signs of injury now. This was something else entirely, something that spoke of recent violence done with methodical precision.
"Same as you, I’d guess," he said, heading to a corner where she now noticed books and writing materials arranged on a flat stone.
"Surviving."
The casual dismissal made something cold settle in her chest. This wasn’t how someone acted after being brutally outmatched days ago. No deference, no lingering embarrassment from their public duel, no gratitude for being allowed to live after challenging someone so far above his station. If anything, Gareth seemed... comfortable. At ease in a way that made no sense.
’He’s acting like none of it happened. Like our duel meant nothing.’
Her enhanced perception caught details ordinary observation would miss. His boots were remarkably clean despite the filthy environment outside. His hands showed calluses that hadn’t been there during the Academy duel. New ones, formed recently in patterns suggesting extensive combat with edged weapons rather than earth ability.
"This is your camp." Not a question. The methodical organization, systematic resource gathering, defensive positioning near the entrance. It all matched how he’d arranged his dorm belongings, but scaled up and adapted for warfare in ways that spoke of experience she couldn’t account for.
"Past few days, yeah." Gareth sat at his makeshift desk and started writing in one of the notebooks, movements economical and practiced. The pen looked carved from beast bone, its surface polished smooth from use. "Been documenting the local ecosystem. Fascinating place. The dimensional rift alone could revolutionize our understanding of spatial manipulation theory."
Documenting? He’s treating this like a research expedition.’
Her grip tightened on the katana’s hilt. The disconnect between his scholarly calm and the nightmare around them was deeply unsettling. She’d seen how people reacted to extreme trauma. Some broke down, others became hypervigilant, a few retreated into denial. But Gareth showed none of those responses. He acted like someone doing research in a library instead of surviving in a hellscape of rotting corpses and predatory beasts.
"Gareth, there were A-Class predators out there." Her voice came out sharper than intended, carrying all the authority of someone used to being the most dangerous thing in any room. "I was nearly killed by Crimson Maulers hours ago. Three of them, hunting together. They were waiting outside this cave for me."
"The Maulers, yeah." He made a note without looking up, pen scratching across the page with mechanical precision. "Dealt with them while you were sleeping. They’re territorial, but predictable once you understand their hunting patterns."
The words hit her like ice water. She stared at the boy she’d defeated so easily, mind struggling to process how casually he spoke about handling three A-Class beasts. Creatures that had pushed her air manipulation to its limits and left her exhausted after a desperate running battle.
"You... dealt with them?" She couldn’t keep disbelief from her voice. "Those weren’t ordinary beasts, Gareth. They were coordinating attacks, using pack tactics. I barely escaped."
"I know." He glanced up, and for the first time since entering the cave, she caught something in his expression that didn’t match his quiet academic persona. A flicker of something darker, more calculating. The look of someone evaluating a problem and finding it disappointingly simple. "They won’t be bothering anyone again."
’How does he say that so casually? Like discussing the weather instead of A-Class predators that nearly killed me.’
Her enhanced hearing caught something in his tone. A slight emphasis on ’anyone’ that suggested finality beyond mere deterrence. Her gaze swept the cave again, taking in details she’d missed in her exhaustion. The monster cores weren’t just arranged systematically. They were sorted by species, with small labels in Gareth’s precise handwriting. Each label included not just identification but behavioral notes, weakness assessments, and what looked like tactical recommendations.
The implications crashed over her in waves. The cores scattered around represented dozens of creatures, many displaying power levels that would challenge even Academy instructors. The systematic cataloguing suggested not just survival, but methodical hunting conducted with scientific precision.
Her body started shivering, and not from the cave’s chill. At the Academy, she’d been the predator. S-ranked, trained since childhood, capable of dismantling any opponent with surgical precision. Students whispered about her in hallways, professors used her as an example of perfectly realized potential, even her family acknowledged her as their greatest weapon.
But here, surrounded by evidence of power she couldn’t comprehend, she felt very much like prey.
"At the Academy," she said carefully, testing waters, "you barely managed stone barriers before I cut through them. Your earth ability was... adequate, but nothing extraordinary. Certainly not enough to handle creatures that nearly killed me."
’I remember every moment of that fight. He was completely outmatched. How is this the same person?’
Gareth’s pen paused. When he looked up again, that flicker of something else was stronger. Not hostility exactly, but assessment. The look of someone deciding how much truth to reveal.
"You saying you held back during our duel?"
She’d always prided herself on reading people, seeing through facades and identifying threats before they manifested. Her survival at the Academy’s political apex had depended on that skill. But looking at Gareth now, she realized she’d been completely blind.
Every interaction they’d had. Polite nods in hallways, how he’d stepped aside when she approached, even his challenge in the arena. All performance. Carefully calculated theater designed to maintain an illusion while he observed and planned.
"You weren’t giving your all in our duel." The words came out flat, statement rather than question.
"Of course not." He returned to writing, but she caught the slight smile tugging at his mouth’s corner. "Public displays of true power tend to attract unwanted attention from faculty and family representatives. Much better to be underestimated while you gather intelligence on potential threats."
’Potential threats. He called me a potential threat.’
The implications hit her like a physical blow. If Gareth had been holding back during their duel, if his pathetic earth barriers had been deliberate misdirection...
"The challenge itself," she said slowly, pieces clicking into place. "You weren’t trying to win. You were studying me."
’He played me. The entire Academy witnessed my techniques while he took notes like I was some specimen.’
Her mind raced through their duel, seeing it now from an entirely different perspective. Every move she’d made, every signature technique deployed in front of eight hundred witnesses, had been recorded by someone with the intelligence and patience to use that information strategically.
The book in his hands wasn’t just documenting local wildlife. It was filled with tactical assessments and behavioral profiles. And she had no doubt one of those profiles was hers.
"The Crimson Maulers," she said, voice barely above a whisper. "How did you actually kill them?"
Gareth set down his pen and looked at her with those same quiet, unremarkable eyes from the Academy. But now she could see what she’d missed before. The depth behind them, the careful intelligence that had been watching and calculating while everyone else dismissed him as forgettable.
The silence stretched between them, filled with crackling fire and distant sounds of scavengers moving through the battlefield outside. When he finally spoke, his voice carried weight that made her instinctively step back.
"Same way I’d eliminate anything else that threatened my research," he said softly. "Efficiently."
The casual certainty in his voice made her blood run cold. This wasn’t bravado from someone trying to appear dangerous. It was simple statement of fact from someone who’d already proven his capabilities in the most direct way possible.
Her thoughts crystallized around a single, terrifying realization. If Gareth’s earth ability had been nothing more than cover, if his true capabilities were sufficient to handle A-Class beasts as casually as his morning routine, then what exactly was his second ability?
And more importantly, what did someone with that kind of power want with her?
"What is your second ability?" The question came out sharper than intended, carrying all the authority of someone used to having demands answered immediately.
Gareth picked up his pen again and began writing, but his eyes remained fixed on her face. When he smiled, it was nothing like the expression she remembered from their dorm encounters.
"Now that," he said softly, "would be telling."