Chapter 14—Fellowship

The days that followed blurred into routine, each measured by the steady rise and fall of Ophelin’s chest. She did not wake.

Raiden, Randall, and Tadari took turns sitting by her cot in the Academy’s infirmary. The room smelled faintly of herbs and damp linen, a quiet place save for the low murmur of menders and the soft clink of bowls and scalpel trays. They’d grown used to the rhythm: wash the cloth, change the poultice, check the bandages.

Raiden found his watch the hardest. Each time he saw her bound arm resting stiff at her side, the memory of her scream clawed back into his ears. He tried to busy himself—polishing her gear, fixing straps, even wiping mud from her boots—but his eyes always drifted back to her pale face.

Randall kept the silence heavy, though sometimes he spoke, almost to himself. “She fought harder than most men I’ve seen. Don’t let her forget it when she wakes.”

Tadari, pragmatic as ever, kept their spirits anchored. On the third day, when he returned from the stables, he told them, “The Ironmane’s restless. The one she always tried and failed to ride. It’s as if it knows.” His tone was plain, but the implication struck them both. Even now, even unconscious, something in Ophelin stirred loyalty in beasts.

At night she murmured in her sleep. Sometimes nonsense, sometimes fragments of combat—her lips shaping words like “strike” or “hold.” Other times, softer, almost breaking: “Father… I… can… prove.”
The three boys exchanged glances in the half-dark, but none spoke at first. Finally Raiden said quietly, “She’s still fighting. Just in here.” He touched his temple.
Randall only grunted. Tadari muttered, “Prove what? To who?” He didn’t press further, but the weight of it lingered.

On the evening of the fourth day, heavy boots echoed down the infirmary hall. Mr. Lorig arrived, still dusty from the road. His cloak clung wet from the storm outside, and his usually brisk step was slowed, wearied by travel. The moment he entered, his voice broke its usual calm, carrying an urgency none of them had heard before.

He sat by Ophelin’s bed, his large hands fidgeting with the blanket’s edge. “If I had not taken that cursed excursion…” He trailed off, shaking his head. His shoulders, usually squared with authority, hunched as though the burden pressed him smaller. “You four… you never should have borne this weight. Especially her.”

Raiden felt the sting of his words, but not as reproach—more as grief. Randall spoke first, tone flat but steady. “We lived. Because she held.”

Lorig’s gaze hardened, then softened again. He nodded. “And I owe her more than words.”

Tadari, never one to dance around, leaned forward. “Do you suspect who was behind it?”

The pause that followed was heavy. Lorig’s eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched. “Names without proof are just wind,” he said at last. “And even the right name isn’t the hand that struck—it’s the one pulling the strings.”

Raiden and Randall exchanged looks. They all knew. Rad and Weldin had been there. Garid’s shadow hung long, even absent.

“But why?” Tadari pressed. “On Academy grounds? A skirmish like that? What drives it so far?”

Lorig’s silence said more than words. At last he rose, laying a hand gently on Ophelin’s blanket. His voice was low, rough-edged. “I swear this: I will not let her fight alone when she wakes. Whatever games are played above us, they will not bury her sacrifice.”

He left then, footsteps fading into the hall.

The room did not stay quiet long. Another shadow filled the doorway, larger than the frame itself.

Einfried.

He wore no armor, but strapped across his back was a vast shield of amber sheen, catching the lamplight as though burning from within. Raiden thought it impossibly heavy, yet the man carried it as though it weighed nothing.

His presence filled the room before he spoke. Voice deep, firm, almost too blunt to be polite: “How is she?”

Randall answered, steady as ever. “Alive. Barely.”

Einfried stepped closer, gaze falling on Ophelin with a mixture of sternness and something gentler, hidden under the steel. His eyes shifted to the three boys. “You’ve done her honor by staying. Few would.”

He stopped at Raiden’s side, looming above him. “Your name, boy?”

“Raiden. Of House Rymboven,” he answered, forcing steadiness into his voice.

Einfried gave a single nod, bordering between respect and dismissal. “Good.” His tone carried both approval and demand, as if Raiden had spoken a vow.

Turning back to Ophelin, Einfried’s expression hardened. “Harg is Zoven’s blade.” The words fell like iron, ringing in the quiet. His gaze swept across the boys again. “This—” he gestured at her broken form, wrapped in linen and herbs—“is unacceptable. Great Houses must not let the edge turn inward.”

Randall frowned slightly, reading between lines. “You didn’t know?”

Einfried’s jaw flexed. “I had a hunch. Now I see the tear. And I’ll see it mended.”

He stood there a long moment, a figure of strength yet strangely alone. Einfried’s great frame vanished through the infirmary doors, leaving behind the weight of his words like a shield planted in the ground. The room was quieter for a time, save the soft rasp of Ophelin’s breath and the faint hum of warding glyphs lining the walls.

It was not long before footsteps returned—lighter, deliberate, carrying an altogether different cadence. The door opened again, and this time it was not a knight but a figure in academic robes.

Bergalion Lynthor.
Son of Archmagister Furgalion, coordinator of the Academy’s classes, steward of its curriculum. His bearing was neither warm nor hostile; his eyes held the cool sheen of a man trained to weigh reports, not grief. A pair of attendants followed, carrying tablets and ink-sticks.

He did not look at Ophelin first. His gaze moved to the three boys beside her bed, measuring them as one might an accounting of coin.
“You are Raiden Rymboven. Randall Norveil. Tadari.” His voice was level, formal, each name an entry recited from record. “You were present at the stables on the day of the storm.”

Randall straightened instinctively, though his bow was not with him. Raiden, still worn from sleepless hours, simply nodded. Tadari inclined his head once, silent.

“I will ask plainly,” Bergalion continued, stepping closer, his hands clasped behind his back. “You will give me what you know. Not what you fear, not what you assume. Facts alone. Do you understand?”

Raiden opened his mouth first, beginning with the thunder, the ambush, the half-circle of cloaked students. Tadari cut in once to correct a detail—where Weldin had stood when the ice first fell. Randall added the sequence of the pursuers he felled with his bow, careful to note that none were killed.

Each time they strayed toward speculation—Raiden’s muttered “It must have been Garid” or Tadari’s colder “This wasn’t random”—Bergalion raised a hand, silencing them with a glance.
“Names without proof are wind,” he said evenly. “The Council does not rule on wind.”

His attendants scratched down every word, the sound of ink on slate sharp against the infirmary hush.

When at last their account was done, Bergalion’s eyes flicked to Ophelin’s bandaged form. He gave no outward sign of sympathy, though his voice dropped, almost imperceptibly:
“She is fortunate. Not all who bleed within these walls are spared.”

He turned back to the three. “You have done your duty—first in the fight, and now in your testimony. You will be called again when the Council convenes. Until then, hold your tongues. Rumor is poison.”

With that, he turned, robes whispering as he strode for the door. His attendants followed, closing it softly behind them.

The silence he left was heavier than Einfried’s, though of a different kind. Not the weight of kinship, but of scrutiny.

Raiden exhaled slowly, glancing once more at Ophelin. “Facts, not feelings,” he muttered, as though testing the phrase on his tongue.

The three boys sat in silence, each wrestling with the weight of his words. Ophelin slept on, her breath shallow, her battle not yet over. Outside, rain softened at last, the storm giving way to a stillness too fragile to trust.

And in the dim infirmary light, it was clear to all three: the battle was over, but the war of words had only just begun.