Chapter 104: The Truth About Elias

Chapter 104 — The Truth About Elias

"You said there was something I should know," Roxanne reminded him.

"There is."

"Then tell me. Don’t make me drag it out of you."

Elias glanced back toward the hall, where the music still thumped faintly through the doors. Then he looked at her, and the nervousness he had worn all evening seemed to fall away, leaving only tiredness.

"I should have told you before I invited you," he said. "I let you walk into a room full of people who knew things you didn’t. That wasn’t fair."

"No, it wasn’t." Roxanne kept her arms folded. "I don’t like hearing hints from strangers. I don’t like watching people look at you like you’re a locked door."

"I know."

"But I’m not asking for your whole history at a gate in the dark. Just the part that matters."

He nodded. "I didn’t abandon my team. I refused to lie about what happened to one of them."

The words hung between them. Roxanne unfolded her arms and leaned against the gatepost. "Go on."

They walked a little way along the path, away from the lanterns, until the sound of the party had faded. Elias kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the gravel.

"It was a training exercise in the northern highlands. Advanced teams, timed route, the kind where everyone wants to finish first. Damon was our team leader. There was a warning flagged on one of the ridge paths, unstable ground after the rains. I saw it. I told him."

"And?"

"He wanted to beat the other group. He said the warning was overcautious and we’d lose twenty minutes if we went around." Elias exhaled. "I said it twice. The second time, in front of everyone. He still led us across."

Roxanne felt her stomach tighten. "Someone got hurt."

"One of the younger trainees. The ground gave way under his leg. It wasn’t fatal, thankfully, but he was out of training for months." His voice stayed level, though it cost him. "Afterwards, Damon said I had been responsible for checking the route. That I’d failed to flag the danger and he’d simply trusted me."

"That’s not what happened."

"No. But I couldn’t prove what I’d said. It was a loud, chaotic exercise. Everyone remembered it differently, or said they did." He shrugged, a small, stiff movement. "The academy investigated and found there wasn’t enough evidence to punish anyone. Damon stayed on the team. The others wouldn’t look at me. I asked for one person, just one, to say out loud what had really happened, and nobody would."

"So you left."

"I withdrew from the program and transferred here a few weeks later. It looked like running away. I suppose it was, in a way."

Roxanne said nothing for a moment. The night air was cool against her face. Somewhere behind them a door opened and closed, releasing a burst of laughter.

"Why didn’t you ever tell anyone your side?" she asked.

"Because I got tired." He said it simply. "I was tired of explaining myself to people who had already decided. Every time I tried, it sounded like an excuse. So eventually I stopped trying."

"I understand that," Roxanne said, and she did. She knew exactly how it felt to have a story told about her before she had opened her mouth. "But I don’t think it was the right choice."

Elias looked up, wary. "No?"

"Leaving protected your peace. I’m not saying it didn’t. But it also let Damon keep the story. He’s been telling it for months, and you’ve been letting him."

He took that in without flinching, which she respected. "I know," he admitted. "I’ve been avoiding it. Not deciding anything, just hoping it would fade."

"It didn’t."

"No."

"You can’t make everyone believe you," Roxanne said. "But you can decide whether you spend the rest of your life letting other people speak for you."

A faint smile pulled at his mouth. "And what would you do?"

"Probably get angry first."

Elias laughed, a real laugh, surprised out of him.

"Then," she went on, "I’d decide what actually matters. Not what would feel good for an afternoon. What matters."

"That’s harder than being angry."

"Usually."

He walked her the rest of the way to the dormitory steps, and neither of them mentioned Damon again that night. At the door he said, "Thank you for not making me say it twice," and she told him to go to bed.

The next morning, the dining hall was crowded with students nursing the aftermath of the social, yawning over tea and toast. Roxanne found Elias at the end of a long table, picking at a bowl of porridge he clearly wasn’t eating.

He was quieter than usual. She sat down across from him and did not ask him to repeat any of it. She poured herself tea and slid the honey toward him instead, and he accepted it with a grateful look.

After a few minutes she said, "Are you going to keep avoiding Damon?"

Elias stirred the porridge slowly. "I don’t know yet."

"That’s honest."

"But I don’t want to keep leaving every room just because he walks into it." He frowned at the bowl as though it had insulted him. "I spent months doing that. I’m tired of it."

"What would help?"

"If the record said what really happened. Not instead of his version. Next to it." He looked up. "The visiting program coordinator is on campus until the end of the week. I could ask her to review my old training file. I could ask to add my account."

"That sounds like a plan."

"It sounds terrifying."

"Those can be the same thing." Roxanne sipped her tea. "I’ll come with you to the door if you want. But you go in alone."

"That seems fair." He almost smiled. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For not trying to fix it for me."

"I wouldn’t know where to start," she said, and he laughed again.

Liam found them as they were leaving the hall. He came striding across the room with a grin already forming, one eyebrow raised in a way that promised teasing.

"Well, well. Breakfast together, after dancing together. People are going to talk."

"People always talk," Roxanne said.

"I’m only saying, if there’s a scandal brewing, I deserve advance notice. I have a reputation to maintain."

"Liam." She kept her voice quiet. "Elias is dealing with something personal. Leave it."

The grin vanished at once. He glanced at Elias, then back at her, and his expression shifted into something more genuine. "Understood. Sorry, Mercer."

"It’s fine," Elias said.

"Truly. I’ll find someone else to annoy." Liam clapped Elias lightly on the shoulder and wandered off, and Roxanne found herself grateful.

Lucien was waiting outside the hall, arms folded behind his back. He didn’t beat around the bush. "Is whatever this is likely to affect academy training?"

"I don’t know," she said honestly.

He considered it. "Then it’s Elias’s matter to discuss, or not. I won’t ask you for details."

"Thank you."

Roshan appeared beside her a moment later and tilted his head, studying her face. "You look tired."

"I danced for two hours."

"That would do it." He didn’t push. Instead he started telling her about a ridiculous argument between two first-years over a missing boot, and by the time he finished, she was smiling again. He never once asked what was on her mind.

Kai caught up with her near the training yard, just as the morning bell rang. He walked at her side without speaking for a few paces.

"Did you enjoy the evening?"

"I did," Roxanne said. "Even though it ended differently than I expected."

He glanced at her. There was a question in his dark eyes, but he didn’t ask it. He simply nodded, once, and said, "I’m glad."

That was all. The unspoken thing remained between them, unresolved and patient, and she was almost grateful that neither of them reached for it today.

Elias went to find the coordinator that afternoon, after his last class.

Her office sat at the end of the east corridor, a narrow room smelling of paper and old coffee. The coordinator, a grey-haired woman with spectacles on a chain, listened to him without interrupting while he explained what he wanted.

"The original investigation is closed," she said when he had finished. "You understand that reopening it may achieve nothing."

"I understand."

"And that Damon will be informed."

"I understand that too." Elias kept his hands steady on his knees. "I’m not asking for him to be punished. I’m not asking you to decide who was right. I only want my account recorded alongside the existing report. So that anyone who reads the file sees both."

She studied him for a long moment over her spectacles. Then she pulled a form from a drawer and slid it across the desk.

"Fill this in. I’ll review your request."

"Thank you."

"I make no promises."

"I’m not asking for any."

He walked out of the office feeling lighter, though nothing had been resolved. He had no guarantee that anything would change. But he had done something, and that was new.

He was halfway down the corridor toward his afternoon class when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out.

The message was from Damon, five words long. *You should have left it alone.*

Elias read it once. His thumb hovered over the screen for a heartbeat. Then he locked the phone, slid it back into his pocket, and walked into the classroom without turning around.