thief of fate-Chapter 43: The second spark

The sky above him was gray, as if it had absorbed all colors just as he had absorbed all disappointments. His steps were heavy, his clothes stained with the dirt of the back courtyard where he had spent hours searching, digging, inspecting. His breath was ragged, not from exertion, but from that crushing feeling... the feeling of helplessness.

Zeinith entered his room and closed the door behind him with a muffled sound, then threw himself onto the chair near the window. There, where he used to watch the academy as if it were a chessboard, each piece holding meaning... except today.

"Nothing. Damn it, nothing!" He slammed his fist on the table. The water cup shook and some of it spilled on the scattered papers, but he didn’t care. He looked at his hands, cracked from digging, dirty from searching secret rooms. "Ethan..." he murmured the name as if it were a curse, or a desperate prayer.

He clenched his teeth, then suddenly stood up and started pacing the room like a caged wolf. "How can I find nothing? A man with his past, his skills, his suspicions... it’s impossible for him to be this clean. No one is completely pure!" He threw a chair into the corner, one of its legs broke, but he continued his inner scream. "And me? What have I become? Just a man panting behind him? Or just a failure who can’t even reach the shoes of the one he’s chasing?"

A moment of silence. As if his voice echoed back at him.

Then he sat again, this time on the floor, his back leaning against the cold wall. "Maybe... maybe I was wrong. Maybe he really was innocent. No, that’s impossible. The fear in Selina’s eyes that day... his gaze toward Valerian. No, there’s something."

He covered his face with his hands. "But where is he?!"

On the other side of the academy, specifically beneath it in the stone basement that only its eternal guard entered, Raphael stood motionless, as if he were part of the wall itself.

But he wasn’t standing idly.

His long fingers were inspecting a carving on a wall in a neglected corner, a place only someone who knew all its angles would notice. A slightly burnt spot. As if an attack had failed there. As if a message was hidden, or a door had been opened and quickly shut.

He bent down, and a faint blue light gleamed in his eyes. His ability to see through layers a rare gift. And he saw what was not supposed to be seen.

Deleted emblems, symbols used only in intelligence messages between members of the special espionage unit from the Northern Wars.

The same symbols that had appeared once before.

"Hidden messages... and a familiar phrasing..." Raphael murmured quietly, then straightened and moved to the other side of the basement, where the black crystals were stored.

A small crystal there appeared ordinary... except for the last thermal imprint that gets automatically recorded.

"Selina... three days ago."

Raphael slowly turned his head. This was no coincidence. It wasn’t her first visit, but this time she left a trace. On purpose?

In his mind, the pieces began to gather. Ethan, the beloved teacher, dignified and respected, trusted by the administration, but always operating from beneath the table. And Selina, his most prominent student, the one closest to him. She used to obey him without hesitation... but her recent looks, her conversation with Valerian, even her repeated silence they did not indicate obedience.

She was watching. Contemplating. And waiting.

"Betrayal... no, a desire to expose. If she meant to betray, she would’ve left the academy, or erased her tracks completely. What she left here... feels like an invitation."

Inside, Raphael felt that strange rhythm in his chest a feeling he only knew in grand battles.

"She doesn’t trust anyone. But she needs an ally who won’t betray... and she thinks I’m that one."

He lifted his head toward the stone ceiling.

"Perhaps I should be."

A quiet night, and the silence of the academy felt like it was preparing for a scream. Selina sat alone on a balcony bench, looking toward the distant forest. The air was cold, but she didn’t shiver. She was, as always... steady.

Heavy footsteps were heard behind her. She didn’t turn around. "I knew you would come." Her voice was steady, as if she already knew what would happen.

Raphael stood behind her in his usual silence. Then he said calmly: "I wasn’t sure if it was an invitation or a trap."

She looked at him with cold eyes, but within them, a buried sorrow. "If I wanted to deceive you, I wouldn’t have left traces... and if I wanted to survive alone, I wouldn’t have stayed in the first place."

He approached and sat across from her.

"Ethan..." he began. She slowly shook her head. "You can’t even stand saying his name, can you? Even his name feels heavy."

Then she sighed, for the first time with clear weakness. "He taught me everything. Trusted me like no one else, then... corrupted me from the inside. Made me believe in things that cannot be defended."

Raphael asked her: "And have you decided to confront him?"

"No." she said bitterly. "I will expose him, but not now. I need more than just suspicions. I need evidence that will make him fall before the world, not before a child’s heart looking for a role model."

Raphael nodded silently, then asked: "And you want my help?"

She looked into his eyes, for a long time. "You’re the only one who can do it."

Then she added with a hint of sarcasm: "And also, you don’t have a heart that can be deceived, do you?"

He didn’t smile. But he said: "I used to think I had nothing... until I realized I hate betrayal more than anything else."

Above, within the walls of the room lit by moonlight, Zeinith was still awake. His body was tired, but his mind refused rest.

He took out one of the letters he had stolen from Ethan’s office and turned it in his hand.

"What am I not seeing?" He asked himself, as if someone would answer.

At that moment, he heard a faint knock on his window.

He opened it... and found no one. Just a feather, small, falling before him.

It was black.

A symbol of the Phantom.

He picked it up, and felt warmth inside it... as if someone was telling him: "You’ve gotten closer, but alone you won’t be enough."

He looked up at the sky. Then said in a near whisper: "Fine... I’ll continue the path, even if I burn."

...

Selina stood before Raphael, her face tense, her eyes gleaming with something more than anger.

Raphael stood with patience, as usual. He didn’t press, didn’t demand. He just watched... waiting for her to speak.

But she didn’t intend to talk, not now, not that easily. She remained silent, pacing back and forth in the room, then suddenly screamed: "Do you think it’s that simple?!" Her voice echoed off the cold stones, and her arms trembled. "That I decided to stab him in the back out of nowhere? That I’m just a traitor seeking revenge?!"

He stepped closer. "I said nothing."

She looked at him with sharp eyes. "But you do. With your eyes. With your silence. Even your breath passes judgment."

Silence.

Then she suddenly sat on the floor and buried her face in her hands. "I can’t take it anymore... I can’t keep holding in this filth."

A long moment passed, then she muttered with a trembling voice: "His name was..." But she fell silent.

Her tears began to fall, but she wiped them violently, as if ashamed of her weakness.

"No. I don’t deserve to say his name. Not yet."

Raphael looked at her. Her eyes now resembled a shattered mirror... everything inside her reflecting without order.

"Say what needs to be said. No more."

She slowly lifted her head. Her face was red from crying, but she wasn’t weak. She was broken, yes, but behind the fracture... remnants of fire.

"Ethan... he’s the one who released the virus."

She shut her eyes tightly, then continued: "But I was there. I saw the beginning... and I was foolish enough to trust him when he said: Don’t come near, everything is under control."

She gasped, her hand clutching her chest as if to stop her heart from exploding.

"But he lied. I... I couldn’t disobey him."

She paused for a moment, then whispered as if uttering her death: "And it reached him."

Raphael raised an eyebrow for the first time. "Him?" 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

She nodded. "A man who never hurt anyone... a flower keeper. He loved simplicity, and thought I was the heroine who would change everything."

She laughed with broken sarcasm. "But he died. Silently. No one cried for him but me. No one remembers him. And me? I couldn’t even bury him."

Then she suddenly screamed:

"Do you understand now?! Why I want Ethan to fall? Why I don’t deserve to say his name until this monster is buried alive?!"

She collapsed, crying this time without resistance. As if she had drained everything.

Raphael didn’t approach. He didn’t offer comfort. But he said:

"And now? What do you ask for?"

She raised her head, tears drying on a tired yet steady face.

"I want three things."

He spoke in an official tone, like he was listening to treaty demands:

"Say them."

"First, protection. From any assassination attempt by Ethan or the Black Moon."

He nodded.

"Second, to remain here. At the academy. Not as a spy, but as an ally. I won’t run. I won’t hide. I’ll face him in his own den."

"And you’ll face the students’ stares? The doubts? The possible expulsion?"

"All of them hurt less than burying him without a grave."

He nodded.

"And third?"

"I want his name engraved and granted a proper funeral."

She looked directly into his eyes and said slowly:

"In exchange, I’ll give you everything I know about the Black Moon organization. Their names, their storage units, their movements, their rituals even the secret words. Everything."

Then she whispered darkly:

"But I won’t forgive Ethan even if he burns a thousand times."

A long silence followed.

"Done."

He raised his hand, and from his fingers a seal of protection burst forth. A glowing blue circle drew itself in the air, then gently embedded itself in her chest.

"With my mind, I protect you. With my hand, I accompany you. With my seal, I believe you."

She looked at him in disbelief.

"That’s... an old Guardian’s Oath."

He nodded.

"From now on, if your body betrays you, I’ll carry you. And if the one you trusted stabs you, I’ll remind you who you are."

She said in a trembling tone:

"And who am I?"

"The one who stands on the corpse of her pain... and chooses to fight, not to flee."

Silence fell. But this time... it wasn’t a heavy one.