Chapter Text
Professor Meltlake was smiling as the class filed in. Something about it put Corin on edge. Maybe it was because it looked a little more ominously gleeful than friendly. The fact that the class was twice as large as it should have been didn’t help. Jin’s presence was also a little off-putting. Logically Corin knew that Meltlake had told them they would be combining classes in the last class. He just hadn't realized it was with Jin’s class. Corin tapped his pen against the desk, determinedly not looking at the other boy.
Jin sat at the next desk, but still, it was right next to Corin’s. It had been accidentally, that much had been obvious by the way Jin had frozen when he did glance over. He rested a hand on the desk, getting ready to stand.
“Good morning students.” Professor Meltlake called. “If everyone could settle down.” Jin groaned silently and didn’t rise. He didn’t think he’d be able to sneak past her, at least not quickly enough to find a different seat. He glanced at Corin, who had relaxed, if only a little, and followed suit. It wasn’t likely they would have to work together. And even if they did, Corin had been pretty good at not letting what happened at the Spire affect the few times they had worked together for a grade. “I’m sure all of you will be on your best behavior today. Not only are your two classes combined, but you’ll be having a substitute teacher.”
Corin frowned as others began to mutter but Meltlake raised a hand to stall any questions.
“I have some business to attend to so I won’t be able to teach you today. But don’t worry, I’ve brought in a different substitute. This is Sarek Selysian.” Meltlake waved a hand and a familiar figure came through the door, wearing a new coat and painfully fake mustache. Corin let his head drop to his desk with a dull thud that garnered a look from Jin. The rest of the class was watching the newcomer as he made his way to Meltlake.
“Hey, I told you it was—” Keras protested before giving up, “Oh never mind. It’s too late now.”
Meltlake leaned towards the man, whispering with a gleeful ominousness, “Consider it payback.” She straightened and addressed the class again.“I trust this class will be one of the utmost professionalism.” And with that, she swept towards the door.
Keras hissed after her, “Payback for, oh never mind.” Clearing his throat he gave a small smile “Hello, everyone! I’m, uh, Sarek— but you should call me Mr. Selysian, right.” The smile dimmed a little when he noticed Meltlake standing a little way from the door. Before he could ask what was wrong she let out an amused sigh.
“Mr. Cadence please get off the floor.”
“Can’t. Too busy dying of embarrassment and betrayal.” Corin muttered into the floor.
“It's not possible to die of either of those. Well, betrayal might do it, but not this type, if you can even call it a betrayal.”
“I am not embarrassing!” Keras added with a huff. He was about to ask why Corin was suddenly doubting his teaching abilities when Meltlake leaned down.
“He’ll do fine.” She grabbed Corin's shoulder and hauled him up. “Now sit and pay attention.”
Corin sat, looking skeptical. Jin, who had been leaning over, looking concerned, nudged the enchanter. “Isn’t that Keras Selyrian? What is he doing here?”
Corin winced a little and focused on the front of the classroom. Jin frowned at him, leaning away. The class was talking amongst themselves, several shooting Corin confused looks and others staring at the new substitute. Most looks were ones of curiosity though quite a few had a glint of fascination and attraction to them. Maybe he was wrong and it was just someone who looked like Selyrian.
Still, Corin’s response to his question was suspicious, to say the least. Especially seeing as he had been all too eager to investigate Selyrian earlier in the year. Jin turned his focus to ‘Mr. Selysian’. If somehow, he actually was Selyrian, then… well, the implications of that could be bad. To say the least.
“If everyone could look here,” Keras was calling, clearing his throat loudly and raising his pointer finger to catch the class’ attention. Once the rest of the class had (mostly) quieted down, he continued speaking. “Ahem. Today, you’ll be learning about… hang on…” Awkwardly, he shifted through a thick stack of papers, then squinted at the page he was on and read slowly, “…the basics of the smaller kingdoms of Kaldwyn, and of the kingdoms on other continents.”
He looked around at the class. No one stood up to ask a question, although the scattered collection of students staring at his jawline continued to murmur to each other. Just as the relative silence made the room even more unbearable, he clapped his hands and nodded firmly.
“All right then. Let’s get started. Says here… mmhm. So we’re supposed to talk about Lavia, formerly Feria, first. The kingdom that got razed by… wait, Kerivas?” He frowned and ran a hand through his hair. Corin heard a strangled noise from behind him as Keras’ long dark locks parted over his shoulder. “That can’t be right. Visages can’t do that. I mean, maybe all of them together could, but there’s no way Kerivas actually did that. More propaganda, I’m— ah.”
The rest of the class stared at Keras with what Corin would describe as ‘thunderstruck’ expressions. He dropped his head into his hands as he realized why Meltlake had asked Keras to teach.
“Uh.” Keras scratched the back of his neck, chuckling awkwardly. “I… wasn’t supposed to say that, probably. Heresy and all that. You know what, how about you all forget I said that? All right.” He looked back at the page. “So, the former kingdom of Feria. It used to be, well, a kingdom, then it tried to invade a spire. Well, everyone says that. I’m absolutely not suggesting anything, of course,” he added hastily, “but you kids should question these kinds of things. A healthy amount of cynicism is always good.”
And then, he said the dreaded words, with a menacingly proud and completely oblivious grin. “Corin’s got a good amount of it, you know.”
Corin’s head sank even further down into his hands, his face burning. Why? What had he ever done to warrant this?
Next to him, Jin was… suspicious. The man was almost certainly Selyrian. The rightful mention of heresy, the heretic claims, they all matched up with what he’d seen. But Selyrian’s words — like he was complimenting Corin, like he was proud of him — set him on edge. There was some kind of familiarity there, he was sure of it.
Meanwhile, Selyrian had moved on, as if half the class wasn’t shooting glances at Corin like their rumor mills had focused entirely on him. “Anyway, moving on. The existing smaller kingdoms are Erawen and Sytennia. Lavia is technically under its own jurisdiction, but no one I’ve met really seems to give much resh about it.”
“Mr. Selysian?” called a student in the back. “Shouldn’t you watch your language?”
Keras stopped and stared, at a complete loss for words. “I… what? Aren’t you mature enough to hear swears?” No one spoke. “I’ll take that as a no, then. When I was your age, I was doing it all the time. Weird.”
“Moving on,” he said more loudly, grabbing a piece of chalk and drawing a few blobs on the board that seemed to vaguely resemble the nations of Kaldwyn in their placement, “like I said. Lavia is basically a bunch of islands in the southeast, because like all the legends say, the visages — sorry, a visage, Kerivas, sunk most of it underneath the sea because they were annoyed that the kingdom of Feria wasn’t falling to its knees in worship. You’ll probably never have to think about it, so we won’t discuss it anymore.
“Erawen is… up there, I think”—he flipped through the lesson plan—“yeah, it’s north of Dalenos. It has a pretty cold climate, not very well-off compared to the other nations and pretty much an isolationist, but it has these weird golems lying around for some reason. I’m pretty sure I’ve fought a few before. I remember hearing about them somewhere — ah,” he snapped his fingers, “yeah, when I saw the Sentinel of Erawen. One of the most famous golems, I think. It’s probably still in the Edrian vaults.”
“He was in the Edrian vaults ?” someone whispered, probably too loudly for it to be called a whisper. Jin would never say it so loudly, but he was… equally shocked by the implications. Either Selyrian had actually been invited inside — probably not, seeing as he was literally a heretic — or he’d snuck inside somehow. The latter was equally unlikely as the former because even though Edrian royalty didn’t have such an absurd amount of attunements as the rumors suggested, they were still immensely powerful. As strange as Selyrian may be, Jin highly doubted he could hold off any member of the Edrian royal family.
So he had to be lying. But how could he know of the contents of the Edrian vaults?
Something was incredibly wrong here.
“…actually seems like a really nice place to be in, because they’re so inclusive of monsters. On the whole, Sytennia is just one of the best nations on Kaldwyn, probably, because they’ve also managed to fend off Edria for a surprisingly long time.”
Keras wiped the board. “All right, I think we’re done with that! Moving on, we have… nations outside of Kaldwyn.”
“‘Although the entire outside world is under the rule of the Tyrant in Gold’ — that’s wrong, by the way, remember not to listen to propaganda! — there is still information about the nations. In particular, the continent of Artinia — what? Is Meltlake actually this uninformed? Artinia is a nation! It’s on the continent ,” he said, gesturing with increasingly exaggerated motions, “of Valden . R— uh, crap, I didn’t realize she was this uninformed about— oh .”
He stopped moving abruptly. “Oh, she… I get it. This is a conspiracy. Okay. Okay.”
Under his breath, he muttered something. Jin didn’t have to strain much to catch the words — most likely, not a lot of other people had to either — and heard something that sounded like “if I get arrested again”.
Mentally, Jin checked another box in his new “evidence for the substitute being Keras Selyrian” list.
“All right, everyone!” Keras called. Unlike the earlier times, when he’d sounded mostly unsure, his tone was confident, as if he actually had an idea of what he was doing. An idea that might or might not involve heretic talk. “We’re moving on. Now, your professor gave me a lesson plan, but…”
He skimmed through the stack of papers at a surprisingly, alarmingly fast rate. “That’s wrong, that’s wrong, that’s wrong, this is basically all wrong. So. I know a lot about this — I’m actually, uh, a… hist— no, I’m a traveler, yeah, so I’ve heard a lot, and I’ll just tell you correct things about the topics she wanted me to cover.”
Squinting at the paper, he added belatedly, “Oh, and I’ll need a teaching assistant, apparently, so…” He scanned the room, and stopped right at Corin, “…any volunteers? Corin, perhaps?”
The class whispered, turning again to look at Corin who was sitting in the center as if he was frozen. One of the students who had been whispering about Keras’ jawline glared at him passionately, while one of the students who had been watching Keras with undisguised disapproval turned an equally disapproving gaze on him.
Jin simply stared ahead at a blank spot on the wall.
Corin stammered incoherently for a solid few moments, then stood up hastily. “Mr… Selysian ? I know all of this material already, so I’d like to be excused from class.”
Keras frowned contemplatively. The whispering intensified. “Hmm…”
Corin stared at Keras with all the force he could muster, trying to silently scream let me get the resh out of this class now.
“I mean… I guess so, fine. You’re excused, Corin. Mr. Cadence.”
Oh Goddess, it actually worked. Corin grabbed his bag and practically sprinted out of his chair, heading towards the door and towards freedom and dignity.
“So, can I be your teaching assistant, Mr. Selysian?”
“He’s an idiot. I’d be a better teaching assistant.”
The clamoring from behind Corin grew louder. Determinedly, he didn’t look back, until Keras’ hasty interjection broke through. “Ah— actually, uh, I’d like you to be my teaching assistant for today, Corin. If that’s not too much trouble?”
Keras smiled at him, a bead of sweat forming on his forehead. An inaudible jumble of words dropped from Corin’s mouth, but he nodded and walked up to the front of the room, reluctance dripping from every inch of his body.
“Okay!” Keras moved to pat Corin on the back, then stopped himself and clapped his hands together instead. “Corin, as my teaching assistant, I’d like you to… uh, it says in here that you’ll have to… help me communicate the lesson. Whatever that means. So, why don’t you get a map or something, or try to draw the general placement of the continents? Since, of course, you already know this.”
Right. No good deed went unpunished. Corin groaned but began to draw some vaguely continent-shaped blobs on the board.
“Okay. So, Meltlake wants to cover Artinia, Tyrenia, Mythralis, and Vylin Tor. Let’s start by just, uh, clearing up some things. Such as the fact that the entire outside world is not under the control of your ‘Tyrant in Gold’. That’s propaganda by your goddess and the visages.”
From the gasps he heard around the room, Selyrian had just overturned quite a few people’s worldviews. Jin, on the other hand, fully intended to expose Selyrian, and his words served as more of a clue. From what he recalled, Selyrian had been speaking about heresy almost exactly like what he was saying now. He’d been in the news for it.
“We’ll start with Artinia, which — everyone, remember this — is not a continent, it’s a nation , on the continent of Valden. Got it? It’s that one.” He gestured to one of the blobs. “Roughly there.” He then proceeded to talk about each of the other continents, giving a basic description of their locations and magic. When he got to Mythralis, his tone shifted oddly. He sounded almost… sad.
It was hard to miss how much longer he lingered over that part. “And there are a bunch of Perfect Stranger taverns everywhere,” he was saying, “it’s a whole brand. The Thornguard uses them as hubs, and they also have stupidly expensive prices — I mean, I don’t know if there’s a correlation, but—”
At last, it had reached the point where the lecture was nothing more than meaningless trivia (where had he even learned some of this?). Jin was about to stand up when someone shouted from the back, cutting into Selyrian’s words. “Are you taking questions now?”
Selyrian waved his hands hastily. “No, I’m really not. We still have a lot to get to and—”
“How do you know Professor Meltlake?” a student called from the right side of the classroom, standing up as they asked. They sounded mildly scandalized.
“Oh, her. We met at a tournament, a decade or so ago.” We fought a couple times — well, the first time, she threw me off a tower, and the second time I beat her. I guess that one doesn’t really count, though, since it was a simulacrum… Then she melted the lake. I was… there. In some capacity.”
“You beat a simulacrum of her?” another student interjected. “And you were there when she — well, melted a —”
“Are you and her together?” yelled someone else over them. Keras’ jaw promptly dropped, forming an O with his mouth. Corin slapped a hand over his mouth, even though he wasn’t sure if it was to hide his shock at the question or to smother his laughter at the idea.
“ What ?!” he practically gasped. “Meltlake and me? No! No, no nonono, absolutely not. I’m— no. Neither of us are interested. At all.”
“Really?” the same student volleyed back. Clearly, they understood that there would be no consequences. “It seems like you two go way back.”
The student's deskmate sighed loudly. "Use your head, genius. They're exes, obviously."
“It’s not like that. Why would you even think—" Keras protested. "Corin never asks about my love life ,” he muttered. Jin frowned. That was odd; perhaps he misheard. Why would Corin ever do that?
The next student to demand an answer didn’t even stand up to ask. “So does that mean you’re single?”
Corin sunk to the floor, hand still over his mouth, giggling. He hadn’t expected any of this, but at least Keras hadn’t either. He as too busy trying to stifle his laughter to hear Keras’ reply. Jin stared at him, mind whirling. There was no reason Corin should find this as funny as he did. He shoved that thought to the side. He could figure out Corin’s odd behavior later.
“Wh— no. Absolutely not.” He paused for a moment, hesitating, then sighed and repeated, “No. Are there any other questions that you don’t think can wait?”
Jin seized his chance and stood up, nearly shoving his desk. “Aren’t you the man who escaped arrest out of heresy in Dalenos?”
Selyrian froze, looking caught off guard, and not just from the reveal of Jin’s existence. “Sorry. Could you repeat that?”
The class, which had mostly been talking freely amongst themselves (mostly either complaining about the quality of the substitute, gossiping about heresy and forbidden knowledge, or the persistent jawline murmurs) quieted and turned to look at either Jin or Keras. Many of them seemed to have forgotten he was there up until now. Corin, he noted with an odd feeling in his chest, was not one of them.
“It was in the newspaper,” Jin said clearly. “A man escaped an attempt to take him in, made on account of his heretic activity. In Dalenos. Was it you?”
“Oh, that.” Selyrian chuckled, seemingly in an attempt at casualness. “No, of course not. I mean, I haven’t been spreading heresy, have I? Moving on.”
Jin narrowed his eyes, but Selyrian pressed on with the lesson. Jin folded his arms, scowling. His eyes drifted from the man to Corin, who had been quiet even during his question. Corin who was still on the floor near the board, half hidden by the teacher's desk. Jin wasn’t sure if he was hiding from the class or if he was still laughing. Based on the fact that he was shaking slightly it was the latter.
But why? What was so funny about this? This was the kind of response Jin would have expected if someone had asked a particularly dumb question that anyone should known the answer to. But it had been a fairly valid one.
More than that, it was the kind of response that Jin had never seen on Corin before. He’d never seen him laugh like that. As if he was completely comfortable in just… being happy . And it was in Selyrian’s company.
Mentally, Jin decided that meant it was likely that Corin knew Selyrian personally. He ignored the part where it meant that Corin was more comfortable with a criminal than him. That wasn’t important. What was important was how Corin could know Selyrian.
And that made him wonder how Corin had even found out about him in the first place. Orden had made it clear Selyrian didn't have anything to do with the plot to overthrow the visages, so it couldn't have been from that. Jin tapped his foot thinking. There must have been another reason. Jin was drawn out of his thoughts by the man’s despairing voice.
"Corin, why are you still laughing? It's not that funny.”
“You and Meltlake,” Corin replied before cracking up again into a fit of laughter. “Oh, resh. I have to tell the others about that.”
“It’s not that funny,” Keras told the boy, smacking him slightly with the papers he held. “Have you been laughing about that this whole time? Honestly, I expect that of your sister, not you.”
Jin repeated what he had said, soundlessly. A thought occurred to him. It was a crazy one, it didn't make any sense. But at the same time, it did. Sera's offhanded and quiet admission of different mothers, Corin's cold attitude towards Magnus despite Sera seemingly adoring him. Oh, goddess. The more he thought about it the more it made sense. And it would explain Lady Lyran's coldness in the memory, despite Selyrian being nearly playful.
He slowly raised his hand. "Another question!" Keras looked exhausted at the thought. His despair only increased as he realized it was the same student who had asked the last question, about his stunt in Dalenos, and he braced himself. "You, in the middle. This isn't about heresy, or me and Meltlake is it?"
"No sir. Though I am curious about you and Corin." Corin made a choking sound, but Jin pressed on. "Is Corin your child?"
"What! No! Why would, okay you know what, at least it's a little more reasonable than the last one." Keras sighed, running a hand through his hair.
"Jin, what in the goddess’ name possessed you to say that!" Corin demanded when he regained his bearings. He didn't notice Keras freezing before whipping his head to look back at him then to Jin. "You know who my parents are. And you watched the memory crystal did it look like there was anything happening between my mother and him?"
Jin opened his mouth to retaliate when Keras spoke. "Wait a moment. Everyone sit back down. Now.” The students slowly sunk back into their chairs, looking startled at the sudden shift in his tone. Keras ignored them. He turned to Corin, looking him in the eyes. “Corin, that's Jin?"
Corin stiffened, face paling. "No."
Keras crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "Really? Because it sure sounds like he is. And he fits the description."
"I've never described him to you!" Corin protested, face flushing. "I've barely talked to you about him."
"Corin, you once spent a good fifteen minutes rambling about him to me. You clearly didn't realize what you were doing, but you still did it. In fact, you do that a lot."
"I what?" Corin asked, his voice jumping up several pitches. "Ramble? I always rambled you know that."
Keras nodded, and Corin felt a spark of hope that was promptly crushed. "You do have a tendency to ramble, yes. But when it comes to talking about him," he gestured a thumb over his shoulder towards Jin. "It's literally the only thing you do. About the fight, how you wish you'd reacted, and the ethical debate about how to respond to that kind of situation if it ever happens again. Can you forgive him, can he forgive you, that kind of thing? Also, weirdly enough, his jawline."
Corin spluttered, waving his hands. "Most of those have nothing to do with him. It just happens that he brought them to my attention."
"You think I have a nice jawline?" Jin asked before he could stop it.
"Quite you." Keras said at the same time Corin answered, "Umm, yes? It's a nice jaw." He slapped his hands over his face afterward, but Jin could see the blush on his cheeks. Then he lowered them "Wait was that all you got out of that?"
Jin was saved from having to dignify that question with an answer when another student from Kelridge he didn't know spoke up. "Wait, I'm confused." She turned to Jin "You're dating Cadence? I thought he was dating the blonde guardian girl?"
"Marissa? No! Why would you think that! She's pretty nice but I'm not interested and she is less so. Which I'm not even sure how that's possible but." Corin cut in, shaking his head. "I'm not having this conversation. We've gotten off-topic. Can we please go back to the heresy bit? I'd prefer we talk about heresy again."
Keras nodded. "Good call. So since it's obvious none of you have any questions we'll move on. Quiz time."
The student let out cries of outrage. "We haven't finished the lesson” and “You never said anything about a test" filled the air.
"Yes well, it's a good way to see if you've been paying attention this far. Corin hand these out." Keras handed the boy a stack of blank papers. "Everyone I'm going to write questions on the board, number your paper and write what you mean the answer is."
Corin sighed and started to hand out the papers, avoiding eye contact with everyone. Keras turned to the board and started erasing so he could write the questions. The class was still muttering behind him, but he ignored it.
Jin caught Corin's wrist as he handed him the paper. "I was firmly of the belief we needed to talk again after what happened in the hospital, but I didn't push it because you didn't want to. But I really feel like we need to because clearly, you've been keeping secrets too."
"I haven't been keeping secrets. At least not intentionally. Everything with Keras happened after the Spire. But yes I do think we should talk. I'm just worried it’ll become another argument because I can't make up my mind about how I feel about everything. I'm not sure how you've managed to do so."
"Practice."
"That's a depressing thought." Corin pulled his hand away. "After class?"
Jin nodded, "Where should we meet? Ideally, it doesn't turn into a fight, but I would still prefer someplace private."
Keras turned from the board, narrowing his eyes. He then loudly cleared his throat. "That's not happening."
"Keras." Corin whirled around. "I am an adult. You can't stop me from talking to him if I want to. And didn't you say that it was a nuanced issue that didn't have a simple solution?"
"It is. And I do think that the pair of you should talk about it. Eventually. When the two of you are actually capable of acting like adults." He folded his arms. "Until then, I don't think you being alone is a good idea. He tried to stab you in the back. In more than one way."
The class burst into whispers. "Did he tell you how that ended for me?" Jin countered, placing a hand over his chest, where the sigil had been when Corin blew it up. “Don’t act as if he was the only one who got hurt.”
Corin winced. "Sorry about that. I didn't realize how much it would hurt you. I was kind of overloaded with information and you had gotten way to close for comfort."
"It's fine. I understand why you did it."
Keras sighed heavily. “Okay. You know what. Fine. Maybe you two need to talk about it sooner than later. But you’re not doing it alone. I want to be there.” He raised a hand when they started to protest. “Not right there. But within shouting range.”
Corin glanced at Jin, who looked displeased with the idea, but nodded. He sighed and moved past him, handing out the rest of the papers. “Fine. But you absolutely cannot tell Sera.”
“Oh don’t worry about that.” Keras snorted, “That’s going to be up to you.”
The next day, Corin walked past a picture posted on the wall.
Well, he almost did. He wished he did.
What he saw would haunt his dreams, maybe even more than the substitute class — and, certainly, the dreams of almost every other student who walked past the image. Who just like him, stopped dead in their tracks to stare at it.
Corin could almost hear the gossip that was to come.
