The campus was quiet under the blanket of night.
Rain had begun drizzling, with drops of water beading along the stone roofs and dripping from the gutters.
The light from the moon was thin, silver, and it gave the dormitory towers a mystical appearance.
Noah stood in the courtyard, hood drawn low, cloak heavy with shadow.
His gaze traced the walls of the second year, male, Gold-tier dorm, checking every ledge and window.
He crouched in the shadows, watching to see if any eyes were on the dorm. There were none.
The guards were preoccupied with keeping people out of the school grounds, and keeping beasts from the woods from making it in.
They didn’t put much attention into checking the dorms themselves.
Noah knew exactly which of the windows held his prey. And he wasn’t about to stop now.
His shadows kept whispering in his ears, delighted. "Now! Now! Now!"
Noah moved. He quickly scaled the outer wall, minimizing the sound his boots made as they scraped against the stone.
His hands gripped where grooves or window ledges offered support, and his cloak trailed behind him, blending into the darker patches of night until even the moon couldn’t find him.
At last, he reached the tall window of Galahad’s room.
A faint orange glow leaked from beneath the curtain. He knew it was the light of a single lamp.
Noah hung there for a moment, watching and listening. All he could hear was silence. There was no movement from inside, which meant his target was comfortable. Good.
Noah slid a hand along the window’s latch. Mana seeped from his palm, coaxing the metal mechanism to shift without a click.
The pane opened just enough, and Noah slipped through like a shadow came alive.
He landed lightly on the carpet, the sound muffled.
But Galahad Lawless was not entirely unprepared.
The scrape of the window opening had stirred him. He was on his feet by the time Noah entered, eyes blazing, his palm already alive with fire.
"Who the fuck are you?" Galahad demanded, voice low and tense.
Noah didn’t answer. He’d already predicted that Galahad would do this. He surged forward, attacking Galahad.
The young man leapt backwards, activating the spell formation in his palm.
The fireball hissed through the air, and Noah tilted his body to the side, his cloak flaring behind him.
In that instant where the fire passed through the air, Noah’s mana surged within him, rushing into his shadows.
They howled in ecstasy, coming alive. The darkness within them boiled outwards, spilling from every shadow and beneath his cloak in hungry streams.
They stretched along the walls, the floor, the ceiling, becoming semi solid, and turning themselves into a web of darkness that covered every surface of the room, trapping the sounds inside.
The fireball sailed beside Noah to splash against the shadows, instead of the walls. The shadows howled in equal measures of pain and ecstasy, trapping the sound waves in the room.
No matter how loud Galahad screamed, there would be no one coming to save him.
Galahad’s eyes widened. He had realized too late what he was dealing with.
Still, he roared and raised both hands, fire leaping along his arms.
He launched a barrage of flame bolts, the bright spheres streaking through the dark. They hammered against Noah’s shadows, but the darkness devoured them one by one, smothering their heat and swallowing their light.
Noah moved through the barrage, his cloak rippling. He dodged everything with ease, not even bothering to devour them.
Galahad panicked at the sight of the cloaked man dodging everything he could throw at him.
He drew deeper on his mana, forming a greater spell. Flames burst from the ground around him, a circle of fire roaring upwards and illuminating the room.
"You won’t get me so easily," he hissed, standing tall.
Noah’s expression never shifted.
The shadows behind him surged. He flicked his wrist, and a whip of darkness lashed out, cutting through the ring of fire with a hiss of steam. He stepped through the gap and closed the distance.
Galahad swung his fist forward, fire wreathing his knuckles. Noah slipped past the punch, his hand snapping up to seize Galahad’s wrist. The other boy grunted, straining against the iron grip.
Then Noah’s knee drove into Galahad’s gut.
The breath exploded out of him, his fire extinguished with it. His body folded, his eyes bulging, a choked gasp forcing its way out of his throat.
Noah didn’t give him a chance to recover.
He pivoted, twisted the captured wrist, and slammed Galahad down onto the floorboards with a crash muffled by his shadows.
The young man groaned, dazed, but still conscious. He tried to summon fire again, sparks guttering in his palm.
Noah’s shadows struck like snakes, wrapping around the arm, and squeezing until the sparks died. Another tendril of shadow coiled around his throat, pressing just enough to choke back the words of any spell.
Noah crouched beside him, expression blank. He leaned closer, his voice little more than a whisper.
"You shouldn’t have stayed quiet about the monolith."
Galahad’s eyes went wide with recognition, his mouth opening as if to speak. The shadow at his throat tightened, silencing him.
Noah’s fist descended once, a brutal strike against the side of the boy’s head. Galahad’s body went slack instantly, his eyes rolling back as unconsciousness claimed him.
The shadows around the room howled in satisfaction, their whispers rising in chorus.
Noah exhaled, pulling his hood lower, and let the shadows peel back slightly, loosening their grip on the room but keeping the silence intact.
He stood over the fallen body of Galahad Lawless, the young man sprawled in the dark, his breath shallow.
Noah exhaled, before looking around the room. Then, he chuckled at the thought that just occurred to him.
He was about to punish Galahad in the same way he’d been punished by the man’s father.
"Well, it’ll be fun, won’t it?" He said to himself.
His shadows answered, each one howling in bloodlust.
This was the beginning of his vengeance.