CHAPTER 98: ENCOUNTERING IAN

The morning bell echoed through the monastery corridors, pulling Renard from his light sleep. He’d been awake for most of the night anyway, processing the intelligence Boa had gathered and planning his next moves. The Thread Walking session had been exhausting, but the information gained was worth the effort.

As he made his way to the washing facilities, Renard noticed something different about the atmosphere in the student quarters. There was a tension in the air, whispered conversations that stopped when he approached, and several students who seemed to be avoiding certain areas of the corridors.

The washing facility, normally bustling with students preparing for the day, was strangely quiet. Most of the stone basins were empty, and the few students present clustered together at one end of the room, speaking in hushed tones.

It didn’t take long to discover why.

Ian stood alone at the far basin, methodically cleaning dried blood from his forehead and temples. The gash he’d inflicted on himself during the staircase trial had partially healed, but the wound was still visible - a jagged line across his brow that would likely leave a permanent scar.

But it wasn’t the physical injury that made other students give him such a wide berth. It was something about his presence, an aura of cold determination that seemed to radiate from him like heat from a forge. The boy who had climbed those stairs was fundamentally different from the farm child who had started the journey.

Renard observed the dynamics as he moved toward an empty basin. Students would glance nervously at Ian, then quickly look away when they thought he might notice. A few whispered among themselves, clearly discussing the scarred boy but careful to keep their voices low enough that he couldn’t hear.

One student who had been washing near Ian’s basin quickly finished and moved away, leaving a buffer of empty space around the transformed boy. Another student approached, saw Ian, and immediately changed direction to use a basin on the opposite side of the room.

Ian seemed completely unaware of or unconcerned by the avoidance. His movements were controlled and methodical as he cleaned his wound, showing no sign that he noticed or cared about the other students’ reactions. There was an economy to his actions that hadn’t been there before - no wasted motions, no unnecessary gestures.

Renard chose a basin several spaces away from Ian, close enough to observe but far enough to avoid drawing unwanted attention to either of them. As he began washing, he caught Ian’s reflection in the water and felt a chill of recognition.

Those eyes held the same emptiness he’d seen in his own reflection during the darkest periods of his previous life. Intelligence remained, along with determination, but something essential had been carved out and replaced with cold purpose.

Their gazes met briefly in the rippling water. For a moment, Renard saw a flicker of acknowledgment - not recognition exactly, but an understanding between two people who had walked similar dark paths. Ian’s eyes studied him with the calculating assessment of someone who automatically evaluated every person as either useful or threatening.

Neither spoke.

Ian turned back to his washing without expression, while Renard continued his own routine. Both seemed to understand instinctively that conversation would serve no purpose and might draw the kind of attention neither wanted.

Renard had no desire to associate himself with anyone if he could help it. His mission required maintaining a careful balance between blending in with other students and avoiding relationships that could complicate his objectives.

The fewer personal connections he formed, the easier it would be to maintain his cover and execute his plans without emotional interference.

Ian appeared to have reached a similar conclusion through different reasoning. The boy radiated an aura of self-sufficiency that suggested he neither wanted nor needed social connections.

As Renard finished washing and prepared to leave, he noted how the other students moved. They waited for Ian to finish and leave before approaching the basins he’d been using, as if his presence had somehow contaminated the space. Their whispered conversations resumed only after he was gone, voices carrying a mixture of fear and morbid curiosity.

"Did you see how he was hitting his head during the trial?" one student murmured.

"The blood was everywhere," another replied. "How did he even survive that?"

The superstitious fear in their voices revealed how deeply Ian’s brutal method had affected his fellow students. They saw him as something other than human now - a walking reminder of what someone might become if pushed beyond normal limits.

As Renard made his way toward the common hall for breakfast, he found himself thinking about the brief moment when their eyes had met. There had been no recognition of shared humanity, no spark of potential friendship or alliance.

In the common hall, the pattern continued.

Ian sat alone at a table near the edge of the room, eating silently. Other students maintained their distance, leaving a clear buffer zone around him that marked him as different, dangerous, untouchable.

Renard chose his own isolated position and ate in silence, observing the social dynamics while planning his day’s activities. Both he and Ian had become islands in the sea of student interaction - isolated by choice and circumstance, united only in their mutual rejection of connection.

It was exactly the kind of situation Renard had wanted to avoid creating attention, but Ian’s more dramatic transformation had drawn most of the scrutiny away from his own careful detachment. In a way, the boy’s obvious isolation provided cover for Renard’s more subtle version of the same behavior.

As Renard watched Ian disappear into the crowd of students heading to morning classes, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was looking at a darker version of himself - someone who had embraced the same survival strategies but without the broader purpose that kept Renard anchored to something beyond pure self-interest.

It was a troubling mirror, and one he preferred not to look into too closely if possible.

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