Eric Ashford had learned the rules of power long before he learned how to cast his first spell.
In the Warwick Union—three fiercely independent countries bound by necessity rather than trust—power was never given. It was traded, threatened, or stolen. His father, the current President of the Union Council, stood at the center of that ever-spinning wheel. A diplomat in public, a tactician behind closed doors, and a man whose words could calm a revolution or start one.
Eric grew up in that fire.
Each of the three nations—Edran, Velshire, and Halmoor—brought different strengths to the table. Edran, with its sprawling coastal trade; Velshire, with its famed enchantment guilds; and Halmoor, with its elite soldiers and rugged terrain. But they didn't trust each other. Not really. Alliances within the Union shifted like sand under tide. Every trade agreement was a veiled contest. Every policy, a trap disguised as progress.
From the age of ten, Eric had been tutored in double meanings, in the silent weight of a pause during negotiation. By thirteen, he was sitting in on council meetings. By fifteen, he knew which advisors were secretly loyal to foreign powers.
Now at seventeen, he was here at Vyrith Arcane Academy. A Rank 2 student. Expected to represent the Warwick Union with poise and precision.
Eric had learned early that to survive in that chaos, one needed a ledger. A list of names. Favors owed. Weaknesses noted.
Which is why, when he'd arrived at Vyrith, he immediately began building one.
He hadn't expected Asher Augustus to beat him in the initial ranking trials. The third prince of the Lunar Kingdom had seemed too polished, too performative. Eric thought he'd coast on reputation.
Instead, Asher crushed the simulations.
He was refined. Calculated. Disarming. And dangerous
Eric had known of the prince before. They'd shared quiet meals at diplomatic events and exchanged pleasantries under the watchful gaze of bodyguards. But it wasn't until the academy that Eric realized how much of Asher's charm was a mask. The bright smile, the generous compliments—it was all calculated.
And perhaps that was why he respected him.
It had taken a while before someone else at the academy caught his attention. Clayton.
He'd seen the boy's name—Clayton Antigonus—heir of the biggest merchant house and the most bloody merchant. He was rumored to be very meek and scared but now he seemed like a different person altogether.
First, the stunt with Cynthia Hallmark and then the duel with Charles Edwards he turned the table both times unexpectedly and came out as the winner. Eric interst grew more and he investigated Clayton; the more he investigated, the more mysterious he seemed.
So when Asher and Clayton approached him together, requesting a private conversation, he already knew something was brewing.
What surprised him was that they were both being manipulated, targeted through the very medium all arcane society trusted: cards.
Eric still remembered the moment he received his.
A golden envelope slipped into his spellbound locker. Elegant. Anonymous. Inside had been a card—illusion-based, rare, and laced with subtle arcane resonance.
But Eric hadn't touched it.
He recognized the hum of foreign enchantment before his fingers brushed the surface. Years of living in the Warwick shadows had taught him what ambition smelled like. And this card reeked of it.
Instead, he had pulled out his emergency stasis prism—an artifact his father insisted he carry at all times—and sealed the card immediately.
He never scanned it. Never tried to activate it.
And because of that, he was still clean.
Not marked. Not tracked. Not bound.
Which made him the only one of the three who could act without compromise.
He smiled faintly, remembering the meeting.
They'd been vague about the details at first. Unmarked cards. Strange patterns. Interference from hidden forces.
The moment they said "Black Veil," Eric's interest sharpened.
Eric was also a member of Black Veil; for someone to do this in his own faction, Eric couldn't let it slide. He already set his sights on turning the Black Veil into his own organization. So, he needs to clear his house.
Of course, neither Clayton nor Asher knew Eric had also received a card.
They thought he was helping them just as a favor but these two were actually working for Eric all along. to clear his house, he will need them because there should be someone to blame when the thing went southways.
And they will be Eric's scapegoats
He could broker, mediate. Extract favors. Leverage secrets.
Which is exactly why he agreed to help them.
Not because of loyalty. Not because of danger.
But because if two anomalies like Clayton and Asher were being targeted, then someone was playing a long game—and Eric wanted to know who was behind the board.
The Black Veil was the likeliest answer. Rogue operators within the information faction weren't unheard of. Especially in unstable political times.
"Pressure's building across the continent," his father had warned him in their last encrypted transmission. "Old alliances are fraying. Someone will make a move soon. The question is who fires the first shot—and how quiet that shot will be."
This could be it.
Back in his dorm room, Eric activated a set of projection runes, letting the sigils bloom across the floor.
Data compiled from the academy's own arcane network swirled upward. Surveillance patterns. Faction meetings. Card distribution. Known informants. All layered in shifting light.
At the center, he placed three markers.
Asher Augustus. Clayton Antigonus. And himself.
Three second-years. Each unaligned. Each now dancing on the edge of something much larger.
Eric didn't trust either of them. Not completely. But trust wasn't necessary for leverage.
He tapped one of the sigils, and the network zoomed in to focus on faction communication threads.
There it was again.
A name that kept surfacing in odd contexts. Instructor Mavien—a mid-tier spell theory lecturer. Harmless on paper. But her movements lined up with five separate card delivery incidents last semester. Not proof. But close.
He saved the thread to a secured slate, encrypted it with a phrase only he would remember—"Honor is a lie told in public"—and closed the rune map.
Tomorrow, he'd share just enough with Clayton and Asher to keep them invested.
A whisper. A clue. A calculated piece of the puzzle.
But not the whole truth.
Not yet.
As he dimmed the runes and stepped onto his balcony, Eric let the cold night air hit his face.
The academy was shifting. Beneath the laughter, the lectures, and the casual arrogance of rankers, there was tension. Threads are being pulled. Shadows deepening.
And he wasn't about to be left in the dark.
If someone wanted to stir the pot, that was fine.
But Eric Ashford would make damn sure he got to pick the spoon.