It happened very suddenly. One moment he was fine, the next his entire body was wracked with such terrible pain that he could barely breathe. Jamil couldn't remember much after that, just that someone cried out in alarm before he crashed hard on the floor in the dorms.
In Jamil's room...
Kalim knew all too well the shock, pain and agony of seeing Jamil like this. It broke his heart every time, and seeing it happen to Jamil who had no idea what was going on made it worse somehow.
The worst part was that he had to wait for it to happen at least one more time before he could do anything about it.
The Al Asim could not pull Jamil from the school immediate, as Crowley would throw an absolute bitch fit about it. Kalim remembered what happened in his previous life, how they had made excuse after excuse until they quietly 'withdrew' Jamil permanently before his second year and he was essentially thrown into a prison.
He had been oblivious to the truth before, but his eyes were wide open now. And he would see the Al Asim burn before they took him twice.
Jamil was wracked with pain for three long, agonizing days. Kalim stayed with him the entire process, staying a constant companion by his side. He barely ate or slept, and he refused to let anyone else care for Jamil.
He had no idea if they were agents of his 'family' after all, and word would quickly spread of his condition.
Jamil looked incredibly shaken by the whole thing, and who could blame him? He had to endure countless centuries of curses and bad blood towards the Al Asim...and he wasn't even given a choice! Lesser mages had actually died the first night.
Jamil, in the timeline Kalim was doing his best to insure never repeated, had survived five years.
It said a lot that his friend didn't question why Kalim handed him a phone with a number already loaded. It took him three seconds to realize the number was his mother.
The following conversation was enlightening in all the worst ways, and caused Jamil's mood to drop.
After all, the odds of him finding a cursebreaker willing to go against the Al Asim were nonexistent.
Jamil was so upset about learning of "the Sacrifice", as it was collectively called and the way the Al Asim had screwed over their family.
As if having a mutated version of the Maledictus curse wasn't bad enough, they also had to bear the brunt of the Al Asim's sins.
He was so caught up with this new information that he failed to notice what Kalim was doing in the background. To be fair, Kalim had over a decade of working around Jamil.
A month after the incident, Kalim approached Jamil carrying something.
"What is this?" he asked. He knew Kalim had been working on some project he refused to let Jamil see.
Kalim handed him a pendant of sorts. It was made of gold, and he could sense some sort of magic coming off of it.
"I went to Azul and Riddle for help on this," explained Kalim. "It's a pendant that should help the next time...it... happens."
Which wasn't true, but he had met up with the two to make the story seem plausible. "Kalim" wasn't know for his spell work, but those two were known as studious enough to help him find the spells.
In reality he had poured over countless books and scrolls in his past life to find any way to help Jamil who had given up hope.
It wasn't much once the curses had started to set in, but in the early stages it would help a lot.
Jamil looked skeptical, but accepted the pendant to avoid upsetting Kalim. His eyebrows shot up in surprise when the lingering pains he had disappeared once he put the pendant on. He had it checked later, by one of the professors. It had a lot of powerful anti-curse charms on it, among other things.
It soon became a part of his everyday outfit, hidden under his clothes at all times. Considering it helped the pain he was in, he wasn't going to question how Kalim pulled it off.
Kalim was unsurprised the Al Asim had learned of the Sacrifice awakening in Jamil. Casual cruelty was common in the rich, so the fact they had assigned Jamil, who they knew damn well would become the next Sacrifice to their heir as a way to control them through his friendship was to be expected.
The fact that some of his family had sent assassins to kill either him or Jamil once the news hit the older generation pissed Kalim off immensely. Rather than allow Jamil to deal with them, he decided to make a statement of his own.
Besides, he wanted to blow off some steam and deal with the trash.
He knew how the family assassins worked. Since he knew the Al Asim would try to entrap Jamil as a prisoner now that the Sacrifice had settled into him (or so they thought), Kalim had no reason to keep them alive.
Late night, outskirts of the Scarabia dorm
There were three assassins. They could hide all the wished, but he could see them perfectly fine thanks to his eyes. A gryffin had sharper eyesight than a human, and while it was known Kalim had taken the flying carpet, they assumed they were 'safe' because none of them could see it. It was a rather distinct shape after all, even in the night.
None of them saw the great white gryffin flying in the clouds, using them as cover.
They only cottoned on to how fucked they were when he descended like a demon out of hell upon the largest grouping, using his claws to great effect and grabbing as many as he could without a care about what condition they'd be in after.
He managed to snag three, with the fourth narrowing avoiding his claws, though he still gained a rather nasty wound to the shoulder from where it slipped.
Kalim was not about to drop them on the pavement, as tempting as it was. He didn't want to clean up the mess after all, and most of the students in his dorm were innocent in this mess. Besides, he had a better idea. Most assassins were skilled in deep desert survival, but that was only under ideal conditions. With a second swoop, he grabbed the fourth assassin with his beak and flew off.
They were all heavily wounded, as he was not gentle. Dropping on the sand was preferable to hard rock, but it was not a soft landing by any means. The scent of blood was heavy in the air, however they were professionals. A wound like this wouldn't kill them right off and they knew they were royally screwed if they didn't finish off this great beast. Forget their target, this creature would kill them without hesitation.
Unnoticed by the assassins, Kalim had twin swords strapped to his back...when he shifted, they were in his hands in seconds.
Their expressions at being confronted by the 'soft' heir of the Al Asim family was priceless. The look shifted to complete and utter disbelief when Kalim expertly sliced a man from crotch to shoulder without any hesitation or remorse.
They had targeted someone under his protection. They would pay for that mistake with their lives.
Night Raven had some wonderful climate controls, but it also simulated real world weather conditions. The dorm proper was protected, but the land around it was not.
Four bodies littered the sands, blood heavy in the air. Kalim stripped them of any identifying markers, easily removing any spells that were on them to be sold off later or 'traded' to another merc company for favors.
He transformed again and flew off, flying well ahead of the sandstorm about to hit.
He made a beeline to the kitchens as he was starving.
"Kalim! What are you doing up this late? You know there's a sandstorm about to hit!" scolded Jamil.
Kalim slipped into his 'oblivious' persona, which he genuinely hated by this point.
"But Jamil, I'm hungry~!" he whined. He knew he sounded like a spoiled child.
Jamil was not amused.
"This is why I tell you to stop doing those ridiculous dance routines so late at night. Just because your room has enough space is not a good excuse to neglect proper sleeping habits."
Kalim wanted to grimace, but kept his poker face up.
Dance routines were his excuse when he sensed Jamil coming and he was practicing his sword stances. He had a pair of air pods that he would listen to late at night. He never spent more than two or three hours practicing, but as far as Jamil (or his parents) knew, Kalim liked to practice dance routines because he had trouble sleeping some nights. Since he was quiet about it and didn't really bother anyone, no one told him to stop.
Honestly, once he made proper connections to the Red Sands, they happily agreed to pretend they had 'rescued' Kalim on the nights assassins made it as far as his bedroom when he wasn't actually there. They had been growing a steady nest egg from the number of times Kalim had lost track of time and forgot he had to do something the next morning.
Kalim allowed Jamil's scolding to pass from one ear out the other, even as he made a small snack to help tide Kalim over to morning.
The next morning, Kalim woke up extra early and dropped off the supplies he had taken from the corpses with the Red Sands and went about his day.
The sandstorm covered the dead, and it was so far out that it was unlikely anyone would stumble upon them anytime soon. After all, one patch of sand looks almost identical from another, and there were no witnesses.
The minor sleep spell he had cast over the dorm (after putting everyone to work making sure the sandstorm didn't breach the dorm itself, thus wearing them out) had insured that much at least. He had made very sure there were no surprise visitors by placing a minor warding stone by the mirror, which would deter all but the most stubborn individuals.
Come to think of it, that was likely why Jamil was still awake. He would have definitely sensed the spell and have been looking for the source. Kalim had found his ward stone broken and it was Jamil's magical signature that caused it.
He was going to be extra paranoid about things for the next few days, at the minimum.
He was cleaning up Kalim's room when he found it.
It was an application filled out for a magical college...and it wasn't Night Raven.
Jamil stared in disbelief as he began to read the application which was filled out in Kalim's handwriting. The entry application was for the Royal Sword Academy, which was the rival college of Night Raven and happened to be on the other end of Sage's Island.
He was so caught up trying to figure out what was going on that he didn't really notice Kalim coming in the room.
"Um...Jamil?" said Kalim worried.
"Kalim...what is this?" said Jamil, holding out the application.
Kalim openly winced.
"I knew you were eager to get away from acting as my servant, but without you there it was so boring. So I picked a college on the same island so we could still meet up. I was about to send that in and I had most of the paperwork completed when my father had all my stuff packed and I found myself shipped to Night Raven."
Jamil stared at him, mostly in shock. He had been annoyed beyond belief when he found out Kalim had been sent to Night Raven, despite not expressing an interest before.
"You were planning to attend the RSA?" he said carefully.
"I wanted to give you the space you wanted, but my father took my interest in magical colleges and bribed Crowley without my knowledge until after the fact," replied Kalim. "I thought it would be fine since you were on the same island, but I guess not."
Jamil knew Kalim wasn't lying. He was entirely honest about giving him space. The fact that his parents applied for him without his knowledge also fit with their usual behaviors...the Royal Sword Academy was a suitable college for the Al Asim, but there was little chance they'd care about Kalim's reasoning when Jamil was already attending an equally prestigious school.
Especially when one took the fact that it had strong ties to the Sorcerer of the Sands, who was very well respected in the Scalding Sands.
In any case, Jamil honestly didn't know how to take the fact Kalim had planned to apply to a different school so he could have his freedom.
It still didn't make up for his ridiculous behavior half the time.