A thin, silvered light, cold and sterile, filtered through the high, arched windows of Lysander’s private cell. Days had blurred into a monotonous ache since the cloister corner. Now, a faint ache persisted where Kaelen’s fist had landed, a phantom throb under his cheekbone. The apothecary’s salve, pungent with crushed moonpetal and ironbark, had done its work, drawing down the worst of the swelling. Still, a faint, purplish shadow clung to the hollow beneath his left eye, a bruise that might, to a casual observer, pass for a clumsy collision with an ancient lectern.
He traced the lingering discoloration with a nervous finger. It was manageable. A small mercy, perhaps, in the grand, indifferent machinery of the Lyceum. Lysander yearned for invisibility, yet the bruise, however faint, felt like a brand, a permanent mark of his unwanted visibility.
Venturing into the Lyceum’s echoing halls was an act of grim necessity. Each step on the cold flagstones resonated with an unwelcome clarity. An oppressive weight, thick and cloying, pressed down upon the very air. It was not merely the usual academic tension, but a palpable, arcane discomfort that prickled his skin. Lysander’s innate sensitivity to ambient magical currents flared, translating the unseen energies into a profound sense of dread. Kaelen Thorne’s volatile aura, potent and unrestrained, seemed to saturate the very stones.
Instinctively, Lysander’s gaze swept across the great hall, seeking. He found Elian Vane cowering near a shadowed alcove, a figure of profound misery. Elian had arrived just as the first bell tolled for the morning’s lecture on Pre-Dynastic Runes, narrowly avoiding the Arch-Magister’s ire. He was a wreck.
Lysander’s breath caught. Elian’s lower lip was split, a dark, scabbed line marring its delicate curve. One eye, almost entirely swollen shut, was a ghastly tapestry of bruising, a deeper, more brutal shade than Lysander’s own. A wave of suffocating remorse washed over him, chilling him to the bone. How could he have harbored even a fleeting, childish thought of Elian deserving this? Disgust curdled in his gut, aimed squarely at himself.
“By the Void…” Lysander whispered, the words catching in his throat.
Elian, his shoulders hunched, his eyes darting like a trapped bird, moved hesitantly through the dispersing crowd. His gaze, as if pulled by an unseen tether, snagged on Lysander’s. He froze, his already pained expression tightening into a startled grimace. Then, with a frantic jerk, he snapped his head away, shuffling towards his usual place at the back of the lecture theatre, avoiding Lysander entirely.
“What in the name of the Outer Spheres?”
Elian’s strange reaction solidified the unease already clotting in Lysander’s chest. He glanced around, and the reason became horribly clear. Kaelen Thorne, sprawled in his favored chair near the lecture platform, a sneer twisting his features, was glaring at Lysander with an intensity that promised annihilation. His magical presence, usually a simmering ember, now burned with a cold, malevolent fire. Lysander felt a tremor of pure terror.
“Blast and damnation,” Lysander muttered. He should have feigned illness. He should have remained in the solitude of his chambers. Regret, bitter and sharp, lacerated him.
Throughout the morning’s classes, Elian Vane, who had once sought Lysander’s quiet counsel, now avoided him like a plague-bearer. During the brief intervals between lectures, he would vanish, always in the wake of Kaelen Thorne, their shadows merging down the cavernous corridors.
Lunchtime found Lysander alone, a steaming bowl of bland root stew untouched before him in the refectory. An insistent, foolish part of him yearned to seek out Elian, to ensure he was unharmed, to somehow offer solace. But the thought curdled, replaced by a cold dread. He knew he wouldn’t. He was too afraid of what he might witness if he did.
Surely, Kaelen wouldn’t continue his brutality… Would he? It was not Lysander’s affair, not truly. Yet, Elian’s bruised face, the fear in his eyes, made indifference impossible. Lysander picked at his stew, the lukewarm broth like ash in his mouth.
“A haunted look becomes you, Blackwood.”
Cassian Vane, Kaelen’s distant relation and ever-present shadow, slid into the seat opposite, a sardonic smile playing on his lips. He was entirely oblivious to the storm brewing within Lysander. Cassian’s own meal, an absurdly sweet pastry, seemed a grotesque counterpoint to the Lyceum’s pervasive gloom.
“You seemed perfectly composed yesterday, despite the… circumstances.”
“Composure is an art, Lysander. One I’ve perfected in the face of academic drudgery and familial unpleasantness.” Cassian winked, a gesture utterly out of place in the ancient hall. “Besides, these plum tarts are a profound distraction.”
Lysander merely grunted, pushing his stew away. Cassian’s lighthearted demeanor, his flippant tone, often grated on Lysander’s nerves, a stark contrast to his own melancholic disposition. Yet, in these shadowed days, Cassian’s levity acted as a strange kind of shield, preventing Lysander from sinking too deeply into the suffocating weight of his own anxieties. He had once dismissed Cassian as shallow, unserious, a mere courtier. Now, he found himself clinging to that frivolous spirit, a precarious lifeline.
Had Kaelen and he remained… whatever they were… Lysander might never have recognized this strange, unexpected solace Cassian offered.
After that grim luncheon, the pattern solidified. Kaelen Thorne began to detach himself from the usual conclaves of ambitious students. Sometimes he would vanish with Elian Vane, their forms slipping into forgotten stairwells or disused lecture theatres. Other times, Kaelen would draw a small coterie of his most pliant associates, only for some, like the gangly Vesper Eldrin, to return with expressions of profound unease, shaking their heads in hushed, horrified whispers.
Lysander once encountered Vesper scaling a rarely used archway, ostensibly avoiding a lesser Magister. Vesper, a flicker of uneasy amusement in his eyes, confessed that Kaelen had been ordering the others to strike Elian, a single blow at a time, a grim, methodical torment. Lysander’s face twisted in disbelief, a cold knot tightening in his stomach. Vesper, catching the look of horror, quickly added that he’d been avoiding Kaelen’s group for days. He was on his way to an underground alchemical den with Galen Thorne (a distant, less volatile cousin of Kaelen’s), and begged Lysander not to misinterpret his past association. With that, Vesper scrambled away, leaving Lysander to the chilling echo of his words.
Galen Thorne, once a close confidante of Kaelen’s in their first year, had since drifted, finding solace in forbidden texts and solitary alchemical pursuits.
Another afternoon, Lysander and Cassian found themselves in the Lyceum’s sprawling, unkempt garden, seeking refuge from the heavy air of the main buildings. Cassian procured two chilled lunar-mint sorbets from a furtive vendor. The cold sweetness spread across Lysander’s tongue, momentarily soothing the constant gnawing unease. But beneath that fleeting relief, a bitter knot of dread remained, tightening its grip. He swallowed it down, determined not to let it surface.
“Is that palatable, Blackwood?” Cassian, his own sorbet a vibrant cerulean, eyed Lysander’s with a peculiar intensity.
“You wish to sample it?” Lysander, half-teasing, brought his sorbet, now faintly sticky with his own salvia, close to Cassian’s mouth. Without hesitation, Cassian smirked, a corner of his lip lifting, and took a deep, deliberate bite.
“By the Serpent! Did you truly consume that?” Lysander exclaimed, pulling back abruptly.
“You extended the offer.” Cassian shrugged, the picture of nonchalance.
“That is… unhygienic. And why such a prodigious bite?”
“It was merely one bite.” Cassian grinned, rubbing his chin. A peaceful moment, starkly contrasted by Lysander’s internal turmoil. The autumn air, usually crisp and clear around the Lyceum, felt strangely still, burdened.
Where were Kaelen and Elian now? A few desolate corners of the Lyceum sprang to mind – the forgotten crypts, the abandoned scriptorium, the shadowed reaches of the Old Bell Tower. But Lysander did not go looking. Perhaps he truly was afraid of what he might find.
He tried his utmost not to think of Kaelen Thorne. But the harder he tried, the more Kaelen’s image, his presence, filled the vast, melancholic chambers of Lysander’s mind. How long would it take to excise someone like him? How much arcane effort would it require? He did not know. It felt like wandering lost in an endless, desolate waste, not merely sorrowful and suffocating, but terrifying and utterly unbearable.
Sometimes, Lysander retreated into himself. Like the ancient scrying pools that sometimes blurred the very reflections they sought to reveal, he found himself stepping back, trying to make sense of the fractured tableau of his life. When the overwhelm became too great, he would, occasionally, speak with Cassian Vane. And for now, that was all.
Suddenly, an unbidden question slipped past his lips.
“Cassian Vane,” Lysander began, his voice barely a whisper.
“Speak, Blackwood.” Cassian had finished his sorbet, a faint blue stain on his lip.
“Do you… do you believe flowers can ever bloom in a barren desert?”
The question, raw and deeply emotional, embarrassed Lysander the moment it left him. He scratched his head, a blush creeping up his neck. But Cassian did not mock him. His expression, for once, was entirely serious.
“They will.”
“…”
“They must. Existence is wretched enough without refusing what fragile beauty might defy it.”
Hearing those words from Cassian – a person Lysander had never thought capable of such profound sentiment – struck him with a strange, bittersweet clarity. It illuminated the futility of his own desperate, clinging hope. How much more time would it demand for him to relinquish these meaningless, suffocating feelings?
“Yes,” Lysander murmured, his voice hollow. “Existence is wretched.”
Kaelen Thorne. That infernal scion. Why did he seem so intent on crushing every fragile tendril of loyalty, every flicker of quiet admiration Lysander might once have harbored? Kaelen, who seemed to have cast aside all the fundamental principles of the Lyceum’s decorum, now came and went as he pleased, a dark star around which Elian Vane, like a shattered moon, orbited.
As the situation grew increasingly volatile, a chilling unease spread through the Lyceum’s student body. Kaelen’s unchecked aggression, like a spreading blight, was poisoning the atmosphere. Resentment towards him, slow and insidious, began to permeate the ancient walls. None of it boded well.
One afternoon, as Lysander traversed the labyrinthine corridors towards the grand library, he saw Kaelen Thorne dragging Elian Vane by the wrist, pulling him through a lesser archway. Lysander stopped, his heart seizing in his chest. He watched them, his gaze flitting between Kaelen’s implacable face and Elian’s wretched, tear-streaked one. Then, a tremor of an unexpected courage, fueled by guilt and a strange defiance, compelled him to speak.
“Thorne! Your father… he has concerns regarding your recent comportment.” It was a lie, a desperate, clumsy fabrication. Kaelen Thorne cared little for the Arch-Magister’s worries, especially his stern, exacting father. But at this rate, his father *would* soon have cause for concern. Lysander always ensured his words contained an escape route.
“If retribution must be dealt, ensure it is directed solely at yourself. What transgression has Elian Vane committed?”
“Step aside, Blackwood.” Kaelen’s gaze, the moment Elian’s name left Lysander’s lips, locked onto him. It was a stare of pure, unadulterated hatred, cold and ancient. Lysander’s chest felt as though it might implode under the crushing weight of it. He hated Kaelen. And yet, pitiful, pathetic Elian Vane clung to Kaelen’s arm, his eyes wide and brimming with tears, looking at Lysander as if he might shatter at any moment.
“Unless you yearn for a repeat of our last encounter, remove yourself from my path.”
“K-Kaelen, please,” Elian stammered, his voice trembling, a pitiful plea. Only then did Kaelen’s icy pronouncement falter. His focus, momentarily, shifted to Elian. Lysander could only see the sharp angle of Kaelen’s jaw as he turned, ever so slightly, away from him.
“As I stated, Kaelen, your father truly is— ”
Elian, on the verge of desperate weeping, clutched at Kaelen’s sleeve, trying to hold him back. The sight was excruciating, unbearable. Lysander squeezed his eyes shut for a long, aching moment. When he opened them, Kaelen looked at Elian, then, with a curt nod, turned and walked back into the main Lyceum hall, Elian trailing miserably behind him. For the remainder of the day, Kaelen remained within the Lyceum’s main study chambers, an unspoken truce settling over the space.
---
The long-anticipated day of the arcane exhibition had arrived. An enchanted carriage, cloaked in wards of silence and speed, had been chartered to convey them to the ancient ruins of Eldoria, a forgotten necropolis rich in forgotten enchantments. A few of the more studious apprentices grumbled about the interruption to their studies, but most revelled in the chance to escape the Lyceum’s oppressive walls, if only for a single day.
There was no need for elaborate preparations, as they would return before dusk. The instructing Magisters offered only a few perfunctory warnings regarding the perilous nature of ancient wards before dismissing them. This was not a child’s outing. There was no giddy excitement keeping Lysander awake the night before. He viewed it as merely another obligation – depart without a grimoire, return without one. He had no inkling that this particular day would be the crucible for his long-simmering frustration, the moment his carefully bottled emotions would finally rupture.
As was customary for any excursion outside the main Lyceum buildings, Lysander expected to be seated alongside Kaelen Thorne. After all, he had always been considered Kaelen’s closest academic associate, a quiet fixture by his side. Lysander had not even considered where Cassian Vane would sit, as he had never embarked on such an excursion with him.
At first, a tremor of apprehension shot through him, a fleeting fear that Cassian might usurp the seat closest to Kaelen. Looking back now, the thought felt pathetic, absurd. Neither Lysander nor Cassian would occupy that particular place.
When he arrived, the enchanted carriage, its obsidian frame gleaming, was already parked in the Lyceum’s central courtyard. Lysander climbed aboard, seeking his assigned place. The rearmost five seats, usually reserved for the most senior apprentices, were already claimed by a boisterous cohort, including Vesper Eldrin, who waved at Lysander, then hesitated, pointing towards Kaelen Thorne’s customary seat.
“Blackwood! There is a vacant seat here!” Vesper called, his voice echoing in the confined space.
“Indeed.”
Of course. It had always been his spot. Yet, today, Lysander hesitated as he approached Kaelen Thorne’s designated space. A sigh of relief, frail and fleeting, escaped him when he saw that the seat beside Kaelen was still empty. He swallowed hard, a tiny, defiant spark of determination igniting within him.
It was his place. His pride – the solitary ember he stubbornly clung to – compelled him to claim it, even after the brutal public humiliation Kaelen had inflicted upon him, all for Elian Vane’s sake.
Lysander nervously touched the cool, polished backrest of the seat for a moment, his gaze sweeping across the other occupants of the carriage. Then, he quietly spoke, his voice barely audible above the low hum of the magical engine.
“Kaelen… this seat…”
“It is not yours. Seek another place.” Kaelen Thorne’s voice, sharp and dismissive, cut him off before he could complete the question. Kaelen’s gaze remained fixed on the carriage entrance, anticipating. Following his line of sight, Lysander saw Elian Vane timidly making his way towards them, his small form swallowed by the grand carriage’s interior. Lysander clenched his fists, the words he had prepared turning to ash in his mouth.
“As you wish. It matters not.” He tried to infuse his voice with indifference, though his heart felt as though it had been flayed, left raw and bleeding.
He quickly retreated from the seat, his movements stiff, and surveyed the carriage. He found an empty spot near Cassian Vane’s group, directly in front of where Cassian was slumped. A surge of relief, almost painful in its intensity, coursed through him. He rushed over, collapsing into the plush seat, and spoke without waiting for a reply.
“Cassian Vane. Sit with me.”
No response. Lysander looked closer. Cassian was already asleep, his head lolling against the enchanted window. He always seemed to doze off in the early morning hours, and today was no exception. His head bounced gently with every subtle tremor of the carriage. Shaking his head at the undignified posture, Lysander, with a strange, possessive tenderness, slipped his worn leather grimoire between Cassian’s head and the window pane, offering a makeshift cushion. He leaned back into the uncomfortable seat, the vibrations of the magical engine a dull thrum against his spine.
Across the narrow aisle, he caught a glimpse of dark, precisely cut hair. It was Kaelen Thorne’s – his height and regal bearing made him unmistakable, even in repose. Though Lysander could not see clearly, he could sense the profound, heavy stillness emanating from that particular seat, a silent assertion of triumph and ownership.