A curious mercy, or perhaps merely the efficacy of Professor Eldrin’s salubrious balm, had worked its quiet magic overnight. Waking, Elias found the taut, angry distension on his cheek significantly softened. A faint, bruised shadow, yes, a ghostly blush of violet beneath the skin, but nothing to arrest a casual gaze. It merely suggested a clumsy knock, a momentary lapse of attention. Manageable, he thought, a small, cold comfort in the morning’s pale light.
His steps felt marginally lighter traversing the damp, moss-slicked flagstones leading to Aethelgard Academy’s ancient gates. Yet, the air within the hallowed, drafty halls of the lecture building hung heavy, a palpable压抑 that tightened around the students like a constricting band. Its source was immediately clear, a silent hum of dread: Cassian Vane.
Instinctively, Elias’s gaze sought Lysander Vane. He appeared just as the great bell tolled its final, resonant note for first period, a breath away from tardiness. Lysander moved with a tentative, almost ghost-like hesitation, his usual boyish stride replaced by a wary shuffle.
An electric current seemed to seize Elias, his breath catching in his throat. He forgot to blink, transfixed. A jesting, bitter thought had briefly crossed his mind hours ago – a crude wish for Cassian to share in the suffering he inflicted. Now, confronted with Lysander’s reality, a wave of profound guilt washed over him, chilling him to the bone.
Lysander’s face was a ruin. His lips were split, a dark, clotted line of dried blood marring one corner. An eye, once clear and bright, was swollen to a grotesque puff, a violent purple blooming across the orbital bone, almost as bad as Elias’s own cheek had been at its worst. Shame, sharp and bitter, curdled in Elias’s stomach. Such childish, vengeful thoughts felt monstrous now, a stain upon his own conscience.
“Dear heavens…” Elias murmured, a whispered horror that barely escaped his lips.
Lysander entered the lecture hall, his head lowered, eyes darting nervously across the familiar faces. Then, as if snagged by an invisible thread, his gaze snagged on Elias’s. Their eyes met, held for a drawn-out moment, a silent, fraught connection, before Lysander’s face contorted into a startled grimace. He jerked his head away, a desperate, almost panicked gesture, and scuttled to his assigned bench, putting as much distance as possible between them.
“What in the blazes…” Elias muttered, the peculiar repulsion radiating from Lysander leaving a strange, unsettling feeling in his gut. A glance, a quick sweep of the room, confirmed the chilling truth.
Cassian Vane sat hunched over his desk, his shoulders radiating a palpable fury. His eyes, dark and flinty, were fixed on Elias with an intensity that promised retribution, a silent threat that seemed to pierce him through the very soul. A cold, desperate realization dawned.
“Ah, blast it all to perdition,” Elias breathed, a fresh wave of regret, potent and immediate, crashing over him. He should have feigned illness. He should have stayed tucked away in the academy’s infirmary, far from the toxic miasma that now permeated the air.
After that grim morning, Lysander, who had once eagerly sought Elias’s company, now maintained a careful, almost desperate distance. During the brief recesses between lectures, he would disappear, often melting away with Cassian Vane to some unknown corner of the sprawling academy grounds.
Left to his own devices, Elias found himself gravitating toward Alaric Finch during the midday meal. A morbid curiosity pricked at him, a dark, itching desire to seek out Cassian and Lysander, to confront the escalating cruelty he knew was unfolding. But the thought was quickly quashed by a more powerful, suffocating fear. He hated to admit it, but he was afraid. Afraid of what he might witness, what brutal truths might be unveiled if he dared to look too closely.
Surely, Cassian wouldn’t be inflicting more harm… Would he? It was not his affair, not truly, yet Lysander’s battered face had etched itself into Elias’s mind, making indifference impossible.
Alaric, meanwhile, remained a sunlit counterpoint to Elias’s internal storm. His usual lighthearted banter, his utterly flippant demeanor, flowed on, oblivious to the tempest brewing behind Elias’s eyes.
“See? I told you the atmosphere in there was thick enough to choke a gargoyle,” Alaric chirped, spearing a morsel of roasted fowl with his fork. “My nerves were practically twanging like lute strings.”
“You seemed quite unperturbed enjoying that glacé yesterday,” Elias observed dryly, remembering Alaric’s cheerful nonchalance.
“Give me some credit, Thorne. I merely sucked it up like a consummate professional.” Alaric winked, a roguish glint in his eye, and chuckled at his own jest. “One simply must savor a glacé.”
Annoyed by the absurd humor, Elias nudged Alaric’s calf with his foot under the heavy oak table. Alaric rubbed his chin, a faintly sheepish expression softening his features – or so it seemed. The thought felt foreign, almost impossible, on Alaric’s perpetually cheerful face.
---
Life possessed a peculiar, meandering unpredictability. From the very first moment they had met in the academy’s receiving hall, Elias had harbored no intention of cultivating a friendship with Alaric Finch. Indeed, he had found the boy’s boisterousness and relentless optimism grating, an irritant to his own quiet sensibilities. And yet, here they were, Alaric now the closest confidant he possessed.
Alaric’s airy disposition, his irreverent tone, possessed a curious power. They served as a barrier, preventing Elias from becoming utterly ensnared in the crushing weight of his own anxious thoughts. In the past, those very qualities had been what Elias most despised, dismissing Alaric as frivolous, as superficial. But now, he clung to that levity, a desperate anchor in a sea of encroaching dread. Had Cassian and he remained bound together by the illusion of friendship, Elias doubted he would ever have recognized the profound, quiet necessity of Alaric’s presence.
Following that day, Cassian Vane began to distance himself from the larger group of academy boys. Sometimes, he would vanish with Lysander, a silent, unsettling procession. Other times, a few other classmates would accompany them, a forced entourage. There were even moments when some of the boys flatly refused, shaking their heads, their faces etched with uneasy discomfort.
One such instance involved Torvin. Elias stumbled upon him as Torvin scaled a low, ivy-clad wall bordering the academy’s eastern grounds, evidently attempting to avoid the scrutiny of a passing prefect. Torvin confided, a strange blend of amusement and unease in his voice, that Cassian had been ordering the others to strike Lysander, a single, brutal blow for each boy. Elias’s face twisted in disbelief, a cold knot forming in his stomach. Torvin, sensing Elias’s horrified reaction, quickly added that he’d been avoiding Cassian’s company lately because of it. He then mentioned he was on his way to the private study rooms with Kaelen, and asked Elias not to misunderstand his absence. With that, he vaulted the wall and disappeared.
Kaelen had been a close companion of Cassian during their first year at Aethelgard, but after being assigned to different lecture groups, their paths had slowly diverged.
At midday, Alaric and Elias strolled to the academy’s quaint little confectionery shop, purchasing two brightly colored glacés from the proprietor. The exquisite chill, the fleeting sweetness, spread across Elias’s tongue, offering a momentary balm to his frayed nerves. But beneath that fragile respite, a bitter knot of unease tightened, stubbornly resistant in his chest. Still, he held his ground, determined not to let the turmoil show on his face.
“Is that agreeable?” Alaric, already half-finished with his own glistening confection, eyed Elias’s glacé with a greedy, playful glint in his eye. “Care for a taste?”
Half-teasing, Elias lifted his glacé, already sticky with his own saliva, bringing it close to Alaric’s mouth. Without a flicker of hesitation, Alaric smirked, one corner of his lip lifting, and took a large, deliberate bite.
“See here! Did you truly just… eat that?” Elias exclaimed, a genuine shock in his voice.
“You offered it,” Alaric replied, utterly unconcerned.
“That’s utterly repulsive… And why such a monstrous bite?”
“It was but a single mouthful,” Alaric said, shrugging a shoulder, a wide grin spreading across his face. It was a remarkably peaceful moment, an unexpected pocket of serenity. In stark contrast to Elias’s internal turmoil, the crisp autumn air was clear, calm, and utterly indifferent.
Where were Cassian and Lysander now? A few desolate corners of the academy grounds came to Elias’s mind, secluded and forgotten. But he made no move to seek them out. Perhaps, he mused, he was indeed afraid of what he might find if he did.
He tried his utmost to banish Cassian from his thoughts, to sever the insidious tendrils of their past connection. But the harder he strove, the more acutely he realized the vast, suffocating space Cassian Vane still occupied within the confines of his own mind.
How much time, how much desperate effort, would it require to finally extinguish the embers of what he once felt for a person like Cassian? He had no answer. It felt akin to being adrift in a desolate, endless moor, not merely sorrowful and stifling, but terrifying in its boundless, unbearable emptiness. Sometimes, he simply retreated, turning inward. Like a creature struggling to discern faint prints in the shifting sands, he would step back, hoping to gain some clarity. When the weight became too overwhelming, he would occasionally unburden himself, just a little, to Alaric. And, well, that was that.
Then, abruptly, he spoke.
“Tell me, Alaric,” Elias began, the words feeling clumsy and raw on his tongue.
“Yes, Thorne?” Alaric paused, his attention now fixed.
“…Do you think blossoms will ever unfurl in a barren moor?” The question felt so intensely personal, so vulnerable, that Elias felt a flush of embarrassment spread across his cheeks the moment the words left his mouth. He scratched his head awkwardly, averting his gaze. But Alaric did not mock him.
“They will,” Alaric stated, his voice quiet, devoid of its usual mirth.
“…”
“They must. Life, after all, is quite dismal enough as it is.” Hearing those simple, profound words from Alaric – a boy Elias had never once imagined capable of such a sentiment – made him realize, with a heavy heart, the sheer futility of his own desperate, clinging hope. How much more time would pass before he could finally relinquish these meaningless, suffocating feelings?
“…Indeed. Life is quite dismal.” Elias sighed, a deep, shuddering exhalation.
Cassian Vane. That utterly useless, utterly cruel brute. Why did he seem so intent on destroying the loyal, tail-wagging creature Elias became every time he caught sight of him? Cassian, who seemed to have entirely abandoned the basic tenets of discipline expected of an academy student, now came and went from lectures as he pleased, a shadow of the person Elias once knew. And always, inexplicably, pitifully, by his side was Lysander Vane.
As the situation grew increasingly suspicious, the lecture hall buzzed with a low hum of unease and hushed speculation. It became starkly clear – Cassian’s violence, his dominion, was escalating. And so, too, was the silent, resentful fog spreading throughout the class, a quiet rebellion simmering just beneath the surface. None of it felt right, none of it felt good.
So, when Elias saw Cassian dragging Lysander by the wrist down the narrow, echoing hallway between lecture blocks, he stopped dead in his tracks. His gaze flickered between Cassian’s rigid back and Lysander’s tear-streaked face before he finally, against his better judgment, spoke.
“Your Patron is growing concerned about your conduct.” It was not an apology, nor a flattering plea. It was a lie. A carefully constructed fabrication. Such was the extent of Elias’s pride, the precarious tightrope he walked. But given Cassian’s strained relationship with his own Patron, Elias gambled that he wouldn’t recognize the deceit. And even if he did, Elias always ensured a retreat: he could simply argue that, at this rate, Cassian’s Patron would eventually have plenty to fret over.
“If blows must be struck, let them fall upon you alone. What transgression has Lysander committed?” Elias pressed, his voice tight.
“Step aside.” The moment Elias uttered Lysander’s name, Cassian’s head snapped around, his dark eyes locking onto Elias with a glare that felt like a physical blow. Elias’s chest felt as if it might burst from the sheer pressure of Cassian’s furious gaze. He hated him. And yet, the pathetic, fear-stricken Lysander stood glued to Cassian’s side, his eyes brimming with tears, looking at Elias as if he might shatter at any moment.
“Unless you wish for another taste of what happened last time, remove yourself.”
“C-Cassian, please,” Lysander stammered, his voice a desperate, trembling whisper as he tugged at his cousin’s sleeve. Only then did Cassian’s menacing words cease. His gaze shifted, fixed solely on Lysander now. All Elias could see was the rigid back of Cassian’s head as he turned away from him.
“As I said, your Patron grows worried—” Elias tried again, stubbornly, futilely.
Lysander, on the precipice of tears, clung to Cassian, a desperate, shuddering attempt to halt his cousin’s advance. Witnessing that pitiful, heartbreaking scene unfold was unbearable, a sharp, excruciating ache. Elias squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could disappear.
After a long, silent beat, Cassian looked at Lysander for another moment, then turned abruptly and walked back into the lecture hall. For the rest of the day, he remained there – just as he had a few weeks prior, retreating into a stony silence.
---
The long-anticipated day of the annual Academy Excursion had dawned. A large, hired carriage had been secured to transport them to some historical exhibition in a distant town. While a few boys grumbled about being dragged away from their serious studies, most were electrified by the mere chance to escape the academy grounds, if only for a single day.
There was no need for elaborate provisions; they were expected to return before dusk. The professors, adopting a relaxed demeanor, offered only a few half-hearted warnings before releasing them into the crisp morning air.
They were no longer mere schoolboys, after all. There was no giddy, sleepless excitement. Elias viewed it as merely another day – leave without his satchel, return without it. He had no inkling, no premonition, that this particular day would be the one where his carefully bottled-up frustration, his gnawing sense of injustice, would finally explode. He had anticipated its eventual arrival, certainly, but never so abruptly, so irrevocably.
As was customary whenever they ventured beyond the lecture hall, Elias expected to be seated beside Cassian Vane. After all, he had always been Cassian’s closest companion, his shadow. He hadn’t even spared a thought for where Alaric Finch might sit, as he had never before shared a public carriage journey with him.
At first, a faint flicker of apprehension coiled in Elias’s gut, a baseless fear that Alaric might somehow claim the coveted seat closest to Cassian. Thinking back on it now, the thought felt pathetic, absurd. Neither he nor Alaric would ultimately occupy that particular spot.
Upon their arrival at the academy’s carriage yard, Elias spotted their designated conveyance, a grand, dark-paneled omnibus, already waiting. He climbed aboard, his eyes scanning for their usual positions. The rear five seats were already claimed by a boisterous cluster of classmates, Torvin among them, who waved a greeting. Torvin hesitated, then pointed, a strange, uncertain gesture, towards Cassian’s usual place.
“Thorne! There’s an empty spot here!” Torvin called out, his voice a little too loud.
“…Oh, quite right,” Elias murmured, the words feeling dry in his throat. Of course. It had always been his spot, a silent, unspoken claim forged over years of unwavering loyalty. But today, a strange, profound hesitation gripped him as he approached Cassian’s seat. He sighed, a tremor of relief passing through him, when he saw that the space beside Cassian was indeed still empty. Swallowing hard, a renewed spark of stubborn determination flared within him.
It was his place. His pride – the last, fragile ember he stubbornly clung to – compelled him to sit there, even after the humiliating blow from Cassian, all because of Lysander Vane.
He nervously touched the polished wooden top of the seat for a fleeting moment, his gaze sweeping across the faces in the carriage, before he spoke, his voice barely a whisper.
“Tell me… This seat…”
“It is not for you. Go find another place.” Before Elias could even finish his question, Cassian cut him off, his voice flat, dismissive. His eyes remained fixed on the entrance of the carriage, his posture rigid with expectation. Following Cassian’s unwavering line of sight, Elias saw Lysander Vane, small and timid, diffidently making his way down the aisle towards them. Elias’s fists clenched, his words dying in his throat, shattered into a thousand unseen pieces.
“…Fine. As you wish,” he forced out, aiming for indifference. But his heart felt as though it had been cruelly shredded, torn and trampled beneath an indifferent heel.
He quickly retreated from the contested seat, his vision blurred, and sought refuge elsewhere in the carriage. He found an empty spot near Alaric’s group, directly in front of where Alaric was already settled. Relief, sharp and sudden, coursed through him. He rushed over, collapsing into the seat, and spoke before Alaric could even register his presence.
“Alaric, sit with me.”
No reply came. Looking closer, Elias realized Alaric was already lost to sleep, his head lolling precariously against the carriage window, bouncing gently with every jostle of the wheels. Alaric always seemed to doze off during early morning departures, and today was no exception. Shaking his head at the utterly ridiculous posture, Elias pulled his coin purse from his coat pocket and wedged it gently between Alaric’s head and the rattling pane of glass. He then leaned back into the uncomfortable, velvet-clad seat, a profound weariness settling upon him.
Across the narrow aisle, he caught a glimpse of dark brown hair, unmistakably Cassian’s – taller than most of their classmates, making him easy to spot even through the jostling bodies. Though the view was obscured, Elias knew, with a certainty that chilled him, that Lysander Vane was now seated directly beside him.