Air in his private chambers hung thick with the metallic tang of his own fear. Lysander woke not with a start, but a slow, agonizing slide back into consciousness. His face throbbed, a dull ache radiating from bruised bone. Even the soft silk sheets felt abrasive against his skin.
He must have dragged himself back, locked the heavy oak door before the world spun into darkness. Impressive, he thought, even in defeat.
A hand, stiff and unwilling, lifted towards his face. Fingers brushed a tender, unyielding knot beneath his jaw. Each movement sent a jolt of raw pain through his shoulder, a searing rustle where bones met.
'Gods…' The whisper was a rasp, a dry leaf skittering across polished stone.
He pressed his palm against the mattress, pushing himself upright with excruciating slowness. The gilded chamber, usually a sanctuary, felt like a cage. Sitting on the edge of his bed, gaze fixed on a shimmering runic hanging that covered one wall, his breath hitched. A sound clawed its way up his throat, a whimpering protest. Tears, hot and traitorous, welled in his eyes, blurring the intricate patterns of ancient magic.
Unleashing the storm within, he surged to his feet. A crystal orb, a focus for minor divinations, sailed across the room, shattering against a scrying mirror. Books, meticulously bound texts on pre-Imperial rituals, became projectiles. He roared, a sound torn from the deepest parts of his gut, a raw, primal cry that echoed in the sudden silence. Rage, shame, a burning humiliation he couldn't contain, consumed him. He wept until his throat was raw, until his knees gave out beneath him, sinking back to the cold marble floor.
Eyes clamped shut, tears still streamed, silent torrents tracing paths down his cheeks. Each sob was a jagged shard in his chest.
'Damn them!'
Death felt like a sweet release, a quiet oblivion. Yet, what he truly yearned to erase was not life itself, but the memory of last night.
Thick panes of enchanted glass had been sealed, warded against prying ears. But had anyone heard? Could the wards have failed? Gods, if a single syllable of his degradation had seeped beyond these walls… Kaelen, that callous brute. Rhys, the silent witness. Why had they come? Why had they ripped open his carefully constructed world, exposing his wretchedness?
'...Damn it all.'
Kaelen had not merely struck him. He had trampled Lysander's fragile pride, crushed it beneath his heel in front of Rhys. That ignominy, far worse than any of Kaelen's dismissals or subtle slights, now festered, a venomous bloom in his heart. It was a humiliation so profound it had torn a sob from him.
Even in this abyssal despair, a chilling, aristocratic instinct surfaced. He worried about his appearance, the impression he would make.
Silence descended, stark and absolute. He glanced at the delicate clockwork device on his bedside table. It chimed, softly, just before the eighth hour. A sharp, cold dread lanced through his muddled thoughts: if any of the House staff, particularly the elderly groundskeeper, found him like this, it would be catastrophic.
His mind cleared with brutal efficiency. No one, absolutely no one, could see him in this broken, disgraceful state. Scrambling up, he righted an overturned lectern. All the scattered shards of crystal and torn pages were swept beneath his immense bed, hidden from casual sight. He sat, rigid, awaiting the inevitable tap at his door. Minutes later, a soft, precise knock came.
'Enter not,' he called, voice unnaturally level, 'I believe I've caught a peculiar flux. A chill has settled deep in my bones. I shall forgo the Ward today.'
'Oh, Master Lysander? Shall I summon a Healer from the infirmary?' The groundskeeper’s voice, though muffled by the thick door, held a note of concern.
A bitter taste rose in his throat. 'Nay, I shall attend to it myself, if the symptoms persist.'
'Verily. Should I prepare a calming draught?'
'Leave it at the threshold, I beg you. My thanks.'
'As you wish, Master. Take care.'
He had no choice but to skip his lectures. In this condition, attendance was unthinkable. He harbored no desire to face the Arcane Ward.
Thankfully, a small vial of soothing salve, often used for minor ritual burns, lay among his alchemical reagents. He uncorked it, slathering the cooling balm over his aching bruises, wishing its faint magic could erase more than just the pain. He crawled back into bed, pulling the heavy velvet hangings closed.
The glass vial slipped from his numb fingers, clattering softly onto the floor.
His body shivered, an uncontrollable tremor that had nothing to do with cold. What hurt most was not the physical agony, but the searing humiliation. It felt as though invisible, cruel hands pinched at his very essence. It was absurd. To shield his tear-streaked face from the morning light, he buried himself deeper under the heavy covers. Only the suffocating darkness of the blankets offered a semblance of protection from the crushing despair.
Sleep, he commanded himself. He *must* sleep. Forcing his eyes shut, he whispered assurances into the gloom. His parents knew nothing. Kaelen was not one to boast of such… trivialities. It would all be fine.
He burrowed deeper, a desperate burrowing into oblivion.
---
Fine, it was not.
Beneath the suffocating weight of the blankets, he muttered words that stung his tongue. To any listening ear—the Silent Gods, his distant parents, anyone—he wanted to scream it, a raging waterfall of truth.
*Please.* Kaelen had done this. Kaelen had struck him, had trampled him. That unfeeling brute. Kaelen was mad, a feral beast. All because of Rhys, he… after a year of forced proximity, of his own quiet attempts at an understanding, Kaelen had shattered it. Smashed it before Rhys’s cold, knowing eyes. Lysander was a fool. He had shown that wretched, pathetic side of himself to Rhys, too. Thought that someone might have witnessed it all, beyond the thick walls and wards…
He choked on the surge of self-loathing. Death. He truly desired it.
Most bitter irony was his first conscious act after that outburst of tears. He scrambled to delete every missive, every fleeting whisper-call from Rhys that had marred his data slate from the night before. Then, with trembling fingers, he erased the low-level sensory recordings from his chamber’s threshold, wiping away all traces from the early hours. That night, that ignominious fall, had become a secret he could not bear for anyone to glimpse. A shameful, festering wound.
---
Three cycles passed, and he avoided the Arcane Ward. Though his appearance remained a wretched sight to his own eyes, his physical body, remarkably, began its slow mending.
Perhaps it was the ingrained magical resistance of his House, or a fortunate instinct that had led him to shield his face from the worst of Kaelen’s blows. Regardless, the visible injuries were minimal—dark bruises hidden beneath the high collars of his tunics, nothing overtly life-threatening. For those three cycles, he remained cloistered, buried under his silken covers, his tears a constant, quiet rain. Every summons, every missed missive from the Ward, he ignored.
He imagined he could hold out, cloaked in his shame, until every last mark had faded. Fate, however, rarely favors such quiet despair. His parents, who had been absent on a diplomatic mission to the Eastern Holds for weeks, returned unexpectedly. Panic, cold and sharp, seized him.
'Son, what in the Void happened to your face?' His mother's voice, usually a silken murmur, was laced with sharp inquiry.
'Ah, well…'
'You were ill, were you not? A flux, you claimed. Now this?' His father’s gaze, piercing and shrewd, fixed upon him.
His mind raced, a frantic scramble for a plausible fabrication.
'Indeed, I felt unwell. A… an associate collected my lecture notes for me.'
'And?'
'And… I encountered a scuffle on my return.'
'A scuffle? What manner of scuffle leaves a scion of our House looking thus? Who was it?' His father’s voice tightened, a steel chord of command.
Lysander waved a placating hand, desperate to douse the spark before it became a conflagration. 'Truly, it was nothing. No trouble. We have already… settled the matter.'
'Tell me, boy. Why did you fight?'
'...Well…' He hesitated, then plucked the most pathetic, yet oddly effective, lie from his panicked mind. 'I… I mocked his lack of success in a courtship.'
'What?' His father’s disbelief was palpable. Then, a dry, unexpected chuckle escaped him. 'Are you Arcane Ward students truly so melodramatic?'
'No…'
'See that it doesn't happen again.'
'...Indeed.'
His injuries, thankfully, did not appear as severe to others as they did to him. The preposterous explanation, coupled with his quick reassurance, seemed to placate his parents. The storm passed, leaving only a lingering chill.
Yet, a peculiar unease settled. As they dined later in the grand salon, his mother, always attuned to the social currents of the Houses, suddenly spoke.
'By the by, are you still much in the company of Kaelen these days?'
'What?' The query was a jolt.
'He seems not to visit the estate with the same frequency.' For one who spent less than half a cycle in residence, her curiosity felt like an ill omen. Mere mention of Kaelen's name soured Lysander's tongue, twisting his gut. He snapped back, his voice edged with an unusual irritability.
'It is as it has always been.'
*The same, my arse. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.* The shame, the humiliation, threatened to choke him. He wanted to vanish.
'Did not another companion visit recently? The groundskeeper mentioned it. Are you close with this… friend?'
His body went rigid, a statue of dread. Slowly, his head turned towards the antechamber, where the elderly groundskeeper was meticulously polishing a display of ancient weaponry. A cold dread, colder than any winter wind, swept through him. Had she heard? Could she possibly have overheard that night? Was it her, then, who knew?
'Lysander? Is something amiss?' His mother’s concern sliced through his terror.
'Yes,' he blurted out, the word tearing from him, 'We are close.'
What his mother said next, he could not recall. Sheer terror, rooting him to the spot, erased all else. Only the memory of her gaze when she had spoken of Kaelen lingered. It was the same look she wore when relaying news of a failing harvest or a broken pact.
Why? That single thought propelled him deeper into a spiral of icy fear. His fingers grew numb. No. She could not have heard. The groundskeeper, renowned for her poor hearing, resided in a distant wing of the estate, far from his private chambers. She could not possibly have heard anything. But why? Why did it feel so wrong? All he could do was offer a silent, desperate plea to the Silent Gods he rarely acknowledged.
Another three cycles crawled by. His parents, weary of his prolonged absence from the Ward, began to press him to return. He absolutely did not wish to. But to continue his seclusion would surely confirm his mother's suspicions of a deeper issue than a minor tiff. That was the last thing he wanted. So, he forced a cheerful, unblemished mask onto his face. Nothing was amiss. Everything was fine.
Days leading up to his return were consumed by agonizing worry. What if he encountered Kaelen? Or Rhys? Would Kaelen strike him again? Humiliate him before his entire cohort—or, worse, before Rhys once more? Would he continue to grind Lysander's essence underfoot as if he were nothing more than dust?
Thought churned his stomach, bile rising in his throat.
Finally, the dreaded day arrived. He entered the Arcane Ward, grand hall echoing with the murmur of young mages. He hung his satchel on the side of his study-desk, scattering a handful of parchment scrolls atop it with feigned nonchalance. Then he settled into his chair, staring blankly at the polished wood while the hallway noise swelled around him. As soon as he heard approaching footsteps, he buried his head in his arms, pretending to be asleep.
If he feigned slumber, perhaps no one would notice the lingering shadows on his face. At least, not immediately. But he had forgotten one crucial detail: study-desk directly behind his belonged to Elara Thorne. Elara, sharp as a whetted blade, possessed an uncanny ability to read the unspoken currents of the Ward, yet often chose to acknowledge only what suited her.
She arrived, pausing beside his desk. A slender hand, tipped with perfectly manicured nails, slipped between his shoulder and neck. Her fingers, cool and firm, tilted his face upwards. He had no time to resist. Forced to expose his marred features, he met her gaze. Elara's brow arched, a subtle question. She assessed him with an unnerving frankness.
'What in the Void happened to your face, Lysander?' Her voice was low, devoid of emotion.
'...Nothing of consequence.'
'Did you stumble into another ancient ritual artifact?' Her tone was dry.
'Aye. Something akin to it.'
'Indeed?'
She made a soft clicking sound, a dismissive tsk, then abruptly released him. His head nearly slammed back onto the desk.
'Damn it, Elara!' He glared, startled, but Elara only offered a crooked, enigmatic smile, lost in some private calculation. Whatever thoughts churned behind her cool eyes, he had no way of knowing.
Neither Kaelen nor Rhys attended the Ward that cycle.
But during his absence, a tremor of whispers had begun to ripple through the student body.
'Heard about Kaelen? That brute actually…'
No one overtly questioned his injuries, yet the curious glances, the hushed conversations that ceased abruptly when he passed, confirmed it. Rumors had already taken root.
Perhaps, he thought with a flicker of bitter relief, the Silent Gods had finally offered him a small, twisted mercy.
---
Whispers, insidious and pervasive, centered around Lysander and Kaelen. Neither had been seen in the Ward since the rumors had first begun, and even Rhys, the enigmatic scion, had vanished shortly after, leaving a void for the stories to fester and bloom. Lysander’s lingering bruises, though fading, served as silent, visible proof, lending fuel to the spreading tales.
Story that solidified within the Arcane Ward spoke of a bitter falling out between Lysander and Kaelen. And, more shockingly, that Kaelen harbored an unseemly fascination.
'That brute, I tell you, he was utterly fixated on the Shadow-Wisp.'
'Shadow-Wisp? Wait, no. Gods above. I cannot breathe.'
'He truly resembles one, does he not? Fragile, easily snuffed out.'
'Aye, like a flicker against the encroaching dark.'
Common rooms buzzed with such cruel assessments.
'All those who swore fealty to Kaelen were utterly betrayed, I hear. Stabbed in the…'