A curious chill settled in Lysander’s veins. He found himself contemplating Aethelred’s departure from the Arcane Ward, wondering how Caspian, now a ghost in the hallowed halls, might trail behind. It was a thought both petty and profound, born of a scholar’s precise jealousy, an ache in a place he rarely acknowledged.
From Theron’s murmured reports, Caspian followed Aethelred with a quiet, spectral deference. Not side by side, no. Caspian moved like a shadow cast by Aethelred’s vibrant, destructive light. Still, Lysander couldn’t dislodge the image: Caspian, no longer a boy, but not yet a man, clinging to Aethelred’s formidable wake. As the thought twisted, a cold dread crept over him, as if he toyed with a jar of Eldorian secrets he should never unseal.
An obsidian jar, containing not merely despair, but a cruel, intoxicating hope that eclipsed it. And yet, knowing the peril, one still felt the pull to gaze within.
“This is madness,” Lysander whispered into the hushed quiet of his private study.
Indeed, his thoughts were unbound. Still, the next eve, he found himself following Caspian after their shared Ancient Runic Etymology lecture.
He didn’t venture far.
Moving with a scholar’s careful tread, lest Aethelred, who strode ahead, should notice, Lysander watched Caspian’s hunched form. The weathered stone of lesser dormitories, peeling frescoes on neglected walls, rusted gates to rarely used courtyards, and the drab carriages of lesser Houses surrounded them. A landscape of the forgotten, the commonplace. Aethelred in the lead, Caspian a half-step behind. And Lysander, observing from the obscure alcove of a forgotten archway.
It felt pathetic, a grotesque pantomime. He turned back, his robes rustling softly on the flagstones.
Later, bathed in the dim glow of his chambers, parchment spread across his desk, Lysander felt a grim satisfaction. Curiosity had pricked, but he had not succumbed. What further devastation might he have witnessed? Better not to know. He was no fool to crack the obsidian jar for so trivial a reason.
Aethelred’s hold over Caspian only tightened in the ensuing weeks. Caspian, when glimpsed, seemed to shrink further into himself, a wilting bloom under a harsh sun. Aethelred, in turn, bore a subtle, almost predatory satisfaction. A dark flicker ignited in Lysander’s own chest, a perverse contentment. He had not intervened with Aethelred’s initial cruelties. Perhaps that had been for the best, a silent, pragmatic decision.
Lysander laced his fingers behind his head, staring at the intricate, star-chart ceiling above. The Eldorian tapestry of celestial bodies reminded him of his own carefully cultivated life. Born into a House of middling repute, gifted with intellect rather than raw power, he had carved his path through meticulous study. He had never been truly denied, but neither had he been truly *chosen*.
“Confound it,” he muttered.
He had once believed his perfectionism would bridge any gap. Until Aethelred, a force of raw, untamed Eldorian magic, exposed the cruel reality that innate power often superseded even the most profound scholarship. And Lysander felt a strange certainty that Aethelred, too, was learning a bitter truth.
Ah, the Houses of Eldoria could be mercilessly cold.
Lysander had learned to rein himself, to mask the yearning, the quiet insecurities. Aethelred, conversely, was consumed by his own impulses, blind to the havoc he wreaked. That sudden, abnormal intensity in Aethelred, that volatile shift, must have been unsettling even for him. Lysander knew the feeling intimately. He had endured. Aethelred had not. Thus, instead of seeking to align with Lysander, he carved a path of aggressive dominance. And for Lysander, that suited a hidden design.
“Please, remain so beautifully oblivious,” Lysander murmured to the empty room.
Or better yet, let Caspian simply fade from the Ward. He harbored no desire for Aethelred’s attention. If anything, that kind of volatile connection terrified him.
He wanted only one thing: for a dawn to come when this dark fascination with Aethelred no longer consumed him, and for Aethelred to find some other, less unsettling, distraction. Such was his quiet prayer. But the Arcane Ward rarely honored simple pleas.
Another subtle shift settled in the lecture halls. Aethelred, who usually chose seats of solitary command, began to position himself closer to Lysander and Caspian in their shared lessons. In the Chamber of Whispers, a vast hall for theoretical Arcana, he took a seat directly before the lecture dais, obscuring the projected runes from those behind. Caspian’s usual seatmate, a nervous acolyte from a minor House, exchanged an awkward glance with Lysander and Theron, a blend of embarrassment and discomfort in their eyes.
“Fellow scholars,” the acolyte mumbled, bowing slightly.
Lysander and Theron exchanged a quick, silent look, offering a curt nod. No response was needed. They held little interest in such trivial discomforts.
Aethelred settled beside Caspian without a word, his presence a heavy weight. And Lysander prayed – no, *wished* with a potent, silent will – that they could persist in this unnatural tension, frozen in this disquiet, for the remainder of their studies. That someday, this fraught arrangement would become nothing more than a vague, half-remembered dream.
Yet another change followed. Aethelred, whose weekends were rumored to be a blur of aggressive magical duels and reckless social exploits beyond the Ward, seemed to curb his more flagrant displays. So it appeared. From the tendrils of gossip Theron’s network gathered, he hadn’t ceased entirely. But the boastful pronouncements of his conquests no longer echoed through the common rooms, nor did the faint scent of volatile magic cling to his robes with such ferocity.
For Lysander, that was something. He did not have to endure the raw stench of uncontrolled power so intimately.
“Aethelred! Not going to indulge in your usual diversions? Like this?” a loud acolyte, Garrick, swayed suggestively, conjuring a faint, flickering flame between his fingers. A crude display of elemental magic.
Aethelred’s face tightened at the vulgarity. Glancing sharply in Caspian’s direction, he snapped, “You fool! I told you not to flaunt such banalities in public!”
“Why the sudden decorum, then?” Garrick challenged, emboldened by the small crowd that had gathered.
“Bring that up again, Garrick, and you’ll find yourself in a very regrettable duel.”
“Aethelred—”
“I said, silence!”
“...Fine, fine.”
The others, a knot of ambitious young acolytes, looked openly disappointed. Aethelred, with his tall frame and potent aura, had once been the perfect conduit for their own nascent curiosities, their own hungers for power and transgression.
The acolytes in Theron and Aethelred’s orbit were not novices; they had all dabbled in minor infractions, clumsy displays of power. Compared to the truly uninitiated, they were easily swayed. With Aethelred no longer sharing his wilder exploits, their attention shifted, subtly, to Theron. But Theron only bared his teeth in an expression of pure disdain.
“You base fools.”
“Ah, there he goes! Theron and his sanctimony!”
“He’s just a fanatic for the old ways. Honestly, what a bore.”
Laughter rippled through the common room, loud and fleeting.
Most of the acolytes had, at least once, ventured into the forbidden pathways of Eldorian indulgence. But for some reason, Theron had not. While they teased him good-naturedly, calling him a puritan, no one truly disrespected him. He was Theron, after all. At the same time, Theron possessed a lighthearted, almost careless attitude about everything but his studies, which made his scathing remarks seem less personal, easier to dismiss. People found that either endearing or approachable, often saying he didn’t match his stern, unyielding gaze.
“Hey, you brute, stop glaring at me. You’ll curdle my blood.”
“Aye, that one has a face carved from granite.”
“Do you imbeciles crave a demonstration?” Theron scowled, and the group burst into fresh laughter, though there was little true humor in it. A few acolytes lingering at the back, perhaps his acquaintances—or something less—joined in with their manufactured jests and chatter, adding to the clamor. As Lysander sat amongst them, he stared blankly at the polished floor, lost in thought.
He had no memory of ever feeling such carnal stirrings for a sorceress. He supposed that made him different, almost by birthright. He had felt some fleeting arousal watching intricate Eldorian love-rituals involving both men and women, but he had never once fantasized about a woman’s form while exploring his own body. The former seemed to be about the sheer intensity of the ritual, while the latter felt like a simple absence of desire.
He had been dragged to a minor House gathering once, courtesy of Aethelred, but he hadn’t even made it past the outer gardens. He found the superficiality tedious. Brothels in the underbelly of the capital? Repugnant. He couldn’t fathom why anyone would frequent such places.
Because of all this, the acolytes, jokingly, called him “Abstinent Lysander,” but in truth, his abstinence was more a matter of intrinsic inclination. He exhaled a soft, almost imperceptible sigh.
Others were too engrossed in Theron’s dry wit to notice. Seizing the moment, Lysander glanced at Aethelred, who sat silently. Aethelred was staring, with an unnerving intensity, at the back of Caspian’s head as Caspian attempted to read a scroll across the room. And, as always, Lysander regretted it. Why had he looked? Why this persistent, unsettling curiosity? To divert himself, he asked Theron a pointed, academic question.
“So, are you truly resolved to remain celibate until you bind yourself in ritual?”
Theron, lounging in his chair as if it were a throne, suddenly fixed his gaze directly upon Lysander’s lap. His stare was so unyielding that Lysander instinctively crossed his legs, a protective gesture. What in the blazes?
“You are not my ritual-bound. Why the concern? What, are you offering the bond yourself?”
Naturally, Theron always delivered his jests with a malicious edge. The others chuckled, and Lysander, feeling a spark of irritation, kicked Theron’s shin beneath the table.
Such were his days – a monotonous, unsettling cycle.
---
Alone in his chambers, Lysander often found himself adrift in thought, contemplating all manner of arcane scenarios. Inevitably, those thoughts sometimes veered into strange, forbidden fantasies.
Today, he wondered what it might have been like if his fascination had fixed upon Theron instead of Aethelred. It seemed a far more sensible, less perilous path. If he had yearned for Theron, he wouldn’t have had to endure the constant, subtle heartache caused by Aethelred’s cruelties, by his aggressive displays of raw power.
Even so, his heart would still ache.
Neither Aethelred nor Theron would ever truly *see* him, not in the way he craved. But at least his soul wouldn’t chafe under the shadow of Caspian’s suffering, nor the looming threat of Aethelred’s volatile will.
That train of thought eventually led to familiar feelings of inadequacy and cold resentment. In the end, he simply wished he could complete his studies swiftly and become a stranger to Aethelred, a forgotten name in a vast institution.
---
At some point, Lysander started unconsciously placing his hands beneath his study desk whenever he sat. This habit truly began in his second year in the junior Arcane, and the cause was always the same – the subtle, insidious currents of power between men.
As he idly traced the ancient runes etched into his wrist, a preparatory gesture for a complex theory he was attempting to unravel, he pondered: *Should I pursue this thread of thought? Or should I not?* The faint scrape of his nail against the cool, enchanted metal of his armlet filled the quiet room. Just as he was about to delve deeper, to mentally unfasten the intricate layers of a particularly dangerous ritual, a soft knock came at his door.
“Lysander? Are you delving into your forbidden texts?”
“...Ah, no! I mean, yes! I am!”
He nearly dropped his stylus. Today was clearly not the day for such forbidden inquiries. Mortified, he buried his face in his arms. Confound it.
---
Lately, Aethelred had become an unbearable nuisance.
Sometimes, when Caspian, still wary, glanced in Lysander’s direction, Aethelred would deliberately initiate a conversation with him. Caspian, caught in the suffocating middle, would flicker his eyes towards Lysander, his lips parting as if to speak, only to press them together again. Then, as if fearing Aethelred’s presence, he would lower his head and offer an almost inaudible response.
“Y-yes, Aethelred...”
Just like that. A pathetic surrender.
Caspian, subtly, sought Lysander out more often, and had begun to address him informally as “Ly.” Aside from his House retainers and a few childhood friends, almost no one used such a familiar diminutive, so the change was starkly noticeable. Caspian seemed to believe he was being discreet, but he was not. The worst part was Aethelred’s barely concealed discomfort whenever Caspian dared such a small familiarity.
“Caspian, cease bothering Lysander while he studies.”
“What?” Caspian whispered, startled.
“Stop bothering him. Is that not clear?”
“Oh... uh, y-yes...”
When Caspian stammered and avoided his gaze, Aethelred, with an almost childish immaturity, slammed his fist against the polished lectern beside him. Lysander pretended not to notice. Annoyingly, clueless Caspian seemed to think no one truly cared about him using “Ly” anymore. He grew bolder, casually using it as if it were a matter of course.
“Uh, Ly... my apologies for interrupting your studies.”
Lysander stiffened, staring at Caspian in disbelief. Was the boy blind? Aethelred sat barely a few paces away.
Sure enough, Aethelred pounded his fist on the lectern again. Damnation.
“Hey! Caspian!”
“...Huh?” Caspian flinched.
The atmosphere turned instantly sour.
“I spoke clearly,” Aethelred’s voice was a low growl, brimming with barely contained anger.
“I told you. Do not call him ‘Ly,’ did I not?”
“...W-well...”
“Address him as Lysander. That is his name – Lysander.”
Aethelred’s gaze, sharp, almost predatory, swiveled to Lysander. Lysander hated that look, a cold, dissecting probe, and instinctively lowered his head. At that moment, Theron, seated beside him, casually draped an arm over Lysander’s shoulder. His low, distinctive voice murmured near Lysander’s ear.
“Aethelred, if you persist in this, you will truly unravel your own ambitions.”
“What in the Hells are you muttering?” Aethelred snarled, his eyes narrowed at Theron.
“I’m saying you will regret it. Bitterly.” Theron smirked, and Lysander felt a faint flicker of irritation, for one reason alone.