A whisper of chill still lingered on Lysander’s skin, a phantom echo of Kaelen’s raw arcane touch. Yet, when he woke, a careful touch revealed the angry swelling on his jaw had receded. He’d spent half the night meticulously applying the poultice, a blend of moonpetal extract and powdered glimstone, its properties gleaned from an ancient grimoire he’d deciphered. A faint bruise, the color of twilight amethyst, still bloomed beneath his eye, but it was a mark that could be dismissed as a clumsy tumble, a minor inconvenience in the hallowed halls of the Arcane Ward. It was manageable, a truth he clung to with desperate relief.
His heart, lighter by a precarious margin, carried him to the Aetherium Halls. But the air within was not lighter. It was a suffocating density, a quiet dread that settled like dust on every polished surface. The unspoken reason hung in the crystalline air, heavy as lead: Kaelen, heir to House Volkov, and his volatile shadow.
Instinctively, Lysander’s gaze swept the room for Rhys. The young scion of House Theron slipped in just as the chiming wards signaled the first period, a hair's breadth from tardiness.
Breath caught in Lysander’s throat. He stopped, mid-stride, his vision locking onto Rhys’s face. A half-formed, bitter thought from the night before, a fleeting wish for Kaelen to suffer a taste of his own cruelty, dissolved into a wave of sickening guilt. Rhys was a ruin. His lip was split, a jagged gash weeping barely visible ichor. One eye, swollen to a grotesque puff, was almost entirely eclipsed by purple and black. A suffocating remorse crushed Lysander. Such childish, vengeful thoughts were beneath him, utterly repulsive.
*“By the Void… what has he done?”*
Rhys entered hesitantly, his eyes darting, wide with a hunted fear. Then, as if an invisible thread pulled taut, his gaze snagged Lysander’s. A beat passed, then another, before Rhys flinched violently, a pained grimace twisting his features. He averted his head with a sharp, involuntary movement and scuttled to his assigned desk, avoiding Lysander entirely.
*“What in the name of the First Flame…”*
That peculiar aversion chilled Lysander. His eyes, trained by years of academic observation, scanned the periphery. Kaelen sat at his customary place, his profile a study in cold indifference, yet a subtle shift in his jawline, a minute tightening around his eyes, confirmed the predatory glare fixed directly on Lysander.
*“Damn it all.”*
He should have feigned illness, claimed a lingering hex. Regret, sharp and bitter, curdled in his gut.
After that grim morning, Rhys, who once sought Lysander’s quiet counsel on complex ritual theory, became a phantom, his presence a distant echo. During the brief recesses, his chair remained empty. At midday, Rhys vanished with Kaelen, swallowed by the labyrinthine passages of the Arcane Ward, their destination a sinister mystery.
Alone, Lysander found himself in the Refectory with Elara. A desperate urge to pursue them, to uncover the truth, gnawed at him. Yet, a deeper, more primal fear held him rooted. He hated to admit the truth of it, but he was afraid of what he might see. He was afraid of confirmation.
Surely, Kaelen wouldn’t dare lay hands on Rhys again so soon… Would he? It was not his station, not his duty, to intercede in House affairs. Yet, Rhys’s battered face was a stark, undeniable testament, searing itself into Lysander’s memory.
Meanwhile, Elara, ever the unburdened spirit, chattered on, completely oblivious to the silent maelstrom brewing within Lysander.
“Did you feel it? The air in there was thicker than dragon’s blood. I nearly choked on the tension.”
“You seemed perfectly composed last night, devouring those candied griffin claws.”
“Give me some credit, Lysander. I’m a master of internal fortitude.”
Elara winked, a bright spark in the dim Refectory, and laughed, a sound like chimes in the wind.
“Besides, griffin claws are meant to be devoured.”
Lysander, a sliver of annoyance piercing his melancholic thoughts, nudged her calf lightly with his boot. She rubbed her chin, an oddly sheepish expression crossing her face—or so it seemed. No, that couldn’t be right. Elara was rarely sheepish.
***
Life, Lysander mused, was a series of unpredictable eddies. From their very first encounter, he’d harbored no intention of cultivating a friendship with Elara. In truth, her flippant disregard for decorum had grated on his meticulously ordered sensibilities. And yet, here they were, a curious, improbable pair, and she had become the one person he felt any genuine kinship with.
Her lighthearted demeanor, her carefree banter, possessed a strange alchemical property, preventing him from sinking too deeply into the crushing weight of Eldorian expectations, of his own perceived failings.
In the past, he’d dismissed those very qualities as shallow, inconsequential. Now, he found himself relying on that very levity to tether him to something resembling normalcy. If Kaelen and Lysander had remained the inseparable companions they once were, he might never have recognized how profoundly he needed Elara’s unvarnished presence.
After that day, Kaelen began to detach himself from their customary group, a dark star drifting to a new, unsettling orbit. Sometimes, he’d disappear with Rhys. Other times, a select few of their classmates would be coerced into joining them. There were even moments, whispered in hushed tones, when some would flat-out refuse, shaking their heads with an uneasy pallor.
One such instance involved Joric. Lysander encountered him scaling the outer wall of the Solstice Courtyard, a brazen act of defiance meant to bypass a patrolling prefect. Joric, his usual boisterous self muted by a palpable unease, confessed that Kaelen had been ordering the others to strike Rhys, one measured blow at a time. Lysander’s face must have twisted in utter disbelief, for Joric quickly added that he’d been avoiding Kaelen’s presence precisely because of it. He then mumbled about heading to the Shadowfen Market for some illicit Arcane scrolls with another student, Torvin, and begged Lysander not to misinterpret his absence. With that, he scrambled over the wall and vanished.
Torvin, a scion of a minor House, had once been a close acquaintance of Kaelen during their first year, but a difference in assigned Aetherium Halls had subtly widened the chasm between them.
At midday, Elara and Lysander sought the cool shade of the Solstice Courtyard, purchasing frosted moon-gems from a vendor. The cold sweetness spread across Lysander’s tongue, a fleeting balm to the simmering unease in his chest. Yet, beneath that ephemeral relief, a bitter knot of anxiety tightened, twisting deeper. Still, he maintained his outward composure, unwilling to let his inner turmoil manifest.
“Is that good?” Elara, munching on her own brightly colored sun-sphere, eyed Lysander’s moon-gem with an exaggerated hunger.
“Care to ascertain for yourself?” Lysander, a rare, almost mischievous spark in his eyes, brought his moon-gem—still damp with his saliva—close to her mouth. Without a moment’s hesitation, Elara smirked, a corner of her lip quirking upward, and took a substantial bite.
“Hey! You actually did it?”
“You extended the offer.”
“That’s… uncouth. And why such a prodigious bite?”
“It was merely one bite.” Grinning, Elara shrugged a single shoulder, her expression radiating contentment. It was a singular moment of unblemished peace. In stark contrast to Lysander’s internal storm, the crisp autumn air of the Arcane Ward was clear, serene.
Where were Kaelen and Rhys now? A handful of bleak possibilities flickered through Lysander’s mind, but he made no move to seek them out. Perhaps he truly was afraid of what he might confirm if he did.
He tried his utmost not to think of Kaelen. But the harder he strove to banish him, the more acutely Lysander realized the profound space Kaelen occupied within the silent chambers of his thoughts.
How much time would it demand to unmoor himself from such a destructive fixation? How much deliberate effort, how many carefully constructed rituals, would be required? He did not know. It felt like being adrift in an arid, infinite desert, not merely a desolate sorrow, but a suffocating terror, an unbearable void.
Sometimes, he retreated into his academic self, dissecting the events like an ancient text, seeking patterns, seeking answers he knew were not there. When the weight became too crushing, he would, on rare occasions, confide fragmented thoughts to Elara. And, well, that was all.
Suddenly, an unbidden question slipped past his lips.
“Elara.”
“Yes, Lysander?”
“Do you… do you believe flowers can ever bloom in a barren desert?”
It was such an emotional, unacademic question that a flush of acute embarrassment warmed his cheeks the moment the words escaped. He scratched his head, a rare, awkward gesture. But Elara did not mock him.
“They will.”
Silence stretched, taut and fragile.
“They have to. Life’s already a deplorable mess.”
Hearing those words from Elara—a person Lysander had once deemed utterly incapable of such profound, unvarnished sentiment—made him realize the profound futility of his desperate, lingering hope. How much more time would it take for him to relinquish these meaningless feelings, these vestiges of a broken bond?
“Indeed. Life is… deplorable.”
Kaelen. That brutish scion. Why did he seem so intent on destroying the loyal, eager-to-please familiar Lysander became every time Kaelen’s gaze swept over him? Kaelen, who seemed to have abandoned every foundational tenet of House decorum, now came and went from the Arcane Ward as he pleased. And always, a spectral shadow, was Rhys.
As the situation grew increasingly suspicious, the Aetherium Halls buzzed with a low hum of unease and morbid intrigue. It became undeniable—Kaelen’s cruelty was escalating. And so was the cold fog of resentment toward him, slowly permeating the entire student body. None of it felt good.
So, when Lysander saw Kaelen dragging Rhys by the wrist down a deserted corridor, a cold fury ignited within him, a stark contrast to his usual measured composure. He stopped in his tracks. His gaze darted between Kaelen’s rigid back and Rhys’s tear-streaked face before he finally spoke, his voice unnervingly calm.
“Your House Elder is growing… concerned about your recent conduct, Kaelen.”
It was not an apology, nor flattery—it was a calculated lie. That was the last bastion of Lysander’s pride. Kaelen, notoriously distant from his stern, unforgiving Elder, would likely not discern the falsehood. And even if he did, Lysander could always argue that, at this rate, the Elder would indeed have ample cause for concern.
He always meticulously constructed his escape routes.
“If a punishment is to be exacted, let it be solely upon you. What has Rhys done to warrant this?”
“Out of my way, Lysander.”
The moment Lysander uttered Rhys’s name, Kaelen’s head snapped back, his eyes locking onto Lysander’s with the intensity of a predator. Lysander’s chest constricted, a cold, crushing weight. He loathed him. And yet, pitiful, pathetic Rhys stood glued to Kaelen’s side, his eyes, brimmed with unshed tears, fixed on Lysander as if he might break down at any moment.
“Unless you wish to receive another lesson, similar to our last encounter, remove yourself.”
“K-Kaelen, please,” Rhys stammered, his voice a reedy tremor, clinging to Kaelen’s arm. Only then did Kaelen’s harsh words cease. His gaze, an impenetrable mask, focused entirely on Rhys. Lysander could only see the broad, unyielding planes of Kaelen’s back as he turned away from him.
“As I said, your Elder is deeply concerned—”
Kaelen’s silence was a heavy, suffocating thing. Rhys, on the precipice of tears, clung desperately to Kaelen, a small, futile barrier. Watching that piteous scene unfold was unbearable, a sharp pain in Lysander’s gut. It was so excruciatingly painful that he closed his eyes, pressing his lids tight shut.
After a drawn-out moment, Kaelen looked down at Rhys, a brief, unreadable flicker in his eyes, then turned and walked back into the Aetherium Halls. For the remainder of the day, Kaelen remained within its confines—just as he had done a few weeks prior.
***
The long-anticipated day of the Arcane Excursion had arrived. An enchanted vessel, a grand carriage of polished darkwood and glimmering bronze, had been commissioned to transport them to the Grand Scrying Chambers, an ancient exhibition of celestial cartography. While a few disgruntled scions grumbled about being dragged away from their advanced spellcraft studies, most were electrified by the chance to escape the mundane strictures of the Arcane Ward for even a single day.
There was no need for elaborate provisions, as they were to return shortly after the noon bell. The prefects offered only a few half-hearted admonitions, their voices thin and distant, before releasing them into the bustling courtyard.
They were not first-year initiates anymore. There was no giddy excitement keeping Lysander sleepless. He considered it merely another academic obligation—depart without his satchel, return without his satchel. He had no inkling, no premonition, that this would be the day his carefully bottled frustration would finally, violently, burst forth. He had expected it eventually, an inevitable rupture, but not with such brutal, unexpected suddenness.
As was tradition, Lysander had always been seated next to Kaelen whenever they ventured beyond the Aetherium Halls. He was, after all, Kaelen’s closest confidant, a claim he held onto with a desperate, pathetic tenacity. He hadn’t even considered where Elara would position herself, having never shared an enchanted journey with her before.
At first, a faint flicker of apprehension had pricked Lysander, a ridiculous fear that Elara might inadvertently claim the seat nearest Kaelen. Thinking back on it now, it was utterly pathetic, a testament to his spiraling insecurity. Neither Lysander nor Elara would claim that particular spot.
When they arrived at the Verdant Expanse, where the enchanted carriage idled, Lysander climbed aboard to claim their assigned places. The five rearmost seats were already a cacophony of noisy classmates, including Joric, who waved exuberantly, then hesitated, his hand hovering, before pointing toward Kaelen’s seat.
“Lysander! There’s a space here!”
“Ah… right.”
Of course. He had always been the one beside him. But today, a strange hesitation rooted Lysander to the spot as he approached Kaelen’s chosen bench. A sigh of relief, unbidden and almost shameful, escaped him when he saw that the space beside Kaelen was, miraculously, still vacant. Swallowing hard, he felt a twinge of defiant determination.
It was his place. His pride—that solitary, brittle thing he clung to with such stubborn resolve—compelled him to claim it, even after Kaelen’s hand had connected with his jaw because of Rhys.
He nervously touched the polished darkwood of the seat for a moment, his gaze sweeping the interior of the carriage, then quietly, his voice a strained whisper, he asked,
“Kaelen… this seat…”
“It is not yours, Lysander. Seek another berth.” Before Lysander could complete his sentence, Kaelen cut him off, his gaze fixed, unwavering, on the entrance of the carriage. Following Kaelen’s line of sight, Lysander saw Rhys, a study in timid apprehension, making his way slowly toward them. Lysander clenched his fists, the words he had prepared dying in his throat.
“…Very well. As you wish.”
He tried to imbue his voice with an indifferent tone, though his heart felt as if it had been shredded by a thousand invisible blades. He moved quickly from the seat, his eyes scanning the packed carriage. He spotted a vacant spot near Elara’s boisterous group, directly in front of where she sat. Relief, sharp and sudden, flooded him. He practically rushed over, collapsing into the seat, and spoke without waiting for any acknowledgement.
“Elara. Join me here.”
There was no answer. When Lysander looked closer, he realized she was already deep in slumber. She always seemed to doze off during morning travels, and today was no exception. Her head rested against the cool windowpane, bouncing gently with every subtle undulation of the enchanted carriage. Shaking his head at her ridiculous, ungraceful posture, he carefully slid his small, leather-bound ritual journal between her head and the window, offering a modicum of cushioning. He then leaned back into the uncomfortable, unyielding seat.
Across the narrow aisle, he caught a glimpse of dark, almost obsidian hair. It was Kaelen’s—he was taller than most of their classmates, his imposing frame easily discernible. Though Lysander couldn’t see clearly, the subtle hunch of Kaelen’s shoulders, the way he angled himself away, was enough. A familiar, aching emptiness settled in Lysander’s chest. The journey had barely begun, and already, the weight of his unraveling world pressed down upon him.