A dull ache throbbed behind Lysander’s eyes. He found himself sprawled across his bed, the heavy velvet drapes drawn, plunging his small chamber into a oppressive gloom. Even in his dazed state, he must have managed to engage the intricate runic lock on the door before collapsing. An impressive feat, perhaps, for someone barely coherent.
He lay still, blinking into the darkness as awareness slowly, painfully, seeped back into his senses. Every muscle screamed. His entire face felt swollen, a mask of tender, numbing agony. A hand, stiff as ancient parchment, lifted. His shoulder ground as if rusted cogs spun within the joint, sending a needle-sharp pain through the spaces between his bones.
“Ah…” A soft, broken sound escaped him.
With difficulty, his fingers explored his battered frame. They brushed against tender spots that had hardened unnaturally beneath his robes. After a long, prone moment, he pressed his hand against the mattress, pushing himself upright.
He sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the wall, the silence of the chamber a suffocating weight. Suddenly, a choked sob clawed its way up his throat, emerging as a raw, raspy cry. His voice felt scraped, as though shards of crystal had abraded his vocal cords.
Anger, cold and desperate, surged through him. He sprang up, scattering the carefully stacked tomes of obscure lore from his bedside table, sending a small clay effigy crashing against the wall. Fragments of ancient knowledge, once his solace, now lay broken. Lysander cried and raged, a silent, desperate storm, until his legs gave way. He sank back onto the floor, his head bowed. A hand clamped over his mouth, stifling the last whimpers. He squeezed his eyes shut, but defiant tears welled, tracing hot paths down his cheeks as sobs hitched in his throat.
“Damn it!”
He truly wanted to vanish. Not to die, not exactly, but to evaporate from existence, leaving no trace. He wished for the very fabric of the Spire to swallow him whole.
What he truly wanted to vanish over was the humiliation of the previous night. The chamber’s sound-dampening wards had been active, he was certain. But had anyone heard? Could the aether-sight glyphs have recorded anything? Damn it. Damn it. Kaelen. Zephyrion. Why did they come to his chambers? Why did they have to ruin his life like this?
“…Damn it.”
What Kaelen had trampled on, witnessed by Zephyrion, wasn’t just Lysander’s body – it was his meticulously constructed façade, his fragile pride. The humiliation cut deeper than any bruise, worse than Kaelen’s open contempt. It was a wound so devastating it left him weeping with impotent rage.
Yet, even as he dissolved into tears, a self-preserving instinct flickered. He found himself worrying about how he would appear to others. This was one of those moments.
---
The profound silence around him suddenly registered. His sobs died, replaced by shallow, ragged breaths. He glanced at the arcane clock on his wall. Its glowing sigils indicated just before the eighth hour, the hour of first light and the morning muster. A sharp thought cleaved through his muddled brain: encountering the Quarters-Attendant in this state would be disastrous. A cold chill spread through his head, clearing his mind with brutal efficiency.
No. He could not, *would not*, allow anyone to see him in this pathetic, disgraced state. Scrambling to his feet, he righted the overturned stool, sweeping the scattered tomes and broken effigy under his bed. Lysander sat, forcing a semblance of composure, waiting for the inevitable knock on his door. It came a few minutes later, right on cue, a precise, soft rapping.
“Do not enter,” he called, his voice rough but attempting normalcy. “I fear I’ve caught an aetheric chill. My flux is unsettled. I shall forgo the morning lectures.”
“An aetheric chill, Master Vance? How unfortunate. Should the Spire’s healers be summoned?” The voice of the Quarters-Attendant, dry and precise, penetrated the door.
He swallowed a bitter taste that rose in his throat. “No, that will not be necessary. I will seek their aid later if the affliction persists.”
“As you wish. Shall I arrange for a restorative broth to be brought?”
“Just leave it outside the door, please. My thanks.”
“Of course, Master Vance. May your energies quickly stabilize.”
Lysander decided. He would skip the Arcanum. He was in no shape to attend, nor did he possess the desire. He needed time.
Thankfully, a small vial of basic healing balm, used for minor ritual burns, lay on his desk. He picked it up, slathering the cooling unguent over his aching body, wishing desperately for the physical pain to eclipse the far deeper humiliation. Then, he crawled back into his bed.
The vial slipped from his nerveless fingers, clattering to the flagstone floor. His entire body shivered uncontrollably. But what hurt more than the physical pain, more than the throbbing bruises, was the humiliation. It felt as if unseen hands pinched his gut with tiny, cruel fingers. It was absurd. To hide his tear-streaked face, he blocked out the meager light filtering through the drapes, burrowing deep under the thick, enchanted blankets. The heavy fabric felt like the only shield against the crushing despair.
He needed to sleep. He *had* to sleep. Forcing his eyes shut, he repeated a desperate mantra: *it would be fine. His parents didn’t know. Kaelen wasn’t the type to boast about such an ignominious skirmish, especially not with Zephyrion as a witness.* It would be fine. Thinking that, he buried himself deeper under the covers.
---
Actually, it wasn’t fine at all.
Hidden beneath the blankets, Lysander kept muttering words that lingered bitterly on the tip of his tongue. To anyone – the Ancestors, the Spire itself, anyone – he wanted to scream it aloud, like a waterfall pouring over a precipice. *Please.* It was Kaelen. Kaelen had struck him. He had trampled Lysander’s dignity. That bastard. Kaelen was insane. He was out of his mind. Just because of Seraphina, he… After everything they’d endured in the shadows of the Spire, all the quiet observations, Kaelen had crushed him. He’d crushed him right in front of Zephyrion. Lysander was an idiot. He had shown that pathetic side of himself to Zephyrion, too. The thought that someone, *anyone*, might have seen it all…
He cut off the frantic train of thought. A wave of self-loathing surged within him, so potent it stole his breath. He wanted to cease existing.
The saddest part was what he did after crying under the blanket. The first thing he did was scramble to delete every message and call record from Zephyrion’s scrying-slate. Then, in a rush, he focused, meticulously sifting through the aetheric echoes, erasing the faint ward-breaches from his chamber entrance, clearing any lingering magical signatures from the early morning. That night had become something he couldn’t bear to let anyone know about—a shameful secret he couldn’t allow anyone to perceive.
---
Lysander skipped the Arcanum for three days. Despite his hideous appearance, his body was healing steadily. Perhaps it was because he’d managed to shield the more noticeable areas while being beaten, or maybe his lineage, though lesser, still granted a surprising resilience. Either way, the visible injuries were minimal—just a few dark bruises hidden under his robes, nothing life-threatening. For those three days, he buried himself under the blankets, crying over and over. He ignored every single message and summons from the Arcanum.
He thought he could hold out until he fully recovered, but fortune was not on his side. His parents, who had been away on House affairs for a long time, suddenly returned to their Spire-side residence. He had no choice but to panic.
“…Son, what happened to your face?” His mother’s voice was sharp, concerned. His father, a man of quiet authority, merely observed.
“Oh, well…” Lysander stammered.
“Did you engage in a physical dispute? You claimed an aetheric chill. A ritual fever.” His father’s tone hardened, an unspoken reprimand for lying.
As his father peppered him with questions, Lysander scrambled for a plausible explanation.
“Oh, um, I wasn’t feeling well, so a junior novice picked up a required scroll for me…”
“And?”
“And I… became embroiled in an… academic disagreement on my way to retrieve it.”
“What?” His father’s eyebrow arched.
“It wasn’t anything serious. Just… a heated debate over ancient runic syntax that escalated. I merely… stumbled and struck my face on the paving-stones.” He spoke quickly, trying to make it sound minor.
“What kind of academic disagreement leaves a student’s face looking like this? Who was it?” His father’s voice rose, edged with the threat of House intervention. Lysander frantically waved his hands to calm him.
“No, truly, I want no House intervention. It wasn’t a serious dispute. We’ve already reached an understanding.”
“Come now, tell me—why did you come to blows over ‘runic syntax’?”
“…Well…” After a moment of desperate thought, he came up with a completely pathetic excuse, hoping it sounded trivial enough.
“I… teased him for misinterpreting a newly discovered Khazar rune sequence.”
“What?” His mother gasped, covering her mouth.
Surprisingly, his ridiculous answer seemed to diffuse the situation. His father let out a sigh of disbelief, then, to Lysander’s shock, a soft chuckle. “What are you novices, enacting a House melodrama?”
“No…”
“Do not engage in such trivialities again, Lysander. Maintain your decorum.”
“…Understood.”
It also helped that his injuries, though unsightly, didn’t look as severe as they could have. Thankfully, the incident blew over.
Something strange did happen, though. While they were eating dinner in the residence’s private dining hall, his mother suddenly brought up Kaelen.
“By the way, Lysander, are you still closely associated with young Lord Kaelen these days?”
“What?”
“I mean, he doesn’t seem to call upon our residence as frequently as before.”
For someone who was home less than half the time, what could she possibly be curious about? The mere mention of Kaelen forced his image into Lysander’s mind, souring his mood instantly. He snapped back, an irritable edge to his tone.
“It remains the same as always.” The same, his ass. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. He felt such shame, such humiliation, he wanted the floor to open and swallow him whole.
“Didn’t another student call upon you recently? The Quarters-Attendant mentioned it. A Master Zephyrion, was it? Are you close with that student?”
Lysander’s body went rigid. Slowly, he turned his head toward the entrance of the dining hall, where the Quarters-Attendant stood by the antechamber, quietly supervising. A cold chill ran through him. Had she sensed it? Could she have detected the chaotic aetheric residue that night? Was it possible she was the one who’d perceived the disturbances?
“Lysander? What troubles you?” His mother’s voice cut through his thoughts.
Startled, he blurted out a response without thinking. “Yes. We are close.”
What his mother said after that, he couldn’t remember. The sheer terror that rooted him to the spot wiped everything else from his mind. What he did recall was the way she looked at him when she mentioned Kaelen. It was the kind of look she gave when she spoke of ill omens.
Why? That thought pushed him further into a spiral of fear. His fingers grew cold. No. She couldn’t have sensed it. The Quarters-Attendant’s aetheric sensitivities were known to be dulled by age, and her quarters were situated in a separate wing, far from his chamber. She couldn’t have detected anything. But why? Why did it feel like something was fundamentally wrong? All he could do was offer a desperate prayer to the forgotten Ancestors he didn’t even truly believe in.
---
Three more days passed, and his parents started urging him to return to the Arcanum. He absolutely didn’t want to. But if he kept skipping, his mother would surely think there was a deeper problem than just a minor scuffle over runic syntax. That was the last thing he wanted. So, he forced himself to put on a cheerful, unblemished face. There was nothing wrong with him.
The days leading up to his return were filled with endless worry about what he’d do if he ran into Kaelen or Zephyrion. Would Kaelen beat him to a pulp again? Would he humiliate Lysander in front of their class – or worse, in front of Zephyrion? Would he continue to trample on Lysander as if he were nothing?
The thought alone made him feel nauseous. When he finally arrived at the Arcanum, he hung his satchel on the side of his study-desk and tossed some random research notes on top of it. Then he sat down, staring blankly at the polished desk while the hallway noise gradually grew louder. As soon as he heard approaching footsteps, he buried his head in his arms, pretending to be absorbed in rest.
If he pretended to be asleep, no one would notice his messed-up face. At least not for a while. But he hadn’t accounted for one thing: the seat behind him belonged to Tavian, a student from House Volkov. Tavian was the kind of individual who could read the aetheric currents of a room but chose to act oblivious anyway, enjoying the discomfort.
As soon as Tavian arrived, he stood by Lysander’s desk, slipped his hand between his shoulder and neck, and tilted Lysander’s face up with his fingers. Lysander didn’t even have time to resist. He had no choice but to let Tavian see his face. Tavian raised an eyebrow as he examined the bruises, asking bluntly:
“What in the Spire happened to your face, Vance?”
“…It’s nothing.”
“Did you trip over an ancient scroll again?”
“Yes. Something of that nature.”
“Really.” Tavian clicked his tongue, shaking his head slowly before abruptly letting go of Lysander’s face, causing his head to nearly slam into the desk.
“Damn it!” Lysander glared at him, startled, but Tavian just gave him a crooked grin, as if lost in some dark thought. Whatever he was thinking, Lysander had no way of knowing.
Neither Lord Kaelen nor Master Zephyrion came to the Arcanum that day. But while Lysander had been absent, a peculiar rumor had started spreading through the hallowed halls.
“Hey, did you hear? Lord Kaelen… that scion actually…”
No one asked Lysander directly about his injuries, but it was clear from the curious, sidelong glances he received that the rumor had already made its way through the Arcanum.
It seemed Lysander was, against all odds, luckier than he’d thought.
---
The rumors centered around Lysander Vance and Lord Kaelen. Neither of them had attended the Arcanum since the day the whispers began, and even Master Zephyrion disappeared shortly after, leaving no one to dispel the murmurs. With Lysander’s bruised face as visible proof, the rumors spread even faster.
The story went like this: Master Vance and Lord Kaelen had a profound falling out. And, further, that Lord Kaelen had developed an unnatural obsession with Vance’s ‘Lore-Sight,’ a desperate attempt to appropriate Lysander’s unique intuitive aptitude for ancient knowledge.
“That scion, I’m telling you, he totally developed an unseemly fixation on that Scroll-Worm’s mind.”
“What’s a Scroll-Worm? Oh, wait. By the Obelisks. Damn, I can’t stop laughing.”
“He totally looks like one, always hunched over dusty tomes.”
The lecture halls and commons were filled with these kinds of conversations.
“All those lesser scions who were close to Lord Kaelen suddenly found themselves marginalized.”
Lysander heard the whispers. He heard the derisive laughter. He felt the weight of their scrutiny. Yet, beneath the fresh layer of humiliation, a cold, calculated relief began to bloom. The rumors, though mocking, were deflecting the true shame. Kaelen’s desperate, unmasked aggression was being reframed as something ignoble and unbefitting a high-born scion—a dark, almost parasitic, fascination with Lysander’s obscure, non-combatant abilities. It was a narrative that, while twisting the truth, somehow made Lysander the victim of a powerful noble’s grotesque hunger for power, rather than merely a recipient of his unchecked rage. And that, in the brutal calculus of the Crimson Spire, might just be enough to save him.