The first tremor of awareness was a lance of white-hot pain. Elias lay sprawled across his bed, a disoriented heap of linen and bruised flesh. A dull ache throbbed behind his eyes, a relentless counterpoint to the insistent pounding in his temple. He blinked, the ornate ceiling molding of his dormitory room slowly resolving into focus. Even in the daze of returning consciousness, some instinct had driven him to twist the lock on the heavy oak door before collapsing.
Remarkable, he thought, a fleeting, detached observation, even as a wave of nausea rolled through him. His hand, stiff and unwieldy, lifted to his face. Fingers brushed against a swollen cheekbone, a tender landscape of unfamiliar hardness. A gasp escaped his lips, raw and involuntary.
He pushed himself upright, each movement a fresh agony. Rust had settled into his joints, a sharp, grinding protest echoing between his bones. The bed sagged with a groan beneath him.
He sat on the edge of the mattress, eyes fixed on the blank stretch of wall opposite, until the carefully constructed composure of his academic life shattered. A whimper clawed its way up his throat, tearing free in a series of raspy, broken sobs. His voice felt like grit, scraped raw by the expulsion of such unbidden grief.
The anger, a hot, venomous surge, propelled him to his feet. He swept an arm across his polished mahogany desk. Inkwell, quill, a stack of heavily bound tomes – they scattered, clattering against the floorboards. The room, usually a sanctuary of meticulous order, became a tempest. He cried until his throat burned, until his chest ached with the effort of it. Then, suddenly, the fury evaporated, leaving him hollow. He sank to the floor amidst the wreckage, clamping his mouth shut. But tears stubbornly welled, coursing down his cheeks, his breath hitching.
*Damn it all to the deepest pit.* He wanted to cease existing. Not just now, but for the entire wretched memory of last night.
The window had been latched. He was certain. But could sounds carry? *Could* someone have heard? The thought was a fresh stab of fear. Lysander Thorne. Cassian Blackwood. *Why did they come to his gate? Why did they have to shatter everything?*
*Damn it.* What Lysander had trampled, in front of Cassian Blackwood, was not just Elias’s body. It was his pride, an insidious violation far worse than any of Lord Alaric Vane’s open sneers, or Lysander’s own prior disdain. It was a humiliation so profound it had ripped the dignity from his very core.
Yet, even as tears scalded his face, a cold, clinical part of his mind worried about appearances. *How would he look to others?*
Silence returned, thick and oppressive. He glanced at the delicate porcelain clock on the mantelpiece. Just before eight. A chilling thought cut through the fog of his despair: if Mrs. Albright, the housekeeper, found him like this, it would be ruinous. A cold dread seeped into his bones.
His mind cleared, sharp and analytical once more. No one, absolutely no one, could see him in this pathetic, disgraced state. He scrambled to his feet, righting the overturned chair, sweeping the scattered objects beneath the bed with frantic, clumsy movements. Then he sat, feigning a composure he did not possess, and waited for the inevitable knock. It came a few minutes later, punctual as ever.
“Do not enter, Mrs. Albright,” he called, his voice surprisingly steady, though it grated in his throat. “I believe I’ve caught a chill. I am not well. I will be skipping my lessons today.”
A pause. “Oh, dear. Should I send for the Academy physician?”
Elias swallowed a bitter taste. “I shall send for him later, if the symptoms persist.”
“Very well. Might I bring you some broth?”
“Please, just leave it outside the door. My thanks.”
“As you wish, Master Elias. Just rest now.”
Skipping school was the only option. He was in no condition, physically or emotionally, to face the gilded halls of the Academy. He rummaged through his medical kit, finding a small pot of soothing balm. With agonizing slowness, he massaged the fragrant ointment into the throbbing contours of his face and shoulder, desperate for the pain to recede. The pot slipped from his trembling fingers, clattering to the floor.
His entire body shivered, an uncontrollable tremor. But the physical pain was secondary. The humiliation was a persistent, gnawing ache, like cruel, tiny fingers pinching at his gut. It was an absurdity. To hide his tear-streaked face from the intrusion of morning light, he drew the heavy velvet curtains, plunging the room into artificial twilight. He burrowed deep beneath the blankets, pulling them up over his head. Only the suffocating darkness offered any illusion of protection.
*Sleep.* He needed to sleep. He forced his eyes shut, repeating to himself that it would be fine. His parents were away. Lysander Thorne was not the type to broadcast such a sordid affair. It would be fine. He burrowed deeper, the woolen covers a desperate shield.
---
It was not fine. Not at all.
Hidden beneath the oppressive layers, he silently, frantically, muttered words that tasted of ash and bile. To anyone—God, his parents, the very stones of the Academy—he wished to scream it, a torrent of desperate confession.
*Please. It was Lysander Thorne. Lysander struck me. He defiled me. That brute. Lysander Thorne is unhinged. Mad. Beyond reason. All because of Cassian Blackwood, he… After everything of the past year, everything I… felt for him… he crushed it. Crushed it right in front of Cassian. I am an imbecile. I revealed that pathetic, wretched side of myself to Cassian, too.* The thought that someone might have witnessed it, that any fragment of that night might have escaped the confines of the garden, was a terror that left him breathless.
He forced a halt to the frantic spiral. A wave of self-loathing surged, so potent it made him physically recoil. He wanted to die.
The most wretched part was what he did after the initial storm of tears beneath the blanket. The first thing: scramble to his communication slate, deleting every message, every call record from Cassian Blackwood, every trace of the previous night. Then, in a rush of panicked efficiency, he accessed the Academy’s external surveillance logs, clearing the recordings from the garden gate for the early hours of that morning. That night had become an unspeakable secret, a stain he could not allow anyone to glimpse.
---
He remained confined to his rooms for three days. Despite his ghastly appearance, his injuries mended with surprising speed. Perhaps it was the instinct to shield his face during the beating, or merely the resilience of a well-nourished body. Visible injuries were minimal – a few dark bruises beneath his clothes, nothing life-threatening. For those three days, he buried himself beneath the blankets, wept, and ignored every message, every knock, every attempt at contact.
He intended to remain hidden until all traces vanished, but fate, or rather, his parents, intervened. Lord and Lady Thorne, returned unexpectedly early from their country estate, sent a footman to summon him. Panic, cold and sharp, seized him.
“Elias, my boy, what on earth has happened to your face?” Lord Thorne’s voice, usually a deep rumble, sharpened with concern.
He flinched. “Oh, well…”
“A brawl? I thought you were suffering from a fever, a chill.” Lord Thorne’s gaze, usually so distant, now fixed on him with unsettling intensity.
Elias stammered, scrambling for an explanation. “Indeed, I was unwell. A friend… Julian Finch, he offered to collect my lecture notes for me…”
“And?”
“And I… met with an unfortunate incident on my way to retrieve them.”
“An incident?” Lord Thorne’s brow furrowed. “What manner of incident leaves a young man’s face looking thus? Who was it?”
As his father’s voice rose, Elias frantically waved his hands. “No, truly, Father, it was nothing serious. I do not wish to cause any… bother. It was a trifling matter. We have already reconciled.”
“Tell me, boy, the precise reason for this ‘trifling matter’.”
“Well…” After a moment’s desperate thought, he concocted a truly pathetic excuse. “I… teased him about being abandoned by his sweetheart.”
“What?” Lord Thorne blinked, then a sudden, disbelieving laugh rumbled in his chest. “Are you schoolboys starring in a dime novel melodrama?”
“No, Father.” Elias’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Do not engage in such foolishness again.”
“I understand.”
The relatively minor appearance of his injuries also helped. The incident, to his immense relief, seemed to blow over. However, an unsettling moment occurred later, during dinner. Lady Thorne, picking delicately at her roasted pheasant, suddenly introduced a name that made Elias’s blood run cold.
“By the way, Elias, are you still close with Lysander Thorne these days?”
“What?”
“He simply doesn’t seem to call at the house as frequently.” Lady Thorne, seldom home herself, possessed an uncanny knack for such observations. The mere mention of Lysander’s name conjured his image, souring Elias’s mood instantly. He snapped back, his voice edged with irritation.
“It is precisely as it always has been.”
*The same, my arse.* Damn him. Damn him. Damn him. The shame and humiliation were a suffocating cloak. He wanted to vanish.
“Didn’t another friend call upon you recently? Mrs. Albright mentioned it. Are you close with this new acquaintance?”
Elias’s body went rigid. Slowly, he turned his head towards the kitchen archway, where Mrs. Albright was diligently polishing a silver platter. A cold dread, sharper than any blade, pierced him. *Did she hear it? Could she have heard anything that night? Was it possible she was the one who overheard the sounds?*
“Elias? Are you quite alright?” Lady Thorne’s voice broke through his terror. He blurted out an answer without thinking.
“Yes, Mother. We are quite close.”
What Lady Thorne said next, he could not recall. The sheer, paralyzing terror rooted him to the spot, wiping all other sensations from his mind. He only remembered the way her eyes had lingered on him when she mentioned Lysander—a look of vague concern, the kind she reserved for the delivery of unwelcome tidings.
*Why?* That question spiraled him deeper into a chasm of fear. His fingers grew cold, then numb. No. She could not have heard. Mrs. Albright was known for her selective hearing and her quarters were in a separate wing, far from his dormitory. She could not have heard. But why did it *feel* wrong? He found himself praying to a God he barely acknowledged.
---
Three more days passed. His parents, now thoroughly settled, began to press him to return to the Academy. He absolutely dreaded it. But if he continued to feign illness, Lady Thorne would surely suspect a deeper problem than a mere scuffle over a jilted sweetheart. That was the last thing he wanted. So, he forced a cheerful expression onto his bruised face. There was nothing amiss.
The days leading up to his return were consumed by a gnawing anxiety. What if he encountered Lysander Thorne? Or, worse, Cassian Blackwood? Would Lysander resume his torment? Would he humiliate Elias in front of their classmates—or worse, in front of Cassian? Would he continue to trample on him as if he were less than nothing?
The very thought turned his stomach.
When he finally arrived at the Academy, he slipped into his classroom. He hung his satchel on the side of his desk, scattering a pile of papers atop it, then sat, staring blankly at the polished wood while the hallway outside grew louder with the morning influx of students. As soon as he heard footsteps approaching his row, he buried his head in his arms, feigning sleep. If he appeared to be slumbering, perhaps no one would notice his disfigured face. Not immediately, at least.
But he had forgotten one crucial detail: the seat directly behind him belonged to Julian Finch. Julian was one of those rare individuals who possessed an acute awareness of social cues but often chose to disregard them entirely. He paused beside Elias’s desk, a shadow falling over him. Then, a hand slipped between Elias’s shoulder and neck, fingers cool against his skin. Julian tilted Elias’s face upward, exposing it fully. Elias had no time to resist.
Julian’s brow arched. “What the hell happened to your face, Thorne?” he asked, bluntly.
“Nothing of consequence,” Elias mumbled, eyes still mostly closed.
“Did you take another tumble?”
“Something of that nature.”
“Indeed?” Julian clicked his tongue, shaking his head slowly before abruptly releasing Elias’s chin. Elias’s head nearly slammed back onto the desk.
“Blast it!” Elias glared at him, startled, but Julian merely offered a crooked, enigmatic grin, lost in his own thoughts. What he was thinking, Elias had no way of knowing.
Neither Lysander Thorne nor Cassian Blackwood were present at the Academy that day.
Yet, while Elias had been absent, a rumor had begun its insidious crawl through the school’s rigid social strata.
“Did you hear? Lysander Thorne… that absolute brute…”
No one directly questioned Elias about his injuries, but the curious, sidelong glances he received were testament enough. The rumor had already spread through the gilded halls. It seemed he was, against all odds, luckier than he deserved.
---
The rumors, swift and venomous, centered on Elias and Lysander Thorne. Neither of them had attended classes since the day the whispers began. Cassian Blackwood, too, had vanished shortly after, leaving no one to dispel the growing speculation. With Elias’s bruised face serving as silent, undeniable proof, the rumors gained traction with alarming speed.
The story, repeated in hushed tones and exaggerated whispers, was thus: Elias Thorne and Lysander Thorne had suffered a spectacular falling out. And, more salaciously, Lysander Thorne harbored an unseemly infatuation for Elias.
“That brute, I tell you, he was absolutely obsessed with that prim academic.”
“A ‘prim academic’? Oh, wait. *Good Lord.* I cannot stop laughing.”
“He truly does resemble one of those fastidious, tightly bound scholars, doesn’t he?”
The classroom buzzed with such cruel, casual pronouncements.
“And all those fellows who were so close to Lysander Thorne? They were utterly betrayed, I hear. Left with nothing.”