A leaden weight pressed Kaelen into his bed, a dull throb resonating behind his eyes. Even through the haze, an instinctual dread had guided his trembling hand to lock the chamber door before oblivion claimed him. He lay still, blinking against the muted light filtering through the heavy drapes, the silence of his room a cruel echo of the tumult within.
His face felt alien, a mask of tender, swollen flesh. A tentative hand, stiff as ancient parchment, reached upwards. Every joint protested, a chorus of grating aches. A sharp, searing pain shot through his shoulder as he moved.
“Ah…” The sound was a pathetic gasp, barely audible.
Fingers brushed against tender knots, hard beneath the skin. He traced the unfamiliar landscape of his own battered body. Moments later, a surge of adrenaline propelled him upright, pushing against the embroidered bedspread.
Perched on the edge, Kaelen stared at the ornate, unseeing wall. His gaze was vacant, unfocused. Then, a tremor began deep within his chest, rattling his bones. A strangled sob tore free, clawing its way up his throat, raw and searing. It sounded like a wild animal, trapped and wounded.
Unable to contain the eruption of shame and fury, he lunged to his feet. A silver inkwell flew, spattering black across a silken hanging. A tome, bound in ancient leather, crashed to the floor. The air filled with the desperate, ragged sounds of his own despair, a symphony of breaking objects and broken spirit. He raged, he cried, for an eternity that was perhaps only minutes, until his strength gave way. He sank to the polished wood, gasping, clamping his mouth shut against the rising tide of hysteria.
But even with his eyes squeezed shut, hot tears squeezed past, tracking saline paths down his cheeks, each one a fresh brand of humiliation. His breath hitched, ragged and uncontrolled.
“Damn it!”
A bleak, hollow emptiness spread through him. He wished for an end. Not just to the pain, but to the crushing memory of last night. The windows had been sealed, the chamber magically warded against sound bleed. Had anyone heard? Could the wards have failed? The questions were a relentless, agonizing drill into his skull. Darius Blackwood. Elian Valerius. Why had they come? Why had they shattered everything?
This wasn’t merely a physical assault. Darius had trampled Kaelen’s very essence, his fragile pride, in front of Elian. It was a violation far deeper than any bruise, a humiliation so profound it ripped the breath from his lungs. Yet, even in this maelstrom of self-pity, a familiar, insidious worry surfaced: what if someone saw him? What would they think?
Suddenly, the profound silence of the room registered, pulling him from the abyss. He stopped crying, his breath catching. A glance at the arcane chronometer on his desk. Just before eight. A sharp, cold thought sliced through the fog of his pain: the house staff. Old Maeve, the head domestic, would be making her rounds soon. If she saw him… disaster.
A frigid clarity washed over him. No one, absolutely no one, could witness this pathetic, disgraced ruin. Scrambling to his feet, he righted the overturned chair, shoved the scattered remnants of his rage beneath the bed. He then sank onto the mattress, feigning a semblance of composure, waiting for the inevitable summons.
Minutes later, a soft, precise knock. Maeve, always punctual.
“Master Kaelen? Are you well this morning? Breakfast will be served shortly.”
Kaelen cleared his throat, forcing a casual lightness into his voice. “Don’t come in, Maeve. I believe I’ve caught a chill. A rather nasty one. I shall be skipping classes today.”
“Oh dear. Should I fetch the Academy’s healer?” Her voice held a note of concern.
“No,” Kaelen swallowed the bitter bile rising in his throat. “I shall be fine. Perhaps later, if it worsens.”
“Very well. Would you care for some warming broth?”
“Please, just leave it outside the door. Thank you, Maeve.”
“Of course, Master Kaelen. Do try to rest.”
Skipping classes was a necessity. He was in no state to face Lumina Arcanum, nor did he possess the desire. An old salving ointment, a relic from a clumsy runic accident, lay forgotten in a drawer. He retrieved it, a small vial of viscous, shimmering balm, and slathered it over his aching body, a futile wish for the pain to simply vanish. He crawled back beneath the heavy covers, the scent of medicinal herbs filling the enclosed space.
The vial slipped from his grasp, clattering softly onto the floor. His entire body shivered, an uncontrollable tremor that had nothing to do with cold. It was the humiliation that gnawed at him, a thousand tiny, cruel pincers tearing at his gut. To hide his tear-streaked face, he pulled the thick, embroidered blanket over his head, plunging himself into a suffocating darkness. Only the soft wool felt like it could shield him, a flimsy bulwark against the crushing despair.
*Sleep*, he commanded himself. *I must sleep.* He squeezed his eyes shut. It would be fine. His parents were away. Darius would never boast of this. Elian… Elian wouldn't. It would be fine. He burrowed deeper, seeking refuge in the false promise of oblivion.
---
It was not fine. Not at all.
Hidden beneath the blanket, Kaelen’s lips moved, muttering words that clung to his tongue like ash. To any power, any deity, he wanted to scream them, a torrent of righteous, violated rage. *Please. It was Darius. Darius Blackwood. He struck me. He humiliated me. That fiend. Darius is mad. He is deranged. Because of Elian, he… after all we endured, all I believed… he crushed it. Crushed it before Elian. I am a fool. I showed such pathetic weakness to Elian.* And the gnawing dread that someone, somewhere, might have seen it all…
He abruptly silenced his frantic internal monologue. A wave of nauseating self-loathing surged through him. He wanted to die.
The most wretched act, after his tearful capitulation beneath the blanket, was the frantic deletion. First, every stray missive, every discarded parchment or whispered rune-call from Elian Valerius from the previous night. Then, with desperate haste, he sought out the lesser ward-stones embedded near the gate, erasing the shimmering runic impressions that might hold visual memory of the early morning. That night, that ignominious truth, had become an unspeakable secret, a shame no one could ever be allowed to witness.
---
Three days. He remained cloistered within his rooms, claiming illness. His body, despite the hideous internal landscape, began to mend. Perhaps he’d instinctively shielded the more obvious targets, or perhaps his rigorous training had instilled a surprising resilience. The visible injuries were minimal: a few dark, flowering bruises hidden beneath his Academy robes, nothing life-threatening. For those three days, he buried himself beneath the blankets, crying until his throat was raw, ignoring every arcane message, every persistent chime from his communication mirror.
He thought he could hold out until every last mark had faded, but fate, as always, proved cruel. His parents, returned unexpectedly from a long, society tour of the northern Arcana Houses, found him in his self-imposed exile. Panic seized him.
“Kaelen, son, what is that mark upon your face?” His father’s voice, usually a measured rumble, sharpened with concern.
“Oh, well…” Kaelen stammered, caught utterly unprepared.
“A brawl? I thought Maeve said you were ill. A chill, was it not?” His mother’s cool gaze, accustomed to dissecting social nuances, now fixed on his bruised cheekbone.
As his father pressed, Kaelen scrambled, frantically weaving a tale. “A, um, a friend retrieved a missive from the Academy for me, seeing as I was indisposed…”
“And?” His father arched an imperious brow.
“And I… I encountered some trouble on the way back. A minor altercation.”
“What kind of altercation leaves a student looking thus? Who was it?” The voice grew dangerously low, a precursor to noble wrath. Kaelen frantically waved his hands.
“No, truly, Father, I wished to spare you the trouble. It was nothing serious. We’ve already, ah, reached an understanding.”
“Tell me, Kaelen, what was the cause of this ‘minor altercation’?”
Kaelen paused, searching desperately, then clutched at the most ludicrous, yet plausible, excuse he could conjure. “I… I teased him about a recent heartbreak. His paramour ended their courtship.”
“What?” His father’s disbelief was palpable. Then, to Kaelen’s astonishment, a strangled laugh escaped him. “Are you students now characters in a melodramatic farce?”
“No, Father…”
“See that it does not happen again.”
“...Yes, Father.”
It helped that the injuries, to an uninitiated eye, looked less severe than the story might imply. Thankfully, the storm passed.
Yet, a strange unease lingered. During supper in the grand dining hall, his mother’s voice, light and seemingly casual, pierced Kaelen’s fragile peace. “By the way, Kaelen, are you still close with Darius these days?”
“What?” The question was a physical blow.
“He doesn’t seem to visit the estate with the same regularity. One barely sees him.” For a woman who spent half the year away, her observation felt unnervingly precise. The mere mention of Darius’s name dredged forth a fresh wave of sick humiliation. His voice, despite his efforts, was curt. “The same as always.”
The same, he thought, was a lie so profound it choked him. Shame, a burning coal in his gut, threatened to consume him. He wanted nothing more than to flee.
“But another friend did come by recently, did he not? Maeve mentioned it. Are you close with this new acquaintance?”
Kaelen’s body went rigid. Slowly, his head swiveled towards the kitchen archway, where Maeve meticulously polished a crystal decanter. A cold dread seeped into his bones. Had she heard? Could she have overheard anything that night? Was it possible she, of all people, had been a witness?
“Kaelen? Is something amiss?” his mother prompted, her gaze sharp.
Startled, Kaelen blurted out, “Yes. We are very close.”
What else his mother said, he could not recall. The sheer terror, rooting him to his seat, had obliterated all else. He only remembered the way her eyes had lingered on him when she mentioned Darius, a knowing look, as if delivering veiled news. Why? The thought plunged him further into a spiral of fear. His fingers grew icy. No. She couldn’t have heard. Maeve’s hearing was notoriously poor, and her quarters were in a distant wing of the estate, far from his chamber. She could not have heard. But why did it feel so wrong? All he could do was pray to a god he no longer believed in.
Three more days elapsed, his parents urging his return to Lumina Arcanum. He absolutely did not want to. But continued absence would surely prompt his mother to investigate, revealing a problem far deeper than a superficial scuffle. That was unthinkable. So, he forced a cheerful mask onto his face. Nothing was amiss.
The days leading up to his return were consumed by a tormenting worry: what if he encountered Darius? Or Elian? Would Darius beat him again? Would he humiliate him before the entire cohort, or worse, before Elian again? Would he continue to grind Kaelen into the dust, like something less than nothing? The mere thought made his stomach churn with nausea.
Arriving at the Academy, Kaelen hung his satchel on the side of his desk, scattering several loose scrolls atop it. He sank into his seat, staring blankly at the polished wood as the clamor of the main corridor swelled. As soon as he heard approaching footsteps, he buried his head in his arms, feigning sleep.
If he pretended slumber, no one would notice his bruised face, at least not immediately. But he had forgotten one crucial detail: the seat behind him belonged to Hadrian Vance. Hadrian, perceptive yet willfully oblivious, was exactly the sort of person who would not respect his feigned unconsciousness.
Hardly had Hadrian arrived when he paused by Kaelen’s desk. A cool hand slipped between Kaelen’s shoulder and neck, Hadrian’s fingers gently, but firmly, tilting Kaelen’s face upwards. Kaelen had no time to resist. He was utterly exposed. Hadrian’s brow furrowed, his gaze sharp and assessing. “What in the Hells happened to your face, Thorne?” he asked, bluntly.
“...Nothing.”
“Another runic misfire? Did you trip again, perchance?” There was a subtle irony in Hadrian’s tone.
“Yes. Something of the sort.” Kaelen kept his voice flat.
“Really?” Hadrian clicked his tongue, shaking his head slowly before abruptly releasing Kaelen’s face, causing his head to nearly strike the desk.
“Damn it!” Kaelen glared, startled. Hadrian merely offered a crooked, enigmatic grin, lost in his own thoughts, their content inscrutable.
Neither Darius Blackwood nor Elian Valerius attended the Academy that day.
But during Kaelen’s absence, a whisper had begun to spread through the halls.
“Did you hear? Darius Blackwood… that arrogant bastard, he actually…”
No one asked Kaelen directly about his injuries, but the curious, sidelong glances spoke volumes. The rumor had already taken root.
Perhaps, Kaelen thought with a bitter twist, he was luckier than he’d imagined.
---
The rumors, vague yet insidious, swirled around Kaelen and Darius. Neither of them had been seen at the Academy since the whispers began, and even Elian Valerius had vanished shortly after, leaving a vacuum for speculation. Kaelen’s visibly bruised face served as grim, silent proof, accelerating the spread of the distorted narrative.
The story, mutating with each telling, was thus: Kaelen Thorne and Darius Blackwood had a spectacular falling out. And, Darius Blackwood, the paragon of noble masculinity, was secretly enamored with Kaelen.
“That arrogant ox, I’m telling you, he was utterly smitten with little Thorne. That… that *artifice-nugget*.”
“A what? An artifice-nugget? Ha! Gods above, I can’t breathe.”
“He truly looks like one, doesn’t he? So precise. So… compact.”
The classroom hummed with such cruel, snickering conversations.
“All those sycophants who trailed Blackwood, they’re utterly flummoxed.”
The rumors, vile as they were, centered around a hidden, illicit desire. A secret, queer fixation Darius held for Kaelen, which Kaelen, in turn, had spurned, leading to Darius’s possessive fury. It painted Darius as a scorned, obsessed suitor, and Kaelen as the innocent, if somewhat plain, object of an unseemly affection. It was a humiliating, twisted lie. But it was also a shield. For no one, not even in their wildest speculation, suspected the true, brutal nature of what had occurred. No one guessed the terror, the shame, the profound indignity that had truly transpired. The rumors, grotesque as they were, obscured the truth of a more public, deliberate crushing of spirit. And for now, that was enough. He was safe, if only in this terrible, new lie. The crushing despair remained, but for now, it was his alone to bear.