A faint bruising bloomed across Elias Thorne’s cheekbone, a muted lavender against his pale skin. The swelling, which had been a grotesque parody of his own features the night before, had receded, leaving only a subtle puffiness. He traced the tender spot with a hesitant finger. Adrian Beaumont’s balm, a curious unguent that smelled faintly of moonpetal and regret, had worked its peculiar magic. He could plausibly claim a minor mishap, a clumsy encounter with a study desk corner. The lie felt as thin as parchment, but it would suffice for the peering eyes of Aethelgard.
Yet, a heavier weight pressed upon him than any physical ache. A chill settled in the air of the Collegium’s main refectory, where the morning meal was usually a buzzing cacophony of youthful ambition and casual chatter. Today, a brittle silence held sway, broken only by the clink of silverware and the rustle of robes. Every glance felt charged, every whisper a judgment.
Scanning the room, Elias sought the familiar, if recently strained, countenance of Lysander. Lysander appeared just as the final gong for morning lectures reverberated through the stone halls, nearly missing the designated entrance time. His usual effervescence was absent, replaced by a haunting stillness.
Elias froze, a cold dread seeping into his bones. Lysander’s face was a tableau of violence. One eye was a ghastly bruise, nearly swollen shut, the skin around it a mottled violet. His lower lip was split, a dark, clotted wound. It was far more grievous than Elias’s own, a stark, brutal testament to Cassian Blackwood’s fury. A sickening wave of guilt washed over Elias. He had half-wished for Cassian to experience the consequences of his actions, a base, childish thought that now shamed him deeply. This was not justice; it was ruin.
Lysander’s gaze, shadowed and wary, flickered across the refectory. He stopped, his eyes locking with Elias’s for a fleeting, uncomfortable moment. Then, as if recoiling from an unseen strike, Lysander wrenched his head away, shuffling towards his usual table, keeping his back resolutely turned. Elias’s brow furrowed. That abrupt avoidance felt more pointed than mere discretion.
Across the room, Cassian Blackwood sat with an air of cold proprietorship, his eyes, dark as obsidian, fixed on Elias with an unmistakable, lethal warning. A prickle of cold sweat traced Elias’s spine. He should have remained in his chambers, feigned an illness. The day had barely begun, and already, it was poisoned.
During the short breaks between lectures, Lysander, who once sought Elias out with eager greetings, kept his distance. His movements were hushed, his head bowed. At midday, Lysander vanished, a shadow at Cassian’s heels, leaving Elias to the hushed scrutiny of his peers.
Elias found himself at a quiet table in the smaller, less formal common room, picking at a meager ration of bread and cheese. Kaelen, ever unburdened by the Collegium’s social intricacies, slid into the opposite seat, a half-eaten candied plum in hand. A part of Elias yearned to find Lysander, to understand the full extent of the damage, but a profound apprehension held him fast. He feared what he might witness. Surely, Cassian wouldn’t continue his brutality. Yet, Lysander’s bruised face was a testament to a cruelty Elias couldn’t easily dismiss.
Kaelen, oblivious to the storm brewing within Elias, chewed thoughtfully. “Felt like I was breathing rarefied air in the lecture hall today. Enough tension to snap aether-threads.”
“Yesterday, you were quite content consuming sugared snow-cream,” Elias murmured, the words feeling foreign and flat.
“A man must maintain his composure, even amidst the most trying of arcane principles,” Kaelen replied with a mischievous wink. “It’s a talent, really.”
Elias delivered a light kick to Kaelen’s shin beneath the table. Kaelen merely chuckled, rubbing his chin with a peculiar, almost sheepish expression. Elias dismissed it. It was likely a trick of the flickering lamplight.
---
Life possessed a cruel, often absurd, unpredictability. Elias had never sought Kaelen’s companionship, finding his casual disregard for academic rigor and social decorum exasperating. Yet, here he was, drawn to Kaelen’s uncomplicated presence like a moth to a steady, if humble, flame.
Kaelen’s lightheartedness, his flippant disregard for the weighty matters of status and ambition, offered Elias a strange anchor. In the past, Elias had scorned these very qualities, labeling them as shallow. Now, they were a necessary buffer against the crushing pressures of Aethelgard. Had Cassian remained a steadfast ally, Elias might never have realized how much he truly needed Kaelen’s grounding influence.
As the days bled into one another, Cassian began to subtly isolate himself from their usual coterie of scholars. Sometimes, he’d disappear with Lysander, a silent, grim procession. Other times, a few younger novitiates, hoping to curry favor, would join them, only to return with uneasy expressions, occasionally refusing outright to accompany Cassian again.
Seraphin, a junior acolyte with a penchant for clandestine escapes, confirmed Elias’s suspicions. Elias stumbled upon Seraphin attempting to scale a low garden wall, evading a proctor. Seraphin, a nervous flush on his cheeks, confided that Cassian had been ordering his adherents to strike Lysander, a brutal, ritualistic form of torment. Elias’s stomach churned. Seraphin, sensing Elias’s horrified reaction, quickly added that he’d been avoiding Cassian’s gatherings lately and was on his way to a forbidden tavern with Gareth, urging Elias not to misinterpret his involvement. With a final, furtive glance, Seraphin vanished over the wall.
Gareth, once a close associate of Cassian during their first year, had since drifted, finding solace in more conventional academic pursuits. The Collegium buzzed with a low hum of disquiet. Cassian’s cruelty was becoming an open secret, a spreading stain on the gilded halls, fostering a quiet resentment among their peers.
Later, Elias and Kaelen purchased chilled honey-tarts from a street vendor outside the Collegium’s arcane market. The sweet, cold pastry offered fleeting solace to Elias’s tongue, but beneath it, a bitter knot of unease tightened in his chest. He maintained a placid facade, determined not to betray his inner turmoil. Kaelen, munching loudly on his own confection, eyed Elias’s half-eaten tart.
“A good vintage?” he asked, a hint of greed in his voice.
“Wish to sample?” Elias offered, half-teasing, bringing the honey-tart, sticky with his own saliva, close to Kaelen’s mouth. Without a moment’s hesitation, Kaelen smirked, lifted a corner of his lip, and took a surprisingly large bite.
“Kaelen! Did you truly? That’s utterly uncivilized!”
“You invited me,” Kaelen countered, chewing with relish. “Besides, it was merely one bite.” He shrugged, a mischievous glint in his eyes. For a brief moment, the world felt strangely serene, a stark contrast to the crisp autumn air and Elias’s internal disquiet. Where were Cassian and Lysander now? A few desolate courtyards and abandoned lecture halls came to mind, but Elias did not seek them out. He was afraid of what he might find.
Elias tried to banish Cassian from his thoughts. But the harder he tried, the more acutely he realized the indelible mark Cassian had left upon his psyche. How long would it take to excise such a figure? How much effort, how much pain? Elias felt adrift in a vast, arid desert, not merely sad and suffocating, but terrifyingly, unbearably lost.
Sometimes, he retreated, his mind a labyrinth of self-doubt. When the weight became too much, he would seek out Kaelen, finding a peculiar comfort in his mundane observations.
Suddenly, an unbidden question slipped from his lips.
“Kaelen.”
“Hm?” Kaelen looked up, a crumb of honey-tart clinging to his chin.
“Do you… do you believe flowers can bloom in a barren desert?” The words felt embarrassingly sentimental, and Elias instinctively scratched the back of his neck. Kaelen, however, did not mock him.
“They will,” he said, his voice unusually quiet.
“...”
“They must. This existence is grim enough as it is.”
Hearing such an earnest sentiment from Kaelen, a person Elias never imagined capable of such profundity, brought a fresh wave of despair. How much longer would it take to relinquish these meaningless attachments?
“Yes,” Elias whispered, the words tasting like ashes. “Life is grim.”
Cassian Blackwood. That infuriating, destructive force. Why did he seem so intent on crushing the loyalty Elias still, maddeningly, felt? Cassian, who now flouted Collegium rules with casual disdain, came and went as he pleased, and always, by his side, was Lysander.
The growing tension culminated in a hushed scene in the main hallway. Elias stopped dead when he saw Cassian dragging Lysander by the wrist, pulling him along with a cruel grip. Elias’s gaze flitted between their faces, his resolve hardening. He spoke, the words tasting like polished stone.
“Your Lord Father has expressed concern for your recent conduct.” It was a lie, a calculated gambit, a desperate flicker of his own pride. Cassian’s estranged relationship with his father made it plausible, and even if discovered, Elias could argue that Cassian’s escalating behavior would indeed soon warrant such paternal worry. He always crafted an escape route.
“If punishment must be meted, let it fall solely upon yourself. What harm has Lysander wrought?”
“Step aside.” Cassian’s eyes, once fixed on Lysander, snapped to Elias, burning with an icy fury. Elias’s chest tightened, a suffocating constriction. He hated Cassian, yet Lysander, pathetic and tear-streaked, remained rooted by Cassian’s side, his eyes pleading with Elias not to provoke further wrath.
“Unless you wish to revisit the indignities of our last encounter, remove yourself.”
“C-Cassian, please,” Lysander stammered, his voice trembling, desperately clinging to Cassian’s arm. Only then did Cassian’s gaze shift, settling solely on Lysander. Elias saw only the back of Cassian’s head as he turned away.
“As I said, your Lord Father—” Elias began again, but Lysander, tears glistening in his eyes, tightened his grip on Cassian, a silent plea. Watching that wretched tableau, Elias closed his eyes, the sight unbearable.
After a long moment, Cassian looked at Lysander, then turned and strode back into the nearby lecture hall. For the remainder of the day, he stayed, an ominous presence, just as he had weeks before.
---
The day of the Grand Scholarly Excursion arrived, heralded by the rumble of the Collegium’s enchanted transport carriages. A few pragmatic scholars grumbled about the interruption to their studies, but most embraced the chance to escape Aethelgard’s rigorous confines for a single day. There was no need for elaborate preparations; they would return by evening. The masters offered only a perfunctory list of warnings, their voices barely carrying above the excited murmur.
It was not the giddy anticipation of childhood, but a welcome respite nonetheless. Elias regarded it as another obligatory event, a departure without much thought, a return with little consequence. He was entirely unprepared for the sudden, explosive culmination of his simmering frustrations.
Custom dictated that Elias would sit beside Cassian in any communal gathering outside the lecture halls. He was, after all, once considered Cassian’s closest associate. He hadn’t even considered Kaelen’s seating arrangements, having never shared such a journey with him.
Initially, a faint apprehension pricked at Elias, a fear that Kaelen might inadvertently claim the seat nearest Cassian. Reflecting on it now, the thought seemed pathetically misplaced. Neither Elias nor Kaelen would occupy that coveted position.
When their assigned carriage arrived in the Collegium courtyard, Elias ascended the steps. The rear five benches were already claimed by a boisterous group of scholars, including Seraphin, who offered Elias a hesitant wave, then gestured subtly towards Cassian’s usual place.
“Thorne! A seat is reserved here!”
“Ah, yes.” Elias’s voice was a dry whisper. Of course. It had always been his spot. Yet today, a palpable hesitation gripped him as he approached Cassian’s empty seat. A small sigh of relief escaped him when he saw the space beside Cassian remained vacant. He swallowed, a stubborn resolve stiffening his spine.
It was his place. His pride, fragile as it was, compelled him to claim it, even after the brutal reminder of Cassian’s possessive cruelty. He nervously touched the polished wood of the seat for a moment, his gaze sweeping across the other occupants, before he spoke, his voice barely audible.
“That seat…”
“It is not yours. Find another place.” Before Elias could complete his tentative query, Cassian’s voice, sharp and dismissive, cut him off. Cassian’s eyes remained fixed on the carriage entrance. Following his gaze, Elias saw Lysander, small and timid, making his way towards them. Elias’s fists clenched, his unspoken words dying in his throat.
“Very well. As you wish.” He tried to infuse his voice with indifference, but his heart felt as though it had been flayed.
Elias retreated quickly, his eyes scanning the carriage. He spotted an empty bench near Kaelen’s group, directly opposite where Kaelen was settled. With a surge of relief, he hurried towards it, dropping into the seat. Without waiting for a response, he spoke.
“Kaelen. Sit with me.”
Silence. When Elias looked closer, he realized Kaelen had already drifted into a light sleep, his head lolling against the window, swaying gently with the carriage’s subtle movements. Kaelen always seemed to succumb to slumber in the mornings. Shaking his head at the undignified posture, Elias carefully slid his satchel between Kaelen’s head and the window pane, then settled into the uncomfortable seat beside him. Across the narrow aisle, Elias caught a glimpse of dark, neatly braided hair. Cassian’s. He was taller than most of their fellow scholars, easily distinguishable. Though the angle obscured his face, Elias knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the core, that Lysander now occupied the seat beside him.