Kaelen felt a peculiar weight settle over him, an invisible mantle tailored for an unwanted station. ‘Rhys’s confidant’ – the phrase echoed in the hushed corridors of his mind, a title he neither sought nor desired, yet found himself wearing with an uncomfortable exactitude. It proclaimed an intimacy, a responsibility that felt ill-fitting, like borrowed livery on a common stable hand.
He was an adult. The word itself felt like a stone in his mouth. How many nights had he wrestled with the unspoken duties of this guardianship, this unforeseen entanglement with Rhys’s shadowed plight?
Each morning, Kaelen moved through the meticulously ordered rituals of the ducal archives. He transcribed ancient writs, cataloged arcane scrolls, his fingers stained with the obsidian ink that gave the Thorne lineage its name. Each evening, the gilded halls of the ducal palace, teeming with their polished deceptions, gave way to the sterile quiet of Rhys’s secluded chamber.
He rarely attended a full session of the Court Council, his thoughts fragmented, his attention tethered elsewhere.
A heavy sigh escaped him as he approached the chamber door. Rhys, a phantom of his former robust self, would greet him with a flicker of strained energy, as if waiting for a master.
Then, with a deluge of raw frustration, Rhys would unleash the day’s indignities, the mundane cruelties of confinement.
“They speak of another round of tinctures. Gods, my veins will run dry before this ends. And the tonics… they taste of ash and regret. I am not some ancient relic, Kaelen, my palate retains its memory of decent fare! Why must I suffer this medicinal swill, fit only for a plague dog?”
Rhys’s voice, raspy from disuse, trembled with genuine misery. His gaunt face, once sharp with youthful arrogance, now wore an expression so starkly vulnerable, he seemed no older than a child.
Kaelen merely nodded, reaching into the satchel he carried. A subtle, herbal aroma, faint yet distinct, already clung to the fine leather.
A frown creased Kaelen’s brow. He abhorred the intrusion of such scents on his personal effects. It was a petty annoyance, perhaps, but a genuine one.
Still, carrying it unwrapped had been an even less palatable prospect.
“What is it?” Rhys’s eyes, dull moments before, now held a glint of nascent curiosity. Was that a phantom flutter of a tail, thick with imagined fur, in the periphery of Kaelen’s vision?
The thought was repellent. Kaelen banished it with a mental jerk, pulling a small, carefully wrapped parcel from his satchel.
A pitiful gaze swept over the offering. Only then did the gloom in Rhys’s eyes soften, a fragile hope blossoming within them.
“A small collation,” Kaelen murmured, placing the package on the bedside table. “They assured me your constitution could tolerate it, given the delay in the next treatment.”
“A collation?”
“Do not imbue it with significance. I procured it from a nearby artisan.”
The denial was an instinct, a defense. He had indeed imbued it with significance. He had sought out a specific purveyor known for their nourishing, yet palatable, preparations suitable for delicate constitutions. He would never admit the extent of his deliberate search.
He simply wished to appear as an emissary of detached, practical kindness, nothing more.
Yet, even this fragile gesture seemed enough for Rhys. His barely functional right hand, the fingers stiffened by the lingering paralysis, rose to scratch at his ear. A raw flush crept up his pale cheek.
Kaelen’s gaze drifted to those fingers, the subtle, involuntary curl of the digits, a grotesque parody of grip. His stomach churned. Why did his eyes always fixate on the damage, the ruin? He felt a crushing weight in his chest.
“...My thanks,” Rhys whispered, his voice oddly subdued. He glanced at Kaelen, then flinched as their eyes met, fumbling abruptly to unwrap the package. Was it genuine surprise, or a feigned awkwardness, a desire to avoid Kaelen’s scrutiny?
As Rhys began to eat, stuffing the delicate pastry into his mouth with an almost mechanical ferocity, Kaelen leaned back against the plush velvet of the chaise. It was a crude, unrefined sight. Crumbs scattered on the sheets. Rhys’s small finger, the ring finger, remained stubbornly bent, unyielding to his will.
Kaelen could not discern if it was real or an act. With a slow, deliberate movement, he reached out, taking the spoon from Rhys’s unsteady grip.
“Which part would you prefer?”
“...”
“The spiced fowl?”
He felt, at the very least, a duty to acknowledge the truth of Rhys’s wounds. Rhys, his lips smeared with sweet preserves, chewed slowly, lowering his head slightly. A faint, knowing smile touched his mouth. Kaelen could not fathom why this man—whose fingers would never fully regain their dexterity, whose body bore the faint, ragged scars of illness—could still smile like that. He truly did not understand.
He averted his gaze from Rhys’s brightening face. What possible joy could there be? Were it Kaelen, he would wish only for oblivion. Kaelen selected a piece of the succulent fowl, holding it to Rhys’s lips. Rhys bit into it with a vigorous chew, still smiling. The man was a perpetual source of disquiet.
Truthfully, Kaelen’s decision to bring the collation had been solidified by an encounter just before his arrival, a visit to Rhys’s ancestral manor.
---
This was the second time Kaelen had stepped foot in the House of Meriden since Rhys’s collapse. He still possessed the silver-inlaid access token Lord Varian had pressed into his hand, a symbol of his anomalous position. He had only encountered Rhys’s immediate family thrice within the confines of the ducal infirmary.
Once, Lord Meriden had paid a brief, formal visit. Twice, Rhys’s sister, Lady Lyra, had glided through, her expression a mask of detached concern. Lyra, especially, adopted a saccharine tone with Kaelen, as if grateful to him for undertaking the burdensome duties she had so gracefully sidestepped.
Rhys, perched weakly on his bed, had simply rested his chin on his hand, watching his sister’s retreating back with an unreadable gaze. Kaelen had gone to the manor solely to retrieve some of Rhys’s personal effects, trifles to alleviate the tedium of convalescence. Nothing more. He understood, perhaps better than anyone, the stifling boredom of a sickroom. And having endured his own period of confinement, he knew precisely what diversions were needed. He convinced himself it was not sympathy. Not affection. Only a practical kindness.
That day, instead of returning to his spartan chambers in the ducal library, Kaelen had journeyed to the Meriden estate. The ancient manor, with its sprawling gardens and heraldic banners, welcomed him, though its silence felt heavier than usual. But Lady Lyra’s presence did not. She leaned against the polished oak of Rhys’s bedchamber doorway, her arms crossed, her voice cool and dry.
“You are still lingering about Rhys, Kaelen Thorne?”
To be frank, Kaelen harbored little warmth for Lady Lyra. How could she neglect her brother so completely? Not even a single extended visit to the infirmary. Her own flesh and blood. An instinctive sense of moral outrage, unbidden, had begun to fester within him. He had not even realized the judgment forming until that moment. It was unintentional. As he recognized it, he clamped his mouth shut, stuffing more of Rhys’s sketchbooks and worn travelogues into his satchel.
“I am.”
“He truly has done it, then. That foolish boy. He’s quite obsessed with you, isn’t he?”
Kaelen’s hand froze mid-air. He turned, a prickle of unease tracing his spine, as if pulled by an unseen force.
“...Obsessed with me?”
“What, does that please you?” Her tone was laced with thinly veiled contempt.
“I merely asked for clarification.”
“No one merely asks, Kaelen Thorne. One asks because one wishes to know.”
He felt a wave of revulsion. She muttered something under her breath, a low, unpleasant sound, but he pretended not to hear it. Still, she stepped closer, ignoring his unspoken rebuff. This entire family possessed a singular talent for overlooking inconvenient truths and people. Lady Lyra, Lord Meriden, and even Rhys, in his own way.
“Tell me, where did you disappear to after the Winter Solstice Ball?”
“I returned to my duties.”
The entire court, he knew, must have whispered of his abrupt departure. He had fled Elara’s presence, unable to bear the sight of her unseeing eyes.
“It’s not as if I sought the information. But Rhys… he threw such a fit. The boy, who never once invoked the Divine Sovereigns with true reverence, suddenly began to rage and pray and scream.”
Kaelen’s grip tightened on the satchel strap. Lyra’s words were a barb, twisting in an old wound. Rhys, once so full of a youthful, casual faith, had been stripped of it, much like Kaelen had lost his own illusions of hope for Elara. He saw, in Lyra's callous description, a mirror of his own secret despair.
“Not long after, he tore apart the gilded locket his father gave him, the one with the Patron Saint of Aethelgard. Called the Blessed Mother a ‘hollow idol’ or some such profanity. Then he locked himself in his chambers and refused to emerge. Our house enjoyed a rare peace. He never grasps the true villain in all this, does he? Simpleton.”
Her voice, which had been mocking, suddenly lowered, a shadow passing over her features, likely due to Kaelen’s stiff posture.
“What now? Your face is quite flushed.”
“It is not.”
“Oh, but it is. You truly care for him, then? You genuinely harbor affection for Rhys?”
“I told you, I do not.”
“...By the Sacred Chalice.” Lyra gasped, covering her mouth as if horrified. “You are quite mad, Kaelen Thorne. Truly.”
Why did she persist in her accusations when he had so vehemently denied them? Annoyed, Kaelen yanked the satchel’s zipper shut with a sharp hiss. He wanted to return her barb, to ask why she would speak of familial devotion with such an absence of it in her own heart.
“Your father spoke to me. He referred to Rhys as his second son. Why do you speak of his devotion, then, with such scorn?”
“What in the blazes are you suddenly on about?”
A True Contradiction.
Yes, a glaring contradiction. He knew it himself. Lord Varian, whose shrewd observations often unnerved Kaelen, had once remarked: *Kaelen, you invariably perform acts of kindness, irrespective of your true intentions.* No matter his motives, some innate decency always shone through.
But now, he had a tangible excuse. The pale, mottled scars spreading across Rhys’s back, a testament to his prolonged suffering. Just as Rhys could not meet Kaelen’s eyes in his vulnerable moments, Kaelen could not bring himself to look directly upon those marks.
“Kaelen.”
“Yes, Rhys.”
“Then… is it truly permissible for me to believe in you?” His voice, hoarse from disuse, crept closer. Kaelen feigned indifference, a carefully constructed stillness.
Yet, he listened.
“What are you speaking of?”
“I will not love you.”
In that suspended moment, Kaelen’s heart plummeted, a leaden weight sinking through his ribs. His stomach twisted. A vise tightened around his chest. He almost asked—without thinking, without restraint—*Why not?*
The words were poised on the precipice of his tongue. He realized, with a horrifying jolt, the question he was about to utter. His true, hidden thoughts, the aching core of his own yearning, had almost escaped. *Kaelen, you are a fool.*
He clenched his fists, swallowing the truth down, forcing it back into the depths. Yes. This was for the best. For both their sakes.
“Then instead, I will believe in you.” Rhys’s words, a strange brew of sorrow and triumph, tangled in the air. Like a supplicant receiving a revelation. Was there any other way to describe him in this instant? Kaelen did not comprehend his words. And yet, he did not withdraw his hand. Did not flee.
That suffocating weight, pressing on his chest, no longer merely squeezed. It stabbed.
“I am an atheist now. You are infinitely more tangible, more useful to my life, than that distant sovereign in the sky.”
“Silence, Rhys.” This man… “You blaspheme with every breath.”
“No, not true! I was raised a devout follower, you know!” Rhys frantically shook his head, a desperate, almost tearful insistence in his voice. If Kaelen did not believe him, he might genuinely weep. Kaelen, caught off guard, found himself speechless.
Then, as if a sudden resolve had seized him, Rhys slid from the chaise, dropping to his knees. “Then I will show you.”
“Rhys, what are you doing?”
A frail hand, its grip uncertain, reached for Kaelen’s foot. Since Kaelen had been seated with his legs propped on the chaise, he slid forward, barely perching on the edge. His foot, clad in a fine leather slipper, dangled in the air, held by Rhys’s grasp. Rhys’s gaze dropped to the inner sole of Kaelen’s foot, where a faint, thin line marred the skin – the scar from a childhood accident, a shard of fallen crystal long ago. Rhys’s brow furrowed. To Kaelen’s disbelief, a film of tears glazed his eyes.
Kaelen jerked back in shock, trying to withdraw his foot. Before he could escape, Rhys lowered his head.
“What are you—”
“In the name of the Divine Sovereign, the Sacred Mother, and the Blessed Saints.” Cold fingertips brushed against Kaelen’s ankle. A sharp ache shot up his calf, deep into his stomach. What was this madman doing? Kaelen tried to yank his foot free, but his strength abandoned him.
Rhys looked up at him once, his face devoid of a single trace of disgust. Like a true believer touching a holy relic, he whispered, “I greet my Lord.”
Rhys pressed his lips to the tip of Kaelen’s foot. His fine, soft hair brushed against Kaelen’s ankle, a feather-light tickle against his skin. The gentle pressure of his lips moved upward, tracing a path to the base of Kaelen’s toes.
“S-Stop it…” Kaelen threw an arm over his face. Rhys’s right hand, frail and faltering, tightened around Kaelen’s ankle. And in that moment, Kaelen ceased his resistance.
Three weak fingers held him. A delicate, fragile grip tapped lightly against his skin. The lips that had cursed the Divine every day now traced a path up his calf. And Kaelen did nothing to stop him.
That was when he realized. This relentless, incurable disease—this nightmare of his entanglement with Rhys, of his own eighteen years shadowed by hidden desires—still was not over.