A chill settled within the Sunstone Archives, mirroring the new frost that had claimed the air between Cassian and Lord Kaelan Vayle. After that ignominious incident in the Scriptorium antechamber, Kaelan’s disdain had become a palpable weight. No longer did he bother with the veneer of cordiality for his family; his aversion to Cassian was an open ledger, read by all.
Elara Vayle now occupied the ornate mahogany seat beside Kaelan’s, a constant, sharp reminder.
Perhaps Cassian possessed a talent for masking the true tremor of his heart, yet he was no craven fool to ignore a wound. He would not stand, feigning indifference, while shame coiled in his gut. A pathetic weakling he refused to be. Speaking to Lord Kaelan, as if the very foundations of their connection hadn't fractured, felt impossible.
Weeks dissolved into a monotonous cycle of melancholy, punctuated by flashes of petty, bitter resentment. Always, in the end, he endured.
Lord Kaelan, notoriously volatile, now harbored a childish envy, a petty malice directed at Cassian. The reason, a crystal shard in Cassian’s palm, was Elara Vayle.
Cassian hated Elara even more, regardless of intent. She was never his to claim, yet she had not only drawn Kaelan’s attention but twisted his regard into open enmity towards Cassian. A viper, he thought, a cunning serpent.
Intention mattered little when emotions raged. Logic held no sway against the tide of feeling. Blaming Elara offered a convenient anchor, a scapegoat to weather his miserable, swirling despair.
Still, Cassian’s choices always bent towards the rational. He understood Elara was merely caught in Kaelan’s tempest. No hostile gesture ever escaped him in her presence. Partly, perhaps, because the raw, festering jealousy within him was too mortifying to expose. Partly, too, because a public display of anger towards Elara would only mark him as a fool. That, he knew, would solidify Kaelan’s hatred and brand him in the eyes of his peers as an unnatural deviant, a crimson-touched blight upon their refined society.
“...This is intolerable.”
His skin crawled. He wished for the oblivion of the old city catacombs. He hated this silent, suffocating torment more than Kaelan’s open contempt.
Unexpectedly, Lysander Croft’s sharp-featured face flashed through his mind. No clear reason, perhaps only because Lysander was the most frequently irritating companion of late. What would Lysander say, were he to divine Cassian’s true, hidden thoughts? Probably something like this:
‘So Thorne’s just a filthy, crimson-touched deviant, after all?’
Lysander’s imagined gaze, cold with disdain, made Cassian’s hands clench. The image was so viscerally repugnant, a choking horror. He would sooner face the Black Plague than have anyone discover his secret.
Guild loyalties often proved brittle things. When the rift between Kaelan and Cassian became undeniable, Cassian’s connections to Kaelan’s coterie of scholars and aides withered. Amusingly, Master Jorn, a solitary archivist often lost amidst his scrolls, ventured a pointless conversation yesterday.
“Thorne, Lysander was seeking you earlier.”
“Indeed? For what purpose?”
“Uncertain, merely stated his intent.”
Silence descended. Always, these vacant exchanges, bereft of true meaning. It became clear, in the quiet whispers of the Archive halls, that Cassian was now perceived as tethered to Lysander’s orbit, not Kaelan’s.
Not that all threads to Kaelan’s circle were severed. Occasionally, during the arcane drills or by chance at the morning bell, polite nods were exchanged. Though that was mostly limited to Ser Aric, Kaelan’s aide.
“Thorne! Morning.”
“...Morning, Ser Aric.”
Cassian recalled one of those awkward mornings. Ser Aric had murmured something, hushed and low.
‘Lord Kaelan has been... peculiar of late. His manner with Elara... disquieting, is it not?’
Cassian must have worn an unpleasant grimace, for Aric seemed to take it as agreement. The aide then recounted Kaelan’s insistence on Elara’s presence, his firm grip on her arm, his refusal to release her.
Cassian’s fists tightened, his jaw a rigid line, before he offered a clipped reply.
‘Such trivialities hold no interest for me.’
Aric’s chatter ceased instantly.
Ser Aric, of late, seemed keen to curry favor with Lysander and his own, less ostentatious, companions. He was clearly a man seeking to step from Kaelan’s considerable shadow. Perhaps his whispered confidences to Cassian were merely an attempt to bridge that new divide.
Today, as often now, only Lysander and Cassian remained in the small study chamber, apart from the others.
Leaning against a shelf stacked with ancient lexicons, Lysander regarded Cassian. Was it scrutiny, or mere dismissal? Cassian, irritated, turned his head, choosing to ignore him in kind.
“Thorne.”
“What now, Croft?”
“Frosted elixirs after the last bell. The amber-spice one, from last time. Quite palatable.”
Lysander disregarded Cassian’s attempted aloofness. He lazily tossed a weighted ink-pellet across the chamber. The polished orb bounced erratically, threatening to strike priceless manuscripts, yet no one dared utter a word to him.
He possessed no regard for the atmosphere, an indifferent, selfish creature. Cassian watched the pellet’s haphazard flight, a frown etched on his face, finally breaking his silence. Lysander’s sheer audacity sharpened Cassian’s tone.
“You mean the one you consumed in its entirety? Your purchase, for your own palate, was it not?”
“Not entirely. I merely favored the hue.”
“So my own preference merited no consideration?”
“How was I to divine your desire? You offered no counsel.”
The ink-pellet, by then, had rolled beneath a scribe’s desk. Lysander extended a hand, a silent command. A nearby student hesitated, then awkwardly retrieved the orb, placing it into Lysander’s waiting palm. Lysander casually spun the pellet, addressing the retreating student.
“My thanks, unlettered brute.”
Such an abrasive temperament.
‘Unlettered brute, Guildless cur.’ Each syllable from his lips grated.
Truly, it defied reason that someone so profoundly obnoxious as Lysander frequented Cassian’s company rather than Lord Kaelan’s. He dined with Cassian, sat with Cassian, attended lectures with Cassian. Kaelan might be estranged, but Lysander could easily dispatch a scrying message, arrange a meeting, if he so wished.
The thought, a sudden, fleeting spark, prompted Cassian to ask, unthinking:
“Why do you not frequent Lord Kaelan’s company these days?”
Lysander, mid-toss of the weighted ink-pellet against the chamber wall, froze. He turned to Cassian, a puzzled cast to his features.
“You quarreled with him,” he stated.
“I?”
“Aye. You and Lord Kaelan.”
“I am aware. The quarrel was mine. What import does that hold for you?”
“You utter the most peculiar pronouncements. It is because you are my companion.”
Lysander’s gaze swept over Cassian, oddly blatant. Uneasy, Cassian averted his eyes, posing a counter-question:
“You were Lord Kaelan’s companion also, surely.”
“Indeed. You are a source of constant amusement, Thorne. What, then, are you implying I am not *your* companion?”
Now his tone held an incredulous edge, a pointed finger directed at Cassian.
“No, I am your companion. Yet you were also Lord Kaelan’s. Why, then, do you align with my position?”
“Well, because my acquaintance with you precedes his.”
“What idle talk is this? We forged our acquaintance through Lord Kaelan, did we not?”
“Thorne. What absurdities tumble from your tongue? We were close, even in our first year of the Collegium!”
“When, pray tell?”
“Truly, you are an insolent cur. In the Refectory, we often exchanged glances!”
“Ah... those moments.”
“So, I alone harbored the notion of companionship? You rogue. That is precisely why, upon finding ourselves in the same study cohort, I approached you first! And you do not even acknowledge that? Unfathomable. I confess, I am disappointed.”
“Oh.”
“Unfathomable. Truly... unfathomable. How could you inflict such an injury upon me?”
“Forgive me, then. My apologies, are they sufficient?” Cassian mumbled, hastily recalling those awkward yet undeniably frequent encounters from their initial year. So that had fallen within Lysander’s definition of ‘companionship.’ Cassian felt strangely defrauded. How could anyone interpret those guarded stares as anything but veiled hostility? And wait, had the first suggestion of shared meals truly come not from Lord Kaelan, but from Lysander?
The realization struck like a mallet blow, leaving him momentarily stunned. It was unsettling, almost shocking. Yet, to avoid further entanglements, he feigned understanding, offering a curt nod.
“Very well, very well. I grasp the matter. My apologies.”
“I was profoundly vexed just now.”
Lysander’s glare lingered for a brief moment. Sometimes, Cassian truly failed to comprehend the workings of his mind.
“And besides, Lord Kaelan’s conduct is decidedly peculiar.”
A silence.
“The man is utterly deranged currently. Always possessed a certain eccentric bent, but this? This is simply... beyond the pale.”
He gripped the ink-pellet with four fingers, lazily spinning it around his temple with an index digit. The sight conjured images of Ser Aric and the other scholars who had awkwardly attempted to broach the topic of Kaelan’s strange moods.
From that alone, one truth became painfully clear: Lord Kaelan’s reputation was in a precipitous decline.
“Crimson-touched.”
The word—the most feared, the most damning stigma in the world of young acolytes—sent a tremor through Cassian. His body shivered. At the same moment, a cold relief washed over him that his own secret remained unexposed. Did that relief mean he valued his own standing above Kaelan’s?
Unease prickled his skin. He glanced at Lysander’s impassive face, feeling like a blasphemous priest harboring a forbidden scripture before the Arch-Diviner himself.
“Truly, myself,” he muttered.
A strange laugh escaped him then, a brittle sound, a mix of terror and derision.
It was almost farcical that, to others, he was Lysander’s closest companion. In truth, he was no different—a criminal branded with an unholy stigma. Only a few months past, he had been Lord Kaelan’s most trusted confidant. Yet here he was, hiding, clinging to the edge of a filthy trap he had barely escaped.
He had merely avoided capture. Nothing more.
---
Dawn broke, not with a flourish of sun, but with a pallid gray light. A message arrived, unexpected, from an unknown scrying-crystal. A call at the fourth hour. Half-asleep, Cassian’s thoughts drifted, momentarily blurring reality with dreams. Though he had carefully distanced himself from Kaelan to protect his own heart, a foolish flutter ignited within him at the possibility the message might be from Kaelan.
He rubbed his eyes, hastily, checking the sender once more. His feelings warred. A part of him wished it were merely one of those unsolicited missives offering illicit lore or ancient relics. Yet, as he deciphered the script, he knew at once it was not Lord Kaelan.
“Cassian, forgive this trespass upon your slumber. Could you step beyond your gates for a moment? My deepest apologies. Truly, my deepest regrets.”
“Just this once. Only this once.”
Lord Kaelan would never offer such an apology to Cassian.
Among his peers, only two used the familiar address ‘Cassian,’ and of those two, only one was so desperate. How had Elara Vayle even divined his domicile? The moment his eyes registered the words, his face twisted into a scowl. He wanted no part of her presence—never wished to see her. She always heralded discomfort.
Yet, despite the protest roaring in his mind, he rose from his bed, buttoned his dressing gown, and stood. He walked to his door, paused, and rested his forehead against the cool frame, a profound sigh escaping him.
“...Damn it.”
It was a sensation of being utterly overwhelmed, a tightening knot in his stomach. That was the only way to describe it. He clutched his chest. He had always prided himself on his keen intellect, his expansive vocabulary gleaned from countless hours in the Archives, yet no words he knew could adequately express this intricate, tangled mess of emotions.
It was simply... complicated.
The hatred he felt for Elara Vayle, the searing memory of her bruised countenance that day, the desperate, calculated days he had spent trying to drive a wedge between her and Kaelan—all swirled within him. Biting his lip, he fiddled with the doorknob, then closed his eyes and turned it with a decisive twist.
In the private gardens, the cold predawn dew clung to the air, whispering of the coming autumn. To avoid the damp grass, he picked his way carefully across the cool, smoothed marble stones that paved the path. The raw chill of dawn made him pull his dressing gown tighter around his form. His bare toes, exposed at the front of his slippers, carried him to the manor’s front gate.
He paused there, a soft click of his tongue, and gripped the handle. The groan of the ancient hinge made him flinch. He opened the gate even more slowly, deliberately.
Beyond the wrought iron, illuminated by the distant city lamps on the polished basalt street, stood Elara Vayle, still clad in her simple Collegium uniform. Her head hung low, as she idly traced invisible patterns on the ground with the tip of her worn shoe.
“...Elara Vayle.”
At his voice, Elara’s head snapped up with the swiftness of a startled gazelle.
“Cassian, Cassian!”
“What is it you—