A peculiar, almost morbid, curiosity had begun to fester within Lysander. He found himself contemplating the unspoken understanding between Ser Roric and Lord Cassian—a new dynamic that had taken root in the echoing halls of Thorne. It was a simple fascination, perhaps, like a moth drawn to a guttering flame, yet it carried the faint, bitter tang of jealousy.
From his vantage points within the archives or along less-traveled corridors, Lysander had observed Roric. The knight, once restless and prone to fits of temper, now trailed Cassian with a singular devotion, a silent shadow. Roric did not walk beside his lord; he followed, every stride a testament to an unspoken vow. The image gnawed at Lysander: a grown man, a formidable knight, trailing Cassian as if tethered by an invisible cord, unable to tear his gaze from the lord’s back.
A bad feeling, cold and sharp, coiled in Lysander’s gut. This burgeoning curiosity felt like the tentative touch upon a forbidden latch, the slow, agonizing creak of a door that should remain sealed. He recognized the insidious allure—a tiny chest holding not just despair, but a cruel, intoxicating hope. Knowing this, he still felt an undeniable pull to peer inside.
“...This is madness,” Lysander whispered, the words barely stirring the dust motes dancing in the archive’s stray sunbeam.
Indeed, his thoughts were astray. But even with that stark realization, he found himself following Roric one chill afternoon.
He did not venture far.
Moving with the practiced stealth of a shadow, ensuring Cassian would not note his presence, Lysander saw Roric pausing, his eyes fixed on Cassian’s retreating form. Cracked plaster peeled from ancient stone, the rusted filigree of a forgotten gate sagged on its hinges, and the scarred, weather-beaten timbers of a stable roof spoke of constant neglect. All around them, Thorne itself seemed to fray at the edges, a stage set with cheap, worn things. Two men moved within this decay: Cassian in front, Roric following behind. And Lysander, watching them from a distance.
Everything about it felt pathetic, ignoble. He turned away.
Later, seated at his desk in his darkened chambers, the soft glow of a tallow lamp illuminating only the script before him, Lysander felt a hollow satisfaction. Curiosity had piqued, yes, but to what end? Had he pressed further, who knew what disquieting sight might have met his gaze? This was better. Better not to know. Lysander Kael was not foolish enough to pry open a forbidden box out of petty interest.
Yet the shift was undeniable. Roric’s singular devotion to Cassian intensified with each passing day. Cassian, in turn, seemed to regard Roric with a blend of wary tolerance and a persistent, almost visceral, disdain.
No, it was more than disdain. Lysander recognized it as a profound dislike, perhaps even a nascent hatred. How could Cassian feel otherwise toward a man who, until recently, had openly defied his authority, causing him public embarrassment? A flicker of smug satisfaction ignited in Lysander’s chest. He had not intervened when Roric first challenged Cassian’s harshness. Perhaps that had been for the best.
Lysander laced his fingers behind his head, resting them against the stiff collar of his tunic, and tilted his gaze toward the vaulted ceiling. The intricate, soot-stained carvings above him were a silent reminder of his once-fortunate life. Born into a noble, if lesser, house, he had been raised with every privilege, every desire indulged. Until Thorne.
“...Damn it all,” he muttered, the words tasting like ash.
He had once believed himself capable of navigating any labyrinth, achieving any goal. Then he had fallen under Cassian Thorne’s orbit. That man, with his mercurial moods and dangerous charm, had shown Lysander the cruel truth: life did not always bend to one’s will. Lysander was certain Roric was learning that bitter lesson too.
Ah, the world could be mercilessly cruel.
At least Lysander had learned to control himself, to master the art of concealment. Roric, on the other hand, was so consumed by his newfound fervor that he remained blind to the intensity of his own gaze, the stark devotion that radiated from him. That sudden, abnormal intensity must be unsettling for Cassian.
Lysander understood Roric’s struggle intimately. He had felt that same tempest of emotion, but he had endured, had weathered the storm behind an impassive facade. Roric could not. That was why, instead of subtly winning Cassian’s favor, he acted in ways that only cemented the lord’s irritation. For Lysander, that suited him perfectly.
“Please, just remain so blissfully unaware,” he murmured, the whisper lost in the quiet of his room.
Or better yet, let Cassian grow tired of him, let Roric fall out of favor entirely. Lysander did not harbor any foolish hope for Roric to seek him out. If anything, this kind of unrestrained emotion terrified him.
He yearned for one simple thing: a day when he no longer felt this dangerous pull towards Cassian, and for Cassian to find some other distraction. That was all. But, of course, the world rarely granted such simple desires.
To exacerbate matters, Roric began positioning himself whenever Cassian held court or dined formally, often standing or sitting just behind Cassian’s chair, displacing more senior guards or even courtiers. His height, once considered an asset on the battlefield, became an unwelcome obstruction, blocking the view of the fire or the subtle nuances of Cassian’s expressions. The displaced squires and minor nobles would awkwardly greet Lysander or Master Elara, their faces a mixture of embarrassment and discomfort.
“Master Kael. Master Elara.”
Elara and Lysander exchanged a brief glance, offering a curt nod. The air hung heavy with unspoken observations.
“Haha…” The forced laugh lingered, brittle and thin, but neither Lysander nor Elara offered a response. They were not interested in such obvious discomfort.
Roric sat or stood beside Cassian without a word, his silence a palpable force. Lysander, observing this, desperately wished for the current, awkward tension to stretch on indefinitely. Perhaps, one day, this stifling dynamic would become nothing more than a vague, forgotten dream.
Another subtle alteration had taken hold. Roric, who had once spent his free nights indulging in boisterous carousing and frequenting the shadowed taverns beyond the estate walls, finally seemed to curtail his exploits. Or so it appeared. From the stray bits of gossip Lysander overheard from Elara’s more boisterous acquaintances, Roric had not ceased entirely. But at least he no longer boasted of his conquests in the guard’s common room, nor did the lingering scent of stale ale and cheap perfume cling to him.
For Lysander, that was a small mercy. He no longer had to endure the stench of Roric’s escapades up close, or the coarse tales that filtered through the estate.
“Ser Roric! Not off to chase skirts again? Like this?”
One of the younger squires, a bold youth named Garet, swayed his hips suggestively in front of Roric, placing his hands near his crotch and moving with lewd intent. Roric’s face twisted into a mask of pure disgust at the vulgar display. He glanced quickly in Cassian’s direction, then roared, his voice low and dangerous.
“Garet, you fool! I told you not to speak such filth in the Lord’s presence!”
“Why the sudden piety, Ser?” Garet challenged, a smirk playing on his lips.
“Bring that up again, and you’ll find yourself scrubbing latrines for a month, Garet.”
“But Ser, I only meant—”
“I said silence!”
“...As you wish, Ser.”
Others in the guard’s hall were visibly disappointed. Roric, with his imposing frame and rough charm, had once been the perfect conduit for the coarse curiosity of the younger, less experienced men. Now, he was a silent, watchful sentinel.
The men who had once shared Roric’s escapades were not novices; they had all fumbled through clumsy experiences of their own. Compared to naive virgins, they were more easily stirred. With Roric no longer sharing his exploits, their attention drifted to others, including the cynical Master Elara. But Elara only bared her teeth, a flicker of pure disgust in her eyes.
“Filthy curs,” she spat, her voice a low growl.
“Ah, there she goes again! Master Elara and her moralizing.”
“She’s just a fanatic. A waste, truly.”
Laughter rippled through the room, loud and fleeting. Most of the men in the guard’s group had ventured into forbidden territories at least once, but for some reason, Master Elara had not. While they teased her as a joke, calling her ‘The Chaste Scholar,’ no one actually disrespected her. She was Master Elara, after all, and her sharp intellect commanded a grudging admiration. At the same time, Elara possessed a lighthearted, almost careless attitude about everything else, which made her actions seem casual and her words easy to dismiss. People often found her either charming or approachable, frequently remarking that her fierce expressions didn’t match her keen mind.
“Master Elara, stop glaring at me. You’ll make me soil my breeches.”
“Aye, she has such a fearsome gaze.”
“Do you dolts have a death wish?”
Elara scowled, and the group burst into fresh laughter, though the jest had lost its novelty. Some squires lingering at the back of the common room, who might have been her friends—or perhaps less than that—joined in with their false laughs and idle chatter, adding to the general din. As Lysander sat amongst them, he stared blankly at his hands resting on his knees, lost in thought.
Lysander’s memory served him well: he had never felt a genuine stirring for a woman. He supposed that made him different, marked from birth. He had felt arousal, certainly, when observing certain etchings or overheard whispers involving both men and women, but he had never once fantasized about a woman’s form in his private moments. The former seemed to be more about the intensity of the situation, the forbidden thrill, while the latter felt like a simple absence of desire.
He had once been dragged to a public house in the Lower City by a reckless cousin, but he had not made it past the entrance, lacking the proper coins for entry. He had waited outside until his cousin returned, bored and stiff. Brothels? The very thought was repugnant. He could not fathom why anyone would seek solace or pleasure in such places.
Because of all this, the more boisterous courtiers jokingly referred to him as “The Monk of Kael,” but in reality, his abstinence was more or less forced by circumstance and position.
Lysander let out a small sigh.
The others were too busy laughing at Elara’s retorts to notice. Taking advantage of the moment, Lysander glanced at Roric, who was sitting silently. The knight was staring intently at the back of Cassian’s head, as Cassian reviewed ledgers at the high table.
And, as always, Lysander regretted it. Why had he looked? Why was he so curious? To distract himself, he asked Elara a seemingly pointless question.
“Master Elara, do you truly intend to remain unattached until you retire to a hermitage?”
Elara, who was lounging in her chair with an air of casual disdain, suddenly looked directly at Lysander’s hands, then his face. Her gaze was so persistent that he instinctively folded his arms across his chest. What the blight was that about?
“Lysander Kael, you are not my confessor, so why do you ask? What, are you offering a dowry?”
Of course. Elara always made malicious jokes. The others laughed, and Lysander delivered a swift, subtle kick to Elara’s shin beneath the table. She merely grunted, a knowing smirk on her face.
That was how his days went—a predictable rhythm of tension, observation, and internal struggle, day after day.
---
When Lysander was in his chambers, he was usually alone, which meant he often found himself lost in thought, contemplating all sorts of intricate scenarios. Inevitably, those thoughts sometimes drifted into strange, dangerous fantasies.
Today, he found himself wondering what it would have been like if he had fallen under Master Theron’s influence instead of Lord Cassian’s. It seemed like it would have been a far safer situation, certainly less perilous. If he had loved Theron, he wouldn’t have had to endure the constant, simmering heartache caused by Cassian’s capricious moods and his dangerous indifference.
Even so, heartbreak would likely still be his companion. Neither Lord Cassian Thorne nor Master Theron would ever truly love him, after all. But at least his heart wouldn’t ache with this suffocating dread of exposure.
That train of thought eventually led to familiar feelings of inferiority and anger at his own helplessness. In the end, he just wished he could find a way to secure his family’s honor and become a stranger to Thorne, to Cassian Thorne especially.
---
At some point, Lysander started unconsciously placing his hands under his desk or resting them on his knees, his fingers nervously tracing the patterns of his clothes whenever he sat down. This habit had truly begun in his mid-teens, and the cause was always the same—the unsettling, dangerous pull of certain men.
As he idly smoothed the cuff of his doublet, he got lost in thought. Should he? Or shouldn’t he? The faint rustle of silk against his skin filled the quiet room. Just as he leaned closer to the inkpot, a knock echoed on the chamber door.
“Master Kael? Are you engaged in your studies?” Master Theron’s voice, calm and measured, carried through the oak.
“...Ah, no! I mean, yes! I am!” Lysander nearly leaped out of his skin. Today was clearly not the day for such private reveries. Mortified, he buried his face in his arms, the scent of parchment and ink a familiar comfort. Damn it.
---
Lately, Ser Roric had been getting on Lysander’s nerves.
Sometimes, when Cassian’s gaze briefly flickered to Lysander during a court meeting, Roric would deliberately strike up a loud conversation with the Lord. Cassian, caught in the middle, would shift his eyes back toward Roric, his lips parting as if to speak to Lysander, only to close them again. Then, as if wary of Roric’s intense presence, he would lower his head and respond to the knight in the faintest voice.
“Y-yes, Ser Roric…”
Just like that.
Cassian, oblivious or perhaps merely distracted, subtly sought Lysander out more often, his voice softening. He even began to address Lysander less formally, sometimes using a shortened variant of his surname, a familiar touch Lysander cherished despite the danger. Aside from Master Theron and his own late father, almost no one addressed him with such intimacy, so the change was starkly noticeable. Cassian seemed to think he was being careful, but he was not. The worst part was how Roric couldn’t hide his discomfort whenever Cassian did anything remotely familiar.
“My Lord, Master Kael is occupied with his duties. He should not be disturbed by such trivial matters.”
“What?” Cassian’s brow furrowed.
“He is busy. Do you not comprehend, my Lord?”
“Oh… uh, yes…”
When Cassian stammered and avoided Roric’s unwavering gaze, the knight immaturely slammed his gauntleted fist against the leg of the high table beside him. Lysander pretended not to notice, his calligraphy brush hovering motionless over the page. Annoyingly, the often-oblivious Cassian seemed to think no one cared about him using the familiar address anymore. He grew bold, casually employing it as if it were normal.
“Lysander… forgive me for interrupting your studies.”
Lysander stiffened, staring at him in disbelief. Was Cassian insane? Roric was standing right there, a looming shadow at Cassian’s shoulder.
Sure enough, Roric pounded his fist on the table again. Damn it.
“My Lord, I must object!”
“...Huh?” Cassian turned, startled.
The atmosphere soured instantly, thick with unspoken tension.
“I have warned you,” Roric’s anger was blatant, simmering just beneath the surface.
“I have warned you not to address him thus, have I not, My Lord?”
“...W-well…” Cassian stammered, flustered.
“He is Master Lysander Kael. Use his full title—Master Kael.”
Roric’s gaze turned sharp, almost predatory, as he looked at Lysander. Lysander hated that look, a cold, possessive glint, and instinctively lowered his head, feigning concentration on his work. At that moment, Master Elara, seated beside him, casually rested her arm across the back of his chair, her hand brushing his shoulder. Her low, distinctive voice murmured near his ear, for his ears alone.
“Ser Roric, if you continue this behavior, you will truly seal your own fate.”
“What in the blazes do you speak of, Master Elara?” Roric snapped, his eyes flashing.
“I speak of regret, Ser. A bitter, lasting regret.” Elara smirked, a dangerous glint in her eyes, and Lysander felt a familiar flicker of irritation. For one reason only: the sudden, unwanted attention this provoked from Cassian.
“Ser Roric, step away,” Cassian commanded, his voice edged with an unusual firmness. “Master Kael requires peace to complete his work.”
Lysander did not dare look up, but the shift in the room was palpable. Roric, after a beat of strained silence, finally retreated, his heavy boots echoing on the flagstones. The tension remained, a tight knot in Lysander’s chest. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him, that this delicate dance of power and possessiveness was only just beginning.