A small scrap of parchment, folded twice, lay tucked into the brittle vellum of Caelan’s star-atlas. Two days had passed since Lyra’s unsettling devotion. The note was simple, unadorned by crest or sigil, its ink slightly smudged.
“Master Thorne, please meet me in the Lower Archives before the Runic Practicum today.”
Caelan’s brow furrowed. No acolyte, no matter how earnest, would address a scholar of his standing with such casual familiarity. He dismissed the thought of a personal overture at once. His life within the Obsidian Conclave rarely touched upon such frivolous human sentiments. This must be an errand, a request for a forgotten text, or perhaps a minor task. He forgot the note almost entirely until the chime signaling the commencement of the fourth cycle, when the Great Hall would empty for the morning practicums.
After donning his simpler, unembroidered robe, Caelan made his way to the specified alcove. A faint curiosity stirred within him, a fleeting wisp he promptly suppressed. It could not be anything significant. The sender, however, proved to be an unexpected figure: Lyra, her small frame hunched, her dark hair, recently re-braided, pressed neatly against her back.
“Lyra?”
He spoke her name, a low query, and her head snapped up from where she picked nervously at a loose thread on her sleeve. Her eyes, wide and luminous, met his, showing a mix of apprehension and raw, desperate hope. A familiar wave of annoyance washed over Caelan, tightening his jaw.
“What is it? Why so sudden?”
Responding to his clipped tone, Lyra began twisting her plump fingers. Her gaze flickered around the dusty, stone-lined alcove.
“Master Thorne... I... I have something I wish to say.”
“Speak it, then.”
Caelan desired immediate departure. He wanted no witness to this clandestine meeting, no whispers to attach themselves to his already precarious reputation. He had offered Lyra succor out of necessity, a grudging sense of duty, never more. His involvement felt like a fragile thread stretched taut across a chasm.
Oblivious to his deepening discomfort, Lyra chewed on her lower lip, her head tilting, as if struggling to articulate a weighty truth. Her small shoulders rose and fell with short, shallow breaths. Whenever she seemed on the verge of speech, her lips clamped shut.
Silence stretched, taut and brittle, between them.
Irritation prickled Caelan’s skin. He felt a profound weariness whenever Lyra’s intense gaze fixed upon him. Her hesitant movements, which some might find endearing, instead grated on his nerves. He knew he was overly sensitive, prone to sharp edges.
“Forgive me, but the Practicum begins soon. Just say what you must.”
His temper, already frayed, felt like a snarled length of astral cord. His thoughts coiled around a hundred unresolved frustrations. Lyra’s presence was a catalyst, not the cause. Perhaps he simply needed someone to direct his ire toward.
His stomach gave a familiar lurch, a cold clenching that had become a constant companion these days.
As Caelan wrestled with these bitter reflections, Lyra finally seemed to gather her resolve. Her voice, a small, stammering murmur, broke the silence.
“Master Thorne... I... I, you see, I...”
“Yes?”
Caelan gave a perfunctory nod, rubbing the back of his neck. The practicum bell would sound any moment. He wished he could pry the words from her, force them into the oppressive air.
Then, abruptly, the heavy iron door to the Lower Archives burst open. Both Caelan and Lyra flinched, turning to face the newcomer. Eris, Lyra’s sister, stood framed in the doorway, chest heaving, her eyes blazing. Not at Caelan. Her furious gaze fixed upon Lyra.
“Hmph, hmph...”
Her ragged breathing betrayed her haste. Eris had clearly run, searching for her sister through the labyrinthine corridors. A suffocating pressure tightened Caelan’s chest, imagining Eris’s relentless pursuit.
Eris let out a long, controlled exhale, then strode purposefully into the alcove. Caelan’s hand, still at his neck, fell uselessly to his side. Eris’s gaze flickered between Lyra and him, her expression hardening, fierce and accusatory.
“What are you doing here with him?”
Her words hung heavy, directed at an ambiguous target. Her hands clenched, then released, betraying an inner storm. Beneath Caelan’s carefully maintained composure, a silent tremor shook his core. After a protracted pause, Eris finally turned her full attention to Caelan. Her eyes, burning with a cold, righteous fury, were unbearable.
“What in the Void, Master Thorne.”
Please, Caelan’s mind screamed, do not look at me like that. Blame Lyra, who summoned him here. Why direct such incandescent resentment at him, a mere vessel for her sister’s foolishness? He had been dragged into this mire through no fault of his own.
Even as the thought curdled, Eris’s scorching gaze remained locked upon him. He knew those eyes. Not the eyes of passion, but of rage, of possessive jealousy, of something bordering on madness. A devotion so absolute it twisted into something grotesque. Caelan found it both pitiful and terrifying in equal measure.
“Why are you here with her!”
Eris looked pathetic, a creature consumed. Yet, in that moment, Caelan felt the true pity was reserved for himself. His humiliation was a physical weight.
Before he could react, Eris’s long stride brought her directly before him. The moment his gaze met hers, a searing shock coursed through him. The world reeled.
“...!”
He could not even process the event. His body stumbled, impacting the cold stone floor, and only then did his mind rewind, replaying the swift, brutal strike.
“No...”
She had hit him. Eris had struck him. Lying sprawled, Caelan’s trembling fingers rose to his stinging cheek. It was unbelievable. How could she? How could she do this to him?
“M-Master Thorne!”
“Lyra! You will address him as Master Thorne! You will not speak his name, you hear me, girl!” Eris roared, her voice echoing in the confined space. Lyra, horrified, started to rush to Caelan’s side, but Eris’s furious visage stopped her cold.
“I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Lyra stammered, tears welling.
“You promised! You swore an oath! Damn you!”
Lyra recoiled, her face pale, trembling on the verge of weeping. Caelan, though, felt it was he who should be crying. Tears pricked at his own eyes, hot and shameful.
Fortunately, before he could break, Eris spat a final, scathing curse, then seized Lyra by the arm, dragging her roughly from the archives. The heavy door swung shut with a mournful creak. It had all transpired with terrifying speed.
Left alone, sitting on the cold floor, Caelan stared at the sliver of light beneath the half-closed door. Something inside him finally broke. The dam holding back his carefully suppressed emotions fractured, and hot tears streamed down his face.
He hated everything. Lyra, for her clinging devotion that had led to this. Eris, for her unbridled rage and the stinging blow. He wished they would both simply vanish. He felt utterly miserable, reduced to a mere, ignominious bystander in their twisted drama.
He rose, his joints stiff, and skipped the Runic Practicum. Instead, he made his way directly to the Senior Scholars’ office, requesting an early dismissal. His swollen, reddened face made his excuse of a sudden ailment believable, and the Senior Scholar, usually hawk-eyed, seemed to understand without prying.
---
Returning to his spartan Conclave chambers, Caelan collapsed onto his cot and fell into a fitful, dreamless sleep. When he woke, his face felt puffy and bruised, the cheekbone throbbing. Out of habit, he checked the small aether-relay stone on his desk. A message pulsed from Alaric, Eris’s second. They rarely exchanged messages, but perhaps Alaric had his relay details from prior interactions involving Eris. Damn it.
Anyone else, Caelan would have ignored. But Alaric held significant sway among the younger acolytes and scholars. To ignore him was to invite unwanted scrutiny.
“Master Thorne, did you vanish?”
Caelan clicked his tongue against his teeth. The message was three cycles old. He replied belatedly, keeping his tone deliberately light.
“A sudden malady, Alaric. Nothing of consequence.”
He wanted no one to know the truth of his current situation. The thought of the Conclave discovering Eris had struck him, and all because of Lyra, filled him with unbearable humiliation.
“Are you quite well?”
Alaric, showing concern? A strange, unsettling feeling made Caelan power down his relay stone.
Hours later, a wave of profound sadness washed over him. Even Alaric’s brief message felt suffocating. Other junior scholars with whom he collaborated had sent polite queries, but none of it was what he secretly craved.
No message, no frantic inquiry, had come from Eris. Caelan chastised himself for his idiotic expectation. This, he thought, must be the fate of those consumed by maddening, possessive devotion.
Even knowing the bitter truth, he lay there like a fool, doing what he did best: closing his eyes, turning a blind eye to reality.
“...I am not the only one.”
Perhaps Lyra and he shared a similar fate. A strange, twisted, grotesque thought lingered. A selfish, wicked, childish hope entwined with it. While lying on his cot, staring at the high, arched ceiling, another message pulsed through his relay stone. An unknown sigil, untraced.
“Master Thorne, are you very unwell?”
Caelan frowned. Who among his peers would send such an untraced message, so informally? Alaric? But this was not his sigil. Before he could ponder further, a follow-up message arrived, relentless and infuriating.
“I am sorry. Truly sorry. It is all because of me.”
“I am so sorry.”
“Please, forgive me.”
Whether three words or four, each stabbed at him, making him want to scream. He threw the relay stone onto the stone floor in frustration. How did this insufferable acolyte acquire his private sigil? Lyra didn’t even possess a personal relay stone.
Then it hit him. Oh. He had called her once, hadn’t he, in the infirmary?
He cursed his idiotic memory, letting out an angry sigh. To vent his frustration, Caelan pounded his fists against the cot mattress for a long while until exhaustion claimed him, and he drifted into sleep. Just before his thoughts completely faded, one final message flickered in his mind.
“Please, do not hate me.”
Funny. He had hated her, in some deep, unacknowledged corner of his soul, for weeks.
Next morning, when he woke, his face felt swollen and stiff, like a bruised apple.
---
He skipped his morning charting session. No matter how diligently he pursued his scholarship, he was not so utterly devoted as to appear with such a disfigurement. His attendant, a quiet, older acolyte, brought him a light noon meal. As Caelan ate, the attendant could not resist a gentle scolding, urging more caution in his movements. The meal itself was simple: a bowl of thin broth and bland, steamed roots. Caelan swallowed it all quickly, barely tasting.
Setting down his spoon and reaching for a chalice of water, his attendant returned to clear the dishes. With a plate in one hand, she said, “Master Thorne, you have a visitor.”
“A visitor?”
“Shall I admit them?”
A visitor. Caelan’s heart fluttered, a small, foolish bird trapped in his chest. Before he could even identify the emotion, his mind began to conjure images of who might be standing at his door.
Could it be... Eris?
It seemed a wild fantasy, yet not entirely impossible. Few outside the immediate Conclave knew the location of his private chambers. If it was her, then she must have come to apologize, finally wrestling with the guilt of her actions. Eris had never struck him before, not once. Yes, she must be worried, perhaps even upset, by her outburst.
“Yes, please, admit them.”
The fantasy solidified into a fragile certainty. Even as Caelan chastised himself for such naive hope, a small, unwelcome warmth spread through him. Despite everything, he was still important to her in some small, inexplicable way. The thought filled him with a bitter satisfaction. He quickly turned toward the heavy oak door, his pace quickening with a surge of anxious anticipation.
But the person waiting there was not who he had expected.
“Thorne. Looking rough.”
Alaric, sharp-featured, greeted him with a wry smirk, holding a small, crystal phial filled with a shimmering, verdant liquid. As soon as his eyes fell upon Caelan’s bruised face, his expression sobered, a flash of genuine concern flickering beneath his cool demeanor.
“What in the Void happened to your face?”
Caelan’s knees almost buckled from the sudden, deflating disappointment. How did Alaric even know where his chambers were?
“...An accident,” Caelan replied flatly.
Alaric frowned, twisting his lips in that familiar, sardonic way before speaking again.
“You always were clumsy, weren’t you?”
Caelan did not bother to argue. He merely rubbed his swollen cheek, feeling a dull ache. Embarrassment surged, hot and consuming, as he recalled his foolish hopes. He was such an idiot. Eris did not see him as someone important. And here he was, like a hopeful, idiotic dog, wagging his tail for scraps of attention.
“Here. This might help.”
Alaric extended the small phial. Caelan accepted it, immediately uncorking the stopper to release its faint, herbaceous scent.
“...It’s Mountain Balm.”
“Is it? Barely noticed.”
“Figures. Why would you care?”
“Damn, that’s harsh.”
“What are you doing here?”
“What do you think? Came to observe your recovery. Mind if I enter?”
“Hey, wait!”
Without hesitation, Alaric’s long legs carried him past Caelan and into his private study.
“Where do you keep your star-charts?”
“Hey, where are you going?”
“Where else? There’s nowhere else of interest in your chambers.”
“...”
Caelan had no retort for that. Alaric was, regrettably, correct. Conclave chambers were all much the same, weren’t they? Feeling awkward and profoundly exposed, Caelan followed Alaric, who seemed intent on examining the austere interior of his living space with an unsettling air of casual appraisal.