A chill, not of the season, traced its path across Lysander’s skin. Valerius had spoken to him, a confrontation cloaked in courteous words, but the Archduke’s gaze lingered still in Lysander’s mind, like the cold touch of a revenant. He knew he was watched, always, by unseen eyes and by the formidable presence of Vesper itself. The Archduke’s interest was a gilded cage, offering both protection and profound confinement.
Yet, a scholar’s curiosity, a hunger for understanding, gnawed at him. Since Aethel’s unexpected return from the Blackwoods, transformed and unnervingly composed, Lysander found his thoughts drifting to the newly favored scholar. How did Aethel navigate the Archduke’s volatile orbit? What was the true nature of their renewed association?
He watched, not with crude, furtive glances, but with the meticulous observation of a man deciphering an ancient script. In the vaulted halls, beneath the watchful eyes of carved gargoyles, Lysander saw Aethel move with a newfound grace. The scholar, once disheveled and withdrawn, now carried himself with an almost regal bearing, his eyes often drawn to Valerius with an intensity that made Lysander’s stomach clench. It was a magnetic pull, visible even across the sprawling Archducal Court.
A bad feeling, a persistent whisper of dread, began to coil within him. It felt like standing before a forbidden grimoire, its binding worn, its pages promising truths that could unravel the very fabric of his fragile world. A tiny, shadowed corner of his mind knew better than to pry, knew the dangers of unearthing secrets that were not his own. But still, the lure was irresistible. He craved knowledge, even if it brought a bitter kind of understanding.
“Foolishness,” he murmured, the word tasting like ash. He was behaving like a lovelorn troubadour, not a scholar of forgotten lore. Lysander turned from the vast archway, a subtle shift of his weight enough to detach himself from the scene playing out. Better to immerse himself in the dusty tomes of the Scriptoria, to lose himself in the safety of the past. He told himself it was wiser not to know, to avert his gaze from the cruel theatre unfolding before him. Ignorance, he reasoned, was a form of self-preservation he could not afford to abandon.
Later, hunched over his desk in his sparse chambers, the single candle casting long, dancing shadows, Lysander traced the faded inscription on a fragment of a glyph-stone. He felt a bitter satisfaction. Valerius, for all his power, still held Aethel at a distance, a calculated remoteness that hinted at a precarious balance, not true favor. Aethel, for all his transformation, still seemed to be navigating a treacherous path, not resting in the Archduke’s full confidence. This small observation, this fleeting confirmation of Aethel's ongoing struggle, offered Lysander a perverse comfort. He was not alone in his uneasy dance with the Archduke’s whims.
He pushed a hand through his hair, the strands catching the faint scent of parchment and dried ink. Wealth had never been his birthright. Love, familial or otherwise, had been a distant dream for a child of the Thorne-lands, a commoner among the sorcerous bloodlines of Vesper. Everything he possessed, his very position, was bought with intellect and relentless labor. He had known, since the day he first set foot in the Archducal libraries, that true belonging was a luxury forever denied to him. His quiet yearning for acceptance, for a place truly his own, was a wound he carried daily. Valerius, the Archduke, merely magnified this cruel reality, demonstrating that life, for the lowborn, rarely bent to desire.
Aethel, however, seemed to have learned a different lesson. The scholar, once renowned for his erratic genius and reclusive habits, now moved with a deliberate grace, his academic robes always clean, his dark hair neatly brushed. The wildness that had clung to him, a scent of the ancient Blackwoods, had been meticulously purged. Lysander saw the change clearly, a conscious effort to fit into Valerius’s demanding world. Aethel had found a way to endure, to transform, while Lysander merely continued to hide, to control the tempest within.
“May his naivete endure,” Lysander murmured, a strange mix of hope and warning in his voice. Or better yet, may Valerius’s capricious attention simply wander, leaving Aethel to find his own quiet peace. Lysander did not wish for Valerius’s gaze to truly settle upon Aethel, not in the way that marked true favor. That kind of shared understanding, that deep, unsettling intimacy with the Archduke, was a terrifying prospect for any scholar, Lysander least of all.
Soon, Aethel was a fixture within Valerius’s retinue, attending private lectures, poring over ancient maps with the Archduke, his presence growing more pronounced. The other junior scholars, once quick to dismiss him, now deferred, their whispers tinged with envy. Lysander felt a familiar chill. Aethel had indeed moved closer, claiming a place Lysander himself coveted, a place of intellectual proximity to the Archduke.
The casual banter among Valerius’s inner circle shifted, too. Lysander heard snippets, hushed remarks from Baron Rhys and his companions, about Aethel's past eccentricities. Once, in the Archducal gardens, a junior courtier, Lord Gareth, swayed suggestively, making a crude gesture with his hands as Aethel passed.
“Aethel, are the Blackwoods so lonely you must return to such… spirited company?” Lord Gareth chuckled, a lewd undertone in his voice.
Aethel’s face, usually so composed, tightened. His eyes flickered towards the distant figure of Valerius, who stood conversing with Master Theron. “Refrain from that coarse jest in polite company, Gareth,” Aethel hissed, his voice low and sharp.
“Why the sudden prudishness, scholar?” Gareth pressed, his grin widening.
“Mention it again, and you’ll find yourself exiled from the archives, Gareth. Do not test my patience.”
Gareth merely shrugged, a hint of disappointment in his eyes. The easy camaraderie of the younger courtiers, once fueled by Aethel's past wildness, now found a new target in another member of Valerius’s circle, the irreverent Lord Perrin. Lysander observed, his own quietude a shield.
He had rarely sought the company of courtesans or indulged in the revelries of the court. His humble upbringing and scholarly focus allowed no such distractions. The others sometimes called him ‘Abstinent Thorne,’ a jest he bore with a faint, tight smile. But it was less choice and more circumstance, a forced celibacy born of necessity. His desires were of a different kind, a hunger for knowledge, for belonging, for a connection that transcended the fleeting carnal. The crude jests about pleasure found no purchase in him.
Lysander sighed, the sound lost in the quiet of his room. He glanced towards the window, the Archducal palace visible in the distance, a looming shadow against the twilight sky. Aethel, in his newly refined state, seemed to always find his gaze drawn to Valerius, to the powerful presence of the Archduke. And, as always, Lysander regretted having observed it. Why did he look? Why did he allow such fruitless curiosity to torment him? To distract himself, he sought out Baron Rhys later that day in the Scriptoria, where Rhys sometimes idled between appointments.
“Baron,” Lysander began, his voice carefully neutral. “Do you believe one must truly forsake all personal attachments to serve the Archduke entirely?”
Rhys, lounging against a shelf of ancient scrolls, slowly turned his head. His eyes, quick and appraising, swept over Lysander’s composed form, then paused, unsettlingly, on Lysander’s gloved hand, which instinctively tightened on the spine of a book. “Thorne,” Rhys drawled, a smirk playing on his lips. “Are you offering a more… singular devotion? What concern is it of yours, scholar, whether one finds solace in the arms of a lover or the embrace of a tome?”
Lysander felt a jolt of heat rise to his face. The others nearby chuckled softly, and he kicked Rhys’s ankle with a subtle, sharp motion. This was his daily rhythm, a constant, low thrum of discomfort and control.
---
Alone in his chambers, surrounded by the scent of old paper and dust, Lysander often found his thoughts straying, weaving strange, unwanted tapestries in his mind. Today, he wondered what it would have been to dedicate his profound yearning to a more approachable figure than Valerius. If his intellectual and emotional devotion had fastened onto, say, Master Theron, or even the irreverent Baron Rhys, would the ache be less profound? He wouldn’t have to endure the constant, chilling reminder of the Archduke’s power, or the bitter pangs of exclusion.
Still, the yearning would remain unfulfilled. Neither Master Theron nor Baron Rhys, nor any other, would ever truly share his particular intensity, his deep, almost obsessive drive for forgotten lore and ancient truths. But at least, he mused, his heart wouldn’t feel such an agonizing pull towards the impossible, the forbidden. The thought inevitably led to the familiar burn of inferiority, a quiet rage at the constraints of his birth. In the end, he simply wished for the day he could complete his service, and become a stranger to the court of Valerius, a ghost in the Archducal halls.
He found himself, more and more often, subconsciously running his fingers over the intricate, cold metal of the ancient Thorne signet ring he always wore. It was a nervous habit, dating back to his adolescence, always triggered by the unsettling stirrings of his inner world. Now, his thumb pressed against the raised raven, the symbol of his humble lineage. Should he? Or shouldn’t he? The faint, metallic rasp filled the quiet room. Just as he was about to surrender to the nervous fidgeting, a sharp rap echoed on his door.
“Scholar Thorne! Are you immersed in your studies?” Master Theron’s voice, clear and unyielding, cut through the quiet.
“Ah, no! I mean, yes! I am, Master Theron!” Lysander practically leaped, his heart hammering against his ribs. The day, it seemed, was determined to mock his composure. Mortified, he buried his face in his hands. Damn it all.
---
Lately, Valerius himself had begun to grate on Lysander’s nerves. Lysander watched, from a strategic distance, as Aethel would sometimes glance his way, a flicker of shared scholarly interest in his eyes. Valerius, sensing the shift, would deliberately draw Aethel into conversation. Aethel, caught between them, would part his lips as if to speak to Lysander, only to close them again. Then, as if wary of Valerius’s looming presence, Aethel would lower his head, answering the Archduke in the faintest of voices.
“Indeed, Archduke…”
Just so. Aethel, perhaps emboldened by his newfound favor, had begun to address Lysander with a familiar softness, an unspoken acknowledgment of their shared scholarly burdens. It was a subtle thing, almost imperceptible to others, but not to Valerius. Not to Lysander. The worst part was how Valerius couldn’t conceal his displeasure whenever Aethel offered even this faint courtesy.
“Scholar Aethel, do refrain from distracting Scholar Thorne during his work.” Valerius’s voice, a silken whip, cut through the air in the Scriptoria one afternoon.
“Distracting…?” Aethel’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“He is at his studies. Do you not comprehend?”
“Oh… uh, yes, Archduke.” Aethel stammered, avoiding Valerius’s gaze. Valerius, with an almost childish immaturity that belied his formidable aura, slammed his hand onto the arm of the stone bench beside him. Lysander pretended to be engrossed in a particularly dense tome, his breath held. Annoyingly, Aethel seemed to think his subtle familiarity with Lysander went unnoticed. He grew bolder, casually letting slip a more personal address, as if it were now commonplace.
“Lysander… excuse me, Thorne. Forgive me for bothering you while you’re immersed.”
Lysander stiffened, staring at Aethel in disbelief. Was the man truly so oblivious? Valerius was mere paces away, his shadow falling over them both.
Sure enough, Valerius’s fist pounded the stone bench again. Damn it all.
“Scholar Aethel!” Valerius’s voice snapped, sharp as a winter wind.
“Archduke…?” Aethel flinched, the atmosphere instantly turning sour. Lysander’s muscles tensed.
“I spoke to you.” Valerius’s anger, cold and deliberate, was blatant. “I told you to refrain from that particular address, did I not?”
“W-well…”
“He is Scholar Thorne. Address him as such. Nothing less.” Valerius’s gaze, sharp and predatory, turned to Lysander. Lysander hated that look, the way it stripped him bare, and instinctively lowered his head, pressing his hand against the cold stone of his desk. At that moment, Rhys, lounging casually on a nearby settee, spoke, his low, distinctive voice a murmur near Valerius’s ear.
“My Archduke, if you persist in this… intensity, you will find yourself entangled in a truly knotty predicament.”
“What nonsense do you prattle, Baron?” Valerius’s voice was edged with irritation.
“I merely suggest you will regret it.” Rhys smirked, and Lysander felt a flicker of profound unease. For one reason only. He knew Valerius was not a man who ever admitted to regret. And yet, the Archduke’s possessiveness, his almost petulant assertion of control over the slightest interaction between his scholars, was chilling to behold. Lysander felt like a pawn in a game he did not understand, a game where his very existence was subject to the Archduke’s whims.