Lysander cultivated control. His upbringing, a meticulous choreography of lessons and expectations within the House of Ashworth, had sculpted his very nature. Vulnerability was a weakness, an unseemly tear in the carefully stitched facade of decorum. Even in the face of emotional maelstroms, he could maintain a remarkable composure, a placid surface above churning depths.
Others often misread this as disinterest. A quiet dispassion, they called it. Yet, it was not an absence of feeling. Every sharp slight, every corrosive comment, every flicker of anxiety had hardened into a resilient shell. Over time, few things truly penetrated this self-fashioned armor.
This held true, even for the likes of Lord Kaelen.
Lysander’s carefully preserved standing, a respected if unassuming position among the younger nobles in the Grand Scriptorium, depended on this composure. He had painstakingly built it, brick by careful brick.
“Lysander.”
His quill paused mid-stroke, a minute tremor threatening to mar the exquisite curve of a capital ‘A’. He looked up, a neutral expression settled on his face. “My Lord Valerius.”
“Still fussing over your parchment?” Valerius’s voice was a dry rasp, laced with an easy disdain. He twirled a polished obsidian orb between his fingers, its slick surface reflecting the low light of the chamber.
Lord Kaelen, who had been lounging against a tall stack of vellum scrolls, snorted. “He always is. Dulls the mind, all that meticulous scraping.”
“Dulls the senses, more like,” Valerius murmured, not quite to Lysander, not quite to Kaelen, but into the space between them. “Like your face.”
Kaelen merely chuckled, a low, guttural sound. A barb only stung if it found a soft spot. Kaelen had no soft spots. Not where his image was concerned.
“Valerius, do you know any… receptive ladies?” Kaelen stretched, his muscled frame rippling beneath the fine tunic of his House. “Not the usual court ornaments.”
“Receptive to what?” Valerius’s eyes, keen and unblinking, fixed on Kaelen’s.
“Don’t play the fool, man.” Kaelen’s grin widened.
Valerius’s lips quirked, but he offered no immediate answer. His gaze drifted past Lysander, settling on the far end of the Scriptorium, where a solitary figure hunched over a worktable. Seraphina, a minor ward from a forgotten lineage, barely rated a glance from most.
“Perhaps someone with… softer edges,” Valerius finally drawled, his voice tinged with a feigned thoughtfulness. “And a disposition less like a thornbush.”
Kaelen was a force of nature. Impulsive. Brutal. Unburdened by nuance. His desires, raw and unrefined, were often given free rein. His harassments, when he chose to inflict them, lacked any subtlety, growing more blatant with each passing cycle.
By this turning of the season, Seraphina had been utterly isolated. But even that seemed insufficient for Kaelen.
Kaelen’s favored cronies, young Lords Elara and Gareth, would linger after the bell, waiting for their master. Others, lesser nobles vying for favor, would bolt from the Scriptorium the moment the noon meal was announced.
Lysander had once been part of Kaelen’s inner circle. That had changed during the last season. It began with a casual comment from Lord Elara: “Lysander always takes so long to prepare his inks. We miss the best sparring rounds because of him.” Without a word from Lysander, he was subtly, yet irrevocably, excluded.
The deepest sting? Kaelen hadn’t cared. Whether Lysander remained or departed made no discernible difference to him. Lysander’s stomach tightened, a familiar clenching. He turned, his voice low. “Am I truly so… deliberate in my preparations?”
“Of course,” Kaelen scoffed. “You spend an age grinding pigments, polishing your quill, while the rest of us are out on the training grounds, sweat already stinging our eyes.”
“Aye,” Lord Gareth affirmed, nodding. “We’re always last to claim our practice blades because of your fussing.”
“Oh.” The word felt hollow.
“There’s a wager on the mock jousts today,” Kaelen continued, his eyes already elsewhere. “Eat with Valerius.”
Lysander’s throat constricted. His pride, brittle and fragile, prevented him from arguing. Besides, the lingering tension headaches from rushing his script work, the ink smears from hurried strokes, they were not worth Kaelen’s fleeting attention. And honestly, the thought of clinging to Kaelen like stray lint disgusted him. He made no plea. Offered no protest.
Just like that, he was out. His will, his preference, utterly irrelevant.
Feigning indifference, Lysander found his gaze snagging on Valerius, the only other soul remaining. Valerius, still lounging, still toying with his obsidian orb, lifted a brow. “When do you feast?”
“…” Lysander hesitated, his mind scrambling.
“I usually venture forth in ten minutes.”
“Yes, that suits me as well.” The lie felt stale on his tongue. He never ate that late. But survival instincts, honed by years in the Court, kicked in. To remain even within Valerius’s orbit, he had to adapt.
Their first meal together, Lysander left half his trencher untouched, feigning a sudden lack of appetite. Valerius merely raised a cynical brow. “Are you so delicate, Ashworth? At your age?”
“What concern is it of yours?” Lysander snapped, a flush rising on his neck.
“Truly, you are like a pampered babe.”
“Even seasoned warriors prefer their roasted capon without excessive spicing,” Lysander retorted, a petulant edge to his voice. What right had Valerius to comment? It chafed.
In the preceding season, Kaelen and Lysander had been almost constant companions. This season, those moments had dwindled, largely due to Valerius’s influence. Yet, Lysander had no cause to complain. Valerius, though lacking Kaelen’s brute force, possessed a sharp wit and cunning that commanded a different kind of respect.
Valerius and Kaelen’s circles overlapped, drawing from the less studious, more boisterous scions of noble houses. These were the types who’d forge early dismissal chits for sparring or sneak away to the forbidden hunting grounds, exploiting the lax supervision of masters tired of endless squabbles.
Kaelen, ever mindful of his House Elders, usually remained until the end of lessons. As for Valerius, whose reputation was equally shaded, Lysander had once dared to ask why he bothered to linger.
“Do you take me for a fool?” Valerius had replied, his fingers tracing the rim of a parchment case.
“No, but your… associates often do.”
“Associates? What drivel. They are not my companions. They are mere distractions.”
“What?”
“A noble’s duty is to cultivate their mind, is it not?”
“That is true,” Lysander conceded, surprised.
“Do not lump me with such dross. It irks me.”
“Forgive me.”
“I sought no apology.”
His words, in isolation, were sound. Yet, hearing them from Lord Valerius, who regularly consorted with youths who shirked their duties at least thrice a moon, felt profoundly absurd.
Regardless, Lysander spent the better part of the season with Lord Kaelen and Lord Valerius. He considered their trio, however uneven, a sacred space, unmarred by others. It would have been perfect without Valerius, but surprisingly, they coexisted. Lysander harbored no affection for Valerius, but he was not so intolerable as to prompt outright flight. He was merely… vexing.
Then, Seraphina arrived, turning even those precarious days into a fresh trial.
Today, a subtle unease permeated the air.
“Damn it. Elara and Gareth, those lazy curs,” Kaelen growled, pressing a fist to his brow as the fourth hour neared its close.
At his voice, Lysander twisted in his seat, a nascent hope flickering. “They abandoned you again?”
“Worthless layabouts.”
“A pity. With whom will you break bread, then?” Lysander’s fingers, stained faintly with sanguine ink, trembled on the back of his chair.
Kaelen let out a heavy sigh, turning his gaze to Valerius.
“I shall join your midday repast.”
“Do not,” Valerius replied, blunt and dismissive. “No one extended an invitation.”
“Keep that insolent tongue, Valerius, and I shall see it silenced.”
“Gods, today truly tempts me to introduce my fist to your face, Kaelen.”
“Go ahead, try it, imbecile.”
“Brave words for a lord who’d otherwise dine alone, wouldn’t you say?”
Lysander could hold back no longer, his voice tight with an urgency he rarely displayed. “Come, let us all eat together. We cannot leave Kaelen to his own devices.”
His desperation must have been evident. Kaelen smirked, a triumphant glint in his eye, and glanced at Valerius.
“See? I possess loyal companions.”
“…” Valerius merely scowled, sweeping Kaelen’s meticulously carved styluses off the desk. They clattered to the stone floor. Whether Valerius liked Lysander was immaterial. What mattered was Kaelen’s presence.
It had been an age since they’d shared a meal. Lysander was so thrilled, he even forced himself to consume a portion of spiced liver, a dish he abhorred.
But Kaelen’s attention remained untethered to his food. His eyes swept the Grand Refectory, predatory and seeking. Lysander, too engrossed in Kaelen, barely noticed Valerius pilfering a candied fig from his tray. Then, without warning, Kaelen’s silver chopsticks clattered. His free hand snared the arm of a passing figure.
Lysander looked up. It was Seraphina.
“Sit here,” Kaelen commanded, nodding towards the empty space beside him. “You have no one else to break bread with, do you?”
Seraphina’s face flushed a deep crimson. Her eyes darted, briefly brushing Lysander’s, before she bit her lip and slowly, reluctantly, took the seat Kaelen indicated.
Lysander was stunned. Dumbfounded. Since when did Kaelen feign concern for Seraphina’s plight? The very reason she sat alone, shunned, was entirely Kaelen’s doing. Kaelen despised anyone who showed her kindness.
A bitter bile rose in Lysander’s throat.
Unconsciously, his silver spoon struck his pewter tray, the sound unnaturally loud. Only Seraphina reacted, flinching, her gaze snapping to him, laced with a nervous dread. Kaelen, however, remained transfixed on Seraphina.
Damn it. Lysander felt the protective shell he had painstakingly constructed over the seasons begin to fracture. He tried to arrest the tremor, but it was beyond his control. Perhaps he stood at a precipice he hadn’t known existed.
Clinging to a desperate denial, he spoke, his voice sharper than intended. “Seraphina. Leave.”
“H-huh?”
“Do not heed Kaelen. Go. It is permissible.”
“Lysander,” Kaelen’s voice dropped, a dangerous, silken snarl.
Kaelen, who had ignored the jarring clang of Lysander’s spoon, now fixed him with a simmering glare. That raw anger only solidified Lysander’s resolve. He met Seraphina’s wide, fearful eyes.
“I shall manage it. You are free to depart.”
“Uh, o-okay.”
“And Kaelen, cease this charade.”
“Aye, I concur,” Valerius chimed in, his words muffled by a mouthful of roasted fowl. His interjection felt utterly out of place. He chewed, deliberately, slowly, before glancing between Lysander and Kaelen, an irritating smirk playing on his lips.
“What is this staring contest? It spoils my appetite.”
As always, Valerius’s unnecessary provocations grated on Lysander’s nerves. The man was infuriating. Lysander ignored him, turning back to Kaelen.
“Leave Seraphina be.”
“Who are you to command me?” Kaelen shot back, his hand slamming down on the worn wooden table. The sudden impact made Seraphina flinch, squeezing her eyes shut. Valerius, in contrast, merely chuckled, raising a hand in mock surrender.
“Count me out of this.” He licked a stray drop of water from his lips. “Let us decide by majority. I am neutral. Lysander wishes her gone. Kaelen says she stays.”
Valerius was one of the few who used Lysander’s given name, not his House title, and Lysander found it supremely annoying. That irritation seeped into his tone now. “Cease your meddling. Your vote holds no weight.”
“Why not? There is another person right there.” Valerius, unfazed, smirked, gesturing towards Seraphina with a casual flick of his hand. “What? Is Seraphina not a person?”
“You are absurd.”
“Why does she remain silent? Let her voice her preference.”
As if Seraphina could speak in this suffocating tension. Lysander sighed at Valerius’s thoughtless antics, picking up his spoon and idly stirring his rice porridge. Kaelen tapped a finger on the table, a slow, deliberate rhythm.
“If you depart now, Seraphina, you will regret it until your dying day.”
Tears welled in Seraphina’s large, luminous eyes. They shimmered as she looked at Lysander, a silent, desperate plea. Damn it. Lysander pressed his lips together.
“It is well. I will protect you,” he murmured, attempting to offer reassurance.
“Lysander,” Kaelen growled, his voice tight with nascent fury.
Lysander forced himself to meet Kaelen’s gaze, feigning a calm he did not possess. He felt an overwhelming urge to flee, to crumble. To suppress it, he lifted his eyes to the high, arched ceiling for a fleeting moment, before lowering his head and replying, his voice deliberately nonchalant. “What is it?”
“You…”
Kaelen clenched his fist, glaring at Lysander with an intensity that promised retribution. Still, Lysander had to endure. His instincts screamed that he could not abandon Seraphina to Kaelen’s caprice.
But Kaelen’s focus shifted back to Seraphina.
“I-I will go,” Seraphina stammered, her voice a reedy whisper.
“…”
“Th-thank you, Lysander.”
Seraphina scrambled up, her movements unsteady, and fled the Refectory. The moment she was gone, Kaelen’s head snapped towards Lysander, his eyes burning.