A cathedral of polished oak, this quiet expanse housed thirty souls. Each, in their own gilded cage, navigated the intricate dance of Valorian society. Like predators in a sun-drenched jungle, they formed alliances, carved out territories. Every acolyte here had endured precisely eighteen seasons, their lives stretched thin as a bowstring before a hunt. Tension hummed, a constant, low thrum beneath the veneer of learned grace.
This careful balancing act began for Cassian at twelve years of age, when he first learned the language of patronage and veiled threats. It had been his routine ever since. Likely, everyone else’s too.
An opulent hall, concealing a pyramid. That was the scriptorium of eighteen.
“Ah…”
His arm, cramped from hours hunched over a folio, tingled as he shook it free. Cassian tapped his tightly wound stomach, a faint ache residing there. He let out a weak breath, his gaze sweeping over the bowed heads before him. Green-veined marble tablets, pale napes. At the Master’s lectern, Theron Vance sat, engrossed in a rumpled chronicle, folded twice.
The acolytes, meanwhile, either struggled with the assigned ciphers or, having surrendered, lay slumped against their desks, lost to uneasy slumber.
“Rouse yourselves, you somnolent doves,” Master Vance called out, turning a page with a rustle. His voice, usually a silken whip, held a weary edge.
It was the fifth hour of their studies. Cassian had reached the fifteenth problem in the intricate cartographic cipher, pausing to scratch his temple with an ink-stained finger before setting his fine quill beside the parchment. His eyes drifted to the empty seats. Two, in particular, caught his attention.
As expected, neither Lord Valerius Thorne nor young Lord Elian Thorne had graced the hall with their presence. They would likely remain absent tomorrow, too. Unless Valerius was gripped by one of his unpredictable whims, or some new drama had erupted between the two brothers, a drama Cassian was blissfully, or perhaps dangerously, unaware of.
He lowered his gaze to the complex problems before him. His vision blurred with the intricate strokes of ancient glyphs, their meaning now a distant echo of his mind’s turmoil.
There was a time when Cassian believed he understood everything about Lord Valerius. He had convinced himself that he, above all others in this hall, possessed Valerius’s truest measure. He had taken a quiet, almost sacrilegious pride in that, even when silently comparing himself to Lord Kaelen Vance, who moved with an easy intimacy around Valerius that Cassian had never achieved.
Truth be told, that fragile pride had been his shield, allowing him to endure the sight of Kaelen and Valerius’s camaraderie. Deep within, he cherished the secret knowledge that he held the superior understanding of Valerius’s nature.
He propped his chin on a hand, the rough texture of his sleeve against his skin a grounding sensation. The very fact he was capable of such thoughts sickened him.
What would noble society think, if they glimpsed these swirling eddies in his mind? The answer was brutally clear. He would be cast down, stripped bare, relegated to the lowest, widest plane of their gilded pyramid.
Cold dread pricked his skin. A terrifying prospect. This insidious desire, unique to a scheming commoner, had to remain buried. Deep. So deep that not even its object would sense its lingering tendrils. Ultimately, he needed to conceal it so thoroughly that even he forgot its existence.
But Lord Valerius had not done that. Everyone in the hall, indeed, throughout the Dominion, now knew of *his* desire.
Cassian glanced around, his head lifting slightly. Everyone remained hunched over their assignments. He pressed his lips together, a thin line across his face, then looked straight ahead.
Lying forlornly between the rows of tables was a discarded map, its finely rendered border smeared with what looked like boot marks. A faint tremor ran through him.
Suddenly, as if someone might have noticed his prolonged stare, Cassian buried his head in his arms, mimicking the slumped forms around him. He felt the phantom pain of being trampled.
Then he turned his neck, subtly, in a different direction. His gaze fell upon the back row. There lay a face partially obscured by an arm, as if its owner had collapsed mid-task. The features were delicate, etched with a sorrow that made the face seem impossibly still, almost spectral.
“...”
Cassian found himself staring at Lord Kaelen Vance’s profile. His gaze then drifted to Kaelen’s arm. Had the already tall Kaelen grown even more? The formal tunic that had fit him perfectly at the start of the season now left his wrists fully exposed. Around one wrist, a heavy, obsidian amulet rested, polished to a dark sheen—a powerful, unmistakable symbol, integral to Kaelen’s formidable identity.
Before hearing the whispers of his true origins, Cassian had assumed Kaelen hailed from the shadowed, older sections of the capital, much like the Thornes’ distant kin, rather than the flourishing Vance estates.
Despite his intimidating aura, Kaelen did not exude the usual polish of wealth. His eyes, often sunken, were always shadowed by heavy lids, and his faded irises gave him a perpetually haunted look. The way his thin sclera showed beneath his pupils added to his sharp, gaunt appearance.
Kaelen’s overall atmosphere was one of grim intimidation, yet it lacked the refined arrogance associated with the oldest houses. Instead, his face seemed marked by a profound sense of deprivation, exuding a kind of melancholic heaviness. Combined with his immense stature—he was undoubtedly the tallest acolyte in the manor—it made him doubly imposing.
Fortunately, unlike Valerius’s mercurial beauty, Kaelen’s sharp features possessed a classically handsome symmetry. Without that, noble society might have actively shunned him. Even so, Kaelen’s face was unsettling, full of a nervous, barely contained energy.
Yet Kaelen’s personality could not have been more different from his imposing visage.
It wasn’t merely that he seemed indifferent to everything; it was as if he actively erased events from his memory, whether intentionally or not. He had an air of “detached ownership of nothing,” a trait that ironically added to his mystique.
Most notably, Kaelen cared little for the customary noble pursuit of land or titles. He never paid attention to how much others paraded their wealth or how much influence they commanded. If the mood struck him, he would casually bestow a rare artifact or a significant favor upon someone nearby without a second thought, as if the concept of consequence didn’t exist for him. Sometimes he made promises and forgot them entirely. There were even stories of acolytes attempting to return favors only for Kaelen to ask, puzzled, why they were indebted to him.
Still, he didn’t grant boons to just anyone. He’d indulge random requests when in a good mood but coldly refuse those who were truly desperate.
Even with friends, Kaelen could be harsh. Cassian once heard a story about how Lord Gareth, upon seeing Kaelen’s prized hunting falcon—a bird Kaelen rarely displayed—excitedly reached for its jesses without permission. Kaelen had struck his hand away on the spot, sending Gareth reeling backward like a startled quail.
At the pinnacle of the social hierarchy, individuals like Kaelen Vance and Lord Valerius Thorne shared one striking trait: a complete disregard for others’ opinions. This indifference, in its own way, was what allowed them to sit, unchallenged, at the pyramid’s peak.
Why did they, with their own willing hands, hand over the keys to their world to these uncontrollable predators? No matter how much Cassian contemplated it, he still couldn’t fathom it.
And yet, Lord Kaelen Vance called himself a devout follower of the Order of the Veiled Star.
He was the type of scion who slept with sacred texts beneath his head, yet claimed to follow doctrines that permitted ruthless self-interest. He abstained from spirits, from dalliances, from theft and extortion among his peers. Yet the tenets he spoke of were flawed—anyone could tell from the very nature of his actions, that his interpretations were… unique. Cassian had heard the Order of the Veiled Star held certain affections to be an abomination.
Was that why Lord Valerius’s recent actions so clearly disgusted Kaelen Vance? Cassian licked his dry lips.
He felt a strange, cold relief that he had not been exposed for his own forbidden thoughts. If he had been, he would have ended up like that discarded map, trampled on the cold stone floor. And yet, even in that moment, Cassian wondered—if Valerius and he had remained close, as they were just a few months ago, would Valerius have protected him?
The thought surfaced against his will, dragging with it memories Cassian desperately wanted to bury. He took a deep breath, trying to suppress the wave of nausea that rose in his chest, as though the sparse midday meal were threatening to return.
No, of course not.
How laughable, that he had once been so arrogant as to think so. To Valerius, Cassian was nothing. Just a convenient, skilled hand to pass the time, to chronicle the Thorne lands. He knew this now. The way Valerius had looked at him, battered and humiliated, his eyes devoid of anything but cold dismissal—it said everything. Cassian hadn’t wanted to know the truth, but it had been staring him in the face.
Valerius sinned openly. Cassian, too, was a sinner—but he hid it. And so, Valerius was punished by whispers and rumor, while Cassian, for now, was spared.
A faint, bitter laugh escaped his lips, so soft it was audible only to himself.
“…So, as long as I don’t get caught, that’s all that matters.”
Perhaps the Valorian pantheon had a personality like Lord Kaelen’s.
Cassian’s gaze shifted to the desk near Master Vance’s podium. It was an unusual sentiment, but today, he felt a pang of pity for young Lord Elian Thorne. Poor soul, caught in the clutches of the devil. You lacked the strength to resist that monstrous, seductive power. Fragile, helpless Elian, unlike the towering figure of your brother. You should have fled the moment Cassian, in his own small way, tried to warn you, fool.
Cassian knew he was not a good person. He was selfish and self-serving, and that was why he had been punished. Sometimes, he even thought this: *If you’re to be seduced by men, why not pick someone sly and deceitful like me? At least then life would be simpler. Why fall for someone so innocent and earnest, only to end up suffering for it?*
These days, Cassian thought differently.
*Yes. Of course, no one could ever truly love someone like me.* He knew himself too well to believe otherwise.
There was a time when he thought he could have it all. Arrogant, conceited Cassian. Cassian, who thought he understood the world at eighteen. Wicked, vile Cassian. Pitiful Cassian, who had no one to comfort him, so he endured everything alone.
That day, he couldn’t get past the fifteenth cipher. He used his supposed illness as an excuse to lie slumped over his desk, thinking to himself: *Well, at least I’m not as ruined as Valerius or Elian.* The thought brought a hollow comfort.
Rumors about Valerius and Elian Thorne spread like wildfire through the manor. Whether they were exaggerated or grounded in truth, no one could say for certain. There was no way to find out either. The inner circle of Valerius’s companions had vanished from the hall, as if ripped out by the roots. The few who remained were too preoccupied with forming new alliances to worry about anything else, inadvertently fueling the whispers even further.
“Master Vance, forgive my interruption, but who among the acolytes holds the closest understanding of Lord Valerius?”
“Thorne… No, Lord Kaelen Vance.”
Cassian overheard this exchange as he passed by on his way back to the scriptorium before the day’s dismissal. A junior scribe had asked, and a nervous attendant had answered. Pretending he hadn’t heard, Cassian entered the room. Master Vance glanced nervously between Cassian and the empty seats, drumming his fingers against the lectern. Then, as if giving up on some unspoken thought, he announced:
“Let us conclude for the day.”
---
The moment dismissal was announced, Cassian gathered his scrolls. As he slung his satchel over his shoulder, Lord Kaelen Vance tapped him lightly on the back.
“A moment, cartographer. Let us converse after studies.”
Cassian looked at his face, unreadable as polished obsidian.
He knew. He had always watched Valerius and Kaelen’s every movement, so he knew that the person Kaelen most frequently sought out was always Valerius. After a brief pause, Cassian offered a dismissive gesture.
“Cannot. I have duties in the archives.”
“What of after that?” Kaelen’s voice was a low murmur, devoid of negotiation.
“Further studies. Seek out one of your companions, Lord Kaelen.”
“Unnecessary.”
“And why is that?” Cassian asked, his voice carefully neutral.
“Drawing too close to lesser men merely sullies one’s own standing.”
“Ha.”
Cassian let out a short, incredulous laugh at the blatant absurdity. Yet, a part of him recognized the twisted logic.
*Right*. This was why he’d been able to navigate Kaelen Vance’s orbit better than expected. Their warped values seemed to align in strange ways.
“So, Lord Gareth, Lord Emrys—they are ‘lesser men’? Even Master Finnian?”
“If you choose to phrase it so, then yes, largely. But you are different, Cassian.”
Kaelen’s backhanded compliment left Cassian feeling a profound discomfort, like a finely honed blade resting against his throat.
“What is that supposed to mean? You are quite awful, Lord Kaelen.”
“No, I am not.” A faint smile, cold as winter moonlight, touched Kaelen’s lips.
“You are truly awful.”
“Hmm. The sacred texts forbid prevarication. I am merely being honest, Cassian.”
Honestly, Kaelen was worse than Cassian. At least Cassian didn’t so blatantly treat his noble acquaintances like worthless dross.
“That is why I am a righteous man.”
“…Indeed.” Cassian managed, a thin thread of sarcasm woven into the word.
“Since I am such a righteous man, may I accompany you to your chambers?”
Lord Kaelen Vance blinked twice. Cassian looked into those faded eyes for a moment, weighing the implications, before slowly nodding.
“Very well. Why not.”
As long as Kaelen did not directly interfere with Cassian’s careful existence, there was no reason to refuse. To secure one’s place in the hierarchy, sometimes proximity to power, even a dangerous power, was a necessary gamble.