Alistair adjusted the satchel on his shoulder, the faint, cloying scent of sweetened porridge and crushed herbs clinging to the fabric. Each visit to the Athenaeum’s healing ward felt less like a duty and more like a penance, an unwanted tether that pulled him from the quiet solace of the archives. He moved through the polished corridors, his steps hushed, a living shadow against the vibrant wall hangings. The thought of Emrys waiting, perhaps even anticipating his arrival, sent a cold shiver down his spine. It was a peculiar, unwelcome intimacy.
He carried the burden of it, a responsibility he hadn't asked for. The idea of 'guardian' tasted foreign on his tongue, ill-fitting. Like a scholar forced into the robes of a sentinel. He dedicated mornings to his scrolls, evenings to Emrys. Truthfully, half his lectures blurred into a distant hum while his mind drafted arcane remedies, recalling ancient texts on nerve regeneration and muscle atrophy.
With a heavy heart, Alistair approached the designated chamber. As he pushed open the door, Emrys’s head snapped up. An expectant hunger blazed in his eyes, a stark, unsettling contrast to his pallid complexion. He resembled a gaunt hound, starved and eager.
“You came,” Emrys breathed, his voice a ragged whisper.
Emrys’s fingers twitched, a perpetual tremor running through the digits that had been withered by uncontrolled magic. The right hand, in particular, curled inward, the pinky and ring finger perpetually bent, a grotesque testament to an arcane experiment gone awry. Alistair felt a flicker of detached satisfaction, a strange vindication in Emrys’s brokenness. It was a dark, selfish thought, quickly suppressed.
“The ward’s gruel,” Emrys began, launching into a familiar lament, “It tastes of ash and regret. My stomach protests. I am not some ancient, withered Elder, my constitution is robust, yet they feed me this… slop, fit only for imps.” He spoke with a genuine misery, the complaints pouring out like a petulant child’s.
Alistair sighed, retrieving a meticulously packed lunch box from his satchel. The smell had already permeated the leather. His lip curled instinctively, a brief, private grimace. But he would endure. Carrying the warm box openly would have invited far too many questions.
“What is this?” Emrys’s eyes widened, a fragile hope replacing the gloom. He looked up, a raw, yearning gaze that pricked at Alistair’s carefully constructed composure. Alistair imagined a dog’s tail, thick with coarse fur, thumping against the floor. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
He pushed the thought away.
“A midday meal. I inquired. They said your regimen allows for light sustenance before your next round of infusions.” Alistair kept his voice even, devoid of inflection.
“A meal?” Emrys repeated, a faint blush rising on his pale cheeks.
“Do not imbue it with further meaning,” Alistair said, a sharp edge in his tone. “I acquired it from a vendor near the outer grounds. Simple necessity.”
He spoke the words to dispel any notion of personal sentiment, to deny the hidden truth. He wouldn’t admit to seeking out the precise vendor known for discreetly preparing nutritious, palatable dishes for convalescents. The thought alone made him uncomfortable. He preferred to appear an instrument of obligation, nothing more.
But Emrys’s face softened. He scratched at his ear with his barely functional left hand, a gesture of almost canine delight. The earlobe glowed a vibrant red. Alistair’s gaze drifted to the other hand, the gnarled, useless fingers. A tightening sensation formed in his chest. Why did those fingers always draw his eye? He couldn't look away.
“—T-Thank you.” The words were oddly subdued, laced with an unfamiliar diffidence. Emrys glanced at Alistair, then flinched when their eyes met, fumbling frantically with the clasps of the lunch box. A clumsy pretense, perhaps. As if being caught looking at Alistair was an infraction. As if he wished to remain unnoticed.
Emrys began to eat, stuffing the food into his mouth with an almost mechanical urgency, crumbs escaping his lips. Alistair leaned his exhausted body against the small couch opposite the cot. The sight was, in a word, messy. The twisted fingers struggled to manipulate the spoon. Were they truly that compromised, or was it a calculated act?
Alistair moved closer, a strange compulsion guiding his hand. He took the spoon from Emrys’s grasp.
“Which dish?”
Emrys merely stared, chewing.
“The spiced fowl?”
Alistair felt an unexpected weight of responsibility. At the very least, he owed Emrys the dignity of believing in his wounds. Emrys, lips smeared with food, lowered his head slightly and smiled around a mouthful. Alistair felt a cold knot in his stomach. How could this broken creature, whose hand might never fully heal, whose future in the arcane arts was severely curtailed, smile like that? He truly didn’t understand. He couldn't bear to meet Emrys’s bright, glowing face. What could possibly be amusing? Were it Alistair, he would wish for oblivion.
He selected a portion of the spiced fowl and gently guided the spoon to Emrys’s lips. Emrys chewed with surprising vigor, his smile unwavering. This student, this Emrys, always made Alistair acutely uncomfortable.
Truthfully, the lunch box had been an impulse, spurred by an earlier encounter.
---
This was Alistair’s third visit to Emrys’s private chambers since the arcane recoil incident. He still possessed the visitor’s pass, a relic from the initial chaotic days. Emrys’s kin had made only fleeting appearances. His father, a single terse visit. His mother, twice, cloaked in a fragile gentility, treating Alistair with a saccharine deference, a tacit acknowledgment of Alistair’s unwelcome proxy for her own parental duties. Emrys himself merely propped his chin on his hand, observing his mother’s retreating back with an unnerving stillness.
Alistair’s purpose had been simple: retrieve study scrolls and a few personal effects for Emrys. He knew, better than anyone, the stultifying boredom of confinement. He had experienced it before. He merely sought to alleviate Emrys’s tedium. That was all. He convinced himself it was merely obligation, not sympathy. Certainly not affection.
Instead of returning to his own cell in the student dormitories, Alistair had detoured to Emrys’s private rooms within the junior noble wing. The chambers, normally grand, now held a desolate air.
Renfrew, Emrys’s elder sibling, leaned against the doorframe, a sardonic curve to their lips. “Still playing nursemaid to Emrys, Vance?” Their voice was dry, laced with a familiar disdain.
Alistair felt a flicker of annoyance towards Renfrew. How could they neglect their kin so? Not even a single visit to the healing ward. A base, instinctual morality, one he rarely indulged, made him silently judge them. He hadn’t even realized he was doing it until the thought solidified. His mouth snapped shut. He resumed packing Emrys’s scrolls into his satchel.
“Yes,” Alistair murmured, his tone clipped.
“He truly has lost his wits, hasn’t he? That mad fool is obsessed with you.”
Alistair’s hand froze mid-air. He turned slowly, compelled by an unseen force. “Obsessed with me?”
Renfrew’s eyebrow arched. “Are you pleased by that revelation?”
“No,” Alistair retorted. “I merely asked.”
“No one merely asks, Vance. You desired to know, so you sought the answer.” Renfrew muttered something under their breath, a low, derogatory sound. Alistair pretended not to hear it. Renfrew, however, ignored Alistair’s pretense, stepping closer. The whole family, Alistair realized, possessed a strange talent for selective perception. Emrys, Renfrew, even their father.
“So, where did you disappear after the Winter Solstice rites?” Renfrew continued, changing tack.
“I remained within the Athenaeum grounds.”
News, Alistair knew, travelled faster than shadows in Eldoria’s noble circles.
“It’s not as if I cared to discover,” Renfrew scoffed. “But Emrys… he threw a fit. That wretch, who never darkened the threshold of an ancestral shrine, began to pray. To supplicate. Then, not long after, he tore apart the family’s ancestral charm—the one his father gave him—and started screaming.”
“The charm?” Alistair whispered, his voice hoarse.
“Yes, that trivial thing. He treasured it, you know? Claimed it was a token of his father’s favor. Then he called the Old Gods ‘fickle curs’ or some such blasphemy. He sealed himself in his chambers for days. Our household knew a moment of quiet, for once. He doesn’t even grasp the true extent of his madness. A fool.”
Renfrew’s mocking voice faltered, dropping lower, likely noticing Alistair’s expression.
“What is it? Your face is flushed.”
“It is not.”
“Unlikely. Do you truly harbor… feelings for him, Vance? You actually like him?”
“I told you no.”
“By the Elder Stones…” Renfrew gasped, covering their mouth, a feigned horror in their eyes. “You are truly unhinged.”
Why did they persist when he had already denied it? Alistair yanked his satchel’s zipper shut with a sharp hiss. He wanted to retaliate, to wound them with his own cutting observation. “Why do you speak so, Renfrew? Your father himself once referred to Emrys as his ‘expendable son’.”
“What? What nonsense are you spouting now?” Renfrew’s face contorted in anger.
---
A true contradiction. Alistair recognized the irony. He possessed an innate tendency to perform acts of unexpected kindness, despite his own cold intentions. Kaelen, his erstwhile rival, had once remarked upon it, his words casual yet piercing: “Vance, for all your calculated reserve, you always end up doing the right thing.”
But now, Alistair had an excuse. The pale, ropey scars tracing Emrys’s forearms, the visible strain in his features. Just as Emrys often averted his gaze from Alistair, Alistair found he couldn’t look at the full extent of Emrys’s ravaged skin.
“Alistair.”
“Yes?”
“Then… can I trust in you?” Emrys’s voice, raspy from disuse, crept closer.
Alistair pretended indifference, focusing on the remnants of the meal. But he listened.
“What are you speaking of?”
“I will not seek your affection.”
In that singular moment, Alistair’s heart plunged. His stomach twisted into a tight knot. A suffocating pressure seized his chest. He almost asked – without thought, without permission – *Why not?*
The words nearly escaped his lips, a raw, exposed desire. He realized, with dawning horror, the true, hidden yearning that had almost betrayed him. *Alistair Vance, you are a damned fool.* He clenched his fists beneath the table, forcing the words back down.
Yes. This was for the best. For both of them.
“Then instead, I will place my faith in you.”
Emrys’s words continued, strange and unsettling, tangled with both sorrow and a peculiar elation. Like a novice acolyte receiving an unexpected revelation. How else could Alistair describe the fervent intensity in Emrys’s gaze? Alistair did not fully comprehend the meaning of the words. And yet, he did not pull away. Did not flee. The suffocating weight on his chest no longer merely squeezed; it began to pierce.
“I am an atheist now, Alistair. Truly, you are more indispensable to my future than any distant deity.”
“Silence your tongue,” Alistair snapped, his composure cracking.
“You blaspheme with every breath.”
“No, that is not true! I was raised a devout believer, you know!” Emrys insisted, flailing his good hand. As if his life depended on Alistair’s belief. His tone was desperate, almost on the verge of tears.
Alistair, caught off guard, found himself speechless.
Then, as if a sudden resolve had seized him, Emrys slid from the cot, dropping to his knees on the cold flagstones.
“Then I will show you.”
“Emrys, what are you doing?” Alistair stammered, his voice laced with alarm.
A strong, if still trembling, hand seized Alistair’s ankle. Alistair had been resting his legs, propped casually on the cot’s edge. He slid forward, precariously balanced. His foot dangled in the air, held captive. Emrys’s gaze dropped to the sole of Alistair’s foot. A faint, silvery scar marked the arch – a relic from a childhood accident, usually hidden. Emrys’s brow furrowed. And, to Alistair’s disbelief, tears welled in his eyes.
Alistair jerked back in shock, attempting to withdraw his foot. Before he could escape, Emrys lowered his head.
“What are you—”
“By the Elder Stones, by the First Star, and by the Serpent’s Kiss.” A hushed, ancient oath, whispered with profound reverence.
Cold fingertips brushed against Alistair’s ankle. A sharp ache shot up his calf, deep into his stomach. *What madness is this?*
He tried to yank his foot free, but his strength abandoned him. Emrys looked up once, his tear-filled eyes wide and earnest. Then, with a face devoid of even a trace of disgust—like a devout supplicant touching a sacred relic—
“I offer my fealty.”
He pressed his lips to the tip of Alistair’s foot. His fine, soft hair brushed against Alistair’s ankle, a light tickle against his skin. The gentle pressure of his lips lingered, tracing the base of Alistair’s toes.
“S-Stop it…” Alistair threw an arm over his face, unable to watch.
Emrys’s right hand tightened around his ankle. And in that moment—Alistair ceased resisting. Three weak fingers held him. A delicate, fragile grip tapped lightly against his skin. The lips that had cursed the gods now traced a path up his calf.
Alistair did nothing to stop him.
That was when he realized. This relentless, incurable disease—this nightmare of his unwanted influence—still wasn’t over. It had only just begun. It was a new, terrifying form of acceptance, born of someone else’s broken faith. He was trapped in the serpent’s embrace. This was his apprenticeship.