Two days after the unsettling encounter in the healing ward, Alistair discovered a small, folded note tucked within a rarely consulted volume of archaic glyphs in his study carrel.
“Master Alistair, could you spare a moment in the old archive chamber before the afternoon’s arcane drills?”
He wondered briefly if it concerned Emrys, then dismissed the thought. Such overt communication was uncharacteristic. A confession of adoration? The notion was absurd. Within the Arcane Athenaeum’s austere walls, such base sentimentality had no place, especially not for someone like him. He forgot the summons until just before the fourth period, the rigorous spellcasting drill.
Donning his reinforced robes, Alistair navigated the labyrinthine corridors towards the archive. A flicker of curiosity stirred within him, though he assumed it was nothing significant. The sender, however, proved an unexpected individual: Elian Thorne, a junior acolyte with hair perpetually falling into his eyes, his face etched with timid anxiety.
“Elian?” Alistair uttered, a thread of surprise in his voice.
Elian’s head, previously bowed over his clasped hands, snapped up. He offered a small, wavering smile, the sort he often displayed when delivering messages or fetching forgotten quills. The nervous energy radiating from him pricked Alistair’s already frayed nerves. His brow subtly furrowed.
“What is it, acolyte? Why the sudden summons?”
Elian’s plump fingers twisted anxiously, a habit Alistair found particularly grating. He wrung them together, then picked at a loose thread on his cuff.
“Ah, Master Alistair… I… I have something I wish to impart…”
“Speak it, then.”
Alistair longed to depart. He disliked being seen alone with anyone who might draw unwanted attention, let alone one as socially awkward as Elian. He maintained a delicate balance, always helping Elian just enough to appear morally upright, yet never crossing the threshold into genuine familiarity. His meticulously polished reputation felt perilously exposed by Elian’s awkward proximity.
Oblivious to Alistair’s simmering discomfort, Elian continued to nervously scan the dusty archive chamber. His face cycled through indecision and fleeting resolve. Whenever he seemed poised to speak, his mouth would snap shut, a silent battle raging within him.
Silence stretched, thin and brittle. Alistair’s irritation mounted. He had never liked Elian; every stammering action, every fidgeting gesture, only amplified his disdain. The junior acolyte’s small, hesitant movements might have seemed endearing to a less critical observer, but to Alistair, they were insufferably tedious. He acknowledged, with a cold internal sigh, that he might be overly sensitive.
“Look, I apologize, but I must attend my drill. Could you simply state your purpose?”
To exacerbate matters, Alistair felt particularly out of sorts. His mind swirled with the lingering unease from Emrys’s recent display, a tangled mess of frustration and confusion. Perhaps his anger wasn’t truly directed at Elian. Perhaps he merely sought an outlet for the turbulent emotions churning within him. Lately, a persistent ache had settled in his stomach, tightening with stress.
As Alistair wrestled with these unwelcome thoughts, Elian finally seemed to steel his resolve. In a small, stammering voice, he began.
“Uh, Master… I… uh, you see, I…”
“Yes?” Alistair responded, a faint scratch to his neck masking his impatience. The bell for drills would chime any moment. He longed for Elian to just spit it out, to conclude this uncomfortable audience. A dark, fleeting impulse urged him to force the words from Elian’s mouth himself.
Then, abruptly, the archive chamber door burst open. Both Elian and Alistair spun around, their gazes locking with Caius Valerius, who stood gasping for breath. No, Caius’s furious gaze wasn’t on Alistair. It was fixed squarely on Elian.
“Hmph, hmph…”
His heavy breathing revealed his haste. Caius had been running. Alistair’s chest tightened with a suffocating premonition as he envisioned Caius’s desperate search for Elian across the Athenaeum grounds.
Caius exhaled a long, ragged breath and strode purposefully into the chamber. Unconsciously, Alistair dropped the hand he had been using to rub his neck. Caius’s eyes flickered between Elian and Alistair, his expression fierce, predatory.
“Why are you here with him?”
His question hung in the air, directed at no one and everyone. Caius’s hands clenched into fists, then relaxed, then clenched again.
Beneath Alistair’s outwardly serene composure, his insides felt like a churning maelstrom. After a prolonged, agonizing pause, Caius finally turned his burning gaze upon Alistair. The intensity of it was unbearable.
“What in the Aether, Caius Valerius.”
No, please. Do not look at me like that. Blame Elian for summoning him. Why did Caius stare at Alistair, his social acquaintance, his peer in class, with such raw, venomous resentment? He had been dragged into this sordid drama by Elian, a mere bystander.
Even as these desperate thoughts raced through his mind, Caius’s scorching eyes remained locked. Alistair knew those were not the eyes of passion or fervor. They were the eyes of someone consumed by rage, jealousy, and a madness that twisted his handsome features. It was the face of a man deranged by an obsession Alistair found both pitiful and utterly despicable.
“Why are you here with him!”
You look pathetic, Caius. So utterly pathetic. Alistair glared back, a cold fury rising within him. Yet, somehow, a cold dread whispered that the truly pathetic one was not Caius, but himself.
Before Alistair could react, Caius’s long strides carried him directly forward. The moment Alistair looked closely at his contorted face, his world tilted.
“...!”
He couldn’t even process the sudden impact. His body toppled to the ground, and only then did his mind replay the shocking event.
“No… he wouldn’t…”
He had been struck.
Caius Valerius had hit him.
Lying on the cold flagstones, Alistair touched his cheek with trembling fingers. Disbelief warred with a searing pain. How could Caius… how could he do this to Alistair?
“M-Master Caius!”
“You worm! I told you to call me *Lord* Caius! No, don’t even call me that—don’t speak my name at all, you ignoble cur!”
Elian, horrified, rushed towards Alistair, but Caius screamed like a madman. Seeing Caius’s furious face, Elian’s expression grew increasingly pale, his terror palpable.
“I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“You promised! You swore an oath! Damn you!”
Elian took a stumbling step back, his face on the verge of tears. But no, he wasn’t the one who should be crying. Alistair was.
Tears welled inside him, hot and bitter, threatening to spill. Mercifully, before he could break down completely, Caius cursed violently, grabbed Elian by the arm, and dragged him from the chamber. It all happened with brutal swiftness.
Left sitting alone on the ground, Alistair stared at the half-open door. A shaft of weak sunlight filtered through the crack. Something inside him finally gave way. The dam holding back his carefully suppressed emotions burst, and tears flowed freely, unabashedly.
He hated everything. Elian Thorne, who had drawn him into this by his foolish summons. Caius Valerius, who had dared to lay hands on him. He wished them both to simply vanish. A profound misery settled over him, the indignity of being reduced to a mere pawn in their twisted relationship.
He forced himself up, skipped the spellcasting drill, and went straight to the Prefect’s chamber to request an early dismissal. His swollen, reddened face made his excuse of a sudden illness painfully believable. Prefect Ewald, a stern but perceptive man, seemed to understand without prying, his gaze lingering on Alistair’s bruised cheek.
---
Later, within the secluded solitude of his chambers, Alistair collapsed onto his bed and surrendered to an exhausted slumber. When he awoke, his face felt puffy, a dull ache throbbing where the bruise was forming. Out of habit, he checked his personal scrying-slate. A message from Lord Kaelen, unexpected, considering their infrequent communication. They only exchanged words when their paths crossed due to shared academic pursuits or social obligations, often involving Caius.
If it were anyone else, Alistair would have ignored the message. But Lord Kaelen was no ordinary acolyte. As scion of a powerful northern house, he commanded respect and held considerable influence over the Athenaeum’s various student cliques. Alistair could not afford to dismiss him.
“Alistair, when did you abscond from the drills?”
Alistair clicked his tongue, a wave of weariness washing over him. He belatedly replied to the three-hour-old query.
“Haha, feeling somewhat unwell.”
He deliberately kept his tone light, dismissive. He did not want anyone to know the truth of his current situation. The thought of others discovering that Caius had struck him was unbearably humiliating. And all because of Elian, of all people.
“Are you quite alright?”
Lord Kaelen, showing concern? The strange question sent a shiver down Alistair’s spine. He abruptly shut off his scrying-slate.
Hours later, a desolate ache bloomed in his chest. Even Kaelen’s message felt suffocating. Other acquaintances, fellow scholars, had also reached out with polite inquiries, but none of it was what Alistair truly craved.
No one searching for him included Caius Valerius. He must be mad to even consider it. Still, he consoled himself with the familiar thought: such was the fate of a man consumed by maddening, possessive devotion. Even knowing the truth, Alistair lay there like an idiot, doing what he did best—closing his eyes and turning a blind eye to reality.
“…I am not the only one.”
Perhaps Elian and he shared a similar predicament. That strange, twisted, grotesque thought clung to him. A selfish, wicked, childish hope intertwined with it. While lying on his bed, staring at the vaulted ceiling, another message materialized on his scrying-slate. It was from an unfamiliar number.
“Master Alistair, do you feel very ill?”
Alistair frowned. Who among his peers would address him so formally, yet use an unknown number? Kaelen? But this was not his contact. Before he could ponder further, a follow-up message arrived, relentless and infuriating.
“I am so sorry. Truly, profoundly sorry. It is all because of me.”
“I am sorry.”
“Please, forgive me.”
Whether three words or four, the relentless stream made him want to scream. He threw his scrying-slate onto the floor in frustration. How did this insufferable acolyte acquire his private number? And how was someone who purportedly didn’t even possess a scrying-slate sending him messages?
Then, a cold, nauseating realization struck him. Oh. He had once called Elian, hadn’t he, to convey a message from the Prefect? He cursed his idiotic memory and let out an angry, shuddering sigh. To vent his frustration, he pounded his fists against the mattress for a while until exhaustion claimed him, and he eventually fell asleep. Just before his thoughts completely faded, one last message, flickering on the floor, etched itself into his fading consciousness.
“Please, do not hate me.”
Funny. He had already harbored a quiet, simmering hatred for Elian for months.
The next morning, Alistair awoke to find his face swollen like a baked bun.
---
He skipped his morning lectures and afternoon drills. No matter how diligently he pursued his studies, he was not passionate enough to attend classes with a face like this.
His personal seneschal, an elderly woman named Maeve, prepared a light lunch for him. As he ate, she couldn’t resist a gentle scolding, urging him to be more careful in his wanderings. Lunch itself was simple – a soft, nutrient-rich broth and bland, steamed vegetables. He swallowed it all quickly, without much chewing.
As he set down his spoon and reached for a glass of water, Maeve returned to clear the dishes. With a plate in one hand, she spoke.
“Master Alistair, a friend has called.”
“What?”
“Shall I permit them entry?”
A friend. His heart fluttered, a strange, unwelcome sensation. Before he could even identify the emotion, his mind began to conjure images of who might be waiting beyond his door.
Could it be… Caius?
It seemed a wild, improbable fantasy, yet not entirely impossible. Few from the Athenaeum had ever visited his private chambers. Among his acquaintances, only a handful even knew the location. If it were Caius, then he must have come to apologize, finally wrestling with guilt over his unprecedented violence. Caius had never struck Alistair before, not once. Yes, he must be worried, upset.
“Yes, Maeve. Please let them in.”
The fantasy solidified into a fragile certainty. Even as Alistair chastised himself for such foolish naiveté, he couldn’t help but feel a small, perverse sense of satisfaction. Despite everything, he remained important to Caius in some way. The thought, however twisted, filled him with an inexplicable warmth. He quickly turned towards the main door, his pace quickening with a flicker of absurd hope.
But the person waiting there was not who he had so foolishly expected.
“Yo, Vance. What’s the word?”
Lord Kaelen, his sharp features etched with a playful smirk, leaned against the doorframe, a small pouch of exotic herbs clutched in his hand. As soon as his eyes landed on Alistair’s bruised face, his expression hardened, his tone unusually serious.
“What in the name of the Outer Spheres happened to your face?”
Alistair’s knees almost buckled from the sudden, bitter letdown. How did Kaelen even know where he lived, let alone that he was unwell?
“…I stumbled,” Alistair replied, his voice flat, devoid of emotion.
Kaelen frowned, twisting his lips in that familiar, sardonic way before speaking. “You truly are an idiot, aren’t you?”
Alistair didn’t bother to argue. He merely rubbed his swollen cheek, feeling the dull ache of the developing bruise. Embarrassment surged, hot and humiliating, as he recalled his earlier, pathetic anticipation. He was such a fool. Caius Valerius did not think of him as someone important. And here Alistair was, wagging his tail like a hopeful, pathetic mongrel—a complete imbecile.
“Here, drink this.”
Kaelen offered a small, stoppered vial of a milky-white draught. Alistair accepted it, uncorking the lid to check the faint, sweet aroma.
“…It’s milk thistle.”
“Is it? Didn’t even notice.”
“Figures. Why would you care?”
“Damn, Vance, that’s harsh.”
“What are you even doing here?”
“What do you think? Came to check on you. Mind if I come in?”
“Hey, wait!”
Without hesitation, Kaelen’s long legs carried him casually past Alistair and into the private chambers.
“Where’s your study?”
“Hey, where are you going?”
“Where else? There’s nowhere else to go in your personal quarters.”
“…”
Alistair had no comeback. Kaelen was right. Private chambers were all relatively similar in layout, weren’t they? Feeling utterly awkward, Alistair followed Kaelen, who seemed oddly intent on inspecting the interior of his meticulously ordered residence.