A metallic tang lingered on Caelen’s tongue, a faint echo of the sugar-globe Lysander had offered. He picked at a preserved fig, its sweetness cloying, and watched dust motes dance in the shaft of light spearing through the arched window of the Scriptorium. Lysander’s lingering smirk from yesterday still snagged at the edges of his thoughts, a knot of unease twisting in his gut.
His thighs twitched, a nervous tremor he barely suppressed. Was it simple mockery? Or something more calculated? The Academy’s social currents were treacherous, and Caelen, for all his quiet intelligence, felt like a small craft adrift. He knew exactly why this uncertainty gnawed at him, yet the admission felt like a surrender.
What he grasped was only a clammy mist, formless and unsettling. Lysander, for all his charm, had a reputation. Whispers followed him, tales of abandoned studies and discarded alliances, as shifting as the aetheric currents during a geomancy lecture. It was a common enough path for those of high birth, yet Caelen couldn’t shake the feeling that Lysander’s dalliances carried a sharper edge.
“...and then the Baron’s ward, completely flustered, nearly tripped into the enchanted fountain!”
A boisterous laugh erupted from a clutch of junior scions near the towering stacks of forbidden lore. Lord Garrick, his crimson tunic askew, slammed his palm on the ancient oak table. His cronies, equally heedless of the hushed atmosphere, snickered, their voices carrying easily across the cavernous room.
They cared little for the acolytes bent over their parchments, the quiet rustle of pages, the scratching of quills. Their world revolved around challenges, boasts of sword practice, and the latest gossip from the patrician dormitories. Their lives, Caelen observed, were remarkably uncomplicated by the need for actual academic rigor.
Lysander appeared from behind a row of bound grimoires, a shadow detaching itself from the gloom. He moved with a languid grace that drew the eye, even as Caelen tried to fix his gaze on the intricate glyphs of a forgotten dialect. Their eyes met across the polished wood. Lysander offered a slow, almost imperceptible nod, then moved. Caelen’s breath hitched.
Long, elegant fingers ghosted near Caelen’s face. Lysander’s touch was feather-light, barely there, as his digits twined around the slender stick of the sugar-globe Caelen had been idly turning in his mouth. Caelen froze, rigid as an ancient statue.
Lysander pulled. The half-melted sweet slid from Caelen’s tongue, grazing his lips with its sticky residue, a phantom coolness. Then, with a soft pop, it was gone, held between Lysander’s own lips, curved into a predatory smile.
“A fine flavor, Caelen.” Lysander’s voice was a low murmur, just for him. “Some believe a shared confection can deepen one’s understanding of another’s aetheric hum. A strange form of immunity, wouldn't you say?”
Caelen’s mouth felt dry, parched as cracked desert earth. The implication hung heavy in the air, a silken cord tightening around his throat. He clenched his jaw, the taste of revulsion sharper than any sugar. Lysander’s laughter, though quiet, resonated with an unsettling mirth. It was never quite as pleasant as his humor suggested.
“It’s… rather crude.”
“Crude? Or merely pragmatic?” Lysander chuckled, then placed a hand on his thigh, sweeping up to his knee, his posture impossibly relaxed. Caelen curled his fingers into his palm, hiding them, wishing he could disappear. He knew. He knew he was a fool for letting this continue.
With one hand resting casually on his knee, Lysander sucked slowly on the sugar-globe, an almost indecent sound whistling between his lips. He tilted his head slightly. “Was this the bitter lime one? I recall you disliking those.”
“It was… lemon-balm.” Caelen forced the words out, his voice thin.
“Ah. Well, then it matters little. I find I have a fondness for lemon-balm.”
And with an infuriating nonchalance, Lysander continued to consume the sweet, a slow, deliberate act of possession.
---
Another cycle of the sun passed. The Academy’s air sharpened, hinting at the coming chill of the deep autumn. Master instructors spoke with grave voices of impending Trials and the solemn duty owed to the Empire. Young scions felt the weight of expectation, the need to carve their mark upon the grand institution.
Yet, there were always exceptions. Valerius, Lord Alaric’s notoriously troublesome kin, along with a few minor noble acolytes prone to brawling and disregarding their studies, often formed a visible counterpoint to the studious majority. They were pawns, Caelen mused, meant to highlight the diligence of others. As the cycles turned, the consequences for their wanderings softened, interest in their antics waned. Though Valerius, with his powerful connections, was always a particularly vexing variable.
Caelen thought of Kaelus, son of the fallen House of Eldoria. If only Kaelus had not tangled with Valerius’s wilder impulses, he might have pursued his rare aptitude for arcane cartography. Or if only the Eldoria lands had not been so ruthlessly stripped after the Imperial decree. Kaelus, last Caelen heard, was lost to the capital’s underbelly, his name a hushed tragedy.
Resolved, Caelen decided to ignore everything beyond his immediate focus. That was the only strategy for survival, for acceptance. And so he lived, amidst the quiet hum of arcane studies, until the day he had to face the inevitable.
Everything held potential. And Valerius, that fool, accelerated towards his potential for chaos with remarkable zeal.
Valerius returned to the main study hall with a distinct swagger.
---
A quiet click of Caelen’s tongue. Through the partially open archway, he saw Valerius sprawled across a heavy lecture desk near the master scholar’s dais, already attracting a knot of hushed whispers. It was an awkward return, barely a tenday after his most recent scandal with Lord Alaric had forced him into a temporary 'retreat'. If one meant to flee, Caelen thought, one should at least choose a remote hermitage, not merely vanish within the Academy walls to be 'found' by a father’s decree.
He tapped his fingers on the cool stone of the architrave. Entering now felt deeply uncomfortable. His gaze drifted to the back of Valerius’s head. A few strands of thick, dark hair stood rebelliously on end. Caelen remembered a time when he, out of some strange impulse, had once smoothed similar stray hairs on another boy, a fleeting, almost forgotten gesture. Now, that memory seemed distant, blurred by the weight of the Academy’s hierarchy.
He decided to sever any lingering attachment to the past and turned, heading for the lower levels. No good could come from encountering Valerius with so few witnesses around. The Academy, after all, had many eyes.
Even a simple exchange of words between Valerius and Caelen would spawn rumors, inevitably magnified into scandalous declarations of collusion, perhaps even a challenge. The worst possible scenario, Caelen knew, would be Valerius's notorious temper flaring, a public humiliation Caelen could ill afford. The thought of being struck by Valerius, again, made his jaw clench.
The best outcome, Valerius simply ignoring him, relied on a mere one-third chance. The wisest choice, then, was to eliminate the bad situation altogether. So, Caelen returned to the ground floor, lingered near the lesser archives until, a few moments before the morning census, he blended into the influx of students arriving for their lessons. Only then did he find his accustomed spot, his scroll already spread, his quill poised.
He tried to show no interest in the stir Valerius caused, or rather, tried to ensure no one suspected the profound interest he truly held. His consistent efforts seemed to be paying off. Yet, Valerius remained Caelen’s greatest variable. A wash of frustration and veiled disgust consumed him. By the Serpents, the discomfort and anxiety intensified after Lysander entered the hall.
Lysander approached Valerius as if nothing was amiss, even offering a casual greeting.
“A pleasure to see you returned, Valerius.”
His friendly tone was so absurd it stunned Caelen. For a moment, curiosity pierced through his anxiety. Caelen looked up. Lysander stood with his satchel slung over his shoulder, a broad smile playing at the corner of his lips. Valerius merely grunted, offering no real response.
“What a chilly reception. Have you no warmth left in you, cousin?”
Lysander nudged Valerius’s desk with his foot. It seemed inappropriate, given Lysander had subtly but surely contributed to Valerius’s recent public downfall within the Academy’s intricate hierarchy. Not wanting to involve himself in such petty matters, Caelen forced his gaze back to the intricate problems laid out on his desk. The effort was disrupted as the Master Proctor entered for the morning census.
The Proctor seemed genuinely relieved by Valerius’s return, though a clear undercurrent of guilt rippled through his voice as he noted Kaelus’s continued absence. “Kaelus of Eldoria is not with us this morn either.” He murmured this to himself, his words deliberately meant to imply far more than they stated, before tapping his stylus against the attendance ledger.
The incident occurred quicker than expected.
Valerius grunted, rummaging through his desk drawer for a codicil, his face twisting in disgust at its defiled state. A couple of junior acolytes, who had left their own lore-scrolls in the classroom lockers, raised their hands and were dismissed. Valerius’s expression darkened further as they departed.
Since he rarely truly studied, having or not having the codicil likely didn't matter to him. The true issue for Valerius was probably that an item marked with his name had been so brazenly disrespected. Everyone in the Scriptorium knew the truth, a silent agreement rippling through the room. No one spoke a word. Not about who had defiled Valerius’s materials, nor about who might have instigated it.
“Who was it?”
As soon as the Proctor had dismissed them for independent study, the moment everyone had unconsciously anticipated began.
“I said, who was it?” Valerius, hands shoved into his riding breeches, chin lifted, demanded answers. Those who disliked the brewing storm slipped out, while those intrigued glanced around surreptitiously. In that tense atmosphere, Lysander, holding a thoroughly grimy, almost unrecognizable stylus covered in ink-stained finger marks, scribbled something in a tome. He spoke with a nonchalant air.
“Whatever do you mean, Valerius?”
“Who?”
“If one wishes to be understood, one must articulate one’s meaning clearly.”
The audacity was staggering. Truly brazen. Valerius’s eyes narrowed.
“The bastard who defiled all my study materials.”
It was clear to Valerius that his codicils hadn’t just suffered some accidental indignity, especially for someone as sensitive to status as him, akin to a preening hawk. Moreover, Lysander’s failure to answer 'who' was a tacit acknowledgment of the truth. Even a fool would understand this. Yet, Lysander continued to jest, as if unaware of the severity of the situation.
“Did you even possess study materials? I recall your presence was more commonly found draped across this very desk, lost to the realm of slumber.”
There he went again, laughing needlessly. Valerius would not let that slide. Caelen braced himself.
“Enough. Was it you, Caelen Thorne?”
And naturally, Caelen was implicated. This was obvious; any fool could see it. He swallowed, his throat tight.
“...No.”
In this Scriptorium, no one was wilder or less civilized than Valerius, who constantly stumbled into foolish blunders. He must have felt his downfall acutely, as every subtle glance, every empty space, held all the emotions and memories of his recent disgrace. Yet, those of them sharing the same space pretended as if nothing had happened.
“Come now, would our esteemed scholar Thorne truly treat his cherished codicils with such disrespect?” Lysander interjected, his voice dripping with false concern.
“Lysander—by the Serpents, why do you keep meddling?!” Valerius snarled.
“Meddling? If a friend faces injustice, it is only right to offer succor.”
“What in the blazes are you babbling about, you witless fop?!”
“Witless fop? Such harsh words.”
“Stop your bullshitting. Who else here could have so thoroughly fouled the atmosphere while I was gone, if not you two?” Valerius scoffed. Only then did Lysander set down his stylus. His lips remained slightly puckered in a smirk. Valerius’s face twisted in displeasure. Unable to contain his anger, Valerius hurled a heavy writing slate from a nearby table. It spun through the air, striking Caelen squarely on the shoulder.
“Ah!”
It wasn’t particularly painful, merely a dull thud, but the shock was jarring. Caelen winced, his gaze falling to the shattered slate at his feet. Humiliation burned through him.
“This madman just throws things now,” Lysander said, before Caelen could speak. His voice was already laced with annoyance. At that moment, Valerius slowly lifted the corners of his mouth. “Ah, I see.” It was the look of someone who believed he had won. What did he think he understood? Caelen’s furrowed brow wouldn’t relax.
“Lysander. Caelen Thorne. You two are colluding?”
“What?”
Caelen was at a loss for words. Lysander’s playful smirk vanished instantly, replaced by a momentary, startling blankness. Caelen felt more bewildered than Valerius, who had lost his codicils. Lysander, it seemed, felt the same.
“Valerius, I regret to inform you, but your words are so utterly mangled I couldn’t quite grasp them.”
Despite clearly hearing them, Lysander placed his palm near his ear—a blatant mockery. From what Caelen had observed, Lysander rarely stopped at a single jest. This was merely the start of his provocation. Sensing the uneasy air, Caelen stood up. Meanwhile, Lysander stuck his pinky into his ear, twisting it with an exaggerated gesture of incomprehension.