A cool balm had worked its subtle magic, easing the indignant throb beneath Caelen’s jaw. When he woke, the swelling had receded, a faint blush of amethyst the only lasting testament to the prior day's indignity. It was a bruise easily dismissed, a minor mishap. Manageable.
A fragile lightness settled in his chest, a fleeting respite. He dressed, the heavy wool of his acolyte robes a familiar comfort against his skin, and began the walk through the pre-dawn quiet of the Academy grounds. The air, crisp with the scent of pine and damp earth, did little to prepare him for the oppressive weight that would soon descend.
Inside the Scriptorium, the usual morning murmurs were muted, replaced by a suffocating stillness. A cold dread prickled at the back of Caelen’s neck. Kael was here. His presence was a tangible thing, a chill in the very air.
Instinctively, Caelen’s gaze swept the room, searching for Elara. A flicker of movement by the entrance caught his eye. Elara slipped in, narrowly avoiding the censure of Magister Valerius, who stood by the grand orrery, ready to begin the day’s lecture on astral navigation.
A gasp caught in Caelen's throat, forgotten. His vision blurred, not from tears, but from the stark horror of Elara’s face. He had harbored a childish, spiteful thought, a sliver of desire that Kael might have tasted his own violence. Seeing Elara now, that dark wish shriveled to ash. One eye was a grotesque purple bloom, almost swollen shut, her lip split and crusted. It mirrored the pain Caelen had felt, yet amplified a hundredfold, a brutal masterpiece of malice.
A sickening wave of shame washed over him. How could he have wished such a thing? He clutched the ancient leather-bound primer tighter, his knuckles white.
“By the Serpent’s Scales…” he whispered, the words barely audible.
Elara hesitated at the threshold, her gaze darting across the familiar faces. Then, as if tethered by an unseen thread, her eyes locked with Caelen’s. A startled grimace twisted her bruised features. She flinched, turning sharply, and hurried to a secluded desk in the back row, avoiding his gaze completely.
That reaction, a quiet rejection, stung Caelen more than any physical blow. He blinked, confusion warring with a growing unease. A quick glance around the room provided the answer. Kael sat at his customary place near the arched windows, his eyes fixed on Caelen, a predatory glint in their depths. The air around him shimmered with a barely contained fury.
“Damn it all,” Caelen muttered under his breath. He should have feigned illness. Regret, sharp and bitter, unfurled within him.
After that grim morning, Elara, who had once sought Caelen out for shared study sessions, retreated into silence, meticulously avoiding him during the brief intervals between lessons. At the mid-day meal, she vanished. He saw Kael beckon to her, a sharp tilt of his head, and she followed, a shadow in his wake. They disappeared into the labyrinthine corridors, swallowed by the Academy’s secrets.
Alone, Caelen found himself sharing a table with Lysander. A restless urge pricked him, a desire to follow, to find them, to demand answers. Yet, he remained rooted to his seat. A cold, hard knot formed in his stomach. He hated to admit it, but he was afraid. Afraid of what he might see, of the true depths of Kael’s cruelty.
Surely, Kael wouldn’t strike her again, not so soon, not so openly? It wasn’t Caelen’s concern, not really. But Elara’s battered face, burned into his memory, made it impossible to dismiss.
Lysander, oblivious to the storm brewing within Caelen, continued his usual stream of irreverent banter. He ate with an uninhibited gusto, crumbs dusting his chin.
“See? I told you the Scriptorium felt like a crypt this morning,” Lysander declared, spearing a piece of spiced fowl with his fork. “I almost choked on my own nerves.”
“You seemed perfectly content devouring those honey cakes yesterday,” Caelen retorted, a faint smile touching his lips despite himself.
“Give me some credit, Thorne. I’m a master of emotional suppression,” Lysander winked, a glint of mischief in his pale eyes. “Especially when pastries are involved.”
Caelen, annoyed, nudged Lysander’s shin under the table. Lysander chuckled, rubbing his chin, a flicker of something uncharacteristically sheepish in his expression. No, Caelen decided, that couldn’t be right. Lysander was never sheepish.
---
Life possessed a cruel, capricious humor. From their initial, rather antagonistic encounter, Caelen had never intended to forge any bond with Lysander. In truth, he hadn’t even liked him. Yet, here he was, sharing silent companionship with the very person he felt closest to in these increasingly turbulent halls.
Lysander’s boundless levity, his flippant remarks, had an uncanny way of cushioning Caelen from the sheer weight of the Academy’s unspoken tensions. What Caelen had once dismissed as shallowness, a lack of gravitas, now felt like a lifeline. He clung to that lightness, a fragile anchor against the deepening gloom. If Kael and he had remained as they were, Caelen doubted he would have ever realized how much he needed Lysander’s presence.
In the days that followed, Kael’s circle fractured. He began to distance himself, often vanishing with Elara. Other times, a few acolytes would join them, coerced by Kael’s intimidating authority. There were even instances when some outright refused, their faces etched with discomfort as they shook their heads.
One afternoon, Caelen found Tobias, a robust scholar from the House of Gryphons, scaling a forbidden wall near the outer training grounds. Tobias, his face smudged with dirt, explained with a nervous laugh that Kael had been ordering others to strike Elara, a single blow each, a grotesque ritual. Caelen’s face twisted in disbelief. Tobias, sensing Caelen’s silent condemnation, hastily added that he’d been avoiding Kael’s group. He was meeting Seraphina and Joric in the lower city, for a clandestine game of cards, and swore Caelen not to misinterpret his actions. With a final, hurried wave, he dropped to the other side of the wall and vanished.
Joric, Caelen recalled, had been a constant shadow to Kael during their first year, but after their placement in separate arcane disciplines, their paths had diverged.
At the mid-day repast, Lysander and Caelen ventured to the outer stalls, purchasing chilled fruit ices from a vendor. The cold sweetness spread across Caelen’s tongue, a fleeting comfort against the gnawing anxiety in his gut. He pushed the unease down, unwilling to let it show.
“Is that good?” Lysander asked, his own brightly colored ice melting rapidly in the warm sun. His eyes gleamed with undisguised hunger.
“Wish to sample?” Caelen offered, a half-tease, bringing the sticky, fruit-stained spoon to Lysander’s lips. Without a moment’s hesitation, Lysander smirked, dipped his head, and took a substantial bite.
“Hey! You actually ate that?” Caelen exclaimed, feigning disgust.
“You offered it, Thorne.”
“Disgusting… and why so large a mouthful?”
Lysander merely shrugged, a wide grin splitting his face. “Just one bite.”
It was a moment of fragile peace, a shimmering bubble of normalcy. The crisp autumn air was clear, the sky a vast, untroubled cerulean, a stark contrast to Caelen’s internal tempest. Where were Kael and Elara now? A few desolate corners of the Academy sprang to mind, places where shadows clung and whispers died. But Caelen did not go looking. He remained seated, the unacknowledged fear a cold lump in his throat.
He tried to banish Kael from his thoughts. Yet, the harder he tried, the more vividly Kael’s image materialized, a persistent phantom. How long, Caelen wondered, would it take to excise a bond so deeply rooted? How much effort would it demand? He felt adrift in a barren desert, not merely sad, not merely suffocating, but terrifyingly, unbearably lost.
Sometimes, he simply retreated, a scholar poring over ancient texts, trying to decipher the unwritten language of his own heart. When the internal clamor grew too loud, he spoke with Lysander. And that, it seemed, was that.
Suddenly, Caelen found himself speaking, the words raw and unbidden.
“Lysander.”
“Thorne?”
“...Do you believe flowers can bloom in a barren desert?”
The question, heavy with an almost childish vulnerability, embarrassed him the moment it left his lips. He scratched his head, awkward. Lysander, however, did not mock.
“They can.” His voice, for once, held no trace of levity, only a quiet certainty.
“...”
“They must. Life’s a cruel taskmaster, Caelen. Hope must find a way.”
Hearing such profound words from Lysander – a person Caelen had deemed incapable of such depth – resonated with a hollow ache. It underscored the futility of his own desperate hope, the meaninglessness of his clinging sentiments. How much longer would it take for these useless feelings to wither?
“...Aye. Life is cruel.”
Kael. That wretched serpent. Why did he seem so intent on destroying the loyalty Caelen, like a broken hound, still offered? Kael, who seemed to have abandoned every promise of decency, now came and went from the Academy as he pleased. And always, a silent shadow, Elara was by his side.
As Kael’s escalating cruelty spread its insidious tendrils, a palpable unease settled within the Scriptorium. The air grew thick with unspoken resentment, a quiet, spreading rot. None of it felt right.
So, when Caelen saw Kael dragging Elara by the wrist down a deserted corridor, he stopped. He watched them, his gaze flitting between Kael’s hard profile and Elara’s downcast face. A surge of desperate courage propelled the words from his mouth.
“Magister Valerius is asking about you, Kael.”
It was not an apology, nor flattery—it was a lie. His pride, a stubborn, brittle thing, allowed him no more. But Kael held little regard for Magister Valerius, so he might not even recognize the fabrication. And even if he did, Caelen could always argue that, at this rate, the Magister would soon have ample cause for concern. Caelen always left himself an escape route.
“If someone must bear the weight, let it be you. What has Elara ever done to warrant this?”
“Move, Thorne.”
Caelen felt the sheer force of Kael’s gaze lock onto him, a dagger-sharp glare. His chest tightened, a vice-like grip squeezing his breath. He hated Kael. Yet, pitiful, trembling Elara clung to Kael’s arm, her tear-filled eyes wide, ready to shatter.
“Unless you wish to feel my hand again, move.”
“K-Kael, please,” Elara stammered, her voice a fragile tremor as she pulled at his sleeve. Kael’s words died. His gaze shifted, fixing solely on Elara. Caelen saw only the rigid line of Kael’s back as he turned slightly away.
“A-As I said, Magister Valerius is concerned—”
“...”
Elara, on the verge of weeping, clutched at Kael, desperately trying to pull him back. The sight of her, so utterly broken and loyal, was unbearable. Caelen closed his eyes, the image searing behind his lids.
After a long moment, Kael looked at Elara, then turned. He stalked back into the Scriptorium. For the rest of the day, he remained there, a storm trapped indoors, just as he had weeks before.
---
The long-anticipated day of the Excursion to the Grand Archives had arrived. A carriage, summoned specifically for their acolyte class, waited by the academy gates. While a few scholars grumbled about being dragged away from their scripts, most buzzed with an excited anticipation, a brief reprieve from the Academy’s demanding routines. No need for satchels of provisions; they would return by evening. The Praetors gave only a few half-hearted warnings about decorum and scholarly conduct before releasing them.
They were not first-year novices anymore, giddy with novelty. Caelen viewed it as merely another day—leave without a scroll-case, return without a scroll-case. He had no premonition that today would be the day his carefully bottled frustrations would finally rupture. He had expected it, yes, but not with such sudden, brutal finality.
Traditionally, Caelen always took the seat beside Kael whenever they traveled beyond the Scriptorium. He had always been Kael’s closest companion. Caelen hadn’t even considered where Lysander might sit, having never shared such a journey with him.
At first, a foolish, petty apprehension gnawed at Caelen. He feared Lysander might attempt to claim the coveted spot closest to Kael. Reflecting on it now, the thought felt pathetic. Neither Caelen nor Lysander would occupy that seat.
When Caelen arrived at the carriage, it idled by the gates, its polished wood gleaming. He climbed aboard, seeking out the familiar. The rear bench was already claimed by a boisterous group of acolytes, including Tobias, who waved a greeting, then hesitated, a nervous gesture towards Kael’s usual spot.
“Caelen! There’s space here!” Tobias called out.
“...Right.”
Of course. That was Caelen’s place. It had always been. But today, a tremor ran through him as he approached Kael’s designated seat. He exhaled slowly, a wave of relief washing over him. The cushion beside Kael lay undisturbed. A fierce, quiet determination flared within Caelen.
This was his place. His pride—the last shard of his dignity—compelled him to sit there, even after Kael’s violent outburst, even after Elara.
He nervously touched the edge of the velvet cushion, his fingers brushing the cool fabric. He scanned the carriage, then quietly spoke.
“Kael… This seat…”
“It is not yours, Thorne. Find another.”
Before Caelen could finish, Kael’s voice cut through the air, sharp and final. Kael’s gaze remained fixed on the carriage entrance. Following his line of sight, Caelen saw Elara, her form timid, making her way towards them. Caelen’s fists clenched. He swallowed the bitter words burning his tongue.
“...Fine. As you wish.” He forced an indifferent tone, though his heart felt as though it had been flayed.
He retreated swiftly, scanning the carriage for another place. An empty spot near Lysander’s group, directly in front of him, offered itself. With a surge of relief, Caelen rushed over, dropping onto the cushion. He spoke without waiting for a response.
“Lysander. Sit with me.”
No answer. Caelen looked closer. Lysander was already asleep, his head resting against the window, bouncing gently with the carriage’s sway. He often succumbed to slumber in the early hours, and today was no exception. Caelen shook his head at the ridiculous angle of Lysander’s neck, then carefully wedged his own leather-bound volume of ancient proverbs between Lysander’s head and the glass. He leaned back into the uncomfortable seat, the vibrations of the carriage a dull thrum.
Across the aisle, Caelen caught a glimpse of dark, raven hair. Kael’s. He was taller than most of their fellow scholars, his imposing frame easily discernible. Caelen couldn’t see clearly, but he knew Kael was there, beside Elara, as he had always been, yet now, irrevocably, not with Caelen.
---