Aiel awoke to the cold caress of linen against his cheek, the rough texture a stark counterpoint to the velvet haze still clinging to his thoughts. His breath hitched. A dull, insistent throb echoed behind his eyes, a grim metronome ticking within his skull. He must have somehow found the strength to secure the chamber door before the darkness claimed him, a final, desperate act of self-preservation. Even in ruin, the instinct for order persisted.
“Remarkable, even in such a state,” he murmured, the words rasping from a throat raw and constricted.
He lay still, a fragile ship adrift on a sea of pain. Awareness crept back in like a slow tide, each ripple a fresh wave of agony. His entire face pulsed with a tender, numbing ache, as if bruised fruit had replaced his skin. He attempted to lift a hand, the limb feeling alien and heavy. His shoulder protested, joints grinding like rusted cogs, and a sharp, white-hot pain shot through the sinews and bone.
“Ah…” A choked whimper escaped him.
Delicate fingers, usually deft with quill and parchment, brushed against his battered flesh. Hardened knots, unnaturally tender, bloomed beneath his touch. After a moment of supine despair, he pressed his palms flat against the mattress, pushing himself upright with a tremor that ran through his entire frame.
He perched on the edge of the bed, a broken figurine, staring blankly at the ornate wallpaper, its faded silver lilies mocking his disarray. A sudden, visceral wave of grief surged, twisting his gut. Tears, hot and stinging, welled in his eyes. A raw, keening sound tore itself from his chest, escaping his lips in ragged, painful gasps. His voice felt scraped raw, as if the very air he breathed had been laced with glass.
Anger, a venomous serpent, uncoiled within him. He sprang up, a frantic whirlwind of despair, snatching at whatever lay within reach. Silver clasps, scattered scrolls, a small jade figurine—all became missiles, hurled against the unforgiving walls. He raged, he wept, he clawed at the air, the torrent of his anguish seeming to last an eternity. Finally, spent and trembling, he sank back onto the cold stone floor, clenching his jaw so tightly his teeth ached. He squeezed his eyes shut, but still, the defiant tears streamed, tracing burning paths down his cheeks as his sobs hitched, a broken song in the quiet room.
“Damn it all!” The cry was choked, ragged.
Truly, he wished for oblivion. Not for the physical pain, but for the memory of the previous night, an indelible stain on his very being.
The heavy window shutters had been latched, he was certain. But had anyone heard? Could the guards, the servants, anyone beyond these walls, have caught even a whisper of his degradation? It gnawed at him. Lord Kaelen Volkov. That brute. And Seraphina. Why did they invade his sanctuary? Why did they shatter the fragile edifice of his life with such callous disregard?
“...Curse them.”
What Kaelen had crushed before Seraphina was not merely his flesh, but his very pride, a fragile heirloom of House Valerius. That humiliation, sharp and searing, eclipsed every casual slight, every dismissive glance Kaelen had ever thrown his way. It was a wound so profound it had reduced him to this wretched, weeping heap.
Yet, even amidst this agonizing collapse, the ingrained fear of perception lingered. He was acutely aware of his appearance, even now. It was a self-loathing habit, deeply ingrained.
The silence of the chamber finally registered, a stark contrast to his internal storm. He stilled, the last shuddering sob caught in his throat. He glanced at the small, intricate clock on his writing desk. Just before the eighth bell. A chilling thought pierced his muddled mind: encountering Elara, the housekeeper, in this grotesque state would be a catastrophe. A cold dread seeped into his bones.
Clarity, sharp and brutal, returned. No one, not a single soul, could witness this pathetic, disgraced version of Aiel Valerius. He scrambled to his feet, setting the overturned chair upright, his movements stiff and clumsy. He swept the scattered objects, the remnants of his rage, beneath the heavy bedframe, then settled back onto the mattress, waiting for the inevitable knock. It came moments later, precisely on cue, a soft rap on the oak door.
He swallowed, forcing his voice into a semblance of normalcy. “Do not enter, Elara. I believe I’ve caught a chill. My head aches terribly. I shall miss the Scriptorium today.”
“Oh, my Lord? Truly? Should I summon the healers?” Elara’s voice, though muffled by the door, held a note of concern.
A bitter taste, like ash, rose in his throat. “I… I will send for them later if my condition worsens.”
“Very well, my Lord. Shall I prepare some warm broth?”
“Yes, please. Leave it upon the outer console. My thanks.”
“As you wish, Lord Aiel. Do rest.”
He decided. The Scriptorium was an impossibility. His shattered body and even more shattered spirit were in no fit state. He had no desire to face the world beyond these walls.
Thankfully, a small pot of healing unguent lay on his bedside table, a relic from a childhood stumble. He fumbled for it, unstoppered the clay jar, and smeared the cool, herbal balm over the tender landscape of his face and neck, pressing it into the throbbing spots, praying for the pain to recede. Then, he crawled back into the sanctuary of his bed.
The pot of unguent slipped from his grasp, clattering to the flagstone floor. He let it lie.
His entire body trembled, an uncontrollable shiver that mirrored the tempest within. Yet, the physical pain was secondary to the searing humiliation. It felt as though tiny, cruel fingers were pinching his very soul. The absurdity of it all. To conceal his tear-streaked face, he drew the heavy velvet curtains, plunging the room into twilight, and burrowed deep beneath the heavy blankets. Only the suffocating weight of the quilts felt capable of shielding him from the crushing despair that threatened to consume him whole.
Sleep, he commanded himself. He *had* to sleep. He squeezed his eyes shut, repeating the mantra: It will be fine. His parents did not know. Kaelen Volkov was too proud, too arrogant, to boast of such a tawdry affair. It would be fine.
Clinging to that desperate hope, he buried himself deeper under the suffocating layers.
---
Fine, it was not.
Hidden beneath the oppressive blanket, he muttered words, bitter and sharp, on the tip of his tongue. To any deity, to his distant parents, to anyone who might hear, he yearned to scream it, a waterfall of righteous fury.
Please. It was Kaelen Volkov. Kaelen Volkov struck me. He trampled me into the dust. That brute. Kaelen Volkov is a madman. He is feral. Unhinged. All because of Seraphina, he… After all the years of striving for acceptance, all the fragile hopes I harbored… he shattered them. Shattered them right before his own kin. I am an idiot. I displayed my pathetic weakness to Seraphina, too. And the terrifying thought that someone, *anyone*, might have witnessed it all, or heard fragments of it…
He choked back the frantic train of thought. A wave of self-loathing, thick and cloying, washed over him. He wanted to cease existing.
The most agonizing part was what he did next, after the tears had finally subsided beneath the blanket. His first desperate act was to meticulously erase every scrap of communication—every missive, every whispered message from Seraphina—from his private ledgers. Then, with trembling hands, he accessed the estate’s security scrolls, meticulously purging all recordings from the gatehouse for the early hours of that morning. That night had become an unspeakable burden, a shameful secret he could not, would not, allow anyone to discover.
---
He remained confined to his chambers for three long days, feigning a persistent malaise. Despite his hideous appearance, his body, resilient from years of careful nourishment, was healing with surprising speed.
Perhaps it was a mercy that, even in his terror, he had instinctively shielded the more visible areas of his face during Kaelen’s assault. Or perhaps his constitution was sturdier than his delicate sensibilities suggested. Either way, the visible injuries were mercifully minimal – a few purpling bruises concealed beneath the collar of his tunic, nothing to suggest mortal peril. For those three days, he remained a recluse, buried beneath the blankets, the tears a constant, quiet rain. Every summons, every polite inquiry, every message delivered to his door, went unanswered.
He believed he could hold out, allowing his body and soul to mend in secret. But fate, as ever, proved unkind. His parents, Lord and Lady Aerion, who had been away on extended House business, returned unexpectedly. Panic, cold and sharp, seized him.
“...Son, what has happened to your face?” His father’s voice, usually a calm river, was now a sudden, turbulent current.
“Oh, well…” Aiel stammered, his mind racing.
“A fight? But Elara said you were ill. A cold, she reported.” His mother’s gaze, usually benign, sharpened with suspicion.
As his father’s questions peppered him like stones, Aiel desperately clutched at a fabrication.
“Oh, um, I was feeling unwell, so a… a friend, Lord Lorien, collected a set of Scriptorium notes for me…”
“And?”
“And I… I encountered some rough youths on my way to collect them.” His voice was thin, reedy.
“What?” His father’s jaw tightened. “What manner of scuffle leaves a scion of Valerius looking thus? Who were these ruffians?”
When his father’s voice rose, a dangerous edge creeping into its tone, Aiel frantically waved his hands, a futile attempt to calm the storm. “No, truly, Father. It was nothing serious. I do not wish to cause any trouble. We… we resolved it amicably.”
“Tell me, Aiel. What provoked this altercation?”
“...Well…” He paused, grasping for a plausible, yet utterly demeaning, excuse. “I… I teased him for being spurned by a certain noble lady.”
“What?” His father’s initial shock slowly melted into a sigh of disbelief, then, to Aiel’s horror, a low, rumbling laugh.
“Are you young lords playing out some tavern melodrama?”
“No, Father…”
“Do not let such foolishness repeat itself.”
“...I understand.”
It was the sheer absurdity of the lie, coupled with the thankfully less-than-severe appearance of his injuries, that saved him. The incident, to his immense relief, seemed to blow over, dismissed as youthful folly.
Yet, a strange disquiet lingered. Later, as they dined together in the great hall, his mother’s voice, light and casual, sliced through his fragile composure. “By the way, Aiel, are you still keeping company with Lord Kaelen these days?”
“What?” The name was a hammer blow to his gut.
“He doesn’t seem to visit the estate with his usual frequency, that’s all.”
For someone who spent half the year away from the estate, her observation felt oddly pointed. The mere mention of Kaelen Volkov’s name conjured his mocking visage, instantly souring Aiel’s mood. He snapped back, his tone irritable. “It is… the same as always.”
*The same, my ass.* He wanted to scream. *Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.* Shame, hot and pervasive, threatened to consume him. He wished to melt into the floorboards.
“Didn’t another friend come to visit recently, though? Elara mentioned it. Are you close with this new acquaintance?”
Aiel’s body went rigid. Slowly, with a dreadful certainty, he turned his head towards the kitchen entry, where Elara was diligently wiping down the dining table. A cold dread, like an ice serpent, coiled through him. Had she heard? Could she have overheard anything that night? Was it possible… that she was the one who knew?
“Aiel? What troubles you?” His mother’s voice pulled him back, her brow furrowed with concern.
Startled, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Yes. We are… we are close.”
What else his mother said, he couldn’t recall. The sheer terror, rooting him to the spot, obliterated all other thoughts. What remained was the memory of her expression when she spoke of Kaelen Volkov. It was the look she reserved for ill tidings, for unfortunate alliances.
Why?
That single question plunged him further into a spiraling abyss of fear. His fingers grew icy cold. No. Elara could not have heard. Her hearing was famously poor, and her quarters were situated in a distant wing of the estate, far from his chambers. She couldn’t have heard anything. But why? Why did it feel so terribly, irrevocably wrong? All he could do was offer a silent, desperate prayer to a deity he no longer believed in.
Three more days crawled by, each one a torment. His parents, now thoroughly convinced his ‘cold’ was overstaying its welcome, urged him to return to the Scriptorium. He absolutely dreaded it. But continued absence would surely ignite his mother’s suspicion, leading her to believe the matter was far more serious than a trivial scuffle. That was the last thing he wanted. So, he forced a semblance of cheerfulness, a mask of well-being. Nothing was amiss, he told himself.
The days leading up to his return were filled with endless, gnawing worry. What if he ran into Kaelen Volkov? Or Seraphina? Would Kaelen beat him to a pulp again? Would he humiliate him before the entire Scriptorium—or, worse, before Seraphina again? Would he continue to trample Aiel’s pride as if it were nothing more than discarded parchment?
The thought alone made his stomach churn with nausea.
Finally, the dreaded morning arrived. He walked the familiar path to the Arcanum Hall, his legs feeling like lead. He hung his satchel on the side of his desk, tossing a few meaningless scrolls on top, a futile attempt at normalcy. Then he sat, staring blankly at the polished wood, as the hum of distant voices and approaching footsteps grew steadily louder in the grand hallway. The moment he recognized the familiar cadence of noble youths, he buried his head in his arms, pretending to be asleep.
If he feigned slumber, no one would notice his bruised and mottled face. At least, not immediately. But he had failed to account for one crucial detail: the desk behind his belonged to Lord Lorien of House Thorne. Lorien was a young lord known for his sharp wit and even sharper observational skills, a man who feigned obliviousness only when it served his own inscrutable purposes.
The moment Lorien arrived, he stopped by Aiel’s desk. A cool, slender hand slipped between Aiel’s shoulder and neck, fingers surprisingly strong. With a casual, almost surgical precision, Lorien tilted Aiel’s face upward. Aiel had no time to resist, no chance to hide. He was exposed, his battered countenance laid bare for Lorien’s unblinking scrutiny. Lorien’s eyebrow, a perfectly arched curve, rose slowly as he examined Aiel’s face. His voice, a low, resonant murmur, cut through the pretense of sleep.
“What in the name of the Silverwood happened to your face, Valerius?”
“...It is nothing, Lord Lorien.”
“Did you, perchance, trip over your own virtue again?” A faint, mocking smile touched Lorien’s lips.
“Something akin to that, yes.”
“Indeed?” Lorien clicked his tongue, a soft, dry sound, and shook his head almost imperceptibly. Then, with an abruptness that made Aiel flinch, he released Aiel’s face, causing his head to nearly strike the desk.
“Curse you,” Aiel muttered, rubbing his jaw.
He glared, startled, but Lorien merely offered a crooked grin, a distant look in his pale eyes, as if lost in some private, calculating thought. Whatever schemes were brewing behind those astute eyes, Aiel had no way of knowing.
Neither Lord Kaelen Volkov nor Seraphina Volkov attended the Scriptorium that day. Aiel’s relief was immediate, palpable.
Yet, even during his absence, a new kind of serpent had begun to coil through the hallowed halls of the Arcanum.
“Have you heard, then? Lord Kaelen… that brute actually… he lost control…”
No one dared ask Aiel directly about his injuries, but the curious, lingering glances, the hushed whispers that ceased abruptly when he approached, made it painfully clear. The rumor had already spread, seeping into every corner of the Scriptorium like spilled ink.
Perhaps, he thought, a fragile tendril of hope unfurling in his chest, he was luckier than he had first believed.
---
The whispers, of course, centered upon Aiel Valerius and Lord Kaelen Volkov. With both of them absent since the day the rumors began—and Seraphina Volkov disappearing shortly thereafter, leaving no one to staunch the flow—the whispers spread with the speed of wildfire. Aiel’s own bruised and visibly recovering face served as silent, irrefutable proof, fanning the flames of speculation.
“The tale holds thus: Lord Aiel and Lord Kaelen had a most unseemly falling out.” The rumor, now refined by endless retelling, continued, “And, Lord Kaelen, it is said, displayed a most… un-Volkovian attachment to the Valerius boy.”
“That brute, I tell you, he was utterly captivated by that… that *gilded quill*.”
“A gilded quill? Ah, I understand! Haha! Truly, that is apt.”
“Yes, like one of those ornamental, fragile things that cannot even sign a proper decree.”
The conversations echoed through the Scriptorium, hushed but omnipresent.
“All those lesser lords who once orbited Lord Kaelen are now quite discomfited. He truly lost his composure for that little… scribe-boy.”
His skin crawled. The humiliation, far from being lessened by Kaelen’s absence, now found a new, more insidious form. The whispers painted him not as a victim, but as a catalyst for Kaelen’s supposed 'base' emotions, making him seem like an object of scorn, fragile and easily broken. A *gilded quill*. The precise insult, cutting straight to the heart of his fragile pride, twisting his cherished talents into a symbol of his effeminate weakness. He was Kaelen’s whim, Kaelen’s public display of crude sentiment. The shame was a bitter, choking taste.