A raw ache pulsed behind Elian’s eyes. He stirred, a groan catching in his throat, and found himself tangled in the heavy linen sheets of his dormitory bed. Cold morning light, filtered through the arched window, painted stark lines across the carved wooden ceiling. A chill seeped into his bones, separate from the room’s ambient temperature.
He had locked the door. That was a small, cold comfort. The brass bolt felt solid beneath his thumb, a desperate barrier against the world. Even in his dazed, pain-riddled state, instinct had taken hold.
His entire face throbbed with a dull, insistent pressure. Lifting a hand felt like pulling a lead weight. His shoulder joint ground, a rusty hinge in the silence. A sharp spike of pain shot through his collarbone, stealing his breath.
“Ah…” The sound was a pathetic whimper, barely audible.
Fingers, clumsy and trembling, brushed against the tender topography of his ribs. Lumps had risen, hard and unyielding beneath his nightshirt. He lay still, staring at the canopy above, willing his body to simply dissipate.
With a slow, agonizing effort, he pushed himself upright. The mattress groaned in protest. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he fixed his gaze on the opposite wall, a tapestry depicting the founding Magisters of Lumina College. Their serene, unblemished faces seemed to mock him.
Suddenly, a sob ripped from his chest. It was a raw, guttural sound, tearing at his throat. He clapped a hand over his mouth, trying to stifle it, but the whimpers clawed their way out, raspy and choked. His vocal cords felt scraped, raw.
Anger, cold and swift, replaced the despair. He sprang up, grabbing a heavy silver inkwell from his writing desk. With a feral cry, he hurled it. The ornate vessel clattered against the stone hearth, scattering a shower of ink across the polished floorboards. Ancient scrolls, unbound from their leather ties, joined the cascade of chaos. He raged, a silent tempest, throwing books, overturning a small, elegant side-table. The porcelain vase, filled with wilting winter roses, shattered. For an eternity, he vented his fury, until his limbs felt heavy, his lungs burning.
He sank back onto the floor, amidst the debris, his face buried in his hands. He clamped his mouth shut, desperate to contain the rising tide of shame. But tears defied him, stubborn rivers streaming down his cheeks, wetting his palms. His body convulsed with silent sobs.
*“Damn it!”*
Death. The thought was a sweet, tempting promise. Not merely death, but an undoing of last night, an erasure of memory, of flesh, of all he was. If only the world would simply unmake itself.
A single image seared itself into his mind: Cassian’s face, contorted by a chilling blend of pleasure and madness. His fists, merciless. Barnaby, a terrified shadow pressed against the cold stone, witnessing it all. The location – a disused corner of the old scriptorium, abandoned for centuries, a place Elian had cherished for its quiet solitude. It was where Barnaby had sought him, a frantic, whispered plea for help. And Elian, always drawn to the vulnerable, always seeking to mend, had walked straight into Cassian’s path.
Cassian had not just beaten him. He had trampled Elian’s fragile sense of dignity. He had exposed Elian’s helplessness, his pathetic inability to protect either himself or Barnaby, right in front of the very boy he had wanted to shield. This humiliation, far more corrosive than the physical pain, was a brand on his soul. It was a shame so profound it made him wish for an end.
Even now, reduced to a shivering wreck on the floor, his mind, ever analytical, worried. What if someone had seen? What if the college’s subtle wards, designed to note unusual activity, had captured the struggle? Lumina College was a venerable institution, its walls steeped in minor magicks, some of which acted as unseen sentinels. He knew the ancient texts, the archival methods. He knew how secrets were kept, and how they were sometimes, inadvertently, revealed.
Silence descended once more, punctuated only by his ragged breathing. The college bell tolled, a distant, sonorous chime, signaling the eighth hour. Fear, cold and sharp, cut through the emotional fog. The morning rounds. His personal valet, Renard, would be at his door soon, followed by the junior Magister's aide for a routine check-in. To be seen like this – disheveled, bruised, weeping – would be disastrous.
His mind snapped into focus. Such a pathetic, disgraceful state must remain hidden. Scrambling to his feet, he righted the overturned furniture, shoved the scattered scrolls and ink-stained books under the bed. He used a corner of his blanket to wipe the worst of the ink from the floor. Then, he sat, trying to compose his face, bracing for the inevitable knock.
It came a few minutes later, light and precise. “Young Master Elian? Are you well this morning? It is past the breakfast bell.” Renard’s voice, smooth and deferential, drifted through the heavy oak door.
Elian swallowed, a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth. “Do not come in, Renard. I… I believe I’ve caught a chill. A fever has taken hold. I won’t be attending lectures today.” He forced his voice to sound hoarse, sickly.
“Oh, dear. Should I summon the Matron?” Renard sounded genuinely concerned.
“No, not yet. I’ll rest. If the fever persists, I will send word later.”
“Very well, Young Master. Might I bring you some broth? Leave it outside your door?”
“That would be… most welcome, Renard. Thank you.”
“As you wish, Young Master. Take heart.”
Skipping lectures was a painful decision. But the thought of navigating the refined halls, facing curious eyes, presenting himself as anything other than pristine… it was unbearable. He was not fit for display.
He retrieved a jar of cooling herbal salve from his medicinal cabinet. Its camphor scent stung his nostrils. Fingers, still trembling, smeared the pale green balm over his aching body, a desperate hope for relief. The jar slipped, clattering to the floor, but he didn’t bother to pick it up. He crawled back into bed, burrowing deep under the heavy fur blankets, pulling them up over his head. The darkness was a fragile shield against the crushing despair. His entire body shivered, but the cold was internal, a profound humiliation that pierced deeper than any bruise.
He *must* sleep. He forced his eyes shut. It would be fine. His parents were at their country estate, far from Lumina’s whispers. Cassian… Cassian would not brag. He wouldn’t dare. This had been a private act of malice, a dark secret.
He pulled the blankets tighter, the wool scratching against his cheek.
***
It was not fine. Not at all.
Hidden beneath the oppressive weight of the blankets, Elian muttered words, bitter and sharp, against the fabric. He wanted to scream them, a torrent of accusations, to the uncaring heavens, to his absent parents, to anyone who would listen: *It was Cassian. Cassian Thorne. He hit me. He brutalized me. That animal. He is mad. Unhinged. All because of Barnaby… everything, every quiet moment, every shared interest, every fragile thread of connection between us… he crushed it. Crushed it, right in front of Barnaby.* And he, Elian, had been such an idiot. He had shown such a pathetic, vulnerable side to Barnaby. The thought that anyone else might have seen it… He recoiled, a wave of self-loathing engulfing him.
He wanted to die.
His first conscious act, after the silent fit beneath the covers, was to delete every scrap of correspondence from Barnaby – the desperate pre-dawn message, every previous note. Then, with frantic urgency, he attempted to disrupt the low-level archival spell he knew was woven into the scriptorium's threshold, a subtle ward that recorded anyone entering or leaving the forbidden sections. He wasn’t sure if it had worked, if he had successfully purged the evidence of his presence there that night, but he tried. That night, that shameful encounter, had to be erased. It had to become a phantom, unseen, unheard, unrecorded.
He skipped his lectures for three days. His face, though still mottled, was healing at a rapid pace. Perhaps his strong constitution, cultivated over years of disciplined study and proper nutrition, wasn’t as fragile as he’d felt. Most noticeable injuries were hidden beneath his high-collared tunics and heavy scholar’s robes. Only the bruises around his eyes and cheekbones remained stubbornly prominent, though fading. He spent those days buried in his room, weeping silently, ignoring the messages that slipped under his door, the gentle knocks, the whispered inquiries.
He believed he could hold out, could simply vanish until every trace was gone. Fortune, however, had other plans. His parents, who had been away at their winter estate, returned to Lumina for their quarterly visit. Panic seized him.
His father, Lord Vance, a man of formidable presence and piercing gaze, wasted no time. “Elian, my boy, what has happened to your face?” He spoke with a clipped, precise cadence, his eyes narrowing.
“Oh, well…” Elian stammered, caught off guard.
“You told Renard you had a fever. It appears you have more than that. Did you engage in a brawl?”
Lord Vance peppered him with questions. Elian’s mind raced, searching for an acceptable fiction.
“It’s nothing serious, Father. I… I wasn’t feeling well, and a friend, Marius Volkov, collected my lecture notes for me from the Matron’s office.”
“And?”
“And on my way to meet him, I… I simply tripped. A clumsy fall, nothing more. My face met the flagstones.”
“A fall? What kind of fall leaves a scholar’s face looking like *this*? Who was this ‘friend’?” His father’s voice rose, sharp and dangerous. He was a man accustomed to precise, unblemished answers.
Elian waved his hands frantically. “No, truly, Father. It was nothing. A moment of inattention. I’d rather not cause any fuss. I assure you, it was a trivial matter.”
“Tell me, Elian. Why did you truly fight?”
“…Well.” He hesitated, then produced a preposterous, utterly juvenile excuse. “I… I teased a fellow student. About a… a romantic disappointment.”
Lord Vance stared at him, then a sound escaped him – a disbelieving huff, followed by a sudden, booming laugh. “You boys, with your melodramatic sensibilities! Like a bard’s lament!”
“No, Father…” Elian mumbled, mortified.
“See that it does not happen again.”
“…Yes, Father.”
The absurdity of the lie, paired with the fact that his injuries weren’t overtly grotesque, seemed to diffuse his father’s anger. The incident, to his immense relief, seemed to blow over.
Something else, however, stirred a deeper unease. During dinner that evening, in the elegant private dining salon reserved for visiting families, his mother, Lady Vance, a woman of refined beauty and sharp perception, spoke casually. “By the way, Elian, are you still keeping company with Cassian Thorne these days?”
“What?” The single word was ripped from him, sharp and involuntary. The name was a brand.
“He doesn’t seem to call on you much anymore. I hardly see him about the college grounds when we visit.” His mother, so rarely present, was remarkably observant in inconvenient moments. The mere mention of Cassian forced his image back into Elian’s mind, souring the rare pleasure of his family’s company. He snapped back, his tone irritable, “It is as it always was.”
*As it always was, my ass. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.* Shame, hot and prickly, flushed through him. He wanted to vanish, right there, under the ornate dining table.
His mother continued, oblivious to his turmoil. “And wasn’t there another friend who came by recently? Renard mentioned it. Are you close with this other young man?”
Elian’s body went rigid. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he turned his head towards the far end of the salon, where Renard was discreetly overseeing the serving staff. A cold dread seeped into his veins. *Did he hear? Could Renard have heard anything that night? Was it possible Renard, or one of the others, had somehow perceived the sounds?*
“Elian? What is wrong?” his mother asked, her brows furrowed slightly.
Startled, Elian blurted out, “Yes. Marius. We are close.”
What his mother said next, he couldn’t recall. The sheer terror of being exposed had rooted him to the spot, wiping all other thoughts from his mind. He did, however, remember the way his mother had looked at him when she mentioned Cassian Thorne. It was the kind of look she gave when she delivered bad news, a subtle downturn of her lips, a slight hardening of her gaze.
Why? The question spiraled through his mind, pulling him deeper into a vortex of fear. His fingers grew icy cold. *No. Renard couldn’t have heard. The college servants’ quarters were in a separate wing, far from his dormitory. Their hearing, by design, was often attuned only to their direct duties.* But why, then, did it feel so wrong? All he could do was pray to a distant, indifferent deity.
Three more days passed. His parents, seeing him still secluded, began to gently urge his return to classes. He desperately wanted to refuse. But prolonged absence would undoubtedly make his mother suspect a deeper issue than a trivial student spat. That was the last thing he desired. So, he forced a cheerful façade, a brittle mask of normality.
The days leading up to his return were consumed by agonizing worry. What if he encountered Cassian? Or Barnaby? Would Cassian, in his current state, brutalize him again? Would he humiliate Elian in front of other students, or worse, in front of the Matron? Would he continue to trample him as if he were nothing more than a worm?
The mere thought sent waves of nausea through him.
He finally returned to Lumina’s lecture halls. Hanging his satchel on the side of his desk in the Archival Studies room, he scattered some loose parchment over it, a flimsy attempt to appear busy. Then he sat, staring blankly at the polished desk, listening to the growing din of returning students in the hallway. The moment he heard footsteps approaching his row, he buried his head in his arms, feigning sleep.
If he pretended to be asleep, perhaps no one would notice his lingering facial bruises. At least not immediately. But he had overlooked one crucial detail: the scholar seated directly behind him was Marius Volkov. Marius was a young man of astute observation, who possessed an uncanny ability to read the unspoken, yet often chose to act as if he saw nothing at all.
Marius arrived, a familiar, easy presence. He stopped by Elian’s desk, a soft rustle of robes. A cool hand slipped between Elian’s shoulder and neck. Gentle fingers, surprisingly strong, tilted Elian’s head up. He had no time to resist. His bruised face, still bearing the faint yellow and green of healing, was fully exposed.
Marius’s silver eyes, usually serene, narrowed slightly as he examined him. His voice, a low murmur, was blunt. “What, in the Ancestors’ names, happened to your face, Elian?”
“…It’s nothing,” Elian mumbled, trying to pull away.
“Did you trip again?” Marius’s tone was laced with dry skepticism.
“Yes. Something like that.”
“Indeed?” Marius clicked his tongue softly, a sound of disapproval, and shook his head. Then he abruptly released Elian’s face. Elian’s head nearly slammed onto the desk.
“Damn it!” Elian glared at Marius, startled by the suddenness. Marius merely offered a crooked, enigmatic grin, lost in some private thought. Whatever it was, Elian had no way of knowing.
Neither Cassian Thorne nor Barnaby Thorne attended lectures that day.
However, during Elian’s absence, a whisper had started to spread through the ancient halls of Lumina. A story, insidious and intriguing.
“Did you hear? Cassian Thorne… that bastard actually…” The hushed tones carried in the bustling corridors.
No one directly asked Elian about his injuries, but the quick, curious glances, the averted eyes, confirmed it: the rumors had already taken root.
Perhaps, Elian thought, a dark and bitter relief settling over him, he was luckier than he deserved.
***
The rumors, swift and pervasive, centered around Elian Vance and Cassian Thorne. Both had been absent from Lumina since the whispers began, and Barnaby Thorne, who had also disappeared shortly after, left no one to fully dispel the growing narrative. Elian’s bruised face, visible proof of *something* untoward, only served to fuel their spread.
The story, repeated in hushed tones between lectures and over evening meals in the refectory, painted a picture of Cassian’s increasingly erratic behavior. His decline, once subtly contained, was now a public spectacle. The whispers claimed Cassian had developed an ‘unnatural’ fixation on Elian, a disturbing obsession that culminated in a shameful public display of violence. They spoke of a confrontation where Cassian, unhinged, had set upon Elian for reasons unknown, displaying a cruelty unbecoming of his noble station. Some even twisted Elian’s quiet, studious nature into something provocative, though few believed it, given his reclusive disposition.
“That Thorne fellow, I tell you, he’s gone utterly mad with some dark attachment.”
“They say he’s become consumed by some strange jealousy. For our quiet Elian Vance, of all people.”
“Obsessed, yes. A disturbing public display, witnessed by his own brother.”
The refectory buzzed with such conversations. The consensus was clear: Cassian Thorne, once a rising star, was spiraling, driven by a perverse, unseemly obsession. And Elian Vance, the quiet, scholarly type, was merely his unfortunate victim.
Cassian’s reputation was in tatters. His erratic nature, his family’s darkening legacy, and now this public incident, meant he was being cut from the inner circles of Lumina’s aristocratic students. A cold, bleak form of justice, Elian knew. But for him, the shame remained, a hidden rot beneath his carefully constructed façade. The world might see him as a victim, but he knew the truth: he had been helpless, humiliated, and utterly alone, a stain that no amount of rumor could truly wash away.