The scent of aged parchment and cool stone clung to the morning air, a familiar balm Elian usually welcomed. Not today. A raw ache resonated behind his ribs, a physical echo of the lie he’d spun for Lord Kaelen’s family. He found Kaelen already in their usual lecture alcove, sprawled in a cushioned chair, head lolling. Dark shadows bruised the skin beneath Kaelen’s eyes, a tell-tale sign of another night spent in undisclosed revelry.
Elian merely exhaled. He placed a cool, ceramic flask of revitalizing herbal essence beside Kaelen’s hand. Kaelen’s face always showed the effects of his excesses, a faint puffiness around his sharp cheekbones.
“Your Lordship should at least attempt to appear rested,” Elian murmured, his voice flat.
Kaelen’s eyelids fluttered open, a glint of amusement in his sapphire gaze. “Ever the dutiful prefect, Elian. You are a godsend, truly.” He took a slow sip. “My father didn’t even raise an eyebrow this morn. All thanks to your silver tongue.”
Kaelen’s smile was a casual, infuriating thing. Elian offered no reply, only a tightening around his mouth. He turned, making for his own seat. His eyes snagged on the desk adjacent to Kaelen’s. A thick tome, one of Lumina’s rarer astronomical charts, lay open, obscuring the face of its reader.
Lysander Thorne. Of course. Their seats were arranged by stature; Elian, slender and of moderate height, always found himself a pace behind Kaelen. Lysander, with his unsettlingly composed presence, sat just beyond Kaelen’s immediate reach. It was a small, petty comfort, one Elian clung to with an absurd intensity.
He swallowed down a sour taste. “When did he arrive?”
Kaelen merely shrugged, leaning back. “Long before I did. He was like that when I staggered in.”
“Someone who departed early last night still looks so dishevelled?” Elian’s tone was sharper than he intended.
Just then, the astronomy chart rustled. Lysander’s head lifted, slow and deliberate. His eyes, half-lidded, swept over Elian and Kaelen before he stretched wide, a soft, almost feline yawn escaping his lips.
“…Lost track of time. One more calculation, then just a little more…” Lysander confessed, his voice a low rumble.
Yawns, Elian noted, truly were contagious. Kaelen mirrored Lysander’s wide-mouthed stretch, then scrunched his face into a smug grin. “This rogue. Looks like he’s plotting sedition, but he’s more devoted to his studies than the Arch-Librarian himself.”
“A compliment, Lord Kaelen, or merely an observation?” Lysander responded, a faint curl to his lips.
“Take it as you will, Thorne,” Kaelen retorted, a flash of something unreadable in his eyes.
Lysander merely leaned back, a low chuckle rumbling in his chest. Elian watched him for a beat too long. Their eyes met across the space. Lysander’s gaze flickered to the arched window, then back to Elian, a silent assessment. A peculiar prickle danced beneath Elian’s skin. He cleared his throat, turning his focus to Kaelen.
Morning settled into its familiar pattern. Other scholars began trickling in, their hushed greetings and soft footfalls filling the hall. Soon, Lord Lucian and Master Gareth, Kaelen’s usual satellites, would drift over, ready to hang on Kaelen’s every embellished tale of last night’s escapades. Light chatter, forced laughter, the steady rhythm of academia. A carefully constructed illusion of normalcy.
For the young lords considered Lumina’s most charismatic, it was a deceptively placid start to the day. Yet, the undercurrents of Kaelen’s “wild, messy relationships” always left a faint, unpleasant residue in Elian’s mouth. Still, he played his part, feigning amusement, a quiet observer in Kaelen’s orbit.
But a change had crept into their routine a month past. A subtle, insidious shift. Its catalyst, Elian knew with a sickening certainty, was Tristan Aethelred.
“Look, Tristan Aethelred,” a scholar whispered, a note of disdain in his voice.
“Gods above. Does that wretch truly believe he belongs here after yesterday?” Lucian muttered, pointing with an exaggerated gesture of revulsion.
Tristan shuffled into the lecture hall, shoulders hunched, his pale hair falling over his face as if to hide. He moved toward a desk at the front, carefully set down his worn satchel, and immediately slumped over. A sigh, heavy with an irritation Elian couldn’t quite place, escaped him.
Tristan was, to Elian’s detached observation, utterly pathetic. His voice, when he spoke, was reedy. His frame, slight and unassuming. The murmurs swelled. Kaelen, his pleasant morning facade dissolving, glared daggers at Tristan’s back, a low curse rumbling from his throat. Elian hated it. Kaelen’s sudden, raw vehemence twisted something inside him.
Kaelen snatched a discarded lecture note, a stiff piece of vellum, from his desk. He balled it tight in one hand. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he tossed it. It struck Tristan’s head with a soft *thud*. Tristan’s shoulders hitched. He slumped further.
“Don’t parade that wretched face around first thing,” Kaelen snapped, his voice dangerously low.
Tristan did as he was told. He buried his face in his arms, pressing his forehead to the polished wood. Kaelen watched him, a cold disdain in his gaze, then kicked his own desk with a savage force that made the other scholars flinch.
“Aethelred! Are you quite deaf?” Kaelen’s voice cracked across the room.
Tristan jolted, still hunched, a barely audible stammer escaping him. “Y-yes, Lord Kaelen.”
“Lift your head. Look at me. Speak properly.”
Did Kaelen even hear the absurdity in his own demands? Elian felt a bitter laugh catch in his throat. He watched Kaelen rise, watched him stalk towards Tristan’s desk. With every measured step, the knot of unpleasantness inside Elian’s chest tightened, growing vivid and raw.
Kaelen closed the distance. Just that alone made Elian feel a terrifying loss of control over the emotions he’d so painstakingly suppressed. This wasn’t the familiar, acid burn of jealousy he felt when Kaelen sought Lysander’s company. This was something else. Instinctively, Elian knew. He harbored something just as sinister, just as dark, as Kaelen did. That’s why Kaelen’s closeness with Lysander had, over time, become a dull ache, bearable. But his interactions with Tristan unsettled him more and more. Elian’s hands began to tremble. He clenched them, digging his nails into his palms, hoping to hide it.
Kaelen kicked Tristan’s desk hard. The sturdy wood shuddered, nearly toppling. Tristan flinched upright, a strangled sound in his throat. “F-forgive me.”
Kaelen stood over him, silent, merely looking down at Tristan’s face. Tristan’s eyes glistened, on the verge of spilling tears. Yet, in that moment, Elian felt a terrifying fragility, as if *he* might be the one to break down. Kaelen didn’t make Tristan run pointless errands. He simply watched him. If Tristan excused himself for the privy during a break, Kaelen’s gaze would still follow his retreating figure, even as he spoke with Lucian or Gareth. Elian knew. He never stopped watching Kaelen.
To be truthful, Elian’s first impression of Tristan Aethelred had been unremarkable. His complexion wasn’t flawless, but his youthful features gave him an unassuming, pleasant face. When he smiled, it felt genuinely open, and even his neutral expression carried a quiet brightness. Before Kaelen started his relentless torment, no one at Lumina particularly disliked Tristan. He seemed a scholar who had grown up in a warm, sheltered environment, perhaps in a quiet provincial manor. While he wasn’t overtly gregarious, preferring solitude, there was no trace of worry or discomfort in his demeanor.
Most scholars thought of Tristan as a decent sort. He never flaunted his family’s minor standing or his own quiet erudition. Humble, studious, bright in his own way—that was Tristan Aethelred. But Elian didn’t particularly like him from the start. Nor did he hate him. He simply didn’t care. To say Tristan wasn’t even on his radar would be more accurate. Yet, whenever he found himself amidst Kaelen’s circle, or Lysander’s more scholarly associates, and Tristan’s name cropped up, Elian would casually lie, murmuring, “Ah, Aethelred? He seems… quite competent. Decent enough.”
Kaelen, much like Elian, hadn’t paid Tristan any mind at first. Kaelen was never one for college affairs beyond their immediate social sphere. After Tristan transferred into their cohort a few months prior, he and Kaelen didn’t exchange a single word for weeks. That was how things had been.
But one day, something shifted. A small, almost imperceptible deviation formed in the mundane flow of their lives. It happened just after the midday meal. Looking back, Elian didn’t think he’d ever regretted an action as profoundly as he regretted what transpired that day.
Tristan, as was his habit, had taken a secluded corner in the scriptorium, lost in a heavy tome. He was the kind of scholar who lived within the pages of books. Elian, on the other hand, cultivated a reputation for being discerningly affable, particularly towards those with an air of respectability.
That’s why, when he chanced upon Tristan, Elian struck up a casual conversation about the book. Elian wasn’t a true bibliophile himself; projecting an image of erudition was more his style.
“A rare edition, Master Aethelred? You must enjoy such esoteric texts.”
Tristan looked up, startled. “Oh! Yes, I… I find the ancient theories fascinating.”
At the time, Tristan and Elian were distant acquaintances. Perhaps that distance made the approach easier.
“Are you nearing its conclusion?” Elian asked.
“Well, I’m almost to the final chapter.”
“Then perhaps set it aside now. The ending, I recall, is rather… disappointing. One of those treatises where the grand summation detracts from the earlier brilliance.”
“You’ve read it, then?” Tristan’s eyes widened, a flicker of genuine surprise.
“Indeed, some time ago.” Elian drew on fragmented memories of reviews he’d skimmed, offering a superficial critique, just enough to sound informed. Tristan’s face brightened, a genuinely pleased smile spreading across his features. It caught Elian off guard.
“You are the first person I’ve met who’s read this tome, besides myself.”
“Oh… truly?”
“Yes. But I shall still finish it. Dissecting *why* the ending falls short is part of the intellectual pursuit, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Certainly. Scholarly opinions always diverge.”
“Hearing you say that makes me look forward to it all the more.”
That smile still lingered in Elian’s memory, an uncomfortable shard of regret. Was it some instinctive unease he’d felt then? After that day, Tristan Aethelred began seeking Elian out, a gentle presence in the scriptorium, eager to discuss new readings. Though Elian found it a trifle annoying, often wondering *Why me?*, he didn’t outright reject him. Tristan, with his quiet reputation for diligence, wasn’t the worst person to be seen conversing with.
Books, outside of prescribed academic texts, were practically off-limits for most of Lumina’s aristocratic youth. Even if someone possessed the leisure, such tomes were little more than glorified doorstops. For Tristan, Elian was likely the only one around who could credibly engage in such discourse.
That day, with its casual encounter, happened to be one of the most ill-fated amongst them. Its true origin lay not in books, but in an altogether different parchment.
Lysander Thorne was to blame. To this very day, Elian couldn’t fathom his own actions. Why he, a scholar who never meddled in others’ affairs, chose to stick his nose where it didn’t belong. Why Lysander, of all things, had left his preliminary draft of an Arcane Linguistics essay lying open for any passing eye to see.
Elian, who detested having his own work exposed, naturally assumed Lysander wouldn’t want his either. With a quiet motion, he reached out and flipped the parchment over to shield it. That’s when he saw it: the score. Eighty-one marks. He blinked, checking again. Definitely eighty-one. Considering the notoriously stringent grading at Lumina, that mark would barely scrape into the third decile. But still, it was at the higher end of that tier.
It was the first time one of Elian’s silent preconceptions had been shattered. A small shock to realize Lysander wasn’t as much of an indifferent dilettante as he’d supposed. Naturally, that thought led him to Kaelen’s grades. Now, *there* was true intellectual squalor. Kaelen, who would mark every question with a dismissive flourish and sleep through the remainder of an exam, had never once managed a respectable score. Perhaps that was why Elian felt such a strange mix of emotions—like he’d found a glimmer of salvageable worth amidst what he’d deemed intellectual refuse. A scholar he’d once loathed, or at least regarded with a detached suspicion, turned out to be more capable than the lord he, in his own convoluted way, adored. That strange realization must have unsettled him, because he did something he normally never would have.
It was nothing grand. He simply grabbed a nearby quill and scribbled a short note at the top of Lysander’s parchment.
*Master Thorne, focus on the syntactical structures in the Elder Tongue. You will achieve the second decile soon enough. Well done. —E. Vance.
P.S. My apologies for glancing at your marks without permission. I merely flipped the parchment to cover it and happened to observe the tally.*
The arrogance of evaluating someone’s scholarly work and offering unsolicited advice made Elian feel a blush rise to his neck. He rambled to justify himself. He couldn’t articulate why he’d even written it in the first place. At the time, he must have been utterly out of his mind. Looking back, it was clear this was the first mistake in what would become a series of devastating entanglements. Every mess, every unraveling, begins with a poorly fastened first button.
Had he not written that note, he wouldn’t have encountered Tristan Aethelred, carrying a book down the hall, moments later. He wouldn't have been caught off guard by the genuine delight in Tristan's eyes, a simple, earnest pleasure that, in retrospect, seemed to catch Kaelen’s cruel attention like a moth to a dangerous flame. And then, everything changed. He felt it with a chill that seeped into his bones: a premonition of ruin. The first button, unfastened, was the one that unraveled all the rest.