Two days later, a small note materialised within the confines of my scroll-cubby. It was tucked between a treatise on obscure runic linguistics and my assigned parchment for advanced elemental theory.
*“Would you grace the Provisions Chamber with your presence before Elemental Affinity Drills today?”*
My mind, ever prone to academic dissection, pondered its origin. A jest, perhaps? A misplaced missive meant for another? The fleeting notion of a personal summons, a private confession, was swiftly dismissed. Such romantic folly belonged to others, not to one of my station, least of all to myself. The Academy thrived on such dramas, but I was merely a diligent shadow within its hallowed halls.
I forgot the summons until the chime for fourth period. Elemental Affinity Drills.
After donning the simple, unadorned vestments required for practical magic, I made my way to the Provisions Chamber. A sliver of curiosity, an uncharacteristic flicker, stirred within me, yet I held no great expectations. It would be a mundane affair, I supposed.
However, the person awaiting me proved unexpectedly familiar. A slight figure, Elara Veridian, from House Veridian, a minor noble line known more for their meticulous ledger-keeping than arcane prowess. Her dark hair was neatly pinned, her face a study in timidity.
“Elara Veridian?”
My voice, usually precise, held a note of genuine surprise. Her small head, previously bowed over nervous fingers, snapped upward. She offered a hesitant wave, a faint echo of the bright, guileless smile she sometimes gave when asking for assistance with a particularly knotty historical translation. That smile, in this context, only served to knot a subtle tension in my brow.
“What is the meaning of this? Why so abrupt?”
In response, Elara’s plump fingers twisted, her gaze flitting about the packed shelves of the chamber.
“Oh, Lysander… I… I have something of import to speak upon…”
“Speak it, then.”
I desired to depart as quickly as decorum allowed. This clandestine meeting, however innocent, carried the risk of misinterpretation. I maintained my carefully cultivated image—always helpful, always studious, never entangled in trivialities or whispers. Association with me, I knew, was rarely sought for anything but academic advantage.
Oblivious to my escalating discomfort, Elara continued to fret, her thumb migrating to her mouth. Her eyes darted from the stacks of aged scrolls to the barrels of dried herbs, a struggle between resolve and apprehension playing upon her features. Just as she seemed poised to utter her message, her lips clamped shut.
A thread of irritation began to unravel within me. I held no particular affection for Elara, though I harbored no ill will either. Her current hesitant demeanor, however, proved grating. Her small mouth worked wordlessly, a gesture that some might find endearing, but which I found utterly vexing. Perhaps I was overly sensitive. My stomach churned with a familiar unease.
“Elara, I must apologise, but time presses. Our drill master is rather particular. Can you not simply articulate your purpose?”
To compound my frayed nerves, my head throbbed with a dull ache. A maelstrom of academic frustrations and social anxieties had plagued me all morning.
Perhaps my annoyance was not solely directed at Elara. Perhaps I sought a target for the simmering discontent within me. My stomach had been a constant source of discomfort lately, a tangible manifestation of my ceaseless worrying.
As these thoughts drifted, Elara seemed to finally steel herself. Her voice, a mere whisper, began to spill forth.
“Lysander… I… that is to say, I…”
“Yes?”
I responded with an impatient lift of my chin, a hand moving to rub my neck. The bell signaling the end of the interim period would soon toll. I yearned for her to simply declare her piece. A darker, more desperate part of me almost wished to pry the words from her, to end this charade.
Then, with a sudden, jarring thud, the heavy oak door of the Provisions Chamber swung inward. Both Elara and I turned, our gazes snaring upon Kael Aethel, heir to House Aethel, the very picture of breathless exertion. No, his eyes did not rest on me. They were fixed, burning, upon Elara.
*“Hff, hff…”*
Kael’s heavy, uneven breathing told its own story. He had been running. A suffocating tightness gripped my chest at the thought of him traversing the Academy’s sprawling grounds, searching for Elara.
Kael exhaled slowly, a long, drawn-out sound, and strode into the chamber with the measured confidence of one who owned the very air he breathed. Without conscious thought, my hand fell from my neck. Kael’s gaze flickered between Elara and me, his expression stark, almost predatory.
“What is the meaning of this? Why are you here with *him*?”
His words hung in the air, a question seemingly addressed to no one and everyone. His hands, clenched into fists, opened and closed in a slow, deliberate rhythm.
Beneath my veneer of composure, my insides felt as though they were being pounded by an unseen smith. After a protracted silence, Kael’s eyes finally settled upon me. His stare was unbearable. A cold dread seeped into my bones.
“Kael Aethel, what madness is this?”
Please, I silently pleaded. Do not look at me thus. Blame Elara, who summoned me here. Why do you gaze upon me, whom you occasionally deign to acknowledge, with such blatant resentment? I was merely a pawn in this bizarre confrontation.
Even as I formulated these desperate thoughts, Kael’s furious eyes remained locked on mine. I knew, with a certainty that chilled me, that these were not the eyes of passion. They were the eyes of one consumed by a terrifying cocktail of possessiveness, jealousy, and utter madness. It was the visage of a man deranged by some twisted notion of affection—a sight I found both pitiful and deeply contemptible.
“Why are you here with *him*!”
You appear pathetic, Kael Aethel. So utterly pathetic. I met his glare, my chin lifting fractionally. Yet, in that moment, the truly pathetic one seemed not him, but myself.
Before I could even register the movement, Kael’s long strides brought him directly before me. As my eyes met his at close range, the world reeled.
“...!”
I couldn’t process the event. My body tumbled backward, impacting the stone floor with a jarring thud. Only then did my mind belatedly register the cause.
“Impossible…”
He struck me.
Kael Aethel struck me.
Lying sprawled, I brought trembling fingers to my cheek. Disbelief warred with a searing pain. How could you… How could you do this to *me*?
“L-Lysander!”
“You wretch! I told you, Elara! Do not speak to him! Do not speak to *anyone*!”
Elara, horrified, began to rush towards me, but Kael roared like a wild beast. His furious countenance drained all colour from Elara’s already pale face.
“I… I am sorry, Kael. Forgive me.”
“You swore! You swore upon your lineage! Damn you!”
Elara recoiled, tears glistening in her eyes. But she was not the one who should weep—I was.
Tears welled within me, burning at the back of my eyes, threatening to spill forth. Mercifully, before my composure completely shattered, Kael cursed viciously. He seized Elara by the arm, dragging her from the chamber with a brutal force. It transpired in a blur.
Left alone upon the cold floor of the Provisions Chamber, I stared at the half-open door. A sliver of late afternoon light streamed through the gap. Something inside me finally fractured. The dam holding back my wretched emotions gave way, and hot tears streamed down my face.
I hated everything. Elara, who had drawn me into this humiliation. Kael, who had violated me with his fist. I wished them both to simply vanish from existence. A profound misery settled upon me, the realisation that I had been reduced to a mere prop in their twisted drama.
I rose, my body aching. Skipping Elemental Affinity Drills, I made my way directly to the Master’s office, requesting early dismissal. My swollen, reddened face made my excuse of a sudden ailment believable, and my homeroom Master seemed to understand without undue prying.
---
Upon returning to my chambers within the Thorne Estate, I collapsed onto my bed and sought refuge in oblivion. When I awoke, my face felt puffy, a dull ache throbbing where Kael’s fist had landed. More than the physical pain, the humiliation burned.
Out of habit, I activated my personal scrying slate. A missive from Julian Vance awaited me. We did not frequently exchange such communications, yet I possessed a record of his contact due to his association with Kael Aethel. Damn him.
Were it anyone else, I would have ignored it. But Julian Vance was no mere peer. He served as Kael Aethel’s shadow, wielding significant influence amongst the younger scions of the Academy. I could not afford to disregard him.
*“Lysander, when did you abscond?”*
I clicked my tongue, composing a belated reply to the three-hour-old query.
*“Haha, found myself somewhat indisposed.”*
I deliberately kept the tone light, almost casual. No one, absolutely no one, must discover the true nature of my plight. The thought of my peers learning that Kael Aethel had struck me, and all for the sake of Elara Veridian, was an unbearable mortification.
*“Are you well?”*
Julian Vance, showing genuine concern? The anomaly of it felt unsettling. I deactivated my scrying slate, pushing the thought away.
Hours crawled by. A profound wave of melancholy washed over me. Even Julian Vance’s missive felt suffocating, a reminder of the insidious web I found myself in. Other peers, those with whom I shared academic pursuits, had also sent perfunctory inquiries, but none offered the solace I subconsciously craved.
No missive, no inquiry, came from Kael Aethel himself. My mind, I knew, was playing cruel tricks. Still, I offered myself a pathetic consolation: this was the inevitable fate of one consumed by such maddening, possessive devotion.
Even possessing this brutal truth, I lay like a fool, doing what I excelled at: averting my gaze from unpleasant realities. Closing my eyes, I pretended the world was not thus.
*“...I am not the only one.”*
Perhaps Elara and I were, in some grotesque, twisted way, kindred spirits. That strange, unsettling thought lingered. A selfish, wicked, childish hope intertwined with it—that perhaps Kael's fury was so absolute, it spared no one in Elara's vicinity, not even me. While staring at the intricately carved ceiling of my chambers, another missive arrived. The sender was an unfamiliar sigil, an unregistered contact.
*“Lysander, are you gravely ill?”*
A frown creased my brow. Which of my peers would address me so informally? Julian Vance? But this was not his known sigil. Before I could ponder further, a follow-up arrived, relentless and infuriating.
*“I am truly sorry. Profoundly sorry. It is all my doing.”*
*“Forgive me.”*
*“Please, forgive me.”*
Whether a triptych of pleas or a quartet of lamentations, each word made a scream build in my throat. I hurled my scrying slate across the room in frustration, hearing it clatter against a discarded tome. How had this wretched girl acquired my contact sigil? And how was someone who supposedly possessed no personal scrying device even sending me messages?
Then, a sudden, mortifying realisation struck. Oh. I had initiated contact with her once before, had I not? To share a particularly obscure reference for a joint project.
I cursed my own idiotic memory, letting out a frustrated sigh that bordered on a growl. To vent my impotent rage, I pounded my fists into my silken mattress for a prolonged period, until exhaustion claimed me and I drifted into a fitful slumber. Just before my thoughts completely dissolved into the haze of sleep, one last message, unread but intuitively felt, resonated in my mind.
*“Please, do not despise me.”*
Humorous. I had nursed a quiet contempt for you for months already.
The next morning, upon waking, my face remained unpleasantly swollen, like a poorly risen pastry.
---
I eschewed the Academy’s lessons. No matter how diligently I pursued my studies, my devotion was not so fervent as to compel me to face my peers with such a disfigurement.
A junior servant, a girl of sixteen years, prepared a light repast for me. As I ate the soft porridge and bland, seasoned greens, she could not resist offering a gentle reprimand, urging me to exercise greater caution in my daily peregrinations. The meal itself was unremarkable. I consumed it without much thought, barely chewing.
Setting down my spoon and reaching for a glass of spiced cordial, the servant returned to clear the dishes. With a delicate porcelain plate balanced in one hand, she announced,
“Lysander, a caller awaits you.”
“What?”
“Shall I admit them?”
A caller. A strange flutter, a faint hope, stirred within my breast at the word. Before I could even identify the emotion, my mind had already begun constructing the image of who might stand beyond the threshold of the drawing-room.
Could it be… Kael Aethel?
It seemed a fantastical notion, a delusion born of lingering pain, yet it was not entirely beyond the realm of possibility. Few from the Academy had ever ventured to the Thorne Estate. Among my scant circle, only a handful even knew its location. If it were him, then he must have finally come to offer an apology, a tacit acknowledgment of his egregious error. Kael Aethel had never, not once, raised a hand against me before. Yes, he must be troubled, perhaps even contrite.
“Yes, by all means, admit them.”
The fantasy solidified into a fragile certainty. Even as I inwardly chastised myself for such naiveté, I could not suppress a small surge of satisfaction. Despite everything, I held some small importance to him. That thought, however delusive, suffused me with an inexplicable, fleeting warmth. I turned swiftly towards the entrance hall, my pace quickening with an illicit sense of anticipation.
But the figure awaiting me was not the one I had so desperately conjured.
“Lysander, what cheer?”
Julian Vance, with his sharp, aristocratic features, greeted me with a playful smirk, holding aloft a small, lacquered box that likely contained some exotic confection or a potent restorative elixir. However, as soon as his gaze fell upon my bruised face, his expression hardened, his tone unusually serious.
“By the Ancestors, what in the blazes happened to your countenance?”
My knees almost buckled from the sudden, profound letdown. How, I wondered with a fresh wave of resentment, did Julian Vance even know the location of the Thorne Estate?
“...A trifling misstep,” I replied, my voice devoid of inflection.
Julian frowned, his lips twisting in that characteristic manner he adopted before delivering a biting remark.
“You truly are a clumsy scholar, aren’t you?”
I did not bother to dispute him. I merely rubbed my throbbing cheek, a dull ache reverberating through my jaw. Embarrassment, sharp and unwelcome, surged through me at the memory of my foolish hope. I was a credulous fool. Kael Aethel did not consider me important. And here I had been, wagging my metaphorical tail like a hopeful stray, a complete imbecile.
“Here, take this.”
Julian pressed a cool, ceramic phial into my hand. I accepted it mechanically, lifting the stopper to detect the faint, minty scent of a common healing salve.
“...It’s a simple numbing balm.”
“Is it? Did not concern myself with the specifics.”
“Figures. Why would you?”
“Damn you, Lysander, that’s rather sharp.”
“What is your purpose in being here?”
“What else? Came to ascertain your well-being. Do you mind if I enter fully?”
“Hold, Julian!”
Without an ounce of hesitation, his long legs carried him past the threshold and into the receiving hall.
“Where are your private chambers?”
“Julian, where do you imagine you are going?”
“Where else? There is no other destination of note in a residence such as this.”
“…”
I had no retort for that. He spoke a truth I could not deny. Chambers were, after all, merely chambers. Feeling utterly awkward, I followed Julian Vance, who seemed oddly intent on inspecting the interior of my private dwelling, his gaze lingering on the various arcane diagrams and forgotten texts littering my study.