A chill gratitude, a viper’s coil hidden beneath velvet. Lysander recognized the gesture for what it was. Yet, in response to his muted reply, Lord Kaelen Vestinus arched a brow, a smirk playing on his lips, and inclined his head in a faint, exaggerated bow. Lysander tore at a piece of dried fruit bread, its sweetness cloying in his mouth, his gaze fixed on Kaelen across the polished oak of the Grand Study Hall. A tremor ran through Lysander’s leg, a nervous energy that thrummed beneath his skin, akin to a raw youth wrestling with words unsaid.
The bread lay untouched, a meager offering to his unease. Lysander sucked on a candied plum, its sticky sweetness a distraction from the churning thoughts. He understood the source of his discomfort with Kaelen, though he kept the truth locked away. It was a truth seen without looking, felt without touching, yet it remained a clammy mist, perpetually just beyond his grasp.
Lysander twirled the plum stem between his teeth.
Was Kaelen truly aligned with Lady Bronwyn? Lady Bronwyn, known for her wild escapades through the city's pleasure gardens, now a fixture in the whispered intrigues of the lesser court. Her life, much like that of Lord Silas or Master Renwick, seemed a gaudy, desperate pursuit. Predictably so.
“Whoever pilfered my inkpot better declare themselves! Or face the cost!”
Lord Silas bellowed, his voice jarring the studious quiet. He ignored the few scholars who remained bent over their folios. The others, exchanging knowing glances, offered no counsel. Master Renwick, a burly, red-faced man, punched Silas's arm, his own temper short.
“The debt you owe me could buy a hundred of your damned inkpots, and then some, you brigand.”
“My coin!”
The far corner of the Study Hall erupted into a cacophony of shouts and shoves as Renwick and Silas grappled. They seemed oblivious to the displeased looks thrown their way by those attempting to concentrate. Lysander’s lips thinned.
“This rabble grows tedious of late.”
Turning towards the voice, carried on a whisper of a breeze from the nearby archway, Lysander found Lord Kaelen. Their eyes met, a fleeting connection, as Kaelen settled back into his plush, carved chair.
“......”
Without preamble, Kaelen’s hand extended, slow and deliberate, towards Lysander. Lysander watched, mesmerized by the pristine crescent of Kaelen’s fingernails, his body held rigid. Long, elegant fingers, like pale snakes, twined around the slender wooden stem on Lysander’s lips.
Kaelen pulled, a slow, insistent tug. The sticky, half-melted plum slid down Lysander’s tongue, grazing his lower lip, before suddenly, the warm, heavy mass popped free from his mouth.
“A small indulgence.”
The candied fruit, now glistening with Lysander’s essence, nestled between Kaelen’s lips, which curved into a sly, knowing smile. Kaelen licked his lips, almost daintily, as if cleansing them, then chuckled, a low, vibrant sound.
“Why the dismay?”
Kaelen’s laughter was a frequent sound in the court, yet its merriment rarely felt as light as his humor. It often carried a sharp, unsettling edge.
“It is unseemly.” Lysander’s voice was a mere breath.
“Do you not know? The sharing of flavors, the mingling of breath, it fortifies the constitution. A curious form of communion.”
“......That is quite distasteful.”
Lysander’s mouth pressed shut, a parched fissure in his pale face. Kaelen then rested a hand upon his thigh, tracing a path to his knee, his posture impossibly languid. Lysander curled his fingers into a tight fist, hiding them within his palm, a futile attempt to conceal his tremor.
He knew. He knew his own foolishness, his susceptibility.
With his hand still resting on his knee, Kaelen, seated askew, popped the plum into his mouth and shrugged a shoulder.
“You expressed a dislike for citrus, did you not?”
He sucked on the plum, drawing it out with an almost audible whistle of air between his lips. A mundane action, yet for Kaelen’s lips, it held a strange, unsettling significance.
“That was a spiced elderberry. Quite distinct.”
“Then it is well. Elderberry pleases me greatly.”
“......”
And in a manner both annoying and captivating, Kaelen savored the candied plum, despite it having been in another’s mouth.
---
Another day drew to a close. As the season turned, an autumnal chill began to seep into the very stones of the Imperial Academy, foreshadowing the unforgiving winter. The sky above Veridia, once a brilliant, unblemished sapphire, now deepened to a heavier, sharper blue. Scribes-Major felt the burden of their roles, while acolytes sensed a grave duty to engrave their mark upon their lives. Yet, there were always exceptions.
Lord Gareth Corvan, along with Master Renwick and other less disciplined scions, stood outside the inner circle of model students. They were little more than discardable pawns, meant to highlight the majority’s diligence. As time wore on, the consequences for their wanderings softened, and interest in their misdeeds waned. The only distinction was Lord Gareth, whose parents held considerable sway, making his continued delinquency a notable annoyance.
The truly pitiable one was Lord Torvin Corvan, Gareth’s younger brother. Had he not been entangled in Gareth’s shadow, he might have ascended to a respectable position, perhaps even in the Imperial Archives. Or, had his grandmother not succumbed to the wasting sickness, his fate might have been less dire.
Lysander had resolved to ignore all that transpired beyond the carefully delineated boundaries of his studies. That, he had concluded, was the soundest decision for his own precarious existence.
And so he lived, until the day he found himself confronting an inevitability.
Everything held the potential for disruption. Especially Lord Gareth, a fool who seemed to accelerate towards such potential without foresight or plan.
Lord Gareth returned to the Study Hall.
---
Lysander clicked his tongue, a faint, almost imperceptible sound of irritation. Through the narrow gap of the half-open door to the main antechamber, he could glimpse Lord Gareth sprawled across a study desk near the Master Scribe’s lectern. Lord Corvan, Gareth’s father, had eventually located him, Lysander had overheard the whispers. An awkward return, nearly twenty days after his sudden departure. If one were to flee, why linger so close to the Imperial Quarter? His motives remained, as ever, opaque.
Lysander tapped his fingers against the worn wood of the doorframe.
Entering felt profoundly uncomfortable.
His gaze drifted to the back of Gareth’s head. A few strands of thick, dark hair stood rebelliously erect. There had been a time, long ago, when Lysander might have, under the guise of casual camaraderie, smoothed them down. Now, that memory felt distant, blurred by the shifting sands of courtly favor. He dismissed any lingering sentiment and turned to descend the grand stairwell. He knew an encounter with Lord Gareth, especially when few eyes were present, promised no good outcome.
Within the Academy walls, watchful eyes were everywhere. Even if Gareth merely engaged him in polite conversation, rumors would undoubtedly bloom: “Lysander Thorne and Lord Gareth seen conversing alone.” Such whispers would invariably be twisted, magnified. The direst scenario involved Gareth striking him again. The thought of such a public humiliation, at Gareth's hands, sent a fresh wave of heat to Lysander’s cheeks.
The most favorable outcome, Gareth ignoring him entirely, was a chance Lysander was unwilling to gamble upon. The wisest course, always, was to preempt a disastrous situation when no one bore witness. Thus, Lysander returned to the ground floor, lingering near the entrance archives until, a quarter-hour before the gates closed, he merged with the influx of students arriving for their evening sessions. Only then did he proceed to his own allotted space, where he should have been solving complex equations.
Lysander feigned disinterest in the tempest brewing around Lord Gareth. Or rather, he diligently concealed his profound interest. His consistent efforts, he believed, were proving effective.
Yet, Lord Gareth remained his greatest variable. A familiar wave of frustration, almost disgust, washed over him. Damn it. Discomfort and a nascent anxiety steadily consumed his thoughts, a phenomenon that only intensified after Lord Kaelen’s arrival earlier that day.
Kaelen approached Gareth, his demeanor utterly casual, offering a familiar greeting.
“Back amongst us, Lord Gareth?”
His friendly tone was so absurd it stunned Lysander. For a fleeting moment, curiosity momentarily eclipsed his anxiety. Lysander looked up to see Kaelen standing, his finely embroidered satchel slung over one shoulder, a broad, unsettling smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. Gareth merely grunted, a curt nod his only reply.
“Such a cool reception. One might think you bore a grudge.”
Kaelen nudged Gareth’s study table with the toe of his boot, an inappropriate familiarity, considering it was Kaelen who had subtly orchestrated Gareth’s decline within the Grand Study Hall’s social hierarchy. However, unwilling to dwell on such petty machinations, Lysander attempted to refocus on the ‘real’ problems laid out on his desk. His concentration shattered as the Imperial Scholar entered for the morning roll call.
The Scholar seemed genuinely pleased by Gareth’s return, though a subtle guilt clouded his expression when he noted Lord Torvin’s continued absence. A timid, fragile man, the Scholar was.
“Torvin is not with us today, either,” the Scholar murmured, ostensibly to himself, though the implication hung heavy in the air. He concluded the roll call with a gentle tap of the attendance scroll upon his desk.
The incident unfolded with swift, brutal precision.
As Lord Gareth rummaged through his desk drawer, grimacing at the grimy state of an old folio he unearthed, a handful of students, who had left their texts in the communal lockers, raised their hands and exited. Gareth’s expression darkened further with each departure. As a student, he rarely studied, so the presence or absence of a particular folio likely held little import for him. The true affront, for Gareth, was the disappearance of items bearing his name.
Every soul in the Study Hall understood the unspoken truth, yet, as if bound by a silent covenant, not one word was uttered. No one spoke of who had discarded Gareth’s illuminated codices, nor of who had initiated the act.
“Who was it?”
As the session concluded, the moment everyone had unconsciously anticipated began.
“I said, who among you?”
Gareth, hands tucked deep into the pockets of his fine breeches, chin lifted in defiance, demanded answers. Those who abhorred confrontation slipped silently from the hall, while others, intrigued by the unfolding drama, merely glanced around. In that tense atmosphere, Kaelen, holding a thoroughly dirty, almost unrecognizable stylus smudged with ink, scribbled something nonchalantly in a folio.
“Of what do you speak?” he asked, his voice a silken thread.
“Who?”
“‘Who’ what, precisely? One must articulate their grievances if they wish for understanding.”
The audacity was staggering. Truly brazen.
“The cur who cast aside all my texts.”
It was clear to Gareth, a man as sensitive to hierarchy as a cornered beast, that his texts had not simply vanished. Moreover, Kaelen’s refusal to answer “who” was, in itself, an acknowledgment of complicity. Even a fool would discern this. Yet, Kaelen continued to jest, feigning ignorance of the gravity of the situation.
“Did you even possess texts? You were perpetually draped across the desk, lost to slumber.”
There he was, Kaelen, laughing again, a sound utterly without warmth. There was no conceivable way Gareth would let such a slight pass.
“Enough, was it you, Lysander?”
And naturally, Lysander found himself implicated. It was an inevitable turn; any fool could foresee it.
“...No.” Lysander’s voice was thin, a whisper of a denial.
In that Study Hall, no one was more volatile, less civilized, than Lord Gareth, prone as he was to egregious errors. He must have felt his downfall acutely, as every glance, every empty space on his desk, now carried the weight of past slights. Yet, those sharing the same chamber pretended as if nothing had transpired.
“Come now, would our meticulous Lysander treat his beloved texts in such a fashion?” Kaelen's tone dripped with mock incredulity.
“Lord Kaelen—damn you, why do you constantly interject?”
“Interject? If a companion faces an injustice, it is only proper to lend aid.”
“What are you babbling about, you witless fop?”
“Witless? That is rather harsh, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Cease your dissembling. Who else here could have so thoroughly poisoned the air in my absence, if not the two of you?”
Gareth scoffed, his eyes narrowed. Only then did Kaelen finally lay his stylus upon the desk. His lips still held that faint, infuriating smirk. Gareth’s face twisted in displeasure, a mask of barely contained fury. Unable to restrain his anger, Gareth hurled a nearby leather-bound pouch of inkpots. It struck Lysander squarely in the chest.
“Ah!”
The impact, though not particularly painful as the pouch was not heavily loaded, was startling. Lysander frowned, watching the pouch clatter to his knees.
“This madman simply flings objects now.”
Before Lysander could articulate a response, Kaelen interjected, his voice already laced with a sharp edge of annoyance. At that moment, Gareth slowly lifted the corners of his mouth, a grim, self-satisfied smile spreading across his face.
“Ah, I see.”
It was the look of one who believed he had won, who had deciphered a hidden truth. What did he imagine he understood? Lysander’s furrowed brow refused to relax.
“Lord Kaelen. Lysander. Are you two conspiring?”
“What?”
Lysander was utterly at a loss for words, his mind reeling. Kaelen’s playful smirk vanished instantly, replaced by a gaze of chilling intensity. Lysander felt a bewilderment far deeper than Gareth’s initial vexation over his lost texts. Kaelen, it seemed, shared the sentiment.
“Lord Gareth, I apologize, but your words are so utterly convoluted I fail to grasp their meaning.”
Despite clearly hearing every syllable, Kaelen placed a palm near his ear—a blatant, infuriating mockery. And from what Lysander had observed, Kaelen rarely ceased his provocations after a single jest. This was merely the overture. Sensing the uneasy shift in the chamber’s atmosphere, Lysander stood. Meanwhile, Kaelen, with a deliberate, almost theatrical movement, extended his pinky finger to clean an imaginary speck from his ear, a clear challenge in his eyes.