A curious parchment fluttered from the spine of a chronicle, two days after Kaelen's confined exchange. Lysander, meticulously cataloging new acquisitions in the hushed confines of the Archives of the Obsidian Tower, almost overlooked the folded square. It bore his name, penned in a hand he knew intimately, yet one that rarely ventured beyond the bounds of restricted texts.
‘Could you meet me in the secluded antechamber, before the midday procession?’
He paused, fingers tracing the crisp edge of the note. A summons. Not a plea, not a request, but a quiet, almost imperious instruction. Lysander found a flicker of amusement, quickly doused by a familiar unease. The High Court was no place for informal rendezvous, particularly with a ward of the Crown currently under royal censure.
Dismissed the thought, initially. Kaelen’s presence alone invited scrutiny, a vortex of whispers and assumptions. Better to ignore it, to let the paper dissolve into the daily deluge of court missives. But a persistent thread of curiosity, cold and sharp, began to unravel his resolve. Elara’s warning still echoed, a stark reminder of Kaelen’s unsettling devotion. The memory of Kaelen’s fervent eyes, the brush of his hand, prickled Lysander’s skin even now.
Hours later, as the grand bells of the Citadel tolled for the midday procession, Lysander found himself veering from his usual route. He moved through a labyrinth of lesser-used corridors, each step deliberate, the silence amplifying the rustle of his robes. The antechamber, a dusty alcove filled with forgotten scrolls and decommissioned lecterns, offered a semblance of privacy. He pushed the heavy oak door open.
Seated on a low stool, half-hidden behind a stack of ancient, leather-bound ledgers, was Kaelen. His black hair, usually so meticulously styled, lay slightly disheveled. Kaelen’s head, previously bowed in concentration over his bitten fingernails, snapped up at the sound. A quick, bright smile, too wide, too innocent for the court's bitter realities, bloomed across his face.
“Lysander,” Kaelen breathed, a fragile whisper that seemed to absorb the dust-motes suspended in the air. He waved, his slender hand trembling slightly.
Lysander’s brow furrowed. The sight of Kaelen, vibrant and unguarded in this forgotten space, stirred a deep-seated irritation. This was precisely the kind of entanglement he sought to avoid. Court gossip, once ignited, consumed reputations with a terrifying swiftness.
“Kaelen,” Lysander said, his voice flat, devoid of warmth. “What is it you require? My duties are pressing.”
Kaelen’s smile faltered. His fingers, plump and delicate, twisted nervously. He looked around the small chamber, his gaze darting from the shadowed corners to the sliver of sunlight piercing a high window. Indecision clouded his features, warring with a raw, desperate determination Lysander recognized from their last encounter. Each time Kaelen seemed poised to speak, his mouth clamped shut, a silent battle waged within him.
Lysander felt his patience fraying. Kaelen’s timidity, which others might find endearing, grated on him. He found himself bristling, a low thrum of anger beginning to coil in his gut. Perhaps it wasn’t Kaelen’s fault entirely. Lysander’s own mind felt a tangled mess, a knot of confusion and a resentment he couldn't quite place. His stomach had been restless since the previous night, a constant, dull ache that mirrored the agitation in his spirit.
“Forgive my bluntness,” Lysander pressed, his voice taut. “But time is a luxury I cannot afford. Speak your mind, Kaelen, or allow me to return to my work.”
Kaelen flinched, his eyes wide. He took a shallow breath, his gaze fixed on Lysander’s face, searching for something Lysander refused to provide. Then, in a small, stammering rush, the words began to spill out.
“Lysander, I... I had to... I wanted to tell you…”
“Yes?” Lysander prompted, a hand unconsciously rising to rub his neck. The midday bell had long since faded, and the next procession would soon begin. He wished Kaelen would simply articulate his purpose. The urge to pry the words from Kaelen’s reluctant lips, to force clarity, was almost overwhelming.
A sudden rasp of wood against stone. The antechamber door creaked open, admitting a sliver of the brighter corridor beyond. Both Lysander and Kaelen turned, their heads snapping up in unison. Framed in the doorway, gasping for breath, stood Lord Valerius, his usually impeccable silks disheveled, a fine sheen of sweat on his brow. His eyes, dark as polished obsidian, weren't fixed on Lysander. They were riveted on Kaelen.
Valerius’s heavy breathing echoed in the small space. Lysander’s chest tightened, a suffocating clench. The image of the high-ranking noble, running through the court’s endless passages, searching for Kaelen, flashed in Lysander's mind. It was a potent, disturbing picture.
Valerius let out a long, strained exhale, then strode into the antechamber, his presence filling the space. Lysander’s hand, which had been rubbing his neck, dropped to his side. Valerius’s gaze flickered between Kaelen and Lysander, a tempest brewing in their depths. His jaw was clenched, fists opening and closing at his sides.
“Why are you here with him?” Valerius’s voice was low, dangerous, a growl that barely disguised a tremor of fury. The question hung in the air, a challenge aimed at no one and everyone.
Lysander’s outward calm was a brittle shell. Inside, a painful hammering began. The long pause stretched, suffocating. At last, Valerius’s burning eyes settled on Lysander. The intensity was unbearable, a gaze that stripped away pretense, accusation raw and untempered.
“What is the meaning of this, Lord Valerius?” Lysander managed, his voice unnaturally steady.
Please, please. Don’t look at me like that. Blame Kaelen, not me, for this clandestine meeting. I was merely a reluctant participant. Why this visceral resentment, this raw hatred, directed at *me*, when I had simply answered a summons? I found myself an unwilling pawn in their convoluted games.
Yet, Valerius’s furious gaze remained fixed, unwavering. Lysander knew those weren’t the eyes of passionate concern or fervent emotion. They were eyes consumed by rage, a bitter jealousy bordering on madness. It was the face of a man deranged by obsession, a sight Lysander found both pitiable and utterly repulsive.
“Why are you here with him?” Valerius repeated, his voice rising, harsher now, cutting through the stillness.
Valerius, you look pathetic. So utterly pathetic. Lysander met the furious glare with an unflinching stare of his own. But even as the thought formed, a cold dread whispered: the truly pitiful one, perhaps, was Lysander himself.
Valerius’s long strides closed the distance between them with startling speed. The moment his shadowed face loomed close, the world seemed to tilt. A sharp, blinding pain erupted across Lysander’s cheek.
“!”
Lysander stumbled, his body toppling backward, landing against the hard stone floor with a jarring impact. His mind, slow to process, replayed the brutal, impossible event.
No. He couldn’t have.
Valerius had struck him. He had *hit* Lysander.
On the cold floor, Lysander raised a trembling hand to his cheek. The skin throbbed, a searing heat blossoming beneath his fingers. Disbelief warred with humiliation. How could this be? How could Valerius, a noble of his standing, resort to such an act? And against Lysander, a mere archivist, a man of quiet scholarly pursuits?
“Lysander!” Kaelen cried out, his voice a wail of horror. He scrambled forward, his face pale as parchment.
“You insolent whelp!” Valerius roared, his voice thick with unbridled rage. “Stay away from him! Stay away from *everyone*!”
Kaelen froze, his eyes wide with fear, tears glistening. He retreated, his shoulders hunched. But Kaelen wasn’t the one who should be weeping. The bitter sting in Lysander’s own eyes threatened to spill over. Mercifully, before the dam could break, Valerius seized Kaelen’s arm with a viselike grip, pulling him roughly from the antechamber. The heavy oak door slammed shut, echoing through the silence.
Lysander lay sprawled on the floor, cheek throbbing, staring at the closed door. A thin crack in the wood allowed a sliver of sunlight to penetrate the gloom. Something inside him fractured. The carefully constructed walls around his emotions crumbled, and hot, angry tears streamed down his face.
He hated everything. Kaelen, for drawing him into this mess. Valerius, for the humiliating blow. He wished they would both simply vanish. The misery of being a collateral casualty in their twisted, secret drama was overwhelming.
With immense effort, Lysander pushed himself up. He skipped his remaining archival duties, a blatant disregard for his schedule. His swollen, crimson face provided a believable excuse to the Chief Archivist, who, without prying, granted his request for an early dismissal.
---
Back in his modest chambers, Lysander collapsed onto his cot, the pain in his cheek a dull, persistent throb. He drifted into a restless sleep. When he woke, the swelling had intensified, a purple bruise beginning to bloom beneath his left eye. Instinctively, he reached for his communication slate. A message awaited from Lord Cassian, a name Lysander associated primarily with Valerius’s coterie. They rarely exchanged direct messages.
‘Lysander, where did you vanish to?’
Lysander clicked his tongue, a wave of cold dread washing over him. He deliberated, then typed a brief, dismissive reply to the message, which was hours old.
‘A sudden ailment, my lord. Nothing of import.’
He kept it vague, deliberately light. The thought of anyone discovering Valerius’s act, of the court knowing he had been struck, filled him with an unbearable shame. And all of it, for Kaelen.
‘Are you well?’ Cassian’s reply was almost immediate. His tone, tinged with a genuine concern Lysander found unsettling, made Lysander’s stomach churn. What interest could Cassian possibly have in his well-being? Lysander shut off the slate.
Hours later, a profound melancholy settled over him. Cassian’s message, however well-intentioned, felt suffocating. Other scribes, a few academic colleagues, had sent polite inquiries, but none offered the solace Lysander craved. No one, of course, was Valerius. He must be utterly deranged, Lysander thought, to harbor such a foolish hope. Yet, he consoled himself, attributing Valerius’s volatile actions to the inescapable grip of maddening affection.
Lysander lay there, eyes fixed on the ceiling, doing what he did best: turning a blind eye to the bitter realities. The truth, however painful, refused to be silenced.
Perhaps Kaelen and I are not so different. A strange, twisted, grotesque thought solidified. A selfish, wicked, childish hope entwined itself with it. As he lay there, another message arrived. It was from an unfamiliar sender.
‘Lysander, are you gravely ill?’
Lysander frowned. No one but Kaelen, in his brief, intense bursts of familiarity, had ever addressed him so informally. Cassian? No, this wasn’t his private frequency. Before Lysander could ponder further, a follow-up message arrived, relentless, infuriating.
‘I am so sorry. Truly. This is all my fault.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘Please, forgive me.’
Each word, whether three or four, resonated with a frantic desperation that made Lysander want to scream. He hurled the communication slate across the room. How had Kaelen, supposedly without access to a private communicator, obtained his frequency? Then it clicked. He had called Kaelen once, hadn’t he, to coordinate the delivery of a certain prohibited volume.
Lysander cursed his own idiocy, letting out an angry, frustrated sigh. To vent his fury, he pounded his fists against the cot mattress until exhaustion claimed him. Just before consciousness fully faded, one last message, flickering on the dark slate screen, seared itself into his mind.
‘Please, don’t hate me.’
Funny. He had hated Kaelen for months.
When Lysander woke the next morning, his face was swollen, a testament to the night’s indignities.
---
He skipped his duties again. No matter how devoted a scholar he was, he could not face the discerning eyes of the court with a face so bruised and disfigured. His housekeeper, a kind but stern woman named Old Elara (not *the* Elara), prepared a light repast for him. As he ate, she clucked her tongue, urging him to be more careful in his solitary wanderings through the Archives.
The meal itself was simple: a bowl of restorative gruel and bland, stewed vegetables. Lysander swallowed it quickly, barely tasting. As he set his spoon down and reached for a cup of cool spring water, Old Elara came to clear the dishes. Plate in hand, she announced, her voice a low murmur,
“Lysander, you have a visitor.”
“A what?” Lysander managed, his voice hoarse.
“Shall I admit them?”
A visitor. His heart gave a strange, unexpected flutter. Before he could even identify the sudden rush of emotion, his mind began to conjure images of who might be waiting beyond his door. Could it be… Valerius? It seemed a wild, improbable fantasy, given the man’s pride. But it wasn't entirely impossible. Few outside the Archive knew the location of his secluded quarters. If it were him, surely, he would have come to apologize, remorse finally breaking through his arrogance. Valerius had never resorted to physical violence before. Yes, he must be worried, distraught even.
“Yes,” Lysander said, his voice stronger now, imbued with a nascent hope. “Please, allow them entry.”
The fantasy solidified into a certainty. Even as he chastised himself for such naive optimism, a small, undeniable sense of satisfaction bloomed in his chest. Despite everything, he still held some significance to Valerius. The thought, foolish as it was, warmed him. He turned quickly towards the heavy oak door leading from his antechamber to the outside corridor, his pace quickening with a flicker of excitement.
But the figure stepping through the doorway was not who he had expected.
“Lysander,” Lord Cassian greeted him, his sharp-featured face etched with a familiar, casual smirk. He held a small, neatly tied satchel. Cassian’s easy smile vanished the moment his eyes landed on Lysander’s bruised face. His tone, usually laced with playful sarcasm, turned unusually grave.
“By the gods, what happened to your face?”
Lysander’s knees almost buckled from the sudden, crushing disappointment. His earlier surge of hope collapsed, leaving behind a hollow ache. How had Cassian even known where he resided?
“I… fell,” Lysander mumbled, the lie tasting bitter.
Cassian’s brow furrowed, his lips twisting in that characteristic way he did before delivering a pointed remark. “You truly are an idiot sometimes, aren’t you?”
Lysander offered no argument. He simply rubbed his throbbing cheek, a dull ache reverberating through him. Embarrassment, hot and sharp, surged through him as he recalled his foolish anticipation. He was an idiot. Valerius didn’t consider him important. And here he was, like a hopeful, idiotic hound, wagging his tail for a master who didn't care.
“Here, take this.” Cassian extended the satchel. Lysander accepted it. Inside, nestled among cool cloths, was a small, chilled pouch of spiced fruit—a rare delicacy, known for its cooling properties.
“It’s… from the Southern Vineyards,” Lysander noted, recognizing the distinct aroma.
“Is it? Didn’t pay it much mind,” Cassian replied, shrugging.
“Figures. Why would you?”
“Now that’s a harsh judgment.” Cassian's grin returned, though muted. “What are you doing here, Cassian?”
“What do you think? Came to verify your well-being. Mind if I step inside?”
“Wait, Cassian!”
Without waiting for an answer, Cassian’s long legs carried him past the antechamber, into Lysander’s private sleeping quarters. His eyes scanned the sparse furnishings, the piled scrolls, the precisely aligned quills.
“Where are you going?” Lysander demanded, following the man.
“Where else? There’s nowhere else of interest in your chambers.”
Lysander had no ready retort. Cassian was right. Their chambers, at heart, were all alike, weren’t they? Feeling utterly awkward, Lysander trailed after Cassian, who seemed intent on thoroughly inspecting the most intimate corners of his private dwelling.