To be known as ‘Lord Valerius’s Keeper’ felt like a borrowed coat. A garment cut for a larger, more imposing figure, its velvet collar chafing at Elias’s neck. Every mention, every knowing glance from the ducal courtiers, pressed the weight of this responsibility onto his shoulders, a stark reminder of his unwanted ascendancy.
Adulthood. A word that tasted of ashes on his tongue, ill-fitting as a pauper’s shroud on a prince. The endless nights spent wrestling with this new, inherited burden, shaping his days into a rhythm of grudging duty.
Court duties consumed his mornings, the polished halls and whispered intrigues a cruel distraction. Evenings found him threading through the hushed corridors of the ducal infirmary, the scent of tinctures and resignation clinging to the air like a miasma.
He rarely attended full council sessions, his mind too fractured, his attention too divided. With a sigh, a leaden weight in his chest, Elias would enter Valerius’s secluded chambers. Always, Lord Valerius Thorne would stir, like a slumbering beast awaiting its master, his pale eyes flickering open with a hunger Elias found both repulsive and strangely satisfying.
Without preamble, Valerius would unleash the day’s torrent of grievances. His voice, usually a polished instrument of courtly charm, now rasped with raw frustration, thin and sharp as a surgeon's blade.
“They speak of more treatments, Elias. Another round of bloodletting, they say. My constitution will be ruined. And the food… by the Holy Mother, the slop they serve would turn a pauper’s stomach. I am not some infirm crone, my stomach is perfectly robust, yet I am condemned to this bland gruel fit only for a toothless infant!”
His long, artist’s fingers, usually so graceful, now trembled slightly as he gesticulated. His face, once flushed with a feverish glow, was a mask of genuine misery, lending him the air of a petulant, spoiled child.
Elias exhaled, a quiet release of tension, and reached into the satchel he carried. He loathed the lingering scent of food that clung to the fine leather, a tell-tale aroma of domesticity in his otherwise austere life. His lip curled instinctively, but he forced it smooth. Better the faint odor than the indignity of carrying a basket openly.
“What now?” Valerius’s voice held a strange, hopeful tremor, like a hound scenting a distant quarry.
An image, fleeting and unwelcome, of a drooping, thickly furred tail flickered in Elias’s mind’s eye. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. He banished the thought with a mental shove and pulled forth a small, lacquered box from his satchel.
Valerius’s gaze, previously so shadowed, brightened with an almost unholy light. It swept over the box with a pitiful intensity, then snapped to Elias’s face.
“What is this treasure?”
“A small repast. They assured me your humors are stable enough for something more substantial. From a patisserie near the Lower Gardens.” Elias’s tone was carefully neutral, clipped.
“A repast?” Valerius leaned forward, his eyes wide.
“Do not imbue it with significance. A simple purchase, nothing more.” Elias spoke with a detached air, though his stomach churned with a private contradiction. He had, in truth, scoured the city for a purveyor renowned for both its discretion and the delicate, restorative qualities of its fare. He would never confess the careful, almost meticulous search. He wished only to appear as an emissary of detached, courtly kindness, no more.
But even that meager pretense seemed enough for Valerius. His barely healed right hand, still bearing the faint marks of a fever’s ravage, fretfully scratched at his temple. A flush crept up his pale neck, painting his ears a shocking crimson. Elias’s gaze drifted, involuntarily, to those fingers. The way they curled, not quite straight, looked subtly deformed, a lasting memento of his recent illness. His face tightened. Why did his eyes always snag on such imperfections? Why could he not simply look away? A constriction tightened around his chest.
“...I… thank you.” Valerius’s voice was oddly subdued, thick with uncharacteristic shyness. When their eyes met, Valerius flinched, as if caught in a forbidden act, and fumbled to pry open the lacquer box. Or perhaps, Elias mused, it was a practiced pantomime of surprise, a feigned aversion to being seen looking at him, a deliberate attempt to appear unaffected.
Valerius ate with the ravenous urgency of one long starved, his head bowed, oblivious to the crumbs that dusted his chin. He stuffed the rich pâté into his mouth with an almost mechanical precision. His small finger, his ring finger, and his middle finger on his right hand did not quite straighten. Elias watched, uncertain if the tremor was genuine debility or another subtle performance.
He shifted closer, a strange impulse guiding him, and took the spoon from Valerius’s hand. “What would tempt your palate now?”
Valerius paused, chewing slowly.
“The spiced pheasant, perhaps?”
With his lips still smeared, Valerius lowered his head slightly and offered a small, crooked smile. Elias felt a twist of perplexity. This man, whose recent malady had left him frail and confined, whose spirit seemed eternally bruised by the indignities of his birth, how could he smile so? Elias did not understand it. He could not bring himself to meet that bright, glowing face. What was so amusing? If it were he, confined thus, he might wish for oblivion.
Elias selected a choice morsel and brought it to Valerius’s lips. Valerius chewed with vigor, his smile never fading. Always, this man unsettled him. That brief, almost paternal gesture – it was merely a consequence of a prior encounter, a detour Elias had made before arriving at the infirmary.
---
It was the second time since Valerius’s initial confinement that Elias had found himself at the Thorne estate. Surprisingly, the family had granted him continued access, a guardian’s pass, as it were. He had encountered Valerius’s family on precious few occasions during this period: once, a fleeting exchange with his father, the Duke’s cousin; twice, an unctuous conversation with his mother, Lady Cordelia. The Lady, always so solicitous, had affected a gentle kindness toward Elias, a transparent gesture of gratitude for Elias having shouldered the very responsibilities she had so eagerly cast aside.
Valerius, in the adjacent chair, had merely rested his chin on his palm, observing his mother’s retreating back with a distant, unreadable expression. Elias had come only to gather some of Valerius’s forgotten belongings, a few books, some drafting parchment, to alleviate the tedium of confinement. Nothing more. He knew, intimately, the soul-crushing boredom of a gilded cage. He had experienced it, in his own way, before. He understood, with a painful clarity, what diversions were needed. He convinced himself it was merely practicality. Not sympathy. Certainly not affection.
That day, rather than returning to his humble chambers in the ducal wing, Elias had journeyed directly from his own small townhouse. His journey had led him past the Thorne estate, and on a peculiar impulse, he had allowed his carriage to pause at its gates. The mansion had welcomed him with its familiar, opulent silence. But Lady Isolde, Valerius’s sharp-tongued sister, had not.
She leaned against the heavy oak doorframe of Valerius’s deserted bed-chamber, a slight, cynical smile playing on her lips. “Still playing nursemaid to my brother, Elias?” Her voice was dry as old parchment.
Elias felt a prickle of irritation. How could she not visit? Not once? Her own kin lay weakened, perhaps even dying, and she remained cloistered here. A primal, untamed sense of familial duty, one he rarely allowed himself to acknowledge, rose within him, prompting a quiet condemnation. He hadn't realized he was doing it. The moment of awareness brought a sudden, uncomfortable silence to his thoughts. He clamped his mouth shut and crammed another book into his satchel.
“I am.”
“He truly has done it, hasn’t he? The mad fool is utterly besotted with you.”
Elias’s hand froze mid-air. He turned, slowly, as if drawn by an invisible thread.
“...Besotted with me?”
“What? Does that please you, Master Renard?” Her eyes glittered with a malicious amusement.
“I merely asked.”
“No one ‘merely asks’ anything, Elias. You wished to know, so you sought the answer.” She murmured the last words under her breath, a venomous hiss, but Elias pretended not to hear. Still, she stepped closer, ignoring his palpable discomfort. This family, it seemed, shared a peculiar talent for overlooking inconvenient truths. Isolde, Valerius, even their father.
“Tell me, where did you vanish after the Duke’s last winter festival?”
“I returned to my studies.” The answer was curt, though every soul in Veridia likely knew of his brief, self-imposed exile from court.
“It’s not as if I cared to inquire. But Valerius… he quite lost his senses. That man, who rarely entered a chapel, suddenly found himself praying, then raging. Not long after, he tore apart the sacred prayer beads his father gifted him and began to scream.”
“His prayer beads?” Elias felt a chill trace his spine.
“Yes, those. He treasured them, you know. Claimed they were a relic from the Holy Mother herself. Then he called the Divine a ‘fucking mute’ and locked himself in his chambers for a fortnight. Our house was finally peaceful. He truly is a fool, doesn’t even realize who the real bastard is.” Her voice, which had been mocking, suddenly dipped lower, softening, perhaps in response to Elias’s expression.
“What ails you? Your face is quite flushed.”
“It is not.”
“Oh, it is. Tell me, Elias. Do you… do you truly harbor affection for him? For my brother?”
“I said no.” His denial was sharp, almost a gasp.
“...Holy Mother above.” She gasped, covering her mouth as if horrified. “You are truly mad, Elias. Utterly insane.”
Why did she persist in this absurd notion when he had so plainly denied it? Annoyance, cold and brittle, snapped within him. He yanked his satchel’s zipper shut with a violent click. A retort, sharp and stinging, formed on his tongue. He wanted to castigate her, too. “Why do you speak such venom to me? Your father claimed Valerius was his only legitimate son.”
“What? What peculiar tangent is this?” She recoiled, her smile momentarily lost.
A true contradiction. He knew it to be so. Lord Cassian, always an irritant, had once observed that Elias, despite his cold intentions, often performed acts of unexpected kindness. Yet, at this moment, Elias held a potent excuse. The brown, mottled scars that marred Valerius’s back, visible only in the briefest, most unguarded moments. Just as Valerius could not meet Elias’s gaze, Elias could not bring himself to look directly upon those marks.
“Elias.” Valerius’s voice, hoarse with emotion, pulled him back to the infirmary, to the present. He was still eating, chewing slowly, watching Elias.
“Yes.”
“Then… may I believe in you?”
His voice, ragged at the edges, crept closer. Elias feigned indifference, a mask of composure, yet he listened with an acute, painful awareness.
“What nonsense do you utter now?”
“I shall not love you.”
In that single, brutal instant, Elias’s heart plummeted, shattering against the cold tiles of his hidden self. His stomach twisted, a painful knot of anguish. Something tightened, agonizingly, around his chest. He almost asked—the words forming without conscious thought— *Why not?* The sheer audacity of the question, its raw, unvarnished yearning, nearly escaped his lips. He realized, with a sickening jolt, what he had almost betrayed. His true, hidden thoughts, exposed for the briefest, most terrifying moment. *Elias Renard, you are a fool, a desperate, pathetic fool.*
He clenched his fists, knuckles white, and swallowed the treacherous impulse. Yes. This was for the best. For them both. For the precarious balance of his ambition and his survival.
“Then instead,” Valerius continued, his gaze unwavering, “I shall believe in you.” His voice was a strange mixture of sorrow and triumph, like a devotee receiving a divine revelation. Elias did not comprehend his words, not truly. Yet, he did not pull his hand away, did not flee.
The suffocating weight pressing upon his chest no longer merely squeezed; it stabbed. “I am an atheist now. Honestly, you are far more instrumental to my life than that silent tyrant in the heavens.”
“Hold your tongue, fool.” Valerius truly was insufferable. “You blaspheme with every breath.”
“No, that is untrue! I was raised a devout believer, you know this!” Valerius frantically shook his head, his hands waving in protest.
“Then what did you just utter?” Elias demanded, caught off guard by the sheer desperation in Valerius’s tone. If Elias did not believe him, Valerius might actually weep. His desperate earnestness left Elias speechless.
Then, as if making a sudden, momentous decision, Valerius slid off the couch, dropping to his knees with a soft thud.
“Then I shall show you.”
“What in the blazes are you doing?” Elias exclaimed, his voice sharp with alarm. Valerius’s large hand reached out, grasping Elias’s foot. Elias had been seated with his legs propped idly on the chaise, and the sudden tug pulled him forward, leaving him precariously perched on the edge of the cushions, his foot now suspended in Valerius’s grasp. Valerius’s gaze dropped, fixating on the faint, crescent-shaped scar on the sole of Elias’s foot—a memento from a shattered vial in his youth. His brow furrowed. And, to Elias’s profound disbelief, Valerius’s eyes welled with moisture.
Elias jerked back, a wave of shock washing over him, attempting to pull his foot free. Before he could escape, Valerius bowed his head. “What are you—”
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Cold fingertips brushed Elias’s ankle. A sharp ache shot up his calf, a peculiar lurch in his stomach. *What madness is this?* He tried to yank his foot away again, but his strength, inexplicably, abandoned him.
Valerius looked up at him once, his face utterly devoid of disgust, his expression one of profound, devout reverence. Like a true believer touching a sacred relic, Valerius pressed his lips to the tip of Elias’s foot. His fine, soft hair brushed against Elias’s ankle, a delicate, feather-light tickle against his skin. The gentle pressure of his lips traced a path across the base of his toes.
“S-Stop it…” Elias stammered, throwing an arm over his face, as if to shield himself from the unsettling intimacy. Valerius’s right hand, still gripping his ankle, tightened. And in that moment, Elias stopped resisting. Those three weak fingers, barely able to straighten, held him fast. A delicate, fragile grip, a light pressure against his skin. The lips that cursed the Divine now worshipped his flesh, tracing a path up his calf. And Elias did nothing to stop him.
It was then he knew. This relentless, incurable disease—this opulent, suffocating nightmare of his ascent at eighteen—it was far, far from over.