Chapter 4: The Crown of Thorns vol 2

The honey-colored light had shifted.

Lucan noticed it through the arched windows—morning sun instead of the bruised violet of evening. The stone walls, warm and golden yesterday, now held a chill that crept through the linen bandages on his forearms and settled in the burns beneath. He'd slept with his head on the edge of Hallah's bed, his hand still curled around hers, and his neck felt like someone had driven a pike through it.

He didn't move.

The infirmary was quiet now. The third watch had changed—he'd heard the soft shuffle of feet, the murmur of handover—but the long room held its breath. Somewhere down the row of beds, a patient snored wetly. The windows showed a sky the color of washed pearls, and the air smelled of lye soap and the bitter herbs Lucyfa boiled to keep infection at bay.

Hallah's copper braid lay across the pillow, the only color in the white linens. Her knuckles were bandaged beneath the blanket's edge, the dressings fresh and smelling of witch hazel. The orichalcum gorget at her throat was scorched black in places, the metal dulled by heat that should have killed her. Lucan could smell it still—the ozone-snap of stellar fire, the cooked-metal scent of her own armor burning against her skin.

She was breathing. Slow. Even.

*Still hollow*, Lucan thought. He could feel it in the air between them—the absence of her usual furnace-warmth, the lack of that paladin's radiance that normally made her presence feel like standing near a forge. The space where her power usually pressed against his senses was empty, scraped clean. She'd burned twenty percent of her reserve in one heartbeat yesterday, hammered twenty feet of stellar fire into existence mid-fight, and now she was empty as a tapped mine.

Lucan wasn't much better. His forearms were wrapped in linen, the burns from summoning that wyrm throbbing in time with his pulse. Soot still clung to his jawline—he'd tried to wash it off twice in Lucyfa's basin, but exhaustion kept winning. His head felt full of wool, his thoughts moving like fish through murky water. His reserve was a dry well somewhere behind his sternum, and when he reached for it, there was only dust.

"Prince Lucan."

The voice was kind. That was the trap.

Lucyfa stood at the foot of the bed, her face like a kindly siege engine—weathered, immovable, designed to withstand assault. Her hands, which had clearly set ten thousand bones, held a tray with a porcelain cup steaming with something bitter and brown. The steam curled in the cold morning air.

"You've been here fourteen hours," she said. "You've slept perhaps three. You have burns that need salving, a crash that needs sleeping off, and a brother who's asked for you twice."

Lucan's fingers tightened around Hallah's. Her skin was cool, dry. "I told you. I'll go to my rooms when she wakes up."

"She's awake."

Lucan's head snapped up. The movement sent a spike of pain through his neck, down his spine.

Hallah's jade eyes were open, slitted against the morning light. She turned her head on the pillow—slow, like her neck was made of glass—and looked at him. The skin beneath her eyes was bruised violet. Her lips were chapped, white at the corners.

"You look terrible," she rasped.

"You look worse," Lucan said.

"Liar." Her voice was smoke and gravel. "Your hair's standing up."

"I was using it as a pillow."

Hallah's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Her hand squeezed his—weak, trembling, but there. The bandages on her knuckles were stiff with dried salve.

"Go," she said. "Before Lucyfa drags you out by your ear."

"I'm not leaving you."

"Yes, you are." Hallah's eyes sharpened, that paladin's steel cutting through the exhaustion. "You're dead on your feet. You summoned a *wyrm*. You're tapped out—empty as a cold forge." She swallowed, her throat working. "If someone comes for us—"

"No one's coming."

"Aldric's already asked for you twice."

Lucan went still. The air in the infirmary seemed to contract.

Hallah's gaze held his. "He's in the Crown Spire. Waiting. Go deal with him before he comes here, or I'll crawl out of this bed and break his teeth myself, and we both know I can barely lift a spoon right now."

Lucan looked at her burned knuckles. The scorched gorget. The way her chest barely moved beneath the blankets—shallow breaths, conserving what little she had left.

"Lucyfa," Hallah said, not looking away from him. "Healer's orders. Get him out of my infirmary before he collapses on my floor."

The nurse didn't wait for Lucan to argue. Her hands—those impossible, gentle hands—took Lucan's elbow and lifted him from the chair with mechanical efficiency. Her grip was iron. He swayed on his feet, the room tilting.

"Up, Prince," Lucyfa murmured. "Your lady commands."

---

The halls of the Spire were quiet in the morning hush. Lucan walked beside Lucyfa—stumbled, really—his boots scuffing against the stone floors. The fourth-floor corridor stretched long and low, honey-colored arches repeating in a rhythm that made his eyes ache. They passed other doors, other wards, and Lucan caught glimpses of white linens, brown bottles, the hushed voices of healers starting their rounds.

The stairs down to the main floor were a trial. Each step sent jolts up through his knees, his hips, his spine. The banister was smooth wood, worn by ten thousand hands, and Lucan gripped it until his own bandaged hands screamed. Lucyfa walked beside him, not touching, but close enough to catch him if he fell.

The Crown Spire was across the quadrangle. The morning air bit at his face—sharp, clean, smelling of frost and the distant iron of the training yards. Lucan walked through it in a daze, his shadow stretching long and thin across the flagstones. Other students passed, their voices hushed, their eyes sliding away from the soot-stained prince with the healer at his elbow.

The Crown Spire suite smelled of lavender soap and old stone when Lucyfa opened the door. Lucan stood in the center of his room, swaying slightly, still wearing yesterday's soot-stained tunic. The fabric was stiff against his burns. He needed to change. Needed to wash. Needed to sleep for a week.

But the room felt wrong. Too quiet. The door to Hallah's chamber stood open, and from it drifted the scent of forge-iron and amber—her signature—but it was faint. Faded. Like she was already gone.

The door to the suite clicked shut.

Lucan didn't turn around. He could smell the amber-and-cedar cologne that Aldric had worn since he was fifteen, the scent of the Crown Prince who had never manifested a Class, who had watched his younger brother become a Class S wizard while he remained *nothing*. The smell brought back memories—childhood corridors, Aldric's hand on his shoulder, the weight of expectation shifting to disappointment.

"Brother," Aldric said.

Lucan turned.

Aldric Verdantis stood with his broad shoulders blocking the only exit. He wore academy blacks without insignia—no sash, no rank, no Class. His hair was the same dark gold as Lucan's, but cropped short in the military fashion. His eyes were the color of winter river ice, and they held no warmth.

And they were furious.

"You're a mess," Aldric said, his voice mild. "Soot on your jaw. Burns on your arms. You look like you crawled out of a furnace."

"I'm tired, Aldric. Whatever you're here for—"

"You refused to leave her bedside." Aldric stepped closer. His boots made no sound on the stone floor. "A commoner. A *girl* who beat a Class S mage in an illegal duel, and you sat there like a lovesick puppy while the entire academy whispered about the Prince and his pet paladin."

Lucan's hands curled into fists. His forearms screamed—the burns were fresh, weeping beneath the bandages. He had no magic left. None. He was exhausted, facing a man fifteen years his senior. Lucan could feel the weight of those years in the way Aldric held himself, the economy of movement, the coiled strength.

He couldn't fight his way out of this. There was no clever escape, no hidden spell.

So he stood straighter. His spine felt like it might crack.

"She's not my pet," Lucan said quietly. "She's my friend. And she saved my life yesterday."

"She's a *threat*." Aldric's voice dropped, losing its veneer of brotherly concern. The temperature in the room seemed to fall. "Do you understand what she did? She forged a spell mid-combat. No manual, no tutor, no precedent. She burned twenty percent of her reserve in one heartbeat and she *lived*. Do you know what the court is saying? They're saying she's the Weaver's own instrument. They're saying she should be registered, monitored, *controlled*."

"She's a child."

"And you're a child, and you summoned a *wyrm*." Aldric's hand shot out, grabbing Lucan's chin with bruising force. His fingers were cold, hard as iron. Lucan gasped—his burns flared, his knees buckled, but Aldric held him up, forced him to meet those winter eyes. "You're children playing with forces that could level cities. Do you think Father is proud? Do you think the nobility sees a prodigy? They see a *danger*. They see succession crisis. They see a Classless heir and a Class S spare, and they wonder which one they should bet on."

Lucan's vision blurred at the edges. He was going to collapse. The room spun—lavender soap and Aldric's cologne and the iron scent of his own blood where the burns had broken open. His breath came short, ragged.

But he didn't look away. He stared into Aldric's winter eyes and saw the fear there, the jealousy, the twelve years of bitterness curdled into something dangerous.

"Let go," Lucan whispered.

"Or what? You'll summon something? You're empty, Lucan. I can see it in your eyes. You're hollow as a beggar's cup." Aldric's grip tightened, fingers digging into Lucan's jaw. "Listen to me, little brother. I am trying to *protect* you. The succession is fragile. If you die in some duel, if that *creature* you're so fond of loses control and burns you alive, the kingdom falls into chaos. I am the Crown Prince. It is my duty to secure the line."

"By threatening me?"

"By warning you." Aldric released him.

Lucan stumbled back, catching himself on the desk. His hands shook—fine tremors he couldn't control. His body was failing, and his brother stood between him and the door like a wall of ice, blocking the light from the window.

"I'm leaving the academy," Aldric said, straightening his cuffs. His composure was back, the mask slipped into place. "I have business in the capital. But when I return, I expect you to have distanced yourself from Hallah Sovringard. Publicly. Formally."

"No."

Aldric paused at the door. His hand was on the latch.

"No," Lucan said again. His voice was barely audible, shredded by exhaustion, but it didn't waver. He pushed off the desk, stood on his own two feet despite the spinning room. "I won't abandon her. Not because you're afraid of her. Not because you're afraid of me."

"You don't understand the danger—"

"I understand perfectly." Lucan took a step toward his brother. Then another. His boots felt full of lead. His vision tunneled, gray at the edges, but he kept moving. "You're not angry because she's dangerous, Aldric. You're angry because she's proof that Class doesn't mean destiny. Because she was nobody and she became something, and you were born everything and became..."

He stopped. The words hung between them, sharp enough to draw blood.

Aldric's face went very still. That terrible, calculating stillness that had always meant worse violence than shouting. The winter in his eyes froze solid.

"Be careful, little brother," Aldric said softly. The softness was worse than shouting. "I am all that stands between you and the wolves. Remember that."

He turned and left. The door clicked shut with mechanical precision.

Lucan stood alone in the center of his room, trembling, his burned forearms throbbing in time with his heartbeat. The silence pressed against his ears. He had no magic. No strength. No clever escape.

But he had not stepped back.

He collapsed onto his bed, barely kicking off his boots before darkness took him. The last thing he smelled was the forge-iron scent drifting from Hallah's room next door—her presence, her anchor, still close even as the world went black.