— Caelum POV —
He should have taken a different route.
He knew the south corridor was Aldric's usual path between combat training and the dining hall. He had mapped Aldric's daily schedule in the first week of term because knowing where someone was meant knowing where they weren't, and knowing where they weren't meant moving freely. Basic.
He had just — miscalculated the time. Training ran long today apparently.
So here he was.
Aldric had two people with him. Not Mira — two others, senior swordsmen who had the relaxed posture of people who won fights regularly and had started to find it boring. They spread across the corridor with the casual geometry of people who did this often enough not to think about it.
Caelum stopped walking.
He did the math very quickly. Three of them, one of him, corridor with two exits — one behind him, one past Aldric, both now complicated. He had no magic. He had no weapon. He had a folder of taxation records under his arm which was, historically, not a great defensive tool.
He looked at Aldric.
Aldric looked back with an expression that was trying to be casual and was mostly succeeding. Mostly.
"Ashveil," Aldric said. "I've been meaning to talk to you."
"Funny," Caelum said. "I've been actively avoiding that."
One of the senior swordsmen laughed, short and surprised. Aldric's expression flickered.
"You've been spending time at Valdros manor," Aldric said.
"I've been doing consulting work. Yes."
"For Lady Valdros."
"The consulting work is for Lady Valdros. The observation is correct."
Aldric took a step forward. Just one. The kind that was technically just walking but wasn't.
"She's not someone you should be getting involved with," Aldric said. His voice had gone to the tone Caelum privately called the benevolent lecture — the one where Aldric believed he was doing you a favor by telling you things. "Her family has — complications. Political ones. It's not a safe situation for someone without backing."
Caelum looked at him.
He thought: you are genuinely concerned. You believe you are helping. You have no idea that you are also the reason I am doing this and I would sooner eat the taxation records than take your advice.
He said: "That's thoughtful of you."
Aldric blinked. He had expected — something else, apparently.
"The thing is," Caelum continued, in the same pleasant tone, "you're describing a situation without knowing what situation it actually is. Which is a pattern I've noticed with you." He tilted his head slightly. "You told Bors he was a good person based on one training exercise. You told me I was disrespectful based on thirty seconds of observation. Now you're telling me Lady Valdros is a dangerous association based on—" he paused, "—what, exactly? What do you actually know about her?"
Silence.
Not a comfortable one.
The two senior swordsmen had gone slightly still. Aldric's expression had shifted from benevolent lecture to something more complicated.
"I know her better than you do," Aldric said. His voice was still controlled. Barely.
"You've been trying to know her for a year and she's told you nothing," Caelum said. "That's different from knowing someone. That's just — proximity." He said it without any particular heat. Just as a statement of observed fact. "She talks to me. That distinction matters, I think."
That was, in retrospect, probably too far.
He watched it land in Aldric's face and thought: yes, that was too far, good job, extremely well done.
Aldric closed the distance in three steps. He was taller than Caelum by half a head and the combat training showed in the way he moved — not aggressive exactly, but physical in a way that communicated the option of aggression very clearly.
"You should be careful," Aldric said quietly. "About what you say. About who you're with. About—"
"Is this a threat?" Caelum said. Same flat tone. "I want to be clear about what this is because it'll matter later."
"It's advice."
"You're standing three inches from me in a corridor with two associates and calling it advice. Okay." He looked up at Aldric's face. "Can I give you some advice in return?"
Aldric stared at him.
"The eastern province levy dispute," Caelum said. "The one your father's been trying to resolve for six months through the provincial council. The third councilman, Hendry — he's blocking it because your father's representative insulted his wife at a function two years ago. It's not political. It's personal. If your father sends an apology through the right intermediary, the block clears in a week." He paused. "I processed the council correspondence last month. It was in the records." Another pause. "I'm telling you this because it's useful information and because I'd like this conversation to end without anyone doing something that makes paperwork for both of us."
The corridor was very quiet.
Aldric was looking at him with an expression that Caelum could not fully read, which was unusual and faintly alarming.
The two senior swordsmen were looking at Aldric, waiting.
Caelum held very still and waited and did not let any of the things he was actually feeling show on his face, which took more effort than usual because what he was actually feeling was: please let this work, I have no backup plan, the taxation records are genuinely not a weapon.
Aldric stepped back.
Just one step. But it changed the geometry of the corridor.
"We're not done talking about this," Aldric said.
"I know," Caelum said.
He walked forward. Past Aldric, past the two senior swordsmen, at a pace that was steady and unhurried because hurrying would have been wrong. He could feel all three of them watching him go.
He turned the corner.
Then he stopped, put his back against the wall, and stood there for about fifteen seconds doing absolutely nothing.
His hands were steady. He was glad about that.
He pushed off the wall and kept walking.
— Seraphine POV —
She heard about it from Nessa, who heard it from the junior clerk, who had apparently witnessed the entire thing from the corridor intersection and had been vibrating with the information ever since.
Seraphine sat at her desk and listened to the account — Aldric, two swordsmen, the corridor, the whole exchange — and felt several things in quick succession.
First: a cold and specific anger that she recognized as the kind that needed to go somewhere useful rather than somewhere impulsive.
Second: something that was not quite impressed but was structurally adjacent to it, because the eastern province levy information was genuinely clever and she wanted to know how he had made that connection so fast.
Third: the cold anger again, louder.
"He's fine," Nessa said. She was watching Seraphine's face with the particular attention she'd been giving it lately. "He walked out on his own. He went back to the office."
"I know he's fine," Seraphine said.
"My lady—"
"I know, Nessa."
Nessa was quiet for a moment. Then: "The protection clause. You mentioned administrative delays. Missing endorsements."
Seraphine looked up.
"Aldric Solenne is a scholarship student," Nessa continued, in the tone of someone reading from a list. "His funding review is next month. The reviewing board includes two administrators who owe the Valdros house various small favors." A pause. "I'm just noting this. As information."
Seraphine looked at her maid for a long moment.
"Nessa," she said. "When did you become this?"
"I've always been this, my lady. You just haven't needed it before."
Seraphine thought about it. The scholarship review. Aldric's funding. A delay there wouldn't hurt him badly — his family had money — but it would be inconvenient, time-consuming, and would communicate something clearly without requiring a direct confrontation.
She thought about Caelum standing in a corridor with three people and talking his way out because he had nothing else.
She thought about her father's voice: if he becomes a complication, handle it.
She thought about the thank you to the folder.
She looked at Nessa.
"Do it," she said. "Quietly."
"Of course, my lady."
Nessa left.
Seraphine turned back to her desk and stared at her paperwork and told herself this was just the protection clause. Standard. Contractual. Something she would have done for any consultant.
She told herself this with great conviction.
She believed approximately sixty percent of it.
— Aldric POV —
The levy dispute resolved on Friday.
His father's secretary sent a letter. An apology through the right intermediary, to Councilman Hendry, regarding a function two years ago. The block cleared. His father was pleased. Everyone was pleased.
Aldric sat in his room and stared at the wall.
The clerk had been right. Had known something that Aldric's father, with all his resources and connections, had spent six months missing. A clerk who processed correspondence had looked at the same records and seen it immediately.
He didn't know what to do with that.
He thought about the corridor. The flat voice. The way Ashveil had walked past him at exactly the right pace — not running, not aggressive, just steady. Like someone who had decided the conversation was over and was acting accordingly.
He thought: I was trying to intimidate him.
He thought: it didn't work.
He thought: it didn't work and I used the information he gave me anyway.
This sat badly.
Not because he was wrong to use the information — the levy resolution was good, genuinely good, it helped actual people. But because he had been standing in that corridor trying to be threatening and the person he was threatening had handed him something useful, and now Aldric had benefited from the very person he had been—
He stopped the thought.
He thought about Seraphine instead. About the library visits. About the way she had been looking in a different direction for weeks.
He thought: I need to talk to her.
He thought: she's not going to want to talk to you.
He thought: I know.
He went to bed. He didn't sleep particularly well.
He was not, for the first time in a long time, sure he was the one being reasonable.
He didn't like that feeling. But he sat with it, because he was still, under everything, trying.
* * *
End of Chapter Six