Chapter 12: "Bat" Marquis Raeven
When Lucian woke, the first thing he registered was light.
Not the soft morning light that filtered through his bedroom curtains at home, but something brighter, carrying a faint quality of the sacred, pouring down from tall windows and laying long diagonal patches across the polished stone floor below.
He moved his fingers.
A dull ache came from his left arm, lighter than he remembered. He looked down. The four angry cuts were gone, replaced by faint pink lines that looked like wounds a few days into healing.
The cut at the corner of his forehead had vanished too. The skin was smooth.
Lucian said the name of the spell quietly.
"[Moderate Heal]."
Tier 2 Faith-Based Magic. For a temple, that was already quite generous treatment.
If a commoner had been brought in with wounds like his, a Tier 1 [Minor Heal] would have been a blessing, and only if they could afford to pay for it.
He looked around.
The room was small, simply furnished but clean. The walls were light grey stone. In the corner stood a statue roughly waist-high, a young woman holding a water vessel, her expression serene. Through the window came the faint sound of chanting, something like a hymn, mixed with the scent of incense.
The Water Temple.
One of the largest temples in the royal capital, dedicated to the water deity who governed purification and healing.
Lucian had just thought to sit up when the door opened.
A cleric in white robes leaned through the doorway, and her face lit up when she saw his eyes open. She came quickly to the bedside, bent to check him over, and pressed the back of her hand briefly to his forehead.
"Good, you're awake." She said it softly, something relieved in her voice. "Young Master of the Aindra household, you've been unconscious for the better part of a day. I'll go and inform your father."
She was gone before Lucian could answer, her footsteps fading down the corridor.
Lucian leaned back against the headboard and looked at the light outside.
The better part of a day.
Only a few hours since he went down, then.
He looked at the faint pink lines on his arm. The corner of his mouth moved, just slightly.
Magic-based worlds had no respect for reasonability. In the world he came from, wounds like that would have taken at least a month.
The door opened again.
This time the footsteps were quick and heavy.
"Lucian!"
Count Alvis came in at something close to a run.
The composure he always carried was gone. His brow was drawn, his face several shades paler than usual. He crossed to the bed in long strides, leaned over Lucian, and looked him over carefully, forehead to shoulder to arm, making sure his son was actually whole.
"Father." Lucian said. "I'm all right."
The Count didn't answer.
He put his hand on Lucian's shoulder with more force than usual, as if confirming something. After a few seconds he released his hold and straightened up. The tension in his face eased a little, but his brow stayed furrowed.
"What happened?"
His voice was low, carrying a weight that meant something between father and son.
Lucian opened his mouth, and before he could get a word out—
"There's no need for such urgency, Count Alvis."
An unfamiliar voice came from the doorway.
Not loud, even somewhat gentle, but carrying a natural weight that made it impossible to ignore. The tone was neither a question nor a command, but something between the two: the certainty of a man who expects to be listened to.
Lucian looked past his father's shoulder toward the doorway.
The man was walking into the room.
Tall and lean, dressed in a deep blue coat of exceptional cut, with intricate silver embroidery at the collar and cuffs. His gold hair was combed back with not a strand out of place, leaving a broad forehead exposed. His complexion was an unhealthy pale, clearly the result of a life spent largely indoors.
Narrow blue eyes.
Thin lips.
He looked older than he probably was, but the light in those eyes was sharper than any young man's.
Elias Brandt Dale Raeven.
One of the Six Great Nobles of the Re-Estize Kingdom. Marquis Raeven.
Lucian's pupils contracted, barely visibly.
Only for an instant. His expression settled back into calm, the vague, mildly bewildered calm appropriate to a six-year-old.
Marquis Raeven walked into the room at an unhurried pace. He glanced at Count Alvis, and a smile settled on his lips, polite and warm, but with something about it that felt just slightly off.
"Count Alvis, Lucian has just woken up. Press him too quickly and you'll frighten the boy."
He said it and turned his gaze to Lucian on the bed.
Those narrow blue eyes rested on Lucian's face for a moment, as though examining something he found interesting. Then the smile warmed further.
"Young Lucian, how are you feeling? Any discomfort?"
Young Lucian.
Lucian turned the form of address over in his mind. First meeting, and already on a first-name basis.
And managing it without a trace of awkwardness. The "Bat's" social skills were something else entirely.
Lucian looked toward his father, his expression doing a convincing impression of a confused child.
Count Alvis caught his son's look, and something moved in the crease of his brow, barely perceptible: a reaction so minute that Lucian would have missed it without his familiarity with the man.
But the Count said nothing.
He simply stepped to one side, clearing space at the bedside, and gave Lucian a small nod.
"Lucian, this is Marquis Raeven."
His voice had recovered its usual steadiness. The tension from a moment ago had been completely reined in, as if it had never been.
"His Lordship heard of your injury and came personally to see how you were."
Came personally to see how you were.
Lucian turned those words over in his mind.
A marquis, the most capable operator among the Six Great Nobles, coming personally to the Water Temple over a six-year-old's injuries?
Nobody would believe that.
But Lucian's face showed nothing.
He pressed himself against the side of the bed and made to rise in greeting, letting his expression show exactly the right degree of weakness, brow faintly furrowed, body swaying slightly.
"No need for formalities."
Marquis Raeven raised a hand, a light gesture pressing him back, indicating he should stay down. The gesture was gentle and natural, like genuine concern.
"Lucian, you've only just woken up and your body hasn't recovered. There's no need to sit up."
Lucian settled back, letting his eyes carry that particular quality children had around unfamiliar adults: shy curiosity.
"Thank you, my lord."
His voice was soft, carrying a slight roughness from sleep.
Marquis Raeven smiled.
The smile was exceptionally warm.
"Young Lucian, does anything still hurt?"
"No." Lucian shook his head. "The temple healed me."
"Good." Marquis Raeven nodded, his gaze resting on Lucian's face for a moment. "Before you lost consciousness, it sounded as though you said something. Would you mind telling your uncle about it?"
There it was.
Every nerve in Lucian went taut. His mind was already running at full speed.
But his expression shifted to something that looked like a child still shaken by what he'd barely survived.