The Gentleman's Agony

The palace gardens were chaos incarnate. Survivors stumbled across manicured lawns, leaving trails of blood on grass that had been trimmed that very morning by a team of twelve gardeners. The fountains—normally lit by gentle magical illumination—stood dark and silent, their Proxies either dead or too traumatized to maintain the spells. In the distance, the Grand Ballroom burned like a beacon, flames visible for miles across the capital city of Velle.

Silas guided Princess Elara to a stone bench near the rose garden, far enough from the main chaos to think but close enough to the palace to maintain the illusion of safety. She collapsed onto it, her midnight blue dress now torn and stained beyond recognition, her crown long since lost in the inferno.

"Stay here," Silas said, his voice still carrying that impossible calm. "I'll find medical assistance."

"Don't." Her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist—his left wrist, since his right hand was still a mangled ruin. "Don't leave me."

It wasn't a command. It was a plea. Silas looked down at her, really looked at her for the first time, and saw past the princess to the terrified young woman underneath. She was shaking, her eyes too wide, her breathing too fast. Shock, he diagnosed clinically. Severe psychological trauma. Possible physical injuries masked by adrenaline.

"Your Highness," he said gently, "you need medical attention. I need medical attention. We both need—"

"I said don't leave me." Her grip tightened, and Silas felt something through their new bond—a spike of pure, primal fear at the thought of being alone. It hit him like a physical blow, and he staggered slightly.

That was new. He'd never felt someone else's emotions before, not like this. The old Proxy bond had been one-directional, a simple transfer of magical cost from master to servant. This was something else entirely, a two-way connection that carried not just pain but everything. Her fear was his fear. Her grief was his grief.

It was deeply, profoundly uncomfortable.

"All right," he said, sitting down beside her on the bench. "I'll stay. But Your Highness, we need to talk about what just happened."

"The bombing." She was staring at the burning ballroom, her eyes reflecting the flames. "Someone bombed the Red Gala. They killed... how many people were in that room?"

"Approximately three hundred aristocrats and their Proxies," Silas replied. "Plus servers, musicians, and palace staff. I'd estimate casualties in the range of five to six hundred."

She flinched at the number. "My father. Was my father in there?"

Silas thought back to the moments before the first explosion. "I didn't see His Majesty enter the ballroom. The King traditionally arrives at nine-thirty, after the initial socializing. The bombs went off at nine o'clock."

"So he might be alive."

"It's possible, Your Highness."

She latched onto that possibility like a drowning person grabbing a rope. "We need to find him. We need to—"

"Your Highness." Silas kept his voice gentle but firm. "Before we do anything else, we need to address the situation between us."

She looked at him blankly. "What situation?"

"This." He held up their joined hands—her delicate fingers still wrapped around his wrist, his ruined right hand somehow still functional despite the visible bone and torn muscle. "What I did in there. What we are now."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I, entirely. But I know enough to recognize that we're in uncharted territory." He took a breath, organizing his thoughts. "Your Highness, do you know how Proxy bonds work?"

"Of course. Every schoolchild knows. The Conduit Ring and the Collar create a magical connection that allows the master to transfer the cost of spells to their Proxy. It's basic thaumaturgical theory."

"Correct. And do you know what happens when a Proxy's master dies?"

She frowned. "The bond breaks. The Proxy becomes unbound."

"Also correct. And when a master's Proxy dies?"

"The master loses their ability to cast without personal cost until they bond with a new Proxy." She paused, understanding beginning to dawn in her eyes. "Thomas died. My Proxy died, and I should have lost my connection to the magical network."

"But you didn't. Because I intervened." Silas held up his Collar—still glowing that strange iridescent blue. "When the mana bomb hit you, I pulled the cost through myself instead. I shouldn't have been able to do that. I wasn't bonded to you. But I did it anyway, and in doing so, I created a new bond."

"A new bond." She was staring at the Collar now, her academic mind clearly trying to process the implications. "But that's impossible. Bonds can only be created through the formal ritual, with both parties consenting and a licensed Thaumaturge to oversee the process."

"I'm aware. And yet." He gestured at the glowing Collar. "Here we are."

Princess Elara reached out slowly, her fingers hovering just above the Collar. "May I?"

"I'd rather you didn't, Your Highness. I don't know what will happen if you touch it directly."

She pulled her hand back, but her eyes remained fixed on the Collar. "It's beautiful," she murmured. "I've never seen a bond manifest that color before. Standard Proxy bonds are silver. This is... what would you call that? Sapphire? Cobalt?"

"I'd call it deeply concerning," Silas replied dryly. "Your Highness, we need to understand what this bond is and what it means. Because I can feel you right now. Your fear, your grief, your confusion. I can feel all of it as if it were my own."

She looked at him sharply. "You can feel my emotions?"

"Yes. Can you feel mine?"

She closed her eyes, concentrating. After a moment, they snapped open again, and she stared at him with something approaching horror. "There's nothing there. I can feel the bond, I can sense your presence, but there's no... there's no pain. You should be in agony right now. Your hand is destroyed, your leg is shattered, you have burns across your back and shoulders. But I don't feel any of it."

"That's because I don't feel it either," Silas said calmly. "Not in any meaningful sense. It's there, intellectually I know it's there, but it doesn't touch me. It hasn't for years."

"That's not possible. Pain isn't optional. You can't just choose not to feel it."

"I didn't choose it, Your Highness. It chose me. Somewhere around year seven of my service to Lord Casimir, my nervous system simply gave up trying to process the constant input and started routing it elsewhere. I'm functionally dissociated from my own body."

She was looking at him like he was a puzzle she couldn't solve. "But you're still functioning. You're walking, talking, thinking clearly. How?"

"Practice." He smiled slightly. "Fifteen years of practice at being broken."

Before she could respond, a voice cut through the chaos of the gardens. "Princess Elara! Your Highness!"

They both turned to see a man in the elaborate robes of the Arch-Chancellor striding toward them, flanked by a dozen palace guards. Chancellor Aldric Thorne was a tall, thin man in his sixties, with silver hair and the kind of face that looked like it had been carved from granite. He had been the King's chief advisor for twenty years, and he wielded more real power than most people realized.

"Your Highness, thank the gods you're alive." The Chancellor's voice was smooth, concerned, perfectly calibrated to convey relief without crossing into unseemly emotion. "We've been searching everywhere for you. Are you injured?"

"I'm fine, Chancellor." Princess Elara stood, and Silas stood with her—partly out of habit, partly because the bond seemed to pull them together. "Have you found my father? Is the King safe?"

The Chancellor's expression shifted, and Silas knew the answer before he spoke. "I'm afraid I have terrible news, Your Highness. His Majesty was in his private study when the bombs went off. The explosion caused a structural collapse. He was killed instantly."

Princess Elara swayed, and Silas caught her elbow to steady her. Through the bond, he felt her grief hit like a tidal wave—raw, overwhelming, threatening to pull her under. He absorbed it instinctively, channeling it through himself the same way he'd channeled fifteen years of magical costs.

The grief didn't disappear, but it became manageable. Distant. Bearable.

"I see," Princess Elara said, her voice steady despite the tears streaming down her face. "Then I am Queen now."

"Not quite yet, Your Highness." The Chancellor's tone was gentle but firm. "There are protocols to follow, ceremonies to perform. But yes, you are the heir apparent, and in this time of crisis, you will need to take command."

"Of course." She straightened her shoulders, visibly pulling herself together. "What's the current situation?"

"Chaotic, Your Highness. We have approximately two hundred confirmed dead, with more bodies still being recovered from the ballroom. The perpetrators appear to have been members of the Red Hand—a separatist group that's been agitating for Proxy rights. They infiltrated the palace staff and planted the bombs over the course of several weeks."

"The Red Hand." Princess Elara's voice hardened. "I want them found. All of them. I want—"

She stopped abruptly, her eyes widening. Silas felt it too—a sudden spike of pain through the bond, sharp and localized. He looked down and saw that they were standing more than ten feet apart. The distance between them had increased gradually as they talked, and now the bond was protesting.

"Your Highness," he said quietly, "I think we need to stay close together."

She moved back toward him, and the pain eased. The Chancellor watched this interaction with sharp, calculating eyes.

"Your Highness," he said slowly, "who is this Proxy?"

"This is Silas Vane," Princess Elara replied. "He saved my life during the bombing. He's... he's bonded to me now."

The Chancellor's eyebrows rose. "Bonded? But Thomas was your Proxy. How can you be bonded to two Proxies simultaneously?"

"Thomas is dead," Princess Elara said quietly. "Silas took his place."

"I see." The Chancellor's gaze shifted to Silas, and there was something in his eyes that made Silas's instincts scream a warning. "That's highly irregular, Your Highness. Proxy bonds can only be created through formal ritual. An emergency bond formed in the heat of crisis is unstable at best, dangerous at worst."

"Nevertheless, it exists," Silas said calmly. "And it appears to be quite stable, Chancellor."

"Does it?" The Chancellor stepped closer, studying Silas's Collar. "That's not a standard bond color. And the way you two are moving together, staying within a certain radius... that suggests a mutual dependency that shouldn't exist in a proper master-Proxy relationship."

"What are you suggesting, Chancellor?" Princess Elara's voice had taken on a sharp edge.

"I'm suggesting, Your Highness, that we need to have this bond examined by the Royal Thaumaturges immediately. For your safety and the safety of the realm."

"My safety is not in question. Silas saved my life."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps he's using some form of blood magic to control you." The Chancellor gestured to the guards. "Seize him."

The guards moved forward, and Silas felt Princess Elara's spike of alarm through the bond. He held up his hands—his ruined right hand and his functional left—in a gesture of non-aggression.

"Chancellor," he said calmly, "I would advise against that course of action."

"You would advise?" The Chancellor's voice dripped with contempt. "You're a Proxy. You don't get to advise anyone."

"I'm not a Proxy anymore," Silas replied. "My bond to Lord Casimir broke when I connected to Princess Elara. I'm legally unbound, which means I'm a free citizen of Velle with all the rights and protections that entails."

"Semantics. You wear a Collar, you're a Proxy."

"The Collar is a symbol of a bond, not slavery. And my bond is to Princess Elara, who I believe outranks you, Chancellor."

The Chancellor's face flushed with anger. "Your Highness, I must insist—"

"No." Princess Elara's voice cut through the argument like a knife. "Chancellor Thorne, I appreciate your concern, but Silas is under my protection. He will not be seized, examined, or harmed in any way. Is that clear?"

The Chancellor's jaw tightened, but he bowed. "As you wish, Your Highness. But I must formally register my objection to this arrangement. The bond between you is unprecedented and potentially dangerous."

"Noted. Now, what else do I need to know about the current situation?"

The Chancellor launched into a detailed briefing—casualty numbers, damage assessments, security protocols. Silas listened with half his attention while the other half focused on the bond between him and Princess Elara.

It was growing stronger. He could feel it, like a rope being woven strand by strand, connecting them at a level deeper than mere magic. Her emotions were becoming clearer, more distinct. He could sense her grief for her father, her fear of the responsibility suddenly thrust upon her, her confusion about what had happened between them.

And underneath it all, he could sense something else. A growing awareness that the world she thought she understood was built on a foundation of lies.

She was beginning to question everything. And that, Silas realized, was going to be a problem.

Because people who questioned the fundamental structure of society tended to end up dead.

The Chancellor finished his briefing and bowed again. "Your Highness, I've arranged for you to be taken to the secure wing of the palace. You'll be safe there while we hunt down the remaining members of the Red Hand."

"Thank you, Chancellor. Silas will accompany me."

"Your Highness, I really must protest—"

"Your protest is noted and overruled. Silas stays with me."

The Chancellor's expression was carefully neutral, but Silas could see the calculation in his eyes. He was already planning something, already figuring out how to separate them, how to neutralize what he clearly saw as a threat.

Silas made a mental note to watch the Chancellor very carefully.

They were escorted to the secure wing by a contingent of guards who kept their hands on their weapons and their eyes on Silas. He maintained his expression of calm competence, but internally he was running through scenarios and contingencies.

The secure wing was a fortress within a fortress, designed to protect the royal family during times of crisis. The walls were three feet thick, reinforced with steel and warded with protective spells. The doors were solid oak bound with iron, and the windows were narrow slits that would be difficult for even a child to squeeze through.

It was, Silas realized, as much a prison as a sanctuary.

Princess Elara was shown to a suite of rooms that would have been luxurious under normal circumstances but felt claustrophobic now. Silas followed her inside, and the guards closed the door behind them with a heavy thud that sounded disturbingly final.

They were alone.

Princess Elara stood in the center of the room, still wearing her ruined dress, still covered in blood and ash. She looked lost, like a child playing dress-up in adult clothes.

"Your Highness," Silas said gently, "you should clean up and rest. It's been a long night."

"I can't rest." Her voice was hollow. "My father is dead. Hundreds of people are dead. And I'm supposed to be Queen now, but I don't know how to be Queen. I don't know how to do any of this."

"You'll learn. You're intelligent, educated, and you have good advisors."

"Do I?" She turned to look at him, and her eyes were sharp despite the tears. "The Chancellor wants you dead, Silas. Or at least separated from me. I could see it in his face."

"Yes," Silas agreed. "He does."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a threat to the established order. A Proxy who's bonded to the future Queen as an equal rather than a servant? That's not just unprecedented, Your Highness. It's revolutionary."

She sank down onto a chair, her legs finally giving out. "What have we done?"

"We survived," Silas said simply. "Everything else is just details."

"Details." She laughed, a slightly hysterical sound. "Silas, I can feel you. Right now, I can feel your presence in my mind like a second heartbeat. That's not details. That's... I don't even know what that is."

"It's a bond. A real one, not the artificial construct that normally connects masters and Proxies." He moved closer, staying within the comfortable range that the bond seemed to prefer. "Your Highness, I need to explain something to you about how Proxy bonds actually work."

"I know how they work. I studied thaumaturgical theory at the Royal Academy."

"You studied the official version. Let me tell you the truth." He sat down across from her, his shattered leg finally giving him permission to stop standing. "The standard Proxy bond is deliberately designed to be one-directional and unequal. The master casts spells, the Proxy pays the cost. The master feels nothing, the Proxy feels everything. It's a perfect system for exploitation, because it removes all consequences from the person with power."

"That's not exploitation," Princess Elara said automatically. "Proxies are compensated for their service. They receive housing, food, medical care—"

"They receive the minimum necessary to keep them alive and functional," Silas interrupted gently. "Your Highness, I don't mean to be rude, but you've been lied to your entire life about what it means to be a Proxy."

"I haven't been lied to. I've seen the contracts, the regulations, the oversight committees—"

"All carefully designed to maintain the illusion of fairness while perpetuating a system of institutionalized torture." He held up his ruined right hand. "Your Highness, look at this. Really look at it. This is what it costs to heal a paper cut. Lord Casimir got a minor scratch on his palm, and my hand was destroyed to fix it. That's not a fair exchange. That's not even close to a fair exchange."

She stared at his hand, and through the bond, Silas felt her beginning to understand. Really understand, not just intellectually but emotionally.

"But... but the healing will reverse itself," she said weakly. "The bond ensures that Proxies recover from the costs they absorb."

"Eventually. If we survive long enough. If our masters don't push us too far too fast." He lowered his hand. "Your Highness, the average Proxy lifespan is seven years. Seven years of constant pain, constant damage, constant recovery. Most of us don't make it to thirty. I'm thirty-seven, and I'm a statistical anomaly."

"Why?" The question was barely a whisper. "Why did you survive when others didn't?"

"Because I learned to stop feeling it." He tapped his temple. "Somewhere around year seven, my brain just... gave up. It stopped processing pain as pain and started filing it away somewhere I couldn't access. I dissociated so completely that I could watch my own body being destroyed and feel nothing."

"That's not survival. That's... that's psychological torture."

"Yes," Silas agreed calmly. "It is."

Princess Elara stood abruptly and walked to the window, her arms wrapped around herself. Through the bond, Silas felt her worldview cracking, felt the comfortable certainties of her privileged life beginning to crumble.

"I used magic every day," she said quietly. "Every single day. Warming spells, cooling spells, illusions, charms. I never thought about the cost. I never thought about Thomas feeling all of it."

"You weren't supposed to think about it. That's the entire point of the system."

"But I should have." She turned back to him, and there was something fierce in her eyes now. "I should have questioned it. I should have wondered why Proxies died so young, why they always looked so tired, why they never smiled. But I didn't, because it was convenient not to."

"You were raised in a system that taught you not to see Proxies as people," Silas said. "That's not your fault."

"Isn't it?" Her voice was sharp with self-recrimination. "I'm twenty-four years old, Silas. I'm educated, intelligent, supposedly fit to rule a kingdom. And I never once questioned why the people who served me were suffering. That's not innocence. That's willful blindness."

Silas felt a flicker of something he hadn't felt in years: respect. Princess Elara was doing something most aristocrats never did—she was actually listening, actually thinking, actually allowing herself to be wrong.

"Your Highness," he said carefully, "what you're feeling right now is important. But you need to be careful about how you express it. The Chancellor already suspects that our bond is influencing you. If you start advocating for Proxy rights, he'll use that as evidence that I'm controlling you."

"Are you?" She looked at him directly. "Controlling me, I mean. Through the bond."

"No. I don't even know if that's possible with this type of bond. But I can feel your emotions, and you can feel mine—or rather, you can feel the absence of mine. That's influence, even if it's not control."

She nodded slowly, processing this. "So what do we do?"

"We survive," Silas said. "We figure out the parameters of this bond, we navigate the political situation, and we try not to get killed by the Chancellor or the Red Hand or anyone else who sees us as a threat."

"That's a lot of surviving."

"I've been doing it for fifteen years. I'm quite good at it."

She almost smiled at that. Almost. "Silas, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, Your Highness."

"Why did you save me? You could have let me die in that ballroom. You could have escaped on your own. Why risk your life for mine?"

It was a good question. Silas considered it carefully, examining his own motivations with the same clinical detachment he applied to everything else.

"Honestly?" he said finally. "I'm not entirely sure. Partly habit—I've spent fifteen years protecting my master, and old habits die hard. Partly pragmatism—you're the Princess, and saving you seemed like it might have strategic value. But mostly..." He paused, searching for the right words. "Mostly because you tried to save Thomas. You could have run, could have saved yourself, but you stayed with your Proxy even when it meant risking your own life. That's not something I've seen before from an aristocrat."

"Thomas was my friend," she said quietly. "Not just my Proxy. My friend."

"I know. I could see it in the way you looked at him." Silas stood, his leg protesting but functional. "Your Highness, you should rest. Tomorrow is going to be difficult."

"Tomorrow I have to plan my father's funeral and prepare to be crowned Queen." She laughed bitterly. "Difficult doesn't begin to cover it."

"No," Silas agreed. "But you'll manage. You're stronger than you think."

She looked at him for a long moment, and through the bond, Silas felt her gratitude mixed with confusion and fear and a dozen other emotions he couldn't quite name.

"Thank you," she said finally. "For saving me. For being honest with me. For... for everything."

"You're welcome, Your Highness." He bowed slightly, a gesture of respect rather than subservience. "Now please, get some rest. I'll be right here if you need me."

She nodded and disappeared into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. Silas settled into a chair by the window, his body finally allowing itself to acknowledge the full extent of his injuries.

His right hand was still a mangled ruin, though the bones were beginning to knit themselves back together. His left leg was shattered but functional, held together by some combination of the bond's magic and his own stubborn refusal to stop moving. His back and shoulders were covered in cuts and burns that would scar badly if they ever healed properly.

He should have been in agony. Should have been screaming, begging for relief, praying for death.

Instead, he sat calmly in the chair and watched the sun begin to rise over the burning palace, his mind already working through the problems they would face in the coming days.

The Chancellor would try to separate them. That was certain. He would use the excuse of propriety, of security, of tradition. He would argue that a Princess couldn't be bonded to a former Proxy, that it was unseemly, dangerous, potentially treasonous.

And he would be right, in a way. Their bond was dangerous. It was a crack in the foundation of the entire social order, a living proof that the relationship between masters and Proxies didn't have to be one of exploitation and suffering.

If word got out about what they were, about what they represented, it could spark a revolution.

Silas smiled slightly. After fifteen years of being a tool, of being used and broken and discarded, the idea of being a symbol of revolution was almost appealing.

Almost.

But first, they had to survive the next twenty-four hours.

And given the way the Chancellor had been looking at him, that was going to be harder than it sounded.

*

End of Chapter 2