The Gentleman's Agony

Silas woke to pain.

It wasn't the distant, dissociated pain he was used to. This was immediate, visceral, impossible to ignore. Every breath was agony, every heartbeat sent jolts of fire through his nervous system, every tiny movement felt like his body was being torn apart from the inside.

He tried to scream, but his throat wouldn't work. Tried to move, but his limbs wouldn't respond. He was trapped in his own body, drowning in sensation that he'd spent fifteen years learning not to feel.

"He's awake." Elara's voice, close by. "Madame Thorne, he's awake."

"Give him the tincture. Quickly."

Something bitter touched his lips, and Silas swallowed reflexively. Within seconds, the pain began to recede, not disappearing but becoming manageable. Distant. Familiar.

He opened his eyes and found himself in a small room he didn't recognize. Elara was sitting beside him, her face pale and drawn, dark circles under her eyes. Madame Thorne stood nearby, holding a small bottle of what was probably the pain tincture.

"Welcome back," Madame Thorne said. "You've been unconscious for eighteen hours."

Silas tried to speak, but his voice came out as a croak. Elara held a cup of water to his lips, and he drank gratefully.

"What happened?" he managed to ask.

"You nearly died," Elara said bluntly. "The costs from those spells you cast—they were too much. Your body started shutting down. If we hadn't gotten you here when we did..."

She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to.

"The documents?" Silas asked.

"Safe. We got them all." Madame Thorne held up the leather satchel. "And they're exactly what we needed. The financial records, the letters, the journal—it's all here. Proof of the Chancellor's treason and his abuse of Proxies."

"Good." Silas tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. His ribs were still broken, his spine was still damaged, and his left arm was completely numb. "How bad is it?"

"Bad," Madame Thorne said. "You have three broken ribs, a fractured vertebra, internal bleeding, and significant nerve damage in your left arm. Under normal circumstances, you'd be dead. But the bond is keeping you alive, using the Princess's vitality to stabilize your injuries."

"At what cost to her?"

"She's exhausted, malnourished, and showing signs of magical depletion. But she's alive, and she'll recover." Madame Thorne set down the bottle. "The bond is distributing the damage between you, which means you're both suffering, but neither of you is dying. It's... remarkable, actually. I've never seen anything like it."

Silas looked at Elara, really looked at her, and saw the toll the bond was taking. She looked like she'd aged five years in the last two days. Her skin was pale, her eyes were sunken, and she moved with the careful deliberation of someone in constant pain.

"You should have left me," he said quietly.

"Don't be stupid," she replied. "We're bonded. Your pain is my pain. Leaving you wouldn't have helped either of us."

"But—"

"No buts. We're in this together, Silas. For better or worse." She managed a weak smile. "Though I'll admit, I wasn't expecting quite this much worse quite this quickly."

Despite everything, Silas almost smiled. "Neither was I."

Madame Thorne cleared her throat. "As touching as this is, we need to discuss what happens next. The Chancellor knows you have his documents. He's going to be looking for you even more aggressively than before."

"Has he increased the reward?" Silas asked.

"Doubled it. Twenty thousand gold crowns for information leading to your capture. And he's declared you both enemies of the state, subject to immediate execution if found."

"Execution?" Elara's voice was sharp. "He can't do that. I'm the Princess. I have rights."

"You're a fugitive accused of treason and blood magic," Madame Thorne corrected. "The Chancellor has convinced the nobility that you're a threat to the kingdom. Your rights don't matter anymore."

Elara was quiet for a moment, processing this. Through the bond, Silas felt her anger and frustration, but also her growing understanding of how completely her world had changed.

"Then we use the documents," she said finally. "We expose the Chancellor's crimes and force the nobility to see the truth."

"It's not that simple," Madame Thorne replied. "The documents are evidence, but they need to be presented in the right context, to the right people, at the right time. If we just start distributing them randomly, the Chancellor will claim they're forgeries."

"Then what do we do?"

"We build a case. We find allies among the nobility who are willing to stand against the Chancellor. We gather more evidence. And we wait for the right moment to strike."

"How long will that take?" Silas asked.

"Weeks. Maybe months."

"We don't have months. The Chancellor is planning his coronation in less than two weeks."

"Then we'll have to work fast." Madame Thorne pulled out a map of the city. "I've been making inquiries. Duke Ravencroft is sympathetic to your cause, but he won't move without solid evidence. Lady Ashford is cautious but could be convinced. And General Blackwood is still on the northern border, but I have contacts who can get a message to him."

"What about the other nobles?" Elara asked. "Surely some of them must see through the Chancellor's lies."

"Some do. But they're too scared to speak up. The Chancellor has made it clear that anyone who opposes him will be labeled a traitor and dealt with accordingly."

"So we're alone."

"Not entirely. You have me, and you have my network. That's more than most fugitives can say." Madame Thorne folded the map. "But you need to understand something, Your Highness. This isn't going to be a quick or easy fight. The Chancellor has been planning this for years. He has resources, allies, and the full weight of the government behind him. You have evidence and determination. That might be enough, but it's going to take time and sacrifice."

"I understand," Elara said. "What do you need from us?"

"First, you need to recover. Both of you. You're no good to anyone if you're too injured to move." Madame Thorne gestured to Silas. "He needs at least three days of rest before he'll be functional again. You need food, sleep, and time to recover from the magical depletion."

"We don't have three days," Silas protested.

"You don't have a choice. If you try to move now, you'll collapse within an hour, and then you'll be captured. Three days, minimum. Use the time to plan, to strategize, to figure out your next move."

Silas wanted to argue, but he knew she was right. His body was barely holding together, and pushing it further would be suicide.

"All right," he said. "Three days. But then we move, whether we're fully recovered or not."

"Agreed." Madame Thorne moved to the door. "I'll have food sent up. Eat, rest, and try not to die. I have too much invested in you to lose you now."

She left, and Silas and Elara were alone.

"Three days," Elara said quietly. "What do we do for three days?"

"We plan. We strategize. We figure out how to take down a Chancellor who has the entire kingdom under his control." Silas shifted slightly, trying to find a position that didn't hurt. "And we learn to work with this bond. Because if we're going to survive this, we need to understand what we're capable of."

"What we did back there—casting spells through the bond—that was incredible. And terrifying."

"It was both," Silas agreed. "The bond allows us to share magical potential, which means we can cast spells that would normally require a Proxy to absorb the cost. But the cost is still there, and it's distributed between us."

"Which means we both suffer."

"Yes. But we both survive. Under the old system, I would have died from those spells. The costs were too high for one person to absorb. But with the bond distributing the damage between us, we both lived."

Elara was quiet for a moment, thinking. "So the bond makes us stronger together than we would be separately."

"In theory. But it also means we're both vulnerable. If one of us is injured, the other feels it. If one of us is in danger, the other is too."

"That's... complicated."

"That's an understatement." Silas closed his eyes, exhaustion pulling at him. "Elara, I need to ask you something."

"What?"

"Do you regret it? The bond, I mean. If you could go back and change what happened in the ballroom, would you?"

She was quiet for so long that Silas thought she might not answer. Then she said, "No. I don't regret it. Because if the bond hadn't formed, I'd be dead. And even if I'd survived, I'd still be blind to the truth about Proxies, about the system, about everything. The bond opened my eyes, Silas. It made me see what I'd been ignoring my entire life."

"Even though it means sharing my pain?"

"Especially because it means sharing your pain. Because now I understand what I was doing to Thomas, what every aristocrat does to their Proxies every day. I can't unknow that. And I can't go back to being the person I was before."

Through the bond, Silas felt her sincerity, her conviction, her determination to make things right. And he felt something else—something that might have been the beginning of trust.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"For what?"

"For seeing me. For treating me like a person instead of a tool. For caring enough to share my pain instead of just inflicting it."

"Silas, you saved my life. Multiple times. The least I can do is acknowledge your humanity."

"Most aristocrats wouldn't."

"Then most aristocrats are wrong." She reached out and took his hand—his right hand, which was still weak but functional. "We're partners now. Equals. And partners don't abandon each other."

"Even when it hurts?"

"Especially when it hurts."

They sat in silence for a while, both of them too tired to talk, too hurt to move, but somehow finding comfort in each other's presence.

Eventually, a servant brought food—simple fare, but more than Silas had eaten in days. They ate slowly, their bodies demanding fuel for the constant repair work the bond was performing.

"Madame Thorne said we need to plan," Elara said between bites. "Where do we start?"

"With the evidence. We need to organize it, document it, make it presentable. The Chancellor's journal is damning, but it needs context. We need to show a pattern of abuse, not just isolated incidents."

"And the financial records?"

"Those need to be traced. We need to connect the shell companies to the Red Hand, show the money trail. That's going to require help from someone who understands finance and corporate structures."

"Do you know anyone like that?"

"Madame Thorne might. Or one of her contacts." Silas set down his empty plate. "We also need to think about presentation. How do we get this information to the nobility in a way that they can't ignore or dismiss?"

"A public forum? A formal accusation?"

"Too risky. The Chancellor controls the courts and the public spaces. He'd shut us down before we could finish speaking."

"Then what?"

"We need to go directly to the nobles who might support us. Duke Ravencroft, Lady Ashford, others. We present the evidence privately, convince them to stand with us, and then we make a coordinated move against the Chancellor."

"That sounds like it will take weeks."

"It will. But we don't have a better option." Silas leaned back against the pillows, his body protesting the movement. "Unless you have a brilliant idea I'm missing."

"I wish I did." Elara was quiet for a moment, then said, "Silas, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"What do you want? I mean, after all this is over, assuming we survive and somehow manage to stop the Chancellor—what do you want for yourself?"

It was a question Silas hadn't let himself think about in years. Wanting things required hope, and hope was dangerous for someone in his position.

But now, with the bond connecting them, with freedom tantalizingly close, he allowed himself to consider it.

"I want to teach," he said finally. "I wanted that before I became a Proxy, and I still want it now. I want to run a school, help children learn to think critically, to question the world around them. I want to make sure no one else grows up as blind as I was, as blind as you were."

"That's a good dream."

"What about you? What do you want?"

"I want to fix things," Elara said. "I want to reform the Proxy system, make it fair and humane. I want to make sure no one else suffers the way you suffered, the way Thomas suffered. And I want to be a Queen who actually deserves the crown, not just someone who inherited it by accident of birth."

"Those are ambitious goals."

"So is teaching children to question authority in a kingdom built on rigid social hierarchies."

Silas smiled. "Fair point."

They talked for hours, planning and strategizing, discussing possibilities and contingencies. And slowly, through the bond, Silas felt something shifting between them. They were becoming more than just two people connected by magical accident. They were becoming partners, allies, maybe even friends.

It was strange and uncomfortable and deeply unfamiliar.

But it was also, Silas realized, the first genuine human connection he'd had in fifteen years.

And that was worth fighting for.

*

End of Chapter 7