Chapter 39 - Caelan Thorne
Daran Thorne was twenty-eight when he secured his family’s place within House Deneith. Not through blood or inheritance, but by the sharp edge of discipline and the resolve that kept men alive in the chaos of the Last War. His victory dismantling an assassination plot against a Brelish noble family earned the Thorne name a permanent mark in the Guild’s records, a legacy carved out by grit rather than privilege. Two years later, at thirty, he and Elira welcomed their first son.
Caelan Bryn Thorne came into the world in the early days of that freshly-won legacy, his father’s pride and his mother’s joy folded into the weight of a name still new to their lips. Six years later, Gideon was born, the beloved younger brother, a child of peace at last, when the war had ended and the family’s place was no longer questioned. Together the two boys would grow up in the shadow of a legacy earned, not given, each carrying it differently, but always with their parents’ love steady at their backs.
The memory that stayed with Caelan was not the sound of marching boots or the snap of banners, but the clap of his father’s hand on his shoulder. Daran Thorne filled a room even when he was sitting, even when his armour was off. To Caelan, he was a hero twice over: the man who had secured their family’s place in House Deneith and the man who still crouched on the floor after supper to spar with a wooden spoon while Elira laughed at them both.
“Guard your center,” Daran said, shifting a practice stick into his son’s small hands. “Not too tight. Strong, but ready to move.”
Caelan, six years old and all angles, held his ground with a solemn face. His father advanced slowly, not with the hard edge he wore at the Guild, but with a smile hidden behind his moustache. Their sticks clacked together. Caelan stumbled back, caught himself, then tried again. “Good,” Daran said. “You fall, you rise. Always rise.”
Elira leaned in the doorway, wiping her hands on a towel. “You two will break the table at this rate.”
“Then we will mend it,” Daran answered without looking back. His eyes stayed on his son, steady and proud. “What do you say, Cael? Another round?”
Caelan’s grin flashed, bright and eager. “Another round.”
It was in those moments, sweating and laughing on the floorboards, that Caelan learned discipline was not the opposite of kindness. His father could correct his grip one moment and tousle his hair the next. He could be strict without ever making Caelan doubt he was loved.
Later, when Gideon was born, Caelan remembered those lessons. He taught his little brother how to hold a stick, how to balance his feet, how to keep his chin up. But he gave Gideon more leeway, more room to laugh, because Caelan had already shouldered the weight of expectation. If their father was the model, Caelan would be the bridge, carrying the mantle so Gideon would not feel it so heavily.
By the time Caelan was fifteen, the practice yard behind their house had grown familiar with the rhythm of wooden blades. His stance had sharpened, shoulders filling out, movements smooth from repetition. He moved like someone already set on a path. His father’s stories of the battlefield echoed in his ears; tales of ambushes turned aside, of comrades shielded, of impossible odds survived. Caelan listened to every detail, memorized them, and then tried to imitate them in the dust of the yard.
It was around this age that he found the sword and shield wanting. They felt serviceable, but never natural in his hands, as though he were imitating rather than embodying the movements. The first time he hefted a practice glaive, however, the balance was different, truer. The weapon’s length sang in his grip, fluid and precise, demanding both strength and control. It fit him. From that day forward, he chose the glaive, determined to master the reach and rhythm that felt like an extension of his body.
Gideon, nine years old and round in the cheeks from too many helpings of Elira’s stew, stood opposite him with a wooden practice sword that always seemed too heavy for his arms. He swung hard, eyes scrunched in concentration, but the strike never landed where he wanted. He had already shown a clear preference for the sword and shield, perhaps because the shield felt safer, more solid against his arm. Where Caelan sought flow and precision, Gideon wanted security, something to hold against the world. Caelan caught the swing neatly on his staff, guided it away, then stepped back with a small smile. “Better. Keep your grip steady. Do not choke up on it too much.”
Gideon huffed, planting the tip of his wooden blade into the ground. “You make it look easy.”
“It is not easy,” Caelan said, tone calm but encouraging. “That is why we practice.”
From the kitchen window, Elira’s laugh carried out. “Stop bullying your brother, Cael. He is trying.”
“I am not bullying,” Caelan called back, his grin quick and boyish before he refocused. He tapped Gideon’s sword lightly. “Again. This time, aim lower. Think of where my balance is, not just where the blade can hit.”
Gideon puffed his cheeks, muttering, “Balance, balance, always balance,” but tried again. The swing came clumsy, but there was effort in it, and Caelan rewarded him with a nod.
When training ended, Gideon would scamper inside, wooden sword forgotten the moment he caught the scent of bread rising in the oven. He perched by Elira’s side, rolling dough with more flour on his face than in the bowl. “If I can cook like you, Mama,” he declared one afternoon, “then I can make these meals myself.”
Elira laughed, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Or for someone else, one day.”
Caelan lingered at the door, watching, the corners of his mouth tugging upward. He never teased Gideon for it. Instead, he thought of how their mother’s warmth balanced their father’s discipline, how Gideon seemed to inherit her gentleness. Caelan had inherited Daran’s focus, his hunger for discipline, his desire to serve. Even now, books on military tactics were stacked beside his bed, margins filled with notes written in his steady hand. He wanted the Guild. He wanted command. He wanted to prove that Daran’s legacy had not ended with one man.
But he never made Gideon feel small for being different. If anything, Caelan thought, the family needed both. One to hold the line. One to remind them what they were holding it for.
By the time they reached their early twenties, both brothers carried the Thorne name into the training halls of House Deneith with the same resolve that had carried their father before them. They had been forged by the same household, sharpened by the same lessons, but when the time came to choose their paths, their answers were different.
For Caelan, the decision came easily. He had known since his teenage years that he wanted the frontlines. He wanted the weight of a weapon in his hands, the roar of battle in his ears, the press of men beside him depending on his voice to hold the line. A fighter through and through, he wanted to lead not by word alone, but by standing shoulder to shoulder with his unit, by showing them what it meant to hold steady when the world tried to break.
Gideon, six years younger, walked the same halls with quieter steps. He wanted action too, wanted to stand in the shield-wall, but his heart pulled him toward something else. Not just striking, but protecting. He leaned toward the Oath, the light of a paladin, drawn to the idea that his strength could shield as much as it could strike. He chose the path of the defender, not out of fear of the fight, but out of a need to put himself between others and the blade.
Their choices looked different on paper, but in truth they fit together like pieces of the same steel. One to lead. One to guard. Both determined, both carrying the same lessons their father had pressed into them since boyhood. They trained under Daran’s watchful eye, and under the firm guidance of Marius Vayne, a commander whose words cut as sharply as his blade. Marius was stricter than their father, but he saw promise in both brothers and drove them hard. Caelan rose quickly, his natural discipline and bookish hunger for strategy earning him respect. Gideon surprised them all by how much he grew, the pudgy, reluctant boy carving himself into a Captain who could be trusted with men’s lives. Caelan sometimes watched his brother during drills, his movements cleaner, his jaw set, and thought with equal parts pride and unease: he is taking this more seriously than I ever expected.
Caelan had been a Captain for a few years when he learned the truth of war. Not in the mud, not under the banners, but in the rooms where maps lay unrolled and words cut deeper than steel. It was in those rooms that he realized battles could be won or lost before a single sword was drawn. He had learned to lead men in the field, but he began to see the necessity of leading them before they ever set foot there. So, when the offer came to trade his Captain’s post for a Commander’s desk, he accepted. Not because he had grown tired of the fight, but because he understood the fight had many faces. He would serve his men better by ensuring the battles they entered were winnable, by protecting clients before danger ever touched them. He never thought of it as sacrifice. He called it responsibility.
Sometimes, when Gideon’s name appeared on the Captain’s roll beside men years older, Caelan felt the old tug in his chest. Pride, yes, but worry too. Gideon’s eyes were steadier now, his shoulders broader, his steps more assured. He had grown into the kind of man Caelan had always hoped he would. But there were times, late at night, when Caelan wondered if he had pushed his brother too far down the same road he had walked. Too invested, too serious, too willing to bury himself in duty at the cost of everything else. Caelan could live with his own sacrifices, but the thought of Gideon making the same trade unsettled him. More than anything, he wanted his younger brother to have what he himself had never managed to claim: a private life that was more than just an afterthought, something whole and fulfilling beyond the work that consumed them both.
Caelan had always been the more visible brother. Even in their youth, it was plain to see. Gideon, with his round cheeks and soft laugh, preferred the kitchen to the ballroom, the back garden to the training hall unless Caelan dragged him along. Caelan himself grew into his frame quickly, his height and bearing marked by the same quiet discipline that made Daran’s name. Where Gideon seemed content in the shade, Caelan could not help but stand where others could see him.
By his teenage years he had been popular enough among the young women of Korth, though his early relationships never lasted long. His time was spent sparring with his brother, drilling with his father, or studying tactics by lantern-light, and the girls he courted quickly learned there was always something else holding his attention. At the time, he thought little of it. He was young, not yet in his prime. A relationship that flickered out after a season or two was no great loss.
Adulthood changed that.
By the time he wore the uniform of the Defenders Guild, he was no longer merely Daran Thorne’s son but Caelan Thorne in his own right. Tall, sharp-minded, already climbing the ranks. The name he carried was recognized, the family’s place in House Deneith secured. He had everything that made him, in the eyes of high society, the very picture of an eligible bachelor. Legacy, looks, reputation, rank. The subtle weight of coin behind his every stride.
The invitations began almost immediately. Sometimes the young women approached him directly, with nervous smiles and carefully practiced wit. More often, it was their mothers who circled, steering conversations and suggesting matches with a glance too pointed to be accidental.
Caelan did not resist. He told himself there was no reason not to try. He was still young, and it seemed natural to share his life with someone, to have a soft place to fall at the end of long days. Unlike in his teenage years, he began to make the effort. He carved time out of his schedule to take his partner out, to walk with her along the lit streets, to listen as she spoke of her world. He learned to buy gifts, to remember her preferences, to dress for places he would never have gone on his own. He knew a relationship needed tending, and he did his best to tend.
But no matter how hard he tried, his relationships slipped through his fingers.
He remembered one evening, standing outside a theatre in Highcourt, his uniform still carrying the faint scent of oil from the glaive he had polished that morning. His companion for the season, a bright-eyed daughter of a trading house, looped her arm through his as they stepped into the lantern light.
“Everyone stared when we came in,” she whispered against his shoulder, pleased. “They knew who you were. It felt… unreal. Like stepping into a story.”
Caelan smiled faintly. “If it pleased you, then I am glad.”
“You should wear the uniform more often,” she said, tugging at the gold trim of his coat. “It suits you better than plain clothes.”
He did not answer that. He only held the door for her.
The pattern repeated, one partner after another. Each time he thought perhaps he had found something lasting, each time it ended the same way.
“You are never here,” one told him, anger sharp as glass.
“I try to be,” Caelan replied evenly.
“Trying is not enough. I do not want a man who gives me his hours after everything else has taken him first.”
Another ended things more gently, her voice soft, eyes downcast.
“You are kind, Caelan. But I think you are married already.”
He raised a brow. “Married?”
“To your work.”
The final time came in his late twenties, with a woman who at first had seemed different. She was clever, charming, quick with her words. She laughed at his dry remarks, steadied his hand with hers at dinners, and for a while, Caelan let himself believe it could last. But the illusion cracked one evening in her father’s drawing room, with candles throwing long shadows against the panelled walls. She had dressed in her finest silks, and her smile was sharp with expectation.
“Caelan,” she began, her tone almost casual, “have you thought about when you might propose?”
The question struck him harder than any blade. He set down his glass and answered honestly, as he always did. “I have considered it. But not now. We are young still. Marriage is not a step to rush. There are things to secure first. Stability. A future built on more than names alone.”
Her smile froze. “So… not now. Not soon. Then when? Next year? Five years? You speak of stability, but you already have rank, wealth, position. What more do you need?”
He held her gaze steadily. “Time. Readiness. For both of us.”
Her laugh was brittle, cutting. “Readiness? I am ready, Caelan. I have been ready. It is you who hides behind excuses. Do you not see? The city already calls me the next Mrs. Thorne. I will not be left waiting while you polish your glaive and count maps in your office. It’s getting embarrassing.”
He felt the words strike, not because they wounded, but because they revealed the truth he had been unwilling to face. He was not her partner. He was her prize.
“If what you want is a name to wear, then you should not wait for me,” he said, his voice calm, unflinching. “Because that is not what marriage means to me. And if it is what it means to you, then it is better we end this now.”
Her expression hardened, though her voice trembled at the edge. “Then it is over. You will regret this, Caelan. No woman will wait forever.”
He rose, bowed politely, and replied with the same steady grace he had offered every commander, every patron, every woman who mistook him for something he was not. “Perhaps. But I will not regret speaking the truth.”
From that point on, he stopped looking. He promised himself something. If love was not for him, then it would be for Gideon. Gideon would not be allowed to sink into the same quiet resignation. Caelan would make sure of it. By hook or by crook, he would push his brother to find love, to hold it tightly, to build a life that was not only uniform and duty.
He also decided he would be nosey if it meant keeping Gideon safe from the kind of women who only wanted a Thorne on their arm. Gideon, for all his strengths, was still a little naive, and Caelan would not let him learn the same pain in the same way. Most of the time he would be subtle about it, tactical, steering conversations and asking questions with quiet precision. But if circumstances demanded it, he would not hesitate to play the role of the straightforward, brown-nosing older brother, if only to keep Gideon from making a mistake he could not take back.
It was a small price to pay to see his brother happy. Because deep down, Caelan remembered the younger version of himself who had once believed in love too.
At some point the tears had quieted, leaving only the small, uneven rhythm of Alena’s breathing against his side. Caelan sat still, letting the silence settle until he was sure she had drifted to sleep. Carefully, he eased his arm from around her shoulders, moving slow enough not to wake her, and slipped a cushion beneath her head. She stirred faintly but did not wake.
He rose, crossed to her room, and returned with a blanket folded over one arm. With the same care he gave to every task, he drew it over her, tucking the edge by her shoulder until she was cocooned in its warmth. The room was dark now, quiet, only the soft glow of a lavender-scented candle burning low on the table to keep the shadows at bay.
For a moment he stood there, watching her face in the dim light. Alena Morran, who still believed so stubbornly in true love. Part of him wanted to shake his head at it, at the naivety of a heart that had not yet been tempered by the disillusionments he knew too well. Sooner or later, he thought, she would learn that love in the world beyond her romance novels did not always look the way the pages promised. He hoped, quietly, that when that day came it would not break her completely.
And yet, there was something about her belief that softened him, against his will. As he had once promised to protect Gideon, perhaps fate had placed this small, hopeful believer in his path so that he might protect her too. Not from war, not from blades, but from the weight of burdens too heavy for one heart to bear alone.
He bent slightly, his voice little more than a breath. “Goodnight, Alena.”
Then he turned, leaving her to her dreams, and resigned himself to his own room, the faint scent of lavender trailing after him like a memory.