"Are you alright?" Elias asked Caelum, his voice a low rumble close to Caelum's ear, as he finished moving inside him.
Caelum gave a slow nod. "You do not have to pull out," he said, feeling Elias begin to slowly push himself up and away.
Elias offered a faint, gentle smile. "I was not about to," he replied, his breath warm against Caelum's neck. "I do not want to feel my magic being drained the very second I separate from you," he explained, a slight tension still present in his body.
"Should I turn around and lie down on my stomach?" Caelum suggested, his tone soft. "That might be a more comfortable position for you."
Elias shook his head, a slight tremor running through him. "I honestly do not want to move another single inch," he confessed, letting out a heavy sigh of contentment.
Caelum chuckled lightly and gently pulled Elias closer, encouraging him to settle completely. "Put your full weight on me," he instructed, wrapping his arms securely around Elias's back. "You know perfectly well that I will not be crushed under you," he said with a playful huff.
"I know that," Elias said, his voice muffled against Caelum's shoulder as he slowly allowed his full body weight to rest on Caelum. A moment of quiet passed before Elias spoke again, his voice dropping slightly. "I was thinking about the Ravenlofts just now," he admitted.
"I can certainly connect a few of the dots from what you have mentioned about the Ravenlofts and your older brother over this entire year," Caelum responded, stroking a soothing hand along Elias's spine.
"Clues from the things I have said about them?" Elias asked, lifting his head slightly to meet Caelum's eyes, a look of surprise crossing his face.
Caelum nodded slowly, his expression thoughtful. "Aristotle's initial target was not your brother, but you, I believe," he stated.
Elias gasped softly, a sudden realization dawning on him. "Now that you bring it up, he did come directly to me and practically ordered me to make him my personal knight and mage," he recalled, the memory unsettling.
"And when you firmly rejected his proposal, he cleverly selected your brother, Aurelius, who was clearly seeking someone to protect him," Caelum elaborated, his gaze steady. "Aristotle may not possess great physical strength, but he certainly has a cunning, sharp mind. He is capable of devising multiple, intricate schemes and planning exit points simultaneously," he added with a hint of respect for the opponent's intellect.
"Says the man who has managed to thwart his meticulously planned schemes every single time," Elias countered, huffing out a dry laugh.
"That is only because I can often anticipate what his plans will be," Caelum admitted with a humble shrug. "That specific skill is something I have acquired from reading far too many fictional novels," he confessed with a slight smile. "Besides, the poison was not actually administered to you until Aurelius was certain you would be named Crown Prince, was it?" he asked, his eyes searching Elias's for confirmation.
Elias nodded, his expression darkening slightly. "That suggests Aurelius must have complained bitterly about the decision to his mother, the main consort, and, of course, to Aristotle," he reasoned.
"Unable to fully accept that his chosen one was not designated as the Crown Prince, Aristotle then managed to completely change Aurelius' mind, completely poison him against me in the span of just one week, and ultimately forced me to ingest that poison?" Elias summarized, his voice rising in disbelief and anger at the sheer audacity of the scheme.
"That is precisely what I theorize happened," Caelum confirmed, his tone measured and serious.
"How incredibly certain are you of this complex theory?" Elias pressed, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"About seventy five percent sure, perhaps," Caelum admitted, a slight wrinkle in his brow.
"What exactly is stopping you from believing that this is precisely how the entire situation unfolded?" Elias asked, eager to understand Caelum's remaining reservations.
"Do you recall when you mentioned those faint rumors of the Ravenlofts supposedly colluding with a secretive foreign potions master and successfully creating a potent potion capable of controlling another person?" Caelum reminded him, his eyes holding a speculative glint.
Elias nodded slowly. "You genuinely think they actually invented a mind control potion and used it on Aurelius?" he questioned.
"There is almost always some foundation, some kernel of truth, behind persistent rumors," Caelum stated firmly. "We simply cannot afford to dismiss them out of hand just because they might seem wildly impossible," he warned.
Elias conceded the point with another nod. "I will write a confidential letter to Nathan and ask him if he discovered any trace of a strange potion on Aurelius or among his belongings," he decided.
Caelum agreed with a nod. "Furthermore, what do you vividly remember immediately before you were brutally forced to swallow the poison?" he asked, his voice gentle but insistent.
"I was with my mother, enjoying a delicious egg tart she had baked herself, when we were suddenly surrounded by the Ravenloft knights and forcibly kidnapped to the Ravenloft Manor," Elias recounted, his eyes distant as he recalled the traumatic event. "When I absolutely refused to eat or drink anything they offered me, the main consort placed a gleaming sword directly at my mother's throat and ordered me to drink the mysterious liquid contained in the vial before me," he explained, his jaw clenching with residual pain.
"I am truly sorry that I must ask this of you, but..." Caelum began, hesitating.
"You want to know my mother's immediate reaction, do you not?" Elias finished for him, offering a soft, sad smile despite the painful memory.
Caelum simply nodded, his eyes filled with profound sympathy.
"She struggled fiercely. That is why she has those deep scars visible on her neck even now. She desperately told me to forget about her completely and to immediately teleport away and inform my father of what was happening," Elias recounted, his voice thick with emotion.
"Yet, you still drank the vile potion, even after listening to her tell you explicitly to forget about her and save yourself?" Caelum asked, his voice filled with a mixture of awe and distress.
Elias nodded. "I simply could not bring myself to leave her there alone," he explained, a shadow of guilt crossing his face. "Why do you ask about that particular detail?"
"I am not entirely sure why I asked that specific question myself," Caelum admitted, running a thoughtful hand through his own hair. "When you drank the potion, was Aurelius even present in the Manor at that time?" he inquired, a new line of thought forming.
Elias shook his head decisively. "He was not there," he confirmed.
"Those specific recording spheres you showed me earlier in the palace, do you think the Ravenlofts still possess access to them?" Caelum asked, his tone becoming more urgent.
"They were the ones who originally gifted those spheres to the Royal Family a few decades ago," Elias said, and then gasped loudly, the final piece of the puzzle clicking into place. "Are you suggesting they deliberately planned this entire, elaborate thing from the start?"
Caelum nodded slowly and seriously. "You did mention that those particular spheres do not record voices, only images," he reminded Elias. "Do you clearly remember where Lady Isolde was standing in relation to your position when the incident occurred?" he asked.
Elias gasped again, a fresh wave of realization washing over him. "She was positioned to my far left side. If they intended to record my actions, then my mother would not have been visible within the frame, and neither would any of the other Ravenlofts," he reasoned, his mind racing.
"Perhaps then, we can safely conclude that the Ravenlofts were the sole proprietors and masterminds of this entire insidious poisoning scheme," Caelum stated, his voice firm with certainty.
"They provided the draining potion, they recorded me, they showed that recording to Aurelius after effectively giving him the mind control potion, making him falsely believe that I had taken some kind of strength potion to become more powerful than him, and then they gave him the potion that was designed to drain my magic and, in theory, make him stronger," Elias summarized, meticulously outlining the chilling sequence of events.
"And then, with each subsequent use of that draining potion by him, you instinctively began working even harder and faster to make yourself stronger, desperately hoping that your time limit would somehow increase," Caelum continued, completing the narrative with a heavy sigh. "But tragically, the limit did not increase; instead, your resistance to aphrodisiac like effects simply reduced, making it far easier for you to instinctively make your way to this specific room without completely losing your self control," he finished, his voice heavy with sorrow.
Elias sighed deeply, closing his eyes for a moment. "I honestly do not know whether I should thank Aristotle for inadvertently bringing me to you or outright hang him for all the terrible things he has done," he murmured, his voice filled with conflicted emotions.
Caelum ran a comforting hand through Elias's soft hair, a gesture of profound tenderness. "That final decision will ultimately be His Majesty's to make. What we can and must do now is carefully compile all of our statements and this solid theory, present it all to the King, and then allow Aristotle the chance to accept the truth," he advised.
"What do you think we should do about Aurelius?" Elias asked, his tone laced with concern for his misguided brother.
"I believe the mind control potion will finally lose its powerful effect once he is confronted with the complete truth," Caelum theorized, his eyes thoughtful. "If we carefully break the devastating truth out to him, layer by excruciating layer, that control potion will be utterly unable to keep him under Aristotle's spell, because the man will already be mentally wracking his brain to think of any possible way to refuse to acknowledge his numerous crimes," he explained, a cold, calculated logic in his voice.
"You are truly terrifying sometimes," Elias said, though a genuine laugh escaped him at the sheer depth of Caelum's planning.
"That is a mean thing to say, Your Highness," Caelum huffed dramatically, though a small smile touched his lips.
"I mean it as a compliment. No one else thinks this deeply, analyzes situations this thoroughly, formulates numerous complex theories, connects seemingly disparate dots, and then correctly realizes which one of those theories is absolutely correct," Elias praised, slowly winding his strong arms underneath Caelum's body and hugging him close. "But above all else, I am immensely glad that you chose me instead of Aurelius," he whispered sincerely.