Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The pen was mightier than the sword. That was the old adage, wasn’t it? And he supposed that it was right, in a way; after all, the histories of Zaphias’ old nobility had done more to dictate the way its machinations ran today than any old forgotten knight left to molder in the crypts, no matter what kind of swordsman he had been. Who knew, for instance, the truth of that one-eighths streak of royal blood than ran in Emperor Ioder’s veins, really, other than what had been written about it? And was there really anything different about the way in which his noble heart beat compared to the one thudding on in the chest of some little urchin in the Lower Quarter? Yes, maybe Flynn would have found more sway in the capital as a historian than a commandant. Perhaps as he himself sat behind the heavy-burdened back of his desk there was a bespectacled fellow hiding in some dark corner somewhere writing out the future of another emperor he would raise in a future age. 

Well, Flynn thought, if he were to become a historian himself one day he would come about it honestly. He sighed and dipped the nib of his pen into his inkwell and set it upon the page spread before him. It scratched across the parchment in a neat and steady hand. He’d written a dozen tomes himself between all of his notes and signatures. The pen was mightier than the sword, and the head of an army was its beleaguered registrar.

Not that he longed for war — on the contrary, the peace that had fallen sleepily across the empire following Ioder’s ascension was the sweetest thing he’d ever seen. He had feared insurrection, doubt, or at the very least cynicism following the unlikely end-and-beginning of the world. Instead Ioder’s coronation was met with fanfare that still echoed in the streets nearly a decade later. Still, it was a different business now, serving as a commandant in a flourishing world instead of one that was burning. 

“Commandant,” the word echoed outside his door. He cleared his throat and tipped his pen back into its holder. 

“Yes, what is it?” 

“Captain Yassik requests an audience.” Yassik. It was name he recognized. He could not picture the man’s face. A recent promotion, he wagered; yes, he remembered now. Just a season before this Yassik had risen in rank following his predecessor’s retirement. Flynn smiled lightly. And what a relief that was, the idea of a life after service following so many years of early graves. 

“Very well. Please show him in.” A woman entered instead. Flynn’s stomach sunk as he realized his mistake. Captain Yassik bowed benevolently all the same as he rose to greet her. 

“I apologize, Captain.” She dipped her chin in response. 

“Please, Commandant, there is no need. It was a cruel name for my mother to give me. Better Mara or Natalia, but I was a Yassik from the day that I was born.” 

“Please, sit.” He followed his own advice and watched her as she took a seat in one of the leather bound chairs waiting for her before the desk. “Where does that name come from?” 

“My uncle. He was my mother’s favorite brother. She swore to him that she would name her firstborn after him, and I was too stubborn to wait for my own brother to be born.” She smiled nicely. He returned the look. “Thank you for allowing me your time.” 

“Of course, Captain. And congratulations on your promotion. You must know that Captain Drake gave you his highest commendation. I suspect you have lived up to his expectations.” 

“That is very generous, Commandant, but I must admit that Halure is not much a seat of conflict.” 

“And yet a critical part of the empire.” He thought of the city’s pink blossoms fondly. It would be a better place to be than here, in Zaphias, where the weather had already grown chilled and drizzly and hinted at only worse things still as the season wore on into autumn. “So how is it that I may help Halure?” 

“It isn’t Halure exactly, sir.” 

“Yes?” He felt a prick of annoyance pull at the nape of his neck. This captain seemed keen of riddles. In sleepy Halure perhaps her cageyness was a feature but here, with so many sheaths of paper looming at his elbow for signature, it had already become a minor annoyance. She caught his changing mood easily enough. Her lips twitched, just slightly, but enough to ruin the perfect stillness of her features. She looked amused. 

“There have been, well, rumors among the village folk about strange happenings in the wilds. They had been common enough for some time, but nothing had come of them in the past. Captain Drake was aware of them as well. We investigated the rumors under his orders but there were no complaints from travelers, nothing unexplained. The most we learned was that there was a queer feeling to be felt out in the hinterlands, if you were to search it out. Of course, Captain Drake did not investigate the matter further after we found that to be the most compelling piece of evidence to be had. Just recently, however, sir, I have met with some of my comrades here in the palace. As you know, not many captains pass through Halure, but here I have spoken with many more as they make their way from one place to the next, and some of them have told me similar stories to the ones I’ve heard before. They say that many of the small folk are worried.” 

“Worried? About what?” 

“I don’t know, sir. As it was in Halure it is in other parts of the empire. The townspeople have begun to make little talismans to carry with them to ward it off, and some are even unwilling to travel between the cities, no matter the amount of charms they bear.” 

“Ward off what, exactly?” 

“They call it sapros. As I understand it, it is meant as a catch-all for the idea of something foul. Something evil.” 

“I see,” Flynn sighed. So she had come to him to share another newborn superstition. Peace had brought enough of that into the capital already. Even Emperor Ioder had fallen victim to it, seeking out different forms of fealty to some higher power with every passing season. It hadn’t surprised him, really; after all, for all of the madness that had filled the world, including an eldritch beast that he had seen with his own eyes lurking in the heavens to devour them, was it so strange to develop a new faith along the way? Still, the commandant knew that there was likely as much truth behind the capital’s new obsession with piety as there was in all of the legends that had first placed Ioder on the throne — very little, that is, but enough still to sway an empire. “And so what would you have me do?” 

“I,” she stuttered in response, her eyes dropping to her lap. She had not expected him to be so easy to win over. He stilled the corner of his lip from curling into a smirk. Better that she not see the cynicism which had begun to blossom between all of his own grand ideas. “I mostly wanted to make sure that you were aware, Commandant. Forgive me, but I know that you have battled great evil before.” He hummed. 

“Yes, of course. Well then, Captain. Thank you for making me aware. You are the first to tell me about this situation. I appreciate you coming forward. Will you keep me informed, then? Of anything else you learn from your compatriots, or if you observe anything in the field?”  

“Of course, Commandant. Thank you, Commandant.” He meant to wave off her overzealous appreciation but was interrupted by a knock at the door. 

“Flynn!” He blanched as Estelle’s cheery voice floated through the panels. She had never been one for protocol — or not recently, at least. Captain Yassik stood to attention and bowed deeply at the waist. 

“I have interrupted you from your work,” she insisted. “Thank you for your time, Commandant, and for your support.” 

“Captain,” he replied with a nod. She made a quick retreat to the door. Estelle nearly caught her in her arms as she swung it open. The princess giggled and sidestepped to allow her to pass into the hall following another courteous fold of her stiff-backed chest. 

“Lady Estellise,” Flynn greeted her, standing again from his seat as she closed the door behind her. 

“How many times will you call me that, Flynn? Soon I will suspect that you do it to annoy me.” He smiled and escaped from behind his papers to join her in the chairs arranged at the center of the room. “Who was that?” Her eyes sparkled coyly at the question. 

“Captain Yassik of the Halure brigade,” he answered, his own eyes drifting to a splotch of ink staining the cuff of his sleeve. He pinched it between his fingers and fought the urge to wet it with his tongue. 

“She’s young for a captain.” 

“Many of us were.” 

“And very pretty.” He scrubbed the stain against his pant leg and rolled his eyes. 

“That is an insulting insinuation for both myself and for Captain Yassik. Perhaps she will be commandant one day herself, and not for her looks.” Estelle screwed her face into a frown. 

“You are never any fun.” 

“No, well, I suppose not. How are you, then? Have you been writing?” 

“Yes,” she chirped, her cheeks growing pink again with pleasure as she jumped to the new topic. “A set of short stories this time. One of them is about you. I hope you like it.”

“Hopefully it isn’t too honest a portrayal.” 

“Oh, Flynn. Maybe I won’t let you read it, after all. I’ve...I’ve also been writing lots of letters,” she admitted. He waited for her to continue and found that she had become uncharacteristically mute. 

“What is it?” There was something guilty in her face. He huffed a tight breath through his nose. For goodness sake. “To whom have you been writing letters, Estelle?” The nickname seemed to charm her enough to continue. 

“I’ve grown rather fond of someone.” 

“Really?” He laughed, but not in an unkind way. To be honest he was surprised to hear her admit such a thing to him. They met often, the way that any two people who shared a home in the same place would — but although their friendship was an old one it had never been terribly intimate, aside from her constant scheming to loop him into romance himself. And that wasn’t unique to him, he’d found; no, she was generous in seeking out love across her network, constantly dancing between her friends to link them together with no sensitivity towards the mess she left behind. Naturally, to her the idea of a commandant and a captain as bedfellows would be romantic instead of nepotistic — but the latter, of course, wasn’t something that was as pleasant to fit into one of her love stories. She blushed deeply at his question. 

“Yes,” she muttered, suddenly shy and picking at her skirts. “I think it might be rather serious. You are one of my dearest friends, you know, and always honest with me. I thought perhaps I could tell you about it, and that you could tell me if I am being a fool.” He frowned. 

“Don’t talk like that. I’m sure that if you care for this person, that it is enough.” 

“I don’t know,” she laughed, “I loved you once, too, didn’t I?” His mouth grew dry. 

“Estelle—”

“I’m teasing you,” she insisted. “I’ve quite recovered from that rejection.”

“Still, I don’t know if I am much one to ask for relationship advice.” She patted his knee. 

“That’s exactly why I wanted to talk to you about it. I think you’ve probably invented a hundred reasons to turn down all of the perfectly acceptable proposals I’ve made for you, so will you tell me if you have another one prepared for what I’m about to tell you?” 

“Alright!” He threw his hands up in defeat. “Out with it, then. Who is it?” 

“It’s someone you know.” 

“Oh, Estelle, please, no more riddles for today.” 

“It’s Harry.” 

“Harry who?” He shuffled a parade of men’s faces through his mind. There were plenty of Harrys to pick from. His breath caught in his throat as one flashed forward in advance of the others. “Harry Whitehorse?” She made a mewling noise and buried her face in her hands. 

“Is it really so terrible an idea?” He reached out towards her chair, his fingers hovering over her bowed head and stilled by the mystery of what to do next. He patted them limply against her shoulder after a moment’s hesitation. 

“No,” he managed afterwards, “not terrible, just that I didn’t know you really knew him at all.” He had nearly forgotten the man himself. He’d heard rumors that the poor fellow had finally shrugged off his grandfather’s legacy — or at least enough not to smother under it — but Dahngrest had been well enough behaved to require little of his attention. And better for him that it had, to be honest. 

“Well, I do,” she insisted, peeking at him between her fingers. “I do have a life outside of our lunches, you know. I like him, Flynn. He has been writing to me for years. At first I think he meant to see if I would spill any secrets about the empire to him. He wasn’t very good at that. But he was funny, and sweet, and he would read my manuscripts and send me the most clever edits in reply.” 

“I don’t know,” he admitted, his hands retreating to fold together against his lap. “Guild men aren’t like courtiers, Estelle.” 

“He isn’t the only one of my friends in a guild, you know.” His mouth twitched at her contention. No, he supposed not.

“Well, Estelle,” he sighed, “you certainly know Harry better than I do. If you think he is a good man then perhaps he is. But have you even spent any time with him? In person, that is?” 

“That’s why I’ve come to you.” 

“I thought you said you wanted my advice,” he replied, cocking his brow at her. 

“Yes, that, and also that I thought you might like to accompany me to Dahngrest.” His eyes rolled in their sockets before he had the chance to cut the childish reaction short. She pouted just as quickly. 

“I don’t think so.”

“Please, Flynn.” 

“I have enough to do here as it is.” 

“You are allowed some time off.” 

“No, I’m not.” 

“You are. I’ve read your guidebook. Every member of the Imperial Knights is granted two weeks’ leave a year.” 

“Estelle,” he insisted through his teeth, learning towards her over his knees. “I can find a proper guard to accompany you, if you’d like, but I cannot play matchmaker for you. I am perhaps the worst man for the task. Besides, where I am has never stopped you from traveling before.” She gripped his hands. 

“Wouldn’t you like to visit with everyone, though? It’s been so long!” He fought the urge to pull himself free from her grasp. “Don’t you think that it would be fun?” 

“I’m sure you will have a wonderful time.”  

“Flynn, please.” Her face had fallen. “I worry about you, you know.” 

“What?” He barked a laugh. “After everything that has happened, we are perhaps the safest we’ve ever been. What could you possibly worry about?” 

“Just that you’re alone.” 

“Estelle,” he groaned. “I’m not alone. In fact I am incredibly behind on my responsibilities because my office is always full.” 

“I don’t mean it like that. Is it really so easy for you to forget your friends?” He winced. 

“I haven’t forgotten them.” 

“Harry told me that Brave Vesperia has been promoted to one of the five master guilds. Imagine how happy Karol would be if you congratulated him on it in person.” 

“Yes, well, you can give him my regards for now. He’ll be much more thrilled to see you.” 

“Flynn,” she groaned, exasperated. “Come. Don’t play me like a fool. You can’t fight with Yuri forever.” 

“I’m not fighting with Yuri,” he snapped. She crossed her arms tight across her chest. 

“What is it, then? You avoided all of them when they were in the capital last year. Judy told me.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“I’m not fighting with anyone. But I don’t need to live in lock-step with Yuri Lowell or even the whole of Brave Vesperia in order to bide my time. I can’t go, Estelle, not now. I hope Harry is exactly as you have imagined him from your letters. Truly, I do. Tell me the word and I’ll prepare an escort for you. But I’m not going to go to Dahngrest with you. Not this time.” 

“Fine,” she mumbled dejectedly. Her tone left him feeling miserable as well. He wondered if he should hug her, but she stood and left before he had the chance. His gut sunk as he tipped his head against the back of his chair. Was he becoming a miserable old man, young even as he still was? Bah. And what if he was? He was not some idle courtier, after all. The thought compelled him to stand and wander back to his desk. He grit his teeth at the pile of papers waiting for him. The next one on the stack was thicker than the rest and hidden inside a crisp envelope. He took it and began to pace the room, his curiosity rising as he noticed Ioder’s neat seal along the edge. It cracked and crumbled into little golden nuggets as he peeled open the envelope and eased the packet out. A Treatise on Proper Living, it was entitled. He fought the urge to roll his eyes again before beginning to thumb through the pages. A few gilded headers stood out and made his stomach sour. He tossed the packet into one of the chairs with a disgusted noise and turned to stare listlessly through the windows into the empty gardens outside. 

———

“Are you alright?” 

“Leave me alone.” 

“Come on, don’t be like that. Those boys are gone. They won’t bother you no more.” 

“I said, leave me alone!” 

“No way.” 

“Go away,” the little boy sniffed. His eyes, wide and full of tears and nearly hidden beneath his curls, stared back down at his skinned knee in misery. 

“Aw, it’s barely bleeding! Don’t cry.”

“Stop it!” He pushed at the dark-haired boy as he reached down to pull him up to his feet. 

“Don’t be a baby,” the boy insisted back, reaching out again. “Here. Look what I have.” He brandished a sweet wrapped in blue cellophane. “I’ll give you half if you get up.” 

“...alright.” They stood together. The shiny wrapper crinkled as the boy made good on his promise. “Ew, don’t do that!” It was too late. The boy had already bitten the little chocolate in two and handed the second half to him. 

“What? Why?” 

“You got your spit on it!” The boy laughed. 

“I ain’t sick. Here. You eat it or I will. It’s good. It has camel in it.” The blond-haired boy eyed the way the sticky sweet had already dripped onto his benefactor’s dirty fingers. His mother would have chastised him for eating it. That made him want it more. 

“Caramel,” he corrected glumly. The boy laughed and shrugged his shoulders, seemingly unconvinced. He frowned but plucked it from him and popped it into his mouth before he lost his nerve. 

“There. Better?” 

“Better,” the boy mumbled in agreement. 

“Right! So where do you live, eh?” 

“I live on Walnut Street.” The boy laughed. 

“Sure you do.” 

“I do!” The other boy curled his fingers into fists and turned fast on his new friend. 

“There aren’t no Walnut Streets in the Lower Quarter,” the first boy insisted, his palms raised defensively. His argument made the second boy’s lip quiver. 

“My house is on Walnut Street,” he insisted. “Right on the corner next to the big tree with the swing.” 

“There aren’t no trees with swings in the Lower Quarter,” the sooty-faced boy laughed. 

“Flynn!” They both looked over guiltily at a woman pushing her way through the afternoon crowds. She wore a long dress of blue cotton that matched the crumpled wrapper in her son’s fist. “Where did you run off to? And what have you done to yourself? Oh, for all of the devils in the world. And you — get out of here,” she waved her hands at the second boy this time, shooing him like one of the mangy dogs that ran in wild packs through the streets. “Go on. We don’t have anything for you.” 

“Mama—”

“Come on, Flynn. I told you not to wander. Look at what’s happened. Quickly!” The little boy looked over his shoulder as his mother dragged him forward. The other boy was disappearing behind the tide of striding legs and meandering feet — still, he could see him smiling and waving at him goodbye. His nose was still bloody from where one of the urchin boys had hit him. It didn’t seem to bother him. 

———  

“What do you think?” Flynn eyed the smoking vial with apprehension. He thought it was a disaster, but he also knew that it would be the end of Witcher’s pride if he were to be honest with him. 

“It’s...interesting.” 

“That’s what I thought!” The man turned on his heel to grin at the final figure completing their old trio. Sodia smiled thinly at him in return. “That’s what I thought. You see, it is because the powder is so eager to ignite! If only we could harness that eagerness, that energy, perhaps we could use it to power the cores again.” Or perhaps they would invent a new breed of bomb. Flynn was compelled to think that it was the latter. 

“Keep at it, Witcher,” he managed. “But be careful.” He glanced up into the rafters of the dark space the mage had commandeered below the lowest cells of the palace jailhouse. It would do them no good to cave in the floors, even if it would only crush some criminals in doing so. Not a good joke, he insisted to himself quietly; maybe he was becoming a little too bitter. “We’ll leave you to it, then.” 

“Yes, yes, Commandant.” The mage had already turned to peek into the blackened glassware again. 

“He’ll be the end of all of us,” Sodia admitted as they trailed into the damp hall outside. Flynn rubbed his eyes until they sparkled against the gloom. 

“Yes, maybe. Most likely. Still. We can’t run an empire on kindling and candles forever.” 

“No,” she agreed. “I hear in Nordopolica they have begun to experiment with water wheels.” 

“If only we had an ocean ourselves.” They summited into the jails and further still, until the light of the waning afternoon sun made their eyes water. Their boots clipped sharply against the palace marble. It was quiet. The courtiers would be busy napping, or whispering secrets in some hidden corner, or whatever it was they did when they weren’t otherwise conspiring. It was too late for the knights’ drills in the yards and too early for their rumbling voices to fill the canteen for dinner. A mid-day twilight hour. Flynn yawned. 

“Commandant,” Sodia began suddenly. He glanced over at her with surprise. She’d nearly whispered the word. “Can I speak plainly with you?” 

“Always,” he promised. She nodded before gesturing at an open door. Did she mean for him to go inside? He looked over at her, confused. She trailed forward to confirm it. Soon they were alone in the abandoned parlor. 

“Is something the matter?” 

“Commandant,” she began again, “I was wondering if perhaps you have recently been in contact with his excellency the emperor.” 

“What do you mean? Of course I have, as the need has come about, and no more or less than usual.” 

“And do you know if it is true, then? This new religious interest of his?” 

“The pamphlet,” he surmised grimly. “Did you receive one as well?” 

“It was addressed to every commissioned officer,” she told him uneasily. 

“I knew nothing of it until I saw it myself. Those zealots from Desier have overstepped.” 

“And have you read it?” 

“In parts.” He combed his fingers through his hair. “It’s madness, Sodia, and nothing more. Surely something new will catch his fancy soon.” 

“I don’t know,” she argued, maintaining her unnerving stare. “That is not what I have heard.” He frowned. Sodia was not much of a gossip — if she had heard such a thing it was more a fact than fancy. He sighed and looked away. The gesture made her own stern look fail. “Flynn,” she tried again, her voice losing its usual clipped tone, “if he truly believes what he’s written, what will that mean for us? For the knights? For the empire? The implications... they aren’t exactly open to interpretation.” 

“No,” he agreed, that gold-leafed pamphlet spreading open in his mind. Each scrolling subject bloomed for him to read again — On the Roles of Men and Women, it had proposed in one section; On Duty and Family, another; On Cleanliness, a third. The work in its totality set an impossible binary built of disorder and austerity. On one hand was the beast, the monster they were perpetually seeking out and which hunted them as eagerly; and, on the other, a white-robed virgin to which all of the empire was to aspire. In its few pages it had thrown many of their own norms into question, if not challenged them outright. Flynn wondered, and not for the first time, if the quietude of peace had taunted some of the more devious minds of the empire into inventing a new enemy to thrash against — this time the average man. 

“I’ve worked for everything I’ve earned,” Sodia insisted to him, her cheeks suddenly flushed. “I won’t give it up.” 

“I know, Sodia.” He gripped her arm. It was too familiar, really, but that was their dynamic, wasn’t it — always dancing between the stiff-jawed formalities of the Imperial Knights and a tight camaraderie that only serving in such an institution could build. There was an irony in it, the way that both of them cherished pomp and circumstance and yet had become, plainly, close friends. She had even vied for something more, just like Estelle had, and out of what must have been a shared moment of madness to pine after someone like him. “I’ll speak with the emperor. As soon as possible, I promise.” 

How many promises had he made? He pondered on the question, later, as he stared into the glass of his bathroom mirror. Once it would have fogged from the steam of his bath but now, with no blastia to warm the water for him — or even to draw it up, as now it had to be lugged up those hundreds of stairs in sloshing buckets — it was clear and crystalline just like his frigid plunge had been. He rubbed his hair dry with a towel and ran his fingers over the first bristles roughing his jaw. How many promises? Not too many, really, and all of them had been paid in full. He’d promised his father to be brave and to be kind. He’d promised his mother to behave, to mind his studies. Look after them, his captain had told him once, a simple mantra that he followed carefully even now. Do your duty, the empire had demanded, and he had pledged it in return. But now all of those promises had begun to tug against each other like a dozen lines tangled by a churning current.  

No matter, he insisted to himself as he turned to retreat to his bed. He would speak with the emperor in the morrow and solve this newest challenge just like he had all of the rest, and before it grew into something ugly and biting. 

———

“Flynn! Hey! Wake up! Let’s go fishing!” 

“No,” a voice cried out from behind the shuttered window. “Not today.” 

“Aw, come on! There’s trout!” 

“I don’t want to.” 

“You never want to do anything.” The shutters snapped open. 

“That isn’t true,” the boy insisted from inside. His friend laughed and juggled the rock he’d readied to clack against the shutters between his palms. “I just don’t want to go fishing.” 

“Alright, fine. Let’s go to the market, then. They’re racing turtles.” 

“Don’t you have anyone else to go with?” 

“I thought you liked turtles!” 

“I — it isn’t about the turtles, Yuri. I’m busy.” 

“Busy doing what?” 

“Nothing!” The shutters clattered closed again. The boy outside lingered for a moment, drawing a circle in the loose gravel of the road with his toe, before he advanced upon the little house and gripped at its crooked gutter. He scaled it easily, his long limbs spider-like against the sun-baked bricks. He opened the shutters and peeked inside. 

“Hey.” 

“Yuri... My mother doesn’t like it when you come here.” 

“Your mother went to the washerwoman’s. I saw her go.” 

“Fine. But don’t get the curtains dirty.” The boy returned to his spot sitting in the middle of his room. There was a little figurine set before him. It was a horse carved of wood and with a tin-clad knight sitting astride it. He was not playing with it. He was simply looking at it, his legs crossed beneath him and his back straight, nearly reverent. His friend trailed behind him, unsure of what to do with his own body — too tall for his age, which made him look more like a caricature than a boy — as he leaned against the simple desk set against the wall. 

“What are you doing?” 

“I’m thinking.” 

“Thinking? Thinking about what?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“Thinking isn’t as fun as turtle races. Let’s go. They have that one with two heads. I heard that sometimes they bite each other.” 

“I don’t want to go to the stupid turtle races,” the boy sniffed. His shoulders folded defensively as he realized that he was crying. 

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing.” 

“Then why are you crying?” 

“I’m not crying.” His friend made a wordless noise and pushed himself from his spot to sit beside him. 

“Alright, but then what are you doing?” The boy fiddled with the laces of his shoe and stared hotly into the corner. 

“My father,” he huffed finally, his voice catching in his throat, “today was the day that he...” He reached forward to pick up the figurine and turn it between his fingers. “It isn’t fair. I was supposed to go to the academy. Mother was supposed to be a lady. She said that we would just be like this for a little while. But that isn’t what happened.” 

“Oh, it’s not that bad. This is a nice house.” 

“It’s dirty! It’s dirty, and small, and I don’t like sleeping on the ground like a dog. It’s always cold and I can hear that man next door coughing all of the time.” 

“I like your house,” his friend contended. 

“You wouldn’t understand!” 

“Why not?” 

“Because you’re just an urchin!” 

“I’m not just...” He looked away, his fingers gripping into fists. “My father’s dead too, you know.”  

“But you didn’t know your father.” 

“What does that matter?” 

“It matters!”

“It doesn’t. You’re lucky. You have a mother and a house and a place to sleep every night that’s the same and doesn’t get wet when it rains. And you can read, and you have toys, and your shoes don’t have holes. That’s all, you’re just lucky, even if you’re mean.” 

“I’m not mean.” The boy clacked the horse’s hooves against the floor. “I didn’t mean to be mean. I’m sorry.”  

“It’s okay,” his friend shrugged, although his frown betrayed him. “I’m sorry your father died. I remember him. He was always nice to all of us, not like the rest of them up there.” 

“Yeah.” He picked up the figurine again and ran his fingers over the horse’s well-worn body. Finally, as if in hesitation, he screwed the knight from his saddle and offered it to his friend. “Here.” 

“What? Oh, no, you don’t have to give me that. I was just sayin’, Flynn. Besides, we’re too old for toys anyways.” 

“Still, you should have one, too.” He smiled, tightly at first, and then more brightly as he took the little knight and turned it to shine in the sunlight streaming through the window. 

“Okay. Okay! Thanks!” 

“You just have to promise,” the boy replied, sounding older than he was, and far too desperate, “that you won’t go away, too.” 

“Of course not,” his friend agreed, tipping the knight in a bow before his trusty steed. “You’re my friend.” 

———

“Your excellency,” Flynn greeted the emperor, bowing low. The wide eye of the imperial crest stared up at him from the neat mosaic of the floor.

“Commandant,” the emperor replied politely from his spot along the towering heights of his well-packed bookshelves. “Please. We’re alone. There’s no need for such formalities.” Flynn unfolded to face him. He was dressed in a tight-pressed jacket woven from a silver thread. Another one of the zealots’ influences, Flynn wagered. It made the young man look more strangled than empowered. “What is it that I can do for you?” 

“I thought that perhaps we could talk about your recent treatise,” Flynn offered carefully. The emperor smiled and gestured towards a little table beset by round-backed chairs. 

“Ah, you’ve seen it then, have you? Yes, of course, of course.” Ioder strode forward and took a seat, plucking an orange from a nearby bowl as he did. He began to peel it neatly as Flynn came to join him. “Did you read it?” 

“Yes, your excellency.” Ioder hummed as he picked pieces of pith away from one of the sunset-orange lobes. 

“How many hours have we spent speaking together in this room?” He waved dismissively at the marble colonnade that flanked them. “Enough for first names, I think, don’t you agree?” 

“I read it,” Flynn insisted. Ioder smiled. 

“You didn’t like it.” 

“I think you’ve let the emissaries from Desier over-direct your hand.” 

“I imagine they would say the same about you. Would you like some of this to eat?” 

“No, thank you.” 

“What was it, then, that you did not like?” Flynn frowned. “You feel that strongly about it, do you?” 

“Half of the officers in the Imperial Knights are women,” the commandant contended. “And you have written that they must forego their positions based on their sex.” 

“Based on the fact that we are an empire of twenty men to the six-thousand beasts that swarm at our backs!” Ioder twisted a scrap of peel between his fingers. “Think of it, Flynn. You have seen the world. More than most others have. How many settlements do we have across it all? Ten? Fifteen? And all of us packed like animals inside, and fearful of stepping foot even in the fields in which we grow our grain. And yet the wolves prowl unhindered in the hinterlands, and breeding with abandon, so that they may fill each continent with even more creatures to hunt us out!” 

“What is it that you suggest, then?” 

“That our women become mothers, Flynn, not shield-maidens fighting against an unstoppable horde. That our men become settlers of all of this empty space we have allowed to grow wild. We have relied for too long on violence to bring us in to a new age. Now, finally, we have peace — due in no small part to you — and we must take advantage of it. Learn from our mistakes, not repeat them. Build a new world that is good, and virtuous, so that we will never again be forced back into the darkness from which we have yet so recently emerged.”

“And you will do this by turning captains into broodmares?” Ioder flinched. 

“That is a cruel interpretation, my dear old friend. But if you would simply take the time to consider my proposal I think you would find your own hand in it. Think of Aurnion, would you? A shelter within a savage land, and a place where enemies have become friends. The empire needs to build more Aurnions, Flynn, not to keep on pushing its people into slums after they’ve fallen from the heights of whichever grand old city they fancy. But each Aurnion will need craftsmen, farmers, shopkeepers and mayors. They will need a history, a legacy, not just nomads passing through before they retire to Zaphias and grow fat and old!  

What more —and more important than all the rest — the empire needs new blood that does not pine for the past. Aspio still weeps for the blastia that had nearly condemned us. The nobility calls out for convenience and rallies me with petitions when they find none, each one more biting and bitter than the last. They’ve learned nothing from all of that suffering. Nothing from the death of your knights, Commandant, and the men and women that came before them. It isn’t right. We must turn to a new generation that is less anxious to tear apart this world we’ve inherited. But how can we expect change if they are born into the same backwards customs? No more warriors, Flynn. We must be brave enough to insist it. No more silver-tongued courtiers ready to sell off their righteousness for coin. We must change. We will find ourselves in ruin if we do not.”

“No one would disagree with you, Ioder,” Flynn insisted. “But you can’t expect them to submit to these new measures.” 

“Why not? How else do you think they will change? Will they promise me, is that it? Will they make a pledge to turn away the bribes that have filled their pockets for years, generations? Will they accept the poor into their halls and feed them from their larders to win over my affection? I think not. People need rules. They need to understand the expectations set before them. With time they will understand the reasons why they have been made. Perhaps when our own sons and daughters have grown old they will believe them, in their hearts, and require law no longer. But we are not yet at that point. The ruins of our many wars are still hot and smoking, Flynn. We must repent. We must be diligent. This is the future that we have already bought, and with blood and suffering, and I will see it through.” 

“And what of the knights, then?”

“What of them? You have turned them into a true and gracious order. Our new world poses no threat to them, only reward.” 

“Don’t be coy, Ioder. You know what I suggest.” 

“Study the treatise, Flynn,” the emperor suggested in reply, peeling another lobe from his orange. “This cynicism of yours does you no favors. Read it again, that’s all I ask, and then return to me and we will discuss it further.”  

The pamphlet was waiting for him in his study, later, some of its pages folded at the corner from where it had fallen between the cushions of his chair. He smoothed them flat against his thigh and traced the gilded letters with his thumb. Proper Living. And what did Ioder know of that? His life had been full of nothing but fresh-washed sheets and scrubbed marble and imported silks disposed of as soon as they were stained. It wasn’t his fault, really. As a prince he had been eager to see what waited for him outside the palace gates, just like his distant cousin, although he had perhaps not been as daring as she had been to escape them. As an emperor he had never turned his nose on the unwashed. He fed them and was gentle with them, and directed no small part of his attention towards rising them up from the slums his forefathers had sequestered them into. And now he seemed to think that his new set of rules would be more powerful in helping them than his generosity had ever been. 

Maybe Flynn had become too cynical, trapped as he had been inside the cage of his office and all of its dry responsibilities. And what did he know of empire-building, anyway? In any case, he had been born and bred to follow rules. As a commandant he had even learned how to challenge them, from time to time, when they weren’t well-defined. But he wasn’t very good at writing them anew. And any socialized place needed rules, didn’t it? He did as well. He liked them. Order was relief, a quiet shelter hidden inside life’s chaos and messy permutations. Do this and don’t do that, because others have before, and look at the mess they made. 

He flipped open the pamphlet’s cover again and glanced over its title page. It was benign enough, decorated as it was with the illustration of a few drooping calla lilies. He took one of the pages by the corner and began to read the first quarter. On the Roles of Men and Women, it told him. His eyes slid slowly over the words. His stomach sunk as they did, deeper and deeper into his gut until it threatened to fall into his knees. He sighed and closed the pamphlet again, tossing it this time to the carpet at his feet. He clapped his hands over his face, then, a shield against this new complication, and felt himself drift off uneasily into the gloom of the night.  

———

The boy sped down the winding streets, the soles of his shoes clapping against the cobbles. He took each turn with a deft familiarity. There were more behind him, calling out and grabbing at him like hounds after a hare. He was too busy staring upwards to watch backwards for their gripping hands. Above, darting in shadow, another boy was leaping over the narrow gaps between the crooked rooftops crowding the roads like cliffs. 

“Be careful!” He gasped for the words as his pace quickened again. His friend’s laughter answered in reply — a caw, just like the angry birds that fluttered from their perches as he disturbed them with his reckless run. 

“Yuri Lowell!” Another boy cried out the name with a spitting sourness. “I’ll kill you!” 

“You couldn’t manage it in a hundred years, you hairless donkey!” 

“Say that again! I dare you!” The boy pinwheeled his arms as they spilled into a crowded plaza. No more places for his friend to leap now. He looked up again to watch him as his dark shape dropped from the railing of one laundry-laden balcony to the next and into the plaza square. 

“Come on,” his friend told him, reaching out and grabbing his hand to pull him from the spot where their pursuers would have caught him. They dashed together through the flock of mid-day shoppers, their heads bowed — black and gold — beneath their elbows to carve a path. It closed behind them just as quickly and became a camouflage. 

“Up here.” They came upon a flat-roofed shed cloaked by the heavy branches of an old oak. 

“I can’t climb up there,” the boy insisted as he watched his friend fling the bag they’d stolen onto the roof. 

“Sure you can. Here.” He crouched and cupped his hand, his eyes still watching over the boy’s shoulder for the pig-nosed street urchin and his gang. “I’ll hoist you up.” 

“There’s no way. You’ll drop me.” 

“I won’t. Just go.” The boy frowned. “Don’t be afraid.” 

“I’m not afraid.” He loped forward and into his friend’s crouch, who leveraged him upwards towards the hidden perch with a triumphant grunt. He clamored up after him once he had landed, all long legs and arms. 

“See?” The boy ignored him to inspect the bag. His friend snatched it from him and retreated deeper into the cover of the branches. “Now then, what do we have?” He sat and spilled the bag onto the tar-sheet tiles. A handful of coins clinked into a pile next to two soft-bruised peaches. He plucked one of them up. 

“Yuri,” the boy complained as he sat beside him under the shade of the tent-like canopy. “You’re going to give those back, right?” 

“Yeah, of course. I mean, the gald, that is. They aren’t going to miss these.” He waggled the peach. “Besides, look, it’s already messed up.” 

“Yuri,” the boy repeated chidingly. His friend groaned and tipped his head against his shoulders. 

“Fine.” He replaced the peach next to its partner before laying back against the roof. He was quiet for a moment, the heaving of his chest slowing as he caught his breath. His gaze was steady and lazy, half-focused on the branches. “You just want to impress that girl they took it from.” 

“I do not,” the boy insisted, scuffing his shoes against the tarpaper. 

“Do too.” 

“I don’t! Quit it. Anyway, the only reason they were able to cut her purse to begin with was because she was too busy staring at you.” 

“I know,” his friend laughed. The boy sighed and leaned back against his elbows. 

“Everything is so easy for you, isn’t it?”

“What?” 

“Just that the only girl who doesn’t look at you like that is my mother.”

“I mean, better that she doesn’t.” 

“Shut up, Yuri. You know what I mean. And everybody likes you.” 

“Not Orson,” his friend invoked the image of the thief they’d left behind in the crowds. 

“Well, no, but Orson doesn’t even know my name.” 

“He will after today. I thought he had you next to the tanner’s place. It pissed him off that you got away.” 

“Whatever.” 

“I thought you hated the Lower Quarter,” his friend argued, sitting up with the prop of his left arm. “What does it matter if they know your name?” 

“I’ve lived here for nearly seven years and they still treat me like an outsider. It isn’t fair.” 

“Only because you act like one. Reap what you sow, you know.” He watched the boy for a moment, his storm-cloud eyes tracing his face. “Her name’s Lila. She’s the cooper’s daughter. Do you want me to introduce you to her?” 

“What’s the use? She’ll just talk to me about you.” His friend laughed again. 

“Yeah, maybe.” 

“So what am I, then, someone to lure her in for you?” 

“You know, sometimes I think you are the most naive person I have ever met.” 

“Hey! What is that supposed to mean?” The boy drew himself onto his knees. “The only reason you even know what ‘naive’ means is because I told you.” 

“Yeah,” his friend admitted with a grin. 

“So take it back!” 

“I’ll introduce her to you,” was all he offered, settling back into the roof again. “You might even have a chance. I bet she’ll be impressed that you can read. You can tell her all about what your fancy words mean.” 

“You’re a real jerk, sometimes.” 

“And your friend. What’s that say about you?”  

——— 

It was perhaps the last warm day of the year. The knights seemed to sense it. They settled into their drills with enthusiasm, as if a particularly good showing would promise them a few more hours of sunlight before the dreariness of autumn descended upon them. Soon they would be drilling in the rain. Flynn pitied them for it but, then again, he had suffered it himself, hadn’t he? Now he stood under the shade of the arcades lining the courtyard, but it had not been so long ago that he had lunged and bent beside his blue-tunicked comrades no matter the weather. Part of him ached to dance out and join them even now. He could feel the looming threat of his stockade-turned-desk filling his joints with a petrifying dread. His tapped his fingers against the hilt of his sword — more a decoration than anything, anymore, and looking proud in its well-waxed scabbard — and considered the idea. 

“Commandant.” Perhaps not. He turned from his observation to face his interlocutor. 

“Captain Yassik,” he greeted her. She settled into her prerequisite bow. “How good to see you again.” As she stood to respond he took the moment to heed Estelle’s half-hidden advice. Yes, he supposed she was pretty — although that sort of word seemed rather demeaning for someone dressed so smartly in a captain’s uniform. She had dark hair that was pulled back into a severe knot and was wound tight enough to shine against her temples like the calves of her tall boots. There was something nearly masculine in the squared-off way that her cheeks joined to her jaw, and in the set of her generous brows, but it flattered her just like the deep brown of her eyes set the proper backdrop for the glint of something almost mischievous hiding behind her proper posture. They were worried, too, however — yes, he could see it in the way that the skin pulled at the corner of her eyes. 

“I was hoping I could take you up on your offer to discuss a few of my concerns.” He nodded at her request. 

“Of course. Come, we’ll go inside.” She trailed behind him, their heels clipping against the marble in a synchronized metronome, and into his open office door. She waited until he had closed it to move her hands from their stiff place beside her thighs. She wrung them, now, a simple gesture that transformed her from a wooden soldier into a living thing again. “Something’s happened,” Flynn surmised. 

“Riders have just arrived from the west. I was the one to meet them — two knights and a representative from the guilds. There was an incident in Tolbyccia.” 

“What sort of incident?” 

“An explosion, they’ve told me, although there have been no witnesses yet of what could have caused it. Some merchants came upon a spot in the wilds that was burned to nearly nothing.” 

“Were there casualties?” 

“That is what our men believe. As I understand it there wasn’t much evidence of anything left behind, but there were bones... of animals and not. Travelers, perhaps; no one has claimed them yet.” 

“Perhaps it was just an accident,” Flynn suggested. “A campfire left unattended?” 

“No, not at the scale the men have described. The merchants called it-”

“Sapros,” the commandant guessed. It seemed something too minor to have otherwise brought her there. She nodded. 

“The guildsman says that it is not the first instance of this happening. Apparently Dahngrest has sent some of his compatriots out to investigate. Nothing has come of it yet, but the people are nervous.” 

“And what do you suggest we do next?”  

“With your leave, I would like to investigate it myself.” Her brows had furrowed just enough to show that she was afraid of the request. Not of going, but of looking too presumptuous, he wagered — and it was a fair concern. There were other captains better suited for carrying out special orders. Or deeper tenured, at least. But none of them had come to him about this sapros business, had they? 

“And do you trust your lieutenant to serve in your stead in Halure while you are away?” 

“Yes. Absolutely, Commandant.” 

“Very well, then. I’ll assign four men from the capital guard to travel with you as well. Be cautious. The last thing we need is for Dahngrest to take offense at our curiosity. You said there was a guildsman who traveled as a messenger?” 

“Yes. He is named Luca.” 

“Good. Send him to me, would you? Better that he be convinced of our intentions first.” 

“As you wish, Commandant. Thank you. Thank you for trusting in me.” Her tone betrayed the triteness of her words.

“I was made captain too young myself, you know,” he admitted to her. “It wasn’t well-earned, either. I didn’t realize that until it was too late. The only reason I survived it was because I followed my own intuition, and because there were others who were willing to trust me when I did. I’ve read more about you than just your captain’s commendations, Captain Yassik. You’ve come upon your position far more honestly than I did, and have more than earned my trust.”

“Thank you. I won’t let you down.” He smiled at her. She returned the look and stood, taking on the shape of some fine-made statue again. He watched her leave before turning to mark down his recommendations for her ranging party below the stamp of his neat letterhead. 

“Commandant.” A voice interrupted him after some time. “Luca Savano of Dahngrest has arrived to speak with you.”  

“Good. Show him in, would you?” The door opened under his neat-dressed usher’s arm. A man followed, tall and with a half-shaved head of braids threaded with clattering beads. He walked with a limber bravado that left little doubt to his membership in the guilds. 

“Mister Commandant,” the man greeted him with an exaggerated bow. Flynn frowned and eyed the soaring bird of Altosk dancing on the breast of his jacket. He wore it loose and open, like they all seemed to do, as if their protest of buttons and clasps somehow proved their rebellious hearts. 

“Luca Savano,” he replied, uninterested in amending the name with any “misters” or “sirs” himself. The man smiled brightly all the same and draped himself into one of the chairs next to the desk. “I understand that you have seen quite an interesting thing during your travels here.” 

“Well, I don’t know, Commandant, you’ve seen interesting things yourself, haven’t you? Dragons and monsters beyond counting, right? So maybe for you it won’t be so intriguing. But still, for me, myself being a simple nobody, I did find it a little strange — for my jaunt into the lovely Tolbyccian meadowlands to lead me to a killing field. Perhaps it would have even impressed you, all black and empty as it was. No grass, although the grasslands are renowned for how prettily they sway in the evening breezes.” He waggled his fingers in the air as if they were made of reeds themselves. “No rocks, although there are enough of them for my people to call that place the Ogre’s Mouth for all of them tossed about. No birds, no flies, no coyotes, although you can always hear them howling out there. As if everything had all come together and agreed to simply no longer exist at all. Well, most things, except for a few rib cages left behind. Little ones.” He tapped his fingers against his mouth, as if tossed suddenly into thought. “I thought they were dogs, at first, maybe, but it wasn’t that.” 

“Children,” Flynn guessed grimly. The man dipped his chin in a nod. “What do you think has caused it?”

“I had hoped that you would tell me. I heard that you were a clever man. Your knights did not prove up to the task, as well dressed as they were, but I thought to myself, now Luca, why should a bannerman know everything? Better to ask his master instead. So, master, what have you learned up here in your white tower?” 

“And do you speak for the guild council, then?” 

“Do I?” He laughed. “Do I look like an emissary to you? I’m just an interested party. Besides, it seems as though you are a little behind on the times. There is no council any longer. We have a Don again.” 

“Harry.” The man grinned. It was a lucky guess. Flynn had not thought he would conjure the man twice in so few days. So even Dahngrest liked the idea of a blood-bound succession, did they? 

“Don’t say it like that. He’s earned it. All five masters agreed upon it. Your emperor was voted in as well, wasn’t he? So look at how kindred our kingdoms are.” 

“His excellency the emperor remains steadfast in his commitment to the shared interests of Zaphias and Dahngrest,” Flynn agreed stiffly. 

“Which is why you’ve invited me here.” 

“Which is why I would like you to help me in communicating our interest in sharing the burden of an investigation into this situation.” 

“What, about Harry?” 

“About the explosion,” Flynn corrected dryly. Luca’s lips pulled into another wolffish grin. 

“It wasn’t an explosion. It was something worse. Some of the merchants had a word for it.”

“Sapros.” The guild man snapped his fingers.

“That was it! See, I thought they meant that it was some kind of animal — a snake or something. I told them that they were fools. No animal could do that. Oh, poor old Luca, when I was the fool instead! I get too proud some times, you see — in spite of all my good intentions. Sapros. Yes, that was the word. So what is that, then?” 

“Nothing,” Flynn insisted. “A superstition.” 

“It was quite the convincing superstition,” Luca replied, cocking his brow as he did. 

“No matter. I am sending a contingent west to look into it. On behalf of Dahngrest as well as the empire, do you understand?” 

“You don’t want us to chase them off, is that it?” 

“Quite.” 

“Don’t worry. We’re not animals, you know. I’ll write to Harry to let him know.”

“I thought you said that you were not an emissary.” 

“Well, no, but he is my brother, so I suspect he’ll still read my letter.” Flynn was not quick enough to hide his look of disbelief. Luca laughed. 

“Yeah, I should be paler, eh? Not everyone in this world is blond, you know, even thought it suits you well.” Flynn frowned at his garish wink. “Don’t worry, I’m no Whitehorse. I mean, clearly not. But his mother raised me as if I was one, bless her, and I’ve done enough wrangling poor ol’ Harry to earn the title of big brother, if never Don. Ha!” 

“So you’ve ridden here on his behalf?” The man shrugged his shoulders. 

“Sure. As much as I do anything else. But let’s just say I do it for the empire. What do you think of that?” He clapped his palms against his thighs and stood up from his chair. “We’re comrades in this then, right? So I’ll ride back with your tin-can men, and I’ll make sure Harry doesn’t string them up when we arrive.” He extended his hand over the desk in Flynn’s direction. “What do you say?” 

Flynn gripped his hand and shook it and wondered, grimly, if it was a devil with which he had just made a pact.  

———

Another knock at his door. It was late. He rubbed his eyes. Whatever it was, it would have to wait. He cleared his throat to insist the same. 

“His excellency the emperor,” his usher announced instead, swinging the door open before Flynn had the chance to protest. 

“Your excellency,” he parroted, standing stiffly from his seat. 

“Commandant. Thank you, that will be all.” He had turned to shoo the usher back into the hall. He strode forward towards Flynn’s desk once the door had closed again. “You’re too busy, don’t you think?” 

“It is a busy position,” Flynn contended, rising to join the emperor in the chairs arranged at the center of his room. It felt preposterous to stay sitting behind his desk, as if Ioder were nothing more than a client. 

“Rather. Still, I cannot say that I am jealous of you for it. In any case, I think it is time for a little change.” 

“What?” Flynn frowned. First the pamphlet, and now this — Ioder had already proposed far too many changes as it was, no matter their size. 

“I though perhaps you would like to take on a field mission for me.” Oh. 

“Of course.” 

“I wouldn’t be so quick to agree. You haven’t even heard the terms.” 

“I serve at your pleasure, your excellency.” 

“And the way you’ve said it, I would rather almost believe it. Still. I’ve read your report about this sapros business, and I have to admit that it’s left me feeling rather worried.” 

“I’ve already prepared a contingent,” Flynn interjected, “headed by someone I believe will do a proper and careful investigation. They are ready to leave tomorrow with the sun.” 

“I have no doubt that you have picked a choice party, and yet I — well, let’s say, I have learned better than to be too trusting, don’t you think? So I’d like you to go along as well.” 

“Of course, but—”

“But you don’t think it’s worth your time.” 

“If you would like me to travel to Tolbyccia then I will, your excellency, and at whatever pace you demand. But I am not convinced that this situation truly requires your attention. We’ll settle it.” 

“You haven’t studied my treatise.” Flynn moved his mouth but couldn’t find the proper words to respond. “It’s alright. Our empire does keep you otherwise engaged, after all. If you had really read it, however, you would understand my interest. The small folk have already caught on well enough themselves. How we underestimate them, isn’t that right? Hm, which is at the heart of everything. Well, but we’ve already discussed that once before. The chief thing is that I am compelled to believe their assessment of what has happened.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“That it is an evil that has brought this mark against the countryside. One that must be balanced by our better nature. Of everyone, I can trust you the most to look into it for me — and earnestly, even if it is a challenge, even if seems impossible. You’ll do this, won’t you?” 

“I will, if it is your command.” 

“I would like it rather if you did it because you believed in me, you know.” 

“Ioder,” Flynn sighed, steadying his hands from rubbing at his temples. “I believe that you have let these people from Desier draw you into a conspiracy. But I will investigate this thing we’ve found, if you think it is for the betterment of the empire.” 

“I do believe it is.” 

“Alright, then. Very well. I will set out with the party tomorrow.” Ioder smiled. It reminded him of how Yassik had looked, sitting there herself not so long ago, the pale stillness of her face growing warm as her lips moved into their gentle arc. 

“Thank you, Flynn. I know you think I’ve gone a little mad but just be patient, will you? I’ve trusted in you before — now it is time for you to do the same for me.” 

———

The sun had just begun to rise as their little party trotted forward from the city gates. Flynn rode at the head, savoring the feeling of the open air again. It smelled like autumn already out there — the sweet sugar of the turning leaves, the cocoa of the soil. Already he felt more comfortable in his armor than he had for a hundred days in his soft jackets left behind. Maybe he should have been appreciative that Ioder had sent him along on his fool’s errand. He would have been, if not for the way the emperor’s green eyes had looked as he talked about that damned treatise again. 

He glanced over at Yassik, who rode a respectful pace behind, her dark hair hidden by the slick sheen of her helmet. Had she read it as well? His chest pinched at the idea. And if she had, would she think that he had helped the emperor select each word? There was little mystery about his close connections with their ruler. The emperor had been nearly a boy at the time of his ascension — and Flynn not much else himself, but still old enough to step into the too-big shoes of a mentor. He’d done a good job of it as well, he’d thought, until Ioder had started to welcome in foreign advisors to fill his afternoon appointments. It seemed proper, at first — after all, Flynn could not know everything about the world, could he? — but now he was not so certain that it had been a good idea. 

If Yassik suspected him, she had done a good job of hiding it. She had greeted him with a polite smile that morning even after he had explained that he meant to tag along. Not to observe her, he had insisted — but rather because he had grown interested in the work himself. The insufferable Luca had been there as well, stinking like a tavern and sporting a black eye he hadn’t featured the day before. He rode well enough despite it, his jaw-length braids serpentine in the wind. It looked as though he had made a friend with one of the knights as well. They had been chatting all morning, their mounts running side by side. That was how they did it, didn’t they? The guildsmen? They’d charm some unsuspecting innocent and then rob them blind. Flynn made a note to chide the private following their ride. He knew better than to behave that way. 

His eyes swung left to trace the neat line of the remaining riders. How fine they all looked in their silver plate. He imagined they all felt the way he did; relieved to have escaped the city’s grip. Even the chill in the air did little to dampen their spirits. He smiled, feeling his breath grow hot inside his chest. Yes, it was a fine thing, field work, from time to time. So maybe he was appreciative, after all. 

He looked to his right again. A sharp realization sparked inside his mind as he did. He looked back over his shoulder to the left. One, two, three, four. His head turned. Five, including Yassik, and then the sixth, there, riding beside Luca. That wasn’t right. He had assigned four riders to the captain. Not five. His heart sunk as he began to understand what had caused the failed arithmetic. 

“Private!” He called out at him. There was something suspect in the way the guildsman hunched against the sound. Flynn tugged on his reins to circle closer to the pair. “You. Tell me your name.” 

“My name?” A woman’s voice spoke out from inside the cage of her helmet. It was slurred by a ridiculous attempt at a Nordopolican accent. “Well, sir, my name is Martha.” Flynn gripped the horn of his saddle with one hand and grabbed at the knight’s helmet with the other. Too big for her. It came off easily. Her pink hair spilled out with it to tumble into the wind. 

“Damn it, Estelle.” 

“Hi there, Flynn.” He pulled back hard on his reins. 

“We’re going back,” he snapped. 

“No! Flynn, listen.” She darted between him and the stumbling line. “Let me come with you.” 

“This isn’t a joyride, Estelle.” 

“I know! But I want to come along.” 

“No.” 

“Well, I don’t need your permission.” 

“You can’t be serious,” Flynn groaned. “Stealing a suit of armor doesn’t make you a knight. It makes you a thief.”

“I don’t need to be a knight to ride to Dahngrest,” Estelle retorted. “I am a citizen of the empire and I am granted the same right to travel as anyone else. Besides, I didn’t steal it — I borrowed it.” 

“It isn’t safe. You need to turn back.” 

“Of course it’s safe. I’m traveling with the commandant of the Imperial Knights.” She smiled sweetly at him. “I’m going either way, Flynn. Better that I come with you.” He could feel Luca’s eyes watching him — mocking him, he imagined. He grit his teeth and kicked his mount into a canter again. Dammit. He should have known better than to think that anything would be so simple as a morning ride. 

“Are you still angry with me?” Estelle asked him the question later, after they had made camp for the night near the coast. Flynn wondered if it would be better to answer her honestly or to ignore her. He looked over the crackling fire at her, and at the way she had set her mouth into that determined shape, and realized that he did not truly have a choice. 

“You’ve made me look like a fool, Estelle. What kind of commandant am I if I do not even know who rides with me?” 

“Oh, don’t be like that.” She sidled around the campfire to sit beside him. She was still wearing her stolen suit, which made him feel like he was speaking with some strange doppelgänger. “Your knights adore you. I wish you could see them from my eyes, and how they look at you. I doubt they even truly realize that I am here, eclipsed as I am by the fact that their brave leader has chosen to travel with them.” Flynn waved his hand at her. 

“Not everything is a fanciful scene from one of your stories, you know.” 

“Yes, but where do you think I get all of my ideas?” She smiled at him and drew her knees against her chest. “It’s so nice out tonight, don’t you think? It’s amazing how different a night can feel when you fall asleep in a different place.” He watched her as she tipped her chin to stare up into the night sky. His eyes followed hers and watered at the sight. Of all the things that had changed in those past eight years, he had still not grown tired of the stars. With all of their lights dulled into candles and fires after the loss of the blastia, there was nothing left to blot them out. Sometimes it was difficult to spot them between Zaphias’ roofs and towers but here, out in the hinterlands, they crowded every inch of sky like a billion fireflies so close he could nearly pluck them between his fingers. It was a wonder he could not feel the heat of them against his face. Still, the cool touch of the wind, scented already by the salty bite of the nearby sea, was nearly as fine as whatever it was that was burning in those pinprick lights. He closed his eyes and enjoyed it for a moment, before the rest of everything crowded his mind again. 

“That man from Dahngrest,” he realized aloud, “he came for you, didn’t he? It wasn’t the explosion at all.” 

“Who, Luca?” She picked a twig from the ground and busied herself fiddling with its peeling bark. “Well, yes. I didn’t want to travel alone.” 

“I told you that I would prepare an escort for you.” 

“I don’t want to be escorted, Flynn,” she sighed. “I’m tired of being escorted all of the time. That’s the word you use for taking criminals to the stockades, you know? Or, its the polite thing to say when you want someone unwelcome to leave. Would you please escort that ruffian outside?” She took on the airy tone of some fat-pocketed noble, screwing her face into a theatric sneer as she did. “I have been escorted for my entire life, when all ever I wanted was to be free to do as I pleased. Not all of the time, maybe, but sometimes. Free enough to visit someone I think I might love, in a place that I have been a dozen times before, without having to feel like I’m headed for the gallows.” 

“Alright. I understand.” 

“I know you do. You’re just like me. When was the last time you did anything for yourself?”  

“Don’t rope me into this. I’m more than content in my position.” 

“I believe you, but I’m beginning to wonder if you have lost your mind.” 

“Oh, Estelle. Enough already.” 

“Is there really nothing else you want?” She dropped the twig to reach over and place her fingers against his shoulder. “Are you really content, just sitting in your office signing things until your mark has covered every surface of the empire?” He returned her earnest stare with a withering one of his own. 

“I didn’t realize that leading an imperial force was such an unimpressive thing to you. This is my life’s work, you know. I didn’t seek it out to win over your favor.” 

“I’m sorry. This isn’t coming out right. Just that—”

“Just that you are swept up in this love affair of yours, and want to share it with the rest of us.” She flushed. “It’s alright, Estelle. I think I know you rather well by now. You don’t need to explain yourself to me. But you and I are two very different people. It’s perfectly acceptable for us to seek out different things, and neither of us will be worse off for it.” 

“I suppose so,” she relented glumly, her hands falling into her lap. He was struck, in that moment, by how similar she was to her crown-wearing cousin. It wasn’t just blood that bound them. They had lived the same life, hadn’t they? Two pretty little birds in a cage. Of course both of them would behave as they did now, seeking out companionship and meaning after living so many years as pawns. But with Estelle it was a gentle thing, a stack of love stories and candy-sweet letters sealed by quivering hands; and with Ioder, something different, something more wicked despite the white-hearted intentions that had given his own scheming life. Flynn wondered, then, as Estelle left him to seek out her tent, what role he had to play in this world of love and neutered duty they had so quietly woven between them. Was he forever a knight, charged immortal with truth and justice, or just a sacrifice in his silver plate, ready to be peeled open like all of those tart fruits stocking the imperial chambers? He wasn’t certain, he realized darkly as he escaped into his own tent — and how terrible it was, to be unsure. 

———

“Are you seriously still studying?” 

“Dammit, Yuri. You need to stop climbing up here.” 

“Tell your mother that. She still won’t let me through the front door.” 

“Of course she won’t. What do you want?” 

“Hello to you, too. It’s the summer solstice, Flynn. You’re allowed to celebrate.” Something whizzed and popped behind them, sending a spray of sparkling light into the night sky. The young man closed the book he had been reading and let it drop to the face of his desk. 

“I need to study,” he insisted as he rubbed his bleary eyes. “The test exams are in two weeks.” 

“Test exams?” 

“They’re meant to prepare you for the qualifying.” 

“A qualifying exam, for a qualifying exam, to see if you can cut it as a cadet? That seems like a lot of nothing.” 

“Yeah, I know. Still, it’s important, Yuri. I need to do well.” 

“What are you talking about? Your father was a knight, wasn’t he?” 

“That doesn’t matter.” 

“Sure it does. All you need to do is sign your name and they’ll hand you your uniform.” 

“I’m not going to do it like that. I’m going to earn it, just like anyone else.” 

“That’s noble of you. Come on. Old Hamish gave me some whisky for feeding his nasty old pigs. I’ll give you some if you would just stop talking about exams for one night.” 

“I’m not going to drink. I have to study tomorrow.” 

“I don’t care what you do,” his friend sighed, sweeping his arms in the air. “Just that you get out of here before you start to grow mold.” Another firecracker crackled amidst a cheering cry. 

“Fine. Fine. This isn’t a good idea, you know.” 

“I never have good ideas. Come on.” 

“No,” the young man insisted, standing from the desk. “We’re going through the door.” 

His mother had left to watch the revelry herself. It made it easier to sneak through the narrow stairway and out into the yard. The young man followed his friend as he led him backwards into an empty alleyway. They climbed together up a ladder waiting there to perch themselves in their old hiding place — a balcony with a toothless railing which hung from an empty apartment long boarded over and forgotten. 

“Here.” His friend had hidden his prize there as well. He brandished the bottle at him. The green-and-blue fireworks refracted drunkenly in the glass. 

“I told you I don’t want to.” 

“You never want to do anything. Just take a drink and enjoy it. Hamish said he won it off of some man in the guilds. They’re better at drinking than anyone else, so it must be alright.” The young man acquiesced and tipped the bottle to his lips. He winced, afterwards, and sputtered as he shoved it back towards his friend. 

“That’s awful.” 

“That’s the point.” He grinned and took a swig. They were silent, for a moment, both watching the sky erupt into color. The bottle bubbled as they shared it between them with increasingly bold sips. 

“Are you really going to join?” His friend’s question rose slowly after a time. 

“Yes. If they want me.” 

“Of course they’ll want you.” 

“Not just because of my father!” 

“They’ll want you because you’re clever,” his friend contended, “and because you’re a good person, even if you’re a little dull.” 

“Yuri,” the young man drawled dryly. 

“I’m being serious. If anyone should be a knight I guess I would want them to be like you.” 

“Thanks.” He stared down into the mouth of the bottle, swirling the amber liquid inside with a turn of his hand. “You could, you know, you could take the exams, too.” 

“I don’t think so,” his friend laughed. “They’d probably just arrest me.” 

“Come on. Why not? Are you really waiting for something better down here?” 

“I don’t want to be a knight.” 

“It isn’t what you think. It’s important work. They make a difference. Don’t look like that. Besides, it pays well. Better than anything here.” 

“That’s doesn’t matter. They’d never take me. It would be a waste of everyone’s time.” 

“Why not try?”

“I’m not like you, Flynn. Don’t pretend like it isn’t true.” 

“What are you talking about? You’re my friend, aren’t you?” 

“I don’t think it works by referral.”

“You are my friend,” the young man insisted, leaning forward to prod his chest. “And you always have been. Do you remember when we first met, and Orson and his stupid lackeys were trying to beat me up? Well, not trying, they did it. You didn’t even know my name but you helped me as soon as you saw.” 

“That was different.” 

“Different how? There aren’t any monsters down here but there are bad people, and you’re always getting in trouble trying to protect all of the rest of us from them. That’s what knights do, isn’t it?” 

“I steal from thieves, Flynn. That’s not necessarily knight material.”

“Sure it is.” 

“Lay off it.” 

“What if I want you to enlist?” The young man grabbed the bottle from him and took another emboldening swig. “You promised me, you know, that you’d always stick around.” His friend frowned and looked away. 

“I said I wouldn’t go anywhere. That’s different. I mean, it’s the complete opposite.” 

“Not a bother to you, then, is it?” 

“What do you — listen, you’ll just be up in the city. It’s not like you’re going to the moon.” 

“I might as well be. You know what it’s like.” He drew his knees against his chest. “I have to do this, Yuri. It’s what I’m meant to do. Just that I thought you might want to come along.” 

“Why?” 

“Why?” The young man repeated the question hollowly. His face darkened. “Because you could be something! And because you’re my brother.” 

“I’m not.” 

“You know what I mean. We’ve been there for each other, haven’t we? It doesn’t have to change.” 

“Of course it does.” 

“It doesn’t.” 

“I’m not your brother, Flynn,” his friend snapped. “And I don’t want to be.” The young man recoiled, his lips drawing into a sneer. 

“You’re a real fucking asshole sometimes, you know that?” He lurched forward to rise onto his feet. His friend reached out to stop him, his fingers gripping at his sleeve. 

“Wait.” 

“Let go!” He swung his arm to snag the fabric free from his friend’s grip. “You’re just like the rest of them, aren’t you? Just trying to suck away something from someone else until they’re all sucked dry like some... like some fucking mosquito!” 

“Now, come on. Just listen to me.” 

“No! I’m always listening to you and you never tell me anything that matters. So here, now I’ll tell you something — I’m sorry that I thought that you could be more than just some beggar living in the slums. I’m sorry that I thought that you could possibly care for anything else other than yourself. I’m sorry that I thought that you were my friend!”

The boy — the man, really, nearly, and tall and broad enough besides to be one, and to swing that blunt sword he’d found on the riverbank with a fearsome familiarity — who had been his friend leaned forward to trap him against the warped railing. He flinched, thinking that he meant to hit him. It was a kiss instead, one that made him sputter and push away. The first one he’d ever had. Not by Lila with her pretty red curls but Yuri, who was better spoken than he had been when he had first met him but was still just one of the unwashed vagabonds that lurked in the capital’s skirts. His mother hated him, said that he was a bad impression and worse, a beggar, a fledgling conman, a louse. No matter that Flynn had taught him how to read and even how to greet her properly. He would force him upon the wrong path, she had insisted, and had she been right all along? He was supposed to be a knight just like his father. Knights did not kiss other men in abandoned places, and especially not ones that smelled like cheap liquor and pig shit. He stumbled backwards and groped for the head of the ladder. 

“What the hell are you doing?” 

“I don’t — I thought — I’m sorry,” Yuri stuttered, reaching out for him again. “Wait. Don’t.” 

“I’m going home,” Flynn insisted, drawing the back of his hand against his lips to scare off the tingling numbness left behind. He slung his leg over the balcony and dipped low against the steps to disappear. Yuri lingered behind, sinking back to sit against the sun-bleached boards of the window as the sky thundered green-yellow-blue. 

Chapter Text

In the summer it was a pleasure to be at sea but in the autumn, when the sky was nearly always grey, it was closer to a punishment. Flynn bore it all the same, more willing to freeze under the icy spray cresting against the bow than to submit to the sentence of retching below the creaking deck. It was a quick trip between Capua Nor and Capua Torim, he reminded himself grimly — a quick trip not worth the cost of revealing that he had never learned the trick of just how one was supposed to find proper footing on a boat. 

“You’re looking green.” His heart sunk lower into his bobbing stomach. 

“Luca.” And you’re looking black-and-blue, he wanted to tell him, but cut his retort short with the tight twitch of his jaw. The guildsman had himself slipped easily into the guise of a swaggering pirate as soon as his feet had landed on the deck. Well, he might as well enjoy his free passage — Flynn imagined he had not received many empire-funded rewards before. His flat look pinched into a scowl as Luca reached forward and grabbed at his wrist. 

“There’s a spot here — hey!” The guildsman laughed as Flynn snapped his arm free from his grasp. “Shit. You are all the same, aren’t you? What I was saying is that there is a spot, here, between where those two cords run under your skin,” he flicked his own sleeve down to flash the dark skin of his wrist at him, his finger pressing just below the spot where it grew up from his forearm, “that helps with sea sickness if you press against it. Or don’t, and you can just be sick all day. See if I give a damn.” Flynn grunted in response, unwilling to test it out but realizing it would probably be improper to remain mute entirely. 

“What happened to you?” He gestured at his own brow, eyeing the way the spot had swollen nearly shut on Luca’s face. The man grinned and tapped at his black eye gingerly with his pointer finger. 

“A misunderstanding. I forgot how uptight all of you capital people are.” 

“You got into a bar fight,” Flynn wagered. Luca shrugged his shoulders. 

“Close enough. Don’t worry. I lost. No point in doubling the damage by pressing charges, too.” Flynn smiled thinly and stared into the surf again. “So you’re chummy with Estelle, huh?” 

“I would rather ask you that question.” 

“Oh, what, she’s never mentioned me? That hurts.” Luca clapped his palm against his breast. “But yeah, sure, we’re friends.” 

“You would have been her kidnapper if I hadn’t ridden along with the campaign,” Flynn chided him. 

“Why, because I came to pick her up? That’s ridiculous. She’s a free woman, isn’t she?”

“Of course. But she has a habit of turning her travel companions into wanted men by disappearing in the middle of the night.” 

“What an empire you run.” 

“I don’t run anything.” 

“Sure. Well, good thing you’re here, then, Commandant.” Luca rolled his honey-colored eyes and turned to leave. 

“Wait,” Flynn called out at him. “I have a question for you.” 

“And how you’ve compelled me with your charms to play along!” 

“Captain Yassik mentioned that Dahngrest has sent some guild men to investigate the explosion,” Flynn continued, ignoring him. 

“Yeah. What, are you impressed? We’re nearly clever as you lot all are. In fact, it looks like we’ve beaten you to the chase.” 

“Who’s gone? Men from Altosk? I’d like to ask for them when we arrive.” 

“Nah,” Luca replied with a flick of his palm. “We’re just glorified paper-pushers, anymore. Those poor merchants were terrified of that place. What the hell would we do there? Write a report about how frightening it was? Harry sent some muscle instead.”

“That being..?”

“I would have thought you would have known a little more about the guilds, Commandant. There aren’t too many other governments to fill your brains with, are there? Maybe I’ll teach you about Nordopolica next. Would you like that?” Luca laughed and wagged his head. “Man. You are as damp on the inside as you are on the outside, aren’t you? He sent some guys from Brave Vesperia.” 

“Of course,” Flynn replied with a sigh. 

“What, so you do know them? Then what the hell were you asking me for?” 

“It was Yuri, then?” 

“Yuri? Why would he do that? No, they sent some of their underlings. I don’t know.” He flashed the collar of his jacket at him along with the embroidered eagle of Altosk below it. “I’m no sparkling star myself. And how do you know Yuri Lowell?” 

“How do you?” Luca grinned. 

“I’m not falling for that again. But look at how much we have in common. I suppose soon we will be dear friends ourselves.” Luca clapped his hand against his back and, waggling his eyebrows at him, slunk backwards towards the doors leading below deck. Flynn was filled with doubt at the idea — and with nausea, as he imagined the cloying space below his feet. He stared into the waves again and gripped feebly at his wrists. 

———

He was just one of the hundred of them crowded into the yard but, if just for a moment, Flynn felt as if it were just him and the commandant alone. Each word of Alexei’s commencement speech echoed deep within him. Finally. Finally, after everything — the sleepless nights, the days spent drilling in the sun and in the rain — he had convinced them that he was worth something. That he wasn’t just a nobody from the Lower Quarter, as they were always quick to remind him, but that he was a knight. His chest swelled. Yes. Not a cadet any longer but a private, a real one, with his own suit made to his measure and not borrowed from the barracks. His breath caught like a marble in his throat. If only his father could have seen him. For you, he wanted to yell out to him, wherever it was his spirit was hiding now — I’ve done this for you, and I’ve managed it because of what you were, and in spite of it as well. Father! 

He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and glanced away from the commandant to scan the crowd. There had been more, before, when they had first come into the courtyard two years earlier as hopefuls with a passing mark. Some had cowered under the pressure of the endless schedule of drilling and cleaning and reading and drilling again — and more had fumbled in the yards, cutting themselves with their own blades and retreating in shame to the comforts of their city apartments only a few blocks away. The rest, though, the ones who had managed it, they were his brothers and sisters now. Even if they thought that they were better than him, he had proven them wrong, hadn’t he? 

His eyes steadied on a shock of black hair at the front of one of the nearby lines. It was so dark it looked nearly purple in the sun. And too long, Flynn wondered idly — that wasn’t how the women were meant to wear it. The rest had pulled theirs back into neat tails or tight-braided buns. Who was this new sister of his who was already so eager to mark her new ledger with a demerit mark? 

He was distracted by a wave of applause as the commandant completed his speech. Flynn unsheathed his sword — so polished it nearly disappeared against the sky — and raised it in a cheering salute along with the rest of them. The neat squares disbanded, then, collapsing into a mob of bashful laughter and armor-jangling congratulations. Flynn was nearly crushed beneath the clap of palms against his back, and he did the same to them. Brothers and sisters, all of them — and all of them knights! 

“Hey!” A voice — one he remembered from those moments when his mind would wander — called out from within the din. Something cold slithered down his spine at the sound. “Hey, Flynn! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” 

“What...what the hell are you doing here?” Yuri pulled himself from between the shoulders of two of their towering compatriots. His armor was just as fine-looking as Flynn’s was, although his collar was open and crooked. Yuri winced as someone pulled on his hair — that stupid hair, so long now that it hung nearly to his waist, as if he’d never seen a pair of shears before — before his face spilled into a grin again. 

“Well, I mean,” he answered Flynn, lifting his arms with a shrug to show off the uniform he’d won. “Congratulations, by the way! You did it! I don’t want to say I told you so, but, then again—” 

“What are you doing here?” The man’s face fell as Flynn repeated his question. 

“Hello to you, too.” 

“Dammit, Yuri. Do you think this is a joke? Where did you get that?” 

“They made it for me,” Yuri snapped, stepping back a pace. “What, you don’t think — there was an open call, Flynn. A month ago. Hanks made me do it.” 

“An open call,” Flynn mimicked flatly. “You can’t be serious.” 

“Yeah, it turns out I’m pretty good at killing things. What are you all pissed about?”

“I’ve been up here,” he hissed back, keeping his voice lower than the cheers filling his ears so that the others wouldn’t hear, “training, and studying, and waking in the dark on some shitty cot for two years, and you responded to an open call?” 

“They must be pretty desperate, right? But I’m just a privateer.” 

“A private, Yuri. A privateer is a pirate.” Yuri laughed. 

“I mean, I think I would be better at that, to be honest.” 

“I’m a private, too!” All of the warmth that had filled his chest spilled into nothingness below his knees. He turned before Yuri could catch the frustrated tears that had sprung into his eyes. 

“Where are you going? Hey, wait, Flynn!” 

“Just get out of here.” Flynn pushed his way through the crowd to seek out the far walls of the courtyard. 

“I can’t,” Yuri stuttered. “They said we had to wait here for our assignments.” 

“Assignments!” Flynn threw up his arms. “When have you ever taken an assignment for anything?” 

“What are you so mad about? This is what we talked about, isn’t it? Us both being in the knights? What does it matter how I got in? There’s no way I could have managed those exams, Flynn, I mean, come on.” 

“No, of course not! Because it was a stupid idea!” 

“Now, wait.” Yuri’s dark eyes locked on him, suddenly intense. “Don’t be an asshole.” 

“This is mine, Yuri.” Flynn clapped his hand against the cool metal of his breastplate. “You never wanted to be a knight. I know what I said, but we were just children. None of it meant anything.” 

“It meant something to me.” 

“Yeah, well, that was the problem.” 

“Hey, fuck you.” Flynn flinched as Yuri stepped forward. He saw, for the first time, what the recruiters might have seen in him during the open call. “I apologized, didn’t I? That doesn’t change everything else.” 

“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” Flynn insisted. “I don’t have anything to say. You did it, alright? Congratulations. Now you can be the hero of the Lower Quarter. Go get your assignment and get on with it.” 

“Fine,” Yuri growled in reply. “Welcome home, Flynn. You’re finally back where you fucking belong.” 

———

Flynn stared up at the lurking shadow of Dahngrest with trepidation. The perpetual twilight of the city seemed far more insidious than it ever had before. Or maybe that was just the lingering sourness of his stomach, still lurching even though they had left Capua Torim behind hours before. 

“Home sweet home!” Luca made the announcement for them, clapping his hand against the rump of Estelle’s mount as he did. The creature huffed unhappily under the princess’ laughter. 

“We made good time, didn’t we, Flynn?” 

“Yes,” he agreed tightly. She smiled sweetly at him despite his foul mood. 

“Where do you think we should go, Luca?” Her eyes trailed over to the named man. He considered the bridge leading into the city thoughtfully. 

“At this time of day they’ll all still be in the main headquarters, probably. We can meet them there.” 

“Are you sure it won’t be a trouble?” 

“Seriously?” Luca made a face at the idea. “Harry has been insufferable for weeks. Better that you put us all out of our misery as soon as possible.” Estelle blushed and stared into her saddle. “Still. We won’t be able to ride these old boys into the streets. Why don’t you have one of your men stay with them, and I’ll send word for the stable master?” Flynn eyed Luca, unconvinced. “Oh, come on. I’m not going to send you into an ambush. I just don’t want you all trampling any children in the streets. Not a great move in terms of building bridges, eh?” 

“Fine,” Flynn acquiesced, nodding at one of the guardsmen to dismount and collect the rest of their quietta into a circle. They walked on together in two files with Flynn and Yassik at the head and Luca bringing up the rear, busy as he had been throughout the trip in gossiping with Estelle. 

“Commandant,” Yassik began quietly at his elbow. “What is it that you would like us to do here?” He glanced over at her and felt his lips slip into an embarrassed shape. Yes, he had kept her rather in the dark, hadn’t he? He cleared his throat and gestured forward up the cobbled boulevard. 

“Luca has told me that one of the master guilds sent their own party to investigate the explosion site. Let us speak with them, first, and learn what they have found before heading there ourselves.” She nodded. Her eyes were unsteady, which was not like her; he watched as they flicked between his face and to a spot over his shoulder. He glanced to follow them and saw what had worried her. “Have you ever been to Dahngrest before, Captain?” 

“No, sir,” she admitted, her mouth an unreadable line. He smiled in the hopes of settling her nerves.   

“They aren’t terribly fond of the empire,” he explained as he looked over at the scowling townspeople lining the street. “And, to be honest with you, we’ve rather earned it. They will not be desperate enough to break our truce but be alert, Captain, all the same.” 

“Yes, sir.” Their vigilance was quickly tested. 

“Aaaiie—” a voice cracked out in surprise behind them — a woman’s voice, Estelle’s — and already as he turned Flynn had unsheathed his sword, now glinting dangerously in the city’s dim light, and Yassik had done the same, as if they were two cogs pushing together in perfect harmony, all muscle and seeking out the source of the cry, the danger, and then, in the next breath Flynn moved again, his free hand a flat flag waving in the air, “—eeeuuuuriii!!” 

Estelle’s giggles pealed and bounced between the buildings flanking the road. She was spinning in the air, her legs kicking freely and her arms thrown around the neck of her assailant. A second pair of arms had snaked around her waist and kept her spinning in a tight pirouette. An icy pinch pricked in Flynn’s chest as he sheathed his sword again. He heard his guard follow the move obediently, silent except for the sharp click of steel-against-steel. 

“Is that the Don?” Yassik whispered the question as they watched Estelle lean back to plant a kiss on the man’s cheek before he set her neatly on her feet. The princess giggled again as his eyebrows raised in amusement at the look of her in her borrowed plate. 

“I thought with your connections you could have at least made lieutenant,” the man quipped. 

“No,” Flynn replied back to Yassik as Estelle nudged the man with her elbow in retort. “That’s Yuri Lowell.” 

“Who?” 

“Hey, Luca!” Yuri interrupted them. “You look like shit.” 

“Good to see you too, Yuri,” Luca laughed as he loped forward to clasp the man’s forearm in greeting. 

“Are they here to arrest you?” Flynn blanched as he felt Yuri’s eyes pass over him and the rest of his small retinue before returning to Luca again. 

“Nah, not this time. Let’s just say that we have something of a mutual agreement.” 

“Sure,” Yuri drawled, “Harry will love that.” Estelle, who had lingered tight at Yuri’s side, looked up into his face at the mention of the new don. Yuri caught the look and laughed, ruffling her hair. “Sheesh. That bad, huh?” Her cheeks turned nearly the color of her hair.  

“Where is our dear Harry?” Luca interjected. Yuri bucked his head backwards towards the looming shadow of the union headquarters. 

“He’s still trapped up there. Kaufman’s reading her newest diatribe to him. Poor bastard.” Luca winced in commiseration. “The rest of us managed to escape. He’ll be free by tonight — even she can’t keep him away from his own victory party.” Luca shrugged his shoulders. 

“I wouldn’t hold it against her.” 

“Good point,” Yuri noted with a lopsided grin. “So maybe we’ll have to rescue him... Eventually. Better to make him earn his dues first.” 

“Nothing good comes without a good bit of suffering,” Luca agreed.  

“First, though,” Yuri continued, drumming his fingers against the scalloped shoulder of Estelle’s plate, “we need to get you changed, private, before some old veteran crawls out of his cups to bring his vengeance upon you.” Flynn became hotly aware of the weight of his own armor at the suggestion. Yes, Dahngrest would not be thrilled to welcome them while they carried the empire’s banner on their sleeves, no matter how nicely both cities had promised to behave. 

“I didn’t bring very much,” Estelle admitted, glancing down to her toes. Yuri slung his arm over her shoulders and steered her towards the headquarters. 

“I’m sure we can find something for you. We do wear clothes here, too, you know.” 

“Oh,” Estelle peeped, looking back over her shoulder as they began to stroll away. “And the others, too, right?” Yuri cocked his free arm lazily in the air and waved his fingers at them, not bothering to turn himself. 

“I guess I should have known that you’d bring along an entourage. Sure, whatever. We can make a spot for them in the stables.” 

“Yuri.” 

“We’ll pay for rooms at the inn,” Flynn interjected coolly. That was enough to make Yuri slow and glance over at him. 

“You could do that, but they’ll just finish you off as soon as you fall asleep,” he warned him, drawing a finger across his own throat as he did. “Better that you come along, too, Commandant — you are perhaps the least welcome man who’s ever stepped across that bridge.” 

“Commandant,” Yassik bristled as Yuri looked away again. Flynn sighed and rolled his eyes. Maybe he deserved that. Would the captain think that he was a fool for forgiving the threat? Well, it would make no difference, in the end — they were in the empire no longer and, what more, he did not intend to spark a second war between the cities the same as he had the first. 

“Just do as he says,” he told her defeatedly. “I’ll tell you everything later.” 

———

Their rooms were better than the stables, maybe, but not by any significant margin. Flynn huffed a breath through his nose and eyed the tight square of the ceiling above his head. It wasn’t anything more than a cell, really, and he wasn’t naive enough to think that the impression had been unintended. A dark part of him wanted to escape in that very moment, and to hell with the emperor’s request — if Dahngrest was such a mighty power they could solve the mystery of their burning fields themselves. But that wasn’t how any of this worked, was it? Those were the orders he had been given and, damn it all, he had to follow them as neatly as if he had set them himself. 

His borrowed bed creaked arthritically as he sat at the foot. No matter, he insisted to himself — no matter, they would be gone again soon enough. Perhaps he could find whoever it was who had traveled to the meadowlands that very evening, and be ready to inspect the place in question with the rising of the morning sun. Then they could find whatever it was that had caused it as a tidy victory for Yassik’s career. After that they could ride back — his stomach gurgled at the idea of another seaside jaunt — and then he could deal with Ioder’s convoluted new interpretation of right and wrong. He ground his knuckles against his throbbing temples. Good enough. It was a good enough plan, except for the fact that even he knew that it was naive. 

“Commandant?” A voice called outside his door. It was one he had come to recognize. 

“Come in, Captain.” The door swung open and in she came, dressed in the same drab jacket and slacks the guildsmen had procured for him as well. She’d freed her hair from its severe bun only to weave it into a new tight braid. It was wet. So she’d taken advantage of that cold basin of water down the hall as well. He eyed the way patches of her collar had darkened from a few stray drops. 

“I thought perhaps it would be helpful to reconvene.” That was a nice way of saying that she was feeling frustrated by his thin-laid plans. He nodded at the rickety chair which stood, desk-less, against the wall. 

“I suppose I owe you a bit of an explanation,” he admitted as she sat. 

“As you wish, Commandant.” He waved his hand at her. 

“Oh, we’re not in the empire any longer. Let’s do away with that for now.” 

“Alright,” she agreed uneasily.  “What is it, then?” 

“Well,” he began, picking at a loose thread at his sleeve, “So. Dahngrest is the heart of the guild system. You know that much, I assume? There are hundreds of them but only five truly matter: Altosk, the largest and most powerful, and to which our new friend Mr. Savano pledges allegiance; Fortune’s Market — I imagine you are familiar with them; Gull’s Song, a naval alliance; Soul Smiths, blacksmiths with an insufferable name; and Brave Vesperia, who I assume make most of their money by killing things and the rest from finding themselves in the right places at the right times. These five guilds make up the master guilds and had also served, until very recently, as a council which governed Dahngrest as well. Now, however, it seems that Harry Whitehorse, an Altosk man, has been elected as their leader, which they call a don, and in his grandfather’s footsteps before him. As you know, this Harry just so happens to be the Lady Estellise’s new sweetheart as well.” He combed his fingers through his hair in an attempt to chase off his building headache. “Which would be complicated enough, if not for the fact that he has also charged Brave Vesperia with the task of looking into the sapros explosion.” 

“You think they’ll make a mess of it?” 

“No, they’ll probably tease out the source of it in record time, but I have no idea what price they’ll set at sharing the secret with us. I’m not so certain that they hold his excellency in high regard.” 

“What does it matter to them who we serve if we mean to help them?” 

“This is not the first time that the empire has extended an olive branch to the don of Dahngrest. When it happened before, however, it was more of a poisoned apple, so to speak, and I was the one to hand it over. We would have been cast into a terrible war if the Don — Harry’s grandfather — hadn’t sacrificed himself to cut it short.” 

“I see...” 

“I’m neither as young nor as stupid as I was then,” he promised her thinly. “But that won’t make much difference to Brave Vesperia.” 

“That man we met today,” Yassik surmised, “he is a member of that guild himself?” 

“Yes. To be honest with you, I’m not entirely sure what role he serves. The boss of Brave Vesperia is a young man named Karol Capel, and I’ve always known Yuri to heed Karol’s interests — well, as much as he listens to anyone. But Karol can’t be more than, I don’t know, nineteen, twenty years old, and Yuri has a way of charming anyone to do nearly anything with the right amount of attention. So who can be sure which one of them is really pulling the strings.” 

“You know him?” 

“I grew up with him,” Flynn admitted, “and served with him for a time.” 

“He was a knight?” 

“I believe he bears the distinction of holding the shortest career on record. In any case, our old friendship won’t do us any good. Yuri always does what he wants. If he doesn’t want to play along with our investigation, he won’t.” 

“But, if he is a member of the empire — and was a knight, no less — surely he will be empathetic to our cause.” Flynn laughed. 

“Surely. Yuri was an orphan who would have been lucky to pick from the imperial waste pits, and has spent more time in the palace cells than in any of the courts. He won’t be eager to bow before his excellency just for a commendation. Do you understand?” She nodded and glanced away, her eyes settling on the neat pile of his armor in the far corner. 

“What do you think it will take to win him over, then?” Flynn flashed his palms at her with a shrug. 

“Money, maybe, if he is in the proper mood. It would be better if we can convince him it is for the common good, but he’ll know that better than we do from Luca’s own hearsay. He would probably enjoy humiliating me, although I think he’d find Dahngrest a disappointing audience. They all despise me already.” 

“You aren’t on good terms?” 

“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to him in years. He didn’t seem so pleased to see me today.” 

“Well, I suppose we will just have to play our hand, then, won’t we?” Her gaze snapped back to meet his. Her coal eyes reminded him of his — not his own, but Yuri’s, always full of something scheming and nearly sinister, and dark even under a light. They did not help to settle his unease.

There was another knock from outside. Flynn was happy for it. He stood and took the two steps needed to cross the room and open the door himself. Estelle smiled back at him, her face flushed with anticipation. They’d given her a simple blue dress that was several magnitudes more flattering than their own dish-water colored clothes. 

“Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just thought that you might be sleeping, and that you should know we will be heading out soon.” 

“It’s alright. We were just wrapping up,” Flynn insisted, ignoring the way Estelle was peeking into the room at Yassik, who had stood in attention from her chair. “Where is it that you are going?” She grinned in the girlish way of someone who had being given too generous a gift.  

“The guilds are celebrating their election,” she explained neatly. “At some place called the Cerberus. I understand that it is a tavern.”  

“Do you know what you are getting yourself into?” Flynn questioned her with the raise of his brow. Her face grew tight-pinched in defense. 

“Don’t start, Flynn — I’ve been in far worse places than a bar; and besides, I have been known to have a drink or two myself. I won’t melt, you know.” 

“Still,” Flynn insisted, doubting that the swill waiting for them in a guildsman’s tavern was in any league with the wine she enjoyed at the palace, “the rest of them will be half a drink away from turning into a mob. Or worse. Maybe you should wait to see Harry until tomorrow.” 

“I’m going.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Yuri will make sure that no one bothers me.” 

“He always does.” 

“What’s gotten into you?” She frowned as he looked away. “I don’t love this bitter side of you. I’m going. You should too, if you can put on a better face. The rest of them will all be there. It will start to look strange if you keep on hiding from them.” 

“Fine,” he relented. He forced himself to picture Karol in his mind — he would know at least something about whatever his lackeys had discovered in the blackened meadowlands. What more, he had always been an agreeable fellow, if a little naive. Maybe he would spill the secret before Yuri had the chance to bury it. Flynn stepped forward but was steadied by the plant of Estelle’s palm against his chest. 

“Wait. I don’t want you playing my protector, alright? Do you understand?” He swallowed a deep breath. 

“Alright, Estelle.” She eyed him warily. 

“I know it won’t be easy for you,” she continued, “but I’ve made the choice to be here.” 

“Just be careful,” he answered her honestly. “And come find me if you need anything.” His last request returned her smile. She gripped his arms. 

“Let me know if I am ever about to make a fool of myself, alright? I’m afraid I already look like something of a chambermaid.” 

“You look fine, Estelle. Go on, then. Lead the way.” They followed Estelle through the hall and up into the headquarters’ central hall. Once buzzing with conversation during the day, with nightfall the labyrinthine building had grown calm and quiet. They were the last stragglers to make their way towards the tavern, it seemed. It was easy enough to find their destination, however, by the trailing groups all drawn in the same direction outside.

Even without their armor the trio looked painfully out of place. Nearly every one of the giddy party-goers was dressed with a jacket bearing, in greatest number, the bowed wings of the Altosk eagle; or, on others, the double crown of Fortune’s Market; or the blacksmith’s crossed hammers; and dozens more he did not recognize, each one more fanciful than the last. There were even a number of Brave Vesperia’s stars twinkling in the mix, sewn against a dark navy in contrast to the more ubiquitous brown and oxblood that was popular with the rest. 

There were, however, also a number of young men dressed in the same grey jacket and slacks that they wore. They were all busy heaving heavy barrels on their shoulders and handcarts full of things ready to be devoured. Waitstaff, Flynn realized with a sinking feeling — and he and Yassik their unwitting counterparts. 

The trio pushed themselves towards the dark brick entry waiting for them at the end of an unassuming avenue. The building bore the image of a snarling three-headed hound painted with a broad strokes across the front half of the facade. They squeezed through the milling bodies to finally find respite, like jetsam on a current, in the form of an abandoned table still littered with empty bottles and stubbed cigarettes.

Estelle looked over the table at Flynn and laughed, her eyes wide from the ordeal. The sound of her laughter was swallowed by the rumbling roar of a hundred different drunken conversations. All of Dahngrest seemed to have been herded into the ancient tavern’s gloom. Flynn eyed the sooty ceiling with apprehension and ignored the way his fine-buffed boots stuck to the floor.

“There!” Estelle cried out suddenly, snatching at Flynn’s shoulder with one hand and pointing over it with the other. His eyes followed the gesture to settle on a ring of chairs collected at the center of the room. There were ten of them, five with high backs and the rest identical to the plain thing he sat on himself. A place for the guild bosses, Flynn realized; and there, at the center, sat Harry, his hair a flash of gold beneath the dripping candles of the crooked chandeliers. He was busy cracking the base of his tankard against one grasped aloft by Luca, who had somehow managed to escape from the rest of them earlier that afternoon. The lanky man was seated at Harry’s right hand. Flynn began to understand the choreograph disguised beneath the noise. It was the nobility, or at least nobility through a warping glass; each tall chair baring its master and beside them, the trusted lieutenant that served them diligently. There, to the left of Harry, sat Mary Kaufman, deep in discussion with a woman wearing her guild’s crowns on a wide patch across her back. A man at her right hand listened in, his face flushed from drinking and his mouth split open into a rakish grin. Beside them a hulking figure was busying himself with a greasy shank of lamb. The smiths, Flynn wagered, eyeing his partner, who was just as eager in swallowing his foam-headed drink as the first was in picking his meal clean to the bone. 

Flynn’s eyes swung back to Harry again and trailed past Luca to settle on the brown-haired man he had been looking for. Karol still looked like Karol, even though the years had done a fine job of lengthening his limbs. He was hunched over and listening in on whatever joke Luca was busy telling. The young don was already laughing, his tankard sloshing in his fist. Flynn stared at them for a moment longer before he allowed his eyes to move on. 

There he was, Karol’s second in command, draped sideways in his chair so that his long legs kicked out over the arm. The man in a sea captain’s jacket sitting beside him looked rather sour that Yuri had crossed his heels against the arm of his own high-backed chair. Yuri paid his murderous looks no heed. He was too invested in whatever clever thing he was telling the tall Krityan towering behind him. Judy seemed to be half-listening to him, her elbows propped against the back of his seat and her hands busy playing with a strand of his hair. The rest of it spilled over his shoulder, barely clearing the tacky floor. He was not drinking but there was something smoldering between his fingers which he brought to his lips, from time to time, and which left a silver cloud lingering around their heads. 

“Oh! He’s seen us! Karol! Karol!” Estelle laughed and waved her arms, nearly tumbling from her seat as she did. It did the trick. Flynn watched with amusement as the young man nearly toppled from his own privileged seat to race through the pulsing crowd. 

“Estelle!” The timbre of his voice had mellowed over the years. Flynn supposed he sounded more like a boss, now. Still, he looked like nothing but a boy as he flung his arms around Estelle and rocked her from side to side. “I can’t believe you’re here!” 

“We just arrived today,” she answered him, beaming. She cupped his face between her hands. “Goodness, look at you! You’ve gotten so handsome, Karol.” He blushed — already well flushed by whatever it was he had been drinking — and wagged his head free. 

“Aw, quit it, Estelle. And Flynn! Hey! Wow! I didn’t know you were coming, too! I barely recognized you in... well, it’s good to see you!” 

“You too, Karol,” Flynn laughed, hiding as much as he could of his borrowed outfit below the lip of their table as he did. “I’m a little late, but congratulations — how does it feel to be the boss of a master guild?” 

“Busy,” Karol admitted with a sheepish grin. “Oh, sorry, I don’t know you, do I?” 

“This is Captain Yassik,” Flynn offered. Yassik smiled thinly at him, perhaps a bit off-put by this latest flagrant disregard of proper courtesy. Karol jutted his hand out at her from across the table. She took it and made a good show of hiding her wince as he pumped it with a drunken shake.

“Nice to meet you! Man, I can’t believe you are all finally here. Harry has been talking about it for weeks. You would think he didn’t even care about his appointment. Oh! But you haven’t even seen him yet, have you?” He leaned forward to collect Estelle’s hands between his own. “You need to go say hello!” 

“Karol,” Estelle laughed, “I’m sure there will be plenty of time for that.” 

“Are you kidding me? He’ll kill me if I go back up there without you. Here. Hey!” He waved at a nearby trio wearing navy jackets that matched his own. 

“Yeah, boss?”  

“Help Estelle up there, would you? Straight to the Don. You’ll answer to him if you get any stupid ideas.” 

“Sure boss.” 

“Karol,” Estelle insisted again, glancing quickly over to Flynn as she said it. “I don’t know. I don’t want to interrupt.” 

“Just go say hello,” he argued gently. “Trust me. If you don’t go soon he’ll probably faint from anticipation.” 

“I think Karol has a point,” Flynn added, sensing the undercurrent of the situation. She smiled and nodded at him before picking her way towards the guildsmen. They became a caricature of a noble guard themselves as they pushed a too-large space for her to walk between the lurching crowd. “You aren’t going, too?” He looked over at Karol once she had disappeared behind a set of shoulders and raised glasses. 

“Are you kidding me? Harry’s petrified. If I was up there he would try to talk to me instead. Luca will catch wind of it — there, look.” Karol nodded as Luca spotted Estelle’s pink head while she made her slow advance. He bowed his chin close to Harry’s ear before standing to abandon his seat. “There. Now he’ll have to talk to her.” 

Harry realized what had happened just as Estelle cleared the space between the crowd and the proud arc of chairs. He stood stiffly to approach her, leaving his tankard behind so that he could draw himself into a proper-looking bow. Flynn couldn’t help but smile, in a painful sort of way, as he watched the man reach out as if he meant to shake her hand. Estelle, benevolent as always, sidestepped it to draw him into a hug instead. Some of the guildsmen catcalled at that, but they were quickly distracted by their voracious boasting and drinking soon after. Even Flynn felt a breath of relief fill him as the duo turned to take a seat — Harry back in his place of distinction and Estelle in the chair Luca had left behind. 

“Poor Harry,” Karol continued, leaning backwards to snatch a fresh drink from one of the tavern girls. “If Estelle shoots him down I don’t think he’ll ever recover.” 

“That reminds me of someone,” Flynn quipped. Karol sunk guiltily behind his tankard. “Listen, Karol. There was actually something that I wanted to talk to you about.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Luca mentioned that the Don had Brave Vesperia look into that explosion out in the meadowlands.” A proud look brightened Karol’s face. 

“Yeah, sure! Just a few days ago. Why d’ya ask?” 

“I’m curious if it has anything to do with an issue that has been affecting other parts of the empire. I thought it would be helpful if we discussed it — to see if there was anything in common that would be useful for both Zaphias and Dahngrest to know.” Karol shrugged. 

“Yeah, alright. Not now though, okay? I’m already seeing two of you.” He laughed and squinted with a wink in his direction. “Come by the Vesperia headquarters tomorrow and I’ll see what we’ve got. You do know where the headquarters is, don’t you?” 

“No,” Flynn admitted. Karol pointed above his head. 

“We’re in the top three floors. Ask for me, I’ll be around. I’ll think of something good you can give me for the information.” He grinned before looking over his shoulder. “Okay. I think it’s safe for me to go back. No more business-talking tonight. Have a drink, Flynn! You look like you could use one. Nice to meetcha, by the way, Captain.” He notched a salute at his brow before turning to slip back into the crowds. 

“Shit,” Flynn sighed once the young man had made it back to his seat. He grit his teeth against the throbbing of his headache, a full-grown migraine now and pulsing in tune with the deep bass of a man yelling a set of threats nearby. 

“That wasn’t so bad,” Yassik insisted. 

“It would have been better if he would have just told us what he knows.” 

“If that man is a guild boss, he must be smart enough to know that he shouldn’t do anything without a fight.” Flynn laughed. Maybe Yassik was more savvy than she let on. 

“You’re probably right.” His chest sunk as he realized that Harry and Estelle had disappeared. He took a deep breath and remembered the promise he’d made to her earlier that night. He wasn’t there to protect her virtue, after all, although part of him wished that he were. The damned guilds. They were never anything more than a complication. He sighed again and watched, bemused, as a pair of women bare except for a few well-placed feathers slipped like seals through the crowd. It was getting too late for people like him and Yassik to be lingering in a place like this. He could nearly taste the guildsmen’s appetite buzzing in the air — for blood or sex or both, having already been otherwise sated by the dozens of barrels that had been emptied and broken along the far walls.

“What’s wrong?” He ignored Yassik’s question for the sight of Luca’s lithe body threading between the would-be thrones at the center of the room. A pair of arms trapped him as he passed them by. They snatched at his sleeve and then at his collar to draw him in like some dark-winged moth doomed to the center of a spider’s web. Luca leaned eagerly into their pull. Then the sight of him was hidden again as two men wearing the Soul Smith’s hammers on their breast began to grapple with wet-smacking fists four paces from Flynn’s table. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Flynn snapped, weaving from his seat just before one of the guildsmen tumbled bonelessly forward from the prize shot his compatriot had landed between his spinning eyes. Yassik followed obediently behind and out into the cool escape of the night outside. 

———

Everything had always been so simple for Yuri. It was as if he had been born without a reasonable sense of fear. He had never been frightened of the mongrels that hunted the Lower Quarter like second-hand wolves, or of the older urchin boys who always threatened to break his arms when he stole the warmest places to sleep at night. Even as a boy he could speak to anyone, crone or knight alike, and leave them charmed once he had gone. And he could always fall asleep, no matter where he was, and in record time. 

Flynn listened to his steady breathing now from across their tiny room. Each deep breath made him feel more miserably awake. His sheets tangled between his legs as he tried to find the proper pose to lull himself to sleep. It didn’t work. It rarely did. Why, out of anyone, and out of any place, had they both been assigned there? And to the same room? Was it some kind of cruel trick — a divine reminder that even joining the knights had been little more than another one of Yuri’s lucky mistakes? 

Flynn flipped to his side and shut his eyes. They opened again of their own accord and settled blearily on Yuri’s sleeping face. Most of it was hidden by his long hair, still damp from his nightly shower. Flynn wondered if the bland soap they were all issued smelled different on his skin. 

No he didn’t. 

He closed his eyes again. 

None of this was right. He would have submitted to his fate of patrolling the sleepy Shizontania — enjoyed it, even, although it was hardly glamorous — but how could he, now that Yuri was there? Grumbling about their dull post at the front gates, teasing the twins Hisca and Chastel until they were hissing curses at him like wet cats, sparking fights in dingy places; Yuri was always doing something, and that something always drew Flynn in, no matter how hard he tried to resist it, as if Yuri were some black hole.

Yes, that was what he was. He should have known it from the start. His mother had nearly told him the same when she had first caught him playing with the beggar boy. But he’d let him draw him into his nucleus all the same, and perhaps now he was so deep in it he couldn’t swim out again. And maybe he was overreacting, but he always listened to him, didn’t he? Let’s go to that tavern, Yuri would suggest, and although Flynn knew it was a stupid idea he would follow along at his heels; and then he’d stand at his side while they were both reprimanded later, and so what made that any different than if, one day, Yuri ordered him to do something much worse than break their curfew? 

Like kiss him. He felt his cheek grow hot against his thin pillow. No, not like that, but he had already started to picture it. And what if he had? What if he had stayed up in the heights of that old creaking balcony instead of running away? His eyes opened and settled on Yuri’s face again. And what if he had buried his fingers into his thick hair and kissed him back? What if he had threaded open the last few buttons of his shirt that Yuri bothered to keep notched closed? Would he have fought against him if he pushed him to his knees? A hungry misery filled Flynn’s chest as he pushed his fingers against his belly and under the elastic of his briefs. Would his mouth have felt as hot as it did when he had pressed it clumsily against his own — and as tight and wet as he imagined it now? Better maybe if it were biting, instead, so that it could clip off all of the wickedness had been stirred awake in him with a quick jerk of his jaw. 

Flynn shuddered at the idea. The quick bliss that followed was then consumed by an agonizing shame. Yuri slept on, dreaming, the way he always did. 

———

Dawn had done little to transform the Cerberus into a proper establishment. Flynn picked his way carefully between the broken glassware and toppled chairs. It was still dark. Still stank. At least it was finally quiet. The room was mostly empty, save for a few snoring bodies crumpled under the tables and along the benches set beside the walls. Well, no one had been killed, he supposed — or perhaps they had already been whisked away. Either option seemed a civilized enough end for a guildsmen fete. He leaned against the tall back of one of the chairs circling the center of the room to eye the space around him. But where on earth was the door into the supposed headquarters upstairs? Had it been some sort of joke? He’d already trailed the length of the building outside and found little more than unrelenting brick to welcome him into Karol’s domain. Was he supposed to recant some riddle about stars for the hidden portal to reveal itself? 

Or maybe that was it. His eyes settled on a brass doorknob gleaming from the summit of a short set of half-hidden stairs. He shuffled between two shattered stools to hunt it out. It seemed as promising as anything else he’d found. And, even better, it was unlocked. It clicked open to usher him into a narrow stairwell papered with a simple green pattern that at least attempted to set some sort of ambiance that the tavern behind it lacked. He supposed that was what a guild’s headquarters required, didn’t it? A little pizzazz? 

The stairs creaked under him as he took them with a quick stride. Another door was waiting for him at the top. It opened as easily as the first, swinging into an airy space lit by wide skylights winking above. He frowned lightly with confusion — a simple kitchen, it looked like, with a large island at its center made of the same wood as the bar downstairs. An island and a set of stools and on one was perched a man, shirtless, and with the image of an enormous eagle splashed across his chest which was just visible in its blue-black ink against his dark skin. 

“Shit.” 

“Mister Commandant,” Luca greeted him in a surprised sing-song, the spoon he had been stirring in a steaming mug at his elbow coming to a clicking halt. He had a thin booklet gripped in his other hand, folded over at the spine, which he looked up from now and quickly abandoned against the island as he watched Flynn grope backwards for an escape. “Can I help you?” 

“I’m looking for Karol,” Flynn managed thinly. Luca cocked one of his brows high into his forehead. 

“Are you? You’ve gone about it in the most peculiar way.”

“Clearly I’ve gotten lost,” Flynn agreed, turning on his heels. 

“You’re joking,” a new voice snarked, echoing in the heights of the room. A cold dread spilled over the nape of his neck. Caught, dammit, and just as he’d found the knob. He glanced guiltily over his shoulder. There was a lofted platform built above the space where Luca was sitting. At the top, and working his way down the stairs that planted it to the kitchen, was Yuri, threading his arms through a loose white shirt as he took the steps down. Karol’s grinning face flashed in Flynn mind — so he had been fucking with him, had he? And what a goddamned lion’s den he’d lured him into. “What the hell are you doing here?” 

“He’s looking for Karol,” Luca answered on his behalf. He puffed a breath over the mouth of his cup afterwards and took a tentative sip. Too hot, it seemed — he winced and set it down again. Yuri stared up into the blue sky peeking through the windows before shooting Flynn an incredulous look. 

“You are incredible,” he scoffed, shaking his head. “Even if Karol did for some unimaginable reason live with me, Flynn, I don’t think he’d be eager to entertain you at daybreak.” 

“I’m not here to be entertained,” Flynn insisted. Yuri rolled his eyes and combed his messy hair away from his face. 

“You’ll never change, will you? Alright. Let’s get on with it, then.” He kicked the legs of Luca’s stool with his bare heel.

“Aw, come on,” Luca cried out, staring glumly into his mug. Yuri huffed an amused sound before nodding his chin towards the door. “Fine. Asshole.” Luca sidled off of his seat and slunk forward to collect his jacket from its crumpled spot near the foot of the lofted stairs. He slung it over his shoulders and ambled towards Flynn. 

“Don’t drink my tea,” he insisted as he passed him by, knocking the butt of his palm against his shoulder as he did. Flynn flinched and tried to gather the right words to tell him to stop — that he was leaving, instead, and didn’t want to have anything to do with either of them. His breath caught uselessly in his mouth as the guildsman disappeared into the hallway outside. Another word formed against his tongue once he had gone. 

“Seriously?” He flushed as he said it — he’d meant to bite it back but there it was, perhaps the worst thing out of anything he could have possibly spat out. 

“Don’t fucking try it,” Yuri warned him darkly as he leaned against the island to snag a small packet from across the boards. It crinkled as he opened it to fish out a neat paper square. He crimped it into a fluted shape between his fingers. “What are you doing here, Flynn?” 

“I told you,” Flynn replied, his eyes wandering to watch the man as he filled the paper with a generous finger of brown tobacco and something else, “I spoke with Karol last night. We agreed to meet today to discuss — can you not do that right now?” 

“I can do whatever I want,” Yuri sung as he rolled the paper into a tight wind, “because this is my fucking flat, which you might have realized at some point if you weren’t so busy being self-righteous.” 

“Yes, alright. I’m leaving. Can you just tell Karol that I’m looking for him once you see him?” 

“No,” Yuri snapped back. He flicked the head of a match against Luca’s abandoned mug and breathed his joint to life. “I’m not your messenger boy.” He smirked and shook his head, a swirl of silver smoke escaping from his nostrils. “Did it really not occur to you that a master guild wouldn’t be hidden in the back of some bar?” 

“Karol told me to come here!” 

“There are proper doors outside, Flynn! And a giant banner with a big fucking star on it.” Flynn felt himself sink into the floor. “Am I really supposed to believe that you missed that? What do you want?” 

“I’m not lying, Yuri. I’m just looking for Karol.” Yuri rolled his eyes and wagged his head with another tight shake. 

“Incredible. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but Karol isn’t here — or downstairs in the headquarters, where you were supposed to go. He’s probably over at Nan’s. I can’t imagine he’ll be in a state to meet with you until this afternoon.” 

“Fine. I’ll find him later.” Flynn meant to make his retreat but found his feet rooted to the floorboards. “You don’t need to be such an asshole, you know.” 

“No,” Yuri agreed, “but it is satisfying.” 

“Why? What did I do to you?” He braced his shoulders defensively. “I’ve only been here for two days and have said maybe three words to you. What could I have possibly done to be your punching bag this time?”

“Spare me,” Yuri drawled as he spread his fingers over the booklet Luca had been reading when Flynn had first arrived. He shoved it across the island with a flick of his arm. Something heavy fell inside Flynn’s chest as he realized that he recognized the gold leaf decorating the pages. 

“Where did you get that?” He stepped forward to grab the pamphlet before it tumbled to the floor. 

“A little bird.” A bitter anger swirled in his stomach. Had the guilds infiltrated his top brass? Was it really that easy? Yuri read his dismay deftly from across the island. “From one professional to the other — you should tell your men to stop inviting whores into their own bedrooms, eh? That’s just bad form and a little lazy, to be honest.” 

“You shouldn’t have this,” Flynn insisted, his anger melding into a deeper sense of dread. Had he read it? 

“Well, no, probably not; it does rather spoil the fun of the surprise.” Flynn winced. He had. 

“It isn’t — it’s complicated.” 

“It seemed rather straightforward to me.” 

“I’m going to fix it.” 

“Fix it?” Yuri laughed. “What, does it need a final polish? Don’t worry, Flynn, it’s probably the best thing you’ve ever written. I’d say you can go straight to the presses, editors be damned.”

“I didn’t write it,” Flynn promised between his teeth. 

“Come on. You have always been a horrible liar. A Treatise on Proper Living? You might as well have called it a Treatise on Flynn Scifo’s Self-Fucking-Loathing.” 

“I had nothing to do with it.” 

“Sure. Is that going to be your excuse when they come to string me up? You might as well make it my epitaph as well.” 

“Yuri. Please.” The ember of his joint flamed bright in the hazy air. 

“No. That’s it. That’s all I have to say to you. Karol will be downstairs later this afternoon. Meet with him if you have to, but after that you and your dogs need to leave or I’ll chase you out. You know I will, and it will be a mercy compared to what the rest of them want to do to you.”

“Fine.” Flynn stepped stiffly backwards towards the door. Yuri had already turned his shoulders to him — black hair and white smoke and nothing more. 

———

Flynn found him in their room. He was still wearing his dress uniform from the afternoon’s funeral procession. His back was to the door but Flynn could smell the sharp bite of whatever it was he had been drinking in the air. He frowned, his chest aching at the sight, and stepped forward to take a seat beside him on his bed. 

“Hey.” 

“Hey,” Yuri answered, his shoulders hunched and his face hidden behind his loose hair. 

“How are you doing?” It was a ridiculous question. The past week had changed them — all of them. Captain Niren was dead. The traitor Garista was, too. For all of Yuri’s cocky swordsmanship, Flynn knew that he must have been the first person that he had killed. They had both done it, really, but it had been Yuri alone who had drawn the final strike. They said that such a thing was like taking the final step off of a cliff — one that you could never climb up again. And it seemed that Yuri had made his landing into the mouth of his whisky bottle. 

“I’m alright,” Yuri lied. Flynn sighed and reached down to steal the bottle dangling between Yuri’s fingers. He took a drink. He supposed he deserved one, too. 

“You know, it’s against regulation to drink in the barracks.” Yuri huffed a sharp breath through his nose. 

“Yeah.” He gripped his fingers together and rubbed his thumbs one atop the other. “I don’t think that’s going to matter much, anymore.” Flynn’s stomach sunk. So he had decided to leave the knights. It wasn’t a surprise, of course, but it still pricked at him as if it were. 

“I guess not.” 

“Hey, Flynn?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you... do you think... Was it my fault?” 

“What?” Flynn looked over at the point of his nose, the only part of his face that he could see behind the curtain of his hair. “What do you mean? Of course not.” 

“It’s just that I was — I encouraged him, don’t you think? You told him to stand steady, but I wanted to storm that damned place, and I told him that, you know? And then I was sloppy—”

“You weren’t.” 

“I was,” Yuri insisted, his voice cracking. “And I made mistakes. What if the captain had listened to you? Even if it meant that the empire just quietly moved that machine of theirs instead.” 

“They wouldn’t have moved it, Yuri. The whole town could have been destroyed.” 

“Or nothing could have happened, and then they would all still be alive.” 

“The captain only did what he thought was right,” Flynn insisted, grabbing at Yuri’s forearm. “He would have done it no matter if you had been there or not. It didn’t have anything to do with you.” Yuri opened his hands and flexed them, the whites of his palms flashing in the amber light overhead. 

“It’s funny,” he told Flynn thinly, “when we left him behind I — I don’t know, it was like Niren was still alive. I know he was probably already gone but nothing had changed, you know? But I felt it, Flynn, I felt it when Garista died. It was like I could feel his heart stop beating.” 

“I’m sorry, Yuri,” Flynn breathed. “I should have helped you. We should have done it together.” 

“No.” Yuri shook his head and tipped it, so that finally Flynn could see the dark circles that had come to ring his eyes and the way they had grown heavy with tears. Something pricked deep within him at the sight. He’d never seen Yuri cry before. “I’m glad it wasn’t you who had to do it.” 

Flynn snatched his hands and gripped them tight. 

“Listen to me, Yuri,” he insisted, nearly choked by the lump that had formed in his throat. “You saved them. All of them. That ruin was a weapon, and it wasn’t aimed at some army ready for it. It was designed to destroy this place and everyone who lives here. Because they don’t matter, you understand? Not to the the empire, not the way that it is now. Children, mothers, fathers, grocery attendants and shoemakers — they are all just a meaningless tally to people like Garista, and he would have killed even more of them as some irrelevant consequence if not for you. You’re a hero.” 

“I’m a killer. Just like him.” 

“No!” Flynn dropped his hands to grasp his shoulders and pivot him to face him. “You’re nothing like him. You’re not like any of them.” A flinching look rippled across Yuri’s features, leaving his eyebrows arched high on his brow. 

“I don’t — I don’t want to be different, anymore, Flynn.” His shoulders shuddered under Flynn’s grip as he took a hitching breath. “I’m so tired of not being normal.” 

“No one’s normal,” Flynn argued with a fleeting smile. Yuri shook his head. 

“You know what they think of me. And even you—”

“I think you’re better than them,” Flynn contended. “You’re stronger, more courageous, more clever. The captain saw it too.” 

“No.” Yuri’s lips flattened into a line. “That isn’t what I mean.” 

“Yuri...” Flynn faltered, which made Yuri smirk and buck his shoulders out from beneath his palms. 

“I tried, you know? I tried to break all of that. When I was little they said that I was dirty, so I would wash myself in the river every night, but then they said that I smelled like a fish. They made fun of how I talked so I would sit in the market and listen to the mongers to see how they managed it instead. But then they said I used bad words that proper boys weren’t meant to say. They said I was a thief and a beggar, but only because I didn’t have anything, you know? How are you supposed to be anything at all if you have nothing from the start? I didn’t ask for that. I just wanted to be — to be like you. Neat and nicely dressed and minding your mother, and knowing how to read and how to make proper change.”

“Yuri,” Flynn tried again, “you’re just like me. All of that, before, it doesn’t matter.” 

“I’m nothing like you. Don’t make me say it, alright? You aren’t the only friend I’ve ever had but you’ve always been the most important and I fucked that up, just like I fucked this up.” He clawed at his collar to rip it loose. One of the buttons popped from its mooring to sail and bounce into the corner. “I tried. I tried to be a knight. I tried to be just — it doesn’t matter. It never does.” 

“You are a knight! Even if you leave, you’re a knight in the ways that matter. And you’ll always be my friend.” 

“You’re just saying that because you have to. But we both know that all of that is over. We’re not children anymore.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” 

“I see how you look at me, sometimes. Like you’re nearly frightened of me.” 

“I don’t,” Flynn sputtered, “I’m not frightened of you.” 

“Or disgusted,” Yuri offered sourly. 

“I’m not!” 

“I didn’t want to be like this,” Yuri continued, his voice rising as he clapped his hand against his chest. “I tried to be normal for you!” 

“Shut up!” 

The trick about drilling is the repetition. Flynn had learned that easily enough. What he hadn’t realized was that his daydreaming was drilling, too. His heart was too busy beating in his ears to guide him forward but his hands had already taken on the task. They moved, like he had often imagined, to slide past the lines of Yuri’s jaw to hook behind his head and draw him close to kiss him. Yuri stiffened at first and nearly fought him before loosening beneath his grip. For a moment after he was supplicant, tipping his chin for a better angle and grasping chastely at Flynn’s arms, before a drunken boldness seized him to shove the blond backwards against the bed. Flynn’s daydreaming became a thinner guide, then, as they advanced to places he had never had the imagination for. He mimicked Yuri’s caresses, gasping and moaning like he did as well until their white-hot greediness had been sated. It was quick and clumsy and left him feeling limbless beneath his crumpled sheets. Flynn listened as Yuri’s breathing slowed into its familiar metronome afterwards and, for once, was surprised to feel himself drifting off as well. 

And then the sun rose and woke him. He did it slowly, first relishing the heat of the bed and the rare restfulness of his slumber. His heart began to hammer, however, as he came to recognize the weight of Yuri’s hand against his hip. Flynn slipped out from beneath it to slink to the edge of the bed. Fuck. He planted his elbows against his knees and cradled his head in his hands. 

“Fuck,” he whispered. What had he done? His few sips from the whisky bottle — spilled empty, now, and forgotten in its place beneath the bed — had not been near enough to wipe the memory of the night before from his mind. His heart beat faster as his palms burned with the ghost of how they’d deftly worked hours before. And how delicious it had been. But he hadn’t meant to, had he? He had just wanted to make the misery darkening Yuri’s face disappear. And he had wanted him, a little voice chided him from a place well-hidden away, but that wasn’t supposed to matter. He was leaving, wasn’t he? So what had been the point? And he had been drunk. Flynn’s mouth grew dry. Had he taken advantage of him? Fuck. He hadn’t meant to. None of that was supposed to have happened. Not ever. Not like that. Fuck. No. Not ever.

The floorboards creaked beneath his feet as he padded carefully to his wardrobe. He pulled a shirt and a pair of slacks on quickly and slung a towel over his shoulder. There was something calming about carrying on with his morning routine even as his mind spun and stuttered. He would apologize. Ask if Yuri was alright. Say that it had been a mistake. Maybe not that last bit. But he was supposed to, wasn’t he? Even men and women — and was that worse, or better? — were not meant to fraternize with their fellow knights. Well, Yuri wasn’t a knight any longer. But would he be, now? Would he stay behind? And did Flynn want him to, or did he want him to escape? He tipped his face back against the stream of his shower and lingered under the weight of the water pooling in the shallows of his closed eyes; Yuri would suffocate, here, under the empire’s rules and all of the corruption that emboldened it. They both knew it to be true. He turned the knob of the shower tight and sputtered in the cold air. Fuck. Why had he done that?

Yuri was awake when he made his hesitant return into their room. He had dressed and made progress with packing his few belongings into a ratty duffel bag. He grinned at him boyishly as he entered, the way he always had, the agony of his expression the night before forgotten except for the light puffiness ringing his eyes. 

“Hey!” 

“Hey,” Flynn managed, his stomach lurching with surprise. Yuri knelt to snag the bottle from beneath his bed and waved it at him. 

“So I guess I drank all of this last night. Typical, right?” He rubbed at his forehead remorsefully with the back of his hand. “Anyway, sorry if I was an asshole. I don’t really remember much after the procession.”  

“Oh. I mean, that’s alright. It was a tough day.” 

“Yeah.” Yuri stared into the neat square of his folded bedsheets before stirring himself into action again. “In any case, I hope I didn’t do anything stupid. Did you stay here last night?” 

“I — yeah, I just slept. It was nothing. Don’t worry about it.” 

“Great. Okay.” 

“Okay,” Flynn echoed uneasily, draping his towel against the back of his desk chair. “Well. I’m going to get some breakfast, then.” 

“Sure. I’ll catch up with you. Don’t want to miss out on my last free meal.” 

“Great,” Flynn managed lamely. He slipped his feet into his shoes and retreated through the door. He was already in the hall and missed the sound of Yuri’s deep sigh, afterwards, and the way he tossed the empty bottle with a tight swing of his arm into the trash. 

Chapter Text

“Flynn!” Estelle’s voice was birdsong in the quiet lull filling the city. Still, the sound of it left him feeling uneasy as he stepped from the gloom of the Cerberus and out onto the flagstones. 

“Good morning,” he answered, smiling at her to prepare himself for her eagle eye. She could always read him just as easily as the books she wrote and, quite frankly, he wasn’t sure if he could manage any more introspection. She smiled back and skipped forward to join him. “I’m glad to see that you are still in one piece.” 

“Oh, you.” She threaded her arm through the crook of his elbow and meandered with him in an aimless direction. “Did you enjoy yourself last night?” 

“The better question is, did you?” She blushed. 

“Yes, very much, but lose those wicked thoughts of yours, would you? Harry and I talked for hours last night and nothing more.” She nodded her head up at the heights of the building he had just left behind. “Up there, on the roof. I will admit he was a bit more shy than I remembered him from his letters, but perhaps twice as clever.” 

“He looked a little drunk to me.” 

“What do you know about being drunk, my dear perfect friend?” He hummed a noncommittal sound and rolled his eyes. They lingered at the crest of their rolling to settle on a large navy banner flagging in the breeze. His stomach sunk as he made out the shape of an eleven-pointed star from within the folds. Yuri had been right — how had he possibly missed it before? He was losing his touch. 

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Estelle followed his look and gripped her arm tighter. “Eight years ago it was just the four of them and now they are a master guild.” 

“More than that,” Flynn guessed, glancing over at Estelle to test his hypothesis. “Karol was seated just beside Harry last night, wasn’t he? That must have meant something.” 

“Yes,” Estelle agreed with a proud smile. “Harry told me that he depends on them almost as much as he does Altosk. If you were to ask me, I would tell you that Dahngrest elected Harry because he was the right man for the job; but, he’s convinced that it was because Yuri threw his support behind him.” 

“What does Yuri have to do with a guild election?” 

“They respect him. He was Don Whitehorse’s second, do you remember?” She frowned lightly, perhaps at the memory or perhaps at the realization that Harry was Don Whitehorse now. “I believe that’s when he first won their support and it’s been eight years, you know, so one can only imagine what he has done with that time since.” 

“He does have a way with things like that.” 

“I think he’s been a bit of a mentor to Harry,” Estelle continued with a chirping laugh. “Some of the things Harry was saying last night, I could almost hear them coming out in Yuri’s voice.” 

“So there’s two of them, then? That’s worse than if the masters had elected Yuri outright,” Flynn groaned. 

“Don’t be like that,” she chided him. “Did you speak with him last night?” 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“I don’t know, Estelle. I hardly spoke to anyone. It wasn’t really the place for a proper conversation.”  

“You spoke with Karol,” she countered. 

“How do you think Karol feels about all of this — with Harry, and with Yuri being his favorite?” 

“Karol loves Yuri,” she insisted, her brow folding, looking nearly annoyed. “I don’t think it’s like that at all. If Ioder grew fond of Sodia it wouldn’t bother you, would it?” 

“No,” he agreed with a shrug of his shoulders. “I suppose not.” She studied his face for a quiet moment. 

“I think I know what’s upsetting you.” 

“I’m not upset. Let’s not play that game right now.” 

“Harry told me about Ioder’s treatise.” He frowned, his molars grinding tight in his jaw. 

“That’s — the more attention it gets the worse it will become. You need to tell him to destroy whatever copies he has and to speak of it no more. I’m serious, Estelle.” 

“Have you spoken to Ioder about it?” 

“Of course I have. You know what he is like. He’s allowed himself to become carried away. I will take care of it.” She nodded. 

“It’s dangerous, Flynn.” 

“I know.” The light-winged joy that had filled her face began to flicker. 

“Do you think he really believes all of that nonsense?” 

“No,” he answered, tossing his head with a quick shake. “Not beyond his commitment to doing right and avoiding wrong. He’s naive, Estelle. He doesn’t understand the implications.” His words left him feeling frustrated. And how long would the emperor remain that way, nearly a child and grasping at anything shiny within his reach — until he had turned old and grey? 

“You’re right,” she agreed with a deep breath. “He couldn’t — I mean, he wouldn’t do that to you. You’re like a brother to him.” His eyes narrowed with the slight creasing of his brow.

“What do you mean by that?” 

“Oh, Flynn. You haven’t told him?” 

“Told him what?” He came to a stop and drew her forward to face him. There was something both sad and guilty in the way she was looking at him now.  

“Don’t be like that. I’m sorry, I thought — it’s just that Sodia has already told me.” 

“Told you what?” His pulse kicked double-pace. 

“Hey, Flynn!” He winced as a hand clapped against his shoulder.

“Karol,” Estelle stuttered, her blanched face stirring to life again with a pained smile. “Good morning.” 

“I knew you would be here,” Karol laughed, his voice hoarse. He’d clearly not shown the restraint they had in his drinking the night before. Something nearly empathetic forced Flynn to abandon his spinning thoughts to release Estelle’s arm and turn to face him head-on. 

“Perhaps I was a bit too ambitious with my schedule,” Flynn admitted. “How are you feeling?” 

“Like I’ve eaten a mouthful of ash and been beaten for good measure,” Karol answered, squinting against the sunlight flickering in reflection from the city’s highest windows. “But there is no rest for the wicked, right? At least not for you. I thought you would probably be knocking at my door at dawn and, ta-da, here you are. Were you waiting long?” 

“Not really. We can postpone our discussion until this afternoon if you’d like instead?” 

“No, no.” Karol waved away his proposal with the flick of his hand. “I’m here, aren’t I? Let’s go up. Do you want to come, Estelle?”

“That’s alright, Karol. I think I am going to rest for a little while.”

“Okay! Come by later, though. Even Yuri should be awake by then.” 

“It’s a deal.” She smiled and nodded at them both before turning to return towards the union headquarters. 

“Do you think it went well?” Karol shared a conspiratorial look with Flynn once she had gone.  

“I’m not sharing Estelle’s secrets,” Flynn answered with the raise of one of his brows.

“I think it went well,” Karol guessed with a grin before nodding up to a set of doors. “Let’s go, then.” 

To Flynn’s credit, he had traveled some distance that morning from the dog-headed entry they’d used the night before to the one they approached now. The building that housed both the Cerberus and the Brave Vesperia headquarters was nearly a little city itself. Flynn came to understand why as Karol ushered him inside. There were men and women everywhere — most of them sleeping under the cover of their navy jackets — and countless crates and ancient machinery all cloaked in dust. His eyes lingered on a hoard of enormous skulls hanging from the tall ceiling, each one boasting more sharp teeth than the last. 

“It’s a bit of a mess in here,” Karol admitted sheepishly. “Worse when everybody uses it as a flophouse. Hey! Get up!” 

“Sorry, boss,” a woman grumbled before she turned to fall asleep again beneath a long table. Karol sighed and combed his fingers through the crest of his once-jaunty bouffant, now crushed by whatever he’d slept against the night before. 

“Sorry,” Karol repeated under his breath himself. 

“It’s alright.” Flynn looked up into the whale-sized maw of something with the sockets for three eyes. “What... What exactly is it that you do, as a guild?” 

“Everything.” Karol led him to a set of stairs growing from the face of the far wall. They climbed it together, their footsteps ringing against the metal steps, before Karol pulled a set of keys from his pocket and opened the door at their summit for him. A much tidier room was waiting for them inside. An office. Karol busied himself with lighting the oil lamps scattered around the ring of its perimeter. Each dawning light revealed a new section of the space. One of its walls was draped in a twin banner to the one outside. The one opposite it boasted another skull, this time with a long horn growing from its brow. Flynn ducked below it to take a seat before the dark wood of Karol’s desk as the guild boss did the same from the other side. 

“There was a bit of a vacuum here in Dahngrest when the Blood Alliance and Ruins’ Gate fell,” he continued in explanation as he poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher perched next to his arm. “And a lot of demand. We were more than happy to fill in the gaps.” 

“And to profit from it,” Flynn guessed. 

“Sure, of course. That’s kind of the point.” 

“But how do you manage such a broad scope?” 

“It isn’t that difficult. We hired back members from the old guilds — the decent ones, at least. They had the connections we needed at the start. We partner with a lot of other guilds as well. The Hunting Blades, like— I focus on most of the exploratory stuff, so they sometimes come along if we get into anything too nasty.” 

“And your client list from the Blood Alliance?” 

“Yuri handles that.” 

“Naturally,” Flynn answered uneasily. 

“It isn’t like before,” Karol insisted. “Still, we don’t live in some fairy tale. Sometimes you need a little muscle.” 

“Like when there is an unexplained explosion out in the middle of nowhere?” 

“Sure, like that.” Karol leaned sideways in his seat to fish something out from one of the desk’s drawers. Flynn’s eyes settled on the little box he had procured, large enough to fit perhaps an apple and nothing more. 

“What’s that?” 

“All of that before was free of charge,” Karol answered, “but the rest will cost you.” Flynn sighed. So much for being old friends. 

“What do you want, then?” 

“An audience with Ioder.” 

“You’re joking. I don’t think you’ll find any business opportunities with the emperor.” 

“Not for me. For Harry.”  

“Harry? And what does he want?” 

“To fix everything we messed up before,” Karol contended. He pointed the box at him. “Well, what you messed up, mostly. Harry wants to set a fresh start with Zaphias. On equal footing.” 

“I can’t make any promises on the emperor’s behalf.” 

“Sure you can.” 

“Karol.” What a shark he had become. Karol grinned at him over his glass. 

“Look. I’ll work in good faith with you on this. I’ll take you to the burnt meadow and I’ll even show you what’s in here. You just need to promise to make the introduction. Hell, invite Ioder to lunch and surprise him with a special guest. I don’t care how you do it. What’s important is that he doesn’t treat Harry like some second-class citizen. Dahngrest is free and as much a kingdom as Zaphias is. You get it?” 

“Alright. Fine. I’ll see what I can do.” 

“Great!” Karol reached over the desk and grabbed his hand. He shook it with the same enthusiasm that had trapped Yassik’s fingers the night before. 

“You’ve become quite the negotiator, Karol.” 

“You know,” Karol replied dryly as he leaned back into his seat, “you weren’t much older than I am now when you first became commandant. Is it really that unimaginable that I could be a decent guild boss?” 

“That isn’t what I meant,” Flynn attempted, although he supposed the man had a good point. 

“Mhm. Anyway. Do you want to see it, then?” He shook the box. Something rattled inside. 

“What is it?” 

“I don’t know,” Karol admitted as he tweaked the clasp holding the lid shut. He flicked it open and pushed it across the desk towards Flynn. “Have you seen anything like it before?” 

“No,” Flynn answered truthfully as he eyed the little glass orb inside. His initial suspicion had been correct — it was about the size of an apple and was perfectly round. It was clear, or had been, before it had been scratched and scuffed on one side. He picked it up carefully from the box and turned it between his fingers. There was something fluttering inside. Like tinsel, almost, silvery and papery and shredded into tiny pieces. “Where did you find it?” 

“Right at the center of all of that nothing out there. It looks like glass, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t broken, obviously. Everything else was.” Flynn replaced it in its little box. 

“Do you think it’s dangerous?” 

“I don’t know.” Karol shrugged. “I hope not. It’s been in my desk for over a week.” Flynn smirked. 

“Who found it?” 

“One of our men. His name is Sharktooth. I can bring him to you later if you’d like to talk to him.” 

“Sharktooth?” 

“It will make sense when you see him.” 

“Alright,” Flynn replied, unconvinced. “How soon after the explosion did he arrive at the scene?” 

“A day, no more. The merchants found it first, and they insisted they didn’t bring it themselves. That was all of it. All of that empty space and only that orb and a field of ash.” 

“And bones?” 

“Well, yes. You heard about that?” Karol’s face took on a green tone. “And those.” 

“Do you know who they were?” 

“Travelers, I would guess. They weren’t from here. We’ve already checked all of the guild lists. No one’s unaccounted for.” 

“So what do you think it was? A fire?” 

“It was at some point. But something must have started it.” 

“A lightning strike?” 

“You need to go out there,” Karol argued. “A lightning strike. You’ll understand how ridiculous that sounds when you see it.” 

“Agreed. Can this Sharktooth take me there?” 

“Yes, but he isn’t great company alone. I’ll go with you tomorrow.” 

“I’d rather go today,” Flynn insisted. 

“What, do you really hate Dahngrest that much?” 

“I’m not here to sightsee, Karol.” 

“Well, to be honest with you, Commandant, I think I might still be a little drunk and later, when I’m not, I’d rather not find myself in the middle of nowhere.” 

“Point me in the right direction, then. I can manage it myself.” Karol snapped the box closed. 

“What, and let you have all of the fun? No. Alright. Fine. I’ll send Yuri with you.” 

“What?” 

“He’ll be the only sober one of us, what with his drinking thing.” 

“There’s nothing that Yuri can do that I can’t do on my own.” 

“I’m sorry, have you recently pledged yourself to a guild? This is Dahngrest. You need to take him with you. Besides, old time’s sake and all of that. Estelle told me that you have some grudge against each other. Maybe you can sort it out?” 

“There’s no grudge.” 

“Alright, great. So take him with you. I’ll call for him now. Go downstairs and wait for us. See if you can find Sharktooth. It will be like a little game.” 

“I don’t have time for games, Karol.” 

“Yeah, alright,” Karol laughed as he stood from the desk. “I get it. What’s happened to you, huh? You used to be more fun. Go on, then.” 

Flynn obeyed, if only to avoid another round of psychotherapy. How quick they were to judge him, he thought glumly as he found an empty chair in the corner of the cavernous hall outside Karol’s office — how quick to judge him, as if they were all model citizens themselves. His eyes settled on a man as he crawled across the ground to retch into a helmet. Yes, how neat and tidy they all were. There was Estelle, for instance, who was always so quick to berate him for his lonely evenings when she had spent years pining for a man who had not been, to her, much more real than the storybook characters she created. And Karol, who he had not known well, but whom he remembered distinctly for his teenage angst when they had once fought together before. He was boring to them, was he? Well, what a shame. 

“Finally, somebody’s here to clean up.” Flynn looked up from his brooding to catch the advance of a hulking man from across the room. He glanced away again before he caught him watching him and misinterpreted it as an invitation. “You can start over here, eh?” Flynn heard something slosh and clatter to the ground. 

“Hey, are you not listening to me? Little rabbit man. You. Yes. You,” the man continued. Flynn stared up at him again. The first embers of anger began to crackle in his gut. His eyes settled on the sharp-filed points of his teeth. So it was that literal, was it?  

“I think you’ve confused me for someone else,” Flynn answered curtly. 

“No. I think not.” The man scoffed and waved his hand at him. “Little grey rabbit. Get to work.” The weight of his borrowed clothes was suddenly nearly unbearable. 

“Listen to me. You’ve made a mistake. Go back to whatever it was you were doing before you complicate things any further.” 

“I make no mistakes, Commandant,” the man countered venomously. He stepped a pace closer to grip at the empty chair at Flynn’s side. The slats of the back creaked between his thick fingers. “But you have, coming here without your pretty armor.” The sound of some of the other guildsmen stirring filled the tepid air. Flynn watched them with a trained and careful eye. He could manage it, he thought, but the odds weren’t entirely in his favor. 

“Do you really want to start a war?” 

“Why not?” The man’s neck disappeared into the thick round of his shoulders as he shrugged. “War is made for men like me. You would make me rich, you know, if you were buried in the ground.” 

“Enough.” A hush settled glumly among the growing ring of spectators as Yuri’s voice cut between them. “You’re both embarrassing yourselves. Stop comparing cocks and let’s get on with it.” 

“Yuri,” Flynn greeted him tightly. He looked less disheveled than he had in his apartment. The white shirt he’d covered himself with earlier was still there, although it was now mostly hidden beneath his own star-backed guild jacket. It was strange to see him in a uniform again, even one like theirs. “I’ve told Karol already. There’s no need for you to come.” 

“No, but I don’t take orders from you, now do I? Come on. You too, Sharktooth.” 

“I’m no imperial guard.” 

“You are today.” Flynn expected the brute to bristle against Yuri’s orders. He simply nodded instead, his face darkening with agitation but still obedient all the same. Something in it left Flynn feeling both impressed and disturbed. “Take us to the burned meadows. You remember the way?” 

“Yes.” 

“Fantastic,” Yuri replied dryly. “Let’s go, then, before I change my mind.” 

———

Flynn had taught Yuri how to ride. It wasn’t as if he’d had much choice. Riding had been just one of the many pieces of his imperial training but Yuri, having circumvented those steps so deftly himself and the Lower Quarter not being a place where many children trotted along in paddocks during their free time, would have never managed their trip to Shizontonia otherwise. It had been a miserable experience but apparently it had paid off. He was comfortably settled in his saddle, now, a neat and tidy dark blue slash from his long legs up into his shoulders. A proper rider, and a fast one. Each time that Flynn pushed his own mount forward to head their small party Yuri would kick his into action as well. They had made good time but Flynn knew, in the back of his mind, that their childish vies for the front was doing little more than stoking the strange tension between them and exhausting the poor quietta between their legs. But just because he knew something didn’t mean he needed to act on it. He frowned as Yuri advanced again, flinging mud behind him to speckle Flynn’s bare face. His own quietta huffed as he dug in his heels. 

“Stop doing that,” he barked as he flanked him. 

“What?” Yuri arched his brows innocently at him. 

“Riding through the puddles. Do you think I’m stupid?” 

“That’s a complicated question.” 

“Listen. It’s not like I asked for you to come along.” 

“What does that matter? I was going to have a perfectly enjoyable day until you started poking around.”

“I noticed.” 

“Yeah, you always have had quite the discerning eye. What, are you jealous?” Yuri laughed as he caught Flynn glancing uneasily in Sharktooth’s direction. “Shit, Flynn, you really are exactly the same. You belong in some museum. Hey! Sharktooth! Do you want to know a secret?” The thick-necked man edged closer to them to listen in. “I fucked Luca last night.” 

“Good for you,” the man managed in a confused tone, his mouth thinning into a smirk. Yuri cupped his hand around his ear. 

“And look! No cavalry comes to lock me away for my sodomy. How openminded our sweet Sharktooth is.” 

“Eh?” 

“Nothing,” Yuri replied dryly as he waved the man away with a flick of his reins. Sharktooth shrugged before peeling off to ride at a more sustainable canter. “Sorry, Flynn. Maybe he hasn’t read your little book yet.” 

“I didn’t write it,” Flynn insisted hotly, his neck burning beneath his collar. “Dammit, Yuri. Why the hell would I have done something like that?” 

“I gave up trying to understand why you do the things you do years ago.” 

“I didn’t write it.” 

“Well, I imagine Ioder will still mention you in his acknowledgments. Unless you aren’t as reformed as he hopes?” 

“What the hell is wrong with you? I had nothing to do with the fucking treatise and I am going to fix it. It’s not going to happen, none of it. Enough.” Yuri missed the glare that punctuated his promise. Flynn followed the new line of his gaze to see what had distracted him. His stomach fell as he did. There it was, just like the others had described; ash and nothing more for as far as he could see, stretching like a black sea from the top of the hill they had just crested until the wavering horizon line. 

“Yeah,” Sharktooth agreed with their mute looks as he sidled beside them. “Welcome to hell.” 

“What was here before?” Flynn tested the question carefully, his eyes dancing along the impossible flatness of the space before them. 

“Some trees,” Sharktooth answered, “boulders. Lots of them. We used to patrol here for bandits. They’d hide behind them and ride up on travelers to rob them as they came up from the south. Old Nell told me that glaciers took them here, once, thousands of years ago. No glaciers now. No rocks, neither.” 

“That’s impossible,” Flynn argued as he dismounted. He knelt to pinch some of the blackened earth between his fingers. “What would burn through rock until it was nothing but sand? A monster?” 

“Maybe, if there were enough of them,” Yuri agreed, his bitter tone mostly dissolved. He slipped from his saddle and began to circle the space himself. “But enough of them would be too much for a place like this. Where did you find that orb, Sharktooth?” 

“Right over there.”

“Was there anything else?” 

“Just bits and pieces of the poor bastards that got stuck in whatever this was.”

“What do you think?” Yuri had turned to look at Flynn. He frowned. 

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this before. There weren’t any reports of something strange, anything — other people, creatures, lights in the sky — when it would have happened?” 

“No,” Yuri answered. “None that we have found.” Flynn shook his head. 

“Maybe it was just some unexplainable thing. A fire and a storm and exactly the wrong conditions. Or-”

“Or it was a weapon,” Yuri finished for him grimly. “And one aimed right at Dahngrest.” 

———       

“You know, this could be the end of the world.” Flynn smirked at the idea, his eyes still settled on the crackling fire. 

“Yeah. Maybe.” 

“Oh well,” Yuri answered, stretching his arms above his head. “We had a good run of it.” 

“I mean, sort of. We also made a bit of a mess of things.” Yuri laughed. 

“That too. Maybe it would have been better if we were just like... like birds.” 

“Like birds?” 

“Sure. You don’t see birds killing each other just for the sake of it— or coming to terms with the idea of destroying everything just because they don’t want to lose the convenience of a little stone that cleans their nests for them.” 

“I guess you have a point,” Flynn agreed as he wrinkled his nose, “but besides the flying part I don’t think I would want to be a bird.” 

“I don’t know, you already kind of have the look down.” 

“Oh, shut up.” 

“Like a cockatiel.” 

“Alright, Yuri.” They listened together to the chirping of the grasshoppers in the fields surrounding the newborn ramshackle town. Aurnion. Perhaps they had been too hamfisted with the name. Still, it was a nice thing to think about; hope, and everything that it entailed. Flynn’s mind began to wander. But if they failed, would the grasshoppers die, too? 

“Hey, Yuri?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you have any regrets?” Yuri eyed him over the licking fingers of the little campfire they’d built in the flat space outside of the circle of the city’s first buildings. 

“I do.” Something shifted in his voice as he said it. “Maybe even for things I did for good reasons. But what does it matter now?” 

“Just that, if we win, I wonder, is that some sort of sign? That, you know, we should do a better job of everything moving forward? I mean, think about it. I don’t know about you but I’m afraid, Yuri — I’m afraid of what is waiting for us tomorrow. But the funny thing is, that thing isn’t what I’ve been so busy running from for my entire life. So maybe none of that really mattered at all?” Yuri smiled. 

“Yeah. You always did worry a lot. Who knows. Maybe we’ll actually win tomorrow?” 

“We could.” They both laughed. 

“Well, I hope we do. And I hope that you’re right. We can all do a better job of this — whatever that means.” 

“Listen,” Flynn continued after another long pause. “I want to talk to you about something.” 

“Alright,” Yuri answered uneasily, catching the pained look in his friend’s eyes. “What is it?” 

“It’s about Shizontonia. After Captain Niren died.” 

“I remember.” 

“The day of his funeral, when we were in our room, afterwards, and you were drinking—” 

“I remember it, Flynn.” 

“I know, but there was more to it than that.” 

“I know. I remember.” 

“What? But you said that you blacked out.”

“I lied to you.” Flynn’s breath pinched in his throat. 

“Why?” 

“Because I saw what you were like afterwards. You were miserable. If we’re talking about regrets I don’t regret what we did, but I wasn’t going to rub your face in it, either.” 

“You didn’t have to lie,” Flynn mumbled. 

“Neither did you, but you did, because it was easier.” 

“It wasn’t easier!” Flynn caught and quieted himself before he was shouting in earnest. “It wasn’t easier. But it’s just — I’m not — I’m not gay, Yuri.” Yuri tipped his head back slightly, looking almost amused. 

“Alright. I am.”    

“How can you be so sure?” Yuri laughed. 

“I mean, I think you already know how.” 

“I’m not joking, Yuri.” 

“Well,” he sighed, throwing his hands into the air, “I don’t know. How can you be so sure you aren’t?” 

“Because I like women,” Flynn sputtered lamely in reply.  

“Have you been with one?” He felt his cheeks grow warm even beneath the heat of the fire. 

“Yes.” 

“Then, well, congratulations. You’ve tested the waters and picked the pool you prefer. Don’t worry about it, Flynn — seriously. It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone. Besides, with what we did it hardly even counts. I can’t imagine that it was the first time that’s happened in that room, let alone the barracks.” 

“It counts.” 

“And who’s keeping score? I thought you just said you didn’t want to worry about this sort of thing anymore. Listen. It’s difficult. I understand. No one wants to raise their hand to tell the rest of the world they’re different. But I’ve come to terms with it and, hell, Flynn, let’s just say that I’ve committed to it more than you have. So what if we fooled around a little? To be honest I probably didn’t give you much of a choice.” He laughed ruefully and drug his fingers through his hair. “I think I went a little too hard on you.”  

“Why? Why me?”  

“I don’t know,” he replied, glancing away. “I guess I’ve always been a little in love with you. Not that you led me on to it. You were always kind of an asshole.” 

“Yuri...” 

“Yeah, I know. Don’t worry about it. I don’t regret that part, either.” 

“We shouldn’t have done it.” Yuri winced. 

“Alright. I’m sorry, Flynn. I didn’t do it to hurt you.” 

“I know, but that... that night, and that night on the balcony in the Lower Quarter, I think about them all the time. When I’m sleeping, when my mind wanders. It’s like I can’t get them out of my head.” 

“What do you want me to say? We were both just kids. I though that you wanted it too, that’s all.” 

“I did! I do!” Flynn rocked to his feet. “So what the hell does that mean, Yuri?” 

“I — well — there’s a word for that too, you know.” 

“Don’t patronize me.” Flynn buried his face in his hands. “This is stupid. Forget it.” 

“Hey. No it isn’t.” Yuri stood and stepped closer to him. “We’re probably going to die tomorrow, remember? You won’t have the chance to say it much longer. What is it?” 

“It’s just that...It’s just that I don’t want to be running from it until I die. I’m not a coward, Yuri.” 

“I know you aren’t. So what is it that you want?” Flynn’s throat bobbed as he met his eyes again. They were as dark as his hair — as the moonless sky above them. Even in all of that stillness he could see that he already understood. His heart thrummed fast against his ribs as he reached forward to thread Yuri’s fingers between his own and drew him towards the little cabin waiting for them. 

———

“Flynn. Flynn. Are you listening to me?” He blinked and, when his eyes opened, found a pair of green ones staring back at him. 

“What? I’m sorry.” He rubbed his knuckles against the bridge of his nose. “I lost myself for a moment, there.” 

“I know. Is everything alright?” 

“Yes,” he answered sternly before she had the chance to dig her heels into the topic again. 

“Maybe you should get some rest.” 

“I’m alright, Estelle.” He snatched the little box from the table to prove it to her. The clear orb inside sparkled benignly. “What is it that you were saying?” 

“Just that I can’t imagine what that is. A trinket, maybe?” 

“If it is, it is the finest one ever made. There was nothing but destruction out in that field. And yet this thing remained? It can’t be a coincidence.” 

“And you don’t think that maybe it was just left behind by the merchants who went there, afterwards?” 

“It’s possible. But this is all we have.” He swept his hand over the collection of vials filled with black soil and ash and the strange orb he’d borrowed from Karol. “We can’t rule anything out yet.” 

“You think that it might happen again?” 

“I hope not. But we can’t sit on our hands until it does.” 

“What are you going to do?” 

“I am going to bring this all back to the capital. Perhaps it will be familiar to someone there. Witcher can inspect the soil samples. He has an eye for that sort of thing — and a new interest in explosives, if you must know, which is actually rather convenient, if a little frightening.” 

“You don’t think.” She bit back the words. 

“What?” 

“It’s nothing.” 

“Estelle.” She frowned. 

“It’s just that... You don’t think this could have anything to do with the emperor, do you?” 

“What could you possibly mean by that?” 

“Just that his writings — they were so fixated on the idea of good and evil, weren’t they? The people are calling that out there evil, too. And if Witcher had—”

“Witcher would never do anything that would hurt anyone,” Flynn promised tightly. “And he does nothing without my instruction. Are you suggesting that I killed those people?” 

“No. No. Of course not. It’s just a strange coincidence, don’t you think?” 

“I think we have lived through a hundred strange coincidences,” he sighed, the tightness in his shoulders loosening as her accusation began to fade. “What is this to add to the list, really?” She smiled. 

“I suppose you’re right. You’ll leave soon, then?” 

“Yes. Tomorrow, at dawn. I don’t imagine you want to return with me.” He laughed lightly at the look slipping across her face. “Don’t worry. I won’t insist. I will be leaving Captain Yassik behind in my stead to continue the investigation here. If you have any interest in the matter yourself I’m sure she would appreciate your perspective.” 

“I like her,” Estelle interjected. “She reminds me of you.” 

“Perhaps there is a type,” he quipped dryly. “In any case, just send word to me if anything happens. No matter how trivial it seems.” 

“When do you think you will return?” 

“I don’t know. I might not return at all. Maybe it will all be a simple misunderstanding.” 

“Do you think that maybe you should speak with Yuri, then, before you leave?” 

“And why would I do that?” His jaw grew tight. “Do you think that I’m naive enough to not catch what you’re insinuating? Let me simplify the situation for you — no, I don’t think I should speak with him before I leave. There is nothing to say. This isn’t one of your stories, Estelle. Yuri is an old friend and nothing more. Don’t meddle in things you don’t understand. I’m tired of it and won’t entertain it any longer.” 

“Alright,” she breathed, her lips quivering. “I’m sorry.” 

“Oh, it’s not — just, just don’t worry, alright? And write to me if anything happens. Don’t let these guildsmen take advantage of you.” 

“They never have before,” she contended, her voice growing dry. 

“Well, but if they do, let Yassik take care of it. I think it’s safe to say they will listen to her far before they would ever listen to me.”

“Maybe we’ll all just join the guilds ourselves instead.” He laughed and shared a smile with her. 

“Yes, and better off for it, possibly.” 

———

“So, Commandant. This is where they’ve hidden you.” 

“Yuri!” His chest swelled at the sight of him at the threshold of the office door. His office door. In his own wing, actually. All of that still seemed too impossible to imagine. Sodia lingered at Yuri’s elbow, her face drawn into a pinched scowl.

“Commandant, I’ve told Mr. Lowell that you are entirely too busy for visitors at this hour. Three times, in fact. But he has insisted on hearing it in person, apparently.” 

“He gave you the slip that easily?” She flushed. Flynn laughed. “It’s alright, Sodia. I’ll speak with him. Go on. It’s late. Get some rest. I’ll let you know if I need anything.” She hesitated for a moment before dipping her chin in a curt nod. 

“Very well, Commandant.” 

“I like her much better like this,” Yuri drawled as he shut the door behind him. 

“Like what?” Flynn rose from his desk to meet him mid-stride.

“Accommodating.” 

“It would be easier if you would just make peace with her.” 

“Yes, well,” Yuri answered, fidgeting with the wide-faced belt wound around his waist, “I very nearly have. How is it, then? All of this responsibility?” 

“I don’t really know, yet,” Flynn admitted bashfully. “It’s all been a blur. I’m sorry that I haven’t met with you recently. Between the elections and the coronation I—”

“It’s alright, Flynn. Maybe I’ve been busy, too.” 

“With the guild?” Flynn gestured at the chairs schooling at the center of the room. The leather shone in the warm light of the chandelier. It still smelled like the tannery it had come from — fresh, all of it. A fresh start with none of Alexei’s memorabilia left behind. He sat, neatly, and smirked as Yuri threw himself into his own seat with much less reserve. 

“Yeah. Karol’s been doing all of the official stuff. It’s amazing, really. Can you imagine either of us doing that at his age?” 

“It would have been difficult to fit it in between brawling with old Orson and fixing turtle races.” 

“The turtles!” Yuri laughed. “I forgot about them. I heard they released some of them into the sewers. Maybe they’ll come visit you, soon. You were always their biggest fan.” 

“I think they’d find me pretty boring, now.” 

“That’s the beauty of peace, Flynn — it’s fucking boring.” 

“So you’ll be in Dahngrest, then?” 

“Sometimes.” Yuri shrugged. “It’s not so far away. I kind of missed this old place.” 

“The palace?” Flynn cocked his brow. “I find that hard to believe.” 

“Well, no, not this place. But I went down to the Lower Quarter today. They all still remembered me.”

“Of course they did. You’re their patron saint.” 

“Not as much as you, Commandant. I wouldn’t be surprised if they build a statue in your honor soon.” He waved his fingers in the air theatrically. “The Golden Son — they’ll just have to sweep that tricky provenance of yours under the table, first.” 

“Don’t worry, Yuri, everyone still remembers where I’ve come from, even if I wasn’t born there. But it will be different, soon. All of those elitists are a dying breed. I really believe that. Ioder cares about the Lower Quarter. He’s already allocated funds to build a proper well and plumbing into the houses. Fresh water, and dependable, and for everyone. Honestly, I think this new world of ours will be better for them than anything before, blastia or otherwise.” 

“I hope so. They deserve it. I suppose you do, too.” Flynn grinned. 

“That’s very generous of you. Just don’t mess with my statue, alright?” 

“I’ll consider it. So.” Yuri tapped his fingers along the pleated arms of his chair. “This is how it all begins then, eh? The empire’s youngest-ever commandant and Dahngrest’s freshest upstart guild.” 

“I guess so. The world isn’t ending anymore, at least. I think that’s good enough for now.”

“No, it hasn’t ended yet.” They challenged the silence between them for a moment longer before Yuri stood and closed it by planting his palms against each of the arms of Flynn’s chair. Flynn hooked his fingers into his collar and drew him downwards into a hungry kiss. He gasped a breath against the warm skin of Yuri’s throat as he felt him unbuckle his belt with a quick draw. 

“Long live the empire,” Yuri drawled as he sunk to his knees. 

“Fuck,” Flynn moaned in reply as his mouth closed around him. He pushed greedily against his shoulders and looked away before the sight of him drew everything to a premature end. His eyes settled on the fresh mint paint on the walls — the empty shelves ready to be filled, the crisp map, newly-pinned and waiting for his mark, his armor, standing at attention and shining like a diamond mine. 

No, the world had not ended. Perhaps it had just begun. 

———

It was still night, really, when he left, but he could hardly stomach another hour suffocating in his cell of a room — and less time still wearing the ridiculous grey rags they had given him. He touched the crisp edge of his uniform’s collar now as his mount kicked a space between him and the long bridge leading out of Dahngrest. They’d made him into a fool. Not that it had been worth much. What had he done, really? Served as a glorified escort for Estelle’s midnight tea-time with the young new don? Played gardener in a ruined field? He’d never really known what the life of a commandant entailed other than rousing speeches and looking impressive, but then this had to be a new low. 

“Mister Commandant!” Fuck. Perhaps he had spoken too soon. 

“No,” he snapped, nudging his mount into a tight prancing circle. He waved his reins at Luca as he made his approach. “Not happening. Go back.” Luca dropped his own reins to flash his palms at him apologetically. 

“I would if I could, but I’m not really one to disobey orders.” 

“I don’t care what your orders are, Savano. We aren’t in Dahngrest anymore. This isn’t a suggestion. Turn back.” 

“My, I like you much better this way. And here I thought that I didn’t understand what anyone saw in you. Still, rules are rules, Commandant. But if you insist I will leave — only the thing is, that is coming with me as well.” He gestured at the little box lashed to Flynn’s saddlebags. 

“Karol agreed that I could take this to the capital. Bring it up with him if you have a problem with it.” 

“I don’t have a problem with any of it. Consider me an insurance plan, that’s all. And fantastic company. Don’s orders, my friend. It’ll be my neck if I don’t and, honestly, I think it’s one of my best features, so I don’t believe I’ll risk it for you.”

“You’re joking.” 

“Not this particular time, no. So, to Capua Torim, yes?” Flynn kneaded his fingers against his brow and sucked in a deep breath. 

“Fine. But keep quiet.” Luca flicked his fingers in a salute against his brow. 

“Yes, sir.” He kept his promise for perhaps three dozen hoofbeats. 

“Is it usual for you to travel alone?” Flynn kept his eyes steady on the path before them. Incredible. What kind of rotten luck had he been cursed with? 

“Yes,” he answered tightly. 

“Just seems a little strange, don’t you think? I would have expected you to have some sort of entourage.” 

“No.” Luca laughed. 

“You know, call me crazy, but I have this sneaking suspicion that you don’t like me.” 

“I don’t know you. I don’t have to like you.” 

“No, but it isn’t really fair. I think I’m quite like-able. In fact, I have quite a bit of empirical evidence. So what have I done to you to put me against your good graces?” 

“Nothing.” 

“I know! That’s the problem. I don’t blame you, you know.” Flynn glanced over at him quickly. 

“For what?” 

“For Don Whitehorse. He told me what happened before he died. It was an impossible situation. I know that you played a part in making sure it didn’t get worse.” 

“I’m sorry,” Flynn answered after a beat, “about what happened to him.” 

“Me too. He was like a father to me. The Whitehorses — they’re good people, you know? And that includes Harry. Without them Dahngrest would be a very different place.” 

“I know.” 

“You’ll vouch for him, then?” 

“What?” 

“With the emperor.” 

“I — his excellency has no issue with Dahngrest, Luca. We share a critical alliance and I’m certain that the emperor will do everything in his power to maintain that alliance for years to come. With Harry, or with anyone else.” 

“Even if we’re a city of heretics?” 

“Heretics?” Flynn frowned. That damned treatise. What about it was so compelling? It was as if they had never heard a nasty rumor before. “That won’t be an issue.” 

“I wouldn’t be so sure. There’s something about that sort of thing — fear, hate, a shortcut to superiority — that is incredibly appealing to some people. I think that your emperor has started a fire he might not be able to control.” 

“We will control it,” Flynn insisted. “We will destroy it.” Luca studied his face for a quiet moment. 

“I told Yuri that you didn’t have anything to do with it.” He grinned. “Ha! He owes me some money.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“I will admit that I did a little research on you while I was in the capital. Especially after I found that treatise. I thought that you must have been a real nasty piece of work. But everyone just kept on going on about how great you are — kind, measured, fair. A bit boring but by the book. Not my type, to be honest with you, but not the type to be a bigot, either.” 

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” 

“In fact,” Luca continued, ignoring him with a wink, “we are really kind of kindred souls. I didn’t know that you grew up in the slums as well. Did you know Yuri, then?” 

“I’m not interested in sharing my life’s story with you, Luca.” 

“Oh, come on — show me yours and I’ll show you mine? Here. I’ll go first. There are low parts of Dahngrest too, you know. That’s where I was born. My mother was a whore and my father was — well, you can guess what he was. Nice, right? I guess I should be thankful that she didn’t just drown me in a bucket when I was born but it wasn’t much of an improvement to live on the streets, either. The good news was that I was clever, naturally, and dashing, even then. I started running small jobs for the guilds. That’s how I met Harry. He was real little, then. I mean, literally small. People bullied him when the Don wasn’t around. Nasty, jealous little creatures. I made sure they didn’t any longer. Not for money, you know. Just because I liked him. It was nice to have someone to like. Then I got a bed, and proper meals, and even a mother out of the deal. I was luckier than Yuri. He told me that the first room he ever had was with the knights.” Luca snapped his fingers. “Well, of course you must have known him!” 

“I knew him,” Flynn replied stiffly, feeling suddenly miserable under Luca’s stare. Had he really said nothing about him to the man? Not even some half-truth? 

“Shit! Of course! No wonder you’re so impossible with me.” Flynn jumped as Luca nudged his mount closer to him and reached across the space between them to slap his hand against his shoulder. “It was you, wasn’t it?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Luca shook his head in wonder. 

“What a fucking story that must be! It’s almost too perfect. The white knight and the dark vigilante. I wouldn’t hate to watch.” He flagged his eyebrows at him. Flynn recoiled against his saddle. 

“You’re talking madness. As usual.” 

“Oh, come on. That won’t work with me. I’m the world’s best liar and you, Commandant, are perhaps the worst. We’re not, you know, together, by the way.” Luca laughed. “Although I guess I shouldn’t have prefaced that by saying that I’m good at lying. But that’s the truth. So you can cut your vendetta against me short.” 

“I have no vendetta against you,” Flynn snapped. “Or against anyone. Or any sordid stories. You’ve invented something that isn’t there.” 

“Sure. That’s why you’re talking the way you are. You might as well write guilty on your forehead, you poor fellow. Well, but poor Yuri, too. You really messed him up, you know. Maybe I should be the one with the vendetta.” 

“What?” Flynn steadied his face and ignored the sinking feeling dragging at his stomach. It was stupid to humor the guildsman but somehow he knew he was already trapped. 

“Are you kidding me? He told me what happened. Well, the abridged version, clearly. No wonder he thought you wrote that treatise.” His wolffish grin disappeared under a new and strangely earnest look. “It isn’t right to treat people like us like that, you know. Lost children. When you don’t have a family, or a name, or anything, it’s not like you have much else to lose — and so when you do it really fucks with you.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Flynn repeated through his teeth. He kicked at the flanks of his mount before Luca had the chance to reply. The guildsman fell away, and then the shadow of Dahngrest; and everything else behind him, and nothing forward except for the neat lines of the dusty road.

Chapter Text

It was late. The capital city was quiet. He did not announce his return; better that he stabled his mount himself and slipped off into his quarters before Luca found him again. Flynn had lost him to the siren’s song of an all-hours tavern when they had first entered into Zaphias’ outskirts. It had been a relief, at the time, but it wasn’t as if he could hide from him in the palace. Surely he would find him again as soon as he had readied another insult for him. 

An insult or a story. Or a lie. Or a legend. It didn’t matter. He slung his saddle over his shoulder and placed it neatly on its stand. Luca was just another man, and not the first to challenge him. He wouldn’t be the last. At least he had been strangely cordial about the whole affair. And transparent — he and Yuri both. Was Flynn jealous? He pictured, for a moment, the image of their limbs interlocked; china white and warm mahogany and writhing. No. Yes. Maybe. It didn’t matter. Just because he had taken on his late-life pledge of miserable celibacy didn’t mean that Yuri should have as well. Better that he enjoyed himself. Flynn looped the straps of his saddlebag over his back and exited the stables. Better that he didn’t think about it at all. 

His office was cool and tidy, just as he had left it. A new paper mountain was waiting for him at his desk. He ignored it for now, placing Karol’s box of mystery into a drawer and locking it for good measure. His eyes settled on the shape of a little horse prancing at the heights of one of his shelves before he turned and left the room again. He let his feet carry him of their own volition while his mind made its own wandering. They took him back through the palace gardens and out into the streets again. 

The avenues were clean and empty. Not just here, in the Noble Quarter, but in the Lower Quarter as well. It has been worth it, he told himself as his feet drew him down the familiar slope. Look at what you’ve made. And it was true. There was not so much different between the quarters, anymore. The houses were more modest the deeper you went into the Lower Quarter, of course; the apartments chopped into smaller pieces. But the cobbles were the same — dry and free of litter, any missing pieces long ago repaired. The old vacant warehouses that had frightened him as a child had been transformed from haunted ruins into busy storerooms again. The alleyway whores had been shooed into more proper establishments, the stinking drunks dried out in the palace cells; even the stray dogs had been tamed and chased away. Because of Ioder, he reminded himself. Because of him. 

He lingered at the central well for a moment before his feet drew him forward again. They traced the old path to the little house that had once been his home. A candle was burning in the window of his old room. He wondered if some over-eager boy was sitting there, pouring over his books as he dreamed about a future in silver plate. It was good, he told himself; good for more of them to become involved. But part of him wanted to scare his imaginary friend off from the idea. Try the guilds, a sly voice joked at the back of his mind; I hear they have great parties. 

He looked over to their old hiding place. Those apartments had been cleared and cleaned and filled as well. The crooked balcony had been rebuilt, too. Now it had a pretty filigree webbing between the railings; simple but ornate in a way that the Lower Quarter had never featured before. That was it, he wagered — progress. A pretty filigree. He smiled flatly and listened to the way his footsteps clipped and echoed as he pressed forward into the nearby alleyway. 

It wasn’t nearly as stinking as before, but the narrow alley had perhaps been overlooked by the empire’s builders in their haste to beautify the Lower Quarter. The old peeling advertisements were still there, peeking out from behind the urchin’s crude graffiti and thieves’ shorthand. Lowell Cigarettes, one of the ads proclaimed below the white smile of a woman with coiffed blonde hair; always smooth and satisfying! Someone had sketched a dripping mustache beneath her perfect nose. He smirked and laughed through his nostrils; Yuri, probably. It certainly seemed like his handiwork. Feeling suddenly exhausted, he leaned against the brick of the adjacent building and let himself slide downwards into a crouch. 

And had Yuri given the cigarette-girl her new look before or after he’d decided to take her name? He wondered if someone had read the slogan aloud to him or if he had just liked the shape of the letters sprawling across the wall. There was something tidy about it — the strong lines of the capital L, the valleys of the W, the swirling hump of the two final letters finishing off the latter half in a cursive hand. He squinted and imagined what it would have looked like to a boyish eye that saw nothing in the word but shapes. 

What about Yuri, he had asked him, once, when they had been playing along the riverbank and Flynn had finally realized that Yuri’s father was not some long-lost cigarette magnate. My friend Nene gave me that name, he had told him proudly in return. He’d never learned much more about the elusive Nene, but he had gathered enough in between the lines of Yuri’s erratic storytelling to realize that she had been simply calling him “you” with a little girl’s sing-song. He had been lucky that the sound had been close enough to a real name. Well. No. Not lucky. Lost children, Luca had said to him earlier, and there wasn’t any luck in that. When you don’t have a family, or a name, or anything, it’s not like you have much else to lose. 

“Fuck,” he sighed, caging his face behind his fingers. He drew them slowly through his hair. Luca had been right about nearly everything, but not that. There was always more to lose. 

——— 

“Commandant.” Ioder’s face brightened with a striking smile as he greeted him. “Back so soon? I have to admit that I’m pleased to see you. It’s strange to run this place without you here.” 

“Your excellency,” Flynn answered, his head bowed. 

“Have you brought me something?” 

“Yes.” He stood to approach the emperor at his seat on the sunny balcony. Ioder had draped himself with a white wool cloak against the autumn chill. It washed him out and left him looking nearly skeletal. “Are you alright, your excellency?” 

“Hm? Yes, of course. So what is it, then?” Flynn glanced down at the little box before he handed it over to him. 

“It is some sort of remnant from the Tolbyccian explosion,” he explained. “The guilds discovered it shortly after the event. They were unfamiliar with it, but are interested in learning more as well.” 

“Good. And should I ask for what price?” Flynn smirked. So maybe he was not as naive as he had once been. 

“Dahngrest has elected a new don.” 

“Harry Whitehorse,” Ioder answered. “Yes. An interesting choice. I’ve heard that he is nothing like his grandfather.” 

“I don’t know,” Flynn contended. “The guilds are confident in him. My understanding is that he is a level-headed man. He has requested an audience with you.”

“And better for us that he is. Very well. I will meet with him. So long as he takes the pledge, of course.” 

“The pledge?” 

“Oh! I’m sorry, Flynn — I have been so busy with everything I’d rather forgotten that you weren’t involved. So I suppose you’ll have to take it as well. I know, it’s a bit of a formality, but important that we begin to implement it in the proper way.” 

“And what is it, exactly?” 

“I think you’ll find it very clever. I took inspiration from the knight’s pledge, you know — and even some parts from the guilds. It’s important to make our objectives as an empire clear, don’t you agree? And to set our expectations. The pledge outlines our commitment to prosperity and proper living.” 

“Your excellency,” Flynn contended tightly, “forgive me, but Dahngrest is a sovereign state. I do not think the Don will take a pledge sworn to any foreign leader.” 

“He will if he wants to speak with me,” Ioder answered with a shrug. “And if he doesn’t, then I suppose we will understand where he and his guildsmen stand.” 

“Your excellency?” 

“Between good and evil, of course. Surely it was not a coincidence that this sapros explosion occurred in Tolbyccia. I’ve learned that there was another near the Caer Bocram ruins as well.” 

“We know little yet about the explosions, your excellency. I believe it is too early to draw any conclusions.” 

“Of course we know what they are. Don’t be foolish, Commandant. They are a punishment for our evil deeds, and I fear that they have just begun. We must be diligent in our next steps. Write to Don Whitehorse, would you? Tell him that I wish to speak with him as soon as possible. We must bring him and his people into the fold before it is too late.” 

“I — your excellency, I—”

“That is all for now, Commandant. I will make the necessary preparations for you to take the pledge with him as well. Better that he sees that we are all working towards the same goal. I would recommend that you dispose of this thing in the meantime.” He handed the box back to Flynn. “I am certain that it is merely a deception. I will require your attention elsewhere.” 

Flynn frowned and bowed his head, clever enough to see that Ioder’s patience had run short for the afternoon. He escaped through the royal parlors and down into the dripping stairwells of the subterranean cells, his mind spinning and tumbling with each step. So they had already sunk their claws into him. He should not have left. His stomach filled with an icy dread as he made the turn into Witcher’s borrowed domain — and what would be the price for his mistake? 

He was answered by a peal of laughter echoing in the grim palace depths. His brow crumpled with confusion as he strode forward to seek it out. Sodia. Flynn wasn’t sure if he had ever heard her laugh before. 

“Commandant!” She greeted him with a start, leaping from her lean against one of Witcher’s long laboratory tables to fold into a bow. 

“Major,” he replied, his eyes slinking from her dipped head towards Luca’s limber drape against an ancient column. “Mr. Savano.” 

“Don’t call me that,” he answered, his lips puckering. “Mr. Savano was my father, and he was a real certified bastard.” 

“And what is it that you are doing here?” 

“Commandant!” Witcher cried out as he turned the corner to intercept the trio. He nearly dropped his armful of glassware as he attempted to mimic Sodia’s bow. Flynn waved the gesture away with a flick of his hand. 

“What is he doing here, Witcher?” 

“Forgive me, Commandant,” the mage replied as he deposited his bounty onto the table. “I had meant to prepare a report for you last evening but, well, there have been so many developments. And Mr. Savano—”

“Luca!” The named man cried out the word with desperation, throwing his hands into the air. 

“Luca,” Witcher amended, “has shared quite a few clever ideas of his own. Thank you for bringing him to me, Commandant.” Flynn eyed Luca with a withering stare. The guildsman grinned and winked at him. 

“What is it that you’ve discovered, then?” 

“There is a study being conducted in Aspio regarding the use of aer and atmospheric charge to generate power. I had read parts of it before and found it rather unrealistic. But that terrible storm the other evening, Commandant, it gave me a few ideas. I’ve just discussed them with Luca here, and he has guided me on an even better path. I would — I believe I would like to travel to Aspio, with your leave? To investigate the study more closely, and to set it in the right direction.” 

“As you wish,” Flynn replied, “but I’ll need your expertise here, first.” He offered him Karol’s box. Witcher took it from him, his eyes already flashing with curiosity. 

“What is this?” 

“I don’t know, but it’s important that I do. The guilds found it at the site of the Tolbyccian explosion.” 

“Yes, yes,” Witcher answered, transfixed by the little orb. “Luca told me about that, too. Interesting. It looks like nothing, really, doesn’t it?” 

“Well. I don’t know what nothing looks like, Witcher,” Flynn replied glibly. “But I’ve brought along some from samples the site as well. I would like you to take a look at them. See if you can discover any connection, ideally a cause. This is to take precedent before anything else.” 

“Yes, Commandant. I understand.” 

“Good. Go to my office, would you? The samples are there.” He took the box back from the mage. “I’ll bring this up to you later. It is to stay in my quarters at all times. Do you understand?” 

“Yes, Commandant.” Witcher bowed again before circling past them to seek out the stairs. Flynn sighed once he was gone. 

“How did you get down here?” He turned to face Luca. 

“I’m a man of many talents,” the man replied with a grin. 

“Commandant,” Sodia interrupted, “I apologize. He told me that he had your permission to join us down here.” 

“And you took him at his word?” 

“Well, no, I...” She fished a scrap of paper from her sleeve. He snatched it from her, glaring at the neat letterhead and the familiar stamp beneath. 

“You broke into my quarters?” He turned on his heel to grab him by the collar. Luca laughed, wincing as his head bounced against the column. 

“You’re much stronger than you look.” 

“I should have you arrested.” 

“Oh, come on. I must have some sort of diplomatic immunity, don’t I? Besides, I was just looking for you. We have work to do.” 

“We have nothing of the sort,” Flynn argued, releasing his grip. “I have no obligation to work with you, Luca, and even less not to drive you out.” 

“Come now. I have something interesting to show you.” 

“I’m not interested in hunting out whores with you.” 

“Now, now. What would I do with whores? That’s rude, you know. I never pay for that sort of thing. Not that you would partake, anyways, what with the stick that’s already shoved up your ass.” 

“Get out of here,” Flynn snarled in reply. “Now.” 

“Fine.” He waggled his fingers at him in surrender. “But I still think that you’ll want to come with. Those lovely ladies I met with last night told me about a very suspicious spot down in the Lower Quarter. They say that it’s full of... what was the world? Not serpents. Look, I’ve forgotten it again.”

“Sapros.”

“Yes! What a mind you have — like a steel trap.” 

“Where?” 

“Down by the river, apparently. Come on, I’ll show you. I promise to behave.”

———  

“I don’t need your accompaniment,” Flynn argued as they strode down the slope into the Lower Quarter. Luca shrugged his shoulders. 

“I would disagree but, to be honest with you, I’m not here for you. The explosion in Caer Bocram killed two of my comrades. If another one is to happen here, perhaps I can find who was responsible before it gets any worse.” 

“I’m sorry,” Flynn answered, his lips twitching into a tight line. “Do you know what happened?” 

“No. A guildsman found me this morning to share the news. They were Altosk men. I don’t know what they were doing up there. Exploring, maybe  — hell, maybe they just wanted to take in the countryside. I didn’t know them well but whoever they were, they didn’t deserve to go like that.” 

“Was there another one of those artifacts left behind?” 

“Maybe. We’ll need to write back for more information. I don’t think Harry wants to overshare. Did you talk to the emperor about it?” 

“Yes,” he replied uneasily. Luca read his face with a frown. 

“What is it?” 

“Nothing. I’ll discuss it with the Don.”

“I have his confidence, you know.” 

“I’m not telling you anything else.” 

“It would be a lot easier if you just trusted me.” 

“Why? I would be a fool to trust you,” Flynn snapped. “I know what you are, Luca. Picking locks, forging signatures, making friends with just the right people to do your bidding. You’re a conman. Maybe not in Dahngrest, but you are certainly one here.” 

“Something happened with the emperor,” Luca contended, his eyes sharp. “What did he say to you?” 

“Quiet.” 

“I doubt he said that.” Flynn gripped his arm tight to stop him from speaking again. Luca finally recognized the look of concern spilling into his eyes. They had arrived at the riverbank. It was quiet and empty except for a few dragonflies buzzing along the shoreline. There was a crack, however, and then a splash as something whizzed into the water. They jumped as another crack snapped in the air and sent a spray of pebbles scattering at their feet. 

“A shooter,” Luca realized aloud as Flynn pushed him into the cover of a thick-trunked tree. The guildsman shielded his eyes and glanced across the riverbank. “There,” he signaled, pointing towards an outcropping of rocks arranged around the mouth of an old sewage line. There was a dark figure perched there. 

“We’re pinned,” Flynn replied tightly. He looked over his shoulder. “Listen. I’ll draw his attention. That building there — run to it and go inside. It has a second entrance that will lead you back into the quarter.” 

“I don’t think so,” Luca answered, slipping the bag slung over his shoulder into his lap. Flynn hadn’t paid it much attention before. It was not full of a thief’s baubles as he might have expected, but instead a neat-packed set of metal tubes and a wooden stock. The guildsman began to piece them together with a deft hand. A rifle, Flynn realized, long-nosed and unusual. It took shape quickly. He flinched as the bark of their cover shattered under another shot. 

“Here,” Luca muttered, nudging Flynn with his elbow as he crouched down onto one knee. “Get out of the way, would you?” 

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Flynn replied as he watched him peek around the tree. 

“Not today.” He drew the rifle forward and squinted along the barrel. All of his usual half-drunken fidgeting had disappeared. His pose was tight and perfect. He was unfazed by the next bullet that whistled past his head. Another moment passed as he lined up his shot and then, as if it were an afterthought, he pulled the trigger. The shot was impossibly quiet. The dark figure crumpled from its spot to tumble onto the riverbank. 

“You,” Flynn breathed afterwards. “You set me up.” 

“What?” Luca glanced back at him, incredulous. “Are you joking? Why would I arrange for someone to shoot me? Hey!” He snatched his empty bag and tipped his rifle over his shoulder to stumble after Flynn as he stepped forward angrily from their cover. “Are you crazy? There could be more of them out there.” 

“Who told you to come here?” Flynn turned on his heel to face him, his nose not so far away from Luca’s own. 

“I told you! It was some women working at the Lilyflower. They told me that they had a funny feeling about this place. It wasn’t anything more than that. Listen, Commandant, we’re on the same side here. I don’t think your knights would be so forgiving if I told them you happened to get shot in the head while we were having an afternoon stroll. Right?” Flynn’s jaw tightened as he turned from him to approach his would-be assassin’s body. It was a man dressed in a plain outfit, his head uncovered and shaved down to a dark bristle. He flipped him over with the toe of his boot and scowled at the neat red hole burrowing between his unseeing eyes. 

“A Widower. It’s hard to find these,” Luca called out from his inspection of the dark metaled rifle left behind at the height of the rubble the assassin had fallen from. “They could only manufacture them with blastia, and even then they cost a fortune. Who’s trying to kill you, Commandant?” Flynn stared into the dead man’s face. He was a stranger to him. Was he a noble? A commoner from the Lower Quarter? A guildsman? And did Luca know him, really, and was he just hiding his compatriot from him after his failed attempt? 

“I don’t know,” he answered him truthfully, dragging his fingers through his hair. Luca leapt from the rubble to join him. His perpetual smirk had dissolved into a stern frown. 

“I’ll look into it,” the guildsman told him. “But I — I wouldn’t report this, Commandant. Not until we learn more.” Flynn shut his eyes with a frustrated sigh and nodded. He did not yet have the courage to explore the reason why he had agreed. 

———   

Morning already. He winced as the sun emerged from whatever cloud it had been hiding behind to beam a perfect strip of light from between his curtains and onto his eyes. How was it even possible? He swore that it had been night only a moment before. Flynn groaned and turned to bury his face into Yuri’s tousled hair. Yuri slept on, his limbs sprawled jointless across the bed as if he had just fallen from the sky. Flynn reached out to rest his palm against his chest and to feel his heartbeat. His eyes grew heavy again as he focused on its steady thrumming. He was nearly asleep before he caught himself. No. It was time. Sodia would soon arrive in the adjacent room of his office, and leaving her to wait for him would make removing his midnight visitor much more complicated.

“Yuri.” His voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried again. The man huffed and curled away from him. 

“No,” he mumbled sleepily. 

“Come on, get up,” Flynn insisted. “It’s not that early.” 

“Not for you.” He should have whipped the sheets away from him and rolled him to his feet but he didn’t want to, really. He didn’t want to listen to Sodia’s dull reports, or to breakfast with Ioder. How many hours had he already spent gently reassuring the young man as he adjusted to the empire’s heavy yoke? Too many and yet it was still a novelty to call him emperor. No, what Flynn wanted to do was to hide behind his bedroom door, with Yuri, and to do both wicked and tender things. Perhaps take their breakfast in bed like his mother had, once, when they had still lived on Walnut Street — toast points and juicy grapefruits halves and steaming cups of coffee paired with a neat-folded newspaper that he wouldn’t bother to read. Nap, maybe, even. That had been a hobby he’d never had the luxury for but it sounded intriguing enough, particularly with Yuri. And so instead of slipping from the bed himself he slung his arm over his drowsy bedfellow, his chin resting against the smooth skin of his bare shoulder to spy on him as he began to rose himself. 

The sunlight streaking from the window sought Yuri out as well. His eyes blinked open and narrowed against its warm glare. The sunbeam filled them, transforming them from their usual stormy color into a deep amber-gold. Something in them made Flynn’s chest grow tight.

“Hey,” Yuri greeted him, yawning. 

“Hey.” Flynn propped himself onto his elbows as Yuri rolled onto his back and then, in the same smooth motion, pulled him against his chest. Flynn grinned, unsurprised by his tactics to trap him there. He submitted to it, if only for a moment, winding a strand of his dark hair around his finger while Yuri drew his jaw against the crown of his head.

“This,” Flynn began after a moment, “all of this, it’s nice, don’t you think?” Yuri’s chest dipped with a laughing breath. 

“Yeah.” Flynn glanced up to see that there was nothing mocking in his face but instead something soft and unshielded. He smiled. “It’s nice.” 

“It works.” 

“It works,” Yuri agreed, combing his fingers through the short length of his mussed hair. “Don’t overthink it.” 

“I won’t.” Yuri nodded and pressed his lips against his brow. The simple gesture left Flynn’s heart throbbing in his throat. He suspected why, perhaps, but decided to take Yuri’s advice. “Alright. Let’s go, then.” 

“Aye aye, Commandant.” Flynn smirked and rolled his eyes. They rose, afterwards, with Flynn padding to his wardrobe as Yuri began to hunt out pieces of his outfit strewn across the room. Flynn laughed as he watched him crawl and strain to reach one of his socks lost beneath the low bed. He palmed the knots from his hair afterwards, winking at his reflection in the mirror. 

“There. And none the wiser.” Flynn eyed his wrinkled jacket with a strong sense of doubt. 

“Let’s just get you out of here before your acting chops are tested.” 

“I could go out there,” Yuri offered, thumbing at the window. Flynn rolled his eyes again and tossed his head with a tight shake. 

“Yeah, I don’t think so. Do you really think that the morning guard won’t find it a little suspicious to see you crawling out of my bedroom window?” 

“I can be sneaky.” 

“You can’t be invisible.” Flynn glanced at the clock ticking cheerfully at his bedside table. “Come on. Sodia won’t be here yet for her morning briefing. Let’s go through the office. I’ll leave the rest to you.” 

“I am much better at sneaking through the palace than you are,” Yuri agreed with a boastful grin. 

“Sure, I’ll let you think that.” Yuri made a face at him before turning to hunt out the door. Flynn followed after him, his fingers plucking a blond hair from the shoulder of his jacket. The door swung open into his office silently, well-oiled. 

“C-Commandant.” Fuck. His heart leapt into his throat before tumbling down to his heels. 

“Major,” he replied, as measured as he could manage. Sodia flushed and bent low at the waist. 

“I apologize. I didn’t realize — I am — I am a little early.” Yuri glanced between them before breaking the tight silence with a laugh. 

“Well, the early bird does get the worm, right?” 

“Yuri,” Flynn snapped under his breath before he sucked in a deep sigh. “Sodia. I would,” he faltered, probing for the right words as the woman stared meekly at him, “I would appreciate your discretion about this.” 

“Of course, Commandant. Absolutely.” He ran his palm over his face, more to block out the sight of Yuri’s lopsided grinning than anything else. How was he not supposed to overthink everything now? “If I can be frank,” Sodia continued in a hushed tone, “it all rather makes sense. Oh!” She clapped her fingers over her mouth and stared guiltily in Yuri’s direction. His grin folded into a smirk before he waved his hand at her. 

“Now we both have our secrets, don’t we?” Flynn frowned at him in confusion but gained no answer in reply. 

“I — would you like me to show Mr. Lowell out, Commandant?” Yuri’s face fell at the suggestion, which made Flynn nearly smile himself. 

“Yes, thank you, Major.” Yuri huffed with displeasure but, setting his shoulders straight at Flynn’s quick wave goodbye, followed after Sodia as she turned to walk out of the office door. 

“Are you insane?” Sodia snapped the words venomously at him once they were alone in the hallway outside. Yuri’s brows arched high at her tone along with his hands, which he held at his head palm-forward in surrender. She sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed his shoulders with a white-knuckled grip. 

“Shit,” he yelped, “I knew you were in love with him but I didn’t think you were this unhinged.” Her cheeks flamed red. “Well, not anymore, at least.”  

“It doesn’t have anything to do with me! Do you have any idea what the Council would do if they found out about this?” 

“I didn’t know the Council was so deeply invested in Flynn’s sex life.” 

“Of course they are! ” She released him to prod a pointing finger against his chest. “You are the most selfish man I have ever met, and I have met a lot of men, Yuri.” 

“I’m sure you have.” 

“Shut up. You know better than anyone the sacrifices that have been required to bring us to this point. And we barely managed it, you idiot.” 

“I mean, I don’t know if I am so much an idiot — as I remember it, I believe I actually played a fairly important part in the whole thing.” She gripped her fingers into tight fists. 

“And you’ll play a bigger part in ruining everything if they catch wind of this. Listen to me. The Council is desperate to undermine the Commandant.” 

“Why? They were the ones to appoint him, weren’t they?” 

“Yes, but not for the reasons he deserved. They thought he would be obedient. And instead the emperor is obedient to him. Not good for them, right? You know him, Yuri. His record is nearly spotless. Still, they’ve been spreading rumors about him for months in the courts — about the Lower Quarter, about his father—”

“His father?” Yuri stiffened at the idea, his face clouding. She frowned. 

“Anything. They’re desperate. They’ve tried to plant things in his office, to lure him in with paid women — which was, I see now, a bit of a lost cause.” 

“Enough,” he interrupted, his mood changed into something darker and more defensive. 

“It wasn’t enough, not until now. But if they discover that he’s sleeping with a criminal — and a man, mind you — they’ll have a case to show that he isn’t an impartial player. He’s made some inroads with the Council but the bigots between them will turn against him even if they trust his judgment otherwise. Even if they don’t discharge him outright they will destabilize his relationship with the emperor, and it won’t be long after that that they install a lackey of their own in his stead. And then what will it have all been for?” 

“You’re overreacting.” 

“I’m not! I know the nobility. Better than you do. They don’t want change. They hate that Flynn has appealed to the emperor’s empathy and, worse still, they’re losing money because of it. They will do anything to return to the way things were. You won’t be able to save the empire from that.” 

“I’m not going to save the empire from anything,” he contended sharply. “I’ve already staked my life on it once before and we won, Sodia. I’ve earned the right to choose how I live my life now, and so has Flynn.” 

“Even so, you need to end it.”  

“I won’t.” 

“It might be easy for you to watch the world burn, but it wouldn’t be for Flynn. You know it.” 

“Then let him tell me. You’re underestimating him and Ioder both. We’re not living in the dark ages anymore. Stop meddling, for once, and try being productive.” 

“I’ll kill you if you ruin him,” she warned him. “Properly, this time.”

“Finally,” Yuri replied bitterly as he turned on his heels to leave her behind, “something that we can agree upon.” 

——— 

Flynn found the emperor’s pledge waiting for him at his desk. It took him some time to force himself to sit down and read it. Staring into the neat page left him feeling like he was staring into the riverside gunman’s ruined face. Perhaps they were nearly the same thing — a threat and a promise of what was to come next. For the first time in a long time he wished he had a drink to drown out the worry that filled him as his eyes scanned the page. 

I make this pledge today, it read, to offer myself, mind and body, to the divine; and to announce before all spirits both living and dead that I walk upon the righteous path. I pledge to serve and deliver goodliness into the world, first in my fealty to the gods and, secondly, in my fealty to my emperor who serves them as their obedient son. I pledge my allegiance to the advancement of prosperity through virtue, and swear my sword to the banishment of all of that which is profane. I cry out now to name the sins that I shall vanquish in service to my cause — firstly, greed and envy, of which I shall prohibit as I prohibit the corruption of all just practice in the empire; and violence and desecration, of which I shall serve as a shield against on behalf of the common man; and debauchery and defilement, of which I shall pursue and persecute as an abomination of the divine. In this pledge I take my place in the glory of a future age, and in the fortune of the empire, today and in all days eternal more. 

All days eternal. And how many would that be? The week that was left before another assassin hunted him out? A year, until some revolt burned the capital to the ground? Or perhaps it would be hundreds, and each one of them unbearable under a despot’s rule. He ground the butt of his palms against his eyes. This wasn’t supposed to happen. A sea of memories pulsed against the stars sparkling across his vision. There was Ioder at his ascension, wearing a rich purple cloak that the imperial designers had barely managed to finish before he took his spot at the throne. There had been a long string hanging from the hem. He had snipped it for him against the blade of his sword just before he’d stepped out to greet the Council waiting to swear him in; and the simple task had left them both laughing, the cold fear that had filled the young emperor’s face finally falling away. Then came the memory of their late nights in Ioder’s library, where they made a feast of ancient tomes to seek out the best of the empire’s history and to make note of its worst mistakes. What do you think, Ioder had asked him a thousand times — meek, at first, and lost, but growing more bold as the days advanced. Just remember, he had always answered, seek out prosperity, not power. 

But prosperity wan’t this. He crumpled the pledge and threw it across the room. It had nothing to do with abominations or the divine — it was fresh water for the Lower Quarter and steeper tariffs for the Noble one. Prosperity was boring, just like peace, and it certainly didn’t require an eternal vow.

“Hey.” A sharp point bloomed inside his chest. For a moment the voice was his, an old echo tumbling through the years that had separated them; flippant and sounding half-bored the way it always had as he snuck his way into Flynn’s rooms. But that was impossible, of course, and so it was, for the figure that had slipped through his door now was taller than he had ever been, and when he stepped he was followed by the clacking of his beaded hair. 

“Luca,” he sighed, “is it worth asking you how you found your way in here?”

“No,” he grinned as he sat before his desk. He had something in his hand. Flynn frowned as he unfolded the retrieved page. His cat-like eyes slipped from side to side as he quickly read it, smirking. “That’s me, I think,” he added afterwards as he smoothed it against his desk, his finger pointed at the neat letters spelling debauchery and defilement. 

“Yes,” he answered, not seeing much value in trying to lie to the man again.

“Are you going to follow it?” Flynn’s mouth twitched. 

“I am bound to serve the empire.” Luca nodded, feigning a look of wonderment. 

“I see. So will you hunt all of those defilers, then — you and your pretty knights?” 

“What do you want, Luca?” 

“Well, I don’t want to get killed, for one. I think it’s time for me to head back to Dahngrest.” His eyes leveled on him. “I think you might want to come along, too.” 

“Nonsense.” 

“That assassin wasn’t one of ours. I’m being honest. I looked into it. How many killers-for-hire do you know that operate outside of the guilds? No many,” he answered for him, “there’s not nearly as much money in it to go freelance. In any case, something tells me that I wasn’t the one at the top of his hit-list.” 

“I’m not leaving.”

“Well, the way I see it, you can either take that pledge or become an enemy of that obedient son of yours. And, seeing as you seem to have some redeeming qualities, I don’t think the choice is going to end up in your favor.” 

“I’m going to fix this.” 

“How?” 

“I’ll talk to the emperor. Help him understand his missteps.” 

“Right. And how has that worked, so far?” 

“You forget yourself,” Flynn snapped. “I’m not a fool. I’m a commandant. He will listen to me, just as he has listened to me before.” 

“Fine. But, for the record, I think you’re making a mistake. Things are changing. We need to prepare.” 

“Prepare? For what?” 

“To resist. Change isn’t good for people like us, Flynn.” 

“And who is us, exactly?” 

“Anyone who’s different,” Luca answered as he stood. “And all the rest who are small enough to get stepped on.”  

——— 

“What on earth are you wearing?” 

“You like it?” Yuri pulled the hood of his cloak down to his shoulders and raised his arms to show off its draping sleeves. “I thought, you know, that it would help to blend in.” 

“Blend in? You look like the most suspicious person in the entire empire.’” 

“I don’t know,” Yuri pouted in reply, fingering the dark cloth of his new disguise as Flynn guided him towards the door into his private quarters. “I thought it was a pretty good idea.” 

“Just take it off. You look like the grim reaper.” 

“That could be interesting.” 

“No, Yuri,” Flynn laughed. “Come on.” 

“Fine.” Yuri pulled the thing over his head and tossed it into a nearby chair. His eyes settled on the spread covering a little table next. “What’s all this?” 

“I thought maybe we could celebrate tonight.” 

“Celebrate? Celebrate what?” 

“Your birthday.” 

“My birthday?” Yuri laughed incredulously. “I don’t have a birthday.” 

“I know you don’t,” Flynn replied dryly. “But I was thinking that since, you know, the world didn’t end, that it could be nice to actually enjoy ourselves from time to time. Besides, you do have a birthday, obviously. Who knows, maybe it was today?”

“Flynn...” Yuri stepped forward to inspect the neat arrangement of sugar-glazed sweets and powdery confections. A small cake was at the center, perfectly iced and crowned with a delicate sugar weave. “But why today?” 

“Because today was the only day that I could get that stupid cake. There’s a bakery in the Noble Quarter that I remembered — not that I ever ate there, of course, we never could have afforded it, even before everything that happened — but I thought that there would be a funny sort of justice in them baking a cake for people like us to eat. But they had a waiting list, and apparently being an imperial commandant isn’t as impressive as some countess’ dressage victory, or whatever, so,” Flynn rambled on, suddenly nervous, which was ridiculous. His cheeks grew warm. “Maybe it was a stupid idea.”

“I love it,” Yuri countered in a tight voice. He turned to look at Flynn again. “I love you.” 

“I — well — I love you, too,” Flynn stammered. He had meant to say it that night, if the wine had given him the courage, but perhaps not like that. The words hung heavy in the air. He wondered if perhaps he should say something else but Yuri moved before he had the chance. He swept forward to embrace him and to kiss him and, soon after, to seek out the round face of the buttons at his throat. Flynn danced along with him in their now-familiar choreograph and thought, behind the satisfaction of it all, that perhaps it was best that they did not eat the cake at all — that it just stand in witness of everything they had accomplished despite how stubbornly the perfect world of its creators had tried to stop them at every turn. 

——— 

“Your excellency.” 

“Commandant.” Flynn stepped forward before the throne. It was strange to see Ioder sitting there. He had always preferred the simple sanctuary of his library before. Two men flanked him now in silver robes. The zealots, Flynn wagered, his stomach dropping as he looked up at them from underneath his bow. “Have you spoken with the Don?” His dread doubled as the emperor sidestepped their usual familiar banter. 

“No,” he answered as he stood to face him. 

“That’s disappointing. I told you it was important. Now we shall have to postpone. This isn’t like you, Commandant.” 

“The Don will not make any pledge.” 

“I would prefer to hear the refusal come from him directly.” 

“It would be an insult to bring it to him.” 

“Would it? I did not know that you were so familiar with his interests. Speak with him, Commandant, or I shall simply find someone else to do it.” Flynn’s face darkened. 

“I will not.” 

“What was that?” Ioder stiffened in his seat. Flynn watched as his eyes flickered to the silver-cloaked men. There was still some uncertainty in them, he wagered — but a new boldness as well. 

“I have always served you honestly, your excellency, and with the understanding that you would take my advice honestly as well. I must offer it to you again now in insisting that you abandon this ridiculous—”

“Ridiculous? Have you lost your mind? Nothing about the prosperity of the empire is ridiculous, Commandant. It is the very thing that I would sacrifice everything to protect. Now, I have explained myself to you already, and have invited you to play a part in building the future of our people as well. But I’ve owed you neither, do you understand? You are a knight, not a king. You will bring the Don of Dahngrest to me and we will proceed as I see fit.” 

“Your excellency—”

“That is my command,” he cut him short. Flynn gripped his fingers tight and bowed before he buried himself any further. He turned to leave. “Wait. Perhaps I have misspoken. There is another matter that requires your attention. I understand that the Lady Estellise has left the city.” Flynn flattened his lips, unwilling to answer. His muteness made the emperor frown. “She must be returned.” 

“Lady Estellise’s whereabouts are not at your discretion, emperor.” 

“They are,” he insisted with a scoff. “They are indeed. Again your misinterpret my orders as a question. Find her and return her to the palace at once. Now, Commandant.” 

Flynn turned on his heel and strode away, his footsteps sharp and quick against the marble. Ioder’s two silver sentinels followed after him. His fingers reached for the hilt of his sword. Part of him wanted to kill them — a part that had not been nearly so convincing before. But instead he simply stalked through the palace to hunt out his office, ignoring their pursuit despite the strange looks they garnered. 

“Commandant!” Sodia was waiting for him at the door. He nodded at her to enter. 

“You will not come inside,” he ordered bitterly as the two men followed behind. They shared a stern look before complying. Flynn slammed the door against them, his fist thudding against the thick panels after the latch had turned. 

“Commandant,” Sodia echoed, reaching for his arm. “What happened?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” he spat. “Why are you here?” His hot temper ebbed as he caught the way she looked at him. “What is it? What’s that?” There was something gripped in her hand. She hid it from him, shaking her head. 

“Please, it isn’t what’s important. I was in the cellars with Witcher, Commandant, and when I passed through to find you I saw — they’ve arrested Luca Savano.” 

“What? Why?” 

“I don’t know. He wasn’t the only one. There were dozens of them all being led into the jails.” 

“Under whose orders?” Perhaps it was a stupid question. His anger crackled high into his throat. “Insane. This is insane. Bring the warden here.” 

“I can’t, Commandant.” 

“Please, Sodia. We need to fix this before it gets worse. Luca is the Don’s brother, do you understand? Even if he’s caused some trouble, we can’t just leave him in a cell.” 

“No, you don’t understand.” Her lips curled into a hurt sneer. “I can’t.” She shoved the paper she had been hiding against his chest. He took it from her, his brows knitting together as he read the words stamped across the page. 

“Discharged? Where did this come from?” 

“From one of those men!” She pointed at the door. “They called themselves the Divine Guard.” 

“The what? And what the fuck is that supposed to be?” He paused to catch his breath. “Listen to me, Sodia. I don’t care who they are. This is absurd. You are the Major of the Imperial Knights, now as much as you were before.” 

“It has the emperor’s seal.” She nodded at the page. He knew her words weren’t intended as a simple stubborn contention. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to focus on anything other than the thick fury filling his lungs. 

“Alright.” He strode forward to circle behind his desk and knelt to search through the drawers. “Take this.” She took the little box holding the sapros orb from him. “Follow me.” 

“Where are we going?” He did not answer, but she still followed him as he turned to pass through into his private quarters. He braced his shoulders against a chest of drawers and pushed it away from the wall. A door was hidden behind, one that he’d never thought he’d need to use. 

“Go on,” he told her as he opened it. 

“Where does it go?” There were many answers. Into the sewers and into the yard, depending on the type of siege the room’s occupant faced; but there was more to it than that. He hesitated, staring into the black depths of the narrow pass. Cobwebs strung from the ceiling, fluttering with an unseen breeze as though the palace itself was filling the hidden tunnels with its breath. 

“Dahngrest,” he answered finally, ducking his head to pass inside. “It leads to Luca, and then to Dahngrest. Come on.” 

They found the guildsman sitting in the cells, his knees at his chest and his long arms draped across them. He looked up at the sound of their approach. Something had changed in his face. As Flynn stepped forward he realized that it was his nose, crooked where it had been straight before, and swollen between his two blackened eyes. 

“Mister Commandant,” he greeted him under his breath, perhaps already understanding the nature of their visit. 

“What happened to you? I thought you said that you were leaving?” 

“Not quickly enough,” the man answered. He winced as he stood from his crouch. 

“Well, come on, then,” Flynn snapped before he lost his nerve. Luca frowned as he watched him pull a set of keys from the pocket of his slacks. 

“Where did you get those?” 

“I am a commandant,” Flynn insisted through the tight grip of his teeth, “at least for a little damned time longer. Come on.” The lock clicked open as he waved at him to pass through. 

“No,” Luca replied, the word wavering as he spoke it. 

“What? Now isn’t the time for negotiations, Luca.” 

“I’m not - I’m not leaving without the rest of them.” He nodded forward at the neighboring cells. Flynn’s chest tightened as he realized they were all full with quiet faces, even in the shadows behind Luca’s shoulders. Each cell had at least three occupants inside. He’d never seen such a thing before. Something told him that they had not been there long. 

“You need to go,” Flynn insisted. 

“I know.” Luca reached forward suddenly to grip at Flynn’s collar. “They’re hanging us,” he whispered, low enough that the others wouldn’t hear. “I saw it before they took me. Hanging, as if they were some...They’ve already come down here for two more. I’m not going to leave them to die.” 

“Luca.” 

“I won’t.” Flynn glanced around the room again, his eyes settling on Sodia’s wounded stare. 

“Fine. Alright.” He handed the keys to her. She circled the room to open the locks. “Listen. You must all pay attention. Do only as I say. Do not run, not even if you are frightened; do not tarry, do not stray. If you have families in the capital we will send word to them once we are certain that it is safe. Bring nothing with you, unless it is a weapon and if you are confident in its use. Do you all understand?” The figures nodded. He did not think that his addendum about weapons would be necessary. Most of them were boys, more children than men; there was also a woman in a striking dress, and an older man clutching at the unnatural bend of his arm; and two young women clutching at each other, one crying and the other stern. Flynn swallowed his nerves and nodded. “Good. Alright. Let’s go.” 

——— 

“Thank you.” Flynn ignored him, his eyes steady on the black emptiness of the open fields. He knew the road well enough to ride it blind, but he had known the palace, too, hadn’t he? And he had known the faces of all of the knights they had encountered as they herded the prisoners away; and some of them had known him too, and yielded to him as he told them his plan, but some of them had not. Would they be labeled as traitors, too, when they were found bound and gagged and left behind? He looked over at the shape of one of the young freed men gripping nervously at the mane of his stolen mount. Better a traitor than a hanged man, Flynn wagered, but it was still a difficult thing to rationalize. 

“Flynn,” Luca tried again. “You can turn back. I’ll take them on to Dahngrest.” 

“No,” he answered, his lips tight. “No, I can’t. It’s over, Luca.” He tipped his head back to glance at him, feeling nearly drunk at the realization. “It’s over.” 

“Come on,” the guildsman argued. He tried to smile at him but the expression was rather ruined by the blood still dripping from his nose. “Surely you’ve faced worse than this before? You can fix this. Better that you do it from a place like Dahngrest. There’s no shame in taking some time away to strategize.” Flynn drew in a deep breath and nodded and pretended that perhaps the man was right. But he was a liar, wasn’t he? After all, people were defined by what they did best. And by that measure Flynn was many things but, chief of all, he was a failure.  

———

“Hey! I know, I’m sorry, I’m late. I thought I would get back yesterday, but the ships weren’t running because of that storm, and it’s not like I could swim here. I mean, I guess I could have tried. Come on. Stop giving me that look.” 

“Yuri.” 

“What?” He grinned apologetically at him as he stepped forward to kneel at his side behind the desk and plant a kiss against his cheek. “It’s the last time, I promise. But you should have seen the beast that we took down near Ghasfarost! Three heads, Flynn. Now, you might think that they would have been the same, right? But, oh-ho, then you would be wrong, because one of them had a beak, if you can believe it, and the other—”

“Yuri. Stop. Please.” 

“What is it?” He looked up into his face and frowned. He looked tired, Flynn thought; he must have ridden straight from the coast. There was a set of scratches scabbed across his right cheek. Flynn sucked in a breath to steady his wild pulse. “What’s happened?” 

“Someone saw us, Yuri.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“In the gardens.” It had been a foolish thing. His fault. He shouldn’t have done it but some damned childish stupidity had compelled him; or the beauty of the flowers, maybe, or the warmth of the summer sun, or the way that it had caught and glimmered in his shiny black hair. He had been so certain that they were alone when he had kissed him, but what a fool he had been. 

“Oh. No, I don’t think so. There was no one there. I looked, Flynn. Stop worrying.” 

“There was. The Council has been talking about it.” 

“Fuck the Council. They’re just jealous of you — and besides, you’re the imperial commandant! What could a bunch of fat old men like them do to you? What? Did they threaten you?” Yuri’s face darkened. “Who? Who did it?” 

“Don’t. Just listen to me, please. I’ve been — I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. All the different angles, and what could happen, and what they all mean. Ioder is a good emperor, Yuri. The empire needs someone like him.” 

“I mean, sure,” Yuri replied, narrowing his eyes. “He’s alright.” 

“He’s impressionable,” Flynn corrected him tightly. “He is drawn to do the right thing, but it’s too easy to manipulate him into thinking that anything is right. He was so sheltered, you know. He needs more experience and with it, maybe, in the future, things will change. But now... Now he needs to surround himself with the right advisors, or I’m afraid that he could be drawn into the wrong direction, and the empire along with him.” 

“Alright... What does this have to do with the gardens?” 

“I can’t be pushed from my position, Yuri,” Flynn answered, nearly already begging. “Not now.” 

“Now, wait,” Yuri bristled, standing from his crouch. “What are you saying?” 

“I’m saying that we need to,” he paused to search for the words, no matter that he had already practiced them a thousand miserable times before, “that we can’t do this anymore.” 

“What? What the hell are you talking about? Did Sodia put you up to this?” 

“No. What do you mean by that?” 

“Well, are you — are you fucking him, then?” 

“What? Who?” Yuri swung his arm to dash a pile of papers from Flynn’s desk. 

“Ioder!” 

“No,” Flynn recoiled, blanching and then flushing at the idea. “You can’t be serious.” 

“Right, serious, well, there has to be some fucking reason! Don’t lie to me, Flynn. If you’re not interested in me anymore you might as well just say it.” 

“It isn’t that at all!” Flynn voice cracked. 

“Then what is it?” Yuri began to pace in a tight circle. “It’s not like Ioder is any less goddamned malleable than he was when he was a little boy. Why are you doing this now?” 

“Because the Council-”

“The Council,” Yuri mocked. “The Council has been the same since they all first crawled out from between their poor mothers’ legs. What, are you going to ask them what they’d like you to eat, next? What to wear?” 

“I’m going to dismantle them,” Flynn insisted, “but I can’t do that if the emperor doesn’t trust me.” 

“You really mean it,” Yuri marveled, throwing his arms into the air. “You really think that this will make a difference.” 

“It’s the only choice I have.” 

“You had the choice to do this two fucking years ago, you coward!” Flynn shrunk against his chair. “But why, I guess, right? Clearly it isn’t any more difficult for you to do it now from when you first decided that you could debase yourself enough to fuck me.” 

“Yuri!” 

“What? It must be a relief to close this little chapter in your life. Good to have your fun, and even better now that you can curl up in Ioder’s lap again without worrying that he might find out that you made a mess on his carpets first.” 

“Yuri. Please. I don’t want to do this.” 

“Then don’t!” Yuri sunk into his haunches again, gripping the arm of Flynn’s chair. “Don’t do it. We’ll figure something out. I’ll be more careful. Or you can come to Dahngrest. Maybe not as often, I know, but, well, that hasn’t been that much of a problem before. No one will give a damn there, anyway, trust me.” Flynn pushed his fingers under Yuri’s grip and wove them between his own. 

“I love you, Yuri.” 

“I love you, too!” Flynn winced and shook his head. 

“But it doesn’t matter. We don’t matter. Not to everyone out there. You know I’m right. We didn’t stop making sacrifices at Aurnion. I had hoped that maybe it would be different, and not because I wanted to be cruel, it’s just that I wanted you, and that I wanted you in my life in exactly the way that you have been. I care about you more than anything, more than I care about myself, and if it were only that simple then I would just throw everything away — I would! But it’s never that easy, Yuri. I’m not a commandant for myself, I’m one for the empire, and there’s nothing I can do to fight it. Not even for you.” 

“You’re wrong.” 

“I’m not.” Flynn’s eyes grew heavy as he tossed his head again. “And I’m not any different than you were when you had to kill Garista.” 

“Fuck you. This isn’t even comparable!” 

“It is.” 

“Fine,” Yuri snapped, tearing his hands from him and lurching to his feet. “Rationalize this however you want. It doesn’t matter. You’re making a mistake. But I won’t be there when you try to fix it, do you understand? We’re not kids anymore. I can’t forgive you again.” 

“Yuri...” 

“Don’t. Don’t try it. Is that all you have to say?” 

“Yes.” Yuri nodded, his jaw clenched. 

“Alright. Well, goodbye then, Flynn. I hope it’s worth it.” 

Flynn opened his mouth to answer him and realized that there was nothing left to say. That made Yuri laugh, in a terrible sort of way. He turned and stalked out the door, slamming it behind him, as if to challenge the very hope of hiding what they had done. The cannon shot sound stirred Flynn to his feet as well. He stared into the face of his desk for a moment, his face flat and pale, before his lips turned into a bitter scowl. Then he swept what was left onto the ground before heaving the heavy desk onto its side. He dashed the oil lamps to pieces, next, and then the little table, it’s slender legs cracking into jagged thirds. It was not the first time he had cleared the room. Before it had been to erase Alexei’s legacy and now, he realized, as he slumped into the corner, his knuckles bloodied from his work, to erase his own as well.   

Chapter Text

He had not been inside the guild union’s innermost sanctum since the day he had first ridden to the city as a messenger dressed in a lieutenant’s jacket. He had thought about the room many times since: about its rounded walls adorned with the banners of the master guilds like pilfered trophies; and the Don’s chair — a throne, really, although he was no king; and the soft pillows lining the hall outside, playing host not to sniveling courtiers but to supple men and women who had giggled and winked at him as he had walked past them as a young man. Sometimes he even dreamed of it, but in those dreams there were no men inside at all but rather shadows built of guilt and anger that filled the oval room like fish thrashing in a barrel. 

There were no shadow-men today, nor oiled bodies to tempt him at the entry. It was just Harry waiting for him, his back to the door as he arrived. He was dressed in the same eagle-branded jacket that Luca wore, albeit that his was properly buttoned and neatly pressed. Still, although he was not perched in the nearby throne nor accompanied by his masters, his proud posture made the role he held clear. It seemed he was no simple grandson, anymore. Flynn nodded at him as he turned to greet him. 

“Commandant. Thank you for coming to speak with me.” 

“Of course. Thank you for welcoming our party.” Harry tipped his head in response and began to stroll around the perimeter of the room. 

“I remember when you came here, before,” he told him, “not recently, but when I was just a boy. The world was a different place then, wasn’t it? The empire without a crown to lead it — Dahngrest poised and eager to devour itself if it were not first torn apart by dragons and all sorts of other beasts. Not long after that I watched as the sky itself split open. As it happened I thought to myself, how could my father have created a world like this, and my grandfather before him? I had always been told that they were great men, but what sort of great men push the world to the brink for their children to inherit? Still, my father did not deserve to die the way that he did in the Great War — and my grandfather did not deserve to be killed by someone like you.” Flynn’s mouth grew dry. 

“Don Whitehorse—” The don quieted him with the wave of his hand. 

“I know what happened. I know that you were deceived, just like I was — and his blood stains my hands as much as it does yours. And look at what his death has given us in exchange. I would have never escaped his shadow, otherwise, and perhaps you would have never been made a commandant. Now you’ve saved my brother. So I suppose your debt is paid. But then I must ask myself, why is it that you are here? If fate demanded that your father die, and mine, and has driven everything else that has happened since, then what was it all for?” 

“Nothing,” Flynn answered tightly. “Your father died because he was a soldier in an impossible war. My father died because he was a brave and stubborn fool. I took your brother from the cells because he was an innocent man. All with cause and an effect and nothing more.” 

“Maybe. But that sort of thinking does not support the things we say, does it? For instance, I remember, when Emperor Ioder was first crowned, that everyone who spoke about him said that he was destined to rule. That he was born to it. That must be fate, mustn’t it? So then, naturally, you would have to ask yourself, do we play a role at all in how something like that comes to pass? What does it matter if the guilds all come together and bicker over who will rule them if the fates have already selected their champion and named him neither king nor don but emperor? My grandfather’s father was a fisherman, Commandant; and if you were to draw my blood now you would find no promise for greatness in it. So what do you think? Is he destined for it? To rule over us as fate demands?” Flynn felt the shadows of his dreaming creeping again at the corners of his eyes. They left him feeling cold and tired and desperate to escape. 

“No,” he replied finally, his voice nearly a whisper. “Ioder is just a man.” Harry nodded and pulled a folded square of paper from his sleeve. He stepped across the room to hand it to him. Flynn opened it and began to read it, the color draining from his face as he did. 

“I think you’re mostly right,” Harry told him. “For what it’s worth. But I think there is still something more to it than that. You are here for a reason, Flynn. In the days that come I would like to understand why.” 

———

Do it. Do it, he begged him silently, his teeth grinding loudly in his ears. Do it. A primal satisfaction bloomed low in his belly as the guildsman stood from his crowded table to make good on the dark glances he had been sending his way since he had first arrived. 

“What the hell are you doing here,” the man slurred, making a show of cracking his knuckles as he shouldered his way to the bar. “You fucking dog.” He spat between the legs of Flynn’s stool. It was enough. He loosened his grip on his drink to swing his arm in a tight arc. His fist crunched against the bridge of the guildsman’s nose like a hammer striking an anvil. The man cried out in surprise, clapping one hand over his face and clawing out with the other. Flynn slipped from his seat and dodged it to sling a second punch into the man’s ribs. A dog, was he? Or was he a paper-pusher — one of the other words he’d heard whispered in the tavern as he had begun his earnest work of drinking that afternoon — a pussy, a traitor, a coward? He ducked beneath another swing before clubbing the jaw of some unlucky straggler with the point of his elbow. Well, maybe he was many things — and maybe he didn’t dance around like they did when they were fighting, all cocky waltzing and ripostes, but he’d been trained to kill a man and no amount of time behind a desk could erase what he had learned. 

The tavern erupted into a frenzy as he lashed from one brawler to the next. Bottles began to whiz above his head, dampening his shoulders and making him angrier still. Some of the guildsmen made impressed noises as he landed one punch and then the next; others cried out in challenge, snarling like curs. It made him hungry to hear the sound. Then there was the sound of steel as someone drew a blade. He hunted it out, his blood rushing in his ears and taunting him to find the coward waiting to stab him in the back. Someone slipped their arms under his shoulders, instead, and began to drag him backwards. 

“Alright. Enough. Hey! You fucking asshole,” Luca snapped in his ear, turning to berate the poor fool who had struck him in the melee. “If you fuck my nose up any further I am going to fucking kill you!” 

“Luca!” One voice called out. 

“Shit,” cried another.

“Sorry, boss.” 

“Let go of me,” Flynn snarled. 

“Yeah, right. Come on. I’m not going to carry you.” They stumbled together through the crowded tavern and out into the street. Flynn gasped in the cold air, his chest heaving as he caught his breath. 

“Get alway from me.” He staggered backwards, his vision tipping from one angle to the next. 

“No way,” Luca scoffed, stepping forward to sling his arm under his shoulders again. “You are going to get yourself killed. Do you realize that? And then I’m going to be stuck with a real complicated moral dilemma to work out. No thank you.” 

“I’m not going back,” Flynn insisted, his chest seizing at the idea of retreating back into the dark room he’d been given in the union headquarters. Luca rolled his eyes. 

“Well, yeah, I’m not going to drag you all the way to Zaphias.” He glanced across the street and groaned. “Of course you had to pick a bar all the way out here. Walk, dammit.” He guided him down a sleepy pass he’d never explored before. Well, maybe he had — it wasn’t easy to tell them apart, now, not in the shifting gloom. 

After some time — minutes, or maybe it was hours, decades, centuries — Luca brought him to a narrow building with a single hooded door. He pushed Flynn to lean against the wooden siding as he slotted a key into the lock. Flynn’s head bobbed as he eyed the simple stoop. An amber glow glimmered at the corner of his eye as Luca began to light some of the oil lamps lining the hallway inside. 

“Come on, Prince Charming,” Luca drawled as he pushed him into the passageway. He stumbled up the stairs next, ducking low to avoid the bowing ceiling before spilling onto an empty platform. Another locked door stood in his way, which Luca resolved, before they both passed through into the room inside. More lamps, more candles. Flynn slumped against the wall as the modest apartment came into view. 

“Fuuuck,” Luca groaned as he began to inspect himself in a nearby mirror. He winced as he pulled the tape away from his bandaged nose. A fresh trickle of blood had begun to drip from his right nostril. He dabbed at it tenderly. Flynn staggered into a chair. 

“Should have Estelle look at that,” he offered glumly after a pause. Luca pressed the bandage tight against his nose again and waved away the idea. 

“No way. I’ve seen what her handiwork can do. It would be one thing to make me prettier, but I still want to be able to breathe. Besides, they say this sort of stuff gives you character, right?” He stepped into the open kitchen and snatched a pitcher and two glasses from the shelf. “Here.” He joined Flynn in a second chair before pouring a glass of water for him and forcing it into his hands. Flynn drank it hungrily, suddenly finding himself dry-parched. 

“Is this your apartment?” He asked him afterwards, drying his lips with the back of his hand.  

“Yeah. Don’t be rude. Did you break it?” 

“What?” 

“Your hand.” Flynn looked down and scowled at the sight of his swollen knuckles. He flexed his fingers gingerly. A dull pain throbbed in response.  

“No.” Luca breathed a laugh into his own glass. 

“Of all the places I thought I’d find you, that was not one of them. You were pretty tidy about it, though, I’ll give you that.” He took a long drink before setting his glass against the low table planted between them. “You’re lucky that you didn’t kill any of them. That would have made things a bit more complicated.” 

“Sure,” Flynn drawled, his head dropping back against the height of the chair. “What do you want, Luca? Why am I here?” 

“I though that was pretty obvious. You’re welcome, by the way,” Luca drawled. He watched him for a moment, his eyes glinting like gold coins in the dim light. They left Flynn feeling trapped. He swallowed his retort and looked away. “Harry told me what happened.” 

“Of course he did.” 

“I’m sorry. Honestly, a bar fight was a pretty good choice. That’s probably what I would have done.” 

“Great,” Flynn scoffed. 

“But,” Luca continued, “if I could give you some advice — which I know you won’t listen to, but it’s not like you’re going anywhere — you should probably put a hold on trying to kill yourself for a while.” 

“Fuck off.” 

“I mean it. First that business of walking out from behind our cover at the river like some madman, and then dropping yourself in perhaps the seediest bar in all of Dahngrest — which is a lot to say, you know; both reckless things, but honestly, not a terribly poetic way to go.” 

“Yeah, well, forgive me, but I’m not much interested in your opinion.” 

“That doesn’t mean I won’t share it with you. I owe it to you. You saved my life, remember; just recently, in fact.” 

“Of course I did. Don’t feel too special. What else was I supposed to do?” 

“Obey,” Luca shrugged. “That generally what men like you do.” 

“Men like me,” he mimicked sourly. “Is that so? And what exactly does that mean? Tell me. Really. I’d like to know. I thought I had a good enough idea but fuck all that proved to be.” 

“Now, come on. Don’t be like that.” 

“And what would you prefer, then?” He set his glass onto the ground before he was compelled to dash it across the room. “Let me tell you something. Ever since I was a little boy I wanted to be a knight. Not because it was a proud thing to do — not even because it sounded nice. I did it because I was cursed to it, just like my father was. I mean, shit, at his funeral my mother knelt down next to me — next to me and his empty fucking coffin — and she said, Flynn, some day you’ll make him proud, and I knew exactly what she meant. And I did everything to make it happen. But I did it well, right? I was good at it, and careful, and I enjoyed it. I did. Not all of the time, but in most of the times that mattered. 

And then they handed the empire to me, all broken into pieces, and said that I was a commandant. I didn’t really want it but they told me that was a good thing — better that I didn’t, better that I took it seriously. So I did. Twenty-fucking years old, acting like I knew anything, and then they shoved a teenaged emperor into my arms as well. Make sure he doesn’t break it any further, right? That’s what they were telling me. Not like I could ask anyone for advice. Couldn’t ask my father what he would have done. Couldn’t ask my captain, because he was already dead, and the one after him as well, and after him came fucking Alexei. Who was my predecessor, right, and he was gone as well. Not like he left any how-to’s behind. But I did it. And I did it well. And I gave up everything.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “Everything. And what was my reward?” 

“This is just a temporary set back,” Luca offered lightly. 

“No.” Flynn swung his arm with a quick and bracing gesture. “No, no, it’s not. It’s over. They took it all from me, Luca, because I’m not a lunatic. And they didn’t just strip me of everything I’ve earned, they called me a traitor for it, too. I was such a fucking fool to think that it would have ended any differently. The Council, the nobility, fucking Desier — what does it matter? They all wanted to control him and of course eventually one of them managed it, and just as I’d gathered the empire up so neatly for him to master.”

“Listen, Flynn, I was there, you know. I saw how the capital guard yielded when we were escaping. That should have been impossible. I mean, it’s not like we were running from some frontier town. Why did it work? Because they follow you first, not the emperor. You can bring a stop to this. We can help you. I will, at least. And you know Harry will want to as well.” Flynn scowled as he remembered the second half of the warrant the don had shared with him in the council room. 

“What do you think he wants with her?” Luca frowned, confused. “Not Harry,” Flynn amended, “Ioder. He’s never cared about her before. He knows what she’s like — that she’s always wandering somewhere. Why try to summon her now?” 

“I don’t know,” Luca answered, shrugging. “You’re the expert. Maybe she’s just an easy hostage.” Flynn hummed thoughtfully at the idea.

“Yes, maybe. Maybe, maybe.” He palmed his hands slowly over his face. “Pawns. We’re all just pawns. What does it matter. I don’t think I’m going to fight it, Luca. I think I’m done. Better to cut your losses, you know?” He slouched lower in his chair, the world around him suddenly spinning and leaving him incredibly tired. “Listen to fate. I don’t know.” 

Luca frowned and meant to say something more, but stopped when he saw that the man’s eyes had already closed. 

———

“Luca, your nose.” 

“Yeah, yeah, alright.” 

“Shit. You really should go talk to Estelle.” 

“I think I’ve already learned my lesson from you, thank you very much. Good morning, by the way. What are you doing here?” 

“What, not happy to see me? Why are you acting so cagey? It gives me the creeps.” 

“Aw, come on, I’m charming. Anyway, it’s—”

“Are you fucking serious?” 

“It’s not what it looks like.” 

“I don’t care what it looks like, Luca, what the hell is he doing here?” 

“Well, after he cleared out the Bronze Anchor I figured he needed to be escorted elsewhere before someone shot him in the face.” 

“You’re joking.” 

The floorboards creaked under a set of slow-loping footsteps. Each one pounded like a thunderclap amidst the aching misery filling his skull. Flynn mustered all of the strength that he had left to ignore them but still they came closer until he could very nearly feel his assailant breathing down his neck. He wondered next if it were possible, with the right amount of desperation, to disappear. 

“Why is he in your bed?” 

“Come on, I wasn’t going to make him sleep on the floor. I’m touched by your concern, really, but I think the only thing he would have been up for last night would have been to break the last poor pitiful parts of my nose.” 

“A-huh. Hey. Wake up.” He covered his face with his hands instead. “Fuck, Flynn. What kind of boxing match did you get yourself into?” 

“Go away,” he groaned pitifully. The bed squeaked as someone sat at its foot. Flynn peeked slowly between his fingers and felt his sour stomach fall further into his gut as he spotted Yuri’s dark shape sitting there.

“You need to get out of here,” Yuri told him flatly. “Harry’s been looking for you.” 

“Why?” 

“Get up.” 

“Why is Harry looking for me?” Flynn centered his spinning head with a deep breath before sitting slowly from the crumpled sheets.

“What does it matter? Get on with it. And clean yourself up, first.” Yuri’s lips puckered into a disgusted frown. “What were you thinking?” 

Flynn had no answer for him. Yuri’s condescension was enough spark his temper alight again. Lucky for them both that he had been laid so low from his over-eager drinking that he could barely manage the work of swinging his legs from the bed. Yuri huffed a sharp breath through his nostrils and stood, seemingly satisfied, to leave the corner of the open apartment that served as Luca’s bedroom. Flynn planted his palms against the edge of the bed as the world around him lurched and spun.

What had he been thinking? Well, not much, after awhile, except to swallow. Still, maybe it hadn’t been his finest idea. He had never been very good at getting drunk — either too timid or over-compensating with it, the latter of which had clearly won out the night before. Now his head was full of tumbling rocks too big to fit his skull, so how in the hell was he supposed to meet with the don? At least it was dark. It was always dark in that damned shadow city. A refuge for criminals and all the rest that liked to live in all that shade. 

He shot a final glance across the tumbled sheets before mustering the courage to stand. His eyes settled on a long black hair twirling across the white cotton. He recoiled from it, forcing himself to his feet. There was a knock at the door. He listened as Luca stepped forward to answer it. Maybe it was a headsman fresh from the capital. Better that it was, and that he could be put out of his misery before it drew on for much longer. He shuffled towards a door he wagered was either a bathroom or a closet. The former, luckily, and better yet that it seemed like Dahngrest had dedicated itself to the art of plumbing just as earnestly as Zaphias had. He turned the knob of the sink and splashed a handful of icy water across his face.

A miserable-looking man looked back at him from the mirror. His lip was split from a blow he didn’t remember, matched neatly with a violet-colored bruise along his jaw. His eyes were bloodshot and ringed with dark bags. Flynn sighed and did his best to flatten his mussed hair. Now at least he looked the part of a traitor, he supposed. No point in keeping up false appearances. 

“Flynn.” Luca’s voice this time. The beads threaded in his braids clattered cheerfully as he peeked his head around the doorframe. “I guess Harry is getting impatient. Let’s go, alright?” Flynn nodded, because what was the point in arguing? He wasn’t much more than their prisoner, now, and half of him was convinced that if he were to stop moving he’d probably just die. He wiped his hands on his slacks and stepped out to hunt out his boots. They were scuffed across the toes. An old, well-trained part of him itched to buff it out. He ignored it and pulled them on and, his stomach roiling at the bitter stare that Yuri had reserved for him, mutely followed the two guildsmen out into the street. 

———

“Flynn!” Estelle intercepted them in the long hall outside the council room. She swept his hands into her own, her eyes full of an agonized worry. “What happened? Are you alright?” 

“I’m fine.” His lips twitched into a crooked smile as he felt the warm fingers of her healing artes chase away the skinned bruises on his knuckles. 

“Who did this to you?” 

“I did,” he told her dryly. She frowned, her eyebrows knitted tightly with concern. 

“Let’s go,” Yuri insisted, shouldering past them towards the council room door. 

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Estelle continued under her breath. “Flynn. Harry told me wh—”

“It doesn’t matter.” She flinched at his curt reply. Her look made his mood soften slightly as they entered into the rounded room. “It’s alright, Estelle. We’ll talk about it later.” He squeezed her fingers lightly. “Nothing is going to happen to you.” 

“Thank you for coming.” It was Harry who brought the room’s quiet conversations to a close. The men and women inside looked to him, some of them appearing somewhat guilty for their delay. Flynn quickly scanned the space. There was Luca and Yuri, obviously, and Estelle; and Sodia as well with Yassik at her elbow, both sharing a hollow look that quickly told him that they both knew what had happened; and there, easing himself up from his crouch against the far wall, was Karol, side-by-side with Mary Kaufman. It was a strange retinue. Harry swept them towards a table that had been prepared for them with a wave of his arm. “Sit.” They all obeyed. 

“I have brought you all together this afternoon to discuss the current state of our affairs. Everyone in this room has been involved in some aspect of what we are to discuss. Until we better understand whatever it is that has been put into motion, it is imperative that no information discussed today be shared with any other party — no one, neither a guildsman nor an imperial, unless it is need-to-know. Is that understood?” 

“Yes, Don,” they murmured in unison. He nodded. 

“Good. As some of you know, I received a message yesterday from the emperor demanding that Dahngrest return into the imperial fold.” Karol and Kaufman shared a sharp look; the rest stared on grimly. “I hope it comes as a surprise to none of you that I will not be agreeing to his demands. He has been callous enough to also suggest that the Lady Estellise is being held here against her will, and has ordered me to release her to him immediately. Given the empire’s new position on the submission of the fairer sex, I similarly have no interest in obeying him in this regard. 

Now. I am not naive enough to think that the emperor’s requests have come without teeth. I think it is a simple enough conclusion to draw that the recent attempt on the imperial commandant’s life, and his subsequent discharge, is a sign that the emperor is preparing to assemble a militant force more directly under his control.” Flynn’s chest iced at the idea and seized further as he watched Yuri’s face fall into a pinched expression from across the table. “Moreover, while we have failed to yet identify the cause of the explosions in the western fields and at the ruins of Caer Bocram, I have reason to believe that they suggest the development of an imperial weapon designed to serve his needs. Therefore, I believe we must take the following actions: first, we must, using all resources at our disposal, destabilize the emperor’s new army before it is at force. Secondly, we must intensify our investigations into the so-called sapros explosions and identify how to dismantle whatever may be causing them. Thirdly, we must attempt to re-establish communications with the empire to encourage a peaceful resolution in which Dahngrest’s sovereignty remains intact. I do not desire to start a war if we can avoid it with any measure.” Heads bobbed in agreement around the table, some more vigorous than others. “Thoughts?” 

“Don.” A whispering breath of surprise was shared between them all as Yassik stood first. “I know that you do not know me well,” she continued, “but I was, until recently, an imperial captain. My brother is a capital guardsman. He shares my loyalty to the commandant.” Flynn’s jaw tensed tight as she glanced over to him, her eyes filled with a mix of determination and something more dire. “I am certain that there are many others like him. I would like to return to the capital. Before my discharge I was stationed in Halure; they will not recognize me in the city. Allow me to meet with my brother. The Imperial Knights will not stand for a war with the guilds. I can help them organize.” She looked to Harry for his approval but it was fleeting; her eyes steadied instead on Flynn. He could feel the don’s gaze on him as well, dragging against his shoulders like an anvil-weight. He nodded stiffly. Yassik smiled and dipped her chin. 

“Sodia,” Flynn called out next. She stood quickly from her chair. “Can you find Witcher?” 

“Yes. I do not think he will stay in the capital. I can track him down.” 

“Accompany him to Aspio. Help the mages understand their mutual interest in identifying the cause of the sapros phenomena as soon as possible.” 

“Yes, Commandant.” He winced at the word.

“Good,” Harry added. “Karol, assign some men from Brave Vesperia to accompany Captain Yassik. Only those who can behave themselves, do you understand? They should rendezvous with any guildsmen located in the capital and then wait for further instruction. I will reach out to the proper players so that they understand they must operate with discretion. And Luca, see to it that Callahan and his men in Aspio are ready to receive Major Sodia and her company.” 

“Alright,” Luca answered, his head bobbing in sync with Karol’s. 

“Very well. I will leave the management of your people to you, then, Commandant,” Harry told him, nodding his head at him, “and would recommend that you remain in Dahngrest for the time being.”

“Fine.”   

“Excellent. That is all, then. Let us begin.” The room was filled with the sound of chairs groaning against the floorboards as they all rose. 

“Flynn,” Estelle began again. He looked at her briefly before the weight of Yuri’s stare began to burn the nape of his neck. 

“Later,” he told her, resting his palm against her shoulder with a quick gesture before he turned to seek out the door. 

“Wait!” 

“Flynn!” Yuri called out to him. He ignored him. Enough. Hadn’t it already been enough? He could barely stand without retching as it was. He didn’t need to endure any more of Yuri’s retribution as well. His feet began to kick more quickly as he passed through the union headquarters. He was already running by the time he’d stumbled through the entry door. A stifling claustrophobia filled him as he dashed through the half-familiar streets. At his pace he knew he would soon be sick; already a sweet bile had gathered at the back of his throat, a reminder of all of the cheap hoppy ale he’d tried to drown himself in the night before. What did it matter? That was what the guildsmen did, didn’t they — fight and retch and fuck and they were all prouder for it. He stumbled as he took a tight turn into an empty side street, his boots clapping against the flagstone.

And did he serve those guildsmen now? He’d certainly been obedient enough in the council room. And not just him but Yassik as well — clever Yassik, already clued in on the new pecking order — and Sodia, too, in her own stubborn way. Three days before he had been in his own office, but then that had been a different man. So who was he, anymore? 

The shadows of the city began to ebb as he found himself staggering across one of its grand bridges. He grasped at the thick railing just as his stomach finally won its battle over his stubborn retching. The sour vomit burned his throat and left a sheen of cold sweat across his brow. He wiped it away with his sleeve afterwards as he clung to the railing like a sailor in a storm. 

“Fuck,” he gasped, his eyes blurring as he watched the muddy current of the river below. 

“Don’t jump.” He was nearly sick again. 

“Dammit, Luca. What is wrong with you? Leave me alone.” 

“I can’t,” the guildsman admitted as he approached. “Harry wants me to keep an eye on you.” 

“Why?” 

“Come on, you’re clever enough to know why. Are you alright?” 

“I’m fine.” 

“You look like shit.” 

“So do you.” Luca laughed and shook his head. 

“I guess you’re right. Good company, then, right?” He leaned against the railing to join Flynn in his wallowing. “Listen. You really do need to be more careful. I know almost everything that happens in this city, but not all of it, you know. It wouldn’t be impossible to hide a killer here.” 

“And who would want to kill me?” Flynn threw his hands into the air. “What could they possibly get out of something like that?” 

“You have a bit of an ego, don’t you? Do I really have to say it?” Luca sighed. “The way I see it, there are four major players in this little war we have got brewing — Harry,” he unfurled one finger from his fist, “Ioder,” a second finger joined it, “Ioder’s new religious friend, whoever that may be,” a third, “and you.” 

“I don’t think so,” Flynn scoffed.

“Don’t be so modest. Wars need soldiers and, the last I checked, you’re the world’s only commander-at-arms. It sounds like your emperor is trying his best to build an army of his own but you already have one, right? If you die they’ll all scatter in a hundred different useless directions. So. No more drinking yourself to death. You’re terrible at it, anyway.” Flynn drew his lips into a tight shape, his eyes still steady on the water below. 

“Thanks for letting me stay at your apartment last night,” he conceded after a halting pause. 

“Sure. You’re weren’t my most difficult houseguest. Listen. Go get some rest. Now that you’re an honorary member of the guild council you’ll have to come to dinner later. Better that you at least wash your hair, first. You’ve ah... you’ve got a little something in it.” 

“What? What do you mean, dinner?” Luca smiled. 

“It’s kind of Harry’s thing, I guess. He likes to take his dinners with his men. It makes it easier for him to get updates, and people tend to be more open with him when they’re not all sweating in the council room, right? Anyway, it’s a free meal, and you’ll look like an asshole if you don’t go. Sunset. I’ll meet you at the headquarters and show you the way. Alright?” 

“Alright,” Flynn sighed dejectedly. Luca clapped his hand against his shoulder. 

“There. Not so hard, right? I told you we would be friends.” Flynn smirked at him but still allowed him to steer him back towards the heart of the city again. He left him midway, retreating to whatever places a man like him fancied, but even after he was gone Flynn could not shake the feeling that someone was watching him as he made his retreat. 

———

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” 

“Estelle,” Flynn managed tightly, “please. Nothing happened.” 

“Harry said someone tried to kill you. How is that ‘nothing’?” 

“It — sometimes that happens.” 

“What!?” 

“I’m fine, Estelle. Look. I’m here, aren’t I?” She frowned and stared into her meal, stirring her stewed carrots and pink-fleshed roast together with a nervous hand. 

“I suppose. I was so worried about you, Flynn.” 

“I know.” He gripped her forearm and squeezed it gently. “But how are you?” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Tell me the truth.” She glanced over at him, her lips pricking into a guilty half-smile. 

“I - Ioder wrote to me, Flynn. I’ve showed his letter to Harry and no one else.” Flynn frowned. 

“What did he say?” 

“He said he wants to marry me.” Her face grew red. “He wrote that our children would one day rule the empire. It made me sick to read it.” 

“That’s never going to happen,” Flynn promised her gently. “Ioder has no power here.” 

“I know.” She set her fork gently beside her plate. “But I don’t like being used, Flynn.” 

“I know.” 

“I can’t... I can’t believe he discharged you.” His mouth twitched as he looked away. 

“Well. I did disobey him.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She smoothed her skirts under the table — a nervous habit. “He always listened to you. What’s changed?” 

“I don’t know,” Flynn admitted with a sigh. “I’ve failed him.” 

“Oh, Flynn.” 

“Don’t. I don’t need that. It’s true. I should have never let those zealots near him. Now he’s turned us both into his enemy when what he needs most desperately are friends. I don’t know what their goal is but I’m certain they’ll use him to achieve it.” 

“Ioder isn’t a child,” she offered him gently. “Not anymore.” 

“He wouldn’t do this,” Flynn argued. “Not without being manipulated first.” They both jumped as their whispered conversation was interrupted by the sharp creak of a chair skittering across the floor. Yuri stood from his spot near the end of the table, his face red with anger, and skulked away. Luca was left gaping in his wake. Flynn glanced over at Estelle, who had already forgotten her own worries to become invested in his. He sighed. They weren’t really anything more than her unruly children, were they? 

“I’ll be right back,” she told him, folding her napkin into a neat square before trailing where Yuri had gone. He could feel Luca’s yellow eyes on him but didn’t have the energy to return their gaze. He cut into his slice of meat, instead, and ate it, no matter that his stomach was still churning from the night before. What a fucking mess.  

———

“You know, for a knight, you’re pretty terrible at following orders.” Flynn’s shoulders stiffened at Luca’s annoyingly familiar voice. 

“Do you seriously have nothing better to do than to follow me around?” 

“I’m not going to explain myself to you a second time,” the guildsman told him dryly as he sat beside him against the coping of the rooftop’s ledge. “Don’t drink, I told you,” he continued, eyeing the filched bottle of wine gripped between Flynn’s fingers, “and don’t kill yourself.” He nodded at the great expanse of nothing surrounding the building’s heights. 

“I’m not going to kill myself,” Flynn answered sardonically. Luca leaned forward to snatch the bottle from him. 

“You stole this from dinner,” he laughed. “Are you sure you aren’t a guildsman?” 

“No one is going to miss it.” 

“No,” Luca agreed with a thoughtful sound, tipping the bottle to his lips. “We’ve certainly got plenty of it.” He tipped his head back to stare into the starry sky. “I sent a message to Callahan in Aspio. He’ll be ready for your friends. As I understand it he’s carved quite the spot for himself over there. They should be able to make some progress fairly quickly.” Flynn nodded and stole the bottle back. “I like those women of yours.” 

“They aren’t my women.” Luca hummed. 

“Right. I guess that isn’t really the best way to put it, the way they’re talking in the capital now. That Sodia is your second-in-command, isn’t she? She must be furious. I mean, at least they discharged you for a reason.” Flynn shot him a stony look. Luca laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Come on. You can’t just mope about it forever. But being born without a cock isn’t really cause for demotion, is it? And not much she can do about it.” 

“It makes no difference for all of us to be in agreement.” 

“No, I guess not. But better that they’re here, at least. And poor Estelle, too. Harry — Harry really loves her, you know.” Flynn glanced over at him uneasily. 

“Harry barely knows her,” he contended. “Listen. This has worked out remarkably in her favor, for her to be here in Dahngrest while all of this happens, and I’m thankful for it. Who knows what sort of mess she would find herself in at home. Estelle has never really taken to being... constrained. But I won’t let Harry use her anymore than I’ll let Ioder do the same.”

“He would never do something like that.” 

“Anyone can do anything with the right amount of pressure.” 

“That isn’t nearly as romantic,” Luca quipped dryly. “But I’m being honest with you. He’ll only do what’s in her best interest. I promise. He doesn’t open himself up to many people. He has with her. She’ll be safe here.” Flynn sucked in a deep sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. Luca’s eyes narrowed slightly as he watched him. “What, are you in love with her, too?” 

“What? No.” He shook his head with a tight swing. “Not like that, at least. But she’s a good person. She doesn’t deserve to be caught in the middle of something like this again.” 

“Well, none of us deserve it.” 

“Sure.” Flynn sloshed the half-filled bottle with a turn of his wrist before taking another longer draw. He smirked as his mind wandered to the dinner earlier that night. “What did you do to Yuri?” 

“What?” Luca looked over at him flatly before his face fell into a dour shape. “Oh. Listen, I didn’t deserve that, either.” 

“What happened, then? I know why he’s pissed at me but I didn’t expect that you would fall from his esteem as well.” 

“Yeah, well, I guess my charms have worn off,” he snapped as he emptied the last dredges of the bottle. “I’m not supposed to be upset by it but in a funny way, I am. Annoying, right? It’ll piss Harry off, too. He told me not to sleep with him. I imagine you knights have neater rules about that sort of thing. Rules don’t work so well here in Dahngrest but I guess, in very rare occasions, they do more good than harm. Anyway, it’s not like Yuri’s one to hide his feelings. Now he’ll be shitty whenever we’re working together, which will make everything twice as difficult.” He tapped the empty bottle against the toe of his boot. “Whatever. At least something good has happened for you, right? I imagine you find all of this rather entertaining.” 

“And why would I?” Luca cocked his eyebrow at him suggestively. Flynn’s lips puckered into an annoyed frown. “It isn’t like that at all. I just — I just want Yuri to be happy.” A cold sting began to spread beneath his collarbones. He tried to ignore it for the sparkling of the stars, and missed the way Luca’s smirking softened at the idea. 

“Yeah, well,” the guildsman offered, staring up as well. “I don’t think any of us are going to be happy, for a while.” 

Flynn’s mind wandered back to his conversation with the guildsman, later, as he traced his way alone back to his borrowed room. In the past it would have been ridiculous to think about the concept of happiness like that. What was it to be happy, after all, when the world was about to end? But peace had changed that just like it had changed nearly everything else. They weren’t all just clamoring to survive, anymore. What was it to just subsist when you could thrive? Perhaps, in a way, it had been a mistake to fall into that sort of thinking — an overindulgence that Ioder now fought to resolve through austerity. Why love when you could be dutiful? The latter was better for an empire, after all. And it had been better for him. No, not better, maybe, but easier. Flynn sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. Not easier, either, but something — there must have been some reason why he had been running from it for so long. 

The sound of a quick step splashing through a puddle broke him from his musings. He turned just quick enough to catch the glint of the milk-pale moonlight flashing against a sharp edge. His body moved before his mind could readjust, already sidestepping as a figure slipped past him. It was a man dressed in a guild jacket — brown, although he couldn’t make out the emblem. His pulse drummed in his ears as he danced backwards again. The stranger’s sword clanged against the steel trunk of a street lamp. The way he swung it made his intentions clear. Flynn scanned the street. His chest grew tight. Nothing to hide behind and less to use as a weapon. He cursed the way he had so callously abandoned his own sword earlier as the man advanced upon him again. His face was drawn into a toothy grimace. Flynn mimicked the look as he reached forward to grab at his wrist. There. The man grunted as he shifted his weight against him to throw his slicing arm off balance. Flynn slugged his fist against his jaw, his fresh-healed knuckles aching anew as his assailant stumbled backwards. He’d nearly pried the blade from him but had made a miscalculation. The wine. Shouldn’t have had the fucking wine. Flynn gasped as the man shoved his pommel backwards to crunch against his cheekbone. A razor bite followed as the blade skimmed the side of his arm. 

“Fuck,” Flynn snapped, clapping his hand against his torn sleeve. The man leapt back a step to circle him, readjusting his grip on his weapon as he eyed him. There was something newly dangerous in the way that he was watching him. He’d grown tired of their skirmishing, it seemed. So had he. The man flinched with surprise as Flynn flung himself forward. He swung again but missed just as Flynn hunched lower to wrap his arms around his waist. The man crumpled backwards. Flynn pinned his sword arm with his leg and gripped his neck tight between his fingers. 

“Let go,” he snarled at him. The man’s throat bobbed. Flynn squeezed tighter. The sword clattered against the flagstone. His hands pawed at Flynn’s shoulders but they were nothing compared to the tight draw of his own grip. “Who are you?” The man’s eyes widened but his lips remained in their grim line. “Who sent you?” Something crunched. The fingers gripping at his jacket loosened. Flynn’s heart hammered as he realized what had happened. 

“No.” He loosened his hold to pry open the man’s pursed lips. A white foam had already begun to gather in his mouth from the poison pill he’d chewed. “No!” He lurched back in disgust as the man’s head drooped lifelessly against the curb. His shoulders sagged as he glanced up into the sky. The stars sparkled on, unmoved by what had happened. 

“Fuck.” 

———

“Flynn...” He supposed there wasn’t much else to say. Estelle’s eyes grew heavy with tears as she touched his black-bruised cheek tenderly. 

“I know,” he answered, wincing at the eerie feeling of her artes piecing him together again. 

“Are you sure you didn’t recognize him?” Flynn looked over Estelle’s bowed head to meet Harry’s stern gaze. 

“No. But his head was shaved, just like the shooter at the riverbank.” Harry glanced over at Luca. If the council room had been built with corners perhaps he would have hidden in one. As it was he was sulking awkwardly a few paces away, his guilt stamped plainly across his face. So much for a bodyguard. Flynn wanted to say that it hadn’t been his fault, but it didn’t seem to be the proper time. 

“He was wearing a guild jacket,” Flynn told him instead, hissing as Estelle worried over his arm. “It didn’t have any patches.” 

“Stolen, maybe,” Luca suggested thinly. He looked back at Harry. “I’ll find out who they are.” Harry sighed and rubbed at the red mark stamped across his nose. A birthmark? Flynn had always wondered what it was. A tattoo, more likely, although it was strange to think that any grandfather would encourage a young boy to do something like that. He cleared his throat to steady his attention back on the man. 

“We found these on his body,” Harry continued, waving a thick packet of papers in the air. “Orders, most likely, but they’re all nonsense — coded.” 

“I can take a look at it,” Luca suggested. The don shook his head. 

“No, I want you focused on hunting down whoever it is behind all of this. Yuri.” He looked over at the man lingering at the door. “See if you can bring some meaning to it.” 

“I don’t know if I’m the right man for the job, Don,” Yuri told him. Harry frowned. 

“Just do it, would you?” Flynn couldn’t help but smirk as the man abandoned his usual stilted tone. Yuri had a way of doing that to people — flustering them, beggars and kings alike. “You too, Commandant. These codes all use some sort of cornerstone; a reference, a riddle, perhaps a different language. I’d say between the two of you you’ve seen most everything this world has to offer. See if anything jumps out at you.” Flynn’s smile floundered into a thin line. Between drinking himself to death and being nearly more properly killed, hadn’t he earned himself some rest? Harry’s look did not seem to suggest the same. Right. Well, the don could call him commandant however much he liked, but Flynn wasn’t so foolish as to think he had the option to deny him. He nodded curtly and looked away before he was tempted to see how Yuri had reacted to the task. 

“Thank you. I’ll leave you to it, then. Better that we finish this before anyone realizes that their man is dead.” He stepped forward to hand the papers to Flynn. “Luca. With me.” 

“Go on,” Flynn told Estelle as the brothers turned to leave the room. “You must be exhausted.” 

“You must be, too,” she insisted, her face pink with aggravation. “You need to rest. That man won’t be any less dead tomorrow.” 

“It’s alright.” Flynn waved the packet in the air. “A little light reading never hurt anyone before. Besides, it’s what I do best.” 

“Flynn...” 

“Go on.” She frowned but stood all the same. 

“Fine. But I’m just upstairs, you know. I can be here in a moment if anything happens.” 

“I know,” he replied, amused. “Goodnight, Estelle.” She touched his healed cheek lightly before nodding and stepping away. Her fingers left a numbness behind. He sighed once she had gone, grinding his knuckles against his tired eyes. The room was quiet except for the sound of Yuri slowly walking to join him at the table left behind from their last meeting in the room. Flynn ignored him to fan the papers out for a better inspection. For a moment they were nothing but a set of blurry shapes. He blinked again and squinted until the words began to form themselves across the page. Nonsense indeed. His stomach settled with a pebbly dread at the impossibility of their task. 

“Hey,” Yuri said after another moment, reaching forward to draw one of the sheaths of paper closer. “Are you alright?” 

“Yes.” Flynn didn’t want to be curt with him. Not really. But what was there else to say? He wasn’t alright, really. Estelle had been diligent in healing all of his scrapes and cuts and fractures, but his body still ached from all of the misery he’d put it through. He was tired and was still sick from all of the swill he had been hunting out. Worse was the rest of it, but he didn’t want to talk about that now. Flynn snatched one of the pages from the table and held it closer, a shield against Yuri’s dark eyes. 

“What happened — it wasn’t right.” 

“I know.” He heard Yuri suck in a sharp breath. Maybe he meant to say more, but instead he just nodded his head, his grey gaze drifting downwards towards the papers again. 

For a mad moment the sight of him hunched over and reading transported Flynn to a different time. Back then he had been half the size that he was now, although he had already been nearly as tall. They’d started with The Brave Sir Robert. Flynn hadn’t had the chance to bring many books with him when he and his mother had made their move between the quarters. That book had been his favorite. It had been too advanced to teach anyone to read, but he’d had little choice. At first Yuri had been an impossible student; fidgeting and growing frustrated when he couldn’t manage the words. His handwriting had been atrocious. The only thing he had been consistent with was mismatching his Ts as Ls. Not Towett! Flynn had yelled at him once as he’d tried to scribble out his name. But, a few weeks later, he had managed to read aloud the first of brave Sir Robert’s many adventures and for a moment Flynn hadn’t felt like such a failure. Maybe he wasn’t a noble any longer, but he was a fair enough teacher, wasn’t he? Soon after Yuri had been insatiable, finishing off the rest of his meager library and grinning with pride as he made out the letters adorning the once-mysterious street signs dotting the Lower Quarter.

And now. An old ache burrowed deep within his chest as Flynn watched him flip through the pages. Now he was hardly that little boy any longer. He wasn’t sure just what he was, really — not a guild boss, officially, but perhaps more than one in the ways that really mattered. A champion for the living, once, and Flynn supposed that wasn’t a title that one could ever truly lose. But there was something else as well. Something that he had seen before when it was just the seedling of something dark that had since bloomed thick inside him. Well, and should it be a surprise? He was the master of killers, after all, isn’t that what Karol had said? Killers who were not so different than the man he had left poisoned in the streets, except for the fact that it did not seem that his assassin’s payment had come from Yuri’s pockets. 

A small part of him doubted even that. It would be a clever enough plan. Maybe Yuri and Luca were in on it. Flynn’s mouth grew dry. And why not? There would be a wicked justice in it, really — for Ioder to hire Yuri to kill him. It would explain why Luca was so insufferable in tailing him except for the moments in which it actually mattered. He glanced over at Yuri again from behind the corner of his page. He meant to imagine what it would have looked like for him to strategize his killing, but all he could picture was his lean body in Luca’s bed. 

Enough. He rubbed his eyes again and set himself more diligently upon his task. All of his years of studying had prepared him for it. He slowly fell into the rhythm of testing different puzzles, different phrases, different patterns against the page. Many times he was able to transform one word to another, but in each attempt they were still nonsense in the end. He lost himself in it until his back began to ache. He leaned back, then, groaning softly as his stiff muscles flexed against the harsh angles of his chair. His eyes drifted over to check on Yuri’s progress. He laughed beneath his breath as he spotted him asleep, his head buried in the cross of his arms against the table. Typical. 

His long hair had spilled over his portion of the work and his face as well. Flynn’s eyes lingered on it. It had always reminded him of a veil; something for Yuri to hide behind, another type of shield. Just like Yuri had been for him. Flynn’s breath caught in his throat. He had always been so cocky with his appearance, even when he had nothing but his fingers to comb his hair and the same ratty jacket no matter the weather. And he had been good at it, too. Always confident, even when he wasn’t. But not when he was sleeping. All of that melted away when he was dreaming. It had been a secret part of him that Flynn had cherished.

Something desperate inside him compelled him to reach across the table. Suddenly he was hyper-aware of the shape of his fingertips, and of the memory of how it felt to draw them through Yuri’s soft hair. Maybe none of it would matter, a little voice inside him pleaded, if he could just sweep the hair away from his face again like he had done a thousand times before. 

“Don’t.” Yuri’s voice stilled his hand’s advance. He leaned slowly upwards from his folded pose. “Don’t touch me.”

Flynn snatched back his fingers as if they had been scalded by his words. He looked away as Yuri stood, the legs of his chair scraping the floor, and kept his eyes steady against the scattered pages as the man left the room.   

Chapter Text

There was a knock at the door. Flynn wasn’t entirely certain how to answer. He supposed this new little room they’d given him was a bit of an office, really, but it wasn’t like it was truly his. Still, whoever it was waiting patiently behind the door for him still observed the eternal courtesy of knocking. Just come in, he wanted to snap as he set aside his pen, but he was better cultured than that. At least when he was sober. He stood from the little table that served as his makeshift desk and approached the door. 

“Yes?” A man stood on the other side. He was older, the hair at his temples snow-colored and retreating to a shiny spot at the top of his head. If one had to describe him with a single word it would be neat — he almost reminded Flynn of a doctor with the tidiness of his clothes and the perfect trim of his short white beard. He was holding a little pearl-colored box at his chest. 

“Commandant,” he greeted him, his voice accented with the trill of a noble Zaphian drawl. Flynn was surprised to hear it after so many days of working alongside the guildsmen’s motley crew. 

“Sir?” 

“Garren,” the man answered, “my name is Garren.” 

“Come in, Garren.” He stepped aside as the man entered. “What is it that I can do for you?” 

“I wanted to thank you.” His cheeks had taken on a ruddy flush. He looked to his toes, a gesture that did not seem to befit his proper posture. “I do not know if you remember me, Commandant, but I was in the palace cells the night that you — that you saved me.” 

“I see,” Flynn answered awkwardly. “Well. I’m very sorry that you were involved, but I am glad to see that you are alright.” 

“Yes,” the man agreed. He cleared his throat. “You see, I’m not a young man, Commandant. I’ve lived through terrible things. But I trusted in our emperor. I am,” he tipped the box in his hands gently, “I am a baker by trade. I’ve made many things for the palace throughout my career. I did not know his excellency, of course, not personally, but I was proud that he enjoyed my work. I did not always agree with his vision, but I was a supporter nonetheless. A loyalist since the day that I was born. What a fool I was, wasn’t I?” He glanced away again, his lips pulling into a crooked shape.

“I knew the boys that came for me. Sons of good families. That’s what we always called them, ‘good families,’ both mine and all of the rest. But what bollocks that all was. They were drunks, scoundrels, ingratiates — and certainly not knights. But still they came for me, and they broke my arm when I tried to resist. And then they meant to hang me. For what charge, I begged them, as if knowing it would have made any difference! But better to at least try to understand my fate. They told me nothing, of course. 

I began to understand when I saw the others. I am an old man, Commandant. My partner was killed when the city was besieged during the Battle of the Blastia. That part of my life died with him. I just wanted to do my work. I am — I have not always been a perfect person. But I do not think that I deserved that.” 

“No. I’m so sorry.” 

“I am, too.” He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I did not think that I would have to start my life anew at sixty-eight. Still, I suppose that this place is not as terrible as I once believed. I’ve found a guild.” The man smiled ruefully. “A guild for has-been bakers, can you imagine? But they’ve been kind to me. I think I’ll be happy enough here.” His face darkened. “And I...I renounced my citizenship today. Another thing that should have been an impossibility. But there it is. And afterwards I realized that I hadn’t even thanked you. So,” he sucked in a deep breath and glanced up to meet Flynn’s gaze, “so I prepared this for you. It’s not much in exchange for a life, but it was once said that I was skilled at this sort of thing.” He held the little box forward. Flynn took it gingerly, his brow knotting. 

“Thank you, Garren.” The man nodded.

“I do not know what I could possibly offer you,” he continued, “but if it comes to it, I am your man. Thank you, Commandant.” He bowed neatly at the waist. Flynn nodded his head, his lips set in a tight line as the baker turned and left. Flynn lingered in his spot for a moment longer before setting the box onto the table. There was a little crest drawn on the top of the thin cardboard. His heart flipped at the sight. He had seen it before. Back then it had been a proper stamp, crisp and red-inked, whereas this one had been shakily applied by hand. 

He opened it carefully. The sides flattened to display the perfect cake in miniature inside. It was white-iced and studded around the edges with stiff-piped rosettes, all exceptional and uniform. The top was crowned with pulled sugar threaded into an icy basket weave. That was what had set it apart, Flynn had once heard — the delicate crunch of the sugar work against the rich buttercream and airy vanilla sponge. A perfect forkful, but he hadn’t enjoyed it properly the first time. Perhaps it had been delicious, but he had eaten it from Yuri’s fingers, that time, and had been more interested in the salt of his skin than in the cake’s sweetness. 

He sunk into a crouch. His heels scuffed against the ground as he sagged against the table. The treatise, the pledge, his own arrest warrant — it had been easy enough to ignore them as figments of a bad dream here in the depths of the union headquarters. But this new relic from his past was real and too wicked to endure. Don’t touch me. With time he could acclimate to the life of a traitor, even a failure, but not that. 

“Flynn?” The door creaked open. He supposed he should have been annoyed, bemused, but mostly he just felt empty. Estelle came into the room all the same, her pace quickening as she spotted him on the floor. “Flynn! What is it? Are you alright?” She sank into her skirts at his side. 

“I’m fine,” he told her flatly. She sucked in a deep breath and seized him at the shoulders. 

“Stop it,” she begged him, her voice full, “stop lying to me. What is it? Was it that man? What’s happened?” 

“Nothing’s happened.” He winced as her palm cracked against his cheek. 

“Stop lying to me, Flynn! I can’t bear it any longer. You can’t just keep on bottling everything up inside you like this. Tell me. Please. We can solve it. I’m sure of it.” He stared back at her mutely even as his cheek turned red from her slap. Her eyes filled with frustrated tears. “Listen to me. You’re still a commandant. It doesn’t matter what that piece of paper said. Ioder’s made a mistake. We’ll fix it. I know you can help him understand.” He shook his head. 

“Estelle—”

“And those men,” she spat the word, “Luca will find out who it was that sent them. He has eyes everywhere. I know he’ll find them.”  

“I think Yuri hates me.” 

“What?” She breathed the question, her rapid inquiry deflating. He shrugged his shoulders. It perhaps wasn’t the proper gesture. Should he have been weeping instead? Tearing at his hair, tossing the furniture of the little makeshift office into broken pieces like he had once before? Somehow he didn’t have the energy for any of it, anymore. “Yuri doesn’t hate you, Flynn.” 

“I think he does.” He tipped his head against the leg of the table and stared into his endless scribblings on the wide parchment strung along the wall. He had not yet been able to decode the assassin’s messages, but Yuri’s intentions had been much more clear. Don’t touch me, he had snarled, his voice sharp and cold. “You wouldn’t understand,” he added as he watched her lips tighten.

“No, Flynn, I do,” she insisted, collecting one of his hands between her own. “Listen. Sodia and I — I like to think we’re friends. A few years ago she confided in me about her feelings for you. You know me. I didn’t give her much of an opportunity to keep any secrets, after that.” She smiled apologetically, her eyebrows tenting. “Finally, one day, I was telling her — oh I don’t know, that she needed to just tell you, right? Something like that. Something foolish, probably, like writing you a letter. Well, I suppose she had heard enough of my advice and she told me about you and Yuri. Don’t,” she added quickly as she watched his face darken, “She didn’t mean to. I picked at it until she had no choice.” 

“That was a long time ago.” 

“I know. And I don’t know what happened between the two of you,” she continued more carefully, “but I know Yuri much better than I know Sodia. Much better than I know you, to be honest. He could never hate you. I think that he might be hurt. Angry. Jealous.” 

“Jealous?” 

“Maybe. It’s not so crazy an idea.” His mind wandered back to the memory of Yuri skulking angrily from Harry’s dinner table days before. His stomach grew sour. 

“Luca isn’t interested in me,” he insisted tightly. She sighed, her smile lingering.

“I don’t think Yuri cares about what Luca thinks. He’s a good man, though, you know.  He doesn’t really deserve to be stuck between the two of you, but—”

“It’s not like that, Estelle. It’s not some simple love triangle.” 

“I know it isn’t. I just think that you should talk to Yuri, is all, before you start damning yourself like this.”  

“You—” 

Flynn was cut short by the swinging of the door. Luca, as if summoned, was suddenly there, his arm braced against the door and his chest heaving from whatever harried pace that had brought him there. 

“There’s something happening in the eastern bank,” he interrupted them brusquely. “I think it has to do with the sapros explosions.” 

“What?” Flynn stood quickly from his crumpled pose, ignoring the flicker of confusion narrowing Luca’s eyes as he looked from Estelle to the little cake left untouched on the messy table.   

“In the warehouse district,” Luca continued, waving at them to follow him out into the hall. “The tenants have all been evacuated. Or evacuated themselves, rather. Apparently there’s a horrible feeling out there that was driving them all mad.” 

“Let’s go,” Flynn agreed, snatching his sword from its lean against the far wall before he left the room in their wake. “Estelle, you should—”

“I’m coming with you,” she insisted, her fists already gripped at her chest to prepare for his refusal. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Luca replied uneasily. 

“I’m coming. What if it has something to do with the aer down there? I can help, Luca. I’m not just going to hide in here like some useless trophy.” The guildsman laughed breathlessly at the idea. 

“Alright. But stay by me, alright? If you get hurt I might as well, too, or else Harry will definitely kill me.” 

“Come on,” Flynn interrupted again, nodding towards the union doors. They bobbed their heads in agreement and matched his quickened pace. “Which way?” 

“Over here,” Luca answered once they were outside, turning to jog through a narrow alleyway. There was already someone there a few paces ahead. “Hey, Yuri!” He glanced over his shoulder at them, his face falling into a frown. 

“Estelle,” he sighed as she joined him at his side. “What are you doing here?” 

“I’m helping,” she huffed. “Has everyone forgotten what I can do?” 

“Alright,” he replied defensively, knowing well enough when he was pitted to lose against her. “If that’s what you want. But be careful, alright? Harry will—”

“I don’t care what Harry will do,” she grumbled, stepping forward down the alleyway. “I’ll be fine. Let’s go.” Luca and Flynn shared an amused look before they jogged forward as well.

“Do you know what’s happened?” Yuri called the question over his shoulder.

“Only that the district has scattered like rats before a flood,” Luca answered. “Word is the DiMarino house is the worst.” 

“The worst of what?” 

“I don’t know. But there it is.” The guildsman pointed to a large warehouse with scale shaped shingles. The trio passed through a tight ring of onlookers who dared not linger beyond an innocent-looking curb. Flynn understood why as his boots made clearance over it. There was something — something foul, just like Yassik had once said. The hair on his arms stood on end as a great pressure began to fill his chest. He looked over at Yuri. He had felt it as well. There was a rare look of concern glimmering in his eyes. 

“Let’s go, then,” Yuri ordered. Flynn nodded and strode forward. 

“Luca,” Estelle snapped as the guildsman grabbed at her arm. His free hand quickly busied itself with the case slung over his shoulder. The nose of his rifle peeked through, already fitted together and looking dangerous in the gloom. 

“We don’t need to be in the thick of it to be helpful,” he told her grimly. “Come on. Let’s go see if we can get a better vantage point.” A stubborn look steeled her face but she followed him all the same towards a round-caged stairwell running along the side of a nearby building. 

“What should we look for?” Flynn glanced over at Yuri’s question as the two picked their way closer to the DiMarino warehouse. 

“I don’t know,” Flynn admitted, glancing up at the open windows of the building’s second story. “Explosives. They may look like that clear orb, do you remember?” Yuri dipped his chin in understanding. 

“Keep your voice down,” he suggested as they rounded on the tall sliding doors that led into the place. He tossed aside his scabbard and slung the blunt edge of his sword against his shoulder. They stepped forward together to haul the door open on its squeaking track. A neat-packed space was waiting for them inside. Flynn eyed the lazy dust motes streaming through the twilight gloom with apprehension. The grip inside his chest had become nearly unbearable. His heart began to hammer. A poison? Maybe, but the air tasted plain enough to him. He wished suddenly that he had scared the crowd further away. Now was not the time for regrets, however; not if they were moments away from becoming kindling themselves.

Yuri slowly tracked up the open-backed stairs into the hayloft as Flynn stepped along the spaces between the intricate system of towering crates. Olive oil, saltpeter, terra cotta tiles — he forced open the slatted covers of each crate with the butt of his sword and found nothing but exactly what was written on the sides. Soon he had come to a staircase of his own, and with Yuri descending it equally empty handed. 

“Nothing?” Flynn shook his head. Yuri frowned. 

“There has to be something,” Yuri contended, gripping at his collar. “It’s worse in here than it was outside.” Flynn looked down at the dirt floor. Buried, maybe? But the soil was tight-packed and dry. He couldn’t imagine that any of it had been freshly tilled. He glanced up at the rafters. Empty. Something caught his eye, however, as he looked down again. 

“Yuri. Your hair.” 

“What?” Yuri’s face crumpled with confusion as Flynn gaped at the halo of black strands that had begun to float weightlessly around his head. He would have laughed at the sight if not for the cloying scent of ozone that had suddenly filled his nostrils.  

“Yur—”

Flynn’s head snapped against his shoulder. The warehouse disappeared behind a red-black curtain and suddenly he was tumbling, his breath forced from his chest as if he had been crushed between the palms of a giant’s clapping hands. Nothing came afterwards except for the tight ringing of a bell. His teeth chattered in resonance while his mind swum within an empty space. For a beat his body was filled with that same emptiness and then, as if he were engulfed by a cresting wave, his limbs began to prick under a million needle points. Suffocating. His lungs hitched. He was suffocating. Why? He had been standing in a warehouse. How could he be drowning now? 

He felt the corner of something sharp against his spine. He was laying on it, so that way must be down. He forced his mind to focus on the shape. It began to pick out the weight of something opposite from it, heavy and flat-faced and pressing against his ribs. He groped in its direction. There. Something solid, something real. He gripped it and shifted it sideways.

A primal terror filled him as it loosened enough to welcome the first thin stream of air back into his throat. Get off get off get off. He grit his teeth and strained against it until it clattered away. Give me give me give me, his lungs begged as he gulped mouthfuls of air. It was full of grit and left him sputtering, but it was better than the horrid heat of nothing that he had been drawing before. He rolled from the sharp edge of whatever he had been pinned against to writhe onto his hands and knees, his vision slowly speckling back to life as he sucked more breaths into his chest. 

Dust. Even when he began to see again it made no difference. It was all just dust and darkness. A building, his mind insisted, there had been a building there before. And Yuri. Yuri. 

“Yuri!” He gasped the word. His body ached in protest as he pushed himself to his feet. “Yuri! Yuri!” He staggered a step forward, his foot catching on one of the rafters that had fallen from the roof that had once been above his head. 

“Here!” A cold relief spilled over him as he heard Yuri’s voice between the ringing in his ears. He squinted through the swirling dust to spot his dark hair turned grey. Something had pinned him as well. Flynn watched as he leveraged himself free from underneath the crush of a toppled crate. He groaned as something tugged back at him, his boots clipping against a toppled tin plate as he finally wrestled free. 

“Yuri,” Flynn repeated again as he stumbled forward to meet him. At least he was alright. Stupid. What had they been thinking, running headfirst into this place? Maybe it was something that Yuri was more accustomed to, but Flynn should have known better. At least Luca had been clever enough to stay behind. Flynn suspected it would take a long time for his gloating to subside. 

“Shit,” Yuri moaned in reply. 

“What is it?” Yuri met his eyes for a moment before he glanced down at his hands. He pulled them slowly from where they were folded against his stomach. The dust had coated him from crown to fingertip like a clay wash. His blood was stark against it. 

“Yuri!” He’d crumpled to his knees before Flynn could reach him. Flynn scooped his arm behind his shoulders, his heart stuttering at his limp weight. His eyes staggered lower to settle on the snag that had ripped through the bottom half of his jacket. Not just his jacket. The ringing in his ears grew louder as stared helplessly at Yuri’s split skin and all of the wet mess inside, blood so dark that it was black and worse. Like a dissection, a wicked part of him suggested as he pressed his own fingers tight against the gaping spot; like a frog, pinned open and ready to explore. 

“No,” he breathed, “Fuck. What the fuck.” Yuri winced, his throat bobbing as he tried to swallow back the gore filling his mouth.

“Supposed to say I’ll be alright,” he gurgled, his teeth already pink-stained. Every inch of Flynn’s skin stung with adrenaline as he glanced wildly between the man and the dark space they had been swallowed into. 

“You are alright,” he babbled. “You are alright. You’ll be alright. Estelle.” His head snapped over his shoulder as he sought out where she must have been. That had been the entrance, hadn’t it, once? And beyond that the district square, and that building she had scaled. If it was still there. He didn’t focus on that part. “Estelle. I’ll get Estelle.” 

“No.” Yuri gripped at his arm. His hold was tight but trembling. “I don’t think so.” 

“Please,” Flynn begged. “You’ll be alright. I just need to bring her here. She must be right outside. Estelle!” His feet stirred under him as he made to stand but Yuri kept him steady. 

“Flynn... I don’t want to go alone.” 

“Yuri.” His blood was hot against his fingers. Flynn tore his gaze away from them to look into his face again. His lips were pale, even under the dust. “Yuri, no. You can’t. Please.” 

“It’s alright.” 

“No,” Flynn insisted, his tears leaving clean tracks down his cheeks. “You promised. Please.” His palms burned, the torn meat of Yuri’s stomach like embers against his skin. Guilt. Was that what guilt felt like when it was as terrible as what he deserved? Please, he begged, not so certain if he was even speaking any longer, don’t leave. Not you. It can’t be you. Not the man who had been the boy who had stumbled upon him lost in the Lower Quarter as he was being tossed between the cruel hands of Orson and his thuggish gang and had thrown himself into the fray, laughing at them even as they beat him before he scared them away with a few punches of his own; not him, who had taught him every bad word that he knew and all of his best stories; not him, his first true friend, his only love, the only one out of all of them who mattered.

“Flynn!” 

The air crackled. A deep part of him was relieved. Maybe the sapros was benevolent, really, and had come to finish him off too. He closed his eyes as something seized him. A low sound ripped from deep inside his chest, however, as he realized that it wasn’t retribution but pain — a burn so hot that it was cold again, licking hungrily from the tips of his fingers and up into his shoulders. He could smell it, taste it, the char of his skin and his borrowed clothes. Why, a primal voice called out in confusion inside him, but he had no answer for it. Maybe he was right, another one called out as the image of Ioder’s frightened face flashed in his mind. Maybe he was right, and it’s dragged you to hell.

Just not Yuri, his flagging mind proposed desperately — he would accept it, if that were his punishment, but don’t take him. 

———

“Flynn!” Yuri watched in horror as the air began to waver and crackle. No. Now they would both be lost. He tried to push the man away from him but his muscles were already useless and divorced from his dying brain. You stupid fool, he would have cried out if his own blood had not already strangled him, save yourself. The sharp agony burrowing in his chest doubled over as he watched a golden glow begin to gather around Flynn’s shoulders. 

His heart hiccuped unevenly. No, he ordered it stubbornly, not yet. He had to tell him to stop. He’d seen what had happened to the poor bastards who tried to coax aer to life without the blastia they’d left behind. There had been too many cases of it when everything had first changed. Healers stirred to action before they could catch themselves, their bodies burned stiff and ruined and the men they’d sought to save gone as well. And Flynn had never been a healer, not beyond the little tricks he’d gathered from Hisca and Chastel and Witcher, perhaps, in case he needed to limp along. The aer would know it. It would devour them both. Please. But Flynn did not listen. The glow sparked brighter. 

When had he ever listened to him before?  

Yuri’s lungs hitched as a cool touch fluttered over the screaming space that had once been his gut. The feeling made his eyes water and for a moment he was lost in it. Was this the end, then? Neither fanfare nor hellfire, but a gentle easing of all the pain that had filled him to the brim? Fine. Alright, he wanted to concede, until the horrid smell of something burning filled his nose. Something was crying in his ears, low and bestial; an animal in pain. His heart lurched into rhythm again and suddenly he was seeing and breathing and feeling and alive. He spat a thick mouthful of blood over his shoulder and sucked in a fresh breath. And then he heard the noise again and realized what it was. 

“Stop! Flynn!” Yuri lurched forward to wrench him away. Flynn slumped bonelessly to the side. Yuri caught him before he had the chance to tumble into the sharp-edged ruins of the warehouse. A primordial fear filled him as he looked down at the blackened blisters covering his arms. It looked as though he had thrust them into the hot mouth of a forge. Yuri swallowed before he was sick at the sight and cradled his head in the crook of his arm. Flynn.

His face looked almost peaceful beneath the white shroud of dust. Something must have struck him, before; his hair was dark and matted in a spot above his temple. Idiot, he thought, always running off to help when you’re the one who’s hurt. Yuri pressed his thumb against his throat to hunt out a pulse. He sucked in a breath of relief as he found one thrumming slow but steady.   

“Yuri!” Estelle’s voice, high and harrowed. His head snapped leftwards to seek her out.

“Estelle! Over here!” The pink blossom of her hair slowly emerged from within the settling dust cloud. Luca shadowed her, as always, his face bare of its usual impish grin. 

“Yuri!” She scrambled over the fallen rafters. “Are you alright? Oh, no!” Her eyes widened at the mess of his blood spilled across the whitewashed rubble. “Oh, oh, wait, don’t move, here, I—”

“Don’t,” he snapped quickly. “I’m fine. It’s Flynn.” She blanched, perhaps just now making out the shape of him crumpled between Yuri’s arms.

“Flynn.” She scrambled over the last barrier between them to kneel at their side. 

“Don’t do anything,” he ordered her tightly. “They’re aer burns.” As it stood he wasn’t sure just how Flynn had managed to survive them, but he certainly wouldn’t for much longer if Estelle lured any more of the fickle energy over him now. 

“Aer burns?” She echoed his diagnosis uneasily as her fingers hovered over the angry welts. “Oh, no.” She clapped her hands against her mouth, her eyes darting up to meet Yuri’s, full of tears. “I did this,” she continued in a reedy breath. “I thought — I heard him calling and — I couldn’t reach you. But I thought that I could still help. I didn’t know.” 

“We need to get out of here,” Yuri contended, his teeth beginning to chatter from the lightheaded cotton filling his skull. Flynn had sewn him back together, somehow, because of or in spite of Estelle — but he hadn’t filled him full of blood again and he didn’t want to cast a wager on Luca’s ability to carry both him and Flynn back out of the rubble before whatever had caused the explosion looped back around for another attempt. 

“Come on,” Luca replied in agreement, stepping beside Estelle and bowing forward. “I’ve got him.” Yuri helped him ease Flynn over his shoulder before he stood himself. 

“Yuri.” Estelle gripped at his elbow as he wavered, his vision fluttering drunkenly. 

“It’s alright,” he insisted. He pressed his fingers against the spot under his shredded jacket, doubting what he’d said himself, and felt his skin prickle with goose flesh at the smooth resistance he found there. Just a stomach, just like it had been before. His second resurrection. He ignored the absurdity of such an idea and let Estelle help him forward out of the ruin. “Were there any others?” 

“No,” she answered. A crowd began to manifest itself as they emerged from the dust. They gaped at them, their fingers caged over their mouths and their eyes wide and lingering in the ruined spot where the DiMarino warehouse had once stood. “They were far enough away. It was just that building, Yuri.” Her lips flattened into a thin line. “I don’t understand it.” 

“It doesn’t matter.” He spotted someone in a navy jacket between the awestruck onlookers. “You! Get everyone out of here.” 

“Y-yes, sir,” the guildsman agreed, stirring into action with waving arms as they passed him by. Yuri staggered on, thankful for the steadiness of Estelle’s shoulder and trying his best to ignore the limp bob of Flynn’s head against Luca’s back as they made their retreat. 

———

“Estelle.” He found her again later in the hall outside Flynn’s room. The third he had been given, Yuri supposed — this time in the hospital, once rather grand for a place like Dahngrest but turned nearly medieval under candlelight. 

“Yuri.” A wash of relief spilled over her face as she looked up at him from her spot against the wall. “How are you feeling?” 

“Tired,” he admitted to her plainly. He sat beside her and spread his long legs across the hall. Exhausted was a better word for it — drained empty, filled with sand. But he had never been good at resting quietly, and he wasn’t planning on honing the skill now. He looked up at the closed door lurking across from them. “How is he?” Her face clouded. 

“It’s horrible,” she answered in a little voice. “Everything is all burned, and some of his fingers... This was my fault, Yuri. I did this to him.” 

“You didn’t. Flynn — he was,” Yuri frowned, unable to find the proper words, “he was just trying to help me.” 

“No. You don’t understand. Luca and I found a way onto the old watchtower next to the warehouses. He thought it would be a high enough spot to see what was happening without being too close. He was right. Well, not that I could see much of anything after — after that, but I could hear Flynn calling for me. I knew that it was you. The way that he was, the way that his voice was,” she shook her head tightly as her own voice grew strangled, “and I just wanted to help you. I thought that maybe we would be close enough, but it isn’t so easy when you can’t get to the person who you’re trying to heal. But it should have just done nothing, Yuri. Not that.” 

“It wasn’t your fault,” he insisted. He stared into the unreadable face of the door again. Not her fault but maybe his. It didn’t matter. It had just been a mistake. 

“What if he isn’t alright?” She gripped at Yuri’s sleeve. He cupped his hand over her fingers. 

“He will be. He’s stubborn, Estelle. He won’t let something like this slow him down.” He ignored the sour doubt tugging at his throat for the sound of a pair of footsteps approaching them. “Luca.” 

“You okay?” The guildsman loped closer to them, his hand balancing something wrapped in a coarse fabric over the flat of his shoulder. He had that same guilty, puppy-kicked look in his eyes which had once been intriguing, but had since come to infuriate him. 

“Yeah,” he answered. “What’s that?” Luca swung the bundle forward to offer it to him. It was stiff and heavy. Yuri unwrapped it to find the hilt of his sword inside. It wasn’t alone. 

“I found them in the rubble.” 

“Thanks, Luca.” He eased the Second Star out of the burlap and made a quick inspection under the crackling braziers studded along the hall. It would need some time with a whetstone, but nothing he couldn’t manage. His fingers brushed the thick pommel of Flynn’s sword next. He left it wrapped tight. 

“I’m going to Aspio,” Luca continued indelicately. 

“Aspio?” Yuri cocked a brow at the idea. “Now?” 

“Yes.” His fingers gripped into fists at his side. “This has gone on long enough. It seems that the mages need a little motivation to solve this sapros problem.” 

“Callahan will have it under control,” Yuri contended, “and if not him, then Sodia definitely will.” 

“I’m going.” 

“This had nothing to do with you, Luca.” 

“I didn’t say it did. Listen. It’s not really up to you. I’m not allegiant to Brave Vesperia, you know.” 

“I guess not,” Yuri conceded, shrugging his shoulders. “Fair enough.” 

“Be careful, Luca,” Estelle piped from her spot beside him. The guildsman smiled warmly at her. 

“Of course. You too, princess.” He winked at her before pivoting, dancer-like, on his heel to disappear down the hall again. 

“Poor Luca,” Estelle mumbled after he had left. 

“Poor Luca?” Yuri smirked. She pouted at him. 

“It wasn’t his fault that any of this happened.” 

“Well, he hasn’t been much of a help, either.” 

“Yuri.” He stood, the swords clanging together through the burlap as he swung them over his own shoulder. 

“Enough already. None of us caused any of this. It just happened. Sometimes it’s that simple. Alright?” She nodded glumly, her fingers burrowing into the pretty fabric of her skirts. 

“Where are you going?” 

“I’m going to put this away before it gets lost,” he answered, bobbing the heavy sword at his shoulder with a quick shrug. 

“Okay... Oh!” Her voice grew louder as he began to leave her behind. “See if you can find some fresh clothes for Flynn.” 

“Alright. Hey. Get some rest. He’ll be fine without you sitting alone in the hallway.” She nodded but made no move to leave her cross-legged vigil. Yuri sighed and left her to it, knowing better than to fight with her when she’d made up her mind. 

The streets outside were quiet. Everyone had been chased into their rooms, as if hiding behind the walls of their apartments would make them any safer than if they had been unlucky enough to find themselves in the warehouse district the afternoon before. Yuri stopped himself from touching the sore spot on his abdomen as he looped back towards the union headquarters. Maybe Luca was right. Whatever the sapros was, it had been a bold move to attack inside the city limits. Harry couldn’t afford to wait for too long to respond. But how could he do anything if he didn’t know where the damn thing was coming from? 

Yuri shouldered his way through the union doors and peeled towards the subterranean quarters. Maybe it had been a little cruel to hide Flynn away down there. Almost as cruel as dressing him up in those grey scullery clothes. Still, it wasn’t like Yuri was a tailor, and he hardly had the time to arrange a new wardrobe for him. 

His door was locked. Yuri peeked down the empty hall before forcing it open with a quick kick of his heel. It wouldn’t be the first time that a repair would have to be docked from his pay. He strode inside, his eyes drawing across the stark arrangement. There was the bed; neat-made, predictably. A chair was tucked into the corner. Yuri dropped the bundle there and began to unfold the burlap. He tipped the Second Star against the wall before drawing Flynn’s sword free. 

Well, not his sword, really. It had been made for Niren and was too long and too heavy for a man built like Flynn. Yuri was surprised to see that he still used it after so many years. He certainly had the resources to have something better tailored made for him. Stubborn idiot.

Yuri gripped it and drew it forward, his wrist tightening from its weight as he looked down the blade with a squint. There were a few shallow notches at the edge but it didn’t seem much worse for wear. He would sharpen it himself but he knew that Flynn would bicker with him if he did. He must have been the only commandant in all of the empire’s esteemed history to refuse an aide to shine his armor and hone his blade. How predictable, though, that he would — always trying so desperately to prove that he was better than the rest of them. Yuri placed the sword atop the bed’s smoothed duvet and turned to hunt out his closet. 

He frowned at what he found. So he really had left the capital in a hurry, hadn’t he? The rail of the small closet was empty except for two hangers holding the pieces of a single outfit ready to wear. He recognized it from — well, it didn’t matter where he recognized it from. It wasn’t armor, which was the most important thing, and he supposed Flynn had been benign enough lately to be able to wear the empire’s blue uniform without being lynched. He reached forward to pull the doublet from its spot and yelped as his finger pricked on something sharp.

“The hell?” He suckled on his finger as he flipped the collar open. Hadn’t he bled enough already? There. Something was pinned on the underside of the breast pocket. Yuri smirked. He’d heard about knights hiding a sweetheart’s keepsake in their underclothes, but he’d never taken Flynn to be the type to be so inclined. He pulled free the long needle pinning it in place.

He knew he shouldn’t snoop but, well, so what if he was a little curious? It’s not like Luca had been much of a secret and neither would the others, if Flynn cared to look. He tacked the needle into the doublet’s shoulder and turned the little bundle between his fingers. It was folded into a tight square. He realized that it was bigger than he had first thought as he began to unwind it — some sort of long loop of navy fabric with a gold piping at either ends. His smirk deepened. Ah-ha. He knew what it was. It was a collar cut from a private’s uniform. 

“Shit.” It was nearly sacrilegious to imagine the commandant plucking fresh fruit like that, but, well, there was something rather amusing in it as well. He flattened the collar and peeked at the nape. They’d written their names there for the launderers, or at least they had when he had been a knight — so who was Flynn’s secret paramour? 

The name was written in a clumsy hand. It had mostly faded but the two capital letters remained behind: Y L. 

“Dammit, Flynn.” He threw the thing into the corner of the closet with a tight flick of his hand. His fingers worked to grip at his chest, next, which was suddenly aching, and throbbed worse still as he remembered that he had been a dead man not so long ago and that it had been Flynn who had brought him back. 

What if he isn’t alright?  

“Why did you do it?” Flynn’s doublet made no answer. “You stupid fucking idiot. What were you thinking?” 

———

If a knight is to find himself wounded without the accompaniment of a healer, he should first focus on centering himself before continuing on to identify a safe path forward. Remember, this may require him to remain in place until help arrives. In either case, the knight should follow the “exercise of eights” so that he does not succumb to fainting. The exercise is simple; the knight should count to eight, with each beat matching to a breath, and keep his count repeating until he is alert or until help arrives. 

One. 

He hurt. But it wasn’t just hurting, really. It was that he felt nothing else; that he was in a pool and swimming at a depth where there wasn’t a bottom anymore or a surface to paddle towards. Just open and endless and aching. His hands were the worst. He longed to tear into the flesh of his wrists with his teeth like a fox caught in a trap so that he could be free of them. Maybe if he could have moved he would have, but he was swimming, and so he couldn’t. 

Two. 

His head hurt, too. It was nothing in comparison to the rest, except for the fact that in aching less it made him realize the other places where he ached more. That and that his thoughts kept jumbling together. It was frustrating. Exhausting. Where was he? 

Three. 

He couldn’t feel with his hands so he tried with his feet. His toes tipped slowly. Sheets. A bed. Not the ruin that he remembered. Good. That was good. 

Four. 

He was so tired. 

Five. 

“Are you alright?” 

“Leave me alone.” 

“Come on, don’t be like that. Those boys are gone. They won’t bother you no more.” 

“I said, leave me alone!” 

“No way.” 

“Go away,” the little boy sniffed. His eyes, wide and full of tears and nearly hidden beneath his curls, stared back down at his hands in misery. They were blackened, brittle, crumbling away. He wailed as he watched the little finger of his right hand disappear.  

“Aw, it’s barely bleeding! Don’t cry.”

“Stop it!” He pushed at the dark-haired boy as he reached down to pull him up to his feet.

“Why did you do that?” The dark-haired boy cried out in anger. He gripped at his stomach and pulled back his palms to show him the blood staining them. A deep gash spread along his little body like the splitting of a rotten fruit. More blood spilled from it, steady and streaming, until it had pooled between them. “Why?” 

“I didn’t mean to!” The boy tried to scramble away from the advancing tide but it followed him until he was swamped in it, his hands of ash dissolving into a black slick floating along the surface. “I didn’t

Six. 

Perhaps if he tried a little harder he could open his eyes. There was a light against them; he could see it, his eyelids scarlet where they had been black before. If he opened his eyes then he could see where he was and that would make it easier. He could search out whatever monster was chewing on his limbs and scare it off. 

Seven. 

“Flynn.” A woman’s voice. “Please wake up. Everyone’s alright. Yuri, and me, and all of those people from the district. You can rest but first, please, I just need to know that you are okay.” He swam towards the sound. There was a light, yes, a light, just like the one that he had seen before. Just a little closer now. He forced his arms into a sweeping arc and kicked his legs. There. His fingers spread against the current. He could just barely grab it. It was golden, warm, alive. He was too. Thank goodness. He reached out.

Eight. 

But it wasn’t a light it was a star burning with the heat of something unimaginable and cooking the bones of his outstretched fingers until they were brittle and breaking and how was it even worse, now, when he had already been swimming in it for centuries, this hurting, fuck, and he could see again, he could see the dark room they’d put him in and Estelle’s wide eyes, more white than green, and 

One. Two. Three. 

he could move again, because his back was arching against the mattress and making it creak and 

Four. Five. Six. 

and Estelle had left, calling out words he couldn’t quite understand until two women in white jackets spilled into the room to press against his shoulders and prick him with something that made his tight muscles relax and 

Seven. 

then he was swimming again but it was too shallow, now, and his knees were dragging against the shore, and he had lost his count. But if he tried a little harder he could open his eyes, and maybe he could move. 

One, two, three. His eyelids fluttered open. The blurred shadows of the room began to take shape. He slowly lifted his head and winced at the dull throb of something at his left temple. He reached for it and stopped as he made out the white wind of a bandage running from his fingers up into his elbows and 

Four, five, six, and he could see that where the bandage ended on his bicep with a crisp edge, that there was something there on his skin, branching like a vein but too-dark, not blue like the ones hidden under the thin skin of his wrist and 

Seven, eight, and when he tried to flex his fingers his heart nearly came to a halt. 

“Fuck,” he groaned, his voice hoarse and unfamiliar. He sucked in a series of quick breaths between his teeth. Too fast. He started to grow lightheaded. One, he insisted silently, one, two, three. A rocky sense of dread settled in his stomach as he realized that his count was focused on more than just his breathing. He turned his right hand before his face. One, two, three — his thumb, his pointer finger, the middle one beside it, but where were the missing two? Each finger was wound separately in its own length of gauze, so where could they be hiding? He could feel them, they must have been there, they were aching like the rest. 

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. He rocked forward to sit up and cried out as he made the mistake of using his hands to brace himself against the bed. 

“Fuck,” he repeated with a half-choked sob as he made his count again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven; was that all that he had left? Three on his right and four on his left, the latter missing the littlest finger as well? He moaned a wordless noise and stared into the ceiling, his jaw working tight as he tried to refocus. Maybe he was just dreaming. But how could it feel like this? No, it was too real — the sweat on his brow, the grinding clench of his teeth, those were details that his dreams would never manage to reproduce so adeptly. 

“Okay. Okay,” he gasped, wincing as his gaze returned to his lap and caught sight of his bound hands again. “It’s okay.” That’s what Estelle had told him, wasn’t it? Everyone was okay. It was alright. His chest began to heave. But had she? Had that been her at all? Where was he? 

“Flynn!” 

“Estelle,” he breathed, relieved, through his teeth. She leapt forward from the doorframe to crouch at his bedside. 

“You’re awake! Oh, Flynn. Thank goodness. How are you? How are you feeling?” 

“Yuri,” he realized aloud, the memory of the man sparked alive by the sight of her. She smiled lightly and looked over her shoulder. 

“He’s just — Yuri?” She frowned, her eyes searching the empty doorframe with confusion. “He was right behind me.” 

“He’s alright?” 

“Yes,” she reassured him, “he’s fine. He’s perfectly fine.” 

“What happened?” 

“I don’t know. It’s complicated. Let’s not talk about that right now. You need to rest.” 

“I don’t want to rest!” The pain of everything had broken down all of the walls holding back his temper. She flinched away at his tone. “What happened to me?” 

“Many things happened,” she managed timidly, “and we are still trying to understand just what it was that caused them. But — no, Flynn, don’t!” Understand. It was easy to try to understand something when it wasn’t devouring your arms. He didn’t want to understand that — he just wanted to see it. He couldn’t bend his fingers but his teeth would do the trick. He brought his right arm to his lips and caught the edge of the bandage between them, peeling it back to unwind the tight bind. “Flynn!” 

He groaned a meaningless, miserable sound as the blackened skin beneath the bandage was unveiled. Parts of it were red and angry but most of it was just — just black, as if it were already dead and ruined. It started in the long jagged shapes at his bicep but became a solid wash at the bend of his elbow and below it too, he guessed, as well, although the pain of peeling the bandage back had become too unbearable to continue. 

“Stop him. Before he hurts himself,” an unfamiliar voice ordered. Flynn spotted the woman in white just before she’d pinned him back to the bed. She was wielding a syringe in her right hand. No more, he wanted to beg her — no more pinches, no more pokes, he couldn’t take any more of it — but she was unyielding. The plunger depressed and he felt himself sag into the bed. He wondered if he should start counting again, but by then he had forgotten the words. 

———

“We have to move him.” 

“We can’t, Yuri.” Estelle whispered the words to him in the hallway outside Flynn’s room. It was quiet, now, but it hadn’t been for long. Yuri swallowed back a rising wave of anger as he stalked along the hall’s length. 

“We can’t leave him here. I found another one this morning, Estelle. They know he’s here. It isn’t safe.” 

“It isn’t safe to take him anywhere else! Besides, they’re taking care of him.” 

“They’re sedating him,” Yuri argued bitterly. “Like some animal. And what happens if one of those cutthroats makes their way inside? I can’t stand by and watch this any longer. He needs to leave.” 

“Where?” Yuri’s heartbeat drummed in his ears. “The union? You can’t put him back into that basement, Yuri. It isn’t right. Not like this.” 

“Then I’ll take him somewhere else!” 

“Where?” 

“I’ll think of something!” 

“No! He’s — he’s not well, Yuri. You can’t just drag him around the city. You haven’t even seen him. You don’t understand.” 

“I understand!” Estelle stepped back as Yuri snapped the words, his voice louder than he had intended. “I know what it’s like! Do you have any idea how many times I’ve been here myself? They can sew you up and drug you out but it’s nothing like before. I’m not going to leave him to suffer alone in there.” 

“Just talk to him,” Estelle begged, inching towards him again. “I think that will help more than anything. He’s worried about you. I don’t think he believes it when I tell him that you’re alright.” Of course. That was just like him, wasn’t it? Selfless as ever. Yuri’s breath grew hot in his throat. 

“I’m not going to talk to him,” he snapped. His boots clipped against the floorboards as he turned away from her. “I’m going to help him.” 

———

Counting didn’t do much good, anymore. The pain had subsided enough to give him enough space to think, which meant that his thoughts ran fast enough to outpace any eight-beat measure. That made it worse. In particular, it made it nearly impossible to sleep — at least when they didn’t push that lead-heavy stuff into his veins. Flynn stared into the familiar water stain of the ceiling and tried to focus on the throbbing pattern of his pulse. 

What was he going to do? He’d been awake for their most recent rewinding of his bandages, and so he’d seen what was left of his arms; all of it just scarred skin with deep craters in the spots where the aer had pooled and lingered. The black-charred pieces had begun to shed. Now most of it was red and pink and fat-white, in places, like raw meat. His stomach lurched at the idea. 

Worst of all had been his hands, but that hadn’t be as much of a surprise. He’d never heard of a seven-fingered swordsman before. With enough training perhaps he could strengthen his left hand to take over for the right, but even then he wouldn’t be able to manage the bastard swords he favored. On top of everything else he would be disfigured as well. He’d never put too much credence into his looks, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to be a monster, either — a monster without nails, with skin that looked like half-melted wax. Dammit. 

His bitter introspection was interrupted by a sound at his door. His muscles tensed as he watched the doorknob turn. Had them come to prick him again? Or perhaps it was his newest killer? A lucky break for them. It wouldn’t take more than a well-placed pillow to do him in, now. 

“Yuri,” he whispered in surprise as the man slipped through the half-opened door. He pressed his finger to his lip as he slunk over to his bedside. “You’re— you’re alright.” 

“I’m fine,” he grumbled. “Come on. We’re going.” 

“Where?” 

“Just trust me, alright? Can you stand?” 

“I don’t know,” Flynn admitted. Yuri nodded and crouched beside him to offer him his arm. Flynn hooked his elbow over it awkwardly, trying his best to ignore the useless claw of his fingers as he leveraged himself towards the edge. His head spun as he brought himself to his feet but, with Yuri’s hands planted at his waist, he was able to keep himself upright. 

“Good.” Yuri shrugged the long coat from his shoulders and helped Flynn weave his arms inside it. It was warm. Flynn shivered, not from a chill but from the rush of feeling something pleasurable again. A quick and unreadable look flashed across Yuri’s face before he drew the coat’s hood over Flynn’s head. “Alright. Come on. Try to not act so suspicious.” 

“Yuri... I don’t have any shoes.” 

“Oh.” Yuri glanced down at his bare toes. “Shit. Wait here.” Flynn wobbled uneasily as Yuri began to dig through the cupboards lining the far wall. He made a muffled, triumphant sound as he hunted out Flynn’s boots and returned to slip them on his feet. He hesitated with the second as they both realized that the dark stain across the toes was from his blood. He cleared his throat and shoved Flynn’s heel into the boot and stood again before either one of them had the chance to speak. 

“Where are we going?” 

“Quiet,” he snapped, slinging his arm around Flynn’s hip as they made a stumbling advance down the hall outside. It was empty. Not so many people seemed to want to risk traveling to public spaces, anymore. The streets were more of the same. Flynn’s heart hammered in his chest at the sudden work of walking but he forced himself to keep Yuri’s pace. He began to understand where they were headed just before he saw the painted visage of a three-headed dog peeking between the buildings. 

The tavern inside was quiet as well. A few guildsmen were still crowded into tables, but they didn’t pay Yuri much attention aside from a few drunken salutes. He worked between them to reach the hidden door at the far corner. He locked it, this time, behind them. Flynn stared in trepidation at the stairs. 

“I don’t think I can make it up,” he told him bashfully. Yuri grunted and bent to scoop him low behind the knees. Flynn glowered miserably as he carried him up, whatever self doubt he’d had before tripled by Yuri’s manhandling. Yuri paid it no mind. He notched his keys into the second door and drew Flynn inside the loft. 

It looked different under the silver light of the night sky. Flynn could understand why he had chosen the space — it was open, airy, nothing like the feeling of cowering in an alleyway. Yuri stalked across the room to deposit him unceremoniously on a flattened futon before turning back to lock the door and toss his keys onto a low table. 

“Yuri.” He ignored him for the task of lighting an oil lamp perched on the kitchen island. “Yuri.” 

“What?” Flynn recognized the tone of his voice. He was upset. It made his own chest ache, too. 

“I thought that you were dead.” Yuri’s shoulders fell. Flynn felt as though he was shrinking inside his coat. Look at me. Say something. Please. 

“I’m not,” Yuri managed coarsely. He snatched something from the island before retreating to the stairs. “Get some sleep.” 

———

He slept until the sun rose. It was blissful to dream again, even if it was short lived. He woke to the feeling of his arms searing beneath the sleeves of the heavy coat he’d fallen asleep in. Between the warmth and the weight it was nearly like he was cooking again. He groaned and worked his way out of the sleeves, his eyes watering as he tried to swallow the pain. 

“Come on,” he gasped, staring helplessly at a spot between his toes. How long could it go on like this? Forever? He felt the color drain from his face. He couldn’t manage this forever. 

“What’s wrong?” The steps leading from the lofted bedroom creaked as Yuri made his way down. 

“Nothing,” Flynn lied tightly, still petrified in his hunched spot at the edge of the futon. Yuri made an unconvinced sound before padding over to him. 

“Here.” He proffered something for him from behind the tuck of his ear. 

“I don’t think getting high is going to help,” Flynn replied, eyeing the joint with dry amusement. 

“You’ve never had any imagination,” Yuri sighed as he sat beside him. He searched the pocket of his slacks for a little box of matches before striking the joint to life between his lips. “It’s not for getting high, Flynn. It helps with pain.” 

“No, thanks.” 

“Just try it. You look terrible.” 

“No.” He flinched as Yuri leaned towards him, a stubborn look filling his eyes. He would have fought him back if he could but, crippled as he was, Flynn could do nothing but submit to his tight grip as he snatched his chin between his fingers. The joint crackled as Yuri took in a deep draw and then, with the next breath, blew it into his opened mouth. Flynn coughed and felt his cheeks grow red before he relented and pushed the sweet-smelling stuff into his lungs. Yuri looked away, afterwards, and enjoyed another draw for himself. 

“Oh,” Flynn admitted a few moments later as he felt a muting pulse spill over his agonized arms. 

“See?” Yuri argued, finally looking back at him again as Flynn did his best to hide an apologetic look. He waved the joint at him again in offering. Flynn’s eyes dipped between his bound fingers and the smoldering thing. Yuri sighed, and rolled his eyes, and held it up for him. Flynn ignored the feeling of his calloused thumb against his lip as he took another pull. 

“Do you...” Flynn started again after another uncomfortable silence. “Are you in pain? Is that why you use this?” Yuri shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. “Why? What happened?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” Yuri persevered beneath Flynn’s stare for another moment before it beat him back. He sighed again and, pinching the joint between the corner of his lips, made quick work of unbuttoning his dark guild jacket. A chill spread across Flynn’s numbed chest as he eyed the patchwork of scars underneath — ugly, raised things he’d gained in the six years since he’d seen him this way last, including the newest one which spread from his navel to the base of his ribcage and was still red from where it had been sealed. 

“Yuri.” 

“Don’t,” he snapped. “Don’t do that.” 

“Do what?” 

“Do that! Look at you! I’m fine compared to you. Don’t worry about it.” 

“Is it from guildwork?” 

“Flynn.”

“Why don’t you have Estelle look at it?” 

“I did!” He cracked under Flynn’s gaze. “Estelle’s not a god, you know. She can patch up cuts and tears but she can’t rebuild a person. No one can. You wouldn’t know. You were always so careful. But not me, right? I’ve had my ribs crushed, and my legs broken, and my goddamned liver nearly cut out and there’s only so much you can piece together after that.” 

“Your liver. Your drinking thing,” Flynn surmised. Yuri cocked his brow at him. “Karol said you had a ‘drinking thing’.” 

“Yeah.” Yuri tipped his chin and buttoned up his jacket again. “It’s made me sick ever since it happened. Whatever. I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

“It isn’t just about being alive.” 

“Well,” Yuri grumbled as he stood, stamping the butt of the joint against a little brass ashtray, “that’s what I’ve go to work with. I’m leaving. I’ll be back later tonight. Don’t go anywhere. Do you understand?” 

“Where would I go?” 

“Just don’t.” He spilled a handful of tight-wound joint across the table. “Alright?” 

“Alright,” Flynn countered defensively as Yuri snatched his keys from their spot and headed for the door. He wondered if he was supposed to tell him goodbye. He left before he had the chance.   

———

“Yuri.” He quickened his pace down the union hall. Estelle’s heels clicked faster behind him. “Yuri!” Shit. He paused just at the door of his escape. 

“Hey, Estelle,” he answered thinly, combing his fingers through his hair. She stepped close enough to him that her nose would have touched his own if she’d had the height to do it.

“Where is he, Yuri?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“I told you not to move him. I was serious. Where is he?” 

“He’s fine.” 

“I can’t believe you. I was about to tell Harry, you know.” 

“I’ve already told him.” Her cheeks flushed. 

“Ow!” Yuri flinched as she pinched his arm. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I didn’t realize that you were Flynn’s keeper.” His grin fell as her eyes filled with tears. 

“This isn’t a joke! 

“I - I know it isn’t, Estelle. Listen. He’s fine.” 

“No, he isn’t.” 

“Hey.” Yuri gripped her shoulders. “He’ll get there. He’s in a safe place. I promise.”

“Don’t be cruel to him,” she sniffed in reply. His stomach sunk at her plea. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“Did you tell him what happened?” 

“What? Well, no, not yet.” 

“Did you tell him about the messages?” 

“No, Estelle.” 

“Yuri.” 

“I’ll handle it. Stop worrying.” 

“He gave them everything,” she continued miserably, rubbing at her eyes. “You have to be kind to him.” 

“I will.” She crossed her arms tight across her chest and shouldered past him through the door. 

Everything. What did she know about giving anything away? Well, perhaps that wasn’t fair. He shoved his hands into his pockets and followed where she had gone. His feet traced away from her path afterwards, taking him through the front doors of the union whereas she had retreated to its deepest heart. But he had sacrificed enough himself, hadn’t he? So who was he to be cruel? That wasn’t fair, either.

Besides, he would tell Flynn the truth. He always had before. But when would he have had the chance before? Stupid. Everyone was focusing on the wrong tasks at hand. The important thing was that they were making progress, and everyone was still alive, and if anyone should have known anything about the value of keeping one’s heart beating then, dammit, he was that man. 

“Yo, Yuri,” the bartender greeted as he passed through the Cerberus. He nodded at him, waving away his perpetual offering of a sloshing bottle as he picked through the tables. A kind gesture, he supposed, but he never seemed to learn. The little gift Sodia had left behind for him above his hipbone tickled at the thought. Just another mistake, he reminded himself as he unlocked the first of the two doors keeping sentry over his apartment; just another thing that didn’t really matter. 

The loft was dark and empty. He frowned, groping for the lamp as he eyed where Flynn should have been sleeping. A match sizzled to life between his fingers. The futon was empty, too. 

“Flynn?” His pulse quickened. Where had he gone? It wasn’t like him to disobey an order. But the door had been locked. He’d been sure of it — he could still feel the press of the key against his palm. And the bartender would have said something if someone had been sneaking around to search the lost commandant out. No, this was the perfect place to hide him. He was sure of it. So where had he gone? “Hello?” 

His heart drummed faster as a breath of wind stirred his hair. The balcony. The door wagged open, creaking slightly in the breeze. There was no lockset there. Too high, he’d thought. Impossible. 

“Flynn?” Or what if what Luca had said was true? That Flynn was becoming reckless, or something worse? You idiot. Not that. “Flynn!” He jogged towards the door. 

“Hey.” 

“Hey,” he breathed, his pulse still fast even as his eyes fell to meet the shape of him sitting neatly against the railing. He was accompanied not by some wicked assassin but by a little amber ember balanced carefully between two stiff fingers. 

“What is it?” 

“Nothing.” Yuri strolled to the far end of the balcony before he spotted the way his chest was still heaving. “What are you doing out here?” 

“I can’t lay around forever,” Flynn answered. Maybe he meant to smile apologetically as he said it, but mostly his face still just looked drawn and grey. 

“Alright,” Yuri answered lamely, staring up into the glitter of the stars. From the street the skies in Dahngrest were always cloudy but here, a few sets of stairs above them, the smog usually faded away. That was what had first drawn him to the lofted apartment — and he supposed it was rather fitting, really. “Oh! I — nevermind.” He caught himself too late. Flynn’s lips moved into a crooked shape. 

“What is it?” 

“It’s not important.” 

“Tell me, Yuri.” Yuri swallowed and looked upwards again. 

“I decoded those messages.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah. The cipher was constellations, if you can believe it.” He heard Flynn hum with approval. 

“You were the perfect person to figure it out,” he replied. It didn’t sound sarcastic. Yuri wasn’t sure how to respond. “What did it say?” 

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll talk about it later.” 

“It was Ioder who sent them after me,” the man guessed. Yuri winced. He didn’t answer. He heard Flynn sigh. The stars winked and flickered on. “You know,” Flynn continued after a long pause, “when I first arrived in Dahngrest the don asked me what I was doing here. I knew the answer but I didn’t want to tell him. Maybe that was treasonous, too. But I don’t mind telling you.” 

“You don’t need to explain yourself.” 

“I do. I came here because I was afraid of something that I knew was going to come to pass. And when I’m afraid I seek you out.”

“Come on,” Yuri scoffed. “You’ve faced far worse things than this before — and without me.” 

“That isn’t true. You know it as well as I do. No matter what, you were always there to protect me from what I was running from.” Yuri felt his teeth grinding in his jaw. 

“Then why did you run away from me?” He didn’t mean to say it. He shouldn’t have, but there it was, burrowing out of him before his exhausted mind had a chance to catch it back.  

“Because I was a coward,” Flynn admitted quietly. “And I was too proud of what I’d earned.” 

“Don’t,” Yuri argued, a cloying heat rising in his chest. “Don’t do this. It isn’t fair. You can’t just ask for forgiveness now that you’re lost. You abandoned me, Flynn.” 

“I know.” 

“I told you what would happen.” 

“I know,” Flynn insisted. The moonlight had turned him into a ghost. Yuri hated the look of it. He had been so bold, before — golden haired and deep-tanned from all of his dutiful drilling. Brilliant, vibrant, a terrible liar. Yuri had loved that about him. He could never hide behind a plain face. When he was happy it was contagious; and when he was sad there was something nearly euphoric about the way his blue eyes would fill with emotion. Now he just looked tired. Grey-scale. Part of him wanted to wring his hands around his neck to put him out of his tepid misery, but mostly he just wanted to touch him. But that wasn’t possible. Not anymore. “I’m sorry.” 

“Shut up.”    

“I don’t know what happened in the warehouse district,” Flynn continued, glancing down at his hands, “but whatever it was, I’m glad it did.” 

“That’s crazy. Someone tried to kill us, Flynn.” 

“I know. But I watched you die, Yuri, and now you’re alive.” The night sky felt suddenly claustrophobic. 

“I don’t want to talk about this.” Flynn did not answer. Yuri stepped quickly from the balcony before he had the chance to change his mind. His bed was not as welcoming as it usually was, after, but he still forced himself between the sheets. His eyes stared open stubbornly as he tried to ignore the sound of Flynn settling himself into the thin mattress downstairs. 

Why had he brought him there? Yuri covered his face with his hands. What had he wanted to gain? To show Harry that he could take better care of his pet commandant than the graceless Dahngrest nursing staff? To avoid Estelle’s endless, loaded questions about why he was always avoiding him? To pay penance for the high price of his last-minute resuscitation? 

Or maybe Flynn had been right — that he was always running to him and that Yuri was always seeking him out. It had been his duty since he had first met him, after all. Sweet, naive Flynn, nearly angelic as a little boy with his curls and his dreams of knights in silver plate. Sometimes he had been callous in talking about the quarters but he’d never once been cruel. He’d taught him how to read, how to write, how to ride — how to pine, to lust after, and how to lie — because he had always seen Yuri as a person, not a pest, not like the rest of them did. And then he’d become something more and it had been the final piece he’d needed to put his life in order; an anchor to retreat to no matter the situation. But that had only endured for two years, and so what was two years compared to all the rest? 

Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. 

Yuri drifted off to sleep only to wake in a sweat soon after, his hands clutching at his stomach while his mind cried out in horror that it was torn. His fingers skirted over the sheets to push the coils of his entrails back inside. They found nothing but cool cotton and empty air. A dream. He groaned beneath his breath and pressed his palms tight against his face. It was just a dream. 

Still. He couldn’t chase the feeling away and there certainly wasn’t a chance that he could fall asleep again. He sighed and rose from the bed, snatching his jacket from its hang against the back of a nearby chair. He pulled his arms through the sleeves but didn’t bother with the buttons. His bare feet were quiet against the floorboards as he crept slowly down into the kitchen. 

Flynn was sleeping. That was good. It seemed that his unorthodox prescription had helped. It was probably a little overdue. He’d always been so restless — tossing in his sleep and finding it impossible to drift off. Yuri had suspected from the start that it was because he was too busy worrying. That was perhaps his favorite hobby, after all, besides filling out forms and being generally insufferable. If only Yuri had known that all that he needed was to be a little drugged to stop his mind from floundering against the impossible standard he’d invented for himself, then maybe — maybe none of it would have happened. Not the bad parts, at least. 

Nevermind. 

Yuri let himself sink into a crouch beside the futon. His eyes lingered on Flynn’s face. He was dreaming. He could see his eyelids flickering. His mouth was drawn into something that almost looked like a smile. Good. It looked good on him. He glanced down to his hands, next, still shrouded in their white bands. That wasn’t as good. He looked back before he started thinking too seriously about the future of an exiled commandant with too-few fingers. His shoulders hitched in surprise as Flynn’s open eyes greeted him when his own flicked upwards again. 

“Sorry,” Yuri muttered quickly, sinking back from his hovering pose. 

“It’s alright.” That annoyed him. No, it wasn’t. Nothing was alright. How could he just say something like that? 

“Why,” he answered tightly, despite his better judgment, “why did you do it?” Flynn’s eyes traced his gaze down to his hands. It was already over, he wanted to insist, but he couldn’t muster the words. It was already done. You didn’t have to hurt yourself. You could have just let me go. 

“Because I love you.” Yuri shook his head. 

“No,” he countered, “it can’t be like that. It can’t be that simple.” 

“It’s always been that simple.” 

“Flynn.” 

“I have nowhere left to hide, Yuri. Everything else is gone. That doesn’t mean that you have to forgive me.” 

“I’m not going to forgive you,” he agreed stonily. Flynn nodded his head against the curve of his pillow. 

“I understand. It doesn’t change how I feel.” 

“It’s been six years.” 

“That doesn’t matter.” 

“Dammit, it does!” Six years of carrying that stupid collar around. What the hell was that? And then that little stupid cake resurrected and left behind in the belly of the union headquarters, and the horrible way he had looked at him while he was dying as if he hadn’t built another life for himself that had no space for someone like him. 

But. 

But he was in pain, now; he could see it in the way the muscles of his jaw were tensed, in the way his throat kept bobbing. He was in pain and it was Yuri’s fault, even though it wasn’t. And he was all alone despite everything he’d done for them — all of them, those greedy bastards, sucking him dry of all his good intentions. And all Yuri wanted was for him to be filled up with something tender again. What was the damned point, otherwise? 

So he kissed him. Not in the way he deserved, chaste and tight-lipped, but greedily. Flynn’s breath hitched inside his mouth. Still, he did not fight him as Yuri crawled forward onto the futon to plant his knees against the draw of his hips. He moaned instead. The low and desperate sound was enough to sever the last of the puppet-strings holding him back. Yuri’s mind swum drunkenly as his hands skirted the planes of Flynn’s chest, his stomach, the cinched waist of his ugly institutional shorts. He reveled in the way that tears had gathered in the corners of his cornflower-colored eyes from the relief of feeling something other than agony for the first time in so many days. More, they begged, as easy to read as they had always been before. Yuri complied.    

Chapter Text

Everything was different. Everything was the same. Nights and days tossed together between the grassy-sweet fog of that stuff that Yuri seemed to keep in bottomless supply; five, six, perhaps, and too many of those little smoldering quills to remember. Better that he didn’t need to keep a count, maybe. But the sores on his arms had stopped weeping, which was good, and although he couldn’t feel much through the scarred skin of his fingers any longer they weren’t filled with molten pinpricks, either.  

“Ah.” 

And he was eating again. Not the hospital’s thin tasteless broth but real things that Yuri made for him so that his hollowed cheeks could be refilled. He was as good of a chef as he remembered. Still hummed while he cooked. 

“Yes... don’t stop.” 

Best of all was that Flynn was sleeping. Not something fickle and tossing but real sleep, dark and velveteen, the kind of sleeping where he lost the time of it and woke rested. With every morning he felt a little fuller, a little less broken. 

“Yuri.” 

And with every morning Yuri crawled into his little bed and made his own inspection of him, his calloused hands drawing over his body before they closed between his legs. So maybe the best part wasn’t the sleeping, after all. His fingers were as deft and teasing as they had always been. They certainly were now. Between the bliss of Yuri’s pumping fist and the ache of his eyes rolling backwards he was nearly distracted from the cold doubt that had been pooling in his stomach for days.

Nearly. But. 

He tested it again. His fingers, slow-moving but finally obedient, closed around the hem of Yuri’s thin cotton shirt. The man shifted on his knees so that it was tugged free. He skimmed his thighs next to reach for his belt. Yuri gently nudged his hand away with a cock of his leg. Flynn would have confronted him, should have, maybe, in that very moment; but instead the man shifted his grip and forced him gasping and mindless. 

Yuri stood from the futon as Flynn caught his breath. He hunted out a scrap of cloth for him to clean up the mess he’d made of his stomach. Flynn dried himself and watched as he slunk, cat-like, across the airy room to fish a fresh joint from a little pile constructed on the kitchen island. 

Flynn drew his fingers through his damp hair and cleared his throat. 

“Yuri.” 

“Hm?” He began to make his ambling return. 

“Why won’t you let me touch you?” 

“What are you talking about?” He stopped midfield between the kitchen and the living room where Flynn had made his bed. “You touch me all the time.” 

“You know what I mean.” Yuri plucked his guildsman’s jacket from one of the kitchen’s stools and threaded his arms through. 

“You’re feeling better, eh?” 

“What?” 

“You’ve started to worry again.” 

“Wait. Yuri.” Yuri waved him off, slipping on his boots near the door and gripping the knob. 

“I told Harry I’d meet with him this morning. I’ll be back later. Stop making that face.” 

“Yu—” He was already gone. Flynn collapsed back into his pillow with a frustrated sigh. Yuri hadn’t meant to leave. Usually he had coffee, first, and toast spread too thick with marmalade to satisfy his insatiable sweet tooth. He’d scared him away. Maybe it would have been better to keep his mouth shut. Dammit. 

Flynn held his hands above him and turned them slowly in the dim morning light. Part of him wanted to wrap them tight again but he knew it would just make it worse. His fingers flexed stiffly, the shiny skin at his knuckles puckering into folds and the muscles twitching in the spots where his lost digits had once been. With time perhaps his fingers would grow limber enough again to brush against his palms. As it was now, however, they were nothing better than half-articulated; the wooden hands of a doll crafted by a clumsy maker. 

At least they moved at all. But it would have been better if Yuri didn’t shrink away from them. Did he truly look that horrifying, now? Yuri had once called him handsome when they were younger men. It had made Flynn so miserably self-conscious that he hadn’t done it again. It certainly hadn’t hurt his feelings for the word to leave Yuri’s vocabulary but, then again, he’d had a few other things in his arsenal to be proud of back then. 

Stop it, he snapped miserably to himself as he stood from his bed. Stop feeling so sorry for yourself. He was alive, and so was Yuri and, better yet, he’d even lost that bitter look in his eyes. So what if he had developed a penchant for jerking him off? It was better than what he would have expected after everything that had happened. Still, he couldn’t shake that Yuri’s bitterness towards him had been replaced with pity, and that the latter was far worse.

He took the neat-folded bundle of his clothes from a nearby chair and made his way towards the bathroom. Some of the apartments in Dahngrest had water heaters, he’d heard; big, clanking, stinking things that warmed the water piped from deep inside the earth. He eyed the tap of the tub with apprehension. Yuri’s apartment was not one of them. What he would give to feel hot water again — lukewarm, even. He filled the basin and, his skin already prickling with goose flesh, stepped into the water with a tight gasp.  

Go on. Put your head under.  

He worked the bar of soap into a lather and ignored his mind’s unhelpful advice. It hadn’t been as stubborn lately; not like before, when a chorus of jump! jump! had sung in his ears whenever he stepped close to the little balcony. He supposed it was because he wasn’t in as much pain, anymore. It probably would have been better to talk to someone about it. That was what he would have coached any of his men to do. No shame in being frightened, he would have told them; not after what you have endured. 

He stepped back out of the tub and rubbed himself down with one of Yuri’s coarse towels. Yes, well, it wasn’t like he saw much of anyone, anymore, and he was hardly going to talk to Yuri about it. After all, he was the one who had all but died and it hadn’t seemed to bother him.  

———

“Hey.” Yuri nudged the door closed with his foot and waved a bulging bag at him. “I brought something to eat. What are you doing?” Flynn glanced up from his book and cocked an eyebrow at him. 

“I’m reading,” he answered, curious of how he could have possibly misinterpreted the situation.  

“Ah,” Yuri replied in a mock-sage tone, depositing the bag onto the kitchen island. He unloaded a stack of takeaway cartons across its length. “What are you reading?” 

“One of the few things in here that isn’t porn.” 

“You exaggerate,” Yuri drawled with a roll of his eyes. They settled on the bookshelf, afterwards, looking almost guiltily at the stacks of thin-spined magazines that dominated it. “Well, anyway, you know I was never much of a reader — more of a picture book type.” 

“Ah-huh.” Flynn set his book aside and stood from his spot in the living room to investigate what Yuri had brought. “You were gone a long time.” 

“Miss me?” 

“I’ve been trapped in an empty apartment for over a week. I’m even beginning to miss Luca.” 

“You’re funnier than I remember,” Yuri told him dryly as he began to open the assorted boxes. “But good news. Your sabbatical is over.” 

“What?” He took a set of chopsticks from him and notched them awkwardly between his fingers. Sometimes he felt like a child, now, the way he was always dropping food and hacking his way through everything; but at least he still had thumbs. 

“Harry wants us to go to Aspio.” 

“Aspio? Why?” 

“Apparently dear Luca is making some progress with the whole sapros business, but the mages would prefer to hear an eyewitness account.” 

“Luca was there when it happened,” Flynn countered as he carefully leveraged a slice of roast pork to his lips. 

“Yeah, well, not close enough, apparently. Besides, it’s getting complicated here. Better that we head out of town for a few days.” 

“What? Why?” 

“Don’t worry about it.” 

“Why are you lying to me?” 

“I’m not lying to you,” Yuri snapped, snatching one of the boxes and making a retreat to the living room. “I’m conveying instructions. Don’t shoot the messenger.” Flynn’s eyes narrowed as he noticed something different about the man as he slunk by him. 

“Your hair is wet.” 

“Eh?” Flynn trailed after him to stand behind his chair. Yes, there; it had begun to dry but his hair was still damp at the roots. 

“Why is your hair wet?” 

“Why are your eyes blue?” Yuri dug into his meal more earnestly. “I forgot how much of a nag you are.” Flynn ignored him to hunt out the white of his shirt beneath his collar. There was something there as well — dried and speckled in a way that insisted it hadn’t been dripped, not just a stray drop from a clumsy shave but rather... 

“There’s blood on your shirt.” 

“Quit it.” Yuri bounced his shoulder to shoo his hands away. “It’s nothing.” Flynn circled the chair to face him. 

“What happened? Are you alright?” 

“Don’t I look alright?” Yuri spread his arms wide, dropping a clod of yellow rice onto the rug as he did. “Stop worrying. It’s exhausting.” Flynn studied his face — the sharp look in his eyes, the tight draw of his lips. Usually he was a better liar. 

“Did you... kill someone?” 

“No,” Yuri answered. It should have been the word to relieve his worry but, suddenly grim as it was, it doubled it instead. 

“What did you do?” 

“Listen,” Yuri growled, stabbing at him with the point of his chopsticks, “I’m not your subordinate. I’m not obligated to tell you anything.” 

“I just want to know what’s going on!” Flynn’s voice was louder than he had intended. “I won’t sit in here forever and pretend that nothing has happened since the attack.” 

“It’s complicated.” 

“Who the fuck do you think I am?” Complicated, as if he were just some poor fool caught as collateral in something larger than himself. Damn you, I am a commandant! Flynn moved before he meant to, his fingers gripping at the loose collar of Yuri’s jacket. It wasn’t as satisfying a move as it had been before, but it was enough to darken the man’s face into a look he’d never seen him wear. His pulse thrummed in his ears as Yuri mirrored the gesture with the close of own his fingers around Flynn’s throat.

“I don’t know. Who are you? Sometimes it’s difficult to keep track.” 

“Yuri...” Flynn released his grip. Yuri’s grew tighter. He sunk to his knees before him. What was it? What was that shape that his face had taken? He had seen parts of it before, but never like this. Flynn swallowed tight against his fingers. “Go on,” he gasped. “Do it.” 

Maybe he had been right after all. Yuri had promised him once, hadn’t he, that he’d kill him if he ever strayed? And look at the monster he’d built and named emperor and left behind. Yuri’s fingers squeezed tighter for a moment loosening and trailing at his collarbones. Coward, he was half-compelled to snap at him, but the sight of his fly changed his mind. He lurched forward to pop the button out of its eyelet before Yuri had the chance to fight him off. 

“Flynn—”

“Shut up.” If Yuri could torture him with his morning ministrations then, dammit, he could do the same. He worked the second button loose. 

“Don’t!” Yuri’s body seemed to disagree. Flynn smirked. Sadist. He pulled the stiff bend of his cock from his briefs and shivered as he felt Yuri’s fingers push off from his neck to tangle in his hair. The floorboards creaked as he leaned forward to take him in his mouth. 

“Ah — Stop it!” His half-lidded vision shattered into stars as Yuri’s knuckles cracked against his brow. He tumbled back onto his elbows and sputtered a hot breath. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Yuri stood quickly from the chair, his fingers fumbling the buttons of his slacks back into place. 

“Don’t touch me,” he muttered in reply. 

“What is your problem?” Flynn touched tenderly at the broken skin at his eyebrow. His eyes steadied on his ruined fingers. “Am I really that disgusting to you now?” 

“No, no, it’s just that—”

“That you get some kind of sick enjoyment out of turning me into your crippled house pet?” 

“It’s not that at all.” 

“What is it, then? If you hate me so much, why not leave me to rot somewhere else?” 

“I don’t hate you!” Yuri bellowed the words, his hands balled stiff at his sides. “But it can’t be like before!” 

“Of course it fucking can’t!” Flynn scrambled to his feet. He wasn’t a child; he understood what had happened. It was a deal he’d already bought and paid for six years ago, even if it had been so damned fruitless. “But I’m still a human being! What are you trying to get out of me?” 

“It’s not you.” 

“Right, sure.” His hands trailed to his throat to touch at the sore spots Yuri had left behind. “It’s not me, it’s you, is that it? We’re not schoolboys, anymore, Yuri, you don’t need to—”

“I’m not a good person.” Flynn’s breath caught in his throat. 

“Wha-what are you talking about? Of course you are.” Yuri winced at the idea. Maybe he deserved the doubtful look — always so quick to leap to his defense, wasn’t he, even when he was the bloody person he was quarreling against. 

“I’m not. I’m not who I was, anymore. I kill people.” 

“We’ve all killed people,” Flynn insisted. His chest grew tight as he watched Yuri began to pace across the floor. 

“No,” he argued back, waving his arm in beat to his words, “no, you defend.” 

“Yuri, it’s the same thing.” 

“How many?” 

“How many what?” 

“How many people have you cut down? Don’t tell me you don’t know. I know you do.” Flynn’s mouth drew dry at the dire calculation. 

“Ten.” Six of them had been true and on the battlefield; four, sanctioned executions. Did it matter? Did he owe him a disclosure? Yuri laughed. It was a parched, hollow sound. 

“Ten. You were the commandant of the world’s greatest empire.” 

“What are you getting at?” 

“That you’re good, Flynn. You’re so fucking good that you can’t get dirty even when you’re drowning in filth. Do you want to know my sum, hm? Do you want to see my ledger? It’s all red.” 

“Yuri—”

“One-hundred fifty four.” 

“What?” Yuri shrugged his shoulders. 

“One-hundred fifty four,” he repeated quietly. “Which makes one-hundred forty eight since you saw me last. That’s right, isn’t it? I don’t know. Maybe I’m starting to lose count.” 

“...how?” Yuri wasn’t lying. He could hear it in his voice. Flynn sagged into a nearby chair. 

“What do you mean, how? How many writs have you signed into action? How many cadets have you graduated? It’s what I do. I’m just as good at my job as you are at yours.”  Flynn shook his head. Yuri wasn’t like them. 

“Karol said that it was different, now.” 

“Karol is a kid.” 

“He’s the boss of your guild!” 

“That doesn’t mean anything.” Yuri tipped his height against the far wall and drew his fingers through the shroud of his hair. 

“You keep him in the dark,” Flynn realized aloud. 

“What good would it do for him to know? Or maybe he already does. I don’t know. How could anyone be that naive, right, to think that with the Blood Alliance gone that suddenly there’s no one left who needs to be quietly dealt with? It’s not the institutions that drive our nasty deeds, you know — it’s us, just us. Anyway, his hands are clean. Not mine.”

“Fine,” Flynn swallowed, “say you’re right. But that doesn’t change who you are.”

“Doesn’t it? I don’t know about that, Commandant. I mean, you caught on quickly enough to it, didn’t you? You must have thought that I was guilty of something.” He shrugged off his jacket to expose the dark splatter staining the shoulder of his white cotton shirt. “I tried to get everything clean, but I forgot a change of clothes. Sorry. Do you want to know where this came from?” Flynn did not reply — there was no proper answer. Yuri smirked. 

“One of the imperial bloodhounds sniffing you out,” he continued. “He wasn’t as talkative as some of the others. Not at first, at least. But I’m good at what I do. And, besides, I felt inspired. He didn’t say anything when I snipped off his littlest finger,” Yuri folded the corresponding digit down on his own extended hand, “or the next one, but by the third he’d changed his mind. Afterwards he was so smug about it, though — that he had done the right thing, told the truth, saved his skin. I didn’t think that was fair. You lost three as well, after all, and you aren’t a man like him. So I clipped off all the rest. But I didn’t kill him. No new tally mark for me.” Flynn stared blankly into his own hands.   

“What... what did he tell you?” Yuri paused and watched him before answering. 

“Your emperor has decided...” He stopped again, the dark thrill of his admission dissipating and turning to pity again. Somehow it was almost worse; made Flynn’s chest tighten, turn cold. “He’s decided that you were a spy.” 

“A spy? For what?” 

“For the sapros. An agent of evil leading him astray from the very start. That’s why you survived that explosion, apparently. They’ve dissolved the Imperial Knights, called it some kind of insurgency.” Flynn ground his gnarled knuckles into the sockets of his eyes. 

“An insurgency? The Imperial Knights have been in place for hundreds of years.” 

“Yeah, well, I don’t think that part is as important to their story. They don’t know about your friend Yassik, but they know about her brother Yoren. If they don’t have him yet they will soon. The rest of the knights will be next on their hunting list. I would guess that a conversion into the emperor’s new divine force will start to look more appealing to them than the gallows.” 

“I have to go back.” 

“And do what, hang yourself?” 

“I have to meet with Ioder,” Flynn insisted. “He isn’t a tyrant, Yuri. Whoever is manipulating him — they can be stopped.” 

“Not by you.” His breath balled in his throat. No. He bent his useless fingers. Maybe not. The floorboards groaned quietly as Yuri shifted his weight from one foot to the next. “We’ll go to Aspio at sunrise. If we can understand what is causing the sapros, then perhaps we will be at an advantage. It’s not a new game, Flynn. Imperial weapons or some kind of divine monster — we’ve managed them both before.”

Flynn did not answer. It seemed as though the wicked tension that had trapped them had disappeared. The apathy that remained behind was suffocating. Yuri turned and took the steps into his bedroom. Flynn remained in his seat as he mulled over the situation. Maybe Yuri was right. But why was it that he felt as though the only imperial weapon was him, and Yuri the monster himself? 

———

Air. Fresh air. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed it. Flynn dropped the reins from his stiff grip and let his arms sag loosely at his side as his mount cantered across the countryside. It had been four weeks since the sapros explosion but it had felt like an entire lifetime, and all of it spent as a captive; to his fever dreams, to the needles of the hospital staff, to Yuri and whatever Yuri had become. He tipped his head back and looked into the pink-yellow-blue of the morning sky. Three days to Aspio, but part of him didn’t want to stop riding when they arrived. But would it still be considered running away if he lived as a nomad forevermore? 

He felt Yuri’s gaze turn on him from his spot a dozen paces away. The weight of his eyes both made his chest warm with an old affection and his stomach churn with concern. Yuri’s concept of justice wasn’t a novelty to him, not anymore; and so he hadn’t been surprised by his adoption of a mercenary’s lifestyle. But the efficiency with which he’d taken on the mantle was — unexpected, to say the least. Was this really the life they had paid for with the defeat of the Adephagos? He looked down to his ruined arms and at the plain face of his clothes, no longer adorned with his commandant’s crest but rather a set of crooked buttons. Well, no, of course not. But perhaps he had been a fool to think that there would be a neat and happy ending waiting for any of them. That was what Luca had warned him, hadn’t he? As prescient as he was infuriating, it seemed. Flynn ignored the pinch of jealousy weaving itself through his chest and focused on the steady road ahead. 

They made good time to Capua Torim. Flynn had worried about securing a ship into Ilyccia, but naturally it had been unfounded; for there was a schooner waiting for them and flying the Gull’s Song’s banners. Everything continued on smoothly until they left the harbor and found themselves sailing into the grey curtain of a rainstorm. He gripped stubbornly at the ship’s railing as he felt the first fat drops splatter against his face. 

“Sir,” the boatswain addressed him uneasily, spotting the pale cast of his face, “I must insist that you go below deck.” He grit his teeth and nodded at him, his stomach already gurgling in protest. The deck was heaving beneath his feet by the time he stumbled towards the door leading below. 

“Guh,” he groaned as he staggered down the stairs. Some of the crew watched him with trepidation as he picked his way between their swinging hammocks. The cabin that Yuri had secured for them was tucked beneath the stern — a fine enough room for a rough merchant’s ship like this one. Still, it could have been filled with silk and silver and it wouldn’t have made any difference to him. He swallowed a sour gulp and reached for the door. Fucking ships. 

Yuri was inside, tucked into his own hammock and snoring. One of his arms hung from the side limply, his long fingers nearly grazing the floor. Flynn watched his rocking body with misery as he leaned against the wall. He could sleep inside a bloody volcano, the bastard — or in the belly of a whale, or gripped to the side of a mountain, or... 

“Hey,” the hammock yawned at him. 

“Hey,” Flynn answered in a pinched voice. Yuri sat forward to stare at him over the edge of the tight-strung fabric.

“Shit. You look horrible.” 

“Thanks.” 

“Do you still get seasick?” 

“I don’t know, what do you think?” Flynn snapped at him miserably as he pressed his fingers against his eyes. The ship lurched sideways. He stumbled shoulder-first into the bulkhead. 

“You should sit down,” Yuri chided him. 

“No,” Flynn replied, his voice muffled by his palms, “that makes it worse.”  

“Sit down,” Yuri repeated as he slipped from his hammock. Flynn frowned stubbornly as he pulled at his arms. He sunk against the wall in defeat with Yuri at his side. “How can you still get sick like this? You’ve been on way more ships than I have.” 

“Just lucky, I guess.” Flynn tipped his head against the wall and stared into the beams of the ceiling. Yes, he had a hundred seaside jaunts under his belt and each one had been miserable. But of course Yuri would take to it as if he had been born on the coast himself. Typical. 

“Listen, Flynn,” Yuri began after a quiet moment, “before, I — I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that. I’m sorry.” The faint bruises on his throat throbbed at the memory. He kept his eyes steady above them. 

“I wish you wouldn’t keep doing this,” Flynn answered after another pause. “Acting like we’re different from one another.” 

“We are different.” 

“Only in the way that the two sides of a coin aren’t the same. When you were a thief I was a thief, too, remember? When you were a knight, so was I; and now you command your men and I mine, and all to the same end. Protecting people when they can be protected and killing them when they can’t.” Yuri huffed a breath through his nose and shook his head. 

“You can’t possibly compare the Imperial Knights to the guild. You and your people have probably spent more time saving cats out of trees than anything else since the war ended.” 

“How many knights do you think it took to round up Luca and all of the rest?” Yuri frowned but did not answer. “Maybe they weren’t the ones to break his nose but they must have at the very least looked away. How many have turned their cloak, since? When I left there were six thousand men and women in the force, and nearly half of them have enlisted in the last five years. I built them. Just like I built Ioder. He’s not an emperor, Yuri; he’s a lever to be pulled, and it was my hand pulling it until those zealots arrived. 

I made him that way because it was easier to protect the empire against a sheep than a wolf. But all I did, really, was turn him into a sacrifice, and the empire along with him. I don’t care how many people you have killed — I will beat your count at any measure.”

“Flynn. It isn’t your fault.”

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. It’s happened and I’ve put it into motion. But I can solve it, Yuri. I just need to talk to Ioder.”

“No matter what happens in Aspio? Not even if the mages tell us he made that thing that nearly killed us?” Yuri’s voice had grown tight. “You can’t keeping on carrying his blame on your shoulders and forgive him for it while he drags you down. I won’t let you.” 

“Don’t kill him.” Flynn didn’t need to have a memory of Harry instructing Yuri to do the same to know that it must have happened. His stomach lurched as the ship crested over the swell of a tall wave. He leaned his cheek against Yuri’s shoulder and closed his eyes as the man shielded his damp brow with the cup of his hand. “I can fix this. Let me fix it.”

“Alright,” Yuri sighed, dipping his chin against the crown of Flynn’s head. “Alright.”  

———

Of all the things that hadn’t changed in the past eight years, Aspio wasn’t one of them. Once a haunted cavern of hooded alchemists, with Duke’s nefarious work it had been split open and bare. Perhaps the mages had become too accustomed to the dark. They’d replaced the cave that had once shielded them with an elaborate system of bridges and alcoves and arcades that nearly still kept the sun from them, even in its baldfaced beaming as it shone when they arrived. Flynn recognized Sodia’s mount grazing near the entrance. It was strange to see the creature stripped of its usual blue heralds. The again, he supposed he looked nearly as out of place himself. 

“Tell Callahan that we have arrived,” Yuri ordered as a man in an oxblood jacket came forward to greet them. The man nodded and trailed backwards into the winding city streets. 

“Who is this Callahan, then?” Yuri glanced over at him as he stretched his limbs. 

“He’s with Altosk,” he answered. 

“Naturally.” 

“Naturally,” Yuri agreed. “This is what they do. Embed. I think that’s the proper term. Anyway, Callahan has been overseeing guild operations here in Aspio for around five years. The mages are all afraid of him, so of course he’s been doing a good job of it. See?” Yuri nodded at the city gates. “No capital dogs here.” 

“No,” Flynn agreed uneasily. He should have known about this Callahan himself. What the hell had been going on that had caused him to overlook the city’s shift in power? What a damned commandant he had been, indeed. 

“Don’t beat yourself up.” Yuri grinned knowingly at him. “It’s been like this for decades, you know. Callahan was one of old Don Whitehorse’s proteges. If anyone could plant a hidden seed it was that man. It’s not like we meant to undermine the empire with people like Callahan. Not before, at least.” 

“So what the hell was he doing here, then?” Yuri shrugged. 

“Evening the odds. Here. There he is. Callahan!” A pot-bellied man appeared between the open gates, his ruddy face split sideways into a toothy grin. 

“Yuri Lowell, as I do live and breathe. I owe old Luca some coin now, don’t I? No ways that git will come all the way out here, I says to him, and yet here you stand. Wassit, then? Looking for fresh meat? Greedy, innit, working through bloody Altosk royalty and then spittin’ em out again just to find some skinny mage’ll shoot sparkles out their cocks for ya ‘nstead?” 

“You’re as shitty as always,” Yuri replied through his teeth. Callahan’s drum-like belly heaved with laughter. 

“Aye, can’t be disappointing you now, can I? Gotta be predictable, like.” He slapped his palm against Yuri’s shoulder before turning to nod at Flynn. “You the imperial boy, then? Mhm. I think so. You broke my brother’s jaw, you know that? At the Bronze Anchor, you fecking ponce.  Ha!” He raised his hands at him defeatedly as Flynn’s shoulders stiffened. “Naw, what I mean is that I’m thankful for it. Showed him his place, didn’t you? Not that you’ll be doing much of that now.” He clicked his tongue as he eyed Flynn’s ruined hands. Flynn grit his teeth and fought the urge to hide them behind his back. 

“Where’s Luca, Callahan?” The guildsman rolled his eyes at Yuri’s stiff question. 

“Once in a while it’d be nice if you’d ask nicely, yeah?” He nodded his chin towards the city. “He’s down in one of those labs with that lass of yours. And yours, too, city boy — that mean old bitch who thinks she owns every stone in Aspio.” 

“Rita and Sodia,” Yuri translated for him dryly. “Bring us to them, would you?” 

“Sure.” Flynn could see that the man desperately wanted to deny him the convenience, but there was something in Yuri’s stare that compelled him otherwise. He turned and began to lead them inwards into the city. Fear. He was afraid of him. Why? Flynn frowned and glanced over at Yuri as they made the way deeper into the shadowy streets. Was it because he was Harry’s secret right hand, or because of who he was alone? 

“Commandant!” He looked up to catch Sodia dashing from a nearby alcove. She was still wearing her uniform, unsurprisingly, although it looked as though she’d cut the empire’s seal from all of its auspicious places. Her face was flushed and unusually unguarded. “You’re alright!” She’d nearly thrown her arms around him before she caught herself and gripped them tight against her chest. He saw her eyes dart briefly to his hands before pinning themselves in a hot stare between her feet. 

“Yes,” he answered with a thin laugh. “If only a little worse for wear.” 

“Fascinating!” Another voice piped from behind Sodia’s shoulders. Rita’s auburn hair was the first thing to peek around Sodia’s shiny spaulders. Flynn flinched as she stepped forward to sweep his hands between her own. 

“Rita,” Yuri snapped. 

“Just like Luca said,” she continued, ignoring Yuri as easily as she always had before. Flynn sucked in a breath as she turned his arms for an inspection. “You didn’t cast the arte, did you?” 

“What?” He scowled. She stared, unfazed, into his eyes. “No. I don’t think so.”

“I don’t think so, either. Very interesting. I’ve never seen this happen, before. Well, but I guess that Estelle is a bit unique, isn’t she? Ah. But she didn’t mean to, you know. You must know that, right? None of it would have happened if Yuri wasn’t so stupid!” 

“Hey! What are you talking about?” Rita’s face folded into a frustrated frown. 

“I’m talking about how you always throw yourself headfirst into the nearest problem, you nitwit!” She released Flynn’s hands to advance upon Yuri with a murderous look.  “What were you thinking?” 

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” 

“You don’t do anything on purpose, asshole! And then you just keep on doing whatever the hell you want to do, but what about the rest of us? Now Estelle blames herself for doing that to him! She’s miserable!” 

“Estelle didn’t have anything to do it with!” 

“She did,” Flynn surmised. His voice was enough to subdue their riling anger. Rita released Yuri’s sleeve, grabbed in a misguided attempt to wrestle him to the ground, and turned back to face Flynn again. 

“Yes,” she agreed sadly. “My theory is that you acted as a sort of conduit when she cast her healing artes. She was too far away to reach him on her own. The aer she stirred with her artes must have been seeking out another channel — perhaps it sensed that you had the same intentions Estelle did, if in a different way. Unfortunately, the human body is not nearly as conductive as a blastia, so...” 

“It’s fine. Let’s not talk about it. The sapros. Have you made any progress in understanding it?” 

“Let’s go inside,” Rita proposed, nodding at the door she’d escaped from. He dipped his head in agreement. Yuri huffed with frustration and stormed inside. Rita followed at his heels, already bristling again as she ordered him not to break anything. Sodia lingered behind, her fingers brushing against Flynn’s shoulder. 

“Does it... Does it hurt?” He smiled thinly at her and flexed his stubborn fingers. 

“Not much, anymore. It’s alright, Sodia. It’s already happened. There’s nothing that can be done.” 

“I’m so sorry,” she insisted, her voice catching in her throat. “I should have been there.” 

“And done what? I ordered you here, didn’t I?” 

“Flynn...” 

“I’m fine. Let’s go. They’ll be waiting for us. We don’t have much time.” 

“Fine,” she sighed. He followed her inside and was greeted by the sight of a shiny assortment of instruments and Luca’s sulking face. The guildsman looked away as he entered. More guilt, was that it? Flynn bit back an annoyed groan. What use was guilt for him? 

“So. What have you discovered? Have you puzzled out how the orb works?” 

“What, this?” Rita plucked the crystalline ball from its spot on a nearby table and shook it, the tinsel inside clicking against the glass. 

“Be careful!” Yuri tensed at Flynn’s side. Rita rolled her eyes at him and tossed the orb in his direction. He caught it with a tight gasp. “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you crazy?” 

“I am many things — a genius, chiefly— but none of them are crazy. Look.” She stepped across the room to nudge a box with her foot. Something jingled cheerfully. “Look familiar?” Flynn’s heart fell into his stomach as he peeked inside. 

“What are they?” He stared at the clutch of glassy orbs tossed haphazardly into the box. Each one housed a delicate shape within it that looked almost bird-like, and built of the same silver stuff that had been shredded in the first orb they’d found. 

“Tokens, talismans, charms. Junk,” Rita answered. “Made by glassblowers savvy enough to realize a divine panic can be a great business opportunity.” 

“What?” 

“People buy them to ward off evil. They carry them with them when they travel. This one must have broken from the explosion — or from being dropped, afterwards, who knows. See?” Rita knelt to pull another orb from the box. “Here’s one that’s still intact. It’s just paper, inside. That shape is supposed to be one of their new gods. Some kind of swan, I think. It’s a nice enough trick to put it in there, but there’s nothing magical about it.” 

“But, the explosion...” Yuri snatched the second orb from her and turned it between his fingers. 

“I don’t know,” Rita admitted. “That’s why I wanted you to come here. We must be missing something. If it had been an incendiary you should have been burned alive. Right? So it couldn’t have just been a bomb. Do you remember anything else strange that might have happened, right before?” 

“Strange?” Flynn laughed sourly. Everything had been strange. He’d felt like a gnat crushed under a thumb, and that was before he’d held Yuri’s wet insides in place as he died and, dammit, there he was now, alive again and more whole than Flynn would ever be again. But all of that seemed to matter as much as that useless bauble did. His heart thrummed in his chest. A deception, just like Ioder had said, but perhaps not in the way that he had meant. What fools they were. 

“The smell,” Yuri answered on his behalf. “There was a smell just before the explosion — like a thunderstorm.” 

“A charge,” Rita wondered aloud. She orbited back to one of the long laboratory tables and began to fiddle with the mess of things strewn across it. Her fingers closed around the knob of a little burner. It flickered to life with a blue glow that crackled in the air. The sound made the hair on the nape of Flynn’s neck rise. “But how could they control it? And why aim it there? There must be a reason. Was there anything unusual about the warehouse?” 

“No,” Luca replied. He stood from his seat to approach them. “I reviewed the ledgers. Everything in that warehouse was accounted for. The DiMarinos are clean. Their patriarch is an old friend of the Whitehorses — there’s no way that they would have planted a weapon there.” 

“Why not?” Yuri challenged him. “It’s not like there’re no liars in Dahngrest.” 

“And you think they would destroy their own stores, and nothing else, just to appeal to the emperor?” 

“They almost killed me!” 

“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Yuri Lowell! At least not all of the time!”

“A conduit,” Rita murmured under the guildsmen’s bickering. She turned Karol’s orb between her palms before placing it gently into the spidery arms rimming the burner. The blue spark webbed across its diameter before spilling from the edges in ghostly tendrils. They snapped and crackled as they escaped the orb at random angles. “Shit. Oh, shit.” 

“What is it?” Flynn tried to grab at her as she shouldered her way past. She was too nimble for his clumsy hands. “Where are you going?” Rita said nothing in reply. The door slammed behind her as she made her way outside. 

“What the hell was that?” Yuri stared blankly at Flynn in confusion. 

“Fuck,” Luca answered on her behalf. He approached the glowing orb and reached a tentative finger towards it. There was a snapping sound as the blue spark inside splintered forward to singe his skin. He waved his hand with a wince before turning to face them. “I know what it was.” 

“What? What are you talking about, Luca?” 

“Did you know,” Luca answered Yuri, his eyes still settled on his burned finger, “that the world we live in is round? Just like that orb there.” 

“Of course I do,” Yuri replied bitterly. “What do you take me for?” 

“Not a fool, I guess, but definitely unlucky. That burner there, it’s a model of Aspio’s newest effort to solve our little energy problem. It’s the best solution they’ve come up with yet — and better than anything that your people have attempted, Commandant, no matter how charming I find that little mage of yours. The real thing is hundreds of times larger than this one. They call it elektrika. It has something to do with mana and aer, and building a charge between the two. Whatever it is that they do, it generates an enormous amount of power. They have it trapped in this vault buried deep below us in the old caverns. The idea is that any city could keep it stored neatly like that, and build out conduits to pipe it into the homes of polite society to keep their lights glowing on late into the night... 

But I don’t think that our genius mages accounted for the fact that our world is a sphere, hm? All of that energy, it can’t stay in one place that nicely — some of it must be able to escape. Here, let me put it differently. Let’s say you have an apple and that apple has a worm. The worm may love to live in the apple but, eventually, it will eat all of the meat and will be forced to leave, right? And where else is there for the worm to go than up and out? The worm doesn’t know if it’s headed towards the side or stem, just that it wants to escape. Now, a worm isn’t anything to be afraid of — but what if that worm is power, instead? Energy enough to erase whatever it was that was once in the place where it has escaped from? It’s not evil, of course, not any more than our friend the worm, but that doesn’t mean that its gentle when it comes.” 

Yuri’s face darkened with confusion as Luca spoke. He pursed his lips to answer him, afterwards, but was interrupted by Flynn’s laughter.

“Of course,” Flynn cried out, pressing his ruined fingers to his lips to try to catch the hollow sound spilling from them. “Of course. How did I miss it before? I really am a fool, aren’t I?”

“Flynn,” Yuri tested uneasily, “what is it? What are you talking about?” 

“Come on, Yuri, it’s obvious, isn’t it? We should have known better. This is how it always happens, isn’t it? Just history repeating itself? Ioder was right. All of us, we’re just cursed, damned, greedy creatures. Willing to do anything for convenience, aren’t we? Those zealots were lucky to find him. Yes, easier to call it evil, isn’t it? When it’s just our fucking ambition instead? The blastia, adephagos, this,” he gestured stiffly at the crackling orb, “Shizontonia, even — we’ll never escape it, not until we’ve properly destroyed ourselves.” 

“Hey, calm down.” 

“Calm? I am calm! It’s taken me so long to learn the lesson but finally I understand. Power, Yuri. We can’t escape it. We’ll throw ourselves at it until we are all properly devoured. Look! Look at what it’s done to me!” He fumbled with his sleeve to roll it high against his warped forearm. “Aspio will burn themselves alive just to prove that they can do it. Even if they fix this new machine of theirs, the damage has already been done. Ioder has the devil he needs to turn the empire — to make it worship him and whoever it is that he obeys. It doesn’t matter what they’re aiming for, it’s all just power, in the end. And even if we stop them something new will grow in their place, just like Ioder has, and in the end they will destroy everything just as he would have done. It’s inevitable. We’re doomed. So what does it matter? Everything we’ve done — for nothing. Nothing!” 

“Stop it,” Yuri snapped, grabbing at him. Flynn tore himself free and followed where Rita had gone. “Flynn!” 

“You’ve done this!” Sodia cried the words bitterly at Yuri as Flynn disappeared back into the street outside. She flew at him, her gloved hands claws grabbing at his collar. “You fucking bastard!” 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Yuri gripped her wrists and wrenched her arms tight against her chest. 

“You couldn’t help yourself, could you? Dragging him back down? I’ll kill you. Listen to me. I promise you. Even if you bring me to hell as well. I’ll kill you for what you’ve done to him.” 

“Fucking hell,” Yuri groaned, “you crazy bitch, were you not listening? Aspio caused the explosion. It had nothing to do with me!” 

“Alright, enough,” Luca intervened, snaking his arms around Sodia and holding her steady before she had the chance to wrestle free and draw the short sword hanging at her waist. 

“You should have died!” 

“I know! And yet here I am!” 

“You ruined him!” Sodia spat the words at him with an aching, desperate voice. Yuri growled a noise before turning to sweep Rita’s sparkling assortment of instruments into a clattering mess onto the floor. The broken things crunched under his boots as he stalked towards the door. 

“Yuri!” Luca cried out. “Stop! Just leave him be!” 

“I won’t,” he replied darkly as he ripped the door open. “He’s mine, do you understand? Mine!”

Chapter Text

Flynn had never been the type of man to run away before. Now he’d done it twice, and this time leaving the cloven print of his mount’s hooves trailing behind him in the mud. Yuri eyed them uneasily. So what type of man was he, now? Before he hadn’t made it very far — stumbling to the eastern bridge of Dahngrest before he was sick over the edge. It had been a pitiful sight, but not too pitiful to leave Yuri feeling anything other than fury as he watched Luca comfort the fallen man. 

There had been nothing pitiful in Flynn’s eyes when he tore himself away a second time from Rita’s laboratory. They had been hard and hollow, then, his anger well-spelled against their gemstone color. It was a look Yuri himself was familiar with, one he had seen in his own reflection countless times before. But on Flynn it was startling, mismatched, unnerving. Yuri slung himself up into his saddle and urged his mount to follow Flynn’s trail. 

He found him easily enough soon after, a black dot buzzing on the horizon like a summer fly. He’d ridden in a straight line — aimless, Yuri knew even at a distance, and fast paced. There was nothing out there to greet him but open plains and prowling beasts, and with Niren’s unnamed sword still neatly packed in the bowels of the guild headquarters a world away. Reckless, Luca had named the man before, and Yuri thought of the word again; reckless and fickle when he had been so stubbornly thoughtful before. He had nearly hated his bullheadedness at times, particularly when it stood in the way of his getting what he wanted, but it had been the heart to Flynn’s good nature. A reckless man could not weather a council’s constant gossip, nor a emperor’s naivety. Yuri knew it well enough, for he was a reckless man himself. He urged his mount on faster, his teeth clattering in his ears from his harried pace. 

“Flynn!” The man had slowed at the thunder-shot sound of Yuri’s approach. He circled his quietta with the pull of his reins, watching Yuri silently as he closed the space between them. “It’s not safe out here alone.” Flynn shrugged his shoulders. His face was chapped red from the cold air. It made the blue of his eyes brighter still. 

“I’m meant to be alone,” he answered him. Yuri frowned and shook his head. 

“That — back there, there’s still so much that we don’t understand. Don’t take it too seriously.” 

“It’s over, Yuri.” It was not the first time Flynn that had said such a thing to him, but even now it settled like a barb within his chest. “I’m done.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous. Everything has just begun. Come on. You aren’t the type to disobey an order.” Flynn smiled flatly and dropped his reins to flash his palms at him in surrender. The ruined skin of his hands looked like leather under the bright winter sun. 

“I am today.” Flynn’s flippancy stirred an angry breath deep in Yuri’s chest. 

“Enough,” he snapped, urging his ride forward to grab at the man’s loose reins. He would tow him back if he had the need, if only to draw him away from the plains before the sharp-toothed creatures that made a home there caught the scent of them on the breeze. Flynn seemed to be of a different mind. He swung his legs from his saddle and dropped to continue his escape on foot. “Dammit, Flynn.”

Yuri followed after him, tying the reins of their beasts together clumsily before he jogged to Flynn’s side. He grabbed at his sleeve and was met with the crack of the man’s fist against his jaw. Perhaps he should have expected it. All the same it sent him stumbling backwards and filled his stomach with fire. In that instant he hated him — hated the way he looked, now, his face always slack and empty, and with his lips perpetually pulled into the slightest crook of a sneer. He hated his borrowed clothes which bore no mark of all of his victories; hated how a sprig of silver had bloomed at the crest of his hairline to ruin the perfect gold of his hair. He despised his warped hands, not for the look of them but how they plagued him, always aching, and how they had betrayed him for a cripple in place of the warrior he’d always been.

Most of all he hated his bright eyes, and how earnest they had been when he had admitted that he still loved him, and how broken they looked now. He aimed for them with his own fists. Flynn’s head bucked backwards, his brow splitting in nearly the same place it had before when he’d struck him in his apartment. The once-commandant’s face pulled into a snarl before he set upon him again. 

His fists were clumsy, of course, but Flynn had always been stronger than Yuri. Even having grown gaunt from his bedrest, the blunt charge of his shoulder against Yuri’s ribs was still enough to beat the wind from his lungs. Flynn swept his legs out from under him next as he fought to catch his breath. Bastard, Yuri thought between the spinning green-and-blue of the field as he tumbled backwards. Flynn was quickly atop him, but he had made the mistake of assuming an old position that Yuri was well-trained for between their boyhood wrestling and everything that had come after. He gripped his long legs around him and slung him sideways, wrenching him further still with his hands until Flynn’s back was against the grass. He pinned his arms tight beside his head. What do you want, he wanted to shout at him, but he could read his answer clear enough already in his hot glare. 

He kissed him. Flynn bit back in defiance. His teeth were sharp enough to draw blood. It did little slow Yuri’s pace. He continued until Flynn’s arms grew limp under his hold and his hips tipped forward towards him. Then he released his grip, daring Flynn to swing at him again with a narrow glare before tearing at the buttons of his jacket once he showed that he meant to comply. 

It’s over, Flynn had said, and so it was — he could not resurrect the life they’d had before. The truth of it was that they had both been the ones to kill it. Yuri had grown old enough to understand that his bitterness towards Flynn had been as much a noose to their first love as Flynn’s fear. Six years, and this second love that found him now had the marks of being deeper, but it was sterner, too. He tore away his own jacket to join Flynn’s in a pile, and did not flinch as Flynn’s fingers fell upon his undershirt to wrench it off soon after. Sterner, crueler, just as he had become himself. 

Perhaps Flynn had begun to understand their new terms as well. His brows had furrowed in a look of near-anger as Yuri stripped away the rest of his clothes and left him shivering in the afternoon chill. He’d always hated it when Yuri had vied to seize the dominant position in their love-making before. Yuri had submitted to his ego, then, but not now. Flynn’s seven fingers gripped at him, tangling in his hair and dragging along his back hard enough to leave a purpled wake behind — and red, with the blood from where he’d split his knuckles from clubbing Yuri earlier on the jaw — but none of it was enough to steady Yuri’s own fingers from pressing inside him. Flynn sunk his teeth into the meat of his shoulder as Yuri hitched his legs over the crooks of his arms, but his bite likewise did little to stop him from fucking him. That was the proper term, at least at first, until Yuri caught his eyes again and saw that they had changed. He kissed him a second time, and at last found his mouth full of tenderness instead of teeth. 

———

In the end, Flynn’s reckless jaunt into the countryside had been a favor in many ways, one of the lesser being that he had not yet had the time to unpack his tack from their eastward ride. They worked together to raise the tent tucked neatly between his saddlebags after the late afternoon breeze became unbearable. Their mounts watched them uneasily, the sole audience to their vicious coupling before, and their huffing and stamping was enough to make Yuri laugh. 

“What is it?” Flynn looked up at him from his task of sparking a fire. 

“Nothing,” Yuri promised. “Here. Give me that.” 

“No,” Flynn answered stubbornly as he repositioned the flint between the three fingers on his right hand. Yuri relented and watched him silently until he finally stirred a waft of smoke from a fluffy bundle of shorn wool. They were both quiet as the fire continued to build. Only when it was hot and crackling did Yuri stand, folding his legs beneath him as he came to a seat at Flynn’s side. Flynn winced as he traced the scab forming at the edge of his eyebrow.   

“I think it might scar,” he told him remorsefully. 

“What difference will that make?” Yuri tipped forward to rest his forehead against Flynn’s own. He felt him huff a stubborn breath, but their sudden closeness was enough to loosen the tension stringing his shoulders tight. 

“You shouldn’t have punched me in the face,” Yuri offered. 

“I should have hit you harder,” Flynn replied dryly. He drew in another deep breath and closed his eyes, the bridge of his nose still settled against Yuri’s own. Yuri let him linger there for a moment before he threaded his fingers behind his nape and pulled him into the curve of his neck. 

“We should go back tomorrow,” Yuri tested after a time. He felt Flynn nod. 

“I know.”  

“You’ll need to call off Sodia when we do.” 

“What?” Flynn pulled back to read his face. Yuri grinned wolfishly. 

“She’s more or less promised you my head, but not in the way that you’d prefer.” Flynn rolled his eyes.  

“Will you never make peace with her?” 

“It’s her fault. I’ve tried a dozen times.” 

“Liar.” Yuri laughed and rested his palm against Flynn’s thigh. It was nice to be able to touch him like that again — carelessly. As he did Flynn leaned into the press of his hand, so that he was inclined to think that the feeling was mutual. 

“I don’t understand what you could possibly butt heads about,” he continued, staring into the setting sun with the look of a father grown tired of prying his bickering children apart. 

“You’re joking,” Yuri drawled. “I think she might love you even more than I do.” Flynn glanced over at him. Even in the drawing dusk it looked as though a blush had settled across his cheeks. 

“Do you, then?” 

“Do I what?” 

“You know exactly what I mean. Even after everything?” Yuri smiled slowly and shrugged. 

“I have loved you each time that you have turned me away, and after every time you’ve run and left me behind. I think I’m cursed to it, and until I die. But I don’t know how I will survive it if you abandon me again.” 

“I won’t,” Flynn promised tightly. 

“Alright,” Yuri agreed, a simple word for such dire terms. Flynn gaped at him wordlessly for a moment before he slung his arms around him. Yuri buried his nose in his hair for a beat longer before craning his neck to peek into his face. “What are you doing? Are you crying?” 

“I’m not crying!” 

“Alright, but then what are you doing?” Yuri laughed and circled his arms around the man as well before wrestling him backwards into the open mouth of their tent.  

———

“Commandant!” Sodia greeted him stiffly at the gates into Aspio. Her eyes flashed with anger as they settled on Yuri, next, himself a half-step behind the other man. She hated that, Yuri wagered — that he was close enough to feel the flush of his body from their return ride. It would have been easier to hate her as well, but he knew her bitterness too intimately for that. He’d settled his own on Lila, first, the sweet cooper’s daughter who’d hardly deserved it. Flynn’s boyhood flirting had been so benign she’d been too oblivious to his feelings to be able to sense Yuri’s jealousy as well. His next victim hadn’t been a person but the knights in their totality, and Yuri had brokered his revenge that time through the violence that had earned him his own suit-of-arms. Third had been Flynn himself for casting him away. It seemed foolish to think about it now. 

“Major.” Flynn looked as though he had grown tired of their constant cautious stares. He shouldered past Sodia to enter into the city. “It’s time that we make our return to Dahngrest. Prepare yourself to leave in the morning. Can you arrange another ship for us?” He’d turned to Luca, who had apparently attached himself to Sodia in their absence. The guildsman nodded. It wasn’t much of a question. Luca was uniquely gifted in making the impossible real with the right amount of coercion. Commandeering a Gulls’ Song ship would hardly make him sweat. It was Luca’s obedience to Flynn that surprised Yuri, but he supposed that anyone would feel compelled to do the same when he took on that stern look of his. 

“Where’s Rita?” Yuri interrupted them before Flynn had the chance to fully burden them with orders. Sodia glanced at her toes. 

“She is dismantling the elektrika machine.” 

“Good,” Flynn answered indelicately. “Do you think it will pose a risk while she is at work?” 

“It’s difficult to be certain.” He nodded and turned to Luca again. 

“Send word through the guilds, then — that any space that seems to hold a charge should be evacuated immediately. Don’t overshare the reason why, it will just start a panic. Can your guildsmen manage that?” Luca smirked. 

“I can find the ones with the brains to do it, yes.” 

“I’d like to collect a contingent of mages to return with us,” Flynn continued. “If to keep them away from Zaphias, at the very least.” 

“Yes, Commandant,” Sodia answered. “Witcher is with the old masters in that tower, there, with the green tiles. I’m sure they’ll grant you leave.” Flynn nodded and stepped forward. “I can accompany you.” 

“No.” He cut her short with the wave of his hand. “See to the city’s defenses. It’s best if they remain neutral, but if Zaphias comes riding they will find themselves besieged. They must hold fast.” 

“Callahan will manage it,” Luca offered. 

“See to it that he does,” Flynn insisted, his eyes still settled on Sodia’s own. She flinched, just slightly, as if in distaste at her charge — but nodded and bowed at the waist all the same. Flynn stepped forward again towards the tower she had pointed out. Yuri thought to continue following him, but the set of his shoulders told him otherwise. Alright. Fine. Play your war games. He’d never had a place in them before. To be honest, as he watched Flynn disappear into the gloom he felt relieved. He’d looked grim, naturally, but it was a development to see him slipping into his role as commandant again. Yuri sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair, and then began to feel needles on his nape as he realized that he was trapped between two laser-like glares. 

“So,” he began lamely, realizing that Flynn hadn’t made good on his promise to call off Sodia’s assault. The imperial major snarled at him, her lips drawn tight against the white flash of her teeth. 

“Where did you go?” 

“What does it matter to you? We’re back, aren’t we?” 

“Do you ever think about what you’re doing before you’ve already done it?” 

“Not usually.” Her arms stiffened into sharp angles at her sides. 

“Can’t you get it through your thick skull that we need to be careful?” 

“I’m always careful.” She growled a wordless noise. 

“Listen to me!” She stalked towards him, her sword still sheathed but her fists looking nearly as dangerous. “I—”

“You’ll kill me if I make a mess of things. Is that it?” Yuri rolled his eyes. “Do you honestly think you’re the only one who’s made a threat like that against me? At first I was a little flattered, but now it’s just annoying.” 

“Annoying!? Is that all this is to you? An annoyance?” 

“Of course not!” His voice peaked just enough to give her pause. She frowned and held her ground. Yuri huffed a deep breath. “I know the stakes as well as you do. Go. You have an order, Major — we’ve all heard it. It’s time you carry it out.” 

“I don’t take orders from you.” 

“Go on!” Luca was the one to snap, then, his fingers pressing against his eyes. “Enough already! You’ve lost the game, Sodia. Better that you don’t lose that man’s confidence as well.”  

“So you’re my master now as well, are you? You think you’ve got the world under your thumb because of the guilds,” Sodia snarled bitterly at them both. “But the guilds are not an army. They’re not a kingdom. There’s some good between you, I can’t deny that, but what about the rest? Whose head will it cost this time when war comes to Dahngrest again?”

“What did you say?” Luca lurched forward, his sly smile breaking into a frightening shape. Sodia drew her sword against his advance. It shined, sharp and well-honed. 

“I like you,” she answered, her voice as tight as her pose. “More than him, at least. But you’ve both failed the Commandant once already. I don’t have the tolerance for a second time. Understand that this is my final warning. Go on. Laugh. Sneer. It’s better if you underestimate me. I know what you think. That I am just some foolish woman thrown aside. But we are all the same creature, aren’t we? We all follow the same man. The difference is that I follow him for honor, while you do it for pleasure. Which one do you think will make it through a war?” 

“Brave words to say to an unarmed man,” Luca snapped back at her. She shrugged and sheathed her sword again. 

“So find me when you’ve armed yourself.” She turned her back to him. “Or shoot me from some hidden place, like I imagine you prefer.” 

“Shit,” Yuri laughed under his breath once she had left them behind to seek out the nearest guardhouse. Luca shook his head, his eyes still harboring something dangerous. “It’s not like you to make an enemy.” 

“No.” Luca stepped towards him. “But it always seems to happen when I’m around you.” Yuri shrugged. 

“Bad luck, I guess.” His brow furrowed as the guildsman reached out to wrench his collar sideways. “Hey! What the hell?” 

“It looks like you’ve found luck yourself,” Luca answered, nodding at the purpled bruises running along the length of his shoulder in the shape of teeth and fingertips. “I always took you to be a bit of a masochist.”  

“Yeah, yeah.” Yuri waved away the accusation uneasily. He wasn’t sure exactly why the man’s words made him feel so uncomfortable. As soon as he’d found Flynn sleeping in Luca’s bed he’d known that the canny guildsman had somehow found him out. So what did it matter now? “What, are you going to threaten me, too?” 

“Why would I do that?” Luca stepped back a pace and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Sodia might have had the right of most of it, but that little bitter bird of yours — he was never the one I was chasing after.” 

———

Maybe they had been too obvious. Yuri looked at his reflection later in a tiny field mirror, the dark corners of his rented room swallowing up his hair in shadow. His jaw was swollen and bruised from Flynn’s fist and his lower lip was split down the center from his teeth. Maybe it could all be explained away as casualties from a simple skirmish, but the arching mouthful left behind at his right shoulder — he tipped the mirror to inspect it now, his fingers touching the purple skin tenderly — was more suspect. How many monsters had a man’s mouth? He sighed and tossed the mirror onto his bed. For once Flynn had gotten off with the better of it between the two, if perhaps less eager to spend time on a saddle. It has to be a secret, his old pleas echoed through his mind. 

“Sorry,” Yuri muttered guiltily. 

“For what?” He jumped, spinning on his heel to catch the sight of Flynn slipping through the door. 

“Shit!” Flynn smiled thinly at him. He looked tired. 

“What is it?” 

“You surprised me,” Yuri admitted. He frowned as he watched Flynn take a seat at the end of his bed to begin to loosen his boots. “What are you doing?” Flynn stared at him blankly. 

“Would you prefer to be alone?” 

“Well,” Yuri managed, “no, but this is the only inn in town. They’ll all be here. They’ll notice.” 

“Will they?” Flynn kicked off one boot and then the other. There was something childish in how he moved, now, his fingers no longer able to make delicate work of the laces and clasps. It was strangely endearing to watch him fidget, even with his face’s grim set. 

“Here. Let me help you.” 

“I don’t want you to help me.” 

“I know, but I do.” Flynn huffed with frustration as Yuri crossed the room to begin to unbutton his jacket. It was a vaguely military-looking thing that he had found in the Cerberus’ coat closet, long abandoned but suited for his broad shoulders. Too many buttons for a man like him, but they almost made up for all of the finery he’d lost. “Are you sure that it’s alright?” Flynn studied him for a moment as he worked. 

“Things are different now,” he answered finally. “Or they’re changing, at least. Is it so wrong to want some things to at least change in my favor?” Yuri smiled. Flynn shrugged off his jacket and folded it neatly over the tall footboard of the bed. 

“No, it isn’t wrong.” Flynn ducked his head against his shoulder to hide a yawn. “As usual, you’ve worked yourself too hard.” 

“Maybe to you,” Flynn replied dryly, “but for the rest of us, we just call it work.” He leaned back against his elbows to stretch his back into an arching shape with a groan. 

“Mhm,” Yuri allowed noncommittally. “So what is it that you did?” 

“I’ve made important friends. It seems like Witcher did as well. The chief mages have all agreed to ride to Dahngrest with us.” 

“If the Don will have them,” Yuri amended. 

“He’ll prefer to have them with him rather than with the emperor.” 

“Why? So that they can regale him with stories about the things they once could do?” 

“So that they can’t build another machine to burn the guilds to the ground.” 

“Right,” Yuri realized glumly. Hostages, then. Although perhaps under better terms. 

“I do have some idea of how to do these things, you know.” 

“I know. Sorry. Here. Let me see that.” He waved at Flynn’s right hand, wound again in a white bandage, this time to hide the scabbed spots from where he’d hit him the day before. Flynn offered it to him with some hesitation. He spun the cotton and gauze away. “Does it hurt?” 

“No.” 

“Not from yesterday. You deserve that part,” Yuri corrected him. 

“Not more than usual.” Yuri pressed at his tight tendons carefully, stretching them beneath his fingers. Flynn submitted to his nursing with a final stubborn sigh. 

“How many are there, then?” 

“Thirty-seven,” Flynn answered, leaning against him. He did it slowly at first, as if to deny that he was truly tired, but soon all of his weight was pressed against Yuri’s shoulder. He heard him yawn again. “Rita will come too, of course. In her own time. She still won’t speak to me.” 

“She’s embarrassed.” 

“I don’t know if that’s the right word.” No, probably not, Yuri thought. Mortified was better. Guilty was too simple, but there was some truth in that as well. He felt it, too, just like Estelle must have as well. They’d all played a part in tearing him apart, hadn’t they? “It doesn’t matter,” Flynn continued, as if he’d read his mind. “No one meant for it to happen.” 

“It isn’t fair that it happened to you,” Yuri argued, “but... still, I’m glad to hear you say that.” 

“Let’s not talk about it anymore. Not tonight.” 

“Alright.” Yuri’s fingers drifted across his wrists, onto his arms. “I have an—”

“No,” Flynn answered bluntly. “Not that, either.” 

“What?” Yuri pouted as Flynn slid sideways to lay across the bed. “Why?” 

“What do you mean why? You nearly split me in half, you fucking asshole.” 

“You exaggerate,” Yuri whined as he followed him into the sheets. 

“Fine. Then I’ll do the same to you, and we’ll see how you like it.” 

“I just m—” 

“That wasn’t an offer,” Flynn groaned, clapping his hand over Yuri’s cheek. “I’m tired. Can we just sleep together? We never did before.” Yuri supposed that he was right. They had always been so hard pressed to make up for lost time, before, sneaking as they did between each other’s beds. He smiled and brushed his lips across Flynn’s brow before rising onto his elbows to blow out the candles at his bedside. 

“Alright. Sweet dreams, then, Commandant.” 

Yuri felt himself quickly drifting into his dreams himself. They wove themselves together gently; images of their ride through the frosted fields, only this time they were both laughing. He hadn’t seen Flynn laugh in a long time. Not properly, at least — not the way that he had laughed when they had been boys playing their own invented games in crowded streets and dirty alleyways. They’d called the games many different names, but mostly it was just sword fighting — with sticks and branches or the stiff rolls that held the fabric rounds from the tailor’s, when they managed to charm him free of them. Flynn had been better at it at first. He was always better at everything. But then Yuri had caught on to the rhythm of it, and had begun to best him in their beggar’s fencing. He’d gotten worse at it again as they had gotten older and his aim had changed from besting the blond to working him into a sweat so that he could admire how he moved. 

Yuri’s mind tumbled through the memories of them sparring. Branch turned to pitted steel, and then blades that were better polished. He could hear the whistle of them as they danced through the air — and then the wrench and the tear as one hooked into his navel to split him open. 

“Ngh! No!” He sat up, his teeth clenched from the agony of it as his fingers scrambled over his belly. 

“What is it? Yuri?” He sucked a series of quick breaths through his teeth. A dream. Just a dream. He felt along the scar of where his stomach had once been torn open. Its alright. Just a dream. He shuddered as Flynn rose to grip him tight. “Yuri. You should have told me.” 

I’m alright, he wanted to snap back, shut up; but instead he pushed himself deeper into the heat of his embrace. He heard him take in a breath of air to continue, but they were both interrupted by a sudden harsh rapping against the door. It was matched immediately afterwards by the wail of a horn. 

“Hey!” Luca’s voice called out from the hall. “Wake up!” 

“Shit,” Yuri gasped, lurching from his cower into the cold air of the room. “What is that?” 

“They’ve raised the city alarms,” Flynn answered with a growl. He’d already slipped to his feet and begun to tug his jacket over his arms. “Someone is afield.” They both knew who that someone was. 

“Already?” Yuri reached for his sword from its balance across a nearby desk. He eyed the man’s own empty hands afterwards. “Don’t you have anything to arm yourself with?” 

“No,” he replied grimly. “It wouldn’t make a difference.” Yuri frowned tightly. 

“Stay close, then.” Flynn bucked his head with a quick nod before striding forward to swing open the door. 

“What is it?” 

“I don’t know,” Luca answered, already turning at his heel. “They’re calling from the frontward gates.” 

“Alright.” Flynn surged forward to lead them in that direction. Yuri’s stomach fell. Stay close, but right, he never did listen, did he? He jogged forward to join him in his dash through the dark streets. Sodia and Callahan were already waiting for them at the gates, flanked on either side by guildsmen. There was something strange in the way that she looked at them. 

“What is it, then? Ioder? Desier?” 

“No, Commandant,” she answered, her voice nearly swamped beneath her breath. Flynn shared a silent look with her before he followed her glance towards a ladder propped against the wall. 

“Flynn,” Yuri contested as the man stepped forward onto the rungs. He swallowed another hot breath before following him upwards. Stubborn fool. He readied himself to catch him if he fell, but was rewarded with a quick ascent instead. 

“What.” Flynn was the first to see. Yuri hurried after him and felt his own breath catch in his throat at the sight. Thousands spread before them. They were neatly arranged into glittering quadrants full of silver mail. The moon caught in their armor, but the flickering of the torches they bore was stronger and turned the field into a bonfire. Each quadrant was flanked by a forward row of herald-bearers, and each herald carefully lit. Yuri spotted the pink blossom of Halure, first, as it flagged in the biting wind; behind it the blunt design of Deidon Hold, and Capua Nor’s curling waves, all quartered against Zaphias’ imperial standard. 

Except that it wasn’t that exactly, Yuri realized. The blue and white of the imperial flag had been reversed, and the eagle that usually dominated its center had been replaced by a broad-faced sphere. Yuri recognized the shape well — after all, it had laid against Flynn’s breast for all of those years. It was the commandant’s crest, clumsily painted on some but true all the same.  

“The companies,” Flynn muttered aloud. “All of the field companies.” 

“Not just them.” There was a regiment with a different flag as well. He recognized it, too — the city guard. The force must have numbered nearly all of the Imperial Knights. A strange feeling flooded his chest. “They’ve ridden here for you.”

“Not just me,” Flynn answered. Yuri turned to face him and traced his look downwards towards the head of the impressive assembly. A figure rode there alone. Flynn slunk sideways to snatch a cold torch from its spot against the wall and dipped it into a nearby brazier. The flame crackled in the air as he swung it above his head. A voice cried out, and then another, until the field swelled with a deep cry. The sound of it filled Yuri’s throat as well, and every other empty piece of him. There, he wanted to add to the din, there you are. Commandant. 

———

They descended into the city again just as Callahan had raised the order to swing open the gates. The soldiers were still singing a tuneless song of triumph, but only one of them had ridden from their ranks to wait at the doors. 

“Captain Yassik,” Flynn greeted her. The woman dismounted to drop into a proper bow. 

“Commandant.” 

“Stand, please,” he begged her, stepping forward to rest his hands against her shoulders. “What you’ve done — you should never bow again.” She folded upwards slowly to remove her helmet. A proud look was upon her face, at first, but it was fleeting. Yuri watched with a trained eye as it flickered next to a tamed pleasure at meeting her commander again before suddenly collapsing. 

“C-commandant, they - I,” she stuttered, her mouth screwing with frustration at her fallen composure. There was something else that had shattered her normally serene expression. Flynn noticed it as well, of course, and stepped again to steady her as her knees threatened to buckle. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” 

“What is it?” She tossed her head with a shake before staring up baldly at him. 

“My brother. They killed him, Commandant. Terribly. I couldn’t...” Yassik leaned forward for a half-moment, her brow resting against his shoulder, before she caught herself and stood stiff again. Flynn did not release his grip. 

“What do you mean? What happened?” Her lips trembled as she gathered her breath. 

“They ambushed him when he was sleeping and took him to the imperial plaza. Yoren, he was — he was my little brother, Commandant. He was all that I have left. My parents, my sister, they’re all gone, and now Yoren... He fought for us and they took him in his bed, and drew and quartered him like some criminal.” 

“Your brother,” Flynn repeated as the color drained from his face. Yuri felt his own blood grow cold at the sight of the look that had come over him. No, he begged him before he’d even made his pledge, although it was clear enough already in the sharp glint of his eyes. Don’t do it. 

“Listen to me,” Flynn continued, his fingers still gripping her shoulders, “and tell the captains what I’ve said. This has gone on long enough. The emperor will die for what he’s done, and for your brother I will bring you his head.”  

Chapter Text

There was a knock at the door. He woke slowly to it. For a moment he thought that it was Yuri; but that was ridiculous, of course. For one, that man had likely never knocked on a door in his life. More importantly, hadn’t it been just yesterday that he’d seen him off, bearing that cocky grin of his and a promise that he would return in two weeks’ time? Flynn groaned and rubbed his eyes. 

“Yes,” he croaked, “what is it?” 

“May... May I come in?” He bit back a second groan and sat up to stare blearily at the door. No, he should have answered back. This has gone on long enough. It was unseemly. Didn’t he have enough gossip to dodge in the council rooms as it was? But how could he say no? 

“Of course,” he answered. The door creaked open and in the emperor came, not in his usual finery but in a set of lilac pajamas that covered him from neck to ankle. The sight of him picking his way through the gloom made Flynn’s stomach sour. But he was just a child, wasn’t he? He did a fine job of keeping his back straight and his head high at their meetings, and was a bit of a savant at oratory, but this was who he really was; messy-haired and skinny and dreadfully afraid of the dark. “Your excellency.” 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled back, trailing to Flynn’s bedside. “I’ve woken you.” 

“It’s alright. Is anything the matter?” 

“No. Just that I can’t sleep, and yet I’ve been at it for hours.” Flynn sighed. It wouldn’t do for the little emperor to be tired. They were to meet with emissaries from Nordopolica in the morning. He patted the empty spot beside him in the bed and gave quiet thanks that the boy’s insomnia hadn’t reared its head the night before. Even better that he’d had the forethought to change the sheets. 

Ioder’s face broke into a smile as he clamored into the bed. Flynn heard him make a satisfied sound as he settled into the heat of it, the quilted duvet pulled up to his nose. For a moment he thought that perhaps he could simply drift back to sleep until he felt the tremors of Ioder’s fidgeting from across the sheets. 

“Is something on your mind?” 

“I had a nightmare,” the emperor replied under his breath. “About my father.” Flynn frowned. 

“That again?” 

“Yes.” The bed shifted as Ioder turned on his side to face him. 

“That was a long time ago,” Flynn told him, his response nearly a reflex from all the times he’d said it before. “And the traitors hanged and buried and forgotten. The people love you. Nothing like that will ever come to pass again.” 

“I know, but that isn’t the point. I can’t even remember his face. In my dream it was just a blur. Isn’t that terrible?” 

“You were just a little child,” Flynn insisted, a cold pinch swirling in his chest. “Hardly a boy at all.” 

“But you remember your father, don’t you?” He swallowed. Yes. Even now he could conjure him in his mind; his short hair already shot through with grey. His chin, squared and masculine and nearly as broad as his shoulders beneath it. There had been a scar on his left cheek in the shape of a fish-hook. When he wasn’t dressed in uniform he’d preferred to wear green. He’d liked tea over coffee, although Mother had teased him for it. Sang silly songs when he shaved in the morning; early, still dark, as he readied himself for his patrols. Flynn had inherited the color of his hair and his eyes but nothing much of the shape of him. Still, even though his looks favored his mother he could never forget his father, either. He didn’t tell Ioder that. 

“We’ll write to Desier,” he promised him instead, picturing the dusty place where Ioder’s family had sought secret refuge in the chaos that had consumed the empire after the last emperor had fallen. “Perhaps he had a portrait made, or one that hasn’t been lost. We’ll seek it out.” 

“No. I don’t want that. The truth is, Flynn, that you’re my father now.” 

“Ioder,” he chided him. 

“My father,” he insisted back, “and my brother, and my family, and my friend. And I’m thankful for it, is what I mean.” 

“Well,” Flynn stuttered. “That’s alright. You don’t need to be thankful.” He sat up to look at him. It was strange to find himself at high ground against the boy. That wasn’t right, was it? He was the one meant to grovel. But even though Ioder was the one who had become accustomed to the stiff seat of the imperial throne, he had himself become familiar with its power. Ioder met his eyes with the look he often wore; worried and, stacked below that, hopeful that Flynn would tell him what to do. 

It wasn’t proper, he wanted to snap at him in that moment — not proper that he always submitted himself to his advice. If a council member were to storm his room in that very moment it would have been awkward to explain why the little emperor was in his bed, but twice as blasphemous to admit the fact that the roles of master and servant had been all but inverted since the day that Ioder had assumed the throne. Some nights he cannot sleep alone without me, he would have to admit to them — and never can he rule. 

“Besides,” he continued on lamely, sinking back into his pillow again. “One day you’ll have a family of your own. Perhaps we should make better progress on that front. What do you say?” 

“No,” Ioder answered stubbornly, his face screwing into a frown. “I don’t want that, either.” Flynn laughed quietly. Maybe not now, but the emperor was nearly at the age when his reservations would dissolve. He let his mind wander to the pretty faces hidden in the crowds of the palace’s courtiers, relieved to find an escape from his more troubling worries. Perhaps he would set Estelle on the task. Certainly there was no better matchmaker than she — or at least none with her level of commitment. 

“I’m serious,” the emperor amended bitterly. 

“Don’t be silly.” You can hardly keep crawling into my bed when you’re a man full-grown, he wanted to add, but caught himself before he had. He yawned instead. “There will be some fun in it.” 

“I don’t want to have fun.” 

“Go to sleep, your excellency,” Flynn sighed, turning his back on him to punctuate the order. “Or you’ll regret it in the morning.” Ioder huffed with frustration. 

“I just want it to be you and I.” His heart sunk at the admission. 

“Ioder,” he answered stiffly. “You—”

“I know how my father died,” he interrupted him, his voice quivering. “That woman who killed him — he loved her, didn’t he? Even though she wasn’t my mother. I’m not a child anymore, I know what that means. Clarc told me they found him in his bed. He wasn’t a bad man. Just unlucky, like me. We’re supposed to learn from history, aren’t we? Isn’t that what you always say? So how could I make the same mistake as he did? You’re the only one who I know would never hurt me. Right?” 

“Of course I’ll never hurt you,” Flynn breathed, turning again to catch sight of the boy crying into the quilt balled between his fists. He reached forward to draw him into a hug. “And I’ll protect you. From everything and anyone, until the very last.” 

“You promise?” 

“I promise.” 

———

“Flynn,” Yuri greeted him grimly.

“Yuri,” he contended in a sighing reply of his own. That made it worse. The man’s face darkened as he closed the door behind him. 

“Listen. I know you’re angry. So am I. We will stop Ioder, and now, before it gets any worse. You know I’m in full agreement with you on that. But you can’t go after him alone.” 

“When did I say I would do it alone?” Flynn pressed against the dark spots ringing his eyes, his knuckles following after to rub against the sockets. So tired. The sun had begun to rise again and had left him a day behind. 

“Do you really think that, after all of this time, I can’t tell exactly what you’re thinking?” 

“That’s a frightening thing to consider.” He sank into the bed and fiddled with his boots. 

“Flynn.” Yuri knocked away his hands as he sank into a crouch before him. His palms settled atop his knees. “Be honest with me.” 

“What do you want me to say?” Each part of him wanted to squirm away from Yuri’s grip but he relented beneath it instead, unwilling to make an enemy of him again after everything that had happened. He sucked in a sharp breath. “I spoke with the captains. Zaphias is a nightmare. It’s exactly as you would imagine. Ioder’s divine force is nothing but a gang of untrained thugs and sadists, and most of them doling out their own form of justice to satisfy old grudges against anyone unlucky enough to be deemed ‘defiled’. 

A small group of knights — fifty, maybe sixty — have stayed behind in the city to assist the refugees. They’re being staged at Halure and hidden from there. It’s not enough. There are more running from the capital every day. And those are the ones who can manage it. They’ve barred the Lower Quarter entirely, and the palace markets as well. The whole city is a cell with no escape except a noose.” 

“We need to bring an end to it.” 

“Yes. That’s what I’ve said.” 

“But you can’t be serious in thinking that you’ll be the one to kill Ioder.” A thick breath gathered in his throat. 

“And what do you mean by that?” Yuri gripped his knees tighter, as if he had predicted that soon he would be of the mind to kick him away. 

“I mean that, for one, it would be dangerous for you to even try. What weapon would you bring with you?” 

“I’ll figure something out.” Yuri’s lips folded into a puckered frown. 

“And once you’re inside the city? It doesn’t matter how untrained those bastards are, all it would take would be for one of them to be fast enough to unarm you.” 

“No one knows Zaphias better than I do,” Flynn contended. He felt himself shrinking beneath Yuri’s stare. Did he really think so little of him? Sometimes he wondered if Yuri still considered him to be nothing more than a little boy dressed in foil armor. 

“I do.” 

“You—”

“Listen to me. I do, because no one knows a city better than a thief, and if the empire’s new men are the criminals you’ve described, then I can promise you they know it better than us both. You have to be realistic. I know what you can do. Monsters, men at arms — they’re predictable, because they have either no rule of what they do at all or fight like noble idiots. None between them would be able to stop you. But Ioder hasn’t raised another kingdom, he’s built his own guild out of cultists and thugs. That has never been your area of expertise.” 

“So you’re suggesting that you have a better idea?” 

“Of course.” He grinned, if briefly. Flynn fought the urge to roll his eyes. “And we can get to that. But before — it’s important. You need to promise me. You can’t go after Ioder.” 

“Why?” This time he did shove away Yuri’s hands. “I’m not naive, you know. I’m well aware that I’ll never be the swordsman that I was before. But Ioder is no fighter, thug or not.” 

“That isn’t the point. You have to let me kill him.” 

“And why is that? Because Harry’ll give you a fatter purse if you’re the one to do it?” 

“Come on,” Yuri snapped defensively. 

“I won’t let you do this again,” Flynn replied, his voice pinched. “You’ve killed enough men for me. It’s time that I pay my own dues.” 

“You can’t.” 

“I can!” Flynn swung his arms into the air in frustration, the bed creaking beneath him. “It’s not your decision to make.”

“But I can beg! And I will. And if not, then... Listen to me. Those ten men you killed. I imagine they either meant to kill you themselves, or were so wretched that there was no other option left for them. Am I right?” Flynn’s lips drew into a frustrated frown. 

“Yes.” 

“And did you enjoy it? Executing them?” 

“Of course not.” 

“So can you imagine how it feels to kill an unarmed man? One that’s begging you for mercy, and might very well deserve it?” 

“Ioder is not an innocent man.” 

“No, but he loves you. Maybe not like I do, but he does, and I know that you love him too. He has to die, but killing him — I won’t let you do it yourself.” 

“Yuri—”

“You’ve sacrificed enough already! Alright?” Yuri lunged forward to grip at his thighs. “Stop before it ruins you. What will be left for me then?” Flynn’s chest hitched as he looked down at him. He looked like at animal, then, fangs bared and backed into a corner. You aren’t my dog, Flynn wanted to shout at him — or to beg him, prostrated as he was himself. Stop doing this. Bleeding and drawing blood for him as if they were made of different stuff. But how could he deny him when he looked at him like that? He balled his fingers into fists and sunk them into the soft mass of the bed, and growled a meaningless sound, and fell backwards against the sheets. 

“Fine.” 

“Don’t be angry with me.” Yuri crawled after him, his arms and legs straddling him and his long hair pooling like a curtain around his head. His words may have been childish but his tone was dire. 

“I’m not angry with you.”  

“Look at me.” He did, if reluctantly. Don’t lie, his dark eyes told him. “Promise me you won’t go alone.” 

“I won’t. I promise.” Flynn craned forward to kiss him. It seemed to convince him. 

He was gentler, this time, in what followed.  

They slept through the afternoon. Flynn woke to the sound of dinner plates clattering in the dining hall below. Yuri slept on, his arms locked around Flynn’s chest and twitching slightly from his dreaming. Flynn gently slipped his fingers beneath them to make his escape. He dressed quietly, cursing his fumbling for the thousandth time as he struggled with his fly. Next came the package Luca had prepared for him. He took it from its hidden place inside the wardrobe and slipped it into his jacket. His feet — still bare, his boots tucked into the crook of his elbow — padded silently across the room as he made his way to the door. He glanced back at Yuri as he gripped the knob. He looked younger when he slept. How sweet he was underneath all of his boasts and threats and glares. Flynn listened to the quiet whistle of his breathing for a moment longer before he swung open the door. He wondered, briefly, if he should apologize. 

Too late for that. 

He closed the door. 

——— 

“Nmph.” His mouth was dry. Yuri ran his tongue over his tacky teeth and scowled. What time was it? He reached out an arm across the bed. Empty. Cold. Shit. He’d overslept. He opened an eye and found the room as dark as the sky outside the window. 

“Fuck. Flynn?” There was no answer from the shadows lurking in the corners. He sucked in a deep breath and sat up to step from the bed. His hunt for his pants was cut short by a knock at the door. It had already begun to swing open as he barked out a hoarse yeah? 

“Shit,” he stuttered as Sodia stormed inside. She glanced briefly at his nakedness before her eyes snapped back upwards to trap his own. Sheesh. Not one for being generous, was she? He grabbed at the sheets and bunched them around his waist. “What is it? Don’t you kill me here like this. I don’t want my ass to be the first thing they see.” 

“He’s gone, hasn’t he?” His annoyed mockery turned to ash in his mouth. 

“What do you mean?” Don’t look like that. Her brows bunched together. She pursed her lips to speak but stopped, her eyes drifting to the floor. “Sodia. What are you talking about?” 

She stepped forward. It was the first time that she had ever approached him without spitting a threat as she did. She handed him something, instead, cool and heavy and flat, with rounded edges and a series of half domes studded along its face. 

“Where did you get this?” 

“He gave it to me.” 

“What do you mean gave it to you?” You bastard. His heart began to race. He turned the crest between his fingers. It had been painted on the banners flagging outside the city gates, but it had been a long time since he had properly seen it in person. No, that wasn’t right. Flynn had worn it before, hadn’t he, when he had first made his return to Dahngrest? The stupid fool, all dressed in his peacock feathers even while the guildsmen watched him with vengeance burning in their eyes. You fucking bastard. You promised. 

“He means for me to wear it.”

“You’re joking.” 

“It’s already done.” 

“Where did he go, Sodia?”

“I don’t know.” He flung the commandant’s crest onto the bed and leapt forward to grasp her shoulders tight. 

“Tell me what happened. Tell me!” 

“He gathered the captains. Just a few hours ago. Downstairs. You must have known.” His stomach sunk with guilt. No, he thought bitterly, no, I was asleep, just like the fucking fool I am. Flynn had never involved him with his planning before. Why on earth had he been stupid enough to think that he would now? 

“And then?” 

“And then he named me as his successor. No. As commandant, effective immediately,” she corrected quickly, sounding more astounded by what had come to pass than Yuri himself. “And suggested that Captain Yassik serve as my aide. They were — the captains were confused, of course. We all told him to reconsider. Those knights have ridden here for him, not me. Something like this could make them lose hope, you know, or even disband them entirely. I told him the same but he wouldn’t listen to a word of it. He said his piece and left nearly as quickly afterwards. I thought that maybe he would have come here, but...”

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Yuri snapped, already halfway dressed. He snatched his sword from its lean against the nearby desk and slung the strap of its scabbard over his shoulder. 

“Wait. Where are you going? Do you know where he is?” 

“Of course I fucking know where he is.” He pushed past her to slink into the hall. “You know it as well as I do.” 

“You don’t think—”

“Yes.” He spun on his heel and nearly knocked his chin against her brow. “Yes, that is exactly what has happened. Fuck. I should have known. Don’t say another word, do you hear me? That idiot is defenseless out there.” 

“Don’t talk about him like that.” 

“I’ll say whatever I want! He’s no commandant anymore, is he? Listen to me. No one can know where he has gone. There are imperial agents everywhere. Not much of a threat, but to him they will be. Understand?” 

“And so what is it that you propose we do?” She hissed the question at him, her eyes narrowing. Good. It was better to see her angry instead of frightened.

“I’ll find him.” 

“And how will you do that? There’s no moon out there. He could be anywhere.” 

“I can always find him,” he assured her tightly. 

“Well, then, I will accompany you.” 

“No.” 

“It isn’t your decision!” 

“Listen, Commandant,” he snapped, the word sounding suddenly strange, “I haven’t been a knight for over ten years. I’m afraid I have no interest in humoring you. I’ll find him. You need to stay behind and make sure we don’t lose all of those poor bastards out there. Right? Or what was even the point?” 

“Fine,” she conceded bitterly. “But if you don’t come back...” 

“I’ll come back. I’ve always managed it before. Here. I’ll send a signal to you when I’ve found him. Do you have any flares?” 

“I’m sure some of the rangers do.” 

“Good. Give me two — red and blue, alright? And have someone keeping watch on the southern horizon. Blue will mean that we are returning. Red, that you’ll need to come and help us manage it with a few of our new friends in tow. Agreed?” She seemed taken aback at the notion of his seeking out her help. Her head bobbed in a curt nod.

“I’ll send some men with you, at least.” 

“No,” he insisted, his heels clipping down the first set of stairs. “It’s better that I go alone. Remember our plan, will you? Otherwise I think you might find yourself with a shorter career than even mine.” 

——— 

He rode harder than he meant to. It was difficult to keep a steady pace. His mount’s hooves beat the ground in tempo with his racing heart, and all of it was just a metronome for the angry thoughts filling his mind. Two days. That was how long this second love of his had lasted. And to think that he had found two years to be too short. Why did he always do this to himself? He’d found all sorts of consorts, the way he had been living — ones that loved him, ones that hated him, ones that were insatiable compared even to his appetites — so why the hell was it that he was always breaking himself against the cobbles of Flynn’s impenetrable fucking ego instead? Fuck. 

At least Flynn had been more upfront with his betrayals before. But now he had finally learned how to lie. Or maybe Yuri had just wanted to believe him so desperately that he had lost the look of his deception. No, that wasn’t it, either. The truth was that he was just a fool. A fool to think that Flynn had loved him when he had lured him into that cabin in Aurnion, and a fool to think that he had loved him in the cold austerity of his lost office, and a wretch for thinking that he could love him now. Well, fine. Now he’d learned the lesson. He wouldn’t make the mistake again. 

“Damn you,” he cursed the mane flipping in the wind before him, his fingers gripping tighter against the reins. More bitter words gathered against the back of his throat, but they were cut short by the sight of a small campfire smoldering against the black of the path ahead. He sucked in a deep breath and pulled back against his reckless gallop but it was too late — he’d nearly trod into the embers by the time that his quietta reared to a whinnying stop. 

“Hey.” He nearly fell from his saddle at the sound of Flynn’s voice.

“What the — what the hell are you doing out here?” 

“Waiting for you. I was starting to think that you weren’t going to come.” 

“Are you serious? Are you fucking serious?” Yuri leapt to the ground and dashed forward to snatch him by the front of his jacket. Flynn’s fingers closed around his wrists — not tight but steady. They were still warmed by the heat of the fire. Don’t pay attention to that.

“Listen. Don’t be angry with me. Nothing has changed from what we discussed before.” 

“Nothing has — what are you talking about? You made Sodia a damned commandant!” 

“Well,” Flynn flinched lightly, “yes, but—”

“Are you crazy? She’s a maniac! And you didn’t think that it would be worth telling me what you were planning on doing? Or was it just something you decided you wanted to improvise? Hm? Throwing away everything so that you could come out here and sit in the dark?” 

“That isn’t exactly it. Will you please let go of me so that I can explain it to you?” Yuri’s fingers complied, frustratingly. Flynn took the chance to sit beside the fire again before he reconsidered. Yuri kept his stance, all of the anger that had been boiling in his chest a flame that now burned his face as he glared down at him in bewilderment. Flynn seemed to catch the look of it, and sighed, and combed his fingers through his hair. “Yuri. Sit down.” 

“No.” 

“I couldn’t tell you,” he insisted, “not before, at least. You would have just tried to stop me. We don’t have that kind of time. But I didn’t lie to you.” 

“And how do you figure that?” 

“I’m not going to kill Ioder. Not if you come with me.” 

“And Sodia?” 

“She’s a proper soldier, Yuri. Even if you despise her, the knights adore her — respect her. No one understands the company better than she does. It’s the right choice.” 

“Maybe in twenty years,” Yuri snapped in contention, “but not now.” 

“Of course now. An imperial commandant can’t kill an emperor.” 

“You’re not going to kill an emperor.” 

“No,” Flynn sighed in agreement, “but I won’t stop you from killing him, either. A commandant should be an emperor’s right hand. It can’t be covered in their predecessor’s blood, do you understand?” 

“It’s a fine idea, but do you really mean to stage a coup with two men?” 

“We have no other option. The Don has ordered us to keep away from war. I won’t break a second promise to Dahngrest.” The notion stilled some of his swirling fury. “We can manage it,” Flynn continued earnestly, “together, and tonight, if you’ll still fight beside me.” 

“You...” Yuri sunk into a seat beside him. Flynn snatched one of his hands and held it tight. He glowered back at the look of devotion spread across his face. “What if I hadn’t come chasing after you?” 

“Then I would have returned.” 

“Liar.” 

“I’m not lying,” Flynn huffed. He clapped a second hand over Yuri’s own. “I don’t want to die, Yuri, and I don’t want to keep on fighting you. Everything you said before — it was right. We both know it. But I can’t just stand by as Ioder keeps on killing our people. Every night is another man’s last. We need to do it now. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner, but I didn’t have the choice.” 

“That’s convenient, isn’t it? That you’re always pressed to do stupid things, and that you can never do anything to stop yourself?” Flynn’s lips split into a withering smile. 

“Yes. I know. But this is the last of it. I told you, it’s all over now. My life before is gone. I’ve fought for it, and mourned for it, and this is the last thing I’ll do before I bury it. Alright?” 

Yuri stared stubbornly at him. The harsh shadows thrown from the fire made him look old. Had he always had those lines at the corners of his eyes? Part of him cried out to steal him away in that very moment; to sling him over his saddle and to ride as far as they could to the coast, and beyond, farther and farther until nothing was left behind them. But it would all still suck at him, he knew, no matter how much distance he threw between the man and the tall spires of the imperial capital. His guilt, or maybe his duty, would drain him until he was dry. Yuri sighed. 

“Alright.” 

———

Flynn had not been away from the capital for so long, really, but in his short exile the city had changed. It was still tidy and grand, yes, but there was a dark miasma in the air. Fear. He could nearly taste it on his tongue. There were no lights glimmering in the windows. No sound of drunks caroling in the streets as they escaped from the last taverns gurgling awake at this twilight hour; no babes wailing to rouse their beleaguered mothers. Zaphias had, in it entirety, drawn in a deep breath to hold in terror as it waited for what would come next. It was miserable — made his shoulders ache. 

That wasn’t to say that the streets were empty. He could hear the steady clip of a patrol marching through them. He and Yuri took the alleyways with a quick step to evade their watch. For a moment he was transported to a different time when they had run like this before; but then they had been chased by fat Orson and his cronies, not a secret service shrouded in fake faith. But, then again, was it truly any different? Flynn would not have been surprised to learn if Orson himself had volunteered for Ioder’s Divine Force, after all. 

So maybe they had been training for that very moment all their lives. He smirked at the idea as he crouched to ease off the heavy cap to one of the city’s sewer lines. Well, if only the end of it all had been more glamorous. His nose crinkled as he and Yuri wrenched the plate away and the smell of everything inside snuck free. Still, he had never imagined the true value of the system when he had convinced Ioder to build it eight years before. 

“Guh,” Yuri complained beneath his breath as they sloshed forward in the gloom. Flynn tried to ignore him, but the sound of their footsteps drowned out any hope of listening for hidden assailants in wait for them. Not that Flynn thought that Ioder would have had the foresight — or the cruelty — to station guards in that stinking place. His gamble paid off. Soon they found the spot he was hunting for; another plate that opened upwards into the dripping place that Witcher had once made a home. 

They took a moment to wring the filth from their clothes. Flynn felt Yuri’s eyes on him, next, as he looked numbly at the alchemist’s dusty tables.

“Where do you think he’ll be?” 

“At this hour? In his chambers.” The sun rose late in the winter. Ioder had always been even slower in rousing himself when it was cold. 

“To his chambers, then.” 

“No. Wait. This way.” Flynn nodded to a cobwebbed corner. Yuri considered it with a wary stare. Flynn ignored him, striding forward to hunt out the loose stone in the wall that would swung the hidden door he sought free. “The siege tunnels run through here. They lead to the commandant’s quarters at one end and the royal wing at the other. We’ll make quicker work this way.” 

“Alright,” Yuri muttered, perhaps not yet willing to sound impressed. There. The hidden door clicked open. They worked together to heave it to the side. Flynn took the lead again. His pace was steadied by the touch of Yuri’s fingers against his elbow. 

“What is it?” He turned to face him. He was all but hidden in the dark. 

“Stay here.” His teeth ground tightly in his jaw. 

“No.” 

“Flynn. Tell me the way. I can manage it.” Flynn reached out towards his voice and gripped at him. 

“I’m coming with you.” 

“Why? There’s no need.” You don’t need to watch him die, he told him without speaking. It made the dread broiling in the pit of his stomach turn to anger. What difference did it make now? He’d already written his death warrant and handed it over to the world’s most tested killer. There was no mercy waiting for him anymore. 

“Together,” Flynn insisted tightly. “We do it together.” He heard Yuri sigh. 

“Fine.” They pushed forward into the shadows. 

“Here,” Flynn announced after what seemed to be an eternal silence. His heart thrummed in his ears. There it was. He pressed his fingers against the shape of the wall. They caught against the divot of a handle. Was he sleeping, he wondered? Had it become any easier for him since he had gone? Or had he recruited another poor servant of his to warm his bed and chase away his nightmares? It doesn’t matter. He reached out in Yuri’s direction and felt him squeeze his wrist to signal that he understood. Flynn drew in a deep breath and pushed against the door. 

Yuri sidled past him. He heard the quiet draw of his sword against its scabbard. He could feel the tension of it as well — the gravity of him hunting. It must have been natural for him, now. Flynn didn’t linger on that idea. He squinted into the darkness instead, his eyes slowly making out the drooping shapes of the curtains drawn around Ioder’s grand bed. 

As Yuri slunk forward, Flynn worked his fingers between the buttons of his jacket to seek out the heavy thing that had been drumming against his chest since they had first left. He found the muzzle of it, first, short but straight and cold to the touch even nestled as it was against his breast. He pulled the revolver from his pocket and notched his thumb against the hammer. He’d always hated the inelegance of things like this, but his grip fit nicely against it now, far better than his clumsy grasping at any sort of hilt. The cylinder had just begun to turn as a shot rang out in the darkness. 

“Yuri!”

“Shit,” he heard him gasp before his weight thudded to the floor. Flynn groped blindly for him for an instant before a lamp flared to life and washed them in an amber glow. Yuri was crumpled there beside him, the point of his sword crunched into the floorboard and serving as a crooked crutch as he gripped at his side. Blood, first splattered against the floor from the bullet’s impact, had begun to pool already under the odd angle of his legs. Flynn rushed to crouch at his side but was steadied as the bed’s curtains parted around a long gunmetal barrel. 

“You,” Ioder croaked. He clamored over the foot of the bed and kept his rifle steadied on them. Flynn stepped forward in line between Yuri and its sights. “What are you doing here?” 

“Ioder,” he ordered him tightly, “enough. It’s done. Put it down.” 

“He tried to kill me,” the man stammered in reply, wagging the end of the rifle towards them both. “You saw it. Shoot him. Flynn, shoot him!” 

“No. That isn’t how this is going to end.” The emperor’s eyes widened as he began to piece together the truth of why they were both there. They settled next on the revolver as Flynn drew it forward again. He did not hold it awkwardly the way the younger man did his own.

“You — you’re...How?” Beady tears began to gather against his lashes. “How could you do this to me? You’re my friend.” 

“You should have listened to me, Ioder,” Flynn insisted. “What you’ve done, it’s unforgivable. Those people are your subjects.” 

“I was just doing what you told me to do!” Ioder shouted the words. They echoed, sharp and pitched, against the tall corners of the room. Flynn flinched, his shoulders hunched against the danger of the door behind him. “They were ruining everything! After all of the work we’ve done, I could see them picking at it with their greedy little fingers... Cursing us, dragging us down. You told me that the empire comes before anything else — before you, and me, and even before the ones we love. Right? Isn’t that what you said? That we have to make sacrifices, Flynn! But then you abandoned me!” 

“I never taught you to kill! Open your eyes!” 

“You abandoned me,” Ioder continued with a warbled voice, “for that black city of yours. They told me that you would. They warned me. But I was so stupid. I told them that you would never turn your back on me. You promised. And then you did just what they’d said and for what, him? That murderer?” The emperor’s tears began to spill onto his ruddy cheeks. “I let him in before — into my home, because I knew it pleased you. Did you really think you were clever enough to hide it from me? And then I lied to my Council when they insisted that he was seeking you out — him, a criminal, a killer —because I just wanted you to be happy, Flynn, and this is how you repay me?” 

“It’s over, Ioder,” Flynn insisted again hollowly. 

“And then what? Will you give the throne to him, or to the Don? For what? So that they can pick apart the palace and sell it off, and fill the streets with blood? You know what they are. You’ve seen it. Animals. The gods have not graced them with the right to rule. They’ll destroy it all.” 

“The city has already fallen. You know it as well as I do. Put the gun down.” 

“No.” Ioder’s face wavered before hardening into a grimace. “I don’t want to die.” Flynn took a step forward. He heard the scrape of Yuri’s boots behind him as he tried to struggle to his feet.  

“That doesn’t matter.” 

“Flynn,” Ioder whined, suddenly a little boy again, “Don’t. I don’t want to kill you. I don’t — I’m scared. Please. I didn’t mean to.” Flynn slipped his finger over the bow of the revolver’s trigger and raised it higher. Ioder did the same, but already Flynn knew it didn’t matter — he would be a better shot than him. He was trained for it, after all; a killer, just like the man bleeding at his side. Maybe they would all die in that room but he would still manage what he had come to accomplish. “Please. Don’t. I -”

I don’t want to do it. Ioder’s voice echoed in his mind. I can’t do it. Not to you. The trigger braced against his finger as if it were carved from stone. Not to you. I can’t. 

Take care of them 

Do you duty 

Be kind

“Flynn,” Yuri groaned behind him. “Watch-” 

Protect you 

Won’t go alone 

his head 

“-out!” 

No. How could he do it? How could he follow all of his promises? It was impossible. Impossible, just like killing this man he’d made. His finger fell from the trigger just as Ioder raised his own sights again. 

I don’t want to die.

The shot that followed was loud.  

Chapter Text

They say that killing a man is like taking the last step off of a cliff you’ll never climb up from again. 

Flynn wondered if those ten men he’d killed were waiting for him at the bottom now. The trick to that old saying, after all, was that it wasn’t the climb that was so terrible, or even what was waiting for you at the end. It was the falling, weightless and wicked, that turned a man into nothing but momentum with an unarguable end. 

He supposed he had been falling for those twelve years since he had killed his first man. Perhaps the doomed bandit’s half-severed head was now bobbing backwards against his shoulders as he stared up to watch him land. Nine other ghosts would be there as well. He could remember all of their faces.

In another world far beyond that black pit he felt his knees buckle. There was the bristle of the carpet against his palms as he struggled to steady himself.  His ears rung from the shriek of glass shattering, so loud that he’d already forgotten the thunderclap of the gunshot before. 

No, a voice contended, it isn’t nine. There was another face waiting for him now — sweet and docile-eyed. His brother, he’d called him once, and it was an easy thing to believe with his golden hair and the way he was always trailing at his heels. Once he’d worn a crown but there was only blood on his brow, now. Flynn’s head spun as he stared helplessly at the perfect round that had appeared like a third eye against the porcelain of the young man’s skin.

Not like this, he begged as he tumbled backwards against his elbows; this was the worst of all of them. Ioder should have died in his regalia, like the emperor he could have been — or in the library, fortressed by his books like the man he’d really been. Not in his bedclothes and crumpled at the foot of his bed as if he’d been pulled from his old nightmares. 

You should have helped him. 

He was a monster. 

You’re nothing but a monster, too.  

“Flynn.” He staggered, all knees and elbows, towards the voice at his back. 

“Are you alright?” The words were nothing but a reflex; his voice, not really his own. His fingers moved of their own accord towards the wet wound at Yuri’s side. The other man’s hands, slick from pressing it closed, steadied them tightly. 

“Flynn. Hey. Look at me.” His stomach began to churn against the back of his throat. Yuri winced as he leaned forward to drag him towards his chest. “Listen. It’s over.” 

It’s not, he wanted to argue, but he realized that he was wrong. For all of his losses here it was, finally — the bottom. Now he was finally all the way down. 

———

Morning came slowly. It was heralded by the few brave birds who had lingered against the winter’s chill. Their birdsong was sharp against the silence hanging in the air. He’d never heard the capital so quiet before. Maybe it was from mourning, but more likely it was just dumbfounded relief. Flynn tried not to linger on the idea as he turned away from the window into the soft black of Yuri’s hair. 

He’d never thought that they would lay together in his quarters like this again. Not that they were his any longer; but, Sodia had insisted that he lodge himself there while they awaited the coronation. He suspected she hadn’t meant to extend the invitation to Yuri but, of course, there he was nonetheless. 

They’d stoked the fire high against the night’s chill. Even then Flynn had still been cold but Yuri, always one to run a little hot, had kicked his half of the sheets away to sprawl himself bare against the rising sunlight. Flynn pulled his fingers from their fold under his pillow to draw them along the little star-shaped scar at his hip. It was only one of the dozens of them scattered over him; not the worst, although the bullet that had shattered that broad bone there had left him with a bit of a limp. Maybe it’s time I retire, Yuri had joked, but Flynn knew that it wasn’t the only reason why. 

He watched as the man’s skin prickled with gooseflesh from his touch. 

“Mnf,” Yuri muttered. He drew one of his long arms from its drape over the edge of the bed to rub at his eyes. “Go back to sleep.” 

“No.” Yuri’s face folded into a theatrical frown. He rolled gracelessly towards him, slinging his limbs over him to push him back against the pillows. 

“Not no. It’s so early.” 

He should have chided him. The day ahead of them was long and, although they had no formal role in any of it, they both knew that they had an integral responsibility to see the coronation ceremony through. But, despite living a life dedicated to duty, Flynn decided in that moment to linger in the heat of the bed instead. 

“Did you sleep?” Yuri asked him the question after some time of quiet drowsing. Flynn felt compelled to lie — to tell him that he’d fallen into a peaceful slumber after they’d made love the night before. 

“Not much,” he answered, understanding finally that there was no hope in keeping the truth from the man’s dark eyes. Yuri frowned and tipped his cheek against Flynn’s brow.

“It’s alright. It’ll come with time.” 

Flynn wasn’t sure that he was right. Even in the familiar comfort of the room he could feel the cold weight of the ghosts hunting him out — Ioder, his head still weeping from Luca’s impossible shot from across the inner courtyard; Yoren, Yassik’s handsome brother still pulled into bloody pieces; the bodies hanging in the plaza and more, countless more, all because he had failed to protect them. 

Even Yuri’s own heady medicine could no longer chase them out. Flynn wondered if it was the same for him, sometimes, in those odd moments when his playful features faded. He pursed his lips to ask the question of him but was proceeded by a gentle knocking at the door. Yuri huffed a defeated sigh. 

“There we are then,” he groaned. “The world demands us, it seems.” 

“Yes, well, that is what happens,” Flynn answered, allowing himself a half-formed smile. “At least when it doesn’t end.” 

———

“Lady Estellise.” 

“Flynn, you know, I’m really starting to think that you only call me that to tease me.” 

Flynn smiled as he entered into the inner sanctum of the woman’s dressing room. It wasn’t proper that he was there, perhaps, but, then again, it wasn’t proper that she was there, either. She’d retreated back into her old quarters on her return to the capital city — perhaps she had been hunting out something familiar, like he had. But just like the commandant’s wing had been promised to another, so too was she due a change in scenery. 

“How are you feeling?” She returned his smile from her perch on a little stool. 

“Terrified,” she admitted. “What if I trip?” 

“You won’t trip.” 

“What if I forget the words?” 

“You’ve never forgotten anything like that before.” 

“What if—”

“Don’t be frightened,” he cut her short, taking a seat beside her. She picked at the sleeve of her dressing gown. 

“I’m not frightened,” she answered after a moment, looking up to meet his gaze. “Not really. I just... I hope that I do not disappoint them.”  

“You might.” Her brow furrowed at his honesty. He laughed. “There will always be those who wish to do nothing more than root you out. You can be the kindest master or the cruelest, it makes no difference. The important thing is that you do not let it strike you from your own path.” She nodded. 

“I hope I don’t disappoint you,” she corrected instead. He shook his head 

“Impossible.” She sighed and turned to gaze into the nearby window. His chest pinched at the sight of her. She — or her handlers, perhaps more likely — had pulled her hair into an ornate shape and had it studded by little glittering stones. The look alone had already begun to transform her. He wondered, grimly, if she were thinking on the memory of her predecessor as the weight of his responsibilities loomed ahead. What did that disappointment mean to her? Was it a threat of being put down like Ioder? 

“Flynn.” A chill settled on his nape as her eyes swung towards him again. She had a way of doing that, sometimes — of cutting through the pretense of a moment and staring into the very core of things. It was so unlike her usual cheery demeanor. “It won’t be like before.” 

“I know.” She leaned forward to grip his hand. 

“I’m not alone.” It was true. Even alone as they were in her parlor Flynn could feel the presence of everyone waiting for them outside. First there was Harry, no longer a simple suitor but a husband — a surprise of Estelle’s own making that had been waiting for him when they had first arrived. They’d wed in secret months before, she’d explained to him, partly in preparation for the possibility that Harry’s gamble with Yuri failed. Surely she would not present herself as a desirable bride for her wicked cousin if he had been beaten to the chase. 

It was not just simple pragmatism, however; that much had been clear to him as soon as their elopement had been revealed. She had finally found the ending to her own love story in the form of the reserved don, who seemed to be transformed into a different man entirely in her company. It was a relief, Flynn had decided, if not somewhat politically complex. 

But then he had been shortsighted in that regard as well. They had all shuffled their roles in the aftermath of the coup, and Harry had been no different. The one most impacted, however, was Luca who, perhaps in reward for his eagle-eyed killing of the emperor from his roost in the rooftop veranda across from the royal quarters, had been given a new title of his own.

Consigliere, they called him now; still not a don, which he had been so clever in predicting, but one in everything but name. His compatriots had answered the news with a victory cry of their own. Luca was not respected like Harry, perhaps, but he was beloved by all of them, who were used to drinking with him in the taverns and fighting with him afield. Flynn had relented that the man, clever under all of his swagger, was unreasonably suited to the job of herding the guilds while his brother took on a new second title of his own. 

Harry had insisted that he was still a don, but Zaphias would demand another name as well. Emperor wasn’t right — it was too haunted of a word, and overstated the role he’d now play besides. Consort was better but it did not fit him, either. 

Estelle had solved the issue when she’d selected a new title for herself. The empire was no more, she had insisted; too mired in its own miserable history to survive. In its place two twin kingdoms would rise and, at their heads bowed together, a king and a queen, equal in every measure as their constituents were below them. 

In their marriage, and with Ioder’s blood as payment, Estelle and her guildsman husband were poised to bring the conflict simmering between their capitals to an end. Flynn knew, however, that they promised far more than that; that, with Estelle’s empathy and Harry’s strategic eye they also had the stock to usher in a new age. 

But how many times had he been promised that before? Ioder had been the child of a new generation, after all, one filled not with war but progress — clean streets and plumbing lines. Would they be doomed to revisit another grave in some years’ time?  

“Afterwards,” Estelle interrupted him from his musing. “What will you do?” 

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I don’t think I can stay here.” She nodded. 

“I understand. Sometimes I can hardly manage the memory of this place myself.” She stood from her seat and wandered towards the windows. The murmur of the crowd gathering in the courtyard hummed behind the panes. She pressed her fingers against them, her face cast in the cool white light of the winter sun. “Still, no matter where you go, I do hope that I can turn to you for counsel. To you, and Yuri, and to all of my friends. I... This isn’t what I wanted, really, at least not at first. To be honest with you, I was relieved, before, when poor Ioder was elected. But with everything that has happened I... I will do it, Flynn. I will do it, but not alone.” 

In that moment, crowned not with the heavy teeth of the old empire’s finery but by simple sunlight, Flynn saw that she was right. He smiled and nodded at her. 

“Then let us begin, my queen.” 

———

“Do you think that this makes me a prince?” Luca slurred the question as he slung his long body into one of the chairs rimming the little table they’d commandeered in the corner of the grand palace hall. They’d dressed him in a neat jacket but he still looked like a stowaway amidst all of the finery of the coronation celebration. 

“No,” Flynn snapped in reply. Yuri snorted a laugh at his side. 

“You’re such a soggy old bastard,” Luca pouted before draining his fluted glass of champagne. He’d been hunting for ale since the dinner had transformed itself into an after-hours soirée but had, so far, found himself unsuccessful. 

“You’re one to talk,” Sodia observed, tipping her glass at the wet splotches on his sleeves. Her own dress uniform was impeccable, of course. Flynn thought that she took to the commandant’s crest quite naturally. He wondered if she’d stared at her reflection the way that he had, once, while she’d prepared herself to escort Estelle to the throne room earlier that afternoon. His chest tightened with a bittersweet feeling. 

“Always outnumbered in this damn city of yours.” Luca snatched Sodia’s glass from her fingers and finished it off as well. The woman cried out in anger and drummed her fists against his shoulder. Yassik paled in her spot at the commandant’s elbow, miserable, as always, at the failure of decorum in moments like these. “I can’t wait to get out of here.” 

“It’s not like you won’t return,” Yuri noted through a puff of sweet smelling smoke. “Conse— what was the word again?” 

“Consel-gerry,” Luca replied. His face screwed into a crooked shape. “Shit. That isn’t it.” 

“Hopeless,” Sodia groaned. “You’ll burn Dahngrest to the ground.” 

“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, you snarky little witch?” Luca laughed and slung his arm around her shoulder. “But don’t worry. I’ll keep it standing for you. I’ll even let you prance around every once in a while in your tin-can suits; you know, to give you something to do.” 

Sodia barked a nonsense sound and buried her face in her hands. Flynn saw, however, that she had a grin on her lips as she did. The look of it made him smile as well. 

“And you will go to Dahngrest as well?” Yassik was the one to ask him the question. He saw that she nearly added commandant to the end; yes, he supposed that it was a somewhat difficult habit to break. 

“Yes. Harry thinks that it would be wise to have a capital perspective within the guild council.” Flynn didn’t add that he had been the one to propose the idea. “Although I imagine that we will be following the crowns in quite a few directions.” Sodia hummed in agreement, emerging slowly from her crouched cower. 

“I wonder where they will prefer to stay. Surely the palace is more comfortable than anything in that miserable city.” 

“That’s your city now, too, you know,” Yuri added dryly. She frowned but, uncharacteristically, nodded in agreement. 

“I hope that you’ll find some peace there,” Yassik continued under the rabble of their tablemates’ arguments. Flynn felt his eyes prick at the simple earnestness of her words and realized, in that moment, that he wished for nothing more than for her to do the same. He’d undoubtedly changed in the seasons that had come to pass since she had first come to his office as a fresh captain but, of course, so had she. Back then she had seemed like a model knight stepped from the pages of their handbook; perfectly dressed, perfectly postured, handsome but understated. That look had failed under the stress of what had come to pass just like the fairytale of the righteous knight they’d all believed in, before. There was something dark and tragic in her, now, but kindred as well. He tipped his glass at her and drank. 

———

The night was cold but Flynn could not keep himself from the balcony. Winter had chased away much of the smog that usually cloaked Dahngrest and so, especially from the heights of Yuri’s — their — lofty apartment, the stars were magnificent to behold. He wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and found his usual spot at the far corner, his shoulder wedged against the railing. Yuri followed after him with his new stuttering step and took a seat at his side. 

“You know,” Yuri said after they had spent some time quietly admiring the heavens, “I don’t think I ever told you the trick of how I decoded those messages.” Flynn glanced over at him and hummed. 

“You told me that the cipher was constellations, didn’t you?” Yuri smiled, his eyes still steadied on the stars. 

“Yes. That was part of it, at least. The thing that tipped me off was a particular word that kept on popping up — Pollux. It took me some time to remember the old legend. Do you know it?” 

“You’ve always known more about that sort of thing than me,” Flynn admitted. It was an old-standing hobby of Yuri’s, born back when Flynn had first taught him to read. The final book that had served as his graduation into literacy had been a heavy tome on the constellations. Yuri had devoured it and become fixated soon after, always regaling Flynn with stories about the stars and how they had been named to the point that his head had been full of strange-sounding names. 

“Castor and Pollux,” Yuri replied matter-of-factly. He took Flynn’s hand in his own and pointed it upwards towards a glimmering pair of stars above their heads. “Known better as the constellation Gemini. The story goes that they were brothers born from different fathers; one mortal and one divine. One day Castor, the one born from a mortal man, was struck down and killed. Pollux begged the gods to trade his own immortality so that they could be reunited again. It was a heavy price but they all agreed to the terms. In exchange the brothers were joined together to live eternal in the skies.” 

“It’s a sad story,” Flynn commented, “but what does it have to do with the messages?” 

“Well,” Yuri answered, “once I had Pollux I started to look for Castor and, sure enough, there he was. Between the two I was able to weasel out how to translate the rest. The other parts were a simple letter exchange but Castor and Pollux stuck — codenames.” A weight gathered in Flynn’s chest as he realized to whom they referred. 

“You’re not my brother,” he told him dryly. Yuri laughed and pulled him closer. 

“No,” he agreed, “but that isn’t the important part.” 

Flynn thought about the legend again later as he lay beside Yuri in his bed. Yuri, predictably, had fallen fast asleep as soon as they had crawled into the sheets. Sleep evaded Flynn as it always did but he found it gentler to lay awake in Yuri’s loft than in the cold palace far away. His eyes drifted around the shadowy corners of the room, already familiar in his time spent acclimating to his new home. They settled on a dark shape perched at the corner of the messy desk. 

It was a little knight, he realized, its legs bent as if it were riding an invisible steed. Yuri had propped it up between a set of books that looked untouched for decades. A sweet warmth filled his chest as he realized that soon the knight would be reunited with its lost companion, itself packed in the boxes he’d sent from Zaphias waiting to be opened downstairs. His eyes lingered on the toy for a moment longer before he turned to bury his face in the warm crook of Yuri’s shoulder and drifted off to sleep.