Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sky’s about to open up over the valley again, and Mydei’s only counted thirty-four titankin to his tally.

It’s a dreary night, already. Rain and hail pelted the long swath of field under his feet into sludge hours ago, and the titankin’s bodies lie in scattered heaps of marble, white as bone against the mud. There’s no shortage of them pouring from the line of trees to the west, but the thick haze of clouds over the Evernight moon dwindles visibility down to nothing, and he’s not about to risk one of the group’s stragglers getting caught in the crossfire just for a few insignificant points.

Besides, it’s only right he gives his opponent time to catch up. Mydei had a head start.

He settles his stance, closing his eyes to listen. Beneath the whimpering wind, the hoard of titankin undulates around him like an encroaching wave. If all’s gone according to plan, he should be the only life left for miles in all directions. He traces where the horizon would be behind the darkness of his eyes. The hills slope steeply downward ahead before rising again, a jagged edge against the moonlight. There’s a long abandoned cart path behind him, the old grove of olive trees to his right.

Four pairs of footsteps. No—five. All from the northwest, where he’d cleared the first wave.

The wind lifts his hair and chlamys as he opens his eyes. Through the shadowy depths ahead emerge the hulking shape of one titankin, then two, multiplying by threes into a crowd. More than he thought.

Suits him just fine.

He starts with the first pair; both still just rumbling into awareness, hunched over, half-crawling near his feet. His fist finds satisfying purchase on their stone-smoothen insides. Thirty-six. Their deaths ripple like a reverb to the rest and the response is a deafening rumble of granite, like a landslide hurtling down a mountain. Mydei dives forward and takes out two more, ducking under a third to twist its neck before beneath the titankin’s war cry comes another sound—the thud of boots, the wind parting around a pane of steel. Behind him, Mydei realizes, just as a blur of white flies out of the darkness, flitting between the wall of titankin to slice the one towering over Mydei’s shoulder in two.

The titankin crumbles with a groan, its torso crashing into the mud on one side, its legs to another.

“You’re late!” Mydei shouts over the booming echo.

Phainon skids a deepening track through the mud, catching himself on a hand before surging forward again.

“Really?” Phainon calls back, cleaving one through the shoulders and another through the neck. “There’s still so many left! Not slacking off, are you, Mydeimos?”

Mydei barks a laugh and swoops in before Phainon can finish the cut, punching the loosened titankin’s head clean off, its body crumpling between them.

“That one’s mine!” They both shout in unison, and Mydei feels Phainon’s glee like a shock to the bone.

The titankin trickle from the trees. They share a single, unbridled glance, and get to work.

Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Mydei’s whole world narrows to the kill, the heat of his blood, and the titankin part and shatter like mistreated amphora—brittle and weak. These must be the stragglers of the pack that came before.

Or that’s what Mydei concludes until the big one shambles out the shadow of a fallen olive tree at Phainon’s back. It’s tall and wide as a droma leg. Impossible to miss; but Phainon’s got three in front of him and another aiming an arrow from a distance. The pointed tips of Mydei’s gauntlets are only partway through the silty stone of the titankin’s throat, halfway-in to wrenching its head off. He can make it in time.

He’ll make it.

Mydei sees the giant strike Phainon once from behind. His stomach gives a sickening lurch, but then the last mote of the titankin’s neck crackles and breaks away, and Mydei’s tossing it aside, pouring all that ill-placed alarm into his burning legs, his drawn-back fist to punch into the giant’s offending arm socket. The momentum carries Mydei past the titankin, its limb shattering into pointed shards into the mud before him.

Mydei turns over his shoulder immediately to see Phainon staggering up, readjusting his grip on his sword hilt.

“Finish it!” Mydei growls, diving past him to take care of the archer firing miss after miss at Phainon’s back. An arrow sings near Mydei’s ear as he charges forward in an unerring line—he knows Phainon will do it. Another arrow. Mydei bats it aside with a snarl.

Only three more strides until his vault finds his fist in the titankin’s chest. The archer falls like it’s made of wood with a single, pathetic cry.

Mydei draws out his landed crouch, breathing hard. He doesn’t know why; these titankin didn’t put up enough of a fight for him to even break a sweat. He searches for the familiar white gloam of Phainon’s coat through the gloom—finding it crooked, Phainon bent to take a knee.

Phainon’s name catches in Mydei’s throat, swallowing it as he walks, then jogs, back to him. On approach, Phainon appears to be kneeling, his torso folded in half against his lifted knee, his palms touched in prayer. It’s a strange sight, to say the least. Unsettling, if Mydei were to phrase it as a single word.

“What in Titan’s name are you doing, Deliverer?”

Gingerly, Phainon’s head lifts, a hand still covering his mouth.

His mouth and nose, currently covered in blood. Somehow, Mydei knows Phainon’s still smiling underneath it.

“Is that a new way of saying ‘hello,’?” Phainon says, muffled.  

Mydei’s stunned for all of a second before he closes the space between them to peel Phainon’s bloody hands away. Phainon doesn’t fight him, the blue of his eyes a stark contrast to the red painting the lower part of his face. His breath's hot but steady through his mouth. Mydei studies his face for any cuts or scrapes but finds none.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Mydei asks.

“I don’t know.” A red bubble swells from his nose. “Does my pride count? It’s feeling a little battered, at the moment.”

Mydei takes a deep, decidedly calming breath. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“Haha—ow—”

Phainon winces, his nose crinkling. A clot of blood slips from his left nostril. Mydei carefully pinches the edge of his chlamys and presses it to Phainon’s nose.

“Idiot. At least the bone isn’t broken.”

“How can you tell?”

“Your whole nose would already be purple.”

“Ah…” Phainon tries to sigh. “What a shame. I’d look great with a broken nose. My image might not be complete without it.”

It’s unwise, Mydei thinks, to say anything in response.

“There’s…” Phainon nose twitches between Mydei’s fingers, his voice nasally. “…gotta be a Kremnoan tradition for this, right? Bleeding all over someone like this. Isn’t it some sort of…rite of passage?”

“What are you babbling on about?”

“Swear on my honor I’m not making this up.”

Mydei squints at him.

“Is your honor worth that much?”

“Wow,” Phainon muses. “Remember how I almost got my head crushed like a melon about two seconds ago?”

“More like five minutes.”

“Someone’s moody today.”

Mydei frowns down at him. “My mood was fine before you showed up.”

Phainon’s eyes smile up at him, even if Mydei can’t see his mouth. “Can’t keep using me as an excuse, Mydei.”

Mydei pinches his nose once more for good measure before pulling the cloth away. No fresh wells of blood. Mydei takes his waterskin from his side and dumps it on a cleaner edge of the chlamys before scrubbing it over Phainon’s cheeks and jaw. After a few swipes, Phainon takes over, holding the damp cloth over his face for a breath before emerging with a puff of breath, relatively clean.

“Can you stand?”

“Can I stand? He asks,” Phainon mumbles, shaking his head with a laugh, wiping streaks of pink on his white sleeves.

“I don’t see you standing,” Mydei points out.

Phainon lumbers to his feet. Mydei watches on, fond enough to admit his amusement.

“So,” Phainon starts, shifting into an ambling walk. Mydei follows. “What’s the final score?”

Mydei pauses, thinking. “Fifty-one, by my count.”

Phainon chuffs, hands resting at the jut of his hips. “Well, isn’t that funny? It’s a tie.”

Mydei narrows his gaze again. “That can’t be possible. I arrived far before you did.”

“Unless you count the kills I got defending the gate,” Phainon says. “Which, in my opinion, should count for double considering the lives at stake.”

Mydei snorts. Phainon has him there. He isn’t one to deceive Mydei on these accounts, either.

“Alright. Fine. It’s a tie.”  

“Unless…” Phainon trails off, the wind ruffling his hair. “That big one…I guess it was more of a team effort, wasn’t it? But I was the one who struck the final blow, so…”

Mydei squints. “So…?”

“So? That means I win, obviously.”

Phainon beams. The absurd urge to kiss it off him smacks Mydei over the head.  

“That hardly counts.” Mydei folds his arms to ensure he keeps them to himself. “I did most of the work for you.”

“Most?” Phainon laughs, incredulous. “You took off one arm! Now, I know you’re bad at math, Mydei, but I thought something as simple as fractions wouldn’t pose you any probl—”

Mydei aims a kick for the soft underside of Phainon’s knees. He doesn’t miss—Phainon dodges, too good at reading him.

“Careful, now,” Phainon chides.

Whatever. It’s the thought that counts.  

“It would’ve died even without your blade,” Mydei insists, even if that isn’t entirely true.

Phainon grins again, folding his own arms as he veers his track a length closer.

“But it was my blade which pierced its heart. I’d say that counts for more than an arm.”

“Titankin don’t have hearts.”

“This one did.” Phainon nods, sagely. “I felt it.”

Mydei’s brow furrows. “That’s impossible.”

“Not so, Mydeimos. It was right about…”

Phainon swivels, walking backwards to face him, to block Mydei’s path. They both stop. Phainon extends an arm, contemplating Mydei’s half-covered chest before tapping at the center of his breast.

“…here,” Phainon finishes, softer than before.  

Mydei lifts his chin. “Is that right?”

“Mhm.”

They both go still. Phainon’s eyes rise to meet his, the pinkish remnant of his bloodied nose like a flush above his lips. Mydei focuses on that when he asks:

“You came alone?”

“What an odd question.”

Phainon’s fingertips multiply from one to three, tracing Mydei’s warpaint down, then under his pec. Mydei suppresses a shiver, Phainon’s touch like a spark to kindling.

“Did you?” He asks again, lowering his voice.

The question hangs between them, strung tight in the air.

Phainon takes a decisive stride toward him, and Mydei steps back beneath the shadow of the trees without fully understanding Phainon’s intentions; without needing to understand. His back hits the trunk of a dying olive tree, and Mydei’s already tilting his head and closing his eyes as Phainon curls a hand over his jaw to claim his mouth.

Phainon tastes of the fight; like granite dust, warm and earthen with a drizzle of honey. His kiss is hot and hungry, both of their hearts still humming on the comedown of battle. Mydei feels Phainon’s pumping under his hand. It beats even faster when Mydei skims his fingers beneath the v of Phainon’s overshirt, squeezing the firm crest of his chest. Phainon tilts down and catches Mydei’s lower lip in retaliation, nipping until Mydei retracts his hand to catch him beneath the chin.

“Is this your idea of bribery, Deliverer?”

“Of course not,” Phainon says, his breath a warm puff against Mydei’s mouth. “Why? Is it working?”

Mydei’s mid-derisive snort when Phainon catches his lips again. He pulls Phainon hard against him, as if they could melt into the hollowed wood together. Phainon’s knee presses in until Mydei’s gives way, parting to let him in. He still smells faintly of lavender from his last bath. The herbal tinge tickles Mydei’s nose. Phainon rucks his leg up and plants his foot under to entangle them even further. Heat builds in the scant space between them.

Phainon’s easy to rile. It’s flattering, when Mydei has the time to do something about it.

“Here?” He asks, Phainon dipping to kiss his ear, the seam of his jaw.

Phainon gives a hummed nonresponse into the column of Mydei’s throat. He cups a careful, still-gauntleted hand to the exposed top of Phainon’s neck.

“Is that a yes, Deliverer?”

They’re eye-to-eye in an instant, Phainon’s irises a roguish, sapphiric glint. “You’d really let me?”

It’d been a while. Mydei had been handling a surge of titankin in the south, and Phainon had been stuck wrangling the council at Aglaea’s side for weeks. They hadn’t so much as sparred together, let alone had time for anything else.

Mydei squints. “I never said that now, did I?”

“It’s written all over your face.”

“Are you sure that isn’t wishful thinking, Deliverer?”

“I don’t think so.” Phainon chuckles. “I mean…”

He drops a hand to rub the shell of his fingers against Mydei’s trousers. Mydei full-body stiffens, and Phainon’s smirk goes crooked.

“Oh my, Mydeimos, what would people say if they knew—”

Mydei jerks his knee up between Phainon’s legs, pressing unrelentingly into the darkened rise taking shape. Phainon’s fingers flinch in their grip on his shoulder.

“…You were saying?” Mydei rumbles.

Phainon hisses with discomfort. It is either that or pleasure. Knowing Phainon, it could very well be both. Sure enough, the front buttons of Phainon’s pants behind to grind down lightly against him in turn.

“You should really be more careful, Mydei.”

“Or what?”

“Or you might give a guy the right idea.”

“Hm...”

In one sweeping motion, Mydei bends and throws Phainon over his shoulder, bracing one foot against the trunk and pushing off for enough momentum to make his way back to the clearing.

“Wh—Mydei—!?” Phainon’s gives a predictable, indignant squawk before bursting into laughter. “What in the world are you—Put me down—!"

Phainon struggles, dissolving into another laugh, kicking his muddy boots. Mydei breaks into a jog. The fields are open and empty around them, without a sign of movement from the living or the dead. Mydei knows how quickly that could change—but finds that now, Phainon’s laugh ringing through the moon-soaked air, such facts no longer matter.

He dumps Phainon ass-first onto the dryest patch of the field he can find. Phainon pulls him half-down with him. By then, Mydei’s laughing, too.

“What was that for?!”

Phainon tries to sound affronted, but it’s no use. He’s far too pleased with himself.

“Can’t have you getting the right idea,” Mydei says.

Phainon blinks up at him before catching his knees in his elbows, dropping his head down as he laughs. Mydei’s unsure what to do with himself now that they’re here, reunited in a field of dead titankin, the air thin and warm in his chest. Phainon’s pale face lifts into view. Mydei folds his arms, still catching his breath.

“What?” He asks.

Phainon stares at him a beat longer. “Nothing.” He shrugs, panting. “I missed you.”

Warmth rises up Mydei’s chest, simmering into his face. He cuffs Phainon behind the ear, far too lightly to hurt.

“Fool.” The rest goes unsaid.

Phainon laughs, softer this time. “Better a fool than an idiot, I always say.”

They regard each other in silence for a moment longer, Phainon’s smile pinning him in place. The spell breaks as Phainon stands, brushing the dirt from his pants before offering his hand down to pull Mydei up. They both hurry to retract their hands—aware of what they might do, should they continue as they have; to the now-natural conclusion to all their spars and quarrels.

Despite what he might’ve just led Phainon to believe, Mydei doesn’t want to push their luck.

“Trianne said she can’t open the gate again, before I left,” Phainon says, swiping under his nose, just to check. His finger comes away clean. “Looks like we’re walking.”

“Think you can get us back?” Mydei asks, pretending to adjust his gauntlets. Anything to pull his mind from it.

Phainon gives a drawn-out, contemplative hum. “Probably?”

Mydei lifts a brow. “Great.”

“I’m kidding!”

“Sure you are.”

Mydei picks a random direction and begins to walk. Phainon jerks him by the arm to the completely opposite path, towards the line of hunched trees from where they just came.

“It’s this way.” Then, for good measure: “I think.”

Mydei lets Phainon drag him a few spear lengths before shrugging him off.

“If you’re wrong, you’ll have to kill me before you die of exposure.”

“What kind of terrible deal is that?”

“I’m not explaining to Aglaea how bad her Deliverer’s sense of direction is.”

“Oh, and I’m supposed to save you the trouble?” Phainon laughs. “As if I’d ever let you off that easy, Mydei.”

They make it to the edge of the field without incident. The Evernight’s balmy and humid. It almost feels like summertime. Only once they pass the same olive tree, stepping over its tangle of roots, does the silence break.

“So, was it my kill?” Phainon swerves to knock Mydei’s shoulder. “Or was it my kill?”

Mydei rolls his eyes and shoves back twice as hard. Phainon’s laugh rings out over the desolation as he swings away, circling back to walk at Mydei’s side.

It’s all the answer he needs.

A few hundred years ago or so, Tretos was a trading hub at the center of conquered Kremnoan territory. They were a city-state of artisans and metalworkers, all trained in the forging techniques of Castrum Kremnos, and were a principal supplier of the infantry’s swords and shields during the Era Bellica.  

Now, Tretos is nothing more than a charcoal ‘x’ on any cartographer’s map—another place consumed by the black tide.

The caravan of refugees from the city is larger than most bound for Okhema, comprised of multiple families with children and elderly. When the distress signal came, Aglaea sent all three of them for that very reason. Despite the increasingly cold nature of her eyes, the Lady of the Threads couldn’t always conceal the softened center of her marble heart.

Unlike what Phainon might’ve led him to believe, he guides them back to where Trianne sent the Trecians—some ten miles off the traditional trade route, but less than a day’s travel from Okhema’s main gate—without so much as a faltered step. Mydei thinks to rib him, disappointed that they won’t get their lost in the woods ending, but decides to hold his tongue. Phainon's already taken a beating once today.

And besides, Mydei wonders if he couldn’t show how he feels about their reunion later, once they’re alone.

Beneath the Evernight’s glow, the caravan of Trecians is like a small village—some carts drawn by hand and others by lanky mules. Clusters of firelight illuminate the path through the maze of makeshift tents and shelters. Damas, the representative for the Trecian council, meets them at the front of the encampment in anticipation of their arrival.

Elder Damas is a man of middling height and wide circumference. His beard’s peppered with gray and trimmed close to his jaw. Mydei knows the man hates him the moment they lock eyes. They’d only met briefly, in the chaos before Trianne opened the gate and Phainon began to usher the caravan away. Even as Damas’s eyes curved into a smile, aimed now in Phainon’s direction on their approach, Mydei knows.

The worst part’s that Mydei can’t blame him for the distrust. Kremnos didn’t exactly treat Tretos well under its rule. Memory is so often a prison, the vice grip of a corpse. It holds tight and does not let go.

Mydei stops at Phainon’s side, regardless. He does not mean to hide.

Elder Damas bends. “Lord Phainon.”

“Ah, please. Take your ease, Elder. I’m glad to see you hale and whole.”

“Thanks to your efforts, every member of our group will live to see the light of Kephale’s dawn. No amount of gratitude could ever suffice.”

Phainon breathes a sigh of relief. “That is excellent news, Elder Damas.”

“We understand we have already asked for more than any ordinary man can give, but—will you stay to guide us the remainder of the way?”

“Yes,” Mydei answers. Elder Damas’s eye twitches, but his otherwise placid expression remains intact. “Lady Aglaea, and all of the Flame Chase, would not see you go unprotected. The road is still perilous. Ensure your people are ready to leave on the fourth hour.”

Elder Damas looks to him in brief, reluctant acknowledgment. “Yes, Your Highness.”

“I no longer carry such a title,” Mydei says. “You are not beholden to me.”

At that, Elder Damas lingers on him a moment longer before lowering his head. “As you say.” He shifts back to Phainon quickly. “Accommodations will be made for you to rest for the road ahead, Lord Phainon. I will find you once we have made the necessary preparations.”

“Oh…thank you, Elder.” A complicated look mars Phainon’s face. “But you and the council do know I didn’t act alone. One of the Tribios opened the gate for your escape, and Lord Mydei defeated even more titankin than I did.”

Mydei jams an elbow under Phainon’s ribs to no avail. Their gazes meet, sidelong. Mydei cannot help but feel he’s trying to tell a dog to leave his favorite bone. Drop it.  

“The Tribios…Lady Trianne, yes?” Elder Damas’s tone lightens. “She is welcome to what she needs, of course.”

“…And Lord Mydei?”

The pause lurches along, clearly uncomfortable. Elder Damas looks between them, as if he can’t quite comprehend what’s taking place.

“Of course, Lord Phainon.”

“Good!” Phainon smiles. “Then we’ll eagerly await your return.”

Only after Elder Damas has shuffled out of earshot does Mydei break the silence.  

“That was unnecessary.”

“Hm?” Phainon’s brow raises. A dog with its ears perked.

Mydei grimaces.

“You’re frowning like you do when I’ve done something wrong, but I really don’t know what you could possibly mean, Mydei.”

Mydei rubs at his neck. This is already more trouble than it’s worth. The past few weeks in the field without any rest may have begun to take their toll.

“Never mind,” he grumbles. “We should tell Trianne. Have her bring word back to Aglaea and Castorice.”

Phainon lifts his face and cups a hand to his mouth. “You hear that, Lady Trianne?”

They wait a beat before a blur of white tumbles from a seam in the air, landing upside down, suspended between them.

“You rang, Snowy?”

“I did,” Phainon smiles. “You’re not too tired, right? Would you be so kind as to deliver the good news back to Okhema? I assume you heard what Elder Damas said as well.”

“Sure thing! Agy will be so happy everything went well!”

Mydei wonders how far that happiness extends. Less casualties here means more mouths to feed in Okhema, more negotiations with the Council for more coin, for better distribution. Mydei can’t say he envies her position.  

“Mydei and I will guide them the rest of the way once the Trecians have had time to rest,” Phainon continues. Whether he’s unaware of the delicate situation they’re about to walk into, or is simply choosing to ignore it for now, is anyone’s guess. “Tell Tribbie and Lady Aglaea that we should be back before the end of the Parting Hour tomorrow.”

Trianne’s brow furrows. “Snowy and De are…staying behind?”

“For now, yes.”

Her shiny eyes fall on Mydei. “But De said he’d play with us soon! Trinnon’s been waiting all day for you to come back!”

Phainon is clearly, immediately amused. How he eyes Mydei from the corner of his eye is more than enough to tell.

“And I will,” Mydei says, sending a daggered look to Phainon in return before returning to Trianne. “But it’s too dangerous to leave the caravan’s defense to one person. Give her my apologies.”

Trianne bores her gaze into him before she deflates, pouting. “Okay…”

Phainon shoots him another smile before he says, a poorly concealed chuckle underneath:

“I’m sure De will find you both once we return tomorrow. He’s not one to break a promise.”

Heat floods his face at the familiar nickname made new in Phainon’s mouth.

“Let’s go.” Mydei turns back to the encampment. “We should rest.”

“Mydei, hold on—”

Phainon strides to catch up, waving over his shoulder.

“Thank you again, Trianne!”

“Yeah, yeah!” Her voice rings out over the trees. “Just remember you two owe Trianne BIG TIME!”

“How’s the detachment doing?”

Phainon pours another cup of watered-wine, the pile of oil crates serving as their table wobbling with the shifting weight.

They hadn’t much to do until Elder Damas returned with more news, and while Mydei could be surveying the darkness pressing in on the Trecian encampment alone, the prospect of Phainon’s continued presence lures him into the firelight. A trio of lyre players had begun to tune and strum as they passed, unsure of where to go. A small circle had formed. A handful of couples began to dance.

Mydei was reluctant to linger, but Phainon had towed him in with a fleeting touch at his back; quick enough to go unnoticed.

“They’re well,” Mydei says. A smile tugs at his mouth at the thought of them. “Lady Aglaea’s working them to the bone, but they’re grateful to be busy.”

“I get the feeling they’re not idlers by nature.”

Mydei swirls his own heavily-watered wine. “Between you and me—at times I wish they were.”

“Between you and me, I agree.”

They catch up. The intervening weeks since last they met dissipate into insignificance. But it isn’t long before one of the girls spinning in the dancer’s circle, her red ribbon catching in the wreath of flames all around, approaches Phainon to ask for a dance. She doesn’t even pay Mydei so much as a thought—which is fine with him, in truth.

"Please, Lord Phainon." She bows appropriately, if overlong. “You must grant us a dance.”

“Oh, I really can’t—” He begins.

“Come!” She flashes him a smile, her fingers landing on Phainon’s wrist. “Won’t our hero grace us with his presence this night?"

“I barely know the dance, so while I appreciate the offer—”

“We’ll teach you!” She manages to jostle him, pull him another inch closer. This girl is dogged as a siren to a sailor. She doesn’t take no for an answer, and Phainon seems to have forgotten how to say it.

It’s cute, Mydei admits. How easy it is to drag him around.

As a last-ditch effort, right as the girl’s managed to tow him even further away, Phainon offers Mydei a beseeching hand—to which Mydei offers him an equally dark, warning look.

“Come on.” Phainon raises his voice over the music, ignoring how she’s begun to tug at his other arm. “One dance?”

“I’ll pass.”

“It won’t kill you.”

Mydei raises a brow and says nothing. Phainon holds his eye, ever hopeful.  

“Come, Lord Phainon!” Mydei hears the girl plead. Gentle and comely, for all her insistence. “Let him be.”

Mydei bites his tongue until it smarts. Go, you fool, he wants to say. But it is better if he doesn’t speak. Phainon will take any reaction from him, however disagreeable, as encouragement. Even when the look in Phainon’s eyes softens from a giddy question to an anxious plea, Mydei stands his ground.

The music swings into a livelier register, and Phainon’s masks slips for all of a second before he replaces it again; a grimace for a soft-edged, pinned-together smile. With a final tug at his arm, he turns back to the girl and says something Mydei doesn’t catch as she leads him into the crowd. Phainon doesn’t look back.

Mydei feels the tension drain from his shoulders.

This is how it should be. That is what he tells himself as Phainon disappears into the crowd. His heart can’t say otherwise if he refuses to listen.

For a time, he lets the scene play out before him without observing—staring into the unmoving middle-distance, sipping with uncaring frequency at his diluted wine. Inevitably, he finds Phainon as he ducks and weaves, as the lyre’s strings pluck even faster. Once Mydei finds him again, he can’t look away. At some point he’s passed from the girl with the red ribbon to another Mydei doesn’t recognize, and then a third with hair gold as cornsilk.

Drawn in a natural line from where Phainon and this third girl dance, he catches the discerning, if drunken, eye of a young man, peering into the crowd much in the same way he is. Had he been watching one of the girls on Phainon’s arm? Mydei doesn’t care enough to guess.

Phainon circles back to him as the second song draws to a close, his grin wide and happy. He’s warm with exertion; Mydei feels the heat rolling off of him. Phainon beams at him as he did in the field before tipping his newly procured cup of wine up. He takes Mydei’s and finishes that, too. Mydei watches his throat bob, swallowing himself as a new song swings into tune.

“Finally driven all your suitors away?”

Phainon scoffs as he lowers Mydei's cup. “More like I finally freed myself from their clutches.”

Mydei keeps his eyes on the swaying crowd, an unwanted ache in his chest.

“Who taught you the dance?”

Their shoulders press together, briefly, before Mydei pulls his away. He’s never been more reluctant to do so—but he can’t stand to be near him now, when his possessiveness gnaws away at his sense from the inside out. Mydei knows Phainon wouldn’t stray, knows of his attachment; it’s not him that Mydei worries about. Phainon, for his own part, doesn’t even seem to notice.

“Do you remember the other group from Tretos that arrived…what was it, six months ago? I spent some time with them at that parlor in the lower quarter where they’re stationed.”

In an uncharacteristic turn, Mydei hesitates. “I didn’t know that.”

And it’s true—he hadn’t known. Phainon had never brought it up, had never so much as mentioned it, however obliquely.

“Oh, well…” Phainon laughs. He’s nervous. Mydei’s mind rounds on that like a wolf to blood. Why? “It was while you were on that search party near Aidonia. You were gone for nearly a week.” He lifts his cup as if to drink, then lowers it. “Do you want me to, in the future? Tell you about those sorts of things, I mean.”

“No.” The answer spills forth with alarming immediacy. “Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t need to tell me everything you do and think while I’m away.”

“Alright, alright.”

Phainon drinks. Deeply. He drains the entire cup. The air shifts, perturbed in a way Mydei can’t describe. How had it turned out like this?

“You looked to be enjoying yourself,” he says, in an attempt to change the topic.

“It’s hard not to when spirits are so high. They’re good company, these Trecians.” Phainon’s flushed grin falters. “If only they weren’t so…”

This time, Mydei’s cup pauses halfway to his lips. Phainon stares out at the crowd for a beat. He sighs, wiping a sheet of thin sweat from his brow.

“Never mind. It isn’t important.”

Phainon’s gaze flicks to Mydei but quickly flits away. He doesn’t give Mydei enough time to press him for more before he continues:

“It was fine enough, I suppose.” His eyes dart over to Mydei again, lingering. “Although, I’d have preferred it if you—"

“Lord Phainon.”

A familiar, obsequious drawl creeps over Mydei’s shoulder.

“Elder Damas.” Phainon leans an elbow on the crate when he turns on his heel, his smile tempered. “Good to see you again.”

Mydei snorts quietly, solely for Phainon to hear. He glances over his shoulder to find Elder Damas standing some steps away, two younger attendants at his side. Younger councilman, or perhaps those being groomed to replace him.

“Your accommodations are ready, Chrysos Heir. If you’re ready to retire, then—"

“And what of my companion, Elder?” Phainon’s smile spreads dangerously. “He is the crown prince of Kremnos, after all. It wouldn’t do to leave him sleeping out in the mud now, would it?”

Elder Damas pales before mottled spots of color splotch his wrinkled face.

“Phainon,” Mydei hisses, scowling. What has gotten into you? “That’s enough.”

“I assure you, Lord Phainon,” Elder Damas says, calmer than his pinched expression betrays. “We had no such intentions. The Crown Prince will have his own arrangements, should he find them amenable.”

“I’d expect those arrangements to be the same as my own, yes.”  

“Certainly.”

Elder Damas casts a glance at the two behind him, and the pair departs in hurried silence.

“Come. I will escort you myself.”

Phainon casts Mydei an uncertain glance, shadows casting all over his face through the fringe of his hair, from the flickering of the fires. Mydei nods. He hopes it’s reassuring.

They follow Elder Damas through the winding halls of the Trecian camp. Many are already resting or sleeping, curled on blanket-draped sacks or carts, some on the ground with nothing between them and the firmness of the earth. The quiet liveliness of the dancing circle fades to nothing but the faint pluck of a lyre. It doesn’t take long for them to arrive at the entrance to one of the only true tents, deep red and squat, but tall enough for them to stand in—it must’ve been requisitioned from some unfortunate soul for their use. The idea doesn’t sit well, but Mydei’s little choice.

Inside are two makeshift sleeping mats, one notably larger than the other, each covered in a single linen sheet. A low table made of holly oak. Another cloth beneath to sit on. Fire burns around the tent but not within, casting its inside in a strange, purplish twilight.

Thankfully, Elder Damas vacates the premises quickly. Maybe he’s finally starting to sense Mydei’s distaste.

Once inside, with a moment finally to themselves, they both begin to undress on instinct. It isn’t done with the intention for more; it’s the perfunctory layers that would make it difficult to sleep that go first. Mydei’s chlamys, shoulder guard, and gauntlets, the pointed boots of his greaves, the one sleeve of his toga pulled over his shoulder. Phainon has less to shed—he only really need remove his coat and chlamys to be comfortable. It’s for the best. Mydei could fight without his armor—Phainon would have a harder time.

Mydei unbuckles his last remaining gauntlet, watching from the corner of his eye as Phainon sets his claymore between the two sleeping mats unsheathed, staring down at them in silence.

“What is it?”

Phainon turns to him, opening his mouth as if to speak only to fall silent.

“Nothing,” Phainon lowers his gaze and his voice. Clearly, it isn’t nothing. Mydei pulls the gauntlet off and sets it among the rest.

“…Alright, then.”

Mydei holds his eyes on him. There’s little point in picking at wounds on a night like this. Spirits are high, they have done their duty, and most importantly the Trecians are safe. Mydei is prepared to let it go.

Phainon, evidently, isn’t.

He watches Phainon pace the length of the tent stopping at the far end. Mydei hasn’t gone any further than just past the front flap.

“Phainon.”

Phainon pivots suddenly, hands at his hips.

“I don’t like the way they speak to you,” he says, determined.  

Mydei cannot help but think they’ve been here before. Even once is one time too many.

“You know there’s no need to take offense on my account. It isn’t personal.”

Phainon scoffs. “Ah, yes, because who needs personal courtesy in this day and age? Not like you saved their lives or anything, right?”

Mydei must admit such bitterness surprises him. It’s confusing, to a degree, how Phainon’s mind and appearance so often mismatch, so often betray each other.

“I don’t require their gratitude,” Mydei says, eyeing him again. “And for that matter, neither should you.”

“Ha, that’s not what I meant by…” Phainon sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face as one would labor over a stain.

There is more, Mydei guesses. Phainon isn’t telling him everything. When has he ever? His own bitter words surface.

Mydei knows it isn’t fair to think like that. He’s hardly charitable with his own thoughts. Holding Phainon to such a standard is hypocrisy at its finest—and yet, in moments like this, he feels a covetous sort of desperation; that Phainon will not keep from Mydei what he keeps from others. That in some small way, Mydei is different, and Phainon does not feel the need to hide.

“So, tell me what you mean,” he says. “What is this truly about?”

Phainon shifts from one foot to the other. “I already said what it’s about.”

“And I’ve already said it shouldn’t concern you.”

“They’re…cruel, Mydei. It’s…”

“You think I haven’t heard it all before?”

“That doesn't mean I like hearing it!”

Mydei laughs a single, humorless laugh. “How trying for you.”

“You may mock me, but I know this can’t be easy for you, either. They say such—demeaning things about you, about your people, and—and what? You think I should grin and bear it? Why do you act like I’m the unreasonable one in wanting to defend you? You think I’ll stand idly by and listen to them speak like that about the person I…”

All grinds to a halt. Phainon’s eyes hold on his, a piercing, determined blue. Mydei swallows the lump that has risen, unknowingly, into his throat.

“Lower your voice, Deliverer,” Mydei mutters, frustration seeping through. “Now.”

Phainon opens his mouth. Shuts it. He steps closer.

“I know you don’t care much for how I feel, Mydei, I get that—”

Hurt and indignation are a potent brew. Mydei flinches before he can stop it, cutting Phainon off.

“When have I ever said—"

A step thuds heavily at the entrance of the tent. They both still, the ensuing silence dragging for what feels like minutes but is likely only seconds.  

“Lord Phainon?”

A clear voice speaks through the tent’s seam. Elder Damas.

The man’s sense of timing is impeccable as ever.

“Lord Mydeimos?”

Phainon looks to him with a clear plea in his eyes, a small shake of his head. Don’t.

But it’s not as if they can ignore it. The world outside isn’t simply going to vanish as a convenience when they need it to.

Mydei stalks to the tent flap without a second look back and draws it open.

Elder Damas’s wrinkled face recoils—only for a second, but long enough for Mydei to catch. Clearly, he hadn’t expected Mydei to be the one answering to his summons. If nothing else, he regains his bearings with shocking speed.

“Your Highness.” He bows.

“I told you not to call me that.”

“Pardon for the intrusion, Your Highness. Is Lord Phainon within?”

Mydei clenches his jaw. “He is.”

“Excellent. Might I?”

Don’t really have a choice, do I?

Mydei bites his tongue, holding the flap unreasonably high given Damas’s height, and steps aside. Mydei sees who follows behind the old man too late.

Two women—girls, by Mydei’s approximation—lower and hold their heads deeply in deference. They are both thinned by the journey to Okhema, dark-eyed and of fair complexion, one more willowy than the other, and maybe a few years older, too. Neither could be over twenty summers regardless of the difference.

Mydei feels something thick and heavy within him sink.

He knows why they’ve come.

The girls step through. Mydei’s steps are leaden as he returns to stand at Phainon’s side. He cannot look at him yet.

“Elder Damas,” Phainon says, cheery enough to fool anyone. “What may we do for you?”

Mydei looks to the slighter of the two girls. Her stola is obviously a loan—clean but untailored. The opal linen swallows her smaller frame. She fidgets beneath his gaze, her eyes darting up to his for a split-second before she pales and goes very still.

“Lord Phainon. The council has agreed that the actions of the Chrysos Heirs merit greater reward than we previously discussed.”

The taller of the two girls—the only one permitted to speak—lowers her head once more.

“I am Elena, daughter of Elexion. The one at my side is Syros.”

“Syros,” Phainon says, smiling at the other girl as he would a child. “What a beautiful name.”

He’s sensed her fear; or perhaps he’s mistaken it for shyness. Regardless, Damas is quick to correct Phainon’s error.

“Syros is Elexion’s finest house girl. She is to serve the prince. Lady Elena is to serve you, Lord Phainon, but if you find her unsatisfactory for whatever reason—"

“Um, I—apologies,” Phainon fumbles, and Mydei doesn’t dare look to see his expression but sees the confusion, as clear as morning, in his mind’s eye. “Unsatisfactory? Serve us? Mydei and I don’t require any servants, Elder Damas, so while it’s—a generous offer, I’m afraid we’ll have to decline.”

“Lord Phainon,” Damas speaks so placatingly Mydei thinks to punch it from his tongue. “They are here to entertain you for the night, as well as to serve any other needs you might require. Surely, you understand.”

He will, Mydei thinks. But not completely. Phainon’s knowledgeable about many things, but in matters of sex he’s as ignorant as any other farm boy. If there were pleasure houses in Aedes Elysiae, they must’ve been exceptionally well-hidden. Even were he lascivious as one of Mnestia’s priests, it’s doubtful Phainon would know of such a custom either way.

“Ah, well, that’s…” As expected, Phainon finds himself at a door he doesn’t know how to open. “Mydei…?”

What is unexpected, is how he calls Mydei’s name:

Like an uncertain lover seeking permission.

Mydei looks to him, searching the delicate curvature of Phainon’s face. His expression’s difficult to read. Half-bewildered, a quarter disgusted, and another quarter Mydei can’t place. Mydei turns back to Damas and the women, focusing on the uneven drape of Syros’s stola at her knees when he speaks.

“As acting lead of this rescue, it is your decision.”

Silence descends as a cloak would—complete and hollowing. Mydei’s ears ring faintly. He doesn’t even hear precisely what Phainon says; if he even says anything at all before Damas clasps his hands together and bows, making his exit before Mydei can loosen the tightened clench of his jaw.

Then, it is only the four of them in the firelight.

“Lord Phainon.” Elena bows to him but dips even lower when she turns to Mydei. “Your Highness.”

Mydei ensures he meets her equally, his voice steady as before. “I don’t observe any titles, Lady Elena.”

“I see. Then, Lord Mydeimos, this mulled wine is for you—from the house of Elexion.”

Syros holds out the chalice, which Mydei only just now noticed, cupped precariously in her thin fingers. Mydei takes it, leveraging a bitter, spiced sip past his lips. He has always disliked the taste but will be fine so long as she doesn’t ask him to partake of more.

Mydei flicks his eyes to Elena, reciting the words he knows but has rarely been pushed to say. “The son of Gorgo receives your gracious offering.”

“How funny,” Phainon says, apropos of nothing. “I didn’t know you to touch anything more than watered wine. Has your taste for such things suddenly changed?”

How Mydei wishes they were alone. Then he could at least glare at Phainon openly. At the very least he could explain what all this dogged custom meant—that Elder Damas was out, in his own sly way, to humiliate them both. Instead, Mydei must settle for a paltry:

“It’s tradition. My taste is irrelevant.”

“Irrelevant?”

If Mydei had to pick the moment of his first mistake, it would be here—his eyes meeting the pain, clear and glistening in Phainon’s, on the verge of tears, dangerously close to toppling over the edge.

“I’d no idea you were so fickle, Lord Mydei.”

Mydei can’t help but feel he’s missed something important; are they having parallel conversations on wildly different topics? He wants to simply ask but he can’t—he can’t do anything but try inelegantly to parse what’s upset him. What Mydei could’ve possibly said that would bring him to tears.

“It isn’t fickleness. I’m allowed to change my mind.”

That only seems to make it worse. Phainon’s face twists. “Change your mind?”

Elena interrupts. “Perhaps Lord Mydeimos—”

Phainon looks at her as if she’s insulted him.

“Lord Mydeimos would sooner touch a titankin than he would a woman.”

The silence is deafeningly loud. Mydei meets Phainon’s eye over the lip of his cup with a raised brow. He’s no reason to be angry; at this point, his preferences are no secret. What irritates him is Phainon’s so obviously influenced sense of timing. What sort of nonsense is going through his head?

Elena lifts her eyes briefly. “W-We could fetch you a male companion if you’d prefer, Your Highness—”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Mydei says, at the same moment Phainon snaps: “That won’t be necessary.”

For once, Mydei is grateful for the women’s lowered eyes; they do not directly witness the look of warning he gives Phainon. Were they alone, he’d give the warning aloud for emphasis. Watch it, Deliverer.

But were they alone, Mydei supposes he’d have no need for such a warning in the first place.

They’ve drawn enough attention to themselves as is. Mydei doesn’t care what the rumormongers say of him; he’s thick-skinned enough to take whatever nonsense they spin in stride, and he is discerning of which good opinions matter and which do not.

Phainon’s different. There are already whispers of how he favors the Kremnoan detachment in training and deployment, of his defense of them to the Okheman council. If word travels that he enjoys the private company of their “belligerent mongrel of a prince”—as one Okheman elder so succinctly described—it wouldn’t just be damaging to Phainon’s reputation. It could upend any good will some cliques of Okhema have towards him altogether.

Which is why when Phainon openly glares back at him in defiance, Mydei ignores the glint of unfounded hurt in his eyes—no matter how badly he might wish not to. There is much either of them could say were they alone; a few months ago, Phainon might’ve let his impertinence get the best of him, and he would’ve spoken, said something so earnestly foolish Mydei would wonder why he’d picked him, of all people, to fall for.  

Fortunately tonight, Phainon keeps his mouth shut. Mydei rips his gaze from him, but senses Phainon linger.

“Lady Elena,” he says, evenly. “Lady Syros. Lift your heads.”

Slowly, a fleeting glance passed between them, they do. In his periphery, Phainon turns his face away, a hand over his mouth, thumb against his nose. Then he turns away completely, pacing to the back of tent. He can’t go very far, but at least he has the good sense to hide his expression.

“Lord Mydeimos…” Elena starts strong, but the tremor in her voice betrays her. “If we have caused offense…”

“You’ve offended no one.” He reaches for something, anything. “Lord Phainon was injured in the last battle and is in poor spirits. We’ll retire early for the return to Okhema.”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

His frown tugs down even harder. “I’ve already said such formality is unnecessary. Since your elder was insistent, stay and eat. Then, you may go. We require nothing else of you.”

“Yes, Lord Mydeimos.”

There’s a weighty, uncomfortable pause, but when it becomes clear that Phainon isn’t going to return on his own, Mydei turns and walks with measured steps to Phainon’s staunchly held back. Mydei stares at it, thinking of the lean muscle beneath, the scar on his ribs that Mydei has put his mouth too many times to count.

“Come. Eat.” Mydei lowers his voice, to one he hopes only Phainon can hear: “They’ll be gone soon.”

For a moment, he thinks Phainon might still refuse to heed him. Mydei watches the rise and fall of his shoulders for one breath, two. But Mydei can’t say anything more. Not now.

Phainon’s frown deepens but lifts into a smile as he turns back to Elena. As if his previous anguish was never there at all. He takes her offered chalice.

“Thank you, Lady Elena.”

With that, they all fold their legs and sit. Elena unpacks the smaller dishes from her tray—all are served cold, ration food, save for a small bowl of rabbit meat and thyme, still steaming with warmth. All the while, Mydei feels Phainon’s discomfort radiating from him in a wave of nervous heat.

For any other, Mydei might think such unease strange—an offering of young women from a vassal state to Kremnoan men was common practice, particularly in times of war. Many were expected to serve and fight alongside their man’s family, and even if they did not marry they would be expected to bear him children. Sometimes, women of lower status were offered as a piece in a larger game; a bastard child born of a Kremnoan warrior, particularly of the Kings’ Aegis, were coveted most of all.

It’s a custom Mydei learned of from Krateros when he was barely old enough to understand. At fifteen, he’d led the detachment to victory against an Aidonian incursion near a small hamlet. A small victory with no casualties—hardly worth more than a good meal as reward. But the elder of the hamlet had offered Mydei his youngest daughter. She was a year his lesser, willowy with wiry chestnut hair. She met his eye willfully, but he saw how she trembled under her father’s hand at her shoulder. Leonnius and Ptolemy said she was beautiful, and Mydei supposed she was—but he looked at her and felt nothing more than a sense of gentle pity.

Leonnius mourned his rejection of the elder’s offer the most. She had the shoulders of a bowman, and you know what they say, he’d said, miming the draw as they walked, shooting an invisible arrow into the line of sycamore trees. Did you not notice? A strong woman creates even stronger children, Your Highness.

Mydei had not noticed. Back then, he’d been far too occupied by the shadows over Hephaestion’s back to see much of anyone else.

Of course, Phainon would know nothing of this practice. A part of Mydei feels guilty for not finding a way to explain. Another, infinitely larger part of him is glad decorum saved him from having to do so. Mydei does not know the principles of Aedes Elysiae; even if he did, he imagines Phainon would have his own interpretation, that his decency and genuine care for others would win out over whatever tradition dictates.

It’s admirable. Naïve, but admirable in a way Mydei will never put to words.

What is less admirable is his sullen countenance as they eat. As it stands, Mydei cannot readily tell if the women’s presence is the root of his foul mood or if their argument from before is to blame.

Inevitably, though, Mydei knows both of these can only be traced back to one source: himself.

The remainder of the meal passes uneventfully. Neither Elena nor Syros are inclined to speak at first, but Phainon eventually manages to coax them into a teetering conversation. Elena tells Phainon of life in Tretos, about her family’s home and their acres of plum trees. All four of them save Syros—who upon encouragement from Elena, clears half the table—pick at the food. The longer Mydei has to look at her, the more obvious Syros’s youth becomes. She’s still growing; maybe as young as fifteen. Her muddy green eyes dart to him periodically; bright, intelligent, and wary. It reminds him of how a rabbit looks at a fox or a wolf crouched in the bracken.

Phainon’s bad mood withdraws as the night continues as well; that, or he manages to paste his smile back over his rotten temper. He laughs, once, at a story Elena tells, and Mydei’s chest burns as bile rises up his throat.

Even as Elena and Syros begin to gather the dishes and make to leave, he and Phainon have hardly shared a glance.

Mydei sees them off. In the shadow of the tent flap, Elena stops and turns to him, her face lifted. It’s with a small rush of relief that she meets his eye, clear and unafraid.

“Lord Mydei, about tonight…”

“Tell the Elder whatever you must.” He keeps his voice low. “We need not speak of it more.”

“Ah, no, what I mean to say is—”

She steps in, her shadow overlapping his. Syros follows close behind.

“My people have been distrustful, and in this distrust we have failed to respect your honorable actions. I ask for your mercy on their behalf, and for your forgiveness.”

Mydei softens his expression and lowers his gaze to her.

“There is nothing to forgive, Lady Elena.”

Not until she’s retreated a handful of steps away does she seem to reconsider. Syros clings to her arm as Elena returns to stand before him, even closer than before.

“Should you and Lord Phainon require time alone to…discuss matters of certain importance, I will ensure no others seek to disturb you before our departure.”

Mydei wonders if he succeeds at hiding his surprise; Elena’s expression gives nothing away.

“That is unnecessary,” he says, resisting the urge to look away. “But…appreciated.”

She smiles up at him but says no more. He waits until their two wispy figures pass behind the makeshift row of carts and lean-tos before ducking back inside.

Phainon’s put his back to him. Mydei watches him for a torturous moment before doing the same.

He doesn’t stop to think as he gathers his discarded armor—his gauntlets, the top plates of his greaves and boots. After everything that’s transpired, it’s better they spend the night apart. Even should they leave this argument where it lies, they could always resolve it once they’re back in Okhema, in territory more familiar to the both of them. As much as he hates to admit it, Phainon wasn’t the only one out of his depth. Mydei needs time to clear his own head, to think of what to say and how to say it.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Mydei pulls his arm back through his sleeve. “I can’t stay here. Not now.”

“Mydei, please—”

Phainon closes the distance between them with two strides. Mydei doesn’t understand why it startles him; the tent is cramped to begin with. Yet the sudden grip—squeezing Mydei’s bicep for a breath before retracting, as if burned—makes his breath hitch. Too much has changed since their carefree tumbling in that field of defeated titankin.

“Please,” Phainon says, softly. “I’m sorry. I don’t—” He wracks a hand back and through his hair. “I don’t want to argue anymore, alright? Let’s rest for now and we—we can discuss it another time, or...” Then, firmer: “Don’t go, Mydei. Stay.”

Mydei sighs. Phainon would have to swallow much of his pride to beg him this. Pride, on top of his misplaced compulsion to minimize his importance. On another night, Phainon might let Mydei go without a word of protest, convinced that whatever has been said or done, it is what he deserves.

Mydei doesn’t want to discuss it later. He doesn’t want to discuss it tonight at all. He wishes they were back in that desolate field; where Phainon ribbed and grinned at him freely, where Mydei could kick and roll him through the mud and kiss every bruise he made better.

A fistfight between them is simple, and Mydei feels like a child for longing for it.

“Mydei—”

“I heard you.”

A pause, a mutter: “Then why didn’t you say anything?”

A fresh wave of irritation washes over him. Mydei whirls around.

“What would you have me say, Phainon? That it fills me with rage that they address you and not me? That I am given a servant to warm my bed and you a noble? These…injustices, if that’s what you wish to call them, do not upset me as they do you because I don’t care if they speak to me, and I don’t follow my forebearer’s antiquated customs.”

Phainon doesn’t look away, his eyes burning. “What do you care for then, Mydeimos?”

“You know what I care for.”

“Do I?” Phainon fires back.

Mydei grits his teeth. “Why do you insist on acting like a child?”

“Oh, I’m the childish one?”

“Yes,” Mydei says, pointedly. “As you so often are. Being near you is exhausting.”

With that, Mydei drops what he’s gathered to pull his gauntlet back on. He turns back towards the tent flap to hide how his eyes sting. Phainon’s ceased his protesting, but Mydei feels the oppressive silence as a pit in his chest. He buckles his gauntlet back on, focusing on the ritualistic simplicity of the action, steadying his racing heart.

“She wanted you,” Phainon says, suddenly. It is nearly…an accusation. “That girl—” And he practically spits the word. “Syros. I could see it in her eyes.”

“You should get your vision checked,” Mydei grumbles, glancing over his shoulder.

“She was nervous. Frightened, even. But still, she wanted you. She’d resolved herself to do what she had to, to repay you properly for rescuing her, for helping her people, and I—”

Annoyance pricks under Mydei’s skin, a feeling far uglier close behind. “You’re assuming. Don’t.”

“I know desire when I see it, Mydei. I’m not as blind as you seem to think I am.”

There’s a force behind Phainon’s words now, and it is what drives in the pieces that Mydei failed to put together.

The dance. Their argument. How on its face, Mydei’s deference to Phainon on the fate of Elena and Syros could be seen as indifference. Had Phainon taken it all as encouragement for him to sleep with another? As Mydei expressing that he…wanted someone else?

Mydei turns to face him, the puzzle snapping into place.

“And you think I wanted her?” Mydei asks, slowly, unable to conceal his disbelief. “You think I’d choose her as my bedmate?”

Phainon works his hands into fists before releasing them.

“No.” Then, his real answer, or at least one closer to the truth: “I don’t know.” A beat. “Would you?”

Phainon speaks in a rush, as if he may lose the nerve to speak if he doesn’t hurry. Admitting he’s baffled seems concurrent with admitting defeat, so he asks:

“Have you ever known me to show interest in another man, let alone a woman?”

Phainon searches his face, his anguished expression deepening. “You’re not denying it—”

“I’m getting there,” Mydei grits out. “If you’d answer my question.”

Phainon’s throat bobs.

“…No.”

“Was it not you who said I’d sooner fuck one of Nikador’s kin?”

“That was…” Phainon laughs in obvious self-scorn, flustered at Mydei’s choice words. “That’s not what I said—"

“All else aside, she is a child to me, Phainon.” For this, Mydei does raise his voice. “Of course I wouldn’t have! What is wrong with you?”

“I know, I—I don’t know, alright! I know it’s illogical.” Phainon throws his arms out, gesturing to the frustration grating through the air. “If you could tell me what’s wrong, that’d be great! I feel like I’m losing my mind for…” He scoffs, at a loss.

Mydei levels his gaze. If there’s any time to say it, it would be now.

“Were you jealous?”

“Of you?” Phainon sputters.

“No. Of Syros.”

Phainon’s jaw, which had fallen open, snaps shut.

“Phainon.”

He still won’t acknowledge him, but Mydei knows what he says next won’t fall on deaf ears.

“You should know that no matter how frustrated or angry I am with you, no matter how hard you try to push me away.” Mydei takes a breath. “I will never stray from your side. I will never seek to punish you simply because we disagree.”

Phainon still doesn’t look up, his brow knitting.

“This jealousy you feel…know that it is baseless.” His heart begins to beat up into his throat. “Why would I ever seek another if I have you?”

Phainon sighs, his shoulders drooping, as if under a great weight. “I told you it—it doesn’t make sense—"

Mydei takes a step towards him and Phainon draws up and into himself but doesn’t pull away. Their eyes meet. Mydei begins to close the widening gap, lowering his voice.

“Would I be here, at your side…” Phainon shrinks back, but Mydei gives chase, their footsteps dampened on the packed earth. “…consumed by the thought of your body…your kiss…” Phainon’s back almost hits the tent’s thin, fluttering wall, Mydei looming into him. “…if I were intending to bed that girl?”

They are close once more, a hand’s width apart. Phainon’s gaze doesn’t stray from his. Their breath mingles in the warm air between them.

“Were you really thinking of me?” Phainon asks, quietly.

I often am.

Mydei maps the topography of Phainon’s face; traces the slope of Phainon’s nose with his eyes, down the small, pale dip of his lip.

“Why are you surprised?” He asks back, making his way back to the bright blue ring of Phainon’s eyes. A hole burns a hollow into his chest. “Have I not made myself clear to you?”

“I don’t think you’re the problem,” Phainon says, even quieter than before, his gaze downcast.

“Would you rather Lady Elena were here instead of me?”

“No!” Phainon blurts, incredulous. “Of course not! How could you say that when I—I only—”

The rest is a mutter Mydei can’t catch, despite their closeness. But Mydei doesn’t push. He’s afraid. Afraid to admit how afraid he is. He bites down hard on his cheek and doesn’t speak. He hardly breathes. He finds it difficult when Phainon’s like this; alert, like a stag ready to bolt. His eyes cast about everywhere but to where Mydei stands before him, near enough to touch.

Eventually, in the thickening silence, Phainon raises his voice enough to be heard.

“There’s only you. The only one I want…is you.”

Mydei counts two breaths, each steadier than the last.

“You have me.”

Such simple words. Why they should strike such nervous fear in him, Mydei does not know. He senses he’s said something he cannot easily take back. The swooped sensation in his stomach only intensifies when Phainon lifts his face to stare at him, his expression unreadable.

“You have me,” Mydei repeats, softer, but the words have barely left his tongue when Phainon bridges the gap between them and kisses their remnants away.

It’s a messy, noisy affair. Phainon tugs him close, as if he cannot stand to be apart any longer. His small sounds of protest at this nonexistent distance fade into whimpers as Mydei grips Phainon’s hips, his lean and muscled waist. Phainon’s hands roam over him in turn, seeking every inch of burning skin, gathering heat under Phainon’s touch. It’s only when Phainon cups his ass, squeezing, and sense rears its unwelcome head.

“We can’t,” he says to Phainon’s lips, but then Phainon kisses him again anyway, moving to hold Mydei’s face, cradling him like he’s breakable.

“Says who?” Phainon murmurs between another kiss.

Another, and another, and another.

“They’ll hear,” Mydei manages.

“We’ll be quiet...” Phainon slows, their noses brushing. “I can be quiet.”

Mydei finds himself smiling into the fleeting, urgent press of Phainon’s mouth. He remembers Lady Elena’s promise; it is likely no one will disturb them until the caravan’s set to depart. Still—to say this is unwise would be an understatement.

“Since when have you ever learned how to shut your mouth?”

“You’re pretty good at it.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well…” Then Phainon’s smiling into their kiss, too. “You’ll just have to teach me, won’t you?”

That’s all it takes. Mydei gives in.

The makeshift sleeping mat’s only three steps behind him. Three steps and he lowers back-first, dragging Phainon to his knees to lie atop him, their limbs bumping nervously, rearranging. The hooks of Phainon’s shirt bend, some of them snapping away as Mydei tugs it off of him on their descent. Phainon doesn’t even care, giggling as the sleeves catch on his elbows, neither of them wanting to break the kiss to pull it over his head. So, they kiss like that for a time, until Phainon’s spit drools from the corner of Mydei’s mouth and he wants him so badly his lungs ache, and Mydei pushes Phainon back so he can shrug his shirt away and Mydei can catch his breath, unbuckling his gauntlets, his pants.

His overheated fingers fumble with the familiar clasps at his left elbow until Phainon brushes him aside and finishes it for him. Phainon tugs the gauntlet from his forearm, kissing Mydei’s palm, his wrist, his knuckles. The sight stirs a faint tingling in Mydei’s chest; he pulls Phainon’s face back to his before the feeling grows, licking into the heat of Phainon’s mouth, the taste of wine and meat still lingering on his tongue. A burning warmth wraps at the nape of Mydei’s neck. Phainon pulls to Mydei’s sitting half-up, Phainon between his knees, Mydei’s legs spread around him.

Without another word, Phainon’s deft fingers finish what he’d started at Mydei’s belt, and Mydei winces at the first touch of his callused fingers wrapping around him. Mydei doesn’t pleasure himself when they’re apart—it’s the first in a month’s time since he’s been aroused like this.

Mydei aches for him. He anchors one hand behind him, another clawing at Phainon’s arm, and Mydei feels the muscles flex and move as Phainon strokes the full length of his cock leisurely. Phainon watches his own hand jerk Mydei off with a steadily rising pace, the rise and fall of his bare chest quickening in turn. It’s attractive in a way Mydei can’t describe.

“Your cock is pretty.”

The first thing Phainon’s said in minutes, and it had to be that. Mydei thinks he might jump out of his skin, the heat of his face suddenly feverish. Only then Phainon strokes him harder and turns his attentions back to Mydei’s neck—biting and sucking down with a vengeance. Mydei grips him by the underarm, his exhale shuddering through him. It takes concentrated effort for Mydei to get his next disbelieving words out steadily.

“Who taught you to talk like that?”  

Phainon drags his teeth up to Mydei’s chin until they’re face to face; his expression insultingly innocent for the filthy way he rubs at the head of Mydei’s cock.

“Like what?”

“Don’t be cute.” Mydei remembers to breathe. “Or was this from your village girls, too?”

“Do I detect a hint of jealousy?” Phainon says, smile thinning to a smirk. “It’s just an observation, Your Highness.”

Mydei runs a vindictive hand down Phainon’s chest, pinching and rolling a nipple under his thumb. Phainon gives a soft moan against his lips, shivering as Mydei continues south, dragging his fingertips against the definition of his abdomen, thumbing the dip of his naval. He drags his gaze back to Phainon’s face with deliberate slowness, realizing too late that Phainon has lowered his brow to rest a breath from Mydei’s own, his normally bright eyes near black in the shadow of the lanterns. Mydei tips up but stops short of kissing him.

“I’m not the one who needs to keep their jealousy in check.”

He doesn’t give Phainon time to speak—only to hitch his breath as Mydei slides his hand beneath Phainon’s waistband and rubs his palm down the already-hot, hard length of his shaft. Phainon’s own ministrations on Mydei’s cock stall, squeezing once before resuming in shoddy, distracted strokes.

Mydei decides to let Phainon neglect his duty for now. He’s too focused on working the underside of Phainon’s cock into the shell of his hand, constricted in the confines of Phainon’s pants as it is. Mydei doesn’t do anything else, initially; he listens for the tremor in Phainon’s gasp before digging down deeper, cupping the twin-slung weight of Phainon’s groin and squeezing.

Phainon flinches, his cock twitching against Mydei’s inner arm. Phainon breathes his name. What little control Mydei managed to keep frays.

Or really, impatience bests them both at once, and Phainon takes two hands to frantically finish unbuckling his trousers. Mydei pulls him down so hard their teeth clack. It is less a kiss than a punch, a desperate attempt to siphon his desire somewhere away from his cock. He refuses to come just from Phainon’s pawing.

Luckily for Mydei, Phainon manages to shove his pants down his thighs, and Mydei forgets anything else. His insistent mouth finally softens as Phainon climbs closer, partway over him. Mydei breaks the seal of their kiss to set his gaze upon Phainon’s lap, the slight curve of his cock dipping heavily, solid under his fingers.

He’s rather well-endowed. That was Mydei’s thought when he got his hands on Phainon during their first tumble together, shortly followed by: I want him. They’re long past those initial, fumbling attempts at pleasure, but Phainon’s inexperience still rears its head when Mydei least expects it.

When he least expects it apparently being now.

He starts slow, stroking Phainon from base to tip. Mydei stops to thumb just below the head, rubbing until the sleeve of skin furls away and Mydei can smear the thin slickness over his palm. Phainon’s abdomen tightens. The curls of hair at the base of his cock are already darkened, wet with his arousal.

Mydei flicks his eyes back up.

“I’ve hardly touched you, and yet…”

At the same moment, Mydei begins to stroke him in earnest. Phainon sucks in his lower lip, biting until it whitens with strain. His eyes lid heavily but refuse to close, as if snared by Mydei’s undivided attention. Somehow, Mydei cannot help but feel they’re stumbling into dangerous and unfamiliar territory. The brief flash of uncertainty, though, is nothing compared to his depraved curiosity.

“Do you enjoy the idea of my jealousy that much?”

Phainon shakes his head, but Mydei can’t tell if it’s a yes or no.  

“Say it.”

“No…” Phainon whispers. “I don’t know.”

He’s achingly hot. Phainon swivels his hips closer. Mydei’s neglected cock stirs, but he has other priorities. He leans in, kissing the burning center of the sun-marked side of Phainon’s throat.

“Should I mark you here?” He murmurs to the shell of Phainon’s ear. “On your pretty neck…”

Phainon gives a choked sound, his lips catching on Mydei’s jaw.

“Wait,” he whines. “Mydei, wait, I think I…”

Mydei lifts his head. He strokes faster, the schlick of his hand on Phainon’s cock loud in his ears.

“So that tomorrow, all of Okhema…will know you’re mine?”

Mydei isn’t expecting a response, and Phainon doesn’t give him one. Not with words, anyway.

He watches as Phainon’s expression shifts. His eyes squeeze shut, his body tensing, and Mydei gets all of two hard pulses of warning from the cock in his hand before Phainon spills over his fingers with a punched-out groan.

Mydei’s throat closes, too stunned to speak. He doesn’t do much more than tighten his grip as Phainon’s cum slicks his palm, pearling at the head of his cock with each stroke. Mydei’s so focused that Phainon’s kiss lands at his jaw at first, missing his lips until Mydei tears his eyes away to kiss him properly.

Mydei slows as Phainon softens but doesn’t stop even as Phainon’s hips jerk, twitching into his hand. They kiss until Phainon breaks it with a shaky gasp, digging his fingers into Mydei’s forearm.

Mydei stops, lifting his soiled hand away. Phainon’s sweaty brow presses to his. They catch their breath against each other. Mydei feels the weight of Phainon’s stare before Phainon pulls him close, squeezing both arms tight around him.

“Mmph. Phainon—"

“Can I do it?”

Mydei grunts again. He tries to wriggle free, or at least loosen Phainon’s hold. No luck.

“Do what?”

Phainon slides a warm, wandering hand onto his lower back. “Prepare you...”

Mydei twists to catch him by the wrist with his clean hand, face warming at the clear insinuation.

“Not tonight.”

“But you’re still hard,” Phainon says, sulking into the crook of Mydei’s neck.

Mydei senses his resolve already crumbling at the reminder.

“Stop clinging and—let go of me for a second…” he mutters.

In a surprising turn of events, Phainon obeys. He doesn’t draw away completely—that damn hand still rests at Mydei’s lower back, stroking idly.

“If you don’t want me to, then…” Phainon’s flush blooms down his throat, impossibly redder. “Can I watch?”  

Mydei huffs a laugh, guiding Phainon’s hand to slide up his back, to curl at the point of his shoulder blade.

“Not tonight,” he repeats.

And for all Mydei has said, this is what Phainon takes as a challenge. He wriggles down, closer, resting his chin in the valley of Mydei’s ribs, gazing up, pulling Mydei off-balance against him.

“Why not?” Phainon asks, innocent as a maiden.

Why not? Mydei can think of a hundred, hundred reasons why not. They are both filthy from a day of battle with no means to bathe and surrounded by a caravan’s worth of people. All they have is the remnants of olive oil from dinner. Yet he says none of those things aloud, says nothing at all until Phainon puts his lips against his skin, kissing down his stomach before sucking and biting at his navel. It isn’t much—hardly anything—but enough to rouse where he’d been flagging against his thigh.

But Phainon pays his rising attention no mind; he kisses back up the way he came, peppering every other sink of his teeth with a muffled moan. Mydei’s chest tingles, a warm pressure working its way down his spine, coiling tangibly behind his cock.

Phainon sinks, open-mouthed, over his left breast—the side Mydei’s toga normally covers. His tongue digs hard into the soft give of his nipple, stippling quickly as Phainon kisses it with the same passion as he would Mydei’s mouth. It doesn’t take long for Phainon to dig his teeth in before dragging up. The point of his canine leaves a long, angry welt to the dip of Mydei’s clavicle.

“Just to be clear…” Phainon says as his hand finally finds Mydei’s cock with the lightest of holds. “This is a bribe.”

Despite himself, Mydei lets his eyes fall shut with a shuddering breath. He won’t get off like this. Phainon’s teasing couldn’t be more obvious. Mydei threads his fingers into the curling wave of hair at Phainon’s nape, knowing he should push him away.

“Not a good one. You’ve behaved so badly tonight. Why should I let you off the hook so easily?”

One kiss on his throat leads to two, then three. After the fourth Mydei stops counting.

“I’ll be good…” Phainon murmurs. “I’ll be really, really good…please, Mydei…”

Mydei cracks his eyes open, an all-consuming heat spreading over him, pooling low in his belly. He exhales, combing the hair from Phainon’s brow to see his expression. His unguarded desire.

“Prove it.”

Phainon stills for one breath before sitting up, his eyes never leaving Mydei’s face. He stands in one fluid motion, shucking off his trousers with a soldier’s practiced efficiency. Phainon tosses them aside. Mydei doesn’t see where they land.

He’s seen Phainon naked too many times to count; both before and after they started sharing a bed. It isn’t his bareness that surprises Mydei—it’s his self-assurance. When he looks like this—the built, scarred surface of his skin on full display, a low-heated drive simmering behind his eyes, his erection already curving up—Mydei cannot tear his gaze away.

“That was fast,” he comments.

“What can I say?” Phainon reaches down and tugs at Mydei’s waistband until Mydei lifts his hips, and then his own sweat-stained pants are being thrown somewhere unimportant. “I can’t help my youthful vigor when you’re around.”

Mydei laughs. “You’re not all that younger than I—"

He’s cut short by Phainon grabbing the wrist of his hand—the one still wet with Phainon’s cum—and sucking two of Mydei’s fingers between his lips. The hot tip of Phainon’s tongue licking into the space between the digits shocks him into silence. Phainon sucks his fore and middle finger clean before taking Mydei’s ring finger. He lowers to his knees to kneel between Mydei’s legs as he does it; kissing, sucking, and swallowing his own seed from Mydei’s hand. Phainon takes all three deep to the back of his mouth before pulling off, licking what remains from Mydei’s palm, the splatter on his thumb and pinky. Mydei only realizes once Phainon releases his wrist that his whole arm quivers.

That’s when Phainon spits everything back into his own hand, spreading the mixture over his own fingers as he says, terse and low and roughened:

“Turn over.”

Something akin to a million pinpricks race over Mydei’s chest, his back, his insides. His pulse quickens, pounds harder as it plummets south. A full-body shiver ravages him.

Slowly, he does.

As soon as Mydei’s braced on his hands and knees, a ravenous kiss lands immediately at his tailbone, each huff of Phainon’s breath sending shivers up his spine. Phainon curls his dry fingers over Mydei’s cock and jerks him off as he plants sloppy, mindless kisses over his sacrum. It’s right as Mydei begins to grow impatient that Phainon takes his hand from him to spread him open.

Phainon starts, tentative as he usually is with his preparations. He’s slicked three perfectly good fingers but only nudges one against the clamped rim of Mydei’s hole. Most nights, Mydei does not mind; it’s a tender habit he doesn’t mind if Phainon keeps.

But right now the shy press of his fingers is uniquely torturous. It takes all Mydei has not to shove his hips back and pierce himself down to the last knuckle, until Phainon gives him what he really wants. His cock hangs heavy between his legs. Mydei clenches his fists in the single linen sheet.

“Phainon…”

A kiss at the middle of his back paired with the curl of the index finger inside him makes Mydei flinch. Phainon gives a moaned nonanswer.

“Go…harder…”

“Harder…?” Phainon rasps.

He thrusts that single digit slowly at first, picking up speed, jabbing down mindlessly into the spot he knows makes Mydei tighten up.  

But that’s not what Mydei wants, and he isn’t in the mood to be teased. Not anymore.

He reaches back and grips Phainon’s vaguely sweaty palm, drawing him out before adjusting, fumbling, crushing three fingers into one, and shoving the tips against the tight ring of muscle until it gives. Mydei swings his hips back and fucks onto Phainon’s fingers with a bitten groan, head dropping between his shoulders. The reality isn’t as simple or easy as the fantasy; the pain steals his breath, and the idea of taking Phainon’s length feels insurmountable. The girth of three fingers is nothing compared to the full firmness of his cock.

“Come on, Deliverer…” He pants. “Don’t make me—”

But Mydei doesn’t get to finish goading him. Phainon’s palm slaps between his shoulder blades and shoves him to the sleeping mat, the weight of his body falling over his back, pressing him into the sleeping mat. Mydei shivers at the throbbing length of Phainon’s cock lying against his ass—a hot, damp curve. Phainon’s breath ghosts over his back, lands at the back of his skull at Phainon mouths into his neck, his hair. The odd angle of his arm, pinched behind his back, burns up and into his chest. Mydei feels his own heart pounding against the earth, his pulse jumping in his throat when Phainon jams his pinky in beside the rest and begins to fuck him in earnest.

“Is this mine, too?” Phainon drives his fingers hard and deep, curling until Mydei chokes on a moan. “This place inside you. Is it mine, too?”

What a worthless question.

“Do you really—” Mydei’s groan catches. He squeezes his eyes shut. “—have to ask?”

“Mydei—” Phainon makes a breathless, desperate sort of sound. “Oh, Mydei…”

He grabs Mydei by the waist to flip him onto his back. It happens so quickly, so unexpectedly, that Mydei can’t even resist. Phainon wrenches his fingers out with a twinge, Mydei’s hole twitching. Phainon shimmies backward onto his knees and fans his hands over the inner-muscle of Mydei’s thighs, curling his fingers in before pressing flat, spreading Mydei’s legs open. His mouth’s a damp, searing press on Mydei’s abdomen, working its way down to kiss the base of his cock.

His mind only having just caught up with his body, Mydei stares down at the crown of Phainon’s head.

“What’re you doing?”

Phainon buries in face in the sparse, coarse nest of hair before lifting his eyes, so blue in the lowlight they hurt to hold.

“I want to,” Phainon says with astounding clarity. “Can I?”

Mydei resists his initial retort of I don’t know, can you?

Phainon sighs, his nose skimming the base. “Please?”

Mydei steadies his breath, slows his racing pulse. He drops his head back to the sleeping mat.

“Do what you want.”

Phainon’s unpracticed at giving head—he moves too fast, sucks too hard, and can’t take anything into the tighter reaches of his throat—but what he lacks in technique, he makes up for in enthusiasm. He kisses down the length of Mydei’s shaft and licks his way back up with the hot flat of his tongue.

It’s been so long. Too long. Mydei feels the pressure pooling, tightening, one perfect move from Phainon’s mouth from the edge. He’s only just given his permission—he’ll finish before Phainon’s barely begun. Mydei props onto an elbow to look down his torso again.

“Enough. Get on with it,” he grits, barely holding on.

Phainon smiles up at him like a vixen, Mydei’s cock a breath from his reddened lips.

“Get on…and do what, exactly?”

“You fucking…” Mydei stops to breathe as Phainon suckles at the tip again. “…tease.”

As if seeking to prove him wrong, Phainon takes Mydei deeper into his mouth. Mydei swears again under his breath. He brushes the fringe from Phainon’s brow once more before settling over his head, silken hair slipping through his fingers. Phainon doesn’t do much more than bob over the same inch or so, but the slick heat of his tongue works around him, pressing into the slit like he means to enter Mydei from there, too.

Mydei curls forward, his hand still gripped in Phainon’s hair, towing him in until they’re nose-to-nose. There’s nowhere to hide now. Not when they’re this close. Phainon’s eyes widen, his pupils dilating—but he doesn’t try to pull away.

“Enjoying yourself?” Mydei growls.

“Only a little,” Phainon murmurs.

“I don’t want your mouth, Phainon.”

“Tell me what you do want.”

Mydei takes a shaky breath. “I want you to make me come on your cock.”

Phainon’s smirk falters, his pulse quickening under Mydei’s touch. His swallow goes down thick.

“So,” Mydei whispers, tipping in. “Hurry up.”

It’s easy for Phainon to finish the job; their lips crash together, and the faint note of discontent at Phainon kissing his own taste into his mouth is short-lived, inconsequential. Mydei pulls Phainon up until his weight settles over him. They lie hot and aching against each other for all of a second before they’re both fumbling down, Phainon spitting into his palm to slick his length, his hips lifting, adjusting, then the blunt press of his cock nudges once, twice, before finding the twitching give of Mydei’s hole.

Mydei forces an exhale out hard as Phainon enters him, adjusting around the intrusion. The stretch is a sharp pain but peters out fast as Phainon works himself inside in shallow, searching thrusts. Flush floods Mydei’s face until he’s feverish, near dizzy; no matter how many times they do this, no matter what position and despite his own experience, it’s as if it’s the first time.

Mydei lets his eyes fall shut, mouth opening to a moan. He presses his knuckles against it, bites down with a muffled groan as Phainon bottoms out with an aching, pulsing sting. Mydei feels it all the way in his stomach.

Phainon must’ve taken Mydei’s words to heart—he hurries, pulls half-out only a handful of times before he starts to seek a rhythm. Mydei’s plenty wet. With Phainon’s own contribution, each slide is a little easier. What starts as a slow, aching drag quickly builds as Phainon thrusts harder, faster.

Mydei’s starting to settle onto Phainon’s girth, into the smoldering build of pleasure when Phainon grips under both his knees and lifts, angling his hips upwards. The unexpected change sends a jolt up his spine, coaxes an unexpectedly pitched groan from Mydei’s lips. He doesn’t cover his mouth fast enough.

Phainon’s next thrust misses, but the one after doesn’t, and once he has it Mydei’s stifling the sound into his palm, fumbling when Phainon releases one of his legs to mesh their fingers together, pressing their twinned hand to the makeshift sleeping mat to drive his cock in even deeper.

Phainon grunts quietly with every other slam of his hips. He’s trying to be silent, but it isn’t enough. The pleasure’s white-hot with each strike of Phainon’s cock.

“Phainon—ah—” Mydei whispers. “Quiet…”

“Mydei, I…” He hears Phainon say, voice threadbare and wrecked, his eyes falling shut. “I…”

A warm wetness drips onto Mydei’s chest. He ignores it at first, wanting Phainon to finish what Mydei thought he might say. Those three foolish, forbidden words. When they don’t come, Mydei forces his eyes open against the force of his pleasure, and what he sees sends his lust-addled mind spiraling down a path he’d never considered before.

“Phai—non—” Mydei manages between thrusts. “You’re...”

His throat closes, something primal curling in his chest. Mydei pulls his damp hand from his face, reaching out to thumb Phainon’s top lip, smearing it a rouge-like red.

“…You’re bleeding.”

Phainon finally stalls, his cock buried to the base, his chest heaving. Mydei winces at the persistent pressure; it’s been too long since he felt this kind of fullness. A fresh trickle of blood races like a raindrop from Phainon’s nose, slipping over the obstruction of Mydei’s thumb before running down his wrist, pattering onto Mydei’s torso. His blood’s a dark maroon against the crimson of Mydei’s warpaint.

Mydei holds his bloodied hand suspended between them. Phainon blinks down at it before touching his own thumb under his nose.

“Huh…” Phainon exhales.

Mydei pushes onto his elbows shakily, a hand against Phainon’s chest. There’s blood spatter there, too, drops of it freckling the defined rise and slope of Phainon’s pecs. Mydei swallows.

“Tip your head back,” he rasps, looking for a piece of clothing, a bandage, a rag, anything. He can’t pull his thoughts together. The whole tent around them seems blurred.

Phainon doesn’t move though, wiping the blood between his fingers in a daze. He either didn’t hear Mydei or is intentionally ignoring what he said. Considering they’re about as close as two people can get to being one, it must be the latter.

Mydei should flip them over. Phainon’s his match in battle, but with such sufficient distraction Mydei could best him with brute strength alone—which is what he would do, were he capable of unclouded thought. Or any thought at all. He should push Phainon out of him and wipe the blood from his face. This could be a sign of something worse.

“Deliverer…"

Mydei tries to sit up even further, wincing. Pleasure’s still bundled tight and low in his abdomen. Pulling his attention from it isn’t easy.

Phainon’s slipped halfway out of him with their shifting, but it doesn’t last long. He closes the distance to Mydei’s sharpened exhale, and Mydei’s mind goes blank for a single, searing second. He tries to shoot Phainon a glare.

Tries. He probably fails. There’s only so much he can muster with all eight inches of Phainon’s cock sheathed inside him.

“Phainon…what’re you..?”

Phainon drops his bloodied hand and spreads it over Mydei’s middle without a word. Tenderly. Carefully, his blood slick like finger paint. Mydei jumps at the unfamiliar sensation, at the feeling of blood on his skin—a feeling he knows well—suddenly, irrevocably different when it comes from Phainon’s long, slender fingers.

He’d been so ready to snap at Phainon a moment ago. Now, the words catch like hooks in his throat. Neither of them speak as Phainon retraces the arching paths of warpaint, his touch firm, as if he intends to dye Mydei’s skin with the poppy-red shade of his blood.

It’s disgusting. Mydei knows he should think so. Yet this simple fact hardly answers why he shivers when Phainon swipes red over his stippled nipple, why he feels the need to tighten on his cock when Phainon fills the empty diamond at the corner of Mydei’s eye.

“Mydei,” Phainon finally says, low and desperate. “Tell me there’s no one else.”

Phainon rocks into him at an agonizingly slow pace. He can’t speak. All he can try for is:

“Phainon…”

“I know—I know it’s…Please…I want to hear you say it.”

Mydei watches him, his breath heavy in his chest. Slowly, he cups Phainon’s hand, tilting to press his head against it.

“You’ve marked me with your blood as a Kremnoan would...”

Their eyes meet.

“…how could I think of another?”

Phainon makes a delicate, strained sound, his touch curving under Mydei’s jaw. At first, he thinks Phainon’s come again by his words alone.

But then Phainon grinds his hips up and in like a plea, like he’s begging Mydei with his body. He cradles Mydei’s leg to his chest, sucking an open-mouthed kiss into the dip of Mydei’s knee before sinking his teeth in. Mydei’s whole side tenses, his toes curling. His cock dribbles, fluid trickling over his hip. He grips the back of Phainon’s shins, unsure whether he wants to pull him closer or push him away.

“Say it again.”

Phainon bites hard into the muscle of his thigh, rolling into him, and Mydei’s cock pulses, his groin tightening dangerously, any thoughts beyond where their bodies meet dissipating into nothing. Phainon nudges perfectly into that place inside him, the slightest shift of his cock sending twitches of pleasure down the inside of Mydei’s legs, up into his taut, bucking hips.

“Phainon.” He tries, and fails, not to whimper—like Phainon isn’t wrecking him, ruining them both.

“Mydei…”

Phainon drives into him so hard Mydei flinches, his spine arching off the sheet. He rails Mydei mercilessly for a few blistering strokes before he stops to hump him indolently, pursing his lips around a moan. The contrast is like whiplash; Phainon takes him to the edge of orgasm before pulling him back again and again.

“Say it,” Phainon repeats, his softened, urgent words a stark contrast to the savage way he fucks into him.

Mydei digs his heel hard into Phainon’s lower back, claws him closer by the grip Mydei has at the back of his knees. Mydei releases him, satisfied, before leveraging onto his elbows. He looks Phainon clear in the eye, heat prickling over his face.

“Only you.”

Phainon stares down at him a moment before he dives down. The kiss is deep but Mydei senses a lingering timidness; one he attempts to pull from Phainon with his tongue. Phainon sighs through his nose before drawing back, hovering over him, spit stringing between their lips.

“Am I…is it…” Phainon murmurs. “Too much?”

“If I can still stand when you’re through with me…” Mydei answers, brushing the tip of Phainon’s nose with his own. “You won’t have done enough.”

Phainon breathes out shakily once. Inhales.

He retracts his hip before snapping back in, pressing hard until Mydei shivers before doing it again. Mydei moans, open and unashamed against Phainon’s panting mouth. After a handful of torturous thrusts, the pausing grind of his cock lessens, quickens, Phainon’s patience wearing thin. Then, the breaks disappear altogether, and Phainon’s fucking him in hard, deep strokes, hinging to press Mydei’s knee to his shoulder. Mydei bites down on a moan, wisps of it slipping through his teeth.

“Mydei…” Phainon says, low and husky, his breath hot, his dark, wet eyes fixed on Mydei’s face. He pounds into Mydei steadily now, the slap of Phainon’s hips against his ass only overpowered by the pant of their breath. Mydei doesn’t know what he’ll do if Phainon stops now. He doesn’t want him to stop.

Mydei wraps an arm over the back of Phainon’s neck with a low moan, sinking his fingers into the plane of Phainon’s shoulder. His other hand lands at the back of Phainon’s thigh before clawing its way to the perfect swell of Phainon’s ass.

“Should I pull out?” Phainon murmurs around that poor excuse of a kiss against Mydei’s knee. As if on cue, a thin drop of blood drips onto Mydei’s thigh from his nose. “Please. I wanna stay. I’m so close, Mydei…Mydei—”

This is madness. The sound of their coupling would be unmistakable to anyone a stone’s throw from the tent. And yet that feels so unimportant compared to the spikes of pleasure melting into him, rippling through him like rain filling a river.

“Do what—ah—you want—"

“Can I—?”

Mydei pulls Phainon down the last few inches to kiss him and hopes it suffices.

He tastes of blood—like rusting iron. The bow of Phainon’s lip is soft and wet with it, and Mydei drags them together until their noses crush, until they’re breathing the same scorching air, until all he can smell is the tang of Phainon’s blood smearing over his face; all he can feel is the weight of Phainon’s body, the thick stretch of his cock sheathing, sliding home within him again, and again, and again.

Orgasm crests, falling over him unexpectedly. His cock throbs hard once and then he’s spilling, untouched, cum squirting onto his chest, over his collarbone. Mydei reaches a shaking hand to stroke himself through the rest, but Phainon’s faster.  

Phainon jerks him off fast and rough, his grip so tight it hurts. It’s exactly what Mydei wants. Pleasure surges again, hinges on ecstasy as Phainon coaxes another shot from his softening cock.

Mydei’s gasp gives way to a broken moan, cracks to nothing but a shuddering breath when Phainon dives down and begins to kiss and lick the seed from his chest, a trail of thickly smeared blood in his wake. All the while, Phainon’s hips and hands haven’t stopped. He’s relentless; a quality Mydei has always liked about him, however begrudgingly.

Liked. Loved. Loves.

Amending always to always, except now, Mydei locks his grip around Phainon’s wrist to slow his strokes. Mydei’s about to shove him away completely when Phainon bucks into him once, twice, and then stills, his mouth flush and hot against the rise of Mydei’s chest. Phainon’s nose presses into the seam of his arm, muffling his own whimper into Mydei’s skin as he empties inside him.

Despite how his whole body shivers with overstimulation, Mydei manages to clench around him one more time, and then Phainon’s flinching, sobbing, burying his face in Mydei’s underarm. The hot, twin weight of his balls press hard against Mydei’s rim. He’s so deep it stings, the slight twitch of his cock as he comes almost too much to bear.

Had he the capability, Mydei thinks this is when Phainon’s seed would take within him. An absurd thought. Beyond absurd. Almost absurd as the wave of longing that swells into his chest, flooding his face with a painful, obvious warmth.

So, Mydei lets Phainon stay. He’s breathless, too, pleasure still pounding through his veins. He cradles Phainon’s head, trying to calm his heaving lungs. Eventually, Phainon settles his weight onto him, collapsing with his face still burrowed against the side of Mydei’s chest.

When Phainon lifts his head, Mydei takes in the reddened rim of his eyes, the sheen of glass over his irises. Mydei lifts his hand from the back of Phainon’s head to stroke mindlessly over his back. He doesn’t know why; it just feels right.

“Are you…alright?”

He’s abashed as soon as the words leave his lips. A tremor threads down Phainon’s spine. Phainon’s tongue darts to wet his lips.

“I will be,” he murmurs. “That was…”

His voice dies. Mydei finds he doesn’t have the words, either.

For a time, neither of them speak. They barely move. Only once Phainon’s breath steadies does he push off of Mydei’s chest, bracing on his hands. Mydei stays still, studying him as the alarm flickers over Phainon’s expression at the sight of their blood-smeared chests. Phainon swipes at the dried blood under his nose, his smile faltering.

“Wow,” he exhales. “I really…made a mess, huh?”

Mydei huffs. Before he can answer, Phainon’s gaze drops even lower.

“Oh…”

He reaches between Mydei’s legs to hold himself as he pulls out. Mydei doesn’t wince, but he does grimace at the discomfort. His knee still propped on Phainon’s chest falls to the side, his hamstring tingling with relief.

“I…sorry.” Phainon mutters. “I didn’t realize I was still…”

“It’s fine.”

Mydei turns his face away as the head of Phainon’s cock slides free, breathing around the raw, returning sensation. He senses Phainon freeze in his periphery. Mydei eyes him only to find Phainon staring at where they were just joined together. 

“Phainon.”

Phainon doesn’t startle, but he knows he’s been caught. Mydei throws his arm out against the rest of the sleeping mat.

“Come here.”

A hand strokes against his thigh—an absentminded, possessive touch.

“We should clean up first…”

He’s right. Phainon looks like he’s emerged from a sorely-won spar. Mydei guesses he doesn’t fair much better himself.

“Now,” Mydei grumbles, hoarseness slipping in.

Phainon stills a moment before crawling to his side, that heated touch trailing up Mydei’s hip, his side, wavering to a lighter, careful stroke across his chest. Phainon’s head comes to rest on Mydei’s outstretched arm, and silence swallows them again. The only sound’s the soft tinkling of Phainon fiddling with the metalwork of his necklace, askew on Mydei’s chest. Phainon fingers at the edges of each piece with absentminded care.

His eyes are the same jewel-toned blue as the lapis inlaid on each square of gold. Mydei hadn’t truly noticed until now.

“Me too.”

Phainon’s brow dips, puzzled as he looks up. “Come again?”

“Earlier,” Mydei says, tracing that ray of sunlight. “The woman with the red ribbon in her hair. The one you danced with.”

Phainon’s expression softens.

“I was jealous, too,” Mydei finishes.

Phainon blinks. “You…really?”

“Yes.”

Phainon’s quiet for a moment before an uncertain grin tugs at his lips.

“You? You were jealous?”

Mydei’s hot behind the eyes. “Who else?”

“You? Mydeimos the Undying? Jealous?”

“No. The other Mydeimos.”

“Well, there’s a thought…” Phainon says, giddily.

Mydei pinches his closest nipple. Hard. Phainon kicks out on instinct, using the opportunity to hook Mydei in by the knee and tangle their legs. What starts as a playful tussle ends in Phainon pulling Mydei on top of him, nipping at his jaw until Mydei occupies his mouth with something better.

This kiss is slow. Unhurried. Phainon locks his arms over Mydei’s neck, keeping them chest-to-chest even as Mydei pulls away. Unable to resist the urge any long, Mydei licks his thumb and begins to scrub the dried tracks of blood from Phainon’s face, wiping his dirtied finger on Phainon’s chest before wetting it again. Phainon closes his eyes, content; as if he’s happy to be covered in Mydei’s spit, like one cat grooming another. The inner-workings of Phainon’s mind are a mystery to him.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Phainon says without opening his eyes.

“You’re impossible,” Mydei mutters, rubbing at the bow of his lip.

“Only for you.”

His words are laced with satisfied exhaustion. They should rest; it can’t be long before they’ll need to lead the Trecians through Okhema’s gates.

Mydei tries to bury his desire, but it’s no use. He worms his arm between them and takes Phainon in hand. He’s still soft, but Mydei knows what to do to change that quickly enough.

Phainon’s eyes fly open, his hips jerking up on instinct into Mydei’s touch. He’s still a little sensitive, but the wanting tremor in his voice only spurs Mydei on.

“Mydei…” Phainon gasps. “Really? Already? Not that I’m—complaining, but I don’t…don’t know if I can—”

“Of course you can,” Mydei murmurs, one last kiss to his lips as he sits up, settling back to rub Phainon’s cock between his palm and the crease of his ass. “Unless…”

Mydei quickens his strokes, and Phainon firms with a long, low whine. He grips Mydei’s thighs like a lifeline.

“Unless…what…?” Phainon asks, rolling up into Mydei’s hand.

Mydei looks down his nose at him.

“…Unless you’re not up for the challenge?”

Phainon stares at him, surprised, maybe, before he begins to laugh hoarsely, his abdomen twitching between Mydei’s legs. He smiles and Mydei’s heart burns.

It’s a familiar look they share—one they’ve exchanged countless times from across the sparring ring, in Okhema’s courtyards and battlefields, across the private space of Mydei’s bath, Phainon’s room, the soiled sheets of their bed. Places where no others are of any importance, where it is just them beneath the dawn’s eternal light.

Come and get me.

Mydei lifts his hips, sinking onto him once more, and for the few hours left of their endless night, Phainon does just that.

The sun doesn’t rise on Oronyx’s endless night, but the water clock flows from one hour to the next, until eventually Meles knows it must be time for them to be getting on.

The Holy City’s another half-day (night?) of travel, and they’ll be at the back of the pack thanks to Clia’s bum foot. Meles returns from relieving himself at the edge of the caravan to find Lycas already awake, slinging water from his thickly-bearded, windburned face. He’s seventeen summers older than Meles, old enough to be his father, but they’ve always been more like brothers.

“You hear?” Lycas starts, wiping his face on his sleeve.

“Huh?”

“That Chrysos Heir says we’ll be in Kephale’s city by fourth quint of Parting.”

“There’s no way.” Meles hops onto the cart edge, sopping the last traces of crust and oil from the dirty bowl still perched on Lycas’s crates of ore. They’d pulled them from the cart and used them as makeshift tables for the celebratory glad-we-aren’t-dead meal. “Weren’t we two full cycles out last the seers checked?”

Lycas raises his arms in surrender. “That’s what Lord Phainon said. Take it up with ‘im.”

“Which one’s that?”

“What you mean ‘which one’? The other’s the son of Eurypon. He’s a bit hard to miss.”

“Ah, right.” Meles thinks of walking another four hours. His blisters already sting.

“Lord Phainon’s the one Isa was dancin’ with last night. Remember?”

How could Meles forget. He’d been ablaze with envy. His buoyant mood takes an immediate nosedive.

“Where’s Elexion?”

“You didn’t hear?” Lycas starts stacking his crates. “Elder Damas picked Elena to entertain the Chrysos Heirs last night. Elexion’s been frettin’ over her all night since she returned.”

“What, they rough her around?”

“Who knows. Don’t think so.”

Lycas lifts three stacked crates like it’s nothing, and Meles scoots over to let him by. The cart creaks and groans under the weight.

“That Lord Phainon seems the decent sort,” Lycas continues.  

Meles sneers. “Maybe. Wouldn’t put anything past a Kremnoan, though. You know how they are.”

Lycas just sighs, looking away with a shrug. Meles squints at him in disbelief.

“Lycas.”

Another sigh, and this time Lycas deflates a little to lean against the cart. The rest of their party’s starting to wake now. There’s mist rolling in from the hills.

“I don’t know. The prince seems decent enough, too. Doesn’t talk much, but with a presence like that I bet he kills titankin just by lookin’ at ‘em. And we owe him, besides.”  

“The hell’s all that supposed to mean?”

“He killed the mad king.”

Meles scoffs. His mind wanders to Isa’s ribbons flitting like birdwings as she danced with the other one.

“Yeah, and it was the least he could do,” he says.

Lycas barks a laugh, startling him.

“Sometimes I forget how young you are.” Lycas shakes his head. “Y’don’t even remember what it was like…”

“You all talk about it enough I don’t need to, and what the hell’s that son of a tyrant ever done for—"

“—Excuse me, Master Lycas?”

Meles flinches as Lycas jumps up, hurrying to stand and put himself in order.

“Lord Phainon!?”

From the mist—seemingly from thin air, even—the Chrysos Heir materializes before them. What really happens is likely closer to Lord Phainon stepping out from behind the cart as any other person would, but Meles is too suddenly sick to notice. He hadn’t gotten a very good look at him before, when he was dancing with Isa. Lord Phainon’s lost his white coat and wears only simple, black clothing. His complexion’s pale and luminous like a noble lady’s, his eyes blue like a river. Anticipation, awe, eagerness, and a healthy rush of jealousy mush together and sit like a pellet in his stomach at the sight of him.

“Please, don’t get up on my account,” Lord Phainon says with a dismissive wave. He nods to Lycas, a faint smile unmoving from his face. “You are Master Lycas, yes?”

“Y-Yes. What can I do for you?”

“Ah, but it’s less what you can do for me than what I may do for you.” Lord Phainon steps closer, hands clasped behind his back. “I hear your father is the famed craftsmen and collector of notable renown, Lycander of Tretos?”

Lycas nods. “He was, Thanatos guide him.”

“My apologies.”

Lycas hurries to shake his head. “Many years have passed. I’ve continued his work, in a fashion, but I fear it may not be up to your standards—”

“Oh, you flatter me, but I’m hardly practiced at appraisal myself. I still have so much to learn.”

“Well, in that case, if…”

Despite how Lord Phainon’s presence flusters him, Meles can’t help but notice the faint pink-purple marks around the dark band of leather at his neck. A few even scatter down to his chest, disappearing beneath the black collar of his shirt.

The nerve of him, parading those around without an ounce of shame. He must’ve really had his way with Elena to be putting on such a display. Meles would bet good coin that the Chrysos Heir’s used to such treatment. The girls and boys probably fall at his feet every night in Okhema.

“—Meles, my cousin Melessius’s second son.”

Meles jerks to attention, his body standing before he even realizes what he’s doing, his palms breaking into a clammy sweat. He lurches sharply in a bow.

“Lord Phainon.”

“Ah, I thought I recognized you,” Lord Phainon says. “You’re a friend of Lady Isadora’s, aren’t you?”

Heat bursts over his face like a flame.

“I am, yeah.”

“She spoke quite highly of you.”

Meles lifts his head so fast it spins. “Really?”

Lord Phainon’s smiling at him funny, lifting just under his eyes in a way that makes him both genuine and sly, depending on the angle. Meles isn’t very good at reading faces, anyway.

“Yes, really. Although, if she asks, you didn’t hear it from me, alright?”

All of Meles’s envy vanishes like dew. He may be grinning like an idiot, but what does he care?

“’Course, Lord Phainon. You have my word.”

And just like that, Lord Phainon shifts his attention away, turning on his heel back to Lycas.

“Now, Master Lycas, if you’d let me bend your ear a little longer…”

“Certainly! As you mentioned before…”

Meles tunes them out as they both begin to stroll away; he’s never cared for relics or metalwork like Lycas or his brothers, and whatever Lord Phainon’s after doesn’t really matter, anyway. Isa had spoken highly of him. Highly! Of him!

“Oh, and Meles? A word of advice.”

Meles falls out of his daydream like a rock from the sky. Lord Phainon’s turned to him with that unobtrusive smile.

“Lady Isadora told me you’re an aspiring infantryman. So, you should know that Okhema has little in the means of a city guard—we owe most of our protection to the detachment of Kremnoan warriors that joined us thanks to their prince’s cooperation. Surely, you know of him! In fact, you probably saw him as recently as last Action Hour.”  

Meles feels the color drain from his face.

“H-He joined you in this expedition, did he not, Lord Phainon?”

“Yes, he did,” Lord Phainon says lightly, but Meles cannot shake the feeling of a blade at his throat. “But I suppose that’s really neither here nor there.”

He laughs gently. Meles wonders if his knees have turned to fig preserves. Nobody’s even said anything funny, why is he laughing?!

“My advice to you, young Meles, is that you cast your preconceptions aside before we reach the gates of Okhema. There are some in the city who’d tell you otherwise, but I suggest this as someone who knows how to stay on Mydei’s good side.”

Meles doesn’t speak, but he does stand even straighter as Lord Phainon continues:

“He won’t judge you based on where you’ve come from. Your mistakes, your past, your grievances—the prince doesn’t care for such things. His impartiality is a quality I find…rather admirable. All you must do is prove to him that you’re willing. That you’ll protect Okhema and all of its people as your new home. He’s tough, and it won’t be easy—” Lord Phainon laughs. “—but I trust you’ll see soon enough that he is far greater a man than King Eurypon ever was or…could ever hope to be. Do you understand what I mean?”

Meles nods, unable to summon the right words. Lycas shifts nervously over Lord Phainon’s shoulder, his gaze askance.

“Yes…” Meles blurts. “I…think I do. Thank you, Lord Phainon.”

“Of course.” That smile falls a degree. “And if you run into any trouble in the city, don’t be afraid to let me know!”

Meles nods again, uncaring how stupid he appears. He doesn’t even attempt to listen in on their conversation this time, too confused to make much sense of anything but the embarrassment tingling in his toes.

Lord Phainon must be closer to the prince than he thought. Who would ever guess the one everyone’s calling their one-and-only-future-savior would care about a Kremnoan. A Kremnoan from Kremnos—a whole kingdom of bloodthirsty zealots who’d done more bad for the world than good. They’d got what was coming to them, losing everything like they did. Talanton had to balance the suffering they’d inflicted somehow.

Yet that Deliverer talked like it was all some big misunderstanding. Maybe he had the luxury of keeping everyone on his side. Maybe that exiled prince and him were actually friends. Wracking his foggy memory from the night before, Meles thinks he saw Mydeimos watching the dancers, assumed he’d been staring at Isa (because who wouldn’t, she was pretty as Mnestia)—but maybe, the one he’d really been staring at—

Meles sits back on the cart. Lycas laughs at something Lord Phainon’s said, any tension in his stance completely gone.

The fate of them all on his shoulders, endorsed by that Lady of the Threads. Funny and good-looking to boot. And now he’s got the son of Gorgo at his side.

That Lord Phainon has no idea just how good he’s got it.