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Chapter Text

“You called for me, my lord?” Martin asked, just once. The marble on which he knelt was gleaming, and yet opaque, colored like the fog of the Lonely. Martin could not see his face reflected back at him, even as he stared down at it. 

The whole room, really, was an abyss not unlike the Lonely itself. The cold distantly prickled his skin. He knew if he were aware enough of the temperature he would shiver, but because of what the Lonely had made of him, he did not. The fog lingered lovingly in his lungs when he breathed.

Lord Lukas, sitting on the throne a ways above him, finally responded. “Yes. The generals say you’ve done well in your field assignments, tracking down lost souls.”

Quietly, Martin thought that he was certain they had not been lost. But they were those that had escaped the domain of the Lonely, and that could not stand. The Lonely survived on secrecy and silence, its secrets kept by a populace that never strayed far beyond its walls 

No one left the Lonely and lived to tell of it.

“Yes, my lord,” Martin answered, keeping his voice level. 

“It takes a special talent, to transport the especially unwilling, misguided though they are,” Lord Lukas said, in his falsely jovial voice.

Martin was glad, then, that he was not expected to meet Lord Lukas’ eyes, because he was sure something in his own would reveal that flash of sudden discomfort he felt at the memory. Of the people he brought back, struggling, pleading, crying that they wanted to remember who they'd been, the life outside.

Lonely knights could not be convinced to stray from their orders, of course. For they did not feel. 

Martin often wondered if something had gone wrong, when he’d first devoted himself to service. Something surely must have. The others weren’t haunted by ghosts of emotion like he was, at times, like prickling nuisances in his chest. Pity or sorrow, at the most inconvenient times. 

“Yes, my lord,” Martin said instead, conscious that too long of a silence would mean an implicit disagreement, and, likely, a punishment.

“As it happens,” Lord Lukas said, “I find myself in need of someone with such exemplary skills.”

“I would be honored to serve, my lord,” Martin answered, an automatic response ingrained in him. Perhaps, at this point, service was tattooed on his very soul.

“Good,” Lord Lukas said, as if Martin actually could have refused. “Lord Magnus has asked for our help in delivering his betrothed to him.”

Martin frowned at the marble below him, his leather armor creaking as he shifted ever so slightly. “His...betrothed?” he asked, thoughtlessly. 

There was a weighty silence. Then, in Lukas’ dangerously jovial voice, Martin could hear the threat like a shark’s smile, white as whalebone. “Questioning your orders?”

“Apologies, my lord,” Martin hurriedly said. Distantly, he felt his heart pounding, but at this point in his training he felt so disconnected from his body it almost seemed like a drum, sounding from far away. “I meant nothing of the sort. I only hadn’t realized the Watcher intended to marry.”

“Yes, it came rather of a shock to many of us,” Lord Lukas intoned, that razor threat in his voice dissipating. Even as he still sounded pleasant, Martin noted the mist thickening in the room. It was a telltale sign Lord Lukas was not pleased, though, Martin thought thankfully, it didn’t seem to be directed at him. 

“And it is not a coincidence that he has decided now, with the eve of the Eye’s eclipse approaching, to do so.” There was a sound of Lukas rising, his booted footsteps echoing on the marble. Martin saw in his periphery that Lord Lukas came to stand before him, but he didn’t dare raise his eyes. “So, to your duty. You will take his betrothed close enough to the Kingdom of Beholding that it is clear there were no attempts at a purposeful betrayal. But you will ensure he does not reach the Kingdom of Beholding.”

Martin frowned down at the marble, uncertain if he’d heard correctly.

Lukas continued, “Ensure it appears accidental. Some natural death befalling him on the road. Perhaps the Stranger’s domain would be far enough. Lady Nikola is always keen for trespassers.”

“My lord,” Martin asked, tentatively, “so I...understand completely, you want me to...fail?”

“I do,” Lord Lukas answered. “And I will arrange whatever punishment Lord Magnus deems fit for you, in bringing about the loss of his betrothed. Perhaps death, but I rather think with Magnus' wrathful streak, it will be something far less kind.”

Martin stared at the swirl of marble, his head such a storm it felt empty. Lukas’ hand came down and brushed, gently, through his hair. The freezing ache of the touch chilled Martin’s skin, settling in his fluttering lungs. 

“This would be of the utmost value to the kingdom. You’ll be glad to do it, won’t you?”

Martin wanted to ask why. Why this person--this betrothed--was so dangerous to Lord Lukas, so important to Magnus’ plans, that he had to die. But what he wanted and what he could freely do were two very different things.

So Martin answered, around his leaden tongue, “yes, my lord.”

“Very good,” Lord Lukas said. This time, as the fog curled against his cheek, Martin could tell he was pleased. Martin wondered, as the curl of it sent shivers down his spine, if this was what a human’s caress felt like. Perhaps he’d known, once. Before he’d pledged himself to the Lonely. 

But he couldn’t remember it.

“Your contact will wait for you at the Hunt’s gates tomorrow morning,” Lukas said. "Pay the huntress and ensure Magnus' betrothed stays put, at least until Nikola's domain. I'm told he's...flighty."

Martin recognized the dismissal in the pause that followed. “Yes, my lord,” he said, pushing up to his feet, his aching joints a far away thing.

He was careful, as all of them always were, to avoid meeting Lord Lukas’ eyes as he bowed and left the room.

The Hunt’s gates were towering, brutal things. Sky high, made of metal and oak that was stained with the red of bodies that had tried and failed to take the Kingdom. Even now, outside of wartime, the bodies of criminals and deserters hung from them, bloody reminders of the Hunt’s violence. 

Martin didn’t fear the Hunt, because of course, he no longer had the capacity to feel such things very strongly at all. But he was objectively glad that the Hunt had never been an enemy of the Lonely. 

As Martin approached on horseback, the line attached to the second horse for his soon-to-be companion trailing behind, he saw the two figures that waited for him outside the gates. They were pinpricks at first, through the mist of early morning, but as the distance shrunk, Martin saw the taller of them—a woman, blonde, lithe, brutal—was clutching onto the other one’s arm, a man who was smaller, darker skinned, and cringed away from her. 

Martin supposed, as he came closer, that he was an understandable choice for a betrothed. He didn’t look like a royal, with his dirtied clothing and messy, greying hair, but his face was...nice to look at. High cheekbones and arched brows and a full mouth and large, bright brown eyes. 

Eyes that settled on Martin’s approach, when he came close enough, and stared defiantly, almost angry, bright and combative. It was a strangely intriguing combination, with the man's objectively small, slight frame. 

The woman stared Martin down as well, her body coiling in a way that reminded him of a predator, preparing in case of the need to strike. “Name?” she asked, curtly, when Martin came close enough to be within earshot.

Martin looked at the man beside her, for a moment, who stood as far away from the woman as he could with her brutal grip around his arm. The man stared at him with that defiant anger, but, closer now, Martin recognized the flicker of fear in his face. 

A flicker of...something--sympathy, sadness? Martin sometimes thought he no longer had the names for them, anymore--sparked in him, for a moment, but he let the fog in his chest swallow it down. “Blackwood,” he answered, looking back at her levelly. “Lord Lukas sends his thanks.”

She snorted, rolling her eyes. “Sure,” she said, her mouth curling. “Where’s my payment, then?”

Martin untied the pouch of gold the treasury had supplied him from the reins, tossing it at her. She caught it deftly with her free hand, using her teeth to untie the string, and peering inside. 

The man beside her had his jaw set tightly, and was looking away, his hands balled into fists. Martin stared at him, as the woman considered the gold’s weight. The man didn’t look like someone eager to be carted off to marriage. In fact, with the way the man stared at the distant treeline of the woods, he looked like he was romanticizing the idea of bolting into them.

Martin forcefully drew his eyes away from the line of the man’s jaw and said, shortly, “it’s all there.”

The woman bared his teeth at him for the interruption, but quietly seemed to agree, because she closed a fist around the pouch. “You hear that?” she said to the man, her grin crooked and full of sharp teeth as she yanked him closer, drawing a yelp from him. “It’s your lucky day.”

She used her grip on him to yank him closer to where Martin waited, letting him stumble as she let go of him. The man clutched his arm closer to his chest, his shoulders hiking up, tense, as he glared back at her. There was a moment in which the man’s eyes flicked to the forest behind Martin, in which he seemed to consider whether or not he could get away. But a quick glance behind, to the woman who still watched with those wolf-like eyes, seemed to sway him against it. 

He looked up at Martin, unease and poorly concealed fear written on his features. Martin looked back at him evenly. He jerked his head behind him. “That’s your horse.”

The man blinked at him, his eyes darting to the extra horse Martin had brought in tow, then back. “I’m not getting on that thing,” he said, that defiant look back in his eyes. 

His voice was unexpectedly deep, hoarse, but low and warm like woodsmoke. It took Martin a moment to realize what he’d said. 

The woman came up from behind him and took his arm, shaking him roughly. “You’ll not jeopardize this deal for me. Get on the horse--”

“Seeing as you’ve been paid,” Martin interjected coldly, drawing her attention, “he’s no longer yours. Kindly take your hands off him.” Pointedly, he rested his hand on the handle of the sword at his side.

She again bared her teeth at him, but did as he asked, though she let go of the man with a little shove that drew a pained sound from him. “Fine. It’s your problem when he takes off into the brush, then.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Martin smiled at her, his own show of teeth. “Pleasure doing business with one of the Hunt’s finest.” He watched for a moment, ensuring she turned away back toward her domain. Then, to the man, who looked a little lost, he said, “it’s a long journey to Beholding. We’ll need to be on horseback.”

The man glared defiantly for a moment longer, before he looked down and mumbled something. 

“Sorry?” Martin asked, raising a brow.

“I’ve never been on a horse,” the man grit out, looking tense.

“Ah,” Martin said, considering. That might prove to be a problem. “Well,” he decided, “you’ll just have to ride with me, then.”

The man stared at him, his mouth opening and closing. “Wha--with you ?”

“Yes,” Martin answered distractedly, turning to tie the second horse’s lead away. He looked up at the woman, who had begun her trek back to the gates, and whistled. “Oi!” When she turned, he pointedly held up the lead. “An addition to your payment.” She gaped at him, for a moment seeming to weigh whether or not he was joking. He decided on dropping the lead, and letting her deal with the skittering horse, as he looked back at the man, who hadn’t really moved. 

He was still staring at Martin with that combination of wariness and confusion, like he didn’t know what he was supposed to do next. 

Martin held out a hand to him. “Put your right foot in the stirrup,” he said, “and I’ll help you swing over.”

The man hesitated, looking, again, tense, as if he was considering bolting again. Martin looked back, wondering what was it that Lord Magnus could have wanted with him. It must have been something, if Lord Lukas was willing to risk breaking the peace between the Lonely and Beholding to ensure this man never reached Magnus. Martin very much doubted that something was love, as little acquainted as he was with the feeling.

“If you hesitate any longer, we won’t get through the woods before dusk,” Martin told him, only half-joking. “And the creatures in those woods are ruthless at night.” 

Something...unpleasant sparked in Martin’s chest when the man cast a fear-filled glance at the treeline.  Martin sighed at the unwelcome feeling, which the man must have taken as a sound of impatience, because he looked, suddenly, nervous, as if Martin might forcefully reach for him. 

Instead, Martin kept his hand steady, waiting, though he made sure to still look at the man expectantly. Tentatively, the man reached out and took his hand, his foot settling in the stirrup Martin had vacated. His hand was warm and a little sweaty. His pulse thrummed fast against Martin’s fingers. It was the first contact Martin had had in a while that was not meant to hurt. His skin--soft, uncalloused--felt almost too hot against Martin’s perpetually cold skin.

“On three,” Martin said, forcing his voice to come out evenly, “you’re going to push up on your right foot, and ease your other leg around. Alright?”

The man stared at him for a moment, his large, brown eyes searching his face, before nodding. Martin counted, and on three, helped ease him over so he was settled just before him on the saddle. There was just room enough for him to fit, but only if he rode pressed up against Martin’s front. The man was almost unbearably warm, so very different from the lonely creatures Martin knew. The man seemed to have expected the sudden contact as much as Martin--which was to say, not at all--, going a little tense when he finally settled. Though perhaps that was also because the horse shifted at the added weight, its hooves sending plumes of dust into the air around them. 

Martin steadied the horse with a twitch of the reins, though his attention was on the other man. “Don’t worry,” he told him. “I won’t let you fall.”

“Thanks,” the man said, shortly, and it sounded more like a scathing insult than an expression of gratitude. Though, when the horse shifted again, the man sucked in a breath and leaned back into him, his hand flying back for something to steady himself on and landing on Martin’s thigh. 

The heat of him was a strange kind of agony. Martin was thankful of the armor that provided at least some barrier. Still, Martin didn’t want the man to fall since he was an inexperienced rider.

He gathered the reins in his left hand, and used his right to wrap around the man’s middle. The man went stiff under Martin’s touch, for a moment, but slowly the tension began to bleed out of him. Martin almost thought it was begrudging, the way the man gave in to leaning back against him simply to have some assurance he wouldn’t fall off. He smelled like sweat and fear and cardamom. 

“Better?” Martin asked, after he’d settled.

“How long until we get there?” the man grit out, after a tense moment. 

“Depends on the weather and the terrain. And the things we run into, I suppose,” he added honestly, noticing that the man went a little tense when he said that. Martin wanted to reassure him that he’d protect him, but he supposed since he was intended to be the man’s escort that would go without saying. 

It would also be a lie. 

“Could be anywhere from a week and a half to a few weeks,” Martin continued, keeping his voice carefully neutral. 

“Great,” the man breathed out. He glanced back at Martin, looking over him out of the corner of his eye. Martin looked back, nonplussed, raising a brow. “So you’re...from the Lonely?” the man asked, tentatively, as if he wasn’t sure if he was allowed the question. 

Martin supposed that made sense. The Lonely guarded its secrets with a violent, cold wrath. Though this was not a secret. “Yes,” Martin answered easily. 

The man looked at him a moment longer, and seemed a few times to gear up to say something before stopping. Finally, he asked, “what’s your name?”

The whole of his name, the way it was supposed to roll off of his tongue, took a moment to genuinely remember. Identity was not much of a thing that mattered among the knights. “Martin,” he said, finally. “You can call me Martin.”

The man stared at him for a moment longer, before letting out a sigh and nodding, turning back around. 

Martin’s brow furrowed. That...wasn’t how these conversations were meant to go, was it? “And...your name is?”

“Do you actually care?” the man shot back, turning his head to glare. Martin must have looked sufficiently lost for a response, because something in the man’s expression softened a little, and he sighed again. When he turned back around, Martin barely heard him when he said, “Jon. My name is Jon.”

Jon. Martin had an absurd urge to say it out loud, taste the name on his tongue and see if it left his mouth with a similar warmth. 

He did not. Instead he said, a little stiltedly since he’d not had anyone introduce themselves to him in longer than he could remember, “I see.” This seemed to be the wrong response, as Jon went a little tense against him. Martin waited, for a moment, but Jon didn’t turn around again, and didn’t say anything more. 

Martin took it as his cue to get them going, digging his heels into the horse’s sides to start them in a trot. Jon inhaled sharply at the sudden motion, leaning back against him. Martin tightened his grip around him, meaning for it to be a reassurance and hopeful it came across that way. “It’s alright,” he said, softly. “We won’t go much faster than this.”

Jerkily, Jon nodded, his jaw clenched tight. His hand clutched at Martin’s thigh, blunt fingers digging in, and though the Lonely numbed the pressure of it, Martin could still feel the pervasive warmth, bleeding through. 

Don’t worry, he wanted to say again, to ease that tension. I’ll protect you.

But it wouldn’t have been true. Because he was meant to ensure Jon never made it to Beholding. 

No, he thought, as the Kingdom of the Hunt became a speck behind them, and Jon’s body rocked against him with the horse’s movements. Best not say anything of the kind. The words would only taste bitter and flat on his tongue.

Chapter Text

It was very clear Jon was inexperienced on horseback. Though they were traveling slow—in fact, far slower than Martin would have liked—the tension in Jon’s muscles never seemed to fade away completely, and it was precisely that tension that kept him so off balance every time the horse made an exaggerated movement. Jon didn’t complain, however. Didn’t say much of anything at all, and stared resolutely forward as they went on. He seemed devoted to the task of ignoring Martin entirely, and Martin really couldn’t determine if this was a good thing or not. Certainly it could make the task of escorting Jon as far as the Stranger’s domain difficult. 

And yet, Martin couldn’t help but note it was an easier thing to consider what he was supposed to do when Jon wasn’t looking at him with those sharp, assessing eyes. In truth, Martin hadn’t thought much yet about how he was going to do it. There were certainly many fatal threats in the Stranger’s domain—skinnings and parasitic creatures that stole life itself—but they all seemed too...brutal. Through the gaps in the fog that ebbed and flowed in his veins, there was a spark of something unpleasant at the very thought.

To curb the irritating emotion, Martin instinctively pulled the fog of the Lonely closer to him, like tugging on a blanket. Jon shivered at the sudden cold, glancing back at Martin for the briefest moment, suspicion and fear written in his wide eyes. When he turned back to face front, he seemed even more stiff and uncomfortable than before. 

Strangely, even through the fog of the Lonely, that unpleasant feeling refused to abate. Martin could still feel its echo. And the fog only made the heat of Jon’s body that much more noticeable. 

The forest passed by in a monotonous blur, the wind picking up as the sun sank lower. These woods weren’t a territory claimed by any of the kingdoms, which made it both a boon to pass through, and yet one that required caution. Some residents of neighboring kingdoms liked to hunt in the unaffiliated territories, hoping to find some poor traveler who remained untouched by any of the fears to feed upon. And most did so after dark. The odds of them running into anyone now were slim, but Martin still kept his eyes open for anything amiss amongst the trees. 

He didn’t mind the quiet. It was something he was acutely accustomed to. But as the hours passed, Jon seemed to get more restless, shifting distractingly. As close as they were, he was a pillar of wriggling warmth that drew Martin’s attention away from his careful survey of the trees at odd intervals. After the sixth time, Martin stifled a sigh and asked, flatly, “are you alright?”

Jon went still, glancing back at him out of the corner of his eye, the look quick and assessing. That nervous look on his face returned, initially, as he looked Martin over, but he was better at quickly hiding it away. “How much longer?” Jon asked, a strange, buzzing insistence to the question.

“We’ll need at least an hour longer to ride before reaching Vast territory,” Martin answered without thinking. He blinked immediately after, reeling from the compulsion. Of course Jon was Eye aligned, he was Magnus’ betrothed after all. Martin cursed himself for not thinking of it.

Jon had seemed to startle at Martin’s words, turning farther around to look up at Martin more intently, brown eyes narrowed. “Why—?”

“Don’t,” Martin said coldly, before Jon could get out the rest of the question, “compel me.”

“Why not?” Jon shot back, voice barbed, eyes narrowed to slits. “It’s not like you’re under any other obligation to tell me the truth.”

“Consider common courtesy then,” Martin said. He could feel a discontented, icy fog forming in his throat as he spoke. The Lonely didn’t like its secrets stolen away. “I haven’t done anything to you, have I? Haven’t drawn up that lonely ache in you and made it the only thing you can think about. Haven’t sent you away for the Lonely to feed from.”

Jon stared at him, eyes wide. The fear Jon felt was desperately kept off of his face, but Martin saw it in the breath of fog that left his mouth, with every little, quick intake of breath. When Jon spoke, though, his voice didn’t waver at all. “Is that a threat?”

“Do you need it to be a threat?” Martin asked flatly, staring back at Jon levelly.  

He saw Jon’s jaw clench as he ground his teeth. There was, briefly, that defiant anger that lit up in his eyes. It was so bright, so alive, Martin thought he might be scalded by it if he looked too long. But Jon looked away, his eyes sliding to the side and something flickering over his face, an emotion Martin didn’t have enough time to name, but one that brought back that unpleasant feeling. 

Martin didn’t know why, but he found himself saying, “I don’t want to hurt you, Jon.” Martin supposed it was true. Would be true, even if Jon compelled him. Though Martin really wasn’t supposed to care one way or the other. “Honestly, I just want this to be done with. And I’m sure you do too.” This was both true, and not true. Martin didn’t want to be there, with Jon, with his feelings choppy, confused, instead of the glassy calm it should have been. But when he thought of the end of this journey, when he thought of what he was supposed to—

Well. He didn’t like to think of it. That was the problem.

And if Jon decided to try to compel him anyway, he could know that. 

Martin saw Jon consider him out of the corner of his eye for a few moments, his head slightly turned toward him. Martin couldn’t exactly tell, but he thought he noticed some of that tension leave Jon’s shoulders. Finally, carefully, Jon grit out, without compulsion, “why are we going through the Vast?”

Martin stifled the sigh that came with the flicker of relief. “Vast territory skirts a majority of the way” he answered easily. “It makes sense.”

“It doesn’t actually,” Jon grit out. “Vast territory will stretch the journey days longer than it should take—”

“But it will also save us from having to traverse the Fleshlands,” Martin pointed out, watching as Jon’s face screwed up in disgust even at the mention of the name. “Or Dark territory, which would make things suitably difficult for obvious reasons.”

Jon opened his mouth, brows furrowed over narrowed eyes as if he wanted to argue, but a moment passed and he seemed to swallow it down, turning back to face front. Martin thought that would be the end of it, but then Jon was saying, still not looking at him, “so you’re meant to take me all the way to Beholding?”

For a moment, Martin pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, his teeth grinding together. There was that spark, that unpleasant feeling again. “Yes,” he made sure he said, his voice utterly level. 

Jon made a scoffing sound. “What—not going to pass me off to anyone else?” he asked acidly. “Sell me like that huntress?”

Martin blinked at the back of his head, for a moment taken aback by the sheer vitriol. Jon was again tense as steel under his arm. “No,” he answered, honestly this time. 

“Great,” Jon muttered joylessly. “So I’ll just have to worry about you then. Watching my every move. Making sure Magnus gets his precious cargo. ”

Martin studied what parts of Jon he could see, which at the moment was largely just his waves of black hair, streaked through with grey. “You’re not nobility,” Martin found himself saying. It wasn’t quite a question.

Jon glanced back at him again, an unimpressed look on his face. “No,” he confirmed dryly. “Obviously.”

“So why does Lord Magnus want you?” Martin couldn’t help but ask, voicing the question that had nagged at him all day. Jon stiffened again, head turned, but not quite looking at him. “Why do you have to be escorted at all?” Martin continued, all his questions bubbling up, “If you’re set to marry Lord Magnus, what were you doing in Hunt territory—?”

Jon abruptly grabbed at the reins above Martin’s grip on them, pulling too hard, leaving Martin to quickly ease up so as to keep the horse from bucking. Before Martin could say anything, Jon whirled around, his eyes hard. “I have to take a piss,” he said, matter of factly. “Let me off.”

Martin blinked at him, processing, feeling a spark of irritation before it muted itself. “Wha—“ But then Jon was trying to make his own way off the horse, trying to stand up in the stirrups to get the leverage to lift his leg over. The horse skittered nervously. “Hey— stop,” Martin told him. His hands settled around Jon’s waist to stop him when he continued to try to scramble out of the saddle—for a moment, Martin was struck by how slight he was, how his hands seemed to engulf so much of him, and again, just how warm he was — but he let go when Jon whirled and hissed, “don’t touch me.”

Martin raised his hands placatingly, watching as that flicker of fear under the anger faded. Jon’s eyes searched his face, his brow furrowed. If Martin concentrated, he could see the ghostlike swirl of loneliness that left Jon’s mouth and nose like breath, tinged with distrust, fear, helplessness.

He was suddenly hard to look at. Too bright, too real, emotion pulsing hot under his skin where it no longer did in Martin’s. 

Martin looked away, at the tree line, swallowing around the strange, sudden tightness of his throat. “You’ll have to learn how to dismount,” Martin murmured, when he felt confident in his voice again. He could feel Jon looking at him, as he sat as far from Martin as humanly possible. “I might not always be there to help you do so,” he said, not quite knowing why. He could feel Jon’s attention more acutely, his eyes burning holes into the side of his face. 

Martin quickly dismounted, an easy, instinctual thing, but he held up a hand to stop Jon when he seemed to frantically try to recreate the movement. “No, not like that,” he corrected. “You need to—“ he reached out to demonstrate, but his hand froze above Jon’s arm, remembering Jon’s reaction the last time he’d been touched. He met Jon’s eyes. They were unreadable, dark and fathomless and intent on him. “Could I...?”

Martin let the question hover in the air, watching as Jon’s eyes flickered to Martin’s hand, then met his eyes again. Jon nodded, once, jerkily. 

Martin guided his hands, then, trying to ignore the incessant warmth. He directed Jon’s movements, and showed Jon how to swing his leg over without falling clean off the horse.

Jon lost his balance a little on the landing, stumbling back into Martin. In the moment of contact, Martin could only think of the incessant heat, and then Jon was jerking away from him as if he was the one burned. 

Martin watched as Jon took a few steps to increase the distance between them and then as he winced with the ache of muscles that had been held stiff for so long. Martin couldn’t feel the ache in his legs through the fog, but he had a lingering memory of what that pain felt like. Before he’d completed his training, before they’d chilled the pain straight out of him.

Martin snapped to attention when Jon began to head beyond the path, into the trees. He followed, instinctive, but stopped when Jon glanced back and leveled a glare at him that could curdle milk. 

“What part of take a piss don’t you understand?” Jon grit out. 

Martin narrowed his eyes, unable to restrain a little flare of irritation. “You shouldn’t stray from the path. It isn’t—“

“I’m not stupid,” Jon shot back, balling his fists. “I’m not going far.”

“See that you don’t,” Martin told him, which seemed like the wrong thing to say, judging by how Jon’s expression flashed with anger. 

It was almost impressive, how Jon could look imperious even when a head smaller than Martin, his clothes—an academic’s clothes, not suited for traveling—worn and dirty. “Turn around,” Jon said tightly. At Martin’s scoff, he grit out, “is it too much to ask for privacy?”

Martin punched out a sigh through his nose, looking skyward, and then turning around. At this rate, perhaps he wouldn’t even have to confront what he’d have to do, when they got far enough along. If Jon insisted on stopping this often, this abruptly, they’d never make it to the Stranger. 

Martin heard rustling footsteps as Jon stepped farther into the underbrush, and then the footsteps stopped. He chanced a glance behind to make sure Jon was still there, and caught a glimpse of his shirt through the tangle of trees. Martin turned back, absently staring into the trees on the other side of the trail. 

After a moment, there was a crack, like the sound of a twig snapping, from the other side. Martin went tense, his eyes scanning for what had made the sound. He rested his hand on the handle of his sword, slowly crossing the trail to get a better look. He couldn’t see anything amiss in the thick coverage of trees, though, for some reason, he was unable to relax, a sense of foreboding setting his teeth on edge. “Jon!” he called back, keeping his gaze on the treeline. “Hurry up! We’re leaving!” 

And then he smelled it. A whiff of sickly sweet rot that drifted on the breeze. 

The smell was achingly familiar in a way he couldn’t hope to place. It played at the edges of his memory, taunting the part of it that was fogged over, numbed away. He didn’t know why it made his stomach drop. 

But he knew what that smell was. 

“Jon!” he called, louder, whirling around and tearing back to the place he had last seen that flash of him. “Jon, we have to—!” Martin froze, for a moment, when he realized Jon was not where he’d left him. Jon was gone.

But Martin could see the tracks his footprints had made in the mud and dirt.

Martin cursed, racing back to where he’d left the horse and mounting quickly, digging his heels into the horse’s sides to spur it on faster through the underbrush. Martin followed the tracks Jon had made—careless, he couldn’t help but think. But then he’d been careless too. I’m told he’s...flighty, Lord Lukas had told him. Of course Jon would try to bolt. 

Why did Magnus want him, Martin couldn’t help but wonder again, as he rode. An unwilling husband? Surely that would be more trouble than it was worth?

Questions he would be sure to ask Jon, once Martin caught up with him again. He couldn’t have gone far on foot. Martin rode fast, alternating between glances at the tracks below and quick flashes up to weave through the trees. He let the Lonely help him as well, keeping his senses open to that particular lonely fog that ran through Jon’s lungs, sharp with fear and helplessness, a strong scent reminiscent of cardamom. 

When the trees began to thin, he caught a hint of it, thin and dissipating in the air. He pushed the horse faster, ignoring the distant sting as branches whipped at his face. He broke into a clearing, and, finally, he saw Jon, who was nearly halfway across. 

Jon glanced back at him, eyes wide, but his expression settled into one of grim defiance. He didn’t try to go any farther. He merely waited, and watched as Martin dismounted and closed the distance between them. 

“What exactly,” Martin began, when he was close enough, “were you hoping to accompli—” the word pettered off into nothing when the ground suddenly gave way beneath him, the earth losing its solidity, the soil shifting like a living thing. He fell, scrabbling for purchase at soil that did nothing but shift through his fingers, until the earth decided to harden again, cinching itself painfully around his lungs. He supposed he should be happy the sinking decided to let up before his head was swallowed by it. As it was, his arms were pinned to his sides by unyielding earth, the pinch of it giving way only at his shoulders. 

Jon’s shoes filled his field of vision, scuffed and muddy and ridiculously inappropriate for traveling. Martin glared up at him. Jon was looking down with an expression that was trying not to be smug, but failed miserably. “You shouldn’t have strayed from the path,” Jon tsked, raising a brow. “This forest has recently been ravaged by Buried sinkholes, you see.”

“Jon—“ Martin grit out. 

“Sorry,” Jon said, not sounding remotely sorry. He took a step back. “But I can't have you following me. The soil should loosen up again within a few hours, give or take. You should be able to get out then.” 

Martin huffed a disbelieving breath, futilely straining against the unyielding earth. “You—“

“Now,” Jon said, “you can return to the Lonely like I’m sure you want to, and I can be on my way. I’d say it’s been a pleasure,” Jon continued dryly, taking another step back. “But that would be disingenuous.” 

Martin grit his teeth against the spark of fury, hot and unfamiliar, in his gut. He opened his mouth to say something else, but trailed off when he saw the soil shift strangely just behind Jon’s feet. It wasn’t like the sudden give of the earth that had taken him, but rather...several points of slight movement. Like something burrowed had decided to emerge.

Almost in the same moment, Martin felt movement around his arm, and then a very distant, itching sensation.  And smelled the distant scent of rot. 

The breath left his lungs in realization. “Jon!” he called, but Jon wasn’t looking at him, was walking away oblivious to the shifting of the earth at his heels, the movement expanding across a larger and larger radius.

“Jon! Let me out right now—”

“Relax,” Jon shot back, not even looking, “the sinkhole won’t kill you—” Jon cut off with a gasp that sounded more like surprise than pain. “What— ow—”

And then Martin could see them. Tiny flashes of silver, burrowing into the skin of Jon’s ankle, as the earth made way for them. Jon fell, scrambling back on his hands, shouting as more rose from the dirt and burrowed themselves into him instead. 

Martin strained against the earth that held him still, gritting his teeth and shifting to the point of almost-pain, a faded sense of discomfort that told him he might have torn something, some muscle, somewhere. He wasn’t really certain. But the ground refused to give. 

And then, something else, something larger was churning its way from the earth just beyond Jon’s scrabbling feet. A head with matted hair emerged, covered in twitching ants. And then a face, so pockmarked the features were marred almost beyond recognition. And thin, sickly arms that clawed up from the dirt. The woman that emerged made a sound like a garbled sigh, her attention boring into Jon through empty sockets, eyes long since eaten away. “Yes,” she seemed to say, continuing her garbled speech even as Jon screamed, his leg dripping blood, “let them join you. Let them come home.”

Martin stopped straining. Instead, he went still, and closed his eyes. And, for a moment, he let the Lonely itself swallow him. 

There was a reason knights were taught to travel distances without the Lonely. It could be useful, in certain moments. Kept you hidden away in a corner of a place that did not quite exist, invisible to those who were not Lonely themselves. Let you travel distances unseen, unimpeded. But it was a hungry place, and did not like to let go. Grey winds whipped at your skin, tearing your purpose, tearing at memory. The air was thin, crystallized in the lungs. The fog sang for you to stay and forget entirely. Martin had known of a few knights who had relied too heavily on it, and had lost themselves to it. He couldn’t remember what they’d looked like, or what they had been like. The Lonely had stripped it all away. 

So Martin moved quickly, and he moved surely. He let the whipping, icy winds of the Lonely carry him to just the right point...

And, seeing the woman’s ruined face through the fog, he gripped at his sword with icy fingers and forced himself back through the hazy barrier. Her face twitched in what might have been fear or confusion as he emerged, seemingly from nowhere, just before her. Martin didn’t give her time to react. Martin swung his sword, throwing the whole of his momentum into the movement, and severed her head cleanly from her shoulders as smoothly as if cutting through butter. 

Her head tumbled to the ground, the stump of her neck oozing a sickly black liquid as her body thumped to the ground a moment later. The chittering of insects around them stopped. Martin looked down, seeing the worms that had begun to bury themselves through thick leather of his boots had stopped their wriggling movement and remained still. 

He stared blankly at them, the fog from the Lonely still heavy in his head. A whimper sounded behind him. Who was that again? He turned, and saw an achingly familiar man on the ground, his brown hands fluttering over his leg, the trousers stained red, dotted with bloody holes. The man’s wide, brown eyes were looking at him, as if looking straight into his soul. Martin felt seen, pinned in place, drawn to be present in such a rush that it almost hurt. Martin looked, and he remembered who the man was, and it all flooded back at once. Oh yes, he thought, a little fuzzily. Jon. That’s Jon.

“You killed her,” Jon gasped out, looking down at the woman, then back up at him, his eyes wide and a little wondering. “How—“ he glanced back at the hole in the ground, then back. “How did you—” he cut off with another whimper when he shifted his weight, his hands fluttering over his leg. 

Martin glanced at the sun in the sky, sunk dangerously low. He sheathed his sword, silently a bit irritated he didn’t have the luxury of cleaning off the black gunk from it before he did so. He crossed the small distance between he and Jon quickly, reaching out a hand to him. “I’m going to carry you to the horse,” Martin told him. Jon opened his mouth in what looked like a protest, but Martin continued levelly, “it’ll be dark soon. We have to ride farther before that happens, or there will be more things like her that will try for an easy meal. Do you understand?”

Jon stared at him, wide-eyed, for a moment. He glanced at the woman’s body, and then back, his lips pressed tightly together. He nodded, once, and took Martin’s hand. 

Martin ignored the insistent heat of Jon’s skin through the gloves that he wore, focusing on pulling Jon to his feet and then over Martin’s shoulder before too much weight could be put on his injured leg. Jon let out a little oof sound when his stomach met Martin’s shoulder, his hands grabbing at the leather edge of Martin’s chest armor for purchase. “This is humiliating,” Jon muttered breathily, as Martin carried him toward the waiting horse. 

“Would you rather walk?” Martin asked him.

“You are utterly insufferable—”

“Yeah, well, I also saved your life. A little acknowledgement of that point would be nice.”

Jon went silent and didn’t say anything else.

It was far more difficult than last time, getting Jon on the horse. But they managed, and soon Martin was swinging into the saddle behind him, taking up the reins, and spurring the horse on. Jon tried to stay quiet on the way. But Martin could tell he was stifling little noises of pain with the natural movement of the horse as it jostled his injured leg. His breath was coming in short little gasps as they rode, his blunt nails digging into Martin’s arm guard where his arm was wound around him to keep him steady. Jon didn’t even seem to notice he was doing it, and when Martin leaned to the side to catch a glimpse of his face, he could see Jon’s eyes were screwed shut, his face twisted up in pain, ashen. 

Martin glanced at the thinning trees around them, punching out a breath. He pulled the reins, bringing the horse’s canter to a stop. Jon took a breath, opening his eyes and looking around. When he spoke his voice was thin, wavering, “where are—we’re not—”

“We’re at the outskirts,” Martin explained, guiding the horse slowly to a tree so he could tie off an extension of the reins to it. “Vast territory isn’t too far. I think we’re close enough that we won’t run into any other fear-touched. Vast tends to drive away competition that strays too close.”

“You think,” Jon gasped out, unimpressed even through the pain. 

Martin sent him an unimpressed look right back. “We’re not going any farther, Jon. Look at you.”

It seemed a testament to how much pain Jon was in that he didn’t bother to give a scathing retort. Martin swung his leg over, hopping off the horse, and holding out a hand to Jon to help him down. “Come on,” he said, “we need to clean out those wounds before they get infected.”

There was a creek near where they stopped that they were able to settle by. The sound that Jon made when he sat on one of the rocks and stretched out his injured leg was a curious mix of relief and pain. “Shit,” he hissed, “how...how bad is it, do you think?”

Martin looked up from rummaging through his pack, drawing out bandages. “Don’t touch it,” he instructed.

“I wasn’t—”

“Liar,” Martin shot back. “You were going to try to scratch at it. I saw you.”

Jon opened his mouth, the expression on his face indignant, but there must have been another flare of pain from his leg because he exhaled roughly, closing his eyes, any protest dying on his tongue. “Course I was trying to scratch it.” he muttered. “It itches.”

Martin put the pack down, making his way over. “Let me see,” he murmured, kneeling before him. Despite his attempts to be gentle, rolling the leg of Jon’s trousers up, Jon still hissed at the brush of fabric against the small wounds left behind. Martin studied the marks. Most of the worms had fallen out once the woman had been killed—cut off the head, and the body dies, after all—but some had managed to burrow in so deep that they remained. Martin made an appraising sound, looking up to meet Jon’s wide eyes. “I need to start a fire,” he said simply. 

Jon’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You...?”

“Need to sterilize something to get them out,” Martin clarified. 

Jon’s face suddenly looked that much more ashen. “Ah,” he said, faintly. 

“I’ll be quick,” Martin promised. 

True to his word, Martin got a fire going as fast as he was able to, with the chill of the wind. He picked out the smallest knife he had—admittedly not ideally shaped for the task, but it was all he had. He ran the blade through the flame, long enough that he could see the tip glow hot before pulling it back, letting it cool. 

He could see Jon watching out of the corner of his eye, his face pale, jaw set tight. Martin could see that apprehension grow as he approached. Martin knelt again, looking over at his leg, then up at Jon’s face. Jon’s breaths were coming faster and he kept glancing at the knife. “Jon,” Martin murmured, drawing his attention. Those large, brown eyes stared back at him. “You’re going to be fine. I promise it’ll be quick. Alright?”

Jon swallowed visibly, the line of his throat bobbing up and down. He screwed his eyes shut and nodded, his chest heaving as he took breaths to try to settle himself. “Alright,” he said tightly. 

Taking one last look at his face, Martin shucked off one of his gloves and handed it to him. “Put it in your mouth,” Martin told him, at Jon’s confused look. Jon’s face screwed up in disgust, but Martin explained, “I don’t want you to accidentally bite your tongue.”

Jon huffed out breath, glaring at him, then looking skyward. After a moment’s hesitation, he opened his mouth and bit down on the leather. He said something, muffled, that sounded suspiciously like I hate you.

“What was that?” Martin asked, raising a brow. 

He heard Jon mutter a muffled, nothing, his face still turned skyward.

Martin wrangled a confusing start of a smile back into a flat line. The motion felt...strange on his face. 

He looked up at Jon once more, and murmured, “Jon?”

Jon made a noise of assent.

“Keep looking away, alright?”

There was a longer pause this time, but then another noise of assent. So Martin put his left hand on Jon’s knee, above the damage, to steady the leg. And then he began. 

He worked quickly. Disturbing the flesh as little as possible to get the bodies of the worms out. Jon made shockingly little noise, but when Martin chanced a glance up, he could see Jon’s arms wrapped around himself, his knuckles white, his face screwed up in pain, tears leaking from the corners of eyes tightly shut. Seeing Jon’s face like that...Martin didn’t like it. It made that unpleasant feeling in his stomach and in his chest bloom, piercing and painful through the fog. 

It spurred Martin on, and he finished more quickly than he thought he would. “There,” Martin murmured, when the last silvery carcass had been dug out. His left thumb brushed over Jon’s knee, an unconscious motion he didn’t quite understand the purpose of, but felt right all the same. “All done.” He looked up to Jon’s face, only to see it didn’t seem like he’d heard. His face was still screwed up, tears gleaming on his cheeks and the glove bitten tightly between his teeth, as if he was still bracing for the next poke of the knife. “Jon,” Martin said again, softly. And then, through some long forgotten instinct to comfort, Martin raised his hand, and gently brushed his fingers over Jon’s cheek, wiping at the tears. Jon’s eyes flew open, blinking wildly, and settled on Martin’s, wide and watery. A strange flash of...something sparked in the caverns of Martin’s heart. “They’re all out,” he said softly. 

Jon let out a sigh of relief through his nose, closing his eyes for a moment. One of his trembling hands rose to take the glove from his mouth. There were visible teeth marks in it, and it was soaked in spit. Jon looked about to mindlessly hand it back before he caught himself, looking it over. “Oh,” he said hoarsely, sounding a little lost, “sorry, I-I can—”

“It’s alright, Jon,” Martin said, gently taking it. When he did, he caught a glance of his wrist—bare now, without the glove—and saw a distinct, circular wound just above the sleeve. “Oh,” he said.

Jon looked at him sharply. “What?”

Martin looked back at him, lowering his hand. “Nothing,” he said. Because it was. He could deal with it. He didn’t even feel it.

He took the waterskin he’d brought and opened the cap, gently running water over the sluggishly bleeding wounds on Jon’s leg. “There’s an unaffiliated village,” Martin murmured as he worked, picking up the bandages, “not far from the beginnings of Vast territory. We’ll head there first. Get some real medical supplies, maybe get a doctor to call on you.”

“No unaffiliated doctor will want anything to do with us,” Jon muttered. 

“They will for enough coin,” Martin answered distractedly. “They’ll see you or I will make them see you.”

Jon didn’t reply to that, and when Martin glanced up at him he was looking away, a strange dark flush to his cheeks. Martin frowned. “Are you feeling okay? Not lightheaded or anything?” 

Jon blinked back at him. “What? No, I—well, my leg hurts, but I’m not about to pass out if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Good,” Martin said, finishing the act of winding the bandage. “There. That should keep things clean enough until we get there.”

“Okay,” Jon said faintly, after a moment. 

Martin took that as his cue to give Jon some space. He took the knife over to the creek and ran the blood off with the current, watching as it dissolved away among the rivulets. When it seemed clean enough, he took it back to the fire—now mostly small, pitiful flames—and ran the blade through once more. When it seemed hot enough, he removed it, watching as the dull glow faded.

He waited what seemed like an appropriate amount of time for it to cool before removing the arm guard he wore, shrugging up his sleeve, and turning the blade into his own arm, digging where he could see the silver flash of a dead worm. Any pain he might have felt at the action had long been burned away.

“Wha—what are you doing?! Stop there’s a—” suddenly Jon was hobbling to settle beside him, taking the wrist of his left arm and drawing it away from his right, looking at him with bright, incredulous eyes. “There’s an artery there, you can’t just go digging around like that.”

Martin blinked at him, taken aback by their sudden proximity. Jon’s eyelashes were long and dark. His face was flushed, making his skin a tad darker than it was usually. Jon’s left hand held his right, skin touching unguarded skin. Martin couldn’t remember the last time he’d been genuinely touched. He certainly could not remember anything like this insistent warmth that bled through Jon’s hand into his. That strange feeling in Martin’s chest started up again—not the unpleasant one, but something hot and insistent that he didn’t know the name of. “Worms,” Martin said stupidly, when it seemed as though Jon was still waiting for a reply. “Have to get them out.”

Jon frowned, looking down at his wrist and then up at his exposed forearm. His fingers skirted gently, that trailing heat sparking over Martin’s skin. Martin truly didn’t know whether he wanted to lean away or lean into it. Which would hurt less?

“I didn’t see them get you,” Jon murmured, looking up at him, “when did...?”

Martin shrugged. “Must have been in the dirt.”

Jon’s frown deepened for a moment, but then a complicated flash of emotions passed over his face. Martin watched, perplexed, as Jon’s eyes widened and his brow furrowed and his mouth opened slightly and he just...looked at Martin. “I...I didn’t know,” Jon said, his voice wavering, “I-I swear, I didn’t—I, I should have seen..” He swallowed, face ashen, dropping his eyes. “I almost left you there, trapped—“

Oh. “It’s okay,” Martin told him, honestly, still a little confused at the intensity of his reaction. “I would have been fine. I’d have just gotten out the same way I did.”

“Still,” Jon said, looking up at him, “that’s not the point. It wasn’t my intention to—” he cut himself off, glancing away, and when he looked back his eyes were wide and earnest. “I’m sorry. You—lord, you’re only trying to do your job and here I am nearly getting you killed—“

“Jon,” Martin said firmly. “It’s fine.”

Jon swallowed what looked like a retort, glancing down, and then at Martin’s arms, still held in his. “Why didn’t you ask me for help?” he asked, almost to himself. But then he looked up at Martin. “I was right there.”

Martin didn’t exactly have an answer. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d asked for help. Especially not the last time he’d expected anyone to give any. 

Thankfully, Jon continued, “here, give me the knife,” and quietly set to work.  He held the knife in a way that indicated he wasn’t used to it, almost like a paintbrush, but his movements were careful and precise. Martin watched him, as strands of hair fell into his face and he absently blew them away. As he bit the inside of his cheek in concentration, eyes purposefully narrowed. 

That feeling started up again. 

“I guess it’s a good thing,” Jon said abruptly, nearly causing Martin to startle, “for you at least. It’ll be hard for me to run away now,” he said, only a little bitterly. Martin frowned, studying him as his focus was drawn away. Why are you running away, Martin wanted to ask. What are you running from? But Jon continued, “still, I maintain that the easier answer for both of us would be you just letting me go. Then you could go back to the Lonely domain and I could go back to G—“ Jon stopped himself then, wide eyes flicking up to meet Martin’s for a second before looking down at Martin’s arm with intense focus again. “Then I can be left in peace,” he said instead, faintly. 

Martin studied him, wondering what Jon had been about to say. He found himself saying, “I doubt I’d end up back in the Lonely.”

Jon paused, blinking up to look at him. “What?”

“It’d need to be somewhere Magnus could see,” Martin told him. “If they decide to keep me alive.”

Jon’s brow slowly furrowed as he stared at him. “What?”

Martin frowned at him. “Jon,” Martin said slowly, “did you think Magnus or Lord Lukas would just...let me go back if I don’t deliver you to him?”

Jon’s expression was utterly still for a moment, but then he looked... stricken. “I...I-I didn’t,” his eyes flitted around as if looking for something, settling to look at his hands. “Surely he wouldn’t—but it—it wouldn’t have been your fault!” 

Martin merely looked at him, and waited for him to realize that that wouldn’t have mattered. And he did realize. Martin saw the moment it passed onto his face,  and then dissolved in favor of such an acute look of misery Martin couldn’t have mistaken it for anything else. 

He searched for something to say, and finding he had nothing he was certain would help—he didn’t even know why Jon was upset—he just waited, watching Jon’s profile when he turned his face away. 

After a few moments, Jon turned back, his expression carefully unreadable. He shifted, carefully keeping his leg from bending, and reached for Martin’s arm again. At a loss, Martin gave it to him. 

Jon brought the tip of the blade to his skin again, his expression indicating his thoughts were far away. He paused before cutting in again, though, looking up at Martin. “Thank you,” he said. “For saving my life.”

Martin stared back at him, a reply caught in his throat by just how earnest Jon sounded, his brown eyes the most unguarded he’d ever seen them. He missed his window to answer when Jon looked down and continued to work at digging the last few worms out. Martin, as he was accustomed to, didn’t feel much of the pain. But he couldn’t shift his attention from the heady, burning warmth of Jon’s fingers, gently holding his wrist.

Chapter Text

It didn’t take long after they’d left the forest behind them to reach the nearest unaffiliated village. The sun had sunk beyond the horizon by the time they were able to see the great, towering wall that surrounded the village, meant to withstand attack and sieges. The chill of the late hour had set in, with the incessant winds blowing over the plains that made up edges of the Vast. 

Martin noticed exactly how cold it must have been when he caught Jon desperately trying to keep from shivering, with his arms tucked tight to his body and jaw set tight. Wordlessly, Martin leaned over as they rode and reached into the saddlebag, pulling out a worn blue cloak. Jon startled when Martin draped it over his shoulders, glancing back at him.

Martin couldn’t determine exactly why it was so hard to think clearly, when Jon looked at him. 

“We’re almost there,” he decided on saying, when Jon just...kept looking at him. 

He drew his eyes away to focus on the road, but still felt Jon’s gaze on the side of his face. In his periphery, he saw Jon’s hands slowly grasp the corners of the cloak and pull it tighter around him, before he finally turned away. 

Martin hadn’t realized how much of that earlier tension had left Jon’s frame until they were approaching the gates, where a few armed guards paced, and Jon straightened, going stiff with anticipation. Martin guided the horse to the gates slowly, carefully keeping his hands far away from his sword. Unaffiliated territories were always overly cautious, their residents a curious mix of those who had never been marked by the Fears and those who had defected from another territory, for some reason or another. And none were eager to stray from their tenuous neutrality and the relative safety the territory provided. 

Martin saw the moment the guards recognized what he was, because the next instant they were drawing weapons. Jon went even more tense against him. “Martin...”

“It’s fine,” Martin told him evenly, though he watched carefully as the two that guarded the gates approached. The woman on the left looked assessing, sharp and intelligent, but with an edge to her, as if coiled to spring. Perhaps ex-Hunt. Restraint was not common among the Slaughter’s chosen. And the other--more striking in appearance with his long black hair, eye tattoos, and piercings--watched them even more closely, as if drinking them in. Martin caught a glimpse of Jon’s face, as he looked warily at the man but also with a hint of curiosity, as if trying to place him.

“What business does a Lonely knight have here?” the woman asked, raising an unimpressed brow.

“No business other than a brief stop for the night,” Martin answered honestly, looking between them carefully.

The woman glanced at the man, who nodded, once. “True,” he said, though the intensity in the man’s gaze did not let up. He tilted his head, considering them. “Why are you passing through then? Your kind don’t tend to stray too far from Lonely borders.”

“That’s of no concern of yours,” Martin said calmly. “If you’d just ask if we mean the village any harm, we could be on our way.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed at that, but the man let out a bark of a laugh, wide grin splitting. “Gods, you Lonely types are dry, aren’t you?” he said easily. His tone was casual enough, but his eyes remained shrewd and assessing as they flicked to look at Jon, then back at him. “Beholding and Lonely. There’s a pair you don’t see everyday.”

“Are you going to let us through or not?” Jon suddenly snapped, eyes narrowed. 

The man’s eyes settled on Jon for a longer moment, that casual facade dropping from his face in favor of something carefully assessing. He looked back at Martin. “Why are you passing through?”

Martin sighed. “I told you--”

“And I asked you, ” the man suddenly said, compulsion buzzing in his voice, “ why are you passing through?”

Martin grit his teeth, holding back the air that rushed from his lungs in order to respond. It was stronger than he would have expected from a defector--had he left Beholding recently? Must have. No matter. The compulsion would pass. Eventually. Martin let the fog swallow down the impulse to respond, and ignored the very distant ache he could feel building in his skull. He stared back at the man, silent. His nose twinged, and something wet rolled over his lip. 

Jon glanced back at him, eyes wide, and his head whipped back to look at the man, body going tense. “Stop it,” he hissed, only relaxing marginally when the man finally broke eye contact with Martin. At the loss, the compulsion broke off, and Martin was able to let out a slow, steadying breath. “He’s...he’s just escorting me...home,” Jon said, though his voice was almost...pained, saying the last word. “To Beholding. That’s all. Alright?”

The man looked over Jon’s face for a moment. “Well?” the woman asked beside him, sounding impatient now. 

“True,” the man said again. After another curious glance at the two of them, he took a step aside, lowering his sword. The woman mirrored the movement, rolling her eyes and looking away, as if the whole thing had been a waste of time. “Go right along, then,” the man said, after a moment, gesturing lazily with the sword. 

Martin didn’t deign to give the man a response, simply giving the horse a nudge to get them going again. He heard them whisper to each other when they’d passed, but paid it no mind. There was nothing quite like the nosiness of Beholding-types. 

He blinked out of his thoughts when Jon again looked back at him, searching his face. “Are you alright?” Jon asked, surprisingly earnest.

Martin was a bit taken aback by the attention, his brow furrowing as he stared back. “What?”

Jon’s frown deepened, and before Martin could process what he was doing Jon was reaching out, his thumb brushing over the space between his nose and mouth. In the moment, Martin could only remain stock still and think of nothing but the warmth of the touch, like a brand sparking over skin. It took him a few seconds to shift his gaze from Jon’s face, to his hand, drawn back, held up for him to see. There was a clear smear of blood on the pad of his thumb. 

Martin raised a brow. “Ah,” he said. He raised the back of his hand to his nose, wiping away the rest. The blood was stark against pale skin. “Strange he was so strong, so far from Beholding.”

“I...I think that was Gerard Keay,” Jon murmured after a moment, brow furrowed in thought.

Martin took a moment to absorb this information. “ The Gerard Keay? Right hand to Lady Robinson before her deposition?”

“I--I think so,” Jon said after a beat, as if lost in thought, “he matched the description given in archive statements.”

Martin hummed consideringly, eyes scanning over the few people he could see out in the late hour. The village was largely quiet, the road lit by swinging lantern lights from the small establishments and shops that flanked the path. 

“Why didn’t you just answer him?” Jon asked abruptly, drawing his attention again. When Martin met Jon’s eyes they were unreadable, save for a clear,  burning curiosity. 

It wasn’t asked with compulsion. Martin answered as honestly as he could. “The less people that know who you are and what we’re doing, the better. I’m sure you know why. Plenty wouldn’t hesitate to use you as a bargaining chip to get to Magnus.”

Jon’s expression soured, and he looked away. “Right,” he said, shortly, after a moment. He said nothing after that. 

It gave Martin time to wonder why the mere mention of Magnus’ name, or a reminder of where they were headed, seemed to put him in such a gloomy mood. He supposed it could have just been that Jon clearly didn’t want to be carted off to marriage, but Jon seemed almost...afraid. 

Was that right? Would that explain the way Jon’s shoulders went stiff and hiked up? The way Martin could feel a loftier sense of loneliness settle around him like a cloak?

Jon tried to hide the feeling, regardless, and he hid it almost well. But Martin wondered if it might be harder for him to do so, the closer they got to Beholding. 

Martin decided he didn’t like that particular thought, and cast it out of his mind, smoothing it over with fog and smoke.

By the time they finally reached an inn with available space, Jon looked ready to fall off the horse. Martin silently wondered if it truly wasn’t his arm around his middle that effectively kept him upright. He leaned forward, saying softly, “Jon?”

Jon jerked, head twisting to look at him, blinking fatigue from his eyes. “Hm?”

“This place will do,” Martin told him, gesturing at the inn. He caught the eye of a stablehand, also nearly falling asleep on his feet, and waved him over. 

He looked back to see Jon squinting up at the establishment. “Here?” Jon said dubiously. His pupils dilated noticeably, and then he said, “it’s owned by an unaffiliated family.”

Martin hummed. “It also seems to be the only one letting in guests for the night,” he said, swinging off the horse to dismount. He held out a hand for Jon to do the same, and though he was shaky and needed help with the landing due to his leg, Martin was pleased to note he seemed to remember what to do flawlessly. Martin steadied him with hands braced under his elbows and murmured, absently, “good.” He turned his attention to handing the horse’s lead to the stablehand, and when he turned back, Jon was looking away, his cheeks flushed.

Did he have a fever? Was he in pain? Martin eyed his leg and the way he shied away from putting any weight on it, concerned. “Here,” he said, reaching out an arm, “lean on me.”

Jon blinked at him, startled and then indignant, like a cat rudely interrupted from its own musings. “What? No, that’s--not--”

“Jon,” Martin admonished. 

Jon stared back at him, jaw set, for a moment more before sighing, the picture of put upon. He leaned against Martin, arm wound around him like he was reluctant to touch, and then, after they took a step, his arm clutched with more bruising weight, as he again realized the pain of movement. 

“How did you know this place is owned by an unaffiliated family?” Martin asked him, as they walked. 

“Hm?” Jon asked, brow furrowed before he seemed to process the question, the expression smoothing out for something more sheepish. “I just, um. Sometimes I just know. Things. I, um. I try not to, a-about people. They don’t tend to like it.”

Martin considered this quietly for a moment, before carefully tugging the fog around his mind closer, building it up like a wall. Jon looked at him sharply, eyes narrowing. “I--I wasn’t looking in your head.”

“Then how did you know what I was doing just now?”

Jon opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again and said, petulantly. “It wasn’t like that. It’s like...everyone has a bit of background noise, a mumble of imperceptible thoughts, and yours just went quiet.”

Martin raised a brow. “Sounds irritating.”

“It is,” Jon muttered. “It’s why I tend to not pay attention to any of it unless I absolutely need to. Besides, you’ve--” He abruptly cut off, looking away.

Martin’s eyes narrowed, scanning over Jon’s face. He looked as though he were adamantly trying to pretend he hadn’t said anything. “I what?” Martin asked.

Jon rolled his eyes. “You,” he huffed, “have been impossible to get a read on. All that damned fog roiling in your head. It’s...not very inviting.”

Martin snorted, opening the aging wooden door of the small inn. The sign advertising it as such creaked in the wind above them. “I should hope not,” Martin said. He eyed Jon as they entered, watching him shudder in relief as they entered the warm embrace of the building, though he still had the edges of the cloak drawn around him tight. And he still leaned into Martin’s side, a persistent warmth impossible to ignore. “Is that common among the Eye-touched?” he asked curiously. When Jon looked at him, frowning, he clarified, “knowing without asking?”

Jon blinked, and then his eyes were drifting away. “It’s not...not very common, no.” Martin opened his mouth to press, but Jon blurted, abruptly, “but it’s not unheard of, in Beholding. Especially those who’ve trained for it. Magnus himself has that and more.”

“Is that why he wants you?” Martin asked, thoughtlessly. Of course, as soon as the question was uttered Jon’s expression shuttered and closed off. 

Luckily, he wasn’t meant to brave any tense silence or angry retort, because a door further inside opened, and a middle aged woman was walking out of it. She must have registered they had patrons, because even before looking up she rattled off, “hello dears, fees for a night are...” 

She trailed off, though, when she looked up and saw them. Her eyes went wide, her face pale. Like magnetized, they found Martin’s sword after a moment spent caught on his face. 

Martin fought a sigh, silently bemoaning that he had brought the cloak specifically for this purpose of making himself less...noticeable, but Jon had finally stopped his shivering, which he found...pleasing. Besides, it would have been the work of luck to escape any notice of his bone white curls or grey eyes. The two together were often only indicative of one thing. 

“You...” the woman whispered, trembling, “y-you’re a--”

Martin took pity on her, quickly removing his coin pouch from his belt and shaking more than the appropriate amount onto the wooden counter that separated them. The woman flinched at the sudden noise, but then her eyes were widening for a different reason, as she took in the amount of coin. “We need a room for a night,” Martin told her. “As well as a bath run in the morning.”

“Morning?” Jon hissed at him. At Martin’s dry look, he gestured to himself. He was truly quite filthy, and Martin was no better, having spent an unfortunate portion of the day underneath the ground. 

“What clothes were you thinking of changing into afterward?” Martin pointed out.

Jon’s mouth opened, then closed, a look of frustrated discontent settling on his face. His eyes slid away, no longer combative but slightly melancholic. That strange, unpleasant feeling twinged in Martin’s gut.

Why are you running, he wanted to ask. Why am I to deliver you with nothing but the clothes on your back? 

He ran his eyes over Jon’s leg for a moment, then looked back at the woman and added, “and we’ll need a doctor called for the morning as well.”

Jon sighed, but said nothing in protest, which Martin knew meant he was still in a decent amount of pain. 

The woman looked between them nervously, but the amount of coin on the table seemed to win out the wary battle. She gathered them, and told them, with poorly concealed distaste, “up the stairs, third door on the right.” 

Martin took the key she proffered, not reacting as she lurched back as soon as possible, as if his skin would scald her. He smiled politely at her. Something about that always seemed to make them look more afraid. 

He was aware of the woman’s shrewd, fearful eyes following them as they made their way up the stairs, and decided one night was one night long enough. People did very stupid things when they were afraid, after all, and he didn’t want them to outstay their tenuous welcome. 

The room was sparse, and small, but decidedly warm. Jon seemed to think it was good enough, or maybe it was just the pretense of someplace almost private, but as soon as the door closed he was sinking back against it, a sigh leaving him long and slow. 

Martin looked at him, watching as his eyes twitched beneath thin lids, eyelashes fluttering against dark skin. Watched the line of his throat bob up and down as he swallowed, and his chest rise and fall with measured breaths. Martin’s eyes skirted over the thin bones of his wrists, the delicate arch of his neck. 

His chest felt hot. 

He watched as Jon’s eyes opened, slowly, and trailed over the room, settling on something over Martin’s shoulder. That flushed look on his face returned. “Oh,” Jon said.

Martin turned, looking for what might have caused the reaction, but he only saw the bed crowded against the corner. He looked back, studying the fatigue that was clear on Jon’s face, as well as that other, strange emotion that he didn’t quite know how to classify, all flushed cheeks and slightly wide eyes. “You should get some sleep,” he said.

Jon glanced at him, then the bed, then back. “But,” he said, after a moment, “there’s--I mean, should we just...”

Martin frowned at him, following his gaze once more to the bed before understanding struck him. “Oh,” he said. “It’s fine, you can take it.”

Jon’s brow furrowed as he stared at him, unmoving from his slump against the door. “Don’t you sleep?”

“Of course I sleep, Jon,” Martin said.

“Well,” Jon spluttered, “then where will you--?”

“I can sleep on the floor.”

Jon’s expression spasmed, disbelief and distaste warring. “The floor? Don’t be--that sounds awful.”

Martin shrugged. “I won’t feel it,” he said simply. 

Whatever quick quip Jon had ready seemed to die on his tongue as he stared at Martin, brown eyes assessing. “You...you really don’t feel pain?”

Jon’s expression was utterly unreadable. “No,” Martin said, “I don’t.”

“Well,” Jon said slowly, after a moment, “just because you don’t feel it doesn’t mean it doesn't actually hurt, right?”

Martin faltered, staring at him. “What?”

The determined look in Jon’s expression began gaining traction, as Jon reasoned, “just because you can’t feel it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.”

“I...”

“So, just because you can’t feel your muscles aching on the floor, doesn’t mean they aren’t, right?” Jon said, tilting his head and waiting for Martin to respond. 

Martin couldn’t contain the bemused frown on his face. “Why does that matter?” he asked.

“What do you--” Jon cut off, his face screwing up incredulously, before he gave a great sigh and said, “Martin, it means, we...there’s a perfectly fine bed, and it’s big enough, alright?” He paused, that flush on his face again, but seemed to quickly decide against waiting for a response, because he crossed the distance to the bed instead, his back to Martin as he shucked off his shoes with more force than seemed necessary. He then tucked himself into the corner of the bed closest the wall, drawing Martin’s cloak tighter around himself. 

He was still, but Martin didn’t think he was actually sleeping. He seemed too tense for that. 

Martin watched him curiously as he shucked off his armor, carefully trying to keep the sounds to a minimum. He looked down at his clothes, dusty from his brush with the Buried, and secretly wished for a bath himself. Though he had spare clothes for himself, he doubted any of his would fit Jon. He’d need to go to a market tomorrow, see what he could scrounge up. 

Even though Jon had hinted that he wouldn’t mind sharing the bed, Martin still found himself hesitating as he approached, remembering Jon’s on and off aversion to being touched. Slowly, he leaned his sword against the wall by the bed, and sat down on the lumpy mattress. Jon tensed at the movement, and Martin stilled. He watched as the muscles of Jon’s back and shoulders slowly, almost consciously, released that tension. 

He slid in the rest of the way, paying close attention to the line of Jon’s shoulders, which didn’t seem to react. The bed truly was just big enough, ensuring there was a sliver of space between them. Martin didn’t dare cross it. He could already feel the heat from Jon’s body seeping under the covers, prickling against his skin. Martin shut his eyes, carefully casting his mind away from the incessant, maddening warmth. 

The quiet was almost tense, thick as if it could be cut with a knife. Though Jon seemed relaxed, his breaths seemed too carefully even to indicate he had fallen asleep. Martin frowned. Had he...done something wrong? A thought struck him, and he whispered, into the silence, “goodnight, Jon.”

Jon stiffened, though went boneless again so quickly after Martin almost thought he’d imagined it. He heard Jon sigh, softly, in the silence. It was quiet for so long Martin thought he wasn’t going to respond, and the darkness had almost carried him off regardless, when he heard Jon whisper, “goodnight.”

Martin heard Jon’s breaths level out in favor of true sleep a few minutes later, as  exhaustion dragged him under.

Martin dreamt of memories blocked away by fog. Memories that stung like winds of salt, crusted over with brine. Memories so lonely they ached themselves, like old, rattling bones in the cold. 

But he never remembered his dreams, anymore.

Chapter Text

He dreamed of a door. It was a sturdy looking thing, lovely, sanded oak painted over with a shining lacquer. The door handle was brass, and gleamed even in the low light. He saw, suddenly, a flash of a man, with wild curls and freckles and bright green eyes working on the door itself, painstakingly making it beautiful, though, Martin knew, there was never enough money to spare for such things. But the man made it beautiful regardless, because it was for the woman he loved.

He dreamed he was standing before the door. He was shaking. Distantly, he could feel a body that was no longer his, and it was so very unsteady with terror and dread and the impending urge to vomit. His hand was reaching out for the handle, trembling and pale, with fingers stained with dirt and something darker, something tinged red. He took a breath, perhaps to steady himself, and registered only a reeking scent of rot and decay, sickly sweet like overripe fruit, or putrid flowers. 

He dreamed of opening the door. It creaked on its hinges loudly, like a warning. It hadn’t creaked before, had it? When it was well-cared for, loved like the woman inside was? 

There had once been a vase of lilacs on the bedside table. He caught a flash of them as they’d once looked, bright, lovely. 

His mother had liked lilacs. 

But in the dream the vase was shattered on the floor by the bedside, water long since sunk into the floorboards and making them weak with wood rot, the flowers shriveled and dead against the grain of the wooden floor. 

The room stank, sickly sweet and putrid and metallic. 

In his narrow view, he saw a pale hand hanging off the bed, contrasted by rivulets of red and a vile, putrid, rotting black liquid.

Knock.

The sound echoed, from a distant point in the house. The scent of rot flooded his nose, growing stronger and stronger and stronger.

Knock.

He had to move. He had to answer it, didn’t he? He—he had to open the front door. But first he had to open this door, the door that his hand had frozen on, dread and terror rooting him to the floor, he had to see her, he had to know, surely she wasn’t—

Knock.

Surely he wasn’t—

Knock.

Surely there was someone—

Knock knock knock knock knock—

Martin blinked awake to the beams of the inn's ceiling, fog sweeping over his dreams like mist on the water.

Knock. Knock.

Another polite pair of knocks sounded at the door. 

It took Martin a moment to remember where he was, and then another moment to register the feeling of rhythmic, steady breaths against his neck and a point of warmth settled on his stomach. He looked to his right and saw Jon’s face on the other pillow, slack in sleep. Even on horseback, when Jon was sitting in front of him, he hadn’t seemed this close. 

He was still wrapped in Martin’s cloak, he realized. The royal blue tangled up in the bedsheets, contrasting colors like swathes of streaking paint. He didn’t know why the sight sent a flood of heat in the cavern of his chest.

Jon looked younger in sleep. It was easy to realize how much tension he carried on his face usually, now that it was all smoothed away. The constant pinch between his brows was gone, the line of his mouth gentle, relaxed, no longer set in a pensive or discontented frown. His eyelashes were dark and long against the lovely skin of his cheeks. 

Jon had the kind of face that artists would have liked to paint, Martin thought. Looking at him, then, brought a flood inadequate descriptors to Martin’s mind, none of them quite enough to capture exactly what he was seeing. Words he might have wanted to commit to pen and paper had they been at all close to conveying the truth of it.

It was a strange thought. He couldn’t recall ever having bothered to write anything that wasn’t for the purposes of an assignment from one of the generals, or, on the rare occasion, Lord Lukas.

Jon shifted slightly in sleep, his face turning a bit more into the pillow. His thumb shifted where his hand rested on Martin’s stomach, barely moving an inch but still, through the thin shirt, without his armor as a barrier, it felt like a trail of fire, impossible to ignore. 

Another knock sounded at the door. Jon twitched a little at the sound, but otherwise remained deeply asleep. Martin let his eyes linger on his face for a moment longer, before slowly, carefully, slipping out from under Jon’s hand. 

When he opened the door, it was to the wide eyed face of a servant girl, a large cauldron of water resting on the floor beside her. “You, um,” she squeaked, “you requested a-a—“

Wordlessly, Martin stepped aside, holding the door open farther. She took up the cauldron with hands that trembled only slightly, slipping around him with a wide berth and entering the room. 

Martin retreated back to the bed to give her room to work, as she began the tedious process of tending to the small fire pit and heating up the water to fill the modest brass tub in the corner. He had strayed far enough from the kingdom of the Lonely often enough that he knew that the knights’ reputation was well known throughout other territories. Whatever you do, they all seemed to say, with terrified eyes and fear-stricken tongues, do not cross one of the knights. No pleas can persuade them. For they feel nothing for you, or me, or anyone. They will cut you down faster than breathing.

He saw it in all their faces, and he supposed that fear was not unearned. They were not, after all, wrong.

If it were just himself, he would leave to give her more space to work without fear, but he refused to leave Jon alone with this stranger in the room, under any circumstances. He watched her absently, glancing at the light peeking through the curtains in the window. It seemed almost dawn. “Is it late enough that the market might be open?” he asked her, keeping his voice low. Thankfully, Jon didn’t stir.

The woman startled at his voice, looking back wide eyed, but her expression seemed to settle into something calmer once she’d registered the question. With a glance to Jon, she added in the same low tone, tentatively, “suppose it’s late enough. You might not find a great variety, but some shops should be open.”

Martin nodded absently, his eyes skirting over Jon’s face. “And the village doctor?” he asked, after a moment. The woman startled again, looking back over her shoulder at him. “When should we expect them?”

The woman stared at him for a moment before speaking, her hands twitching nervously. “He begins his calls in the early morning,” she answered. “Should be here in an hour or so.” Martin nodded again, looking away. She seemed to almost turn back to her work, before glancing back at him over her shoulder. Her eyes flitted to Jon on the bed. “Is the doctor for him, then?”

Martin looked back at her sharply, drawing a flinch he didn’t quite intend. He pointedly did not answer. 

She turned away then, a look of fear on her face, but not without a quick, pity-filled glance toward Jon. Unbidden, possible assumptions she might have made flitted through his head. That he’d hurt Jon. That he was returning Jon to the Lonely. It was the most common reason any Lonely Knight would be so far from the kingdom. 

He didn’t know why the false connections she must have drawn prickled at his skin, an uncomfortable feeling he couldn’t escape within the confines of his own flesh. 

She finished her work quickly, without engaging again, as if she could sense his vague discontent. 

He turned to Jon after she’d left, a hand hovering over his shoulder to wake him. He paused there, for a moment, looking at the slight shadows under Jon’s eyes. He must have been exhausted, sleeping so deeply for so long. Briefly, Martin wondered when the last time he’d slept had been. Or slept well. Considering the last company he’d kept had been the huntress, Martin didn’t think that would make for a restful experience. 

With a sideways glance at the steaming water from the tub, he gently placed a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “Jon,” he whispered, giving his arm a little shake.

Jon’s brow furrowed, twisting up in mild discontent at being woken up. Slowly, his eyes blinked open and settled on Martin, hazy with sleep. Until that fatigue abruptly cleared, and Jon was tense and alert, eyes skirting around a bit wildly. It took him a moment to settle, adjusting to the still-unfamiliar surroundings. Martin preferred this slow, loosening set of his shoulders to the tense, guarded kind. 

Martin saw the moment Jon noticed the bath, and the moment that came after, in which Jon realized the room didn’t really lend itself to privacy.

Martin stood, the motion drawing Jon’s suddenly wary gaze. “I’m going to the market,” Martin told him, “I’ll get you some clothes. And,” he added, glancing at Jon’s practically ruined shoes, “some shoes suitable for travel.”

Jon blinked at him, that wary look dissipating in favor of mild surprise. His fingers absently twisted in Martin’s cloak, still draped around him, though he seemed to have forgotten this fact. “Oh,” he said. “Um. Thank you.”

Martin nodded, his face feeling, inexplicably, warm. He whirled around, heading for the corner where he piled his armor before a thought struck him. His armor was easy to spot, and the Lonely colors of it would be clear to any observer. The errand might go smoother if he went without them. 

He glanced back at Jon, and caught him hastily looking away. Martin supposed he couldn’t fault one of Beholding for staring. “Jon?” he asked. When Jon looked back at him, raising a brow, he added, “could I take that back for a bit?” 

Jon frowned, his brow crumpling in confusion as he looked down to identify where Martin was pointing. “Take what ba-- oh, ” he said, eyes widening as he registered he was still wearing the cloak. His face flushed as he scrambled to take it off. His cheeks were dark as he held it out, and he ran his lips between his teeth nervously. “I, um. I’m sorry,” he was saying, “I didn’t--”

“It’s fine, Jon,” Martin replied softly, reaching for the fabric. When their fingers brushed, there was such an acute spark of warmth against his skin that a noise nearly escaped his throat. He swallowed it down, finding it easier to look at the blue wool than Jon’s wide, brown eyes. “It’ll just make things go smoother in the market.”

He saw Jon’s head tilt out of the corner of his eye. “People do seem terrified of you, don’t they?” Jon said. Martin couldn’t exactly identify his tone, and when he looked up, Jon was staring back at him evenly. “Do you get that a lot?”

Again, Martin felt that strange heat in his face at the scrutiny. He shrugged, glancing away and willing that heat away. “I suppose. I don’t often find myself this far from the Lonely kingdom’s borders, though.”

“And not often in unaffiliated territory?” Jon guessed, raising a brow.

Martin hesitated, recalling all the frantic attempts of those who had breached the Lonely kingdom’s stormy walls to escape into the anonymous tides of unmarked villages. He’d hunted them all down, in the end. They’d had no one but themselves and their fevered hopes, and it was impossible to escape the Lonely’s cold tendrils alone. There was always a trace of fog to follow, heaved from panicked lungs. “I’m not well acquainted with this village,” he settled on saying instead, after a beat too long, in which Jon’s sharp eyes searched every feature of his face. 

Martin wondered, absently, what Jon saw. 

“Well,” Jon said, after a moment, “I don’t think you’re that frightening.”

 Martin’s head jerked to stare at him, his mouth opening, then closing soundlessly. Jon didn’t hold his gaze long, instead turning to ease out of bed and peek behind the curtains of the window, but Martin couldn’t help but stare after him for a moment. It was a foolish thing to say, and an even more foolish thing to believe. Plenty of things looked harmless, but could kill you very quickly. 

And yet, there was a strange, distant feeling in his chest, as if the memory of the warmth of Jon’s hand on his stomach had sunk straight through his skin and wrapped fingers around his heart. 

Suddenly feeling off-balance, Martin tried to get his fumbling fingers to cooperate in flinging the cloak around him, casting the hood over his head. It didn’t fully cover his curls. Straightening, Martin crossed the room to the dredges of the fire, slowly smoldering out. He scooped up some of the cooled ashes at the edges, dirtying his hair and darkening it. He glanced up at the curls he could see, and decided it seemed convincing enough. 

When he straightened back up, Jon was staring at him. “That,” he said dryly, raising a brow, “looks laughable.”

Martin frowned, stretching a chunk of curls farther from his forehead and catching a better glimpse of it. “Does it?” he asked. He supposed the white did seem to peek through. He reached for more ash.

“Lord, just--let me,” Jon said, crossing the room. He seemed more able than yesterday to put weight on his bad leg, though Martin’s warning against too much movement was met only with a dry look. And then Jon was settling beside him, his leg stretched out, which turned him closer toward Martin. He watched as Jon’s fingers reached for the spot in the fire pit Martin had pulled from. Without thinking, Martin’s hand shot out and clutched his wrist, stopping him. 

“Not there,” Martin murmured, when Jon turned a confused, wide eyed look on him. Jon’s pulse point fluttered under his finger tips, his skin burning with warmth. He felt it more than he had the actual heat from the fire, and for a moment, it muddied his thoughts, made coming up with the next few words a slow process, like honey thick on his tongue. “It’s still too hot,” he explained, not really having realized it until that moment, “you might hurt yourself.” He guided Jon’s hand further, to the very edges of the pit, and only then let go, his skin still burning with the memory of the touch. 

He could feel Jon’s eyes on the side of his face, and sure enough when he looked back at him those brown eyes were dark and intent on him. Jon’s eyes dropped to Martin’s hands and when he reached out, his fingertips brushing the skin on the back of Martin’s hand, Martin was too surprised to even think of pulling away, even as the touch felt like a flame to flesh. Jon’s fingers gently brushed over his own, studying the reddened skin under black flecks of ash. “You shouldn’t do that,” Jon muttered, looking up at him with furrowed brows. He looked almost frustrated.

Martin hesitated, an appropriate response not immediately coming to mind. “I heal quickly,” he settled on saying, though given the way Jon’s brows furrowed even more as he looked at him, it didn’t seem to be the assurance he’d meant it to be.

Jon huffed a breath, but seemed to drop the topic, reaching into the ash at the furthest corners of  the pit, running it over his fingers for a moment. He looked at Martin’s hair and leaned closer. “Hold still,” he said, and suddenly he was very close, his face a few inches from Martin’s, and his fingers trailing through his hair.

Martin’s breath caught in his throat, as Jon’s breath ghosted over the skin of his face. From this close, Martin could see the hint of crow’s feet at the corners of Jon’s eyes. The variation of shades in his irises. He was biting his lip, his brow furrowed in focus, and Martin could not look away. 

That ghostlike hand around his heart felt, all of a sudden, tighter, hotter, impossible to ignore.

“Hmm, it’s...almost...” Jon murmured, as his fingers ran through Martin’s hair. “There,” he said, settling back, staring at his handiwork, “I think that’s--” he cut off after lowering his eyes to meet Martin’s, seeming to notice how close they were, and how utterly quiet it was, save for the faint smoldering of the dying fire and the booming thump of Martin’s heart that he was sure must have been audible.

For a moment, they were both frozen there, a moment suspended in time, in which Martin’s head buzzed with the memory of Jon’s hands on him, his skin prickling with the closeness, the warmth of another body an inch away. Perhaps it was a trick of the light. But he could have sworn Jon’s pupils were dilated, so large and dark they almost seemed to swallow his irises. 

But the fire cracked, an abrupt sound cutting through the quiet of the moment, and Jon was blinking, the line of his throat bobbing up and down, leaning back and away. “I...I think that looks fine,” Jon mumbled, his eyes skirting absently over the room to the left. “Um.” He looked down at his hands, rubbing ash between his fingertips. 

It was enough to jerk Martin from his stupor, the loss of that closeness enough to return the cool prickle of fog to his skin. He stood. “I’ll let you get washed up,” he said, crossing the room to pick up his sword. “I appreciate your help,” he said. When he looked back, Jon was still sitting on the floor, staring at him with a strange look on his face that dissipated so quickly Martin wasn’t sure he’d seen it. 

It had looked almost...lost.

That didn’t sit well. But Martin didn’t know what to do or say--wasn’t even sure he’d seen it right. He felt lost himself, floundering for something to say that was right, working with an unfamiliar script, unsure he was even on the right page. 

But he couldn’t even let himself be Lonely correctly, couldn’t escape these maddening flashes of feeling that he’d always tried to hide. 

He was suddenly sure, as improbable as it was, that all of these thoughts were plain to see on his face. A restless huff of breath escaped him as he turned toward the door. “I’ll be back soon,” he said. “Lock the door behind me. Do not let anyone else in.”

He opened the door, and paused, his grip on the door handle tightening. He glanced back. “Jon?” he said, drawing Jon’s distant gaze away from the floor. The words crowded up at the base of his throat. He could feel the chill of them, he knew how they would sound. But he had to say them, if anything, to forget the maddening grip that never seemed to let up around his heart. “If you try to leave, I will find you.”

Jon’s expression went, abruptly, blank, and then cold. The grip around Martin’s heart followed suit, a chill running through him, though it did nothing to make him feel better. 

He closed the door behind him.

Chapter Text

It was easier to make his way through town, with his cloak and his newly dark hair. His stature still drew glances, but unlike before, their attention quickly left him, skittering away to other, more interesting things in the market. The weight that lifted from his shoulders was surprising only in that he hadn’t noticed it had been there at all. Still, Martin supposed it made sense. He was unused to being so openly perceived so often. It was far more comfortable to move around unnoticed. 

The market, even in the early morning, had already drawn a small crowd. Sellers were boisterous, falsely cheery while selling their wares. It was all bright fabric, loud colors, and powerful smells. 

Ironic, that it was easier to be alone in a crowd. He slipped through the throng and was barely glanced at.

Perhaps the only reason stares lingered at all was because of how filthy he was from his brush with the Buried. He headed to the bathhouses first, paying the fare at the door, and was relieved to find them nearly abandoned. He had no concerns about modesty, but it would be hard to avoid those second glances to the scars that littered his body. No hiding that under a layer of soot.

He washed quickly, carefully avoiding getting his hair wet for now. It wouldn’t be hard to find another spot to wash the grime of the journey off them, once they reached Vast territory. 

He made his purchases quickly as well, first stocking up on food--dried meats and bread and whatever other offerings wouldn’t go bad within a few days. They still had a long way ahead of them, and few unaffiliated towns in between. A bedroll, for Jon. Shoes. Clothing. Martin hesitated there, scanning through the options of one vendor. He realized he had no idea what Jon would have liked for himself. He cast his mind to what Jon had been wearing, though it was hard to picture under the dirt and mud that streaked it. It didn’t really help him now, however, as what Jon wore wasn’t nearly suitable for a journey longer than a day. 

Jon would have looked more at home in a library than the open road.

Again, for a moment, his mind caught on the question of why. Why was Jon so unprepared for travel, where had he hoped to go? Before Martin met him, Jon must have already been running, then caught by the Huntress. So...he’d been traveling North, away from Beholding, toward the Kingdom of the Lonely...

Why? Martin supposed a few unaffiliated territories had survived in the North, but they skirted the Lonely kingdom with a berth of hundreds of miles, and the only other place around was the Deadlands. And not a one could pass through their gates without an open invitation, unless they wanted Terminus to strike them down for trespassing. 

The vendor tried to get his attention, gesturing to fabrics they had for discounted prices. The sudden scrutiny prickled at Martin’s skin after so long unobserved, and so he grabbed the closest pair of shirt and trousers to him, handing over likely more coin than was appropriate and carefully avoiding the brush of the vendor’s fingers. He bundled the clothes in his arms, making to turn, but his eye caught on a flash of green fabric, billowing in the gentle, morning wind. It was nothing but a strip of green silk, and yet it caught his eye. 

He’d seen a similar color before. On the weave of Jon’s laces, on the fabric that lined the buttons of his shirt. All of a sudden, he thought of the long tresses of Jon’s hair. How he’d noticed Jon irritatedly blowing a strand out of his face or shrugging it over his shoulder. 

“How much for that?” he asked absently.

The vendor, at the corner of his eye, looked startled, then confused. “What, this?” the man asked, gesturing to the fabric. “Well, that piece isn’t finished yet, I’m afraid--”

“So this part,” Martin said, gesturing to the bit of fabric and glancing at him, “it’s not for sale?” 

The vendor opened his mouth, closed it, then said, “I suppose a copper piece will do.”

Martin handed the amount over, and took the bit of fabric between his fingers. It slipped over his skin like water, soft and light. 

He felt, abruptly, that prickle over his skin, another pair of curious eyes watching him, and he quickly slipped the piece into his pocket, turning away. 

It felt, somehow, more difficult to disappear into the throng than before, even as more people had filled the space. He felt almost as though something lit him up inside, perhaps the strange heat he could feel behind his face, and that he would draw curious eyes despite his best efforts. He kept his head down, as he made the way back to the inn.

He breezed past the entryway, glad of the fact that the innkeeper wasn’t at her post, and took the stairs two at a time. Reaching the door of their room, he shifted what he had in his arms to knock, but he paused when a bit of sound drifted from behind the closed door. 

It was a soft sound, barely there. A lilting, low sound that drifted over tones purposefully. A humming. It wasn’t a song Martin recognized, but he found himself caught by it. By the soft, gentle rumble of Jon’s voice over the notes. 

He leaned closer to the door as if pulled to it. A floorboard creaked under his feet. The humming stopped, the silence abrupt, accusing. 

Martin swallowed around the sudden tightness of his throat, and knocked on the door. 

There was a pause, a silence under the door that felt more pronounced. Then, “who is it?”

“It’s me,” Martin answered.

“Who’s me?” Jon asked after a beat.

Martin sighed. “Jon.”

There was the sound of a huff of breath behind the door, then footsteps and the dull clanging of the lock. The door opened, and there was Jon. His hair was still sopping wet. His face was flushed, pinker undertones to his cheeks, but it was a different look to before, different from that exhausted, drawn look. His eyes looked brighter, Martin thought.

“Finally,” Jon muttered, shifting fabric over his shoulders, and in that moment Martin realized he’d stripped the sheets from the bed and wrapped them around himself like a blanket. Martin could see some drops of water from the bath gleamed on his collarbone. “It’s bloody cold in here.” A hand shot out from underneath the mass of sheets. Martin stared at it. “Clothes?” Jon prompted, after a moment. “If you don’t mind?”

“Oh,” Martin said, fumbling to hand them over. “Sorry, I--”

Jon took them, and the door slammed shut again. Martin stifled a sigh. He leaned against the wall by the door, and pulled the swath of green fabric from his pocket, drawing it over his fingers. His mind felt both blissfully empty, and buzzing for his attention all at once.

After a few minutes, the door opened again, and Martin slipped through before it could close again. It seemed Jon was too busy trying to tuck the shirt into his trousers to bother much with that. The shirt looked a little big, admittedly, hanging loose around Jon’s neck, but it was certainly better than what he’d wore before--cleaner, less likely to chafe on the road. 

Judging by Jon’s scowl, he didn’t seem to think so. 

“You don’t like it,” Martin sighed, not really asking.

“Don’t see why that matters,” Jon shot back immediately though his scowl did not let up as he focused his energy on rolling up the sleeves. “It’s not as if I have any real choice in the matter.”

Martin sighed again, moving past him to the bed to lay down the rest of the supplies he’d bought. “Well, we can head down again after the doctor sees you. You can pick whatever suits you better.” He opened up the bag that he’d stored the food in, setting some of the bread and fruit out on a clean cloth. He saw Jon perk up out of the corner of his eye. Martin picked up a piece of bread and a bit of dried meat, then stepped away, gesturing to it all. “Help yourself.”

Jon shot Martin a look that he couldn’t interpret, and then made a beeline for the bag, rooting inside and scoffing. “Aiming to feed a small army?”

Martin huffed, as he made to sit against the wall, feeling the corner of his mouth tick up. “Are you complaining?” 

“Nope,” Jon said immediately, from around what seemed like a mouthful of apple. “Not at all. Certainly better than whatever you brought from Lonely territory.”

Ah yes, Martin thought. Jon had hated the rations. “It’s meant to be filling.”

“It tasted like sand,” Jon shot back, waving the apple in his hand imperiously. 

Martin snorted, looking over the loaf of bread in his hands after taking a quick bite. It didn’t dissolve in the mouth like rations did, and kept its springy texture on his tongue. Martin hummed. “The stuff is a bit shit,” he admitted.

That startled a sound from Jon Martin had never heard. A huff of a laugh, that, strangely, made his skin feel warm, almost like Jon’s touch itself.

But then Jon met his eyes, and the hint of a smile faded. The pinch between Jon’s brows returned and he looked away, turning the apple in his hands. 

The next bite of bread tasted like ash in his mouth. 

He eyed Jon, as they ate in silence, noting that Jon seemed devoted to studying the apple as if there were answers carved into it. As he looked down at it, strands of his wet hair not quite long enough to drape behind his shoulder slipped over it, into his face. Each time, Jon moved to brush it back, the scowl on his face larger, more pronounced. 

After the fourth time, Martin stood up, digging into his pocket and drawing out the piece of fabric. He held it out to Jon, who had gone still at his sudden movement. “Here,” he said. When Jon just stared at him, he added, “it’s for your hair. I thought you might like to tie it up.”

Jon still stared at him, but the pinch between his brows was softening, slowly easing away. His eyes dropped to the strip of fabric and lingered there, for a moment, just looking. “Why do you have that?” he asked, a strange note to his voice.

“I got it for you,” Martin explained. “In the market.”

When Jon still failed to move, Martin drew back. “You don’t have to take it--”

“No,” Jon said, meeting his eyes. “No, I...thank you,” he said, softly. When he reached out for it, his fingertips brushed over Martin’s palm and left small trails of fire against his skin.  

Martin watched as he took his hair up with both hands, holding the fabric between his lips, the color bright against his skin. Jon sectioned out his hair, deft fingers beginning to weave the strands over each other, but as he went, the hair seemed to lose it’s tight shape. He made an irritated sound, starting over once more, before sighing, letting his hair drape back onto his shoulders and taking the fabric from his mouth. 

At Martin’s questioning look, he said, ruefully, “I’ve never been good at braiding my own hair, I always...” He paused, glancing at Martin, then down at the ground. “I had a, um...well, she, um...she was far better at it than I was.”

Martin looked back at him, studying the expression that had turned slightly melancholic, thoughtful and distant and a little bit sad. He didn’t like that expression. That furrow between Jon’s brows that so rarely went away, the shadows of exhaustion that seemed more prominent under his eyes when he looked down. “Suppose it would be hard to do that yourself,” Martin tried, after a beat of silence. “Especially given how uncoordinated you are.”

Jon blinked, his head jerking up to look at his, brows furrowed as if he hadn’t heard correctly, and then lowering in righteous indignance, all melancholy forgotten. “Wha--I’m not--that’s not fair, half the time we’re on that damn beast of a horse--”

“She’s a lovely horse,” Martin shot back, raising a brow, “and you know it.”

“I’d think she was lovelier if half the time her movements weren’t so...jerky. It’s not pleasant, coming so close to falling.”

“Yes, but I haven’t let you fall, have I?” Martin asked.

Jon opened his mouth, closed it, then looked away, a flush staining his cheeks. He grumbled something incoherent, but Martin was pleased to note that that melancholic look was all but forgotten.

In the silence--less tense, less oppressive than it had been before--Martin found himself saying, “I could help you, if you’d like.”

Jon looked back at him, head tilted, his features drawn up in confusion. “What?”

The words had come almost without his permission, and for a moment, with the weight of Jon’s eyes on him, Martin floundered. “I, um. With your, um.” He gestured, vaguely, to the fabric Jon still held absently between his fingers. 

It seemed to do the trick, because Jon looked down at it and then said, “oh!  Oh. I, um.” His fingers ran over the fabric, an absent, nervous motion. He looked up at Martin again. “O-okay.”

Martin stood, crossing the space between them, silently reaching out for the piece of silk. Jon looked up at him where he sat at the edge of the bed, as he handed the swath of fabric over, his fingertips brushing over Martin’s skin. “Where, um,” Jon swallowed, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. “Where should I...?”

“Stay there,” Martin told him, coming around, settling behind him on the bed. 

Jon’s head was turned slightly, but not quite looking behind. Martin could see the slant of his jaw, the slope of his nose, the flicker of movement from his eyelashes. But he could not see the expression on his face. His shoulders looked tense, a little too high to be entirely relaxed. Martin waited, wondering if he might need a moment, but the tension did not recede. 

“Are you going to...?” Jon said, abruptly.

“Yes,” Martin said, leaning forward, hands hovering, hesitating. He watched the line of Jon’s shoulders. “I’ll just...” When there was no protest, Martin gently drew his fingers around the strands of Jon’s hair closest to his face, to draw them back. His fingertips brushed the line of Jon’s jaw, and he heard a sharp intake of breath. “Sorry,” Martin murmured, his voice sounding too loud in the silence.

Jon didn’t reply, but Martin thought it seemed as though his chest was rising faster with each breath. 

Martin paused again, to see if he’d say anything, or change his mind, and when Jon said nothing, he moved to continue. His fingers ran through Jon’s hair, making to section it. It was soft, cold under his fingers, like silk itself. 

As Martin drew a fingertip across Jon’s scalp to separate a section, Jon shivered under his hand. Martin drew back. “Are you--?”

“Fine,” Jon said, immediately, a strange, hoarse quality to his voice. 

Martin stared at the line of his shoulders, still tense. Slowly, cautiously, he returned to his work, keeping the sections separate with his fingers, gently folding them over each other. Jon’s hair ran like water over his knuckles, the scent of the floral soap he’d used wafting in the air, lingering--Martin was sure--on his own skin. 

The line of Jon’s shoulders was slowly lowering, slanting downward.  

Martin’s hands worked automatically, without much conscious thought, and it wasn’t until he’d reached the tips of Jon’s hair that he’d realized how...effortless it had felt. Dazedly, he took up the green silk, and tied it off, letting the hair rest against Jon’s back. “There,” he said, his voice coming out softer than he’d meant it.

Jon inhaled, his head turning slightly, as if caught off guard by his voice. His hand reached back, drawing the braid over his shoulder so he could look at it. Jon ran a finger over it, before glancing back at him. There was a strange look on his face, in his dark eyes. “Where...where did you learn to do this?”

Martin looked down at the braid, at the intricate pattern that he hadn’t put any conscious thought to at all. The movements had been so hauntingly familiar, so practiced.

And yet, when he thought about it, he ached. And the fog pushed back at him.

“I don’t know,” he murmured, after a moment. 

He saw Jon frown at him in his periphery, not one of his frustrated frowns, but something thoughtful, something questioning. Jon opened his mouth as if to press, but there was a knock on the door. 

Martin drew his eyes up from the braid, suddenly tense, and he eyed where he’d left his  sword against the wall. But then, the doctor announced himself behind the door, and the coiling tension flooded out of him. 

He couldn’t help but note that Jon still looked at him, pensively, when he went to answer the door. And why, inexplicably, it didn’t feel like it had in the market, that prickle of scrutiny.

No. As Jon watched him, he realized it felt more like a warmth. At the back of his neck,  on his face, just under his skin. 

Maddening, and yet, with every day, every moment, becoming so very familiar. Almost...right.

It was funny. He’d always thought that of the cold, before.

Chapter Text

The doctor was a grizzled, stooped old man, with a brusque nature about him. He took one look at Martin as he entered and merely huffed, brushing past him. “Trust you’re not the patient, then,” the man said, lugging a bag with him that was nearly the size of his torso. He carried it with surprising strength, given how ancient he looked. 

Jon, given his expression, had already decided to dislike the man. He scowled at him from his perch on the bed. “And what would you know--”

“It’s his leg,” Martin interjected calmly, “the right one. We had a run in with one Corrupted.”

The doctor huffed, his head practically buried in his bag as he searched for something. “Then your luck must be shite,” he said. “Corrupted only attack if you encroach on their territory--”

“Yes, thank you, we’re well aware,” Jon said acidly, glaring at the man.

“Jon,” Martin sighed. “Will you let the man do his job?”

“If he’ll, perhaps, actually do it--”

“If you quit your yammering,” the doctor said, his attention almost entirely on the equipment he was drawing from his bag, “I’d be faster about it.”

Jon’s face turned an impressive color. “ My--”

“Alright,” Martin interrupted, running a hand over his face. “Alright. Enough.” Jon huffed irritatedly, glaring at the wall beyond the doctor’s head. 

Martin moved to the edges of the room to give them space, glancing over every few seconds. To the doctor, Martin said, “do you have experience treating wounds from the fear-touched?”

The doctor scoffed as he hiked up Jon’s trouser leg. Though he seemed a brusque person, the movements he made were gentle, careful, and placated some restless thing in Martin’s chest as he watched them. Martin was relieved to see the wounds didn’t seem nearly as bad as they’d look yesterday, and that Jon seemed to be healing fast. “Enough,” the doctor said. “Not often Corrupted, but enough Desolated victims in recent years.”

Jon seemed to perk up at this information the same moment Martin did, his scowl, for a moment, lessening. “Desolation? This far North?”

The doctor hummed. “More restless than usual, the flame bearers. And others. Hunt touched trying for inside the walls. Vestiges of the dark licking up the parapets. Boundaries seem to be shifting, in recent years.”

Martin frowned, and saw Jon mirror the expression at the corner of his eye. Martin hadn’t strayed far from Lonely territory in a few years--he’d heard nothing of this. “Why?”

The doctor glanced up at him with an expression that could wither away paint. “You’re asking the wrong man. I have no interest in the goings on of the fears or their patrons. I left the End long ago.”

“The End?” Martin asked, surprised. He hadn’t known of many who’d left the End, once they’d devoted themselves to it. “Difficult to turn from the End, isn’t it?”

“No more than the Lonely,” the doctor said, hardly glancing at him, and yet the words seemed to hang heavy in the air, even if he was the only one who noticed. “Besides,” the man continued, “it’ll have me, once my time is up. As it will all.”

Jon hardly looked bothered by the morbid turn, instead looking thoughtful. “Do you really think the territories are shifting? That...usually only happens during war time.”

“Or the gods are stirring,” the man said, as he worked. “Lines of the Web shifting. Web always shifts when something comes.”

Jon was silent after this, and when Martin glanced at him, he thought he looked slightly paler. He supposed that wasn’t surprising. Even a mention of the Web was enough to bring some to fear. The Spider was the most powerful entity by far, and its patrons--rare, secretive--just as deadly. They could order a man to death with a word, and he’d be glad to slit his own throat. It was said that the Spider was one of the first, before the fears had any order to them at all. The Spider laid the foundations for the territories to grow, boundaries made in the lines of the Web. When the Web was disturbed, momentous change followed. Often a war, or the death of a ruler. Territories grew or fell away to ruin. 

If the Weavers chose to, they alone could likely overrun them all. But instead, they lay in wait for the next, momentous occasion. Martin had heard of instances in which they decimated unaffiliated villages--large scale sacrifices--but the Weavers themselves never attacked any other entity’s territory. They merely waited for chaos to unfold when their Mother of Puppets stirred the Web, and always successfully sided with the victor.

Martin watched as the doctor worked in silence, absently cleaning his armor. He carefully studied Jon’s face for any sign of discomfort, but the doctor seemed to be well-practiced, carefully replacing the bandages. Jon still looked mildly irritated by the man’s presence, but nothing quite like the ire of before. In fact, he looked distracted, his thoughts far away.

After a few minutes, the doctor’s work seemed to be done. The man stood, his old bones creaking. “It’ll heal smoothly enough,” he said. He glanced at Martin. “Bandages’ll need to be changed every few days.” He looked back at Jon, drawing his attention where before he had looked distant. The doctor’s eyes scanned him over. “Eye aligned?” he guessed.

Jon nodded, and the doctor mirrored the motion. “Shouldn’t take long, then. Few days, I expect.”

Martin stood when the doctor turned. “How much--”

“He needs to be seen to as well,” Jon said suddenly.

Martin blinked at him, as the doctor glanced back. 

“His arm,” Jon added, a stubborn slant appearing at his mouth when Martin sighed. Jon merely looked back at him combatively. 

“It’s fine,” Martin said, holding up a hand when the doctor approached.”It should be nearly healed by now--”

“So it won’t hurt to let him look at it,” Jon said, raising a brow when Martin looked back at him, exasperated. “Come now, Martin, let the man do his job,” he parroted back at him.

The doctor waited, staring between them with a raised brow. Jon matched Martin’s stare, stubborn and smug in equal measure. Martin huffed a sigh, pushing up his sleeve. “Don’t expect there’ll be much for you to heal,” Martin muttered, giving Jon a look as the doctor unwound the bandages. It did nothing to curb the self-satisfied expression on his face. “It’s been long enough. I expect it should be--”

He cut off when the final bit of the bandage had fallen away. The circular wounds on his arm were raised, bleeding sluggishly as if fresh, the skin around them swelled, pink and inflamed. 

The doctor frowned, calloused fingers at Martin’s wrist guiding his arm to turn. Martin was too distracted to notice the prickling agony the touch brought, his gaze locked on his arm. “When did you say this run in happened again?” the doctor asked.

Martin barely heard, staring at his arm. The Lonely should have healed him by now. The fog that ran through him...the wounds should have been scars by now. Why...

“A day ago,” Jon answered, when Martin didn’t respond, but the light, smug tone was gone from his voice. He sounded tense, concerned. “Martin?” Martin looked up at him and saw his brow creased in concern. “Are you--?”

Martin stepped out of the doctor’s hold, his skin suddenly insistently prickling from the touch. He stared at the wounds on his arm and forcibly called the Lonely fog from his veins. The wounds went white, burning with cold. The temperature around them dropped. As the fog coalesced, the wounds worked to knit shut. After a few minutes, the skin had closed over entirely, new, silvery scars in their wake. Martin slumped back against the wall when it was done, drained in a way he’d never felt before. It felt almost like he’d dragged himself through the Lonely itself. His head felt fuzzy, emptied, numb.

The doctor moved in his periphery, and Martin’s hand immediately moved to  reach for a sword that was not at his side. Martin had forgotten, for a moment, that there were others in the room, and when he looked up, recognition set in, trickling in slowly, like the creeping of fog over water. 

They were both staring at him. Martin was well aware, now, what concern looked like on Jon’s face. Bearing the brunt of it was dizzying, an emotion that should not have been meant for him. Perhaps that was the problem. The Lonely cringed from attention, and more than that, care.

But there was a niggling seed of doubt at the back of his mind. What if it wasn’t just that? The Lonely had never failed him like this before, had never been difficult to wield. 

Martin took a breath, flexing muscles in his hand as he lowered his arm. He met the doctor’s eyes. “Apologies. But I’m in no need of your services.”

“In no--why did your arm look like that then?” Jon suddenly exclaimed, his eyes wide as he looked between them. 

Martin opened his mouth, but found he had no real answer. 

“It could be the nature of them,” the doctor interjected calmly, though he was giving  Martin a look at the corner of his eye that he couldn’t interpret. “The Corrupted could be said to be the antithesis to the Forsaken. The Corrupted are never alone.”

Martin nodded, and said, absently, “that must be it.”

Jon continued to send him glances as the doctor made his way out, as if he wanted to  say something. As soon as the door closed, Martin turned to him and broke the silence first. “Did the shoes fit?”

Jon faltered in confusion. “Did--what?” He blinked as he processed what Martin had said, and looked down at his feet. “I suppose they’re...fine...”

“Good,” Martin said, brushing past him to snatch up his sword in its scabbard, looping the leather around his waist. “I’ll take you down to the market, you can pick out whatever you think you’ll need--”

“Martin,” Jon interjected, coming up beside him, eyes fervently bright. He reached out a hand, placing it on Martin’s arm--on the still exposed skin--and it burned so much hotter than before, lancing down his arm and wrapping around the concaves of his chest. Martin jerked away from the touch, and Jon’s expression went blank with sudden surprise. 

“What?” Martin asked sharply, his heart racing.

Jon blinked at him, a flurry of emotions crossing his face that just served to make Martin dizzy. Made a strange, heavy feeling in his chest grow. Jon’s expression finally settled into one approaching blankness, but there was still a pinch between his brows. “I...are you--?”

“I’m fine,” Martin said, not looking at him. It was easier to lie that way. “Let’s go.”

The strange heaviness in his chest did not go away. In fact, it worsened when they emerged into the now crowded market, and as they weaved through thickets of people. With every brush against his shoulders, he tensed, his skin prickling. He put his focus on minimizing contact, skirting away when people got too close.

He avoided Jon’s glances in almost the same way.

It was hard to avoid the near-touches of careless passerbys, though, when his thoughts were far away. Caught on the strange effort it had taken to call on the Lonely, how... resistant it had seemed. 

He absently handed over the coin for Jon’s purchases--practical clothing for travel, he was thankful to note, but beyond that, he didn’t really care what the money was for. It wasn’t his, after all, not really. The Lonely kingdom was so wealthy from clandestine trade that nothing short of exorbitant, outrageous purchases would make a dent in what had been given to him. 

When Lord Lukas wanted something done, he spared no expense, or effort.

Martin glanced at Jon, stopped by a vendor, his eyes roaming over the soft, fluttering fabrics. With the angle of the sun in the sky, his profile was just lit, a golden glow caressing the details of his face--the slope of his nose, the movement of his eyelashes as he blinked, the way his lips parted, ever so slightly. The few strands of his hair too short for the braid caught in the breeze, and Martin caught the dizzying scent of lavender. 

His chest felt, suddenly, too tight for his lungs, and he had the abrupt desire to give Jon whatever he wanted, anything, before he--

Before he’d have to--

That heavy, sinking feeling in his chest intensified, and when he sought the fog of the Lonely to pull around him, it was harder to reach, less willing to wield to him. But, after a moment, the feeling disappeared, as they all did, eventually. 

He glanced again at Jon’s face, and saw his eyes seemed caught on a particular fabric, his fingers running over it. It was a long, billowing skirt of forest green, perhaps too nice for travel, but nothing extravagant. But the look on Jon’s face was something approaching wistful, so Martin blurted, “get it.”

Jon jerked his head to look at him, surprise painted on his face, perhaps at Martin’s breaking the silence between them. His brow furrowed as he let go of the fabric. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Jon said, scoffing. His arms crossed, though, it looked almost more like he wrapped them around himself. “I can’t imagine it’ll be conducive to riding a horse.”

“You could ride side-saddle,” Martin pointed out. “In fact, it might help you from feeling sore, if you alternate the way you ride.”

Jon seemed to consider this, his eyes dropping away, chewing on his lip. He reached out for the fabric again, drawing it out to look at it. 

“It suits you,” Martin murmured, without his express permission.

Jon seemed to startle and whipped his head to stare at Martin, his cheeks flushed. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly for a moment, though he seemed about to say... something when his gaze suddenly caught on something over Martin’s shoulder and remained there for a beat too long. 

“Jon?” Martin prompted curiously, about to turn to look when Jon abruptly said, “alright.”

Martin looked back at him, and saw his expression settled, determined. “Buy it for me?”

Martin studied the shift in his expression, but answered, after a beat. “Of course.”

Jon seemed...tense at Martin’s side, but also strangely restless, as he made the purchase. Jon continued to glance out at the crowd, then at the side of Martin’s face when he thought Martin wasn’t looking. 

Martin kept half an eye on him, as he traded the payment for the parcel, so he saw the moment Jon made an abrupt motion, and suddenly a man in passing tripped, falling against Martin. Martin stumbled only slightly, keeping his feet. The pot the man had been transporting smashed into the ground, soil mingling with earth and cobblestone below, the petals of flowers bright against the earthen tones, like flecks of paint. 

Martin glanced at the mess that skirted the floor as he made to turn, to ask Jon what the hell he thought he was doing, but when his eyes registered the sight, he froze.

Lilacs. 

He stared, unsure why he was so caught on the sight, but unable to draw his gaze away. For a moment, an image flashed, those lilacs in a vase at a bedside. 

Those lilacs spread on the floor, wilted, rotting, drying out, flecked with red.

The fog in his head roiled, a warning, pounding at his skull. His chest ached with something that felt like...like...

Breathless, unfathomable sorrow.

His ears roared. Distantly, someone was saying something to him.

A hand lighted on his shoulder, with a prickle of heat and acute discomfort, and he was finally able to draw his eyes away with a gasp that caught in his throat. The sounds of the market returned, flooding back in a rush. Martin jerked away from the hand on him, which raised placatingly. The man who’d bumped into him stared at him, concerned. “You alright, lad?”

“Fine,” Martin gasped out, as the fog in his head settled. But he could still remember the lilacs, no matter how hard he tried to push the image away. He screwed his eyes shut for a moment, pressing a palm to his still aching skull, willing the Lonely fog to soothe it. It took a moment for the fog to respond, an aching moment in which it seemed to resist him. 

What was happening to him?

“Jon,” he grit out, “what--”

He turned to the space next to him Jon had occupied, only a moment ago. Jon was gone.

Chapter Text

Martin stared at the empty space beside for a beat longer, taking a moment to process. But of course. Of course Jon would try to bolt again, why had Martin ever thought--

Martin whirled to face the vendor, who quickly averted their eyes in an attempt to pretend they hadn’t been staring. Martin drew their gaze again when he grit out, “did you see where he went?”

“Where...?” the vendor repeated, brow creasing in a frown.

“The man who was with me,” Martin rattled off, “dark skin, long hair?” With every moment the vendor took to answer, Martin could feel the stormy discontent start to  creep onto his face. The temperature around him plummeted as the Lonely compensated for the growing frustration.

The vendor floundered, eyes widening at whatever expression he saw on Martin’s face, spluttering uselessly. Martin considered, for a moment, sending him into the Lonely to loosen his tongue, but that would take time, time he didn’t have. And it was possible he hadn’t seen a single useful detail.

Martin huffed, pushing away from the table. His foot skidded in the soil scattered across the ground, and the man he’d collided with made an irritated sound as he tried to clean up his wares, but Martin ignored him. He cast his attention into the crowd, steadfastly keeping his eyes away from the lilacs at his feet.

His eyes scanned the heads in the crowd--so many more than there had been that morning, so many his skin crawled with the heat and stares of too many bodies. He searched for the familiar colors of Jon’s hair, the shades of his tunic, but saw nothing, nothing but a pressing sea of strangers.  He didn’t even know what direction Jon had taken off in, and with every moment he was getting--

Wait. Martin recalled, abruptly, the way Jon had looked over Martin’s shoulder for a moment too long almost immediately before he bolted. What had he seen?

Martin whirled in the direction he’d seen Jon looking, stuffing the parcel he’d purchased in the bag he’d brought, weaving through the gaps in the crowd. He grimaced when he brushed shoulders with oblivious passerbys. The brief touches flashed, hot and unpleasant, under his skin. Everytime he tried to focus on any Lonely traces Jon had left behind--whispers of that unique fear and solitude that smelled vaguely of cardamom--he’d catch traces from the scores of people around him instead. Ambiguous, distracting fears that tore at his attention, reminding him that he was surrounded at all sides, sending him nearly crashing into the paths of those trying to shoulder past.

It only drew more curious eyes, more glancing touches.

He still couldn’t get a focus on Jon. The crowd pressed at him. His breaths came faster, his throat thick with something he couldn’t name, something that clawed up from inside him and sat in his esophagus like a vice. It was unfamiliar, that feeling, but also...

It made him think of the lilacs. 

He couldn’t focus with the press of people, the constant, agonizing flashes of contact,  the flood of feeling that threatened to steal the breath from his lungs, it was all too much, too much, too much--

Where he meant to merely guide the Lonely fog over himself, smother the feelings down, the Lonely reached out for him in a way it hadn’t before, it’s clawing tendrils almost...reactive. Hungry. Angry.

He was in the Lonely itself in the next instant. It was utterly calming, the sudden flood of nothing it brought. No touch. No feeling, just...utter, quiet nothing.

There was nothing but the fog and the wind in an endless flat landscape, the tendrils still curling around him, insistent.

More insistent than usual. 

Dangerous, the back of his mind told him. Dangerous to travel through the Lonely so soon after the last time.

It was an objective knowledge, that the Lonely would simply swallow him whole if he used it too much, but in that moment...it was entirely too tempting to give in to the insistent tendrils of fog caressing exposed skin. Too tempting to let the fog strip away everything.

Feeling—existing—it only ever made his head hurt anyway.

But...no. No there was...there was something he’d been looking for. 

Someone?

The Lonely fog abruptly felt too cold against his skin. 

Jon, he remembered, as the Lonely grew colder, more frigid, more insistent. Jon, with that deep loneliness that he tried so desperately to hide. Jon, whose loneliness smelled of sweat and fear and cardamom, and made some deep part of Martin’s chest ache, just a little, even then.

Martin closed his eyes, ignoring the whipping fog around him, closing in on that specific lonely trail. He could follow it, here, where there were no distractions, where everything was loneliness incarnate.

He cast his mind out, searching. Where, where, where—

There.

He used the Lonely, moving through it, and though it resisted him slightly it still bent and shifted around him. It clawed at him even as he broke the barrier through to reality.

And he was back in the shock of sound and color of the real world, and when he opened his eyes to the crowd his gaze was pulled to a familiar curl of Lonely fog in the air, and a flash of a familiar braid of hair as Jon disappeared into one of the storefronts that lined the street. 

Martin followed single-mindedly, expertly weaving through the crowd once more. The mere few minutes in the Lonely had made his thoughts quiet again, his mind settled with a cool, lovely nothing. He could hardly remember what had unsettled him before. All that mattered was finding Jon.

He heard Jon’s voice from inside the storefront--what looked like a pub--before he saw it, and something in it, some desperate agitation had him slowing, pausing at the door to listen.

When he cast a glance inside, he quickly scanned the room. It looked far from welcoming, with a few scattered patrons who were all large, hulking and armored. Surely armed as well, though Martin couldn’t see any visible weapons. Jon, small as he seemed in comparison and decidedly unarmed, hadn’t seemed to notice this fact. Jon’s attention seemed to be reserved for one person, a familiar figure he was reaching for. The guard at the wall, with his imposing tattoos and dark hair and pale skin. Gerard Keay.

“Please,” Jon was saying, reaching for him, “just--”

Keay took a step away from him, the look on his face laden with irritation. “Look,” he said, “I don’t know what you think you’re entitled to, but this isn’t it. I’ve left that life behind me. I’ve forgotten it. And maybe you should do the same.” Keay turned and caught the attention of the bartender with the flash of a hand.

“I can’t,” Jon said in reply, clearly trying to get Keay’s attention again.

His insistence and volume seemed to be garnering the attention from the other patrons as well, some looking with a dark curiosity, others looking irritatedly over their drinks. 

“Watcher save me,” Martin heard Keay grit out, looking skyward before he cast a flat, annoyed glance at Jon. “I’m not going to indulge your damned curiosity. Piss. Off.”

“It--It’s not just curiosity,” Jon insisted. Keay seemed to be done indulging him, however, turning to stalk further down the bar, gesturing for the bartender to follow. But still Jon continued, trailing him, trying to get in front of him. “Please,” Martin heard him say, “I--I need to--you were one of the only ones who knew him before-- wait --” Jon paused, just for a moment, and Martin could just barely see the desperate look flash on his face from where he stood, when Jon hissed, barely audibly, “I’m his betrothed .”

It was too loud. Even as Jon whispered it it was too loud, and Martin could feel himself growing still and cold, noticing the way two of the patrons closest to them also went just as still, heads turning just slightly as if they were now paying full attention.

Keay had also stopped, turning to look at Jon more closely, dark eyes scanning over his face. “You’re telling the truth,” Keay said. It wasn’t a question.

Jon nodded, the line of his jaw tight, his body coiled like a spring. Even when he brought the subject up himself, he looked uncomfortable. 

Keay raised a brow. “You don’t really seem like his type,” he said, his voice carefully lowered, after a moment.

Jon scoffed, a high, nervous sound. “No?”

“No,” Keay confirmed dryly. He tilted his head as he considered Jon. “But I suppose,” Keay said, more slowly, more pointedly, as he considered Jon, “that’s not always the point of these things. Bennett was just a courtesan and he served his purpose well enough.”

Barnabas Bennett. Martin didn’t care much for politics outside of direct dealings with the Lonely kingdom, but even he knew of Bennett. Close companion of Jonah Magnus, sacrificed to the Lonely to cement the strong allyship between the two kingdoms. That had been a long time ago. But it did speak to how Magnus treated even those close to him.

Martin could just barely see Jon’s profile, but caught the line of his throat, the way it bobbed as he swallowed and his arms wrapped around himself. 

“You shouldn’t have told me that,” Keay said, before Jon could speak again. Martin tensed, his hand going to his sword, but Keay continued, “you’re lucky I want nothing to do with that life anymore. Do you know how many people would jump at the chance to stick it to Magnus? Take something from him for once?”

“I have an inkling,” Jon shot back immediately. “But I thought it might garner some sympathy.”

“Well, you have it,” Keay said blandly, “and that’s all I can give you.”

“But--” 

“Look,” Keay interrupted, though something in his tone sounded kinder than before. “Maybe it’s better, you go in not knowing a lot. Fool him into thinking you’re ignorant, simple. He’ll probably get bored of you quick, that way.”

Something in Jon’s expression seemed to settle into a look approaching irritation. “Thanks for the advice, ” he said flatly. “But that’s not--” Jon closed his eyes, briefly, and then said, “I need to know something about Lady Robinson.”

Keay sighed, moving to turn away again. “I told you--”

Jon’s jaw clenched, indignant anger flashing on his face, and this time, when he spoke it sounded...well, it still sounded like Jon. But it was almost imperceptibly different. Threaded through with something. There was a weight to his words, a way they seemed to skitter quickly to the ears. 

But then again...had it really sounded like that? It had almost sounded normal, hadn’t it? Martin must have heard wrong. 

“Please,” Jon said to Keay, “answer me.”

Keay paused in his retreat, turning to look back at Jon. He was quiet, expectant. Jon’s face, abruptly, flickered with something that looked surprised, hesitant, almost... guilty? But then it settled into that determinedly stubborn look, and Jon said, “there were rumors that Gertrude was of the Web and the Eye. Were they true?”

Martin frowned at the question. It seemed as though there was an obvious answer, so why had Jon asked it?

Everyone knew if you were chosen by the fears, it was only ever by one.

Keay scoffed, his brow furrowing in amused incredulity. It was strange to see his face suddenly animated again, where it hadn’t been before. “That’s not possible.”

Jon frowned. “But--”

“Look, mate,” Keay said, leaning an arm onto the bar. “It’s true she didn’t make shows of power often. She didn’t have to. She was a skilled enough strategist that I think she could have taken Beholding even if the Eye hadn’t favored her. But she was just that. Of the Eye, nothing else.” He scoffed again, something almost like a laugh. “What kind of question--”

“But you said yourself she didn’t make shows of power often,” Jon reasoned. “So how would you know, if she never showed it?”

Keay looked unmoved, raising a brow. “Look--”

“Fine,” Jon said hurriedly, a note of that irritation in his voice. Jon cast a nervous glance around and behind him, and Martin sidestepped quickly to keep out of view. “I have another question.”

Again, Keay seemed to just wait for Jon to ask, a complete turn around from his behavior before. 

This time, the question was hushed, difficult for Martin to pick up on. He took a step into the pub, but kept behind one of the support beams that ran up to the ceiling. Martin carefully kept his eyes on those two other patrons, one of which had long since returned to his ale and his companion, where the other, closer to Jon, at the bar, still seemed too unnaturally tense. He was an older man, with dark, steady, intelligent eyes, and a twist to his features that made him look cruel.

Martin wasn’t certain what Jon had asked. It had been too quiet. But it had almost sounded like “how did Lady Robinson really die?”

For a moment, the briefest moment, something on Keay’s face flashed, but then it smoothed away and he was answering, something whispered so quietly Martin couldn’t have hoped to have heard it. And then Keay was taking a step back, a strange look on his  face, almost unsettled. Before Jon could say anything else, Keay’s expression shuttered and he took a step back. “No more questions.”

Jon opened his mouth, but then seemed to deflate. He nodded. Keay took what seemed like an almost careful step around him, scrutinizing him for a moment, before moving past and leaving the pub with steps that almost seemed too quick. 

Jon remained where he was, the expression Martin could see on his face indicating he was far away, lost in thought. 

The patron at the bar stood abruptly, turning to Jon, and Martin moved before he could think otherwise. He stepped in front of the man just before he could reach Jon. Martin’s  rush of movement seemed to finally jerk Jon from his thoughts. “Wha-- Martin?” Jon said from behind him.

Martin ignored him in favor of staring the man down. He had a knife at his belt, small, decently hidden, but he’d been reaching for it. Martin carefully noted the position of his hand, where it was still frozen in the act, not yet moving away. “Did you want something?” Martin asked him, levelly. 

Jon seemed suddenly very still behind him, and the general murmur of the other patrons seemed to have quieted slightly.

The man’s eyes briefly flicked to look behind Martin, then back at him. “Just looking to talk to a pretty face,” the man said in a rough accent after a moment, his eyes hard.

“He’s spoken for,” Martin answered easily. “Isn’t that right, Jon?”

Jon hesitated for only a moment before giving a shaky, “y-yes.”

“There,” Martin said. “And we were just leaving.”

There was a tense moment where the man’s expression did not change, and neither did the position of his hand. But then, another patron entered the pub and at the sound, the tense air seemed to give like a sigh. The man took a step back with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, raising his hands placatingly. “Of course,” he said. “My mistake.”

Martin reached for Jon’s arm behind him, keeping an eye on the man even as he moved toward the exit. The man didn’t move, but something in his posture seemed anything but relaxed as he leaned back against the bar. Almost...predatory, he realized.

Martin nearly swore out loud, but contained himself. The man had ex-hunt written all over him, and those that were no longer bound by the laws of Hunt territory were even more dangerous than usual. Of course one of the few who had seemed to hear exactly who Jon was was a hunter. Martin could only hope since they’d left the Hunt they’d be constrained to the borders of the village and wouldn’t follow once they left. 

Martin only allowed himself to look away when the doors had slipped closed behind them, and only then did he register Jon squirming in his grip. “Would you--stop going so--I’m not a child, I don’t need to be led--”

“Oh, no?” Martin asked him, whirling on him even as he kept pulling Jon along. “Could have fooled me.” He ignored Jon’s spluttering reply. As much as Martin hated the crowd, it was useful now. He cast a quick glance back to see the doors open again and the man emerge, his eyes scanning the crowd and settling on their retreating figures. This time, Martin did swear under his breath, taking the next branching turn of the street. “Should have learned your damn lesson the last time,” he muttered.

“What, that you’d find me?” Jon spat, suddenly sounding furious. “If you’d just--I wasn’t actually trying to run away--”

Martin scoffed as he maneuvered through the crowd. “ No? ”

“No! Maybe,” Jon grit out, glaring up at him, “I just wanted some time to myself for five minutes.”

“Time to yourself?” Martin shot back, sparing a moment to glance at him. “Or with Gerard Keay?” 

Martin saw the moment Jon’s expression faltered. “You--how much of that did you--”

“Half the pub heard you, Jon,” Martin ground out. “Care to announce who you are to the whole village next? I’m sure they’d love to--”

“What does it matter,” Jon hissed, twisting in Martin’s grip. “They’ll all know soon enough. When Magnus weds me and maybe even beds me.”

“Because,” Martin hissed back, “if you’re not in Beholding, you’re vulnerable. And not everyone in these towns are benevolent.”

“You think I don’t--”

“Plenty of them would be happy to use you, maybe even kill you for what you are, for who you’re connected to--”

“Well, maybe that would be kind,” Jon suddenly said.

Martin’s steps faltered. Someone in the crowd jostled him and glared. But Martin’s eyes were only on Jon, whose expression seemed abruptly drained of anger at the scrutiny, replaced by that poorly concealed fear and the tightness around his eyes whenever anyone brought up Magnus’ name. 

The ache in his chest that Martin had thought gone from him after the Lonely returned, all at once.

“Jon...” Martin started, but a flash of familiar color at the corner of his eye turned his attention to the crowd. 

The hunter was closer, and Martin saw the glint of metal at his side.

Martin swore again, louder. Martin had nothing but his sword, and though he thought he could cut the man down easily enough, he couldn't do so in the middle of a crowd.

“What?” Jon asked, following his gaze. Jon’s breath punched out of him when he saw. “Oh.”

“Come on,” Martin said, turning, “we’ll lose him in the crowd.”

“Crowd’s thinning though,” Jon noted, a slight tremor in his voice.

It was. The day was growing later and it seemed the market was closing shop. “We’ll deal with it,” Martin said, starting forward. 

“But--” A loud, cackling laugh broke over the clamor of the crowd from one of the shop fronts on their right. Jon turned to look at the sound and slowly came to a stop, staring at where it had come from.

“Jon,” Martin grit out, trying to get him to move, “we have to--”

“This way,” Jon suddenly said, pulling him to the right.

“ Why--”

“Just--trust me,” Jon hissed, and after a moment, Martin relented to his tugging. At the very least, they were moving away from the hunter.

They turned onto a side street, where the crowd was far, far, thinner. Martin had to speak up over the cackling laughter from the establishment to the right. “Jon, there’s nothing--”

“This way,” Jon said again, turning to the building at the right, making for a side door.  

Martin grit his teeth and followed, moving quickly so they could enter before the hunter passed the cross street and saw them, but silently thinking how foolish this was, that they’d be cornered in there and that to get Jon out there would have to be bloodshed and probably more than one innocent’s death because hunters, even those who didn’t serve their god, rarely cared about anything but the chase--

The door closed behind them, and it was suddenly clear where they were. The sounds of laughter and flesh against flesh. The smell of sweat and perfume. 

It was Martin, this time, who slowed to a shocked stop, and Jon trying to get him to move with a hissed, “ Martin . We have to get further inside.”

Martin stumbled after with another tug on his hand, following dazedly. “Jon, what--”

“He’d catch up with us eventually, if we kept going,” Jon reasoned, glancing back at him. They wove around working girls too busy with their clients to give them much notice. “Shouldn’t be too hard to hide from him in here.” 

Martin followed as Jon led them to an open room with plush furniture, most of them occupied by writhing bodies. A woman in a corset and not much else sidled up to them, her eyes sliding up and down. “Welcome. See anyone you like--”

“We’ll give you the usual fee if you just let us use that couch over there,” Jon told her. 

The woman blinked at him, surprised for only a moment, then glanced between them and shrugged. “Suits me fine,” she said, holding out her hand.

It took Martin a beat and a helpful nudge from Jon to reach for the pouch of coin in his bag. He handed over the payment feeling utterly out of his depth. The woman counted it, and closed her hand around it, satisfied. “Enough for an hour,” she said, looking between them, “That enough?”

“More than,” Jon answered distractedly, taking Martin’s hand again to lead him toward the empty couch. “Oh,” he said, turning back to look at her, “and if you see a man come in here, greying hair, Hunt-like, seeming like he’s looking for someone, do really try to sell him on this place, would you?”

The woman’s grin stretched wide. “Certainly.”

She turned to approach the main doors as Jon guided Martin to the couch. “Alright,” Jon said, his hands flying to his hair and working to untie the braid. “Sit down, would you?” he said, when Martin just continued to stand there watching, utterly lost.

Martin sat, simply because he had long since given up trying to understand what was going on, and at the moment it seemed a far easier task than trying to keep his feet. The rhythmic movements and heavy breathing from the other occupants in the room had him feeling a bit light headed. “Jon, what--?”

Jon ran his fingers through his freed hair with the green silk tied around his wrist, and he reached for the bag at Martin’s side. “Tell me you actually bought that skirt?” he said.

“I...” Martin began unhelpfully, his brain refusing to cooperate with Jon leaning over him to get into his bag. Jon tossed his hair over his shoulder as he searched and the smell of cheap perfume was suddenly replaced by the smell of lavender.

“Ah,” Jon said, pulling back with the parcel in his hands, “excellent.” He tore it open quickly and removed the skirt, stepping into it over his trousers. It was long and flowing enough that it covered them entirely. 

Jon really did look lovely in it. 

“Now,” Jon said, meeting his eyes, “we just have to--”

A bell rang as the front doors were pushed open, and suddenly Martin heard the voice of the woman who had greeted them, a bit too loud. “Welcome, love! Tell me, what is it you were looking for today? Our girls are all lovely, and if that’s not what you’re here for, we have some very talented gentlemen--”

All of a sudden, Jon was in his lap, straddling Martin’s thighs, his arms winding around his neck. Martin’s breath stuttered in his chest, going very still. Jon flooded his body with heat at every point of contact, and Martin’s head whirled with the smell of his hair and the unique, lonely scent that still slipped from his skin, off his breath.

“That’s him,” Jon whispered, so close his lips nearly brushed Martin’s ear, his hair trailing over Martin’s shoulder. “Do you see him?”

It took a moment for the words to process, difficult to think around the aching heat of contact, but when they did Martin tilted his head to peer over Jon’s shoulder. He caught a glimpse of the man from the pub at the doors, looking around the woman who tried valiantly to draw his attention, his eyes scanning the room. 

Martin quickly leaned back against the couch to keep his face hidden behind Jon’s. “Yes.”

“Put your arms around me,” Jon said.

Martin jerked his head to look at him. “What?”

“I know acting probably isn’t your strong suit,” Jon said, his voice strung tight, eyes wide, “but please, at least try to look like you’re enjoying it.”

At the sound of a distant, heavy footstep, Martin complied, his hands settling on Jon’s back. “Good,” Jon breathed.

Martin’s stomach flipped at the word, a not entirely unpleasant feeling. His hands shifted at Jon’s back as he frantically tried to ground himself, but there was nothing to think on but the smell of him and the feeling of his chest against Martin’s and the way he squirmed on Martin’s lap--

“Now,” Jon said, his hands moving to cup Martin’s face, “press your face into the side of my neck. You’ll be more hidden that way.”

Martin met his eyes, wide and earnest and pupils blown a little bit wider than was normal. Every bit of skin Jon touched burned with heat, and it scattered every coherent thought in Martin’s head. That was Jon pressed under his hands, Jon’s weight bearing down on him, Jon’s breath tickling his face. 

Hadn’t he thought the touch of another prickling and uncomfortable, not long ago?

Now, here, it was nothing but pure heat, heat and familiar smells and mind-addling closeness. Had he ever felt warm, before this? More footsteps sounded, as the woman tried to get the man to pay and he ignored her, stepping further into the room.

“ Martin ,” Jon pressed, his voice trembling, brown eyes wide. 

And Martin, breathless with the heat and touch and the smell of him, suddenly wanted to do everything Jon ever asked of him, anything to keep that note of fear from his voice. 

He pressed his face into Jon’s neck, so close he could hear, clearly, Jon’s intake of breath. His nose brushed just under the hinge of Jon’s jaw. Jon’s pulse fluttered against his skin. The smell of lavender and cardamom made Martin’s head spin. 

Jon’s hand settled at the nape of his neck, keeping him there. His fingers moved just slightly, barely brushing against the beginnings of his curls, and the touch had a shiver running through him, his lips parting. They brushed over the skin of Jon’s neck, and Jon took another quivering breath, his other hand settling on the back of Martin’s head.

Martin was burning alive, and yet something in him leaned into the touch. 

The sound of the doors slamming shut again broke through the haze in his mind. The words came sluggish, almost slurring. He was so close he breathed them against Jon’s skin. “Was that...?”

Jon twitched, his breath catching strangely. “What?” he said, a strange, breathy note to his voice that Martin felt too far away to name. “Oh.” Jon’s hand moved down through his hair to fall away, and the feeling sent a wave of sparks down Martin’s spine. Jon’s head turned as he cautiously scanned the room out of the corner of his eye. The last bit of tension in his body seemed to ease away, when he turned back to Martin, his head dropping onto Martin’s shoulder. “He’s gone,” Jon breathed.

It took Martin another moment to gather the conscious effort to form more words. “That’s good,” he managed, after a moment.

Martin saw the woman with the corset come up behind them, an amused smile on her face. “Rude man, your friend,” she said.

“Not our friend,” Jon grumbled into Martin’s shoulder.

The woman’s smile widened as she looked them over. “Oh, don’t let me distract you. Still have about 45 minutes, as it were.”

Jon stilled, his head jerking up. He was nearly nose to nose with Martin when they met eyes, so it was clear to see the flush on his cheeks, just barely visible with his dark skin. In the next moment, Jon was scrambling off him, nervous hands smoothing down his skirt and eyes flitting everywhere but at Martin. “N-No, that’s, uh--that’s not actually what we were--”

The woman brushed past him, settling down on the small space on the couch next to Martin. “No?” she asked Jon, raising a brow. She turned to Martin, placing a hand on his shoulder. This time, the touch prickled uncomfortably as Martin was used to. It did wonders for clearing his head. He leaned back, but she pressed forward. “Perhaps you’d like some additional company, then--?”

“No,” Jon said suddenly, his voice hard, reaching for Martin’s opposite hand. “He wouldn’t, that’s not--” his voice seemed to lose some of it’s certainty when he actually looked at Martin, “I mean--”

“No,” Martin told her, firmly, standing up and out of her grasp. He was quite eager to get out of the village as soon as possible. “Thank you. We appreciate your help.”

She leaned back, looking at them. “Of course,” she said lightly, after a moment. “It’s your time, not mine.”

“That’s--yes,” Jon said, still flushed, still not quite looking at Martin but holding his hand. The warmth of it still made the edges of Martin’s thoughts a little fuzzy.  “Yes. We’ll, um. We’ll, just, um...” he trailed off and then wordlessly, turned, tugging Martin behind him. “Oh!” Jon blurted, when they almost ran into a couple that had taken up the narrow space against the wall and the back of another couch. The flush on Jon’s cheeks was raging now, and it was almost as if he was seeing their surroundings for the first time, now that its purpose as a hiding place had all but fallen away. 

Jon avoided looking at much of anything, cheeks dark, as they made their way toward the exit, but his hand remained in Martin’s the whole way.

Chapter Text

It hadn’t taken long to get back on the road again. In their haste, they had spoken very little, but now, with nothing between them but the sound of the horse’s breaths and hooves pounding up dirt from the trail, the silence felt tense.

Or maybe it was just on Martin’s part. Though Jon seemed a little rigid on the saddle in front of him, Jon had always been tense while riding. When Jon would occasionally turn his head to catch the swoop of a bird’s flight, or absently cast a glance into the landscape quickly voiding itself of trees to make way for the stretches of the Vast, his face looked calm, unbothered.

Martin, on the other hand, felt more and more unsettled by the second. And it wasn’t just because now, for some reason, Jon’s presence and incessant warmth felt harder to ignore than before they’d rode together. Martin’s mind, for a moment, flashed back to the brothel and the warm weight of Jon pressed against him. He gave his head a violent shake to clear it. 

No, that wasn’t the only reason. More pressing were the lilacs. He couldn’t stop thinking about the lilacs and why they had so thoroughly taken the breath from his lungs. 

He was thinking about why, out of anyone, Jon had purposefully waited and tripped the man carrying lilacs in order to slip away when he could have chosen anyone else passing by. 

Jon glanced back at him, abruptly, his dark eyes intent and curious on his face. “You alright?”

Martin’s brow furrowed as he frowned at him. Briefly, he checked his mind for any gaps in the fog Jon could have peeked through, but found none. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Jon stared at him for a beat. “You’re just, um,” he started, tentatively, after a moment, “you’re holding me fairly tightly.”

Martin blinked at him in the moment it took the words to process. “Oh!” Martin immediately relaxed the arm he had wrapped around him. “Sorry,” Martin murmured, avoiding his eyes. 

It was easier to think when Jon wasn’t looking at him. Probably an effect of Beholding. 

“You sure you’re alright?” Jon asked him, studying his face.

Martin looked back at Jon, and determined from Jon’s expression that he wasn’t likely to let the subject go, and besides...Martin couldn’t get the flowers off his mind, nor the nagging suspicion that Jon somehow knew they meant something to him. Even if he didn't even know what it was. “Why the lilacs?” he said, keeping his eyes on Jon’s face to watch for any tells.

He caught a quick flash of something that may have been guilt. Jon hesitated for a moment, before admitting, his voice slightly strained, “I wasn’t really planning on it until I saw them making their way through the crowd. Seemed the best chance to duck away for a moment, thought it might...distract you.”

Martin’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, but why?”

Jon’s mouth opened and closed, and he half turned his head away. “It was...Well, I didn’t mean to, mind you. But I...I had a nightmare that night in the inn, and I startled awake, and...well, you were dreaming rather loudly. It was still hard to see, through the fog, but far less so than when you’re awake. I caught a glimpse of flowers. A-and when I saw them in the crowd, I didn’t think, I just...went for them.”

Oh. Of course, that made sense. When Martin was asleep, his mind roamed, unimpeded. He thought about the gaps in his memory, covered over by fog. Poking at them was like poking at a bruise, but he couldn’t stop himself from impulsively asking, his voice strange to his own ears, “what else did you see?”

Jon’s eyes skirted over his face, his brow furrowed, that guilty look hiding just under his skin. “I didn’t mean to pry—“

“I know that,” Martin told him, instinctually, comfortingly, even though he didn’t, really. In fact, it would have been smart of Jon to do so. But Martin, for some reason, believed him anyway. He took a breath, opened his mouth to tell Jon he didn’t need to know what he saw, that he shouldn’t know. There was a reason those memories were lost to him. But the words caught in his throat. 

Part of him, a self-destructive part of him that still felt, despite everything, was curious.

As they rode, and the landscape changed around them and the dirt under the horse’s hooves grew softer, turning to sand. The Vast’s ocean appeared at their left, so expansive it stretched out into the horizon on their path. 

“I didn’t see much,” Jon said, as if to fill the silence when Martin said nothing else. His eyes darted to Martin’s almost nervously before settling on the horizon line. “Just a door.”

The clear skies that they’d enjoyed before officially entering Vast territory clouded over, wind blowing harder. At a minute shiver from Jon, Martin unconsciously wrapped his arm further around him. 

The storm clouds darkened over their heads, as Jon continued, voice slightly distant as if he was working to remember, “you were standing in front of a door. Hesitating. And your hand was trembling. And when you finally opened it, just a crack, I saw a flash of the flowers.” Jon went silent and then glanced back at him again. “It went hazy after that.”

Martin swallowed, for a moment dropping the reins to press at the ache above his sternum that had crept from deep in his chest as Jon spoke. He didn’t remember any of it. It was behind an impenetrable wall of fog, and he had no intention of going looking. 

He made a humming noise and kept his eyes on the road ahead, away from Jon’s curious ones.

“Was it...a nightmare?” Jon asked tentatively after a moment. Martin could see, out of the corner of his eye, Jon’s eyes studying his face.

“I don’t know,” Martin said. “I don’t remember my dreams.”

Jon blinked at him, brow furrowing. “What, never?”

“Never.”

Jon looked at him even more intently if that were possible, eyes bright with that sheen Martin was beginning to associate with avid curiosity. “Those images from your dream...” he started, tentative but quickly gaining speed and traction, “they were hard to see through the haze, but the images themselves were...they were vivid, almost like—“

“Jon—” Martin tried to interject tiredly.

“Is it true?” Jon asked, leaning closer to catch Martin’s eye when he tried to look away. “That when those in the Lonely kingdom become knights, everything that came before is wiped from their heads?”

Unbidden, a distant memory came in flashes, his first that was not covered over with fog. 

Kneeling on cold, rigid marble. Lord Lukas’ steely blue eyes looking into his, his calloused, unfeeling hand gripping the back of Martin’s neck. A knife plunging into his gut. The sensation like a blunt, distant pressure and nothing more. 

Lord Lukas’ voice, as uncaring as the winds of the Lonely itself. “Now. Did that hurt?”

“No.” His body is wrapped around the knife, he can feel the hilt pushing at his skin. It feels like almost nothing at all.

“And the memories. The pain of them. Do you feel it?”

Speaking is hard. His tongue is thick and heavy in his mouth. His vision blurring. Something is dripping against the marble. He does not even know what Lord Lukas is asking, but some distant part of him--the quivering, newly buried part of him--does. And it aches, but he cannot remember why. “...no,” he says, finally.

All he sees is the storm in Lukas’ eyes, and for once, he feels utterly nothing but the cold. “Now,” Lukas asks him, slowly, intently. “Are you grateful?”

“Martin—?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” Martin said flatly, staring over Jon’s head to look at the road ahead. He forcefully cast thoughts of the past away. 

Now, the storm above was beginning to beat down on them, distant rolls of thunder indicating rain wouldn’t be far. The ocean waves grew larger in the distance to their left. Martin eyed the rocky trail that lead up out of the valley, a few kilometers away. He wanted to reach it sooner rather than later—Vast territory was fickle, dangerous. No telling when the storm would break and the valley would flood.

In his periphery, he saw Jon’s expression flash with something mildly irritated at his comment. “Would you prefer we ride in silence?”

“Maybe,” Martin muttered.

Jon opened his mouth to reply, likely something scathing given his expression, but Martin met his eyes and interjected, “how about this. A question for a question.”

Jon blinked, but he leaned back, the expression on his face considering. After a moment, his eyes settled back on Martin’s, a level, determined look in them. “Alright. It’s your go, then?”

“So, how did Lady Robinson really die?” Martin asked immediately, intending to throw him off and end the insistent questions once and for all.

He could tell Jon had not anticipated the question, with the way he went utterly still and his eyes widened. “You—“

“Well?” Martin asked him, raising a brow. 

Jon snapped his jaw shut, glaring at him, and Martin thought that was that, until Jon said, suddenly, “she killed herself.”

The reins nearly slipped out of Martin’s hand with his surprise, as the horse twitched her head. “She—wait, that can’t—didn’t Magnus—?”

“My turn,” Jon said, a smug, self-satisfied smile on his face. “Is it true that Lonely knights have no memories before the knighthood?”

Martin sighed slowly out of his nose as Jon looked at him expectantly. “Yes,” he said shortly.

That bright curiosity was back in Jon’s eyes. “So—“

“My turn,” Martin interrupted him firmly. “Why would she take her life?”

Martin could see Jon grinding his teeth as he considered answering, as he glanced out onto the water. For a moment, Martin thought he wouldn’t. But then Jon said, hushed, “there were...rumors that she had. That Magnus never could have done away with her otherwise. But no one was sure. The only person who knew for certain guarded the secret close. But...Keay...he was there, just after the coup. And he said that...that he discovered Magnus had wanted to keep Lady Robinson alive. And that...she hadn’t given him the satisfaction.”

Martin frowned, considering this. “A transfer of power like that would be easier if she were dead, why...why would he have wanted her alive?” he wondered aloud.

A humorless smile flashed over Jon’s face, as he glanced away, but Martin caught a strange look in his eyes, almost...

Afraid. 

“It’s not your turn anymore,” Jon pointed out quietly, after a beat.

Martin watched the half of his expression he could see, but found nothing he could pinpoint for the abrupt change in his demeanor. Only the mention of Magnus. “I suppose it’s not.”

This time, when Jon turned to him, he placed a hand on Martin’s arm. The touch, even through his armor, burned with heat. “Don’t you wish you could remember?” Jon asked him, his eyes searching his face for...something.

Martin’s mouth felt suddenly dry, that ache in his chest returning, as Jon looked at him, his eyes steady and piercing, cutting to the core of him. Again, against Martin’s will, he thought of the sickly purple of lilacs. “No,” he whispered, the word coming out wrong from his throat.

A flash of confusion and maybe even concern crossed over Jon’s face, and he opened his mouth to say something else, but all of a sudden lightning arced down from the stormy sky and struck the sand a few feet away.

The horse reared up and Martin jolted into motion, his arm wrapping tighter around Jon and leaning them forward, tucking them close to keep him from tumbling off. The only sound Jon made was a panicked intake of breath as he clutched Martin’s arm in a death grip. 

After a moment, the horse’s hooves hit the ground again, jolting them forward. Martin kept his arm wrapped around Jon’s middle, catching him before he pitched forward. Jon heaved shaky, panicked breaths, his hand trembling where it pressed over Martin’s.

“Apologies,” an unfamiliar voice from beside them said. Martin whipped his head to the right to look, his hand flying to the hilt of his sword, but quickly jerking back to the reins when the horse skittered nervously. The air stank of ozone and crackled with static. 

A man with dark hair, pale blue eyes, and a jagged scar on his face looked back at him with a deceptively polite smile in the spot the lightning had struck. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” His eyes flickered between them, blandly curious. “You’re a strange pair, aren’t you?”

“What do you want?” Martin asked him shortly, gritting his teeth when the horse skittered again, when it was all he wanted to reach for his sword. 

Jon was watching the newcomer intently, but still seemed shaken enough that he remained quiet.

The man raised a brow, nonplussed. “I don’t want anything. I was just checking in on my shores.” His eyes settled on Martin’s face and held there. “Do I know you?” he asked, after a moment.

Martin didn’t bother to answer, finally getting the horse under control. He had no desire to indulge whatever game the man was playing. Those of the Vast cared for nothing and no one but the expanse of the sky and the water, and were as quick to make a friend as they were to cast them off a cliff. 

“I do ,” the man said, walking as lightly over the sand as if he were walking over air to come around and look at him. “I’ve seen you on some patrol near the water.”

Martin sighed, barely sparing the man a glance, though Jon, he noted, was staring at him with an intensity, almost like...like he was trying to place him. “The Lonely kingdom borders the water, you’ve likely seen hundreds of us on patrol.”

“No, no, I remember you--you were dragging some poor sod back through the gates.” Martin saw Jon’s brow crease as he glanced back at Martin at the corner of his eye. The man with the scar tilted his head, a blandly interested smile on his face. “What did your Lord do to them? Assign them to service like you?”

Martin didn’t bother to correct the assumption that he’d been forced into the knighthood. In truth, Martin didn’t know what had happened to the runaway he'd found--didn’t even know who, specifically, the man was referring to. Likely they were either inducted into service or fed to the Lonely. But he said nothing of the kind, because indulging one of the Vast for this long was like baiting a shark. 

“Is there something you wanted?” he asked the man tightly. “As far as I’m aware, Fairchild doesn’t care about those using his borders for travel.” 

The man blinked, that polite smile still on his face. “I don’t want anything. Just thought we could have some friendly chit chat.”

“We’re not friends,” Martin said flatly. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Oh! How rude of me,” the man said, his smile creasing the scar on his face. “Michael Crew. Lovely to meet you.”

“Crew,” Jon suddenly breathed, staring at the man, drawing his attention. 

Martin went tense.

“You’re Mike Crew?” Jon asked.

Crew’s eyes narrowed, just so, just for a moment. A warning. “You know me?” he asked, his tone deceptively light.

“Jon,” Martin said, hushed. Slowly, he moved his hand to the hilt of his sword. 

“The archives,” Jon said, transfixed, “in Beholding, they have statements about you. Is--you were chosen by the Spiral before the Vast accepted you.”

The man’s smile twitched, almost imperceptibly, his eyes like chips of ice. “Chosen is one word for it, I suppose,” he said flatly. 

“Jon,” Martin said, louder.

“Has--anything that the Spiral gifted you, h-have you retained it?”

Crew’s eyes were flat now, utterly cold. “The Spiral did not gift me anything. It cursed me when I did not want it. And the Vast has freed me.”

Jon’s expression, for a moment, flashed with something deeply empathetic, his eyes fixed, unwavering. “I...I’m sorry.”

“Are you,” Crew said, utterly toneless. Jon opened his mouth to ask something else, but Crew said, darkly, “enough questions.”

Martin curled his fingers around the hilt of his sword. “ Jon .”

Jon’s head twitched slightly in the barest indication that he’d heard, but his gaze was fixed on Crew, and Martin could see that dangerous, desperate bright spark in his eyes. The insatiable desire to Know something. He was coiled like a spring in Martin’s arms. 

Martin heard the compulsion on the first syllable, and so did Crew. 

Before Jon could ask, the air shifted around Crew and Jon went stiff with a sharp intake of breath. 

Martin had his sword at Crew’s throat in the next moment. Crew, in his quiet fury, had seemingly forgotten about him until that moment, going still, his eyes tracing the blade back to him. 

“Let him go,” Martin commanded, feeling the rigid terror in Jon’s body. In answer, an assured calm swept over him, cold and consuming like fog. This he knew. How to act with his sword in his hand. For a moment, it was like before, before the Lonely had acted so strangely with him.

He could almost forget the acute spark of terror that had thrummed through him when Jon went rigid, now thoroughly buried by fog. 

“He overstepped,” Crew said, his throat bobbing against the steel as he met Martin’s eyes. “It’s my territory, and I am allowed to dictate judgement for transgressors.” There was, despite his bravado, a spark of alarm in his eyes, even as he tried to hide it.

Good.

“I don’t care,” Martin told him evenly. 

Crew’s eyes flashed to Jon and then back, anger flaring in them. “Lord Fairchild--”

“You think Fairchild will care about some dispute by the border?” Martin pointed out. Jon was barely breathing, thin, panicked breaths escaping his throat and hardly anything being drawn in. That wouldn’t do. Martin moved the tip of the blade just slightly and drew a bead of blood that had Crew wincing, his hands raising shakily. 

The storm raged above, thunder clouds roaring. Static crackled in the air as Crew stared back at him. “I’ll kill you both,” he said, one last desperate plea.

“Not before I sever your head from your shoulders,” Martin promised him coldly, his arm wrapping tighter around Jon. “I will give you to the count of three to let him go,” Martin said, his sword steady. “One.”

Crew glared back at him, his hands shaking. With every panicked little breath Jon took, the desire to simply plunge the sword through the meat of Crew’s neck grew, count be damned.

“Two.”

Crew glanced at Jon then back at him, his eyes widening in panic, the static in the air crackling.

“Th--”

Suddenly, Jon took a heaving breath and slumped back against him, panting, shaking. Martin’s arm tucked him closer as he dropped his sword. He kept it between he and Crew, watching him, even as he turned his head toward Jon and asked, “alright?”

Jon’s trembling hands clutched at his arm and it took him a moment, but he gasped out, “yes. Yes, I’m--I’m fine.”

Martin stared at Crew, who looked back at them with clear disdain, and found himself asking Jon, “do you want me to kill him?”

In that moment, with familiar fog singing in his blood, if Jon asked him to, he would tear the man down without a thought.

In that moment, he thought he'd do anything Jon asked him to. 

Jon glanced back at him, wide-eyed. “What?”

“I wouldn’t,” Crew suddenly said, and when Martin’s eyes settled on his face he was smiling again, his eyes coldly amused. “Because I have some advice for you.”

“What advice?” Jon asked him shakily.

Crew’s eyes flitted to look behind them. Jon followed his gaze, and whatever he saw had his grip on Martin’s arm tightening to the point of pain. “Martin,” he breathed.

Quickly, Martin glanced behind, keeping an eye on Crew in his periphery. When he did, his breath left his lungs.

The tide had receded almost a mile, leaving an expanse of dark, wet sand at their left, and a monstrous wave was beginning to form, towering, almost blocking out the sun.  

“Run,” Crew whispered, and then he was gone on the wind.

Chapter Text

The wave crested in the distance, casting them in shadow as it blocked out the sun entirely. For a moment, as Jon clutched at his arm in a death grip, Martin felt a primal panic. But he forced that spark of feeling away to be buried under the fog. He wrestled with the reigns of the already panicking horse, and told Jon, keeping his voice level, “hold onto me. Keep your head down, and move with the horse. We’re about to ride very fast.”

As he spoke, he tightened his hold on Jon, pressing him close to his chest. When Jon nodded, frantic, Martin dug the heels of his boots into the horse’s side, spurring her into movement. 

The wind whipped at them. The narrow rocky trail that led out of the valley was at least five hundred yards away, if not more. Still, Martin set his sights on it and pushed the horse faster.

Jon clutched at him tighter, trembling, his face turned toward the wave. “We’re not going to make it,” Martin just barely heard Jon gasp out, over the wind and droplets of water that sliced across their cheeks.

Martin held him tighter and pushed the horse faster, as the crest of the wave finally broke and the water began to rush across that great distance toward them.

At the back of his mind, Martin knew Jon was right, even as he kept his head down and pushed the horse for all she had left. They’d been riding so long already. The distance was so great and the water so fast and the horse already struggled with their combined weight. 

Martin considered, briefly, using the Lonely, but Jon couldn’t follow him there without being swallowed whole by it, and Jon couldn’t ride alone. 

Martin refused to leave him alone.

Martin dug his heels in instead. He could barely hear the horse’s panting over the oncoming rush of the wave. Jon’s grip tightened on his arm, and he went tense, his eyes on the oncoming water. 

From Jon’s reaction alone, Martin automatically braced for the wave, but nothing came. A quick glance showed that the water was still coming, still rushing, but it seemed almost...

It seemed almost as though it was traveling slower than it should have. Almost imperceptibly so, but like...something was pulling the wave back even as it rushed forward. 

But, no, it was impossible. There was just the two of them. Crew was gone, there were no other Vast-touched around. Martin must have miscalculated how close the water had been in the first place. 

He wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

He rode for the rocky trail, wind and saltwater stinging his cheeks, sand and soil arching in the air behind them. As the water raced closer on their trail, so close Martin could feel the vacuum of air before the water hit them, the horse’s hooves finally hit the solid rock of the trail that would lead them up and out. 

Then, water hit stone, and Martin wrapped his arms around Jon, tucking him close, as the water sprayed around them. It hit them with a force off of the rocks, and the horse skittered, but they were on high enough ground that she kept her feet. Martin kept his arms close around Jon, so close he could feel Jon’s shaky breaths over the tiny gaps in his armor where his head was turned into Martin’s shoulder. When the waves subsided some, enough to no longer be in danger of possibly knocking them off their perch, Martin loosened his hold and glanced back at the valley now filled up once more. The beach they’d traveled across was all but swallowed by the water. 

Breathing out roughly, Martin straightened, his back and neck tight with the sudden release of tension. Jon slumped back against him as he went, limp, head hanging, panting. Martin stilled, alert at once, craning his neck to get a look at him. “Jon?”

Jon’s head twitched slightly in his direction, but with his wet hair hanging in his face Martin couldn’t catch a glimpse of his expression. He was breathing hard, what could have been the aftermath of exertion, panic, but what also could have been something else.

Martin reached out to brush the hair away from his face, his blood thrumming under his skin. “Jon? Are you hurt?” Martin’s hand settled on his cheek, guiding his head to turn, and he saw Jon’s eyes were half-lidded, two bloody rivulets trailing from his nose. Something in him went cold. “Jon?”

Jon turned his face slightly into Martin’s hand, blinking. “Ow,” he said softly.

“What is it?” Martin asked him, his eyes skirting over his head, his face, anything that might betray an injury. He saw nothing but the blood under Jon’s nose. “What’s wrong, where—where are you hurt?”

Jon squinted at him, his eyes hazy. “Head hurts,” he managed, slurring slightly.

“Why?” Martin asked, carefully making sure to keep his touch at Jon’s cheek light, supportive and nothing more. “What happened?”

Jon blinked at him, something in his eyes sharpening at the question. His hand came up and shakily wiped over the spot under his nose, and he took a moment to look at the smear of it on the back of his hand. When he looked back up at Martin he seemed far more lucid, though still squinting in obvious pain. “S’nothing.”

“That’s not—”

“Migraine,” Jon said curtly, looking away from him. “I get them sometimes.”

Martin stared at the side of his face, far from satisfied. Still, the horse was panting, shaking underneath them, and they were soaked nearly to the bone. The winds were picking up as well, cold and cutting. 

“We’re not riding any farther today,” Martin said. 

It was perhaps a testament to the fact that Jon was still in pain that he didn’t say anything, and only leaned a little heavier into Martin’s chest, letting him take his weight. Martin couldn’t help but let his eyes linger on the crown of Jon’s head, on the slight trembling of his hands where they rested on Martin’s arm, as he urged the horse slowly out of the valley. 

Vast territory was always flanked by unending ocean. It followed them on their left as they made their way along, though Martin steered them toward the dense tree cover that soon appeared on the other side. They rode through just deeply enough to find freshwater for the horse to drink, and after that retreated to the sparser cover of the forest’s outskirts. In Vast territory, if they traveled too far through the forest, it might swallow them whole, leaving them lost without a trace of sunlight until they ran out of food and starved. 

They settled under one of the wider trees near the outskirts. Jon stumbled a little, as Martin helped him dismount the horse, and Martin watched him carefully out of the corner of his eye as he unloaded their belongings. Jon was pressing his fingers against his temple, but seemed better otherwise, not quite as listless as he’d been after they’d first escaped the wave. “Do you want your bedroll?” Martin asked him.

Jon looked at him, and hummed. “For now, just to sit on. It’s not even dark yet.”

“No, not yet,” Martin echoed. It seemed about six by the position of the sun over the water. He eyed the tree coverage where they were. Sparse enough that they wouldn’t risk getting lost, and yet thick enough that they wouldn’t be too vulnerable to others on the road. At least, not without ample warning.

As if sensing where his thoughts had gone, Jon asked, a bit tentatively, “do you think we’ll run into anything, come nightfall?”

“If we do,” he said, the words coming to him unthinkingly, “I won’t let anything touch you.”

There was a brief silence, and when Martin glanced sideways at Jon he caught him looking away quickly, his cheeks flushed. He cleared his throat. “That’s...yes. I, um...thank you,” he said, meeting Martin’s eyes again, “for...earlier.”

“With Crew?” Martin clarified, after a moment. As he did, he passed Jon the bedroll. He noted Jon was still shivering, clothes damp, and reached for the bag that held Jon’s clothes as well. 

“Well...yes,” Jon said, a bit sheepishly. 

Martin eyed him. “Was it worth nearly dying for?”

Jon genuinely seemed to consider this, tilting his head. “In a way,” he finally said. “Though I wouldn’t really want to run into Crew again,” he added, quirking a small smile. 

Martin’s eyes were caught, for a moment, on that quirk of his mouth, that slight dimple that appeared on his cheek. 

“Again,” Jon said, softer now. “Thank you.” He looked lovely in the soft evening light, gold threading through his hair and his eyelashes. Every blink of his eyes, every slight movement of his mouth, so very alive.

It hit Martin like a blow. In that moment, his breath catching as he looked at him, Martin realized for the first time that he should have left Jon to die. With Crew. In the ocean of the Vast. Both convenient accidents that would have befallen him on the road. 

Martin could have left him to die, and then his task would be over. It was a realization that made him feel very cold, and for a moment, when he looked at Jon, he felt...

He simply felt. Shame and grief and anger and something else, something that pounded in his chest, warm and heavy and aching like nothing else he’d ever felt. But he took a gasping breath, and the Lonely again flooded him with a vengeance, freezing him to the core. 

Jon’s expression shifted into one of concern, as he looked at him. He reached out, his hand lighting on Martin’s arm. “Are you alright?”

It took Martin a moment to find his voice again, and when he did it was hoarse. “Fine.” He passed Jon the bag of his clothes before he could respond. “You should get changed,” he said, his face turned carefully away. “You’re soaked.”

As if on cue, the wind picked up. Jon shivered, looking into the bag. “I am very glad we took that time in the market,” Jon murmured. 

Martin watched him as he took the bag a little further, before turning his head away again. Hypothermia befalls a lot of travelers on the road, his traitorous mind thought. He felt physically ill at the thought. 

He was meant to ensure Jon died, and he couldn’t even stomach the idea. Perhaps it was too early to think of doing so. Lukas had suggested to wait until Nikola’s domain after all, close enough to Beholding that it would cast suspicion away from them, but it was just that. A suggestion. Martin could have let Crew send Jon into the Vast itself, plummeting endlessly, until the unforgiving ground finally hit him. He could have let Jon drown. 

And yet, when he thought on it, something in him felt so twisted it was hard to breathe around it. 

For the first time, he wondered what might happen if he just... didn’t. 

If he let him go, Jon might be killed on the road. Lukas might send more of the knighthood after him. Magnus would surely send his own after, unwilling to lose his husband-to-be for whatever reason he wanted him in the first place.

But if Martin went with him, wherever Jon wanted to go, and stayed by his side... For a moment, thinking on it, Martin almost felt...warm.

But no, the Lonely fog would surely leave Martin then. Lukas would certainly send more of the knighthood after them, and Jon would never be safe. The Lonely might even just take Martin entirely, out of spite, because of his defiance. And more than that...Martin had chosen the Lonely for a reason. To forget. 

And if the Lonely abandoned him, all that he’d left behind would come flooding back. If he could have felt the full brunt of fear, he would have, at the thought.

For the moment, he cast it all away, letting the fog tide over those thoughts until they were vague, amorphous notions at the back of his mind. He left the horse with a bag of grain, removing his bedroll and the food they’d stashed away. 

When he turned, Jon was dressed in dryer clothes, a soft woolen shirt that hung loose around his collarbone and brown trousers rolled up at the ankle. The sight of him, for a moment, reignited that aching thing in Martin’s chest. 

Jon was digging through the bag, and emerged with not one, not two, but three books.

Martin stared at them, frowning. “When did you...?”

Jon looked up at him, then down at the books, a smile flashing on his face. “In the market. I started picking them out at random after the first, just to see if you’d notice. But you never seemed to pay attention to what you were handing over the money for.” 

Martin huffed, opening up his bedroll to settle beside him. “You’re lucky it’s unlikely we’ll need those funds for anything,” he said, lightly enough, though his thoughts were on that day in the market, and why he’d been so distant. He’d been thinking on how resistant the Lonely seemed to him already, after he’d failed to heal like he had before. 

His thoughts, for a moment, were again caught on the Lonely. He offered the bag of food to Jon absently.

“Thank you,” Jon murmured, taking it. Their fingers brushed and Martin quickly pulled away. 

He saw Jon glance at him out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t say anything, merely turning his attention to the bag of food. He took some bread and dried meat, and passed the bag back to Martin.

“Are you feeling better?” Martin asked him, after a moment of silence. 

Jon glanced at him, just for a moment. Then, his eyes were on the food in his hands. “Better now,” he said, perhaps too lightly. Before Martin could press, however, he looked over the book covers and hummed. “These two seem alright.”

“Not the third?” Martin asked dryly, glancing over at it. 

“I’m not much for sonnets,” Jon said, flipping through one of his preferred books. Martin’s eyes caught on the title of the one he’d cast away, embossed in gold. He reached out for it, his fingers tracing over the letters. Jon glanced at him, and then looked again more intently, studying his face. “Are you?” he asked, softer.

“I don’t know,” Martin murmured, something in him entranced by the book’s title. 

Jon was looking at him with every ounce of his attention, body turned toward him. “It doesn’t seem like the knighthood would leave much time for reading poetry,” Jon said, not unkindly.

“No,” Martin agreed, his voice soft. He couldn’t recall ever even having read poetry. “Not really.”

When Martin met Jon’s eyes, they looked almost sad. “Martin...you said you don’t remember anything before the Lonely?”

Martin nodded, though a part of him did not want to answer at all.

“So you didn’t grow up there,” Jon said.

“No,” Martin said again, looking back at him warily.

“Did you choose it? The knighthood?” Jon asked him, eyes searching. 

Martin hesitated. “Why does that matter?” he asked. His voice barely rose above the sound of the wind in the trees above them.

Jon took a breath to say something, stopped, then said, slowly, “because if you chose it and you can’t remember why, how do you know if it was worth it?”

For a moment, looking at Jon, so warm and alive, Martin wondered. Wondered what it might have been like before the Lonely. 

He wondered what he would feel, looking at Jon, if the Lonely had never touched him at all. The very thought made that thing in his chest ache. 

“I don’t,” he said, finally, looking away. 

Jon was silent for a long while after that. He looked down at the book in his hands but didn’t seem to absorb any of it. Finally, he said, still looking down at it, “what if you didn’t have to go back?” 

Martin looked at him sharply. Jon met his eyes, and then, his expression settling into something determined, he reached out and placed his hand over Martin’s. His palm burned against Martin’s skin, impossible to ignore. “What if you left?” Jon pressed, leaning closer. Martin could smell the saltwater drying, curling in his hair, could see the intricate color of his irises, the slight flush on his cheeks.

“Jon,” he started, closing his eyes.

Jon’s hand lighted on his cheek, warm and gentle and the most agonizing thing Martin had ever felt. Martin’s eyes flew open, and Jon’s face was there, his brows drawn slightly, his eyes skirting over Martin’s face. “I don’t think you’re meant for the Lonely, Martin,” he said, achingly soft.

The words too closely mirrored what he’d considered earlier. What he’d determined he was not free to do. “Jon,” Martin said again, and he intended it to be firm, he intended it to be cutting, but it quailed in his mouth. It almost trembled. 

“You could leave it,” Jon said, his thumb brushing over Martin’s cheek, a trail of fire. 

Martin closed his eyes. That thing in his chest was carving a hole behind his ribs, stealing away his breath. “Stop,” he whispered.

“You could be free of it,” Jon said, his other hand coming up to Martin’s other cheek. He could feel Jon’s breaths on his skin, and when his eyes opened again every lovely aspect of Jon’s face was there, right in front of him. That aching warmth in his chest grew, and it left little room for the Lonely. “You could leave. We could—”

The fog in him receded just enough to let something slip through. A shattered vase on  the floor. Lilacs drying, dead on the hardwood. 

Someone dead on the bed.

Martin lurched back, away from Jon’s touch, screwing his eyes shut. His heart pounded unpleasantly against his ribs, his stomach turning. He desperately pulled for the Lonely fog again, and it was slow to respond, so slow Martin thought it might have truly left him entirely. But it slowly crawled over those memories it was meant to cover, rolling over them like fog over the water.

“Martin,” Jon said, worriedly, after a moment. “What—”

“Stop,” Martin whispered, his hand pressing against his chest. It still ached. He opened his eyes and met Jon’s. “Please stop.”

Jon leaned back, wide eyes looking over him.

“I’m sorry,” Martin told him, after the silence had stretched, and he could finally hear himself over his heart. When he looked at Jon, he seemed so...small. “I can’t.”

Jon stared at him, something decidedly melancholic crossing over his face, but after a few moments he looked away, and then he just looked tired. “No,” he said, his voice a little too flat. “O-of course not. I—I’m sorry.”

Martin looked at him, at his profile as the sun began to dim. His throat felt tight. He didn’t know what to say. 

After a few minutes, Jon slowly reached out, taking up the book of sonnets. He looked it over, turning it in his hands, and slowly flipped through it. He paused on one page. Martin watched his eyes slowly trace over it. Watched the way the line of his mouth softened. “This one isn’t bad,” he murmured, his long fingers tracing over the page.

Martin looked at him, and he ached. He swallowed, and asked, softly, “which one?”

Jon looked at him, his fingers brushing over the page. “Do you want to hear it?” Jon asked him.

Martin glanced at the book in his hands. He wondered if the person he’d been before had liked poetry. He thought he’d like anything, if he heard it through Jon’s voice. “Yes,” Martin said, a quiet, barely there word.

And Jon began to read.

Martin liked poetry, he decided, after Jon’s voice had quieted. But there was never much of a question. Not when he heard it in Jon’s lovely cadence and watched the words form on his lips, careful and reverent.

“There. Not terrible, I suppose. What do you think?” Jon asked, glancing at him, some of that earlier contentment back on his face. 

Martin looked at him, his chest tight. With the sun sinking, and moonlight emerging from behind the clouds, Jon's eyes looked bright, soft. “Beautiful,” Martin said, the word falling from his mouth without his permission.

When Jon hummed, his eyes glancing down at the book, the line of his mouth soft, Martin allowed himself to admit he hadn’t been speaking of the poetry.

Later, after they had settled and Jon had fallen asleep, Martin studied his face in the moonlight and knew. He knew, deep down, that he could never do what Lukas asked of him.

And enough of the Lonely had left him now that, just under the fog, he was afraid of what that meant.

Chapter Text

Sleep took ages to come to him. Before it did, Martin resigned himself to keeping watch. His nerve endings twitched every time Jon shifted, every time he let out a gentle sigh, sparking at something under his skin. Every time, Martin’s chest felt that much tighter. 

He could no longer ignore the plain and simple fact that his actions in protecting Jon were not solely instinct. He thought of Jon injured, and he ached. He thought of Jon dead, and felt hollow. 

He wanted Jon to be safe. It had been a long time, he realized, since he’d truly cared enough to want. Perhaps longer than he could remember. He glanced at Jon in the bedroll beside him, watching his chest rise and fall under the soft linen shirt.

Martin could think of no sure-fire way to keep him safe. Except...

Only one other person that he knew of wanted Jon whole and unharmed. If he delivered Jon to Jonah Magnus, Martin knew he’d at least be alive. Safe in the Kingdom of Beholding. But he thought of Jon, and the way he went quiet and ashen at the mere mention of Magnus’ name, and the idea soured, making his stomach turn. The thought of Magnus’  hands on him made him itch for his sword.

He didn’t know what to do. Only that he could not let Jon come to harm. He sighed, casting a glance at the distant horizon line, illuminated only by the stars that clustered above. Beholding was far closer now. He’d have to decide on something very soon. There was an unaffiliated village, he knew, just beyond Vast territory—a slightly more dangerous outpost than the last, so close to Stranger territory, but it was at least neutral. A place to stop and think. He needed to think, and it was very hard when the warmth of Jon’s body was burning like a fire inches away, filling his mind with warmth and familiar smells.

He sat, sleep a far away concept, staring into the trees. The Lonely still roiled in him, like waves cresting and falling, but in that moment the uneasy tide of his thoughts was as close to misery than he’d felt in a long time.  

After a while, when the wind began to pick up and Jon began to shiver slightly in sleep, Martin rifled through a saddle bag and pulled out his cloak, draping it over Jon’s shoulders. His shivering stopped then, with a soft sigh that had some of that tight anxiousness in Martin’s chest unfurling, finally soothed. 

He tried not to think about it, as he turned over to get what rest he could. 

When he woke at the break of dawn, his dreams were waiting close behind the thinning fog. He could smell the memory of sticky lilacs and the cloying scent of rot, and almost as soon as his eyes opened he was retching, leaning to the side, wracked by dry heaves. He hung there, shivering, as the nausea passed, drenched in sweat. He managed, at least, in being quiet, as the fog slowly soothed him, more sluggish to come than it had ever been before. Jon, thankfully, did not wake.

It took a few more hours before Jon woke, yawning, dragging the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand. Martin watched, absently cleaning his sword, as Jon registered the cloak around his shoulders. He looked down when he saw the flush on Jon’s face, something in his stomach fluttering. 

“Um, w-when—?”

“You were cold,” Martin answered shortly.

Jon blinked at him, cheeks still flushed. “R-right.” He began to shrug the cloak off, but Martin stopped him.

“Keep it,” he told him, watching as Jon stilled and his hands clutching the cloak settled again on his shoulders. “I had meant to get you one in the market, before you ran away.”

Jon raised a brow, not looking at all penitent. “Technically I didn’t run away,” he said.

Martin gave him a flat, unimpressed look, which just seemed to amuse him further.

“Here,” Martin said, setting the rag he was using aside to reach for the food. He passed the bag to Jon, keeping it out of reach of the horse grazing very close. Jon, who seemed more at ease around the horse since the wave, took the bag with one hand and reached out to gingerly stroke her nose. The horse huffed, pressing into Jon’s hand. A faint smile appeared on Jon’s face, and Martin quickly looked back down at the sword laid over his lap, his stomach fluttering, weightless. 

“She is quite sweet,” Jon said softly, rubbing at the space between her eyes. “I realize I never—does she have a name?”

“Not that know of,” Martin answered honestly, glancing up at them. 

Jon frowned, casting Martin a disbelieving look. “How can she not have a name?”

Martin shrugged, working the rag over the sword. “Names don’t hold much weight in the Lonely. A name only matters when someone else cares to call you.”

Martin looked up when only silence followed to see Jon staring. Jon glanced away quickly, but there was still something of that weight in the way he held himself, tense. “Don’t you think she should?” Jon asked after a moment, looking at the horse.

Martin eyed him, and wondered if they were still truly talking about the horse. “I think it might be a bit late for that now,” he said honestly.

Martin saw Jon blink, glancing at the ground as the horse pushed into his palm. “Well,” Martin heard him say, softly, “I still think she should have one.” He studied the horse for a moment. “Brigadier?” he suggested, finally.

Martin couldn’t contain a snort. “Brigadier? Like the rank?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Jon spluttered defensively. “She’s capable enough to be a Brigadier. Without her we’d be dead in the middle of an ocean,” he added, though there was something a bit strange in his tone, the sentiment a bit too rushed. 

Before Martin could think on it too much, he registered Jon was reaching into the bag and pulling out an apple, holding it out to her. “Wait, don’t—” he sighed, cutting off when she enthusiastically gobbled it up in two bites off of Jon’s palm. “She has her own apples, Jon,” he admonished half-heartedly. “Those rations are for you. ”

Jon shrugged, nonplussed, though he did try to shake the saliva off his hand. “I can spare it,” he said lightly. He patted at the horse’s—Brigadier’s, he supposed, since Jon would no doubt start calling  her that out of sheer stubbornness—mane as she nosed at the bag of food, greedy for more. Martin watched them, out of mild caution—she wasn’t generally a skittish horse, but she could be—though he was pleased Jon seemed to be more comfortable around her. It would make riding easier. 

An idea suddenly struck him, and he said, “I think you should try to ride her yourself.”

Jon whipped his head to look at him, eyes wide. “What?”

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Jon said, for about the fourth time, from his perch on the saddle. Every inch of him was a rigid line, knuckles white where he held the reins in a death grip. Martin held the reins steady a little further up, keeping the horse moving slowly. Jon’s expression of mild terror as they made their way along indicated even that speed seemed very fast. They made their way through the outskirts of the woods, with the distant crash of waves against the bluffs guiding them. 

“You’ll be alright,” Martin said softly. “Just pretend I’m behind you.”

“But you’re not,” Jon said, shooting him a look.

“No,” Martin agreed, as he walked alongside. “But I still won’t let you fall.”

Jon took a breath, the line of his throat bobbing. His grip shifted on the reins, as if he was trying to get comfortable with it, but the tension in his body did not go away.

“Have you really never been on a horse before?” Martin wondered, catching Jon’s eye. “Never traveled far enough to need one?”

“You know, carts and carriages exist,” Jon pointed out, though it didn’t have much bite to it. After a moment, Jon said, “no. Not really. I’ve not...” Martin glanced at him and caught a flash of something on his face, something sad and distant, and then Jon said, “I’ve lived in Beholding most of my life. There was never any real need to go anywhere else.”

Until now. The words were unspoken, but Martin could sense them wavering in Jon’s throat. Martin wondered after why Jon had left, what had gone into his frantic flight with nothing but the clothes on his back. And then, that indication of something else—most of his life he’d said. Had there been something before? In the interim? Martin found he wanted to know,  to understand the enigma that Jon was. But he also knew that Jon tended only to volunteer the information he wanted to share and nothing more. If he pushed, Jon might go quiet and tense again, and Martin could see he was just starting to loosen up, holding the reins in a lighter grip, finding familiarity in the horse’s movements.

He tried what he thought might be an open, safe question. “What is Beholding like?” Jon cast him a glance, and Martin added, “I’ve never been inside the gates.”

Jon considered the question, and as he thought less on his movements on the saddle, he seemed to grow unconsciously more comfortable. “It...it’s beautiful,” he said finally, a slight wistfulness in his voice. “It can look a bit imperious from the outside—a city towering over itself, everything built over everything else. But it...it all fits. It works. Excellent views,” he said with a wry smile, and Martin found himself smiling back. 

“I...I miss the libraries,” Jon continued softly. “I had a position at one of the archives, before I...before. And they are as magnificent as they’re lauded to be—full of recorded encounters with the gods, both from the chosen and unaffiliated alike, but...the archives are just a bit more pompous. There’s not as much frivolity with the libraries, they just...are what they are. More books in the smallest library than people in the city.” Martin watched Jon’s expression, distant and thoughtful. “When I was younger, I could spend whole days in this library in the main commons. It was one of the first places in the city I saw, and when I went inside I never wanted to leave. I’d never thought so many books could exist in the world.”

Martin saw the moment the expression on his face became melancholic, as he lapsed into silence. “I’m sorry,” Martin said gently.

Jon blinked at him as if coming out of a dream. “What?”

“I’m sorry that...that Beholding seems less like a home than it was for you before.” He didn’t need to ask after it. He had gathered that much. 

Jon stared at him for a moment, utterly still save for the natural movement of the horse. Finally, he blinked away, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “Thank you,” he said, quietly.

Martin nodded, gently pulling on the bit of the reins he held to guide the horse closer to the edges of the forest. The crash of waves at their left was louder now. “Have you sufficiently forgotten you’re on a horse?” Martin asked lightly.

Jon glanced at him, for a moment going tense as he brought his mind back to where he was. He relaxed into it far more quickly this time. “It is strangely easier when you don’t think about it,” Jon muttered. He looked almost suspicious of the fact that he hadn’t fallen off while he wasn’t paying attention, and Martin bit down on a smile.

“I told you,” he said. “It just takes a bit of practice.”

“Yes, yes.”

Martin watched him for a moment, perhaps taking advantage of the fact that Jon didn’t often pull his eyes away from where they were headed to study his profile. Martin thought, abruptly, that he was so lovely, and that thought was so immediately dangerous that he tamped it down and cast it away.

“Do you want to try a trot?” he asked, after enough time had passed that he was sure the question would come out steady.

Jon shot him a slightly panicked look. “I don’t...”

“It’s a very similar motion,” Martin said. “You just move slightly more with the horse.”

“I know,”  Jon said, a bit impatiently. “I know, objectively, how to ride a horse, but putting it into practice isn’t exactly easy.”

“You’ve been doing wonderfully,” Martin soothed. He reached out to demonstrate, but paused, meeting Jon’s eyes. “Could I...?”

Jon hesitated, a slight flush on his face from the exertion, and for a moment Martin thought he might say no, but then he nodded. 

Martin pulled on the reins to slow Brigadier to a stop, and gently placed a hand on the small of Jon’s back and another on his stomach. Jon was still at his touch, his breathing strangely measured. Martin met his eyes again, hesitant in case Jon decided he didn’t want to be touched, but Jon didn’t say anything. Just looked at him, eyes intent, pupils slightly dilated. 

Martin swallowed around the sudden dryness of his throat. He could feel the arch of Jon’s spine under his hand, the slight, soft swell of his stomach. He was so warm. Martin wondered when it had stopped registering as something that burned, and turned to something comforting, familiar.

“Martin?” Jon prompted, a catch in his voice.

Martin met his eyes and cleared his throat, shifting his hands slightly. “Sorry,” he said hoarsely. “You, um. It’s a bit like what you’ve been doing. Only more exaggerated. Here.” He put a bit of pressure on Jon’s lower back, guiding him to move forward and up,  and then guided him back,  keeping the touch gentle, feather-light. The warmth under his hands was seeping into his skin, flooding through him. 

Martin let go, curling his fingers into his palms and pulling them away before they could start to shake. “There,” he said, swallowing. “You move like that as the horse does.”

He met Jon’s eyes, where they suddenly seemed very dark and slightly wide. He saw Jon’s throat move as he swallowed. “Right,” he said.

Martin looked away, trying to find some semblance of calm as his heart thumped faster than it should have. “It’s more instinctual than something that can really be taught. Did...did you want to try?”

Jon looked again a little bit nervous, his hands shifting on the reins. But to Martin’s slight surprise, he nodded, a determined slant to his mouth. A spark of fondness rose in his stomach before he could think to brush it away. Jon was always quietly brave at the most unexpected times. “Alright,” he said gently. “We’ll start in a slow walk. And when you’re ready, dig in your heels and she’ll pick up the pace. If you want to slow to a stop, pull lightly on the reins like this,” he said, demonstrating. He glanced at the space in front of them, a stretch of trees slowly thinning out. “Are you comfortable trying for the treeline?”

Jon glanced at him. “What— alone ?”

“I won’t be able to keep much control from the ground,” Martin explained. “It’d be smoother for you without me alongside.”

Jon swallowed, taking a steadying breath. “Lord, fine, let’s get this over with.”

To Martin’s surprise, he dug his heels in then and there, and took off with a cut off curse. Martin tried to keep up for a moment, heart in his throat at the thought of Jon falling, but Jon...

Jon actually seemed to have gotten the hang of it. It wasn’t exactly beautiful riding, but he seemed surer than he had been, more in control. Martin slowed, watching him go a slight smile tugging onto his face.

He expected Jon to turn around, to perhaps shoot back a grin, hair wild, face flushed. But when he reached the treeline he seemed to stiffen where he sat, eyes locked on something Martin couldn’t see. 

“Jon?” Martin called, suddenly wary. Martin began moving toward him in earnest when he didn’t reply, watching the tense line of his back with a looming sense of dread. “Jon?”

When he reached him, he studied Jon’s face first, and saw his eyes were wide, locked on something in the distance. Through the Lonely, Martin could smell the fear that wafted off him, a scent like cardamom.

Martin automatically put his hand on the hilt of his sword as he looked out where Jon was.

What might have once been a Vast village was now nothing but the burnt skeletons of houses and homes, some of them still smouldering where they perched on the cliff’s edges. 

Abruptly, Martin remembered what the doctor in the village had said. More restless than usual, the flame bearers. Gods are stirring. Lines of the Web shifting.

If the desolated were this far north and had been bold enough to attack a Vast settlement, things  were shifting indeed. All the more reason, he thought, to get Jon somewhere safe, as quickly as possible. Luckily, it seemed as though the burning had been done at least a few hours ago, or they’d  have seen the smoke from miles away.

Martin scanned the distant ruins warily, putting a hand on the reins above where Jon’s hand gripped them tightly. 

“Do you think they’re gone?” Jon asked, his voice choked slightly with fear.

Martin ached to soothe that fear, but he himself was coiled tight like a spring, watching intently for any sign of life. The desolated would kill anyone they came across that were not their own. Burn them alive and watch as they writhed. “I don’t—” he started, tentatively, but he saw a flicker of movement in the distance and went still, his grip tightening on his sword. 

He heard Jon’s breath catch as a woman—short, scarred, deadly—strode out of the smoke and over the rubble. Her bright, predatory eyes locked on them. The sword she held glistened in the light, wet with blood and flammable oil, ready to ignite at any moment. 

Martin kept his eyes locked on her even as he spoke. “Jon, take Brigadier and go back to where we set up camp. Hide in the underbrush until I come for you.”

He could feel Jon’s eyes on him, wide, afraid, but also almost indignant. “But—”

“Go,” Martin told him, voice harsh. He drew his sword. 

He waited until Jon guided the horse to take a few steps back before stepping in front of him, drawing the woman’s eyes away from Jon’s retreat and back to him. He made sure to listen for the sounds of Brigadier’s hooves getting quieter as they moved further away, and only when they were so quiet he could no longer hear them did he let some protective, prickling part of himself relax. Safe, that part of him insisted. Have to make sure he’s safe.

The woman’s grin as she drew closer was more like a baring of teeth. “Long way from home,” she called, when she was close enough.

Martin set his jaw, keeping quiet, simply watching where her eyes moved, keeping track of the point of her sword. The metal was heating, glowing red, visibly scalding.

“What? You don’t wanna play?” she asked, grin widening. Her sword scraped against the dirt, drawing smoke. 

Martin adjusted his grip on his own sword. There would be no talking with her, he knew, no bargaining of passage. He could see the fiery bloodlust well up in her pupils, close as she was now. 

“Too bad,” she said, mockingly sad. She lunged forward and swung as her sword erupted into flames.

Martin met the blow, parrying and twisting to avoid the explosion of sparks,  turning them away from the treeline, away from Jon. The sheer heat of her proximity wrenched the breath from his lungs, the air so hot it was hard to take in.

He pushed forward, swinging two handed, trying to get the upper hand with strength alone. She glanced away from the blow, twisting and reaching out for him with a clawed hand so hot it had already begun to bubble. 

Martin stumbled back to avoid it, and just barely countered another strike of her sword, not quite managing to avoid the sharp sting  of sparks that flew into his face. He blinked frantically through blurring vision, sharply twisting his sword and managing a slicing blow that had her lurching back. In the next moment, though, she was pushing forward again, more rage and fire than person, swinging again and again, bubbling laughter escaping her throat.

She wasn’t stronger, but she was faster than he was, her sword smaller and easier to manage. She came at him again and again, and though he met every blow he was quickly losing ground. And he felt—

He almost felt the ache in his muscles every time he held his blade against hers, felt the strain, felt...

But no. That was impossible.

The next blow glanced off at angle, and Martin twisted to avoid a sharp movement of her sword to his shoulder, but it was such an abrupt motion that he lost his balance, stumbling. The woman’s sword swept toward him and he knew he wouldn’t be able to bring his sword up in time. 

He slipped into the Lonely before he could think twice, but instead of embracing him like it always had before, it...stuttered. Pulled at him, pushed him away. It spat him back out into reality before he could regain his footing, and he  stumbled back when the woman’s blade swung at him again, coming so close to his neck that his armor singed and he smelled burnt hair. He couldn’t even pat down his armor where it smouldered against his skin, every ounce of his focus on blocking the tireless swing of her blade. 

He could hear the crashing of water against the bluffs roaring up behind him, and he knew. He was quickly losing ground, and the ground would soon slip away underneath him. He couldn’t find an opening to turn again to the offensive.

Sweat rolled down the side of his face as the scorching heat grew, and the blows rattled down to his bones.

He tried to catch her low, sweeping his feet, but she danced out of the way and sliced at an angle that nearly wrenched his elbow from its socket in his attempt to counter it. 

Martin could feel the wind at his back blown up from the water.

Instead of parrying the next lunge of her blade, he twisted himself cleanly out of the way of it and nearly managed to drive  his blade into her back. She caught herself, blocking his blow, but he could see her arms tremble with the strain of it. He swung again and again, letting the fog bury away all his fatigue, every ache he knew his body felt underneath it all. 

He gained back some ground. But then, he saw a flash of movement in the distance behind her, familiar colors, and he went cold. Jon, he thought. Jon and no and supposed to be safe—

And suddenly the fog pulled away from him and he felt everything all at once.  The exhaustion, the heat, the smouldering, pinprick burns on his chest and face. It all hit like a blow, and then the swing of her sword, though he managed to block it, knocked him clean off his feet.

The push of her molten blade followed him to  the ground, never letting up. His arms trembled, his blade and hers crossed and inch from his face, his cheek turned into the dirt. He could feel the heat of it like an oncoming brand, the flames licking from it, bringing tears to his eyes. The water crashed just beneath him, his head inches from the rocky cliff face. 

The woman sneered down at him, her arms straining with the effort of boring down on him, but there was a triumphant look in her eye. She had the upper hand, and she knew it. “So this is what the Knights have to offer? I’m a bit disappointed. Thought it’d be harder to kill you.”

He pressed his face further into the dirt as the blades trembled closer to him. His sword was heating from the sheer proximity, and Martin could distantly feel it bubbling at his palms, the skin peeling away. The agony of it was so intense he felt it, just under the fog that seemed less fog than mist now, less than air, a barrier that was ceasing to mean anything at all. 

He panted, the dust flying in front of his face as he struggled to push upwards, though he could feel his strength fading. 

But, no, he—he couldn’t let her—she’d go after Jon—Jon, Jon, Jon—

The fog in him split, dissipating just briefly, but the pain was enough to shock his strength from him with a cry, and then the flaming blade was arching toward his face—

With no warning, a shock of cold water plunged into them from the side, rushing and powerful. Martin was dragged along with it, scrabbling at dirt turned to mud, spluttering. He heard the woman’s shriek, which quickly turned to a drowned, distant sound.

And then the water receded, drawing back over the cliff, and it was quiet. Breath returned to his lungs as he shivered on the side of the cliff face, dripping wet. He saw, blinking down at the distant water below the cliffs, a circle of bubbling, steaming water, where frantic splashing was beginning to peter out. 

Martin turned, struggling to sit up, his arms trembling with exhaustion. He blinked saltwater from his eyes to see Jon rushing at him, and then getting  down on his knees before him, hands fluttering, eyes wide. “Oh god, a-are  you—are you alright?” he asked, eyes raking over Martin’s face, his arms, his hands. His touch was achingly gentle when he reached out, prodding. 

Martin could only look at him blankly. There was no one else there when he looked behind him, no one but Jon. 

And yet someone had manipulated the Vast to wash the woman into the water below. 

“I thought you were of the Eye,” he murmured, tired and confused and worn.

Jon, his hands cradling Martin’s face, went utterly, devastatingly still. 

The air, Martin realized, smelled distinctly of cardamom.

Chapter Text

Martin watched Jon where he rifled through the saddle bag, his head muddied and tired. They’d made their way back to the campsite, as Jon avoided his eyes and changed the subject almost desperately when Martin had again tried to address what had happened on the cliffside. Jon reeked of fear, and that fact had startled Martin so much that he had simply followed, drenched and tired. Jon hadn’t been this afraid around him in ages and it was...jarring. The smell of cardamom that wafted from the fog on Jon’s breath made him dizzy. 

He sat by the fire now, too tired to strip his armor even though the ocean water still threaded through every fiber of his clothing, making the windchill bite all the more.

Finally, Jon seemed to find what he was looking for. The little bundle of medical supplies they’d picked up in the village. 

“I’m fine,” Martin said, automatically, when Jon turned to him. 

Jon still wasn’t quite meeting his eyes--hadn’t been since the cliffside. But a stubborn determined look crossed his face, his shoulders setting. “Your hands are burned.”

Martin’s eyes dropped down to his hands in his lap, his palms turned up. The skin was reddened, blistering, peeling. Absently, he pressed the tip of a finger into his right palm, watching the ruined skin go white underneath. He could almost feel it. The pain. It was like a bright spark shining just under the fog, close to the surface. 

It didn’t bode well.

Gods, he was tired. He wasn’t supposed to feel this tired.

He startled when Jon’s hand cradled his from underneath as Jon settled on the ground before him. “Stop that,” Jon admonished softly, reaching inside the bag he’d brought.

Martin stared at him, at the crown of his hair, at his own cloak that still draped over Jon’s shoulders. There was a tension in his shoulders that had not gone away, not since the cliffside. Jon was a foot away and still wouldn’t meet his eyes, and when his gaze drifted a bit too high, the smell of cardamom would spike and he’d look down again.

Martin pulled his hand out of Jon’s grasp, shocking him enough that he finally met his eyes, and they were wary and slightly too wide and matched with enough cardamom on his breath that it had Martin saying, “stop looking at me like that.”

Jon blinked at him, his eyes still too wide, his throat working. “Like wha--”

“Like you think I’m going to hurt you,” Martin said, something unpleasant burning hot and bright in his stomach. The words tasted sour on his tongue. Hypocrite, a little voice at the back of his mind hissed. You were supposed to hurt him.

Jon sank back on his heels, his hands drawing back. “I...I don’t...” he said, his voice hoarse. His eyes skirted away from Martin, fingers nervously skirting over the hem of the cloak. Martin saw Jon swallow, before he said, softly, “I don’t think that. I’m just...I’m dreading the moment you ask.”

Martin tried to swallow around the dryness of his throat, breathing around the ache in his chest when Jon’s words replayed in his head. I don’t think that. He should have thought that. He should have thought it because it was true, and just because Martin couldn’t stomach the thought of it now didn’t mean he hadn’t intended to do what Lukas had asked of him, just days ago.

“Ask what?” Martin repeated after a moment, staring at him.

Jon met his eyes then, and Martin suddenly knew what he expected. “Are you of the Vast?” he asked.

Jon swallowed, his eyes dropping away again. After a moment, he reached into the bag he’d brought and Martin thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he drew out a clean rag and a pouch of alcohol and said, “not entirely.”

Martin stared at him, taken aback, unresisting as Jon gently took his hand again, so distracted he almost didn’t register the familiar, soothing warmth of Jon’s touch. He could almost feel the sting of the alcohol as Jon worked to clean the wounds on his palm. “What does that mean?”

Jon blew out a breath like a sigh, strands of his hair that had escaped his untidy bun moving with it. “It means...I suppose I am now. But not...not just the Vast.”

Martin shook his head slightly, uncomprehending. “That's...that’s not possible,” he murmured, and Jon snorted.

“It shouldn’t be,” Jon said, guiding his palm to turn slightly. “And yet.”

Martin frowned at him, his tired thoughts muddled, but catching on the facts he knew. Jon had manipulated the water beyond the cliffs like one of the Vast. And the wave , Martin realized. The slowing of the wave, it must have been Jon. And Jon had also used knowledge only the Eye could have given him. “Are you telling me you’ve been god-touched twice?”

Jon stilled, hesitating. “I think it might be four times now,” he said, after a moment.

Martin stared at him, taking a moment to process. The smell of cardamom grew stronger and it distracted him, made his thoughts sluggish. No one was affiliated with more than one god at a time. It was unheard of. And yet he had seen Jon use the Vast just as he’d seen him use the Eye. 

Four, Jon had said. Chosen by four gods at once.

“How?” Martin asked him, helplessly. 

Jon shrugged, his shoulders tight, seeming very small. “I don’t really know. I...it h-happens after an encounter with the fear, like it should, but they just...they just keep piling on one another.”

That made Martin go still. Four, Jon had said. What if it didn’t stop there? Could one be chosen by all the fourteen? 

If it were possible, Martin realized, that person would be the most valuable political tool in the world. They’d have a claim on every territory. And Magnus was notorious for being power hungry—had waged war on the Stranger almost as soon as he’d usurped Robinson. 

Someone like Jon, with ties to several gods and perhaps the potential to connect with all of them, would be very valuable indeed. 

Martin understood, all at once, why Jon had kept this a secret and why he had been running. 

“That’s why he wants you,” Martin breathed. 

Jon faltered where he was pressing the alcohol soaked rag to Martin’s skin. When Martin looked at his face it was ashen, his breath coming shaky. “It’s the only explanation. I…” Jon visibly swallowed. “I haven’t even met him,” he said faintly.

Martin studied his face, and asked, rushed, “but he knows? That’s why you left Beholding?”

Jon hesitated again when reaching into the bag. Martin could see the shadow move over his throat as he swallowed, his face lit by sunlight speckled through the trees. “Yes,” Jon said after a moment, pulling out a wad of bandages and slowly unwinding them. When he took Martin’s hand again the touch was achingly gentle, and Martin was too caught on his words to take much notice of how the touch made something deep in his chest ache. “I’d only been known to be of the Eye, in Beholding, but...one of the Stranger’s NotThem managed to infiltrate the archive I worked in, close to the border. It, um...” a ghost of grief flashed over Jon’s face, and he said, “it took a friend of mine. But, of course, none of us noticed until...until it grew hungry again and wanted to take someone else, and with my rotten luck, it chose me.”

Despite himself, Martin felt his body tense and his stomach plummet. The thought of Jon facing a NotThem made him feel physically ill. The NotThem were those that had pledged themselves so thoroughly to the Stranger that they were unable to keep their own physical form and had to steal those of others to survive, wearing their skin, taking their memories. Erasing the real person from the world.

“I’d been working late,” Jon continued, the look in his eyes distant even as he continued to wind the bandage around Martin’s hand, “most everyone had left for the night, or so I’d thought. A-And when it came up to me, I...I still thought it was still her, at least in the beginning. But I noticed she wasn’t saying very much and that she was just... looking at me with this glint in her eyes.” Jon took a breath, guiding Martin’s bandaged hand back down to his lap. “When it lunged at me, I just managed to stumble out of its reach, and by that time the illusion of its face was slipping and I could see what it really looked like, so I screamed, and...I didn’t actually think anyone else was there, but a-an owner of one of the libraries who was visiting--a man name Jurgen Leitner--came into the room just as I...” Jon met his eyes for a flash of a moment, before he said, his eyes downcast, “as I made use of an ability no one knew I had.” 

Martin frowned, distantly, making to ask after what Jon had said, but Jon continued, still looking away, “Leitner used a book of power to banish the NotThem while it was distracted, but he’d seen what I had done. I expected him to--to question me, o-or confront me, but he...he only looked at me, wide eyed, and told me that I had to leave. That I had to leave before he could get to me. When I asked him what he was talking about, trying to insist he hadn’t seen anything, he...he said ‘Gertrude thought she could hide it too.’”

Jon leaned his weight back as he took another quivering breath, his hand still absently holding Martin’s. Martin didn’t dare move. “‘Can’t you feel it?’ he asked me. He leaned closer to me, and then he said, in nothing more than a whisper, ‘he’s watching. He’s seen. And he will use you just as he tried to use her.’” 

Jon paused there, his face pale, clearly disquieted by the memory. Martin found himself letting his fingers curl around Jon’s palm, providing a little grounding pressure. Jon’s eyes flitted up to look at him, slightly wide, pupils dark. The motion of Jon’s throat as he swallowed caught Martin’s eye again, and it made that thing in his chest burn. 

“I was still debating whether or not I would leave, even after Leitner’s warning,” Jon continued after a moment, the pads of his fingers absently brushing over the back of Martin’s hand as he spoke. “I was terrified, I’d never used anything but the Eye’s gifts in so long, a-and I’d hidden it well until that point. And I was afraid of what Magnus would do. I went home and debated packing, debated leaving that night, but...I had no idea how to start. I had an idea of where I could go, someone I could run to, but it was the getting there that I was less sure of. I made to visit Leitner again, a-ask him more about what he knew about Gertrude, but...” Jon shifted, a flash of old fear on his face. “In just a few hours, his home had been broken into, ransacked. Notebooks scattered everywhere, a-and...and blood smeared on the floor. I think...” Jon’s voice cut out, but then he said, faintly, “I think Magnus didn’t want anyone else knowing about what I could do. And once I realized that, I knew I couldn’t even go back for my things, knew his servitors would be waiting for me. I ran and I didn’t look back, stealing a ride on a cart out of town and moving on foot after that. I didn’t realize how unwilling Magnus would be to letting me go until the huntress he hired caught up with me and, well.” Jon looked up at him then. “You know the rest.”

Martin stared back at him, his mind reeling. So many little things now made sense. Why Jon had been so keen to ask Gerard Keay about Lady Robinson. Why Jon had been so fascinated by Mike Crew, thinking he may have been chosen by more than one god. Why Jon looked ill at any mention of Magnus’ name. 

Now, even the thought of delivering Jon to Jonah Magnus was unthinkable. Martin refused to do it. Jonah had a habit of using and discarding political tools. One only had to know about Barnabas Bennett to know that. Even the thought of Magnus’ hands on him made Martin’s skin prickle, his blood thrumming hot through his veins.

Which meant he had even less of an idea of what to do than he had before. He wanted to protect Jon, but if he didn’t deliver Jon to Magnus, his very presence would put Jon in danger. Lukas would send more of the knighthood after them. The Lonely might reclaim him and Jon would be left alone, or the Lonely would leave him entirely as it had been, bit by bit, until he was all but useless and no help to Jon whatsoever. The latter, it seemed, was happening faster and faster despite his best efforts. His fight with the Desolated woman only proved that. The Lonely was already leaving him, the fog in his veins thinning. 

But if Jon was god-touched more than once, had more at his disposal than the Eye...

“You said four,” Martin said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. 

Jon blinked up at him, brow furrowing. “Yes.”

“Which four?” Martin asked him.

Jon swallowed, looking nervous again. “Um, th-the Eye, which you know. The Vast. Th-the Corruption, I think--”

“You think?” Martin asked. Then, wide eyed, he asked, “wait, the Corrupted? Did that happen--that wasn’t--?”

Jon winced, and guilt swirled in Martin’s stomach. “Yes, that, ah...that wasn’t a great day. Ever since... her , I’ve been able to feel the insects crawling in the earth a-and I almost hear them...humming.” A flash of disgust passed over his face and he said, “I’ll admit I haven’t been keen to reach out and try that one.” 

Martin’s eyes automatically fell on Jon’s leg, tucked underneath him. The skirt he wore didn’t quite cover his ankles, and the faint, circular scars from that encounter were in clear sight. “And...the Vast,” Martin continued faintly, “that was from Crew.”

“Yes,” Jon said, after a moment, looking at him, the nerves evident in the tension in his shoulders.

Martin didn’t like that the pressing questions clearly made him uncomfortable, but he had to know. He had to know if Jon could protect himself. “And the fourth? You said you lashed out at the NotThem. With what?”

Jon visibly hesitated, his free hand curling further around his opposite arm. He opened his mouth to respond, but stopped, his eyes catching on something behind Martin. His brow furrowed, his eyes intent, unwavering. “Did you hear that?” he murmured.

Martin froze, listening intently, his hand reaching for his sword that he’d set aside on the ground next to him. All of a sudden, his mind was awhirl with thoughts of how, with everything that had happened, they’d returned to the same campsite as before, how they hadn’t traveled any further in a day and a half, how, if anyone had been following them, that would have been ample opportunity to catch up. Almost as soon as he’d thought it, he caught a sense of something. Someone else’s Lonely signature, a loneliness that smelled of campfire smoke and oil. 

Martin didn’t even have time to shout a warning, just threw himself over Jon just as an arrow whizzed over their heads. As soon as it did, Martin got to his knees, twisting with his sword, and catching the next arrow in the midst of its arc, sending it spinning off into the trees with a clang. 

He could hear Brigadier whinnying, the sound of hooves stamping and skittering in the dirt growing distant, but he didn’t dare draw his eyes away from the spot he’d seen the arrows come from.

“Martin--” Jon began, breathless, wide eyed, pushing up from the ground.

Martin just barely caught another flying arrow with his sword, aimed straight between his eyes. “Stay down,” he hissed at Jon, a jolt of fear lancing through him. He could hardly bring his sword up in time to block the arrows’ paths, he had no control over where they flew once they struck his sword. The thought of one of them hitting Jon made his knees go weak. 

He frantically searched for a hint of their attacker through the trees, but the sun was quickly sinking behind them and the treeline was too dense to catch any glimpse. Another whizzing arrow nearly caught him in the shoulder. 

He considered using the Lonely to travel closer--he could still sense that hint of fog like smoke and oil--but the last time he’d used it had nearly gotten him killed, and if he faltered here an arrow could easily hit Jon. 

The arrows kept coming with no sign of the attacker, and with each desperate pass of his sword he could feel that fatigue creep further over him, weighing him down. His arms trembled with the weight of his sword. If he rushed the attacker, he would leave Jon exposed.  If he remained there, they would be quickly overwhelmed.

Two arrows sped towards them, one after the other, and the second nearly caught him in the arm, his sword spinning away from his hand. Martin stumbled, reaching for his sword in the dirt even as his wrist throbbed and his whole body ached. 

“Martin!” Jon said, reaching out for him wide-eyed. “Are you--?”

“Stay. Down,” Martin told him, through ragged breaths. His heart pounded unpleasantly in his chest, his hands trembling as he reached for a sword that he knew he wouldn’t be able to bring up in time to block another arrow, not at the rate they’d been coming. 

Only...there was a pause in their relentless volley, and then a string of curses, loud enough to be heard through the trees. Martin stared, breathing hard at the line of trees, before turning his gaze on Jon. Jon’s hands were outstretched, his eyes intent on where the arrows had come from. “About time I embraced the Corruption, don’t you think?” he said, his voice a bit strained, a sign of the significant effort. “Lovely little den of giant beetles in that area.”

Martin looked at him, taken aback, and then a surprised huff of a laugh escaped him. Though Jon didn’t look away from the treeline, a hint of a smile quirked at the corner of his mouth, before it disappeared, a line appearing between his brows. “Ah, I don’t know h-how long I can...”

Martin nodded, standing. “I’ll finish them off,” he told him. Without the constant threat of arrows, he was free to move closer. He made to reach for his sword in the dirt, but caught a glimpse of movement at the corner of his eye. His breath caught, his heart squeezing in his chest. 

A woman was silently peeling away from her cover behind a tree, a long, glistening snare in her hand arching towards Jon’s back. The snare was threaded with hooked blades, intended to snag into flesh and prevent prey from getting away. 

Martin didn’t think. He just moved, rushing between them.

The snare hit him, coiling around his middle with the speed of its arch through the air, half a dozen blades digging into his skin and ripping through his armor. Before Martin could recover his feet, the woman was yanking on the snare, sending the blades in deeper, stealing his breath and pulling him to the dusty ground.

“Martin,” Jon gasped. Martin caught a flash of his wide eyes through his blurring vision when Jon turned to look at him, his focus broken. 

From the other side of the trees, the sounds of cursing had gone quiet. 

The woman approached quickly, her brown eyes narrowed, drawing a hunting knife from her belt, thick and curved for gutting. 

Martin breathed hard, casting a glance at his sword--too far away, useless--a hand twisting the  snare to try to pull it away from him but only succeeding in further lodging the curved blades with a breathless spark of pain that shouldn’t have been his. “Jon,” he said, raggedly, “get out of here.”

But Jon was looking at the woman, fast approaching, pulling painfully at the snare and raising her blade to bring it down on Martin. “No--” Jon gasped out, “no, no--wait--”

The blade came arching down, and Martin braced himself to twist away as best he could, ensure it didn’t hit anything vital--he’d use the Lonely if he had to, just this once--

But then, Jon was saying, in a voice that suddenly reverberated and skittered like a thousand spiders, "stop!"

And suddenly the woman froze, her eyes wide, hand trembling where it still clutched the blade a few feet from Martin’s stomach. Martin stared up at her, at her wide eyes and expression caught in a self-satisfied smile. 

He looked at Jon when he knelt beside him, careful fingers frantically trying to unwind the snare. It hurt. It hurt so badly, the fog hardly providing any buffer anymore, and Martin barely had the breath to make any noise at all, but he could not stop staring at Jon. 

That had been the Web. Which made even less sense. Those of the Web were rarely seen, and never far from their own kind. How had Jon been touched by the Web and not become one of them? When? He must have been Web-touched when he’d been in Beholding, there were few things that could counter a NotThem, but the Web...

With the Web, you could force anyone to do anything, and they would rarely think anything was even amiss. 

For a fleeting moment, he wondered if Jon had ever used the Web’s blessing on him. Surely not. If so, Jon would have left him long ago to escape Magnus, so why...

A blade from the snare caught in his skin as Jon tried to pull it out, and a whimper escaped him. Jon’s wide eyes caught his. “I’m sorry,” he said, a gentle hand lighting on Martin’s cheek for a moment, the heat of his skin warm and familiar. “I--I’ve almost got them, j-just keep still.”

Martin opened his mouth to respond when a voice cut through the trees, along with the flash of a blade. It was the voice of the hunter from the market, low and irritated and threatening. “If Magnus wasn’t fetching such a high price for you, Sims, I’d gut you for the trouble.”

Martin breathed out harshly, glancing at his sword, trying to shift towards it. The remaining blades from the snare snagged further, and a frustrated, frantic sound escaped him. Jon’s hands settled on his shoulders, trying to guide him back down, but Martin could feel his hands trembling, could smell cardamom filling the air. 

How dare they. How dare they try to take Jon from him, make him afraid. 

For a moment, fog flared in his veins. He slipped into the Lonely before he could think twice, desperate to move towards his sword. 

The Lonely pulled at him with blisteringly cold, whipping winds that coiled around his limbs, fog that pushed at his lungs. The winds screamed at him to forget, the fog yearning to press into his nose and mouth and eyes, make him a blank slate. His god was furious with him, and the force of it nearly sent him to his knees. 

He squinted through it, pushing through the numbing cold, catching a glimpse of what he thought was the silver of his sword. He tore through the fabric of the Lonely towards it, half blind, and with a gasp he fell back into the warmth of the real world, where Jon was frantically calling his name. He skidded on his hands and knees in the dirt, shaking. His sword glinted at him a few feet from his head. 

Martin reached for it, getting up on unsteady legs just as the first hunter broke through the trees, a long bladed knife in his hand. 

The hunter’s eyes fell on his partner, the young woman still trembling at the confines of the Web’s order, and then on Jon behind Martin, fury twisting on his face, his grip tightening on the knife handle. “You--”

Martin didn’t let him finish, moving towards him so fast he was forced to shift his attention to Martin and raise his blade to prevent a slashing blow to his torso. 

The world was spinning, his face hot, vision blurring, but Martin met every blow easily. Hunters were far worse at close combat than he was. Their skill lay in tracking and trapping, and this was neither. This was muscle memory on Martin’s part, nothing more. 

Quickly, the old hunter’s breath was coming short, fear crossing his face. Finally, Martin knocked the knife out of his hands, his sword point brushing the column of his throat. The man’s hands raised, his eyes darting behind Martin again, at Jon or his partner, Martin wasn’t sure. “The reward money’s good,” he said, as Martin saw red, and the world spun. “I’m sure we could come to--”

Martin plunged his sword between the man’s ribs straight through his heart, drawing him close with the blade. He looked dispassionately at him and said, voice low, around the distant pain that lanced at his torso, “Magnus will not have him. And neither will you.”

He let the man fall, yanking his sword out of his chest, stumbling back. His vision went spotty for a moment, his breath short, and he nearly fell to his knees. Suddenly, there were hands on him, on his shoulder, the side of his face, and he might have jerked away had they not been achingly familiar, the warmth of them comforting.  

When he blinked open his eyes, Jon was before him, wide eyed, his hands achingly gentle.

Martin let his eyes skirt over his face. “You’re alright?” he asked breathlessly.

Jon’s brow furrowed in disbelief. “Me? Look at you, are you--she--you need to lay down, l-let me look at the wounds.”

Martin glanced back at the woman, his head spinning, nausea rising in his throat. He blinked as he stared at her, still caught by the Web’s command, as his vision went double. Something was wrong with him, but he had to deal with her first. “We can’t leave her there,” he said. 

Jon looked at her as well, his brow creasing as he considered her. “I...I could order her to walk away?” 

“Could you?” Martin asked him, and Jon frowned. 

“I...I don’t know if I can do it again,” Jon admitted quietly. Glancing at her, he said, “I don’t...it’s not something I like to use. A-and I don’t have much control over it.”

Martin studied him for a moment, blinking around the fatigue. He wanted to ask why, but this wasn’t the time. 

He adjusted his sword in his grip, for a moment taken aback by how heavy it suddenly seemed. The world swam in his vision, his face burning hot. “Don’t look if you don’t want to see it,” Martin said to Jon, before turning to the woman and crossing the distance between them. The wounds around his torso burned with each step, his breath coming shorter.  

He raised his sword against the side of her neck, watching as her eyes widened, though she couldn’t move. Martin could easily cut through her neck like butter. Should have done it quickly, as his vision was fading, growing spotty, and that distant pain slowly overwhelming him. 

But it felt wrong. Made that existing nausea in his stomach grow. 

He didn’t think he’d ever felt guilty about a kill before.

“Let her go,” he said to Jon, barely managing to get his voice loud enough. 

The woman stared back at him, eyes wide. 

“What?” Jon said, taken aback. 

“Do it,” Martin said, swallowing around a swell of nausea. He swayed a bit to the side, but caught himself. “Give her a chance.”

“But--”

“Jon,” Martin said, intending for his voice to come out firm, but hearing it come out breathless instead. 

There was a silence. But then the woman was jerking, staggering back, breathing hard. 

Martin swung his sword just as she was gathering herself to bring up her knife. It cut through her neck, quick and clean, and her body slumped to the ground. 

Martin stared down at her, his arms trembling where he held the sword, the point of it dragging in the dirt. She had been about to hurt Jon. He should have killed her without a thought, without a feeling at all. She had seen what Jon could do, it had been the only way.

But, he realized, he hadn’t wanted to kill her. He’d never actually wanted to kill anyone, but in the midst of the Lonely want had been so far away.

Guilt twisted in his stomach. The pain at his torso swelled, and his legs gave out. He hit the ground, the pain spiking, and he sobbed. It all hurt so much, every breath. He wanted the Lonely back, he wanted it to stop hurting, he wanted--

He wanted--

He wasn’t supposed to want. But when Jon again appeared at his side, frantic, gentle hands skirting over him, he thought, ah. Something else he wanted, but could not have.

“Hold on,” Jon was saying, cardamom thick on his breath. Afraid. Afraid for him. Martin blinked up at the blurring sky, and thought he couldn’t remember the last time someone had been afraid for him. 

Jon was unbuckling his armor with hands that moved fast, but trembled, and he was repeating, voice thick, “just, hold on. You’ll be alright, just--just hold on, you’re fine.” 

Jon inhaled sharply when he finally rolled up Martin’s blood soaked undershirt. “Oh,” he said faintly.

Martin painfully craned his head to look, vision spotting, every inch of his skin aflame. The wounds he could see, bleeding sluggishly, were shallow, but already crusted over, greenish, sickly. 

Oh, he thought. Poisoned. 

Darkness encroached at the edges of his vision, but Jon’s hands cradling his face brought him back for a moment. “Martin? Martin, don’t--stay awake, there’s--there’s an antidote that grows near Stranger territory, we can--with Brigadier-- Martin, love, keep your eyes open for me...”

Martin’s heart thumped at the words, though his thoughts were so sluggish and tired he lost hold of them soon as they crossed his mind. He’d thought he heard...but surely not. The sky faded from his view first, until there was nothing but Jon’s face looking down at him, lovely, always so lovely, too lovely for him.

And then nothing.

Chapter Text

It was hot in the bakery. It was always hot, with the stone ovens going, but Martin was hit with a particularly strong blast of heat when he opened the doors and hurried in. “Sorry!” he told Mrs. Graham, who glanced at him, exasperated, behind the counter. He hurriedly tugged on the apron behind the door. “I’m sorry, my mum—it was a bit of a rough morning—”

She waved a hand, busy wrapping an order for the customer waiting behind the counter. Her round cheeks were ruddy with the heat. “Oh, it’s alright, lad. Just get the next few orders prepared, would you?”

“Yeah, course,” Martin said, ducking under the counter for a dough roller. He peeked at the orders Mrs. Graham had penned down and began to mix flour for the dough. He held his tongue until the costumer left, but once the bell on the door rang with their exit he blurted, “I’m so sorry, again, I-I know I was late yesterday too, and—”

“Lad, it’s alright,” Mrs. Graham said again, her voice soft, hand lighting on his shoulder as she passed him for the oven at the end of the row. When she glanced back at him, her face was sympathetic. “She’s not doing well, then?”

Martin swallowed, looking down at the bowl in front of him. He absently turned the dough, nearly stiff enough that he could scoop it from the bowl and begin to knead it. “No, she's...she’s not been getting better. I...I’ve been writing to the doctor in Cliffside. He says there’s something stronger we might try, but it’s...it’s sensitive. Needs to be kept cold, I’d...I’d need to travel for it myself.”

Martin could see the alarmed look she shot at him in his periphery. “Yourself? All the way to Cliffside?”

Martin shrugged, his face a little warm. Sweat prickled at his back from the open ovens. Gods, it was hot today. “It’s not too far. I could be there and back in a day and a half,” he tried to reassure, but Mrs. Graham’s worried look did not let up.

He still wasn’t used to it. Her fond smiles at him and warm hands and aching concern. He’d worked at the bakery for almost a year now, right after he’d finished school and just as his mother had grown too ill to keep up with her work that had, before, kept a meager sum on the table. 

“It’s not safe to be traveling right now, love,” she said. “The Corrupted have been sighted outside of their territory, far too close. And with what’s happened in Beholding, that grisly business with Lady Robinson...lines of the Web might be shifting, so they say.”

Martin swallowed nervously. The Corrupted were the closest aligned territory to them, and they were dangerous if in any way provoked. Could demolish a town with illness and disease in the better part of a day. “I know,” he said. “But...I don’t know if this can wait.”

Mrs. Graham looked at him, her brows creased just under where her hair curled. Finally, she said, softly, “your mother is lucky to have you, lad.”

Martin faltered slightly where he'd begun to knead the dough. He absently brushed the back of his hand over his cheek, which still stung from his mother’s fit that morning, where her palm had struck his face. He was glad when Mrs. Graham continued to speak so he didn’t have to struggle to fill the silence. “If you won’t be convinced otherwise, at least promise me you’ll take someone with you.”

Martin looked up at her, and said, automatically, “I promise.”

When she turned to the ovens, he swallowed around the sour taste to his tongue. He didn’t know why he’d said that. He didn’t have anyone to ask. His father was long gone, and he’d always been too busy with odd jobs after school hours to get close with any of his classmates. 

“Might do to make the rolls first,” Mrs. Graham said, startling him from his thoughts. “Blacksmith’s boy said he’d be over to pick them up soon.” 

Martin felt his face grow hot, and it wasn’t due to the heat in the room. (Though it was hot, so hot, sweat prickling down his back, over his forehead. It was never this hot, Mrs. Graham always had all the doors open so it wouldn’t get this hot, so why...?) “Will he?” he asked, his voice a little high.

Mrs. Graham shot him a knowing look. “Should I leave you to process the order? I did promise to bring some of the pumpernickel over to my niece...”

“Oh, no, no, that’s—” Martin tried to assure, frantically, but Mrs. Graham was already gathering up the bread she’d made earlier in the morning. 

“Now, now, you’ve minded the shop before, I’ll only be a few,” she said, eyes bright when she looked at him. “Do say hi to...what was his name again?”

“James,” Martin answered weakly, looking after her. 

“Ah, of course, James,” she said, smiling knowingly, heading for the door. “Do give him my best. Back in a tick, love.”

“Oh—kay...” Martin finished weakly as the door swung behind her. 

A wave of heat prickled at his back from the ovens. (Not just at his back. His whole being was on fire, it was so hot he wanted to crawl out of his skin, bright pinpricks of heat and pain all around his torso, so hot, so hot it burned—)

“Hi, um, I have an order for Marlowe?” he suddenly heard, and when Martin looked up it was like reality had shifted in the heat. The bowl in front of him was gone and James, the blacksmith’s son, was standing just beyond the counter, looking at him with his soft brown eyes and big shoulders and crooked smile. 

“Oh, I...” Martin pressed a hand to his suddenly pounding head, his heart beating fast behind his ribs. (He was burning alive, his skin afire—) “I...I’m sorry, let me just...” he took a step back away from the counter and stumbled, and suddenly a warm hand was on his arm, on his face, too hot, too hot—

“Woah,” James said—but, no, the voice was different, familiar... “You’re—”

“—alright,” he heard, a familiar voice that soothed the distant panic. A hand caressed his cheek, cool and soft, and he leaned into it, nearly whimpering with the relief, the brief absence of heat. “You’re going to be alright, we’re almost there.”

Martin opened his eyes blearily to the treeline that rocked slightly with Brigadier’s movement, the motion nearly making him sick. He was pressed against a body that was too warm, his head turned onto their shoulder and their arm wrapped around him. His head shifted, the tip of his nose brushing against the skin of their neck and he smelled a familiar scent of cardamom and the very distant memory of lavender soap. “Jon,” he murmured, his head heavy.

Jon’s arm tightened around him, a hand brushing through his hair. “I’m here,” he said, his voice soft, but also not quite steady. Worried. “You’re alright, you’re going to be fine.”

Martin blinked, trying to clear his muggy head. He shifted, trying to sit up, but a lancing pain in his torso sent him slumping back against Jon, a gasp punching out of him and darkness pushing at the edges of his vision.

Jon’s hand at the back of his head, cradling him closer, suddenly felt very far away. “You’re okay,” Martin heard distantly, as if from a long way away. “Just—try not to move too much. You’ll be alright, you’re—”

“—sure you’re okay?” James was asking him, as Martin blinked up at him stupidly. His broad hand was still on Martin’s arm, and he could already feel the blush taking over his face.

“Oh, y-yes,” Martin stuttered, taking a step back and out of his grasp. “I, um, sorry, I...I must have slipped.”

“No harm done,” James said, with a small smile. “Glad you’re alright...” He paused, a slight furrow appearing between his brows. “What was your name again?”

Martin brushed his sweaty palms against his apron for the sake of doing something. “Um, M-Martin.”

“Right,” James said, head tilting. “I remember you. Fifth year when I was sixth, right?”

“Uh, y-yeah,” Martin confirmed, smiling sheepishly. His heart beat high in his throat as he tried to keep his voice level, calm. But strangely, looking at James, he found himself thinking somehow that he didn’t look quite right. He thought, out of nowhere, that the person who had his heart should have had slightly darker skin than James’ golden brown, should have had eyes that looked back at Martin, completely focused, rather than James’ eyes which skirted around the bakery, aimless and careless. 

Strange. 

“Right, well,” James said, looking back at him with an empty smile, “are those rolls ready, then?”

And there was another wave of heat, so hot reality buckled and rolled like heat lines in the air, and suddenly he was outside, his pack on his back filled with some bread Mrs. Graham had pushed into his hands so he wouldn’t have to worry too much about what to make for dinner, and the sun was shining, and the lilac bush just against the great wall was shivering in the slight breeze, and the thought “oh, maybe mum would like those, maybe they’d brighten up the room” was caught in his mind like amber, like a shard of glass pressing on the inside of his skull. 

He felt, suddenly, sick, his stomach roiling, as he looked at the sickly purple, sweat sticking to his skin in the heat—

(But it wasn’t supposed to be hot, it was mid-autumn—)

And then he was staring at the lilacs in a vase by the bedside, and at the same time the vase was broken, the dying lilacs pooled in the water on the floor that seeped over the uneven knots in the wood like rivulets of blood, and his head pulsed and buzzed and all he could think was no, no, no, no, no—

“No,” he gasped, opening his eyes to the blue of the sky and a wave of pain and gentle fingers at his torso. 

“Martin,” Jon’s familiar voice murmured. 

Martin glanced down, met Jon's lovely brown eyes, but still didn’t feel quite present, those memories pressing at him just behind the thinning fog. The lilacs were still pressed against the backs of his eyes, a searing afterimage. A swell of nausea rose in him and he twisted on the bedroll and retched onto the dirt, the motion making him dizzy with pain. 

A gentle hand lighted on his back, another brushing his sweat soaked hair from his forehead and pressing a cool rag to his temple. 

“What...” Martin began through the dryness of his throat, his eyes screwed shut, “what happened, I don’t...”

Jon shifted closer, a careful hand rubbing at his back. Martin leaned against him when he was close enough, exhausted enough that he struggled to hold himself up. His head felt hot, heavy. 

Jon’s hand brushed at his cheek, guiding his head up, and a waterskin appeared in front of him. “Here,” Jon murmured. “Try to drink.”

Jon guided the waterskin slowly to his lips. Water pooled on Martin’s tongue, cool and lovely, and he realized suddenly how achingly thirsty he was. He took a few great swallows until his stomach protested and he pulled back, panting. Jon’s hand ran over his hair, a comforting motion that soothed the roiling pain in his head.

“You were poisoned,” Jon said. “Do you remember?”

After a moment, casting his mind back to the pair of hunters, Martin nodded, though even the small motion made him dizzy.

“It shouldn’t be fatal,” Jon continued, softly, still running his fingers through Martin’s hair. “The venom’s meant to slow and weaken prey. But you did manage to get a hefty dose.”

Martin huffed, a painful, almost laugh. “Remind me to try less next time.”

“Oh, Lord, a joke,” Jon said, though his hand continued in its soothing motion. Martin caught his glance down at him, brown eyes soft. “I take it back. You must be dying.”

A smile crossed over Martin’s face for a moment before his next breath brought a lancing pain from his side. He sank back down, his head coming to rest on Jon’s thigh before he could think better of it. “Hurts,” he breathed, the simple word sending a spark of pain crackling up his spine. 

Jon’s hand paused in its motion, resting at the nape of his neck. “Does it?” he asked, an undercurrent of concern to his voice. “I thought…” he trailed off for a long moment, long enough that Martin tried to drag himself from his muddied thoughts to figure out if he had to answer, but then the motion of Jon’s hand with gentle fingers running through his hair continued, and any coherent thought flew out of Martin’s head. He turned his cheek into Jon’s leg and focused on breathing, trying to forget the pain in his head and his body, trying to forget the heat that prickled at his skin. 

“You’ve got a high fever,” Jon said, almost to himself. Martin fought to stay awake, though the soothing motion of Jon’s fingers was making it hard to resist the swell of exhaustion that threatened him. “I think it’s possible it could break naturally, but…I don’t know when that would be. A-and we’ve not come across anyone else yet, but I…don’t know what would happen if we did. I don’t know if I could…” Jon trailed off, an undercurrent of fear to his voice that made Martin’s heart thrum faster despite his exhaustion. 

“No, we need to get to the antidote,” Jon said, as if the decision was final. “It grows along the edges of Stranger territory, we’re about a day’s ride away.”

Martin’s brow furrowed as he tried to pinpoint why that made him so uneasy, but the knowledge fell away from him as soon as he reached for it. But it was something important. “Jon…”

“Shh,” Jon said, paired with a brush of his hand through Martin’s curls. “It’s alright. You need to rest.”

Martin swallowed around the dryness of his throat, his heart rate picking up at the thought. There were things that waited for him, when he slept. “No,” he rasped. “Don’t let me. I don’t want to.”

“Martin…” Jon began, concerned, but he didn’t seem to know what to say.

Martin opened his eyes and peered up at him. Jon looked guilty, like he’d seen something he hadn’t meant to. “You saw them? The dreams?” Martin asked him.

Through his blurry vision, he saw Jon swallow and nod. 

“Could you take them from me?” Martin asked him, half delirious.

Jon looked down at him, blinking eyes that had a sudden sheen to them. “I can’t do that, Martin,” Jon told him, voice tight. “I’m sorry.”

Martin swallowed around the lump in his throat, his heart thumping unpleasantly behind his ribs. He could feel the exhaustion pulling at him like a physical thing, and he was terrified of it. “Don’t let me go,” he whispered, his words slurring as sleep threatened to pull him under.

Jon looked down at him wide eyed. “I…”

“I don’t want to remember,” Martin murmured, his eyes screwing shut. “Please. Please, please—“

“Please.” 

It had been the only word that he’d been able to utter for a while. He was pressed into the corner of the room, looking down, studiously avoiding looking at the figure slumped on the bed. His hands shook where they were wrapped around his knees, stained a muddy, rusty red. 

“Please,” he said again, under his breath. “Please, please.”

He supposed it was a prayer. He’d never prayed before, it was heinous to pray in the village, at least to the gods they now knew. Some folk were devoted to their belief of gods before the Mother of Spiders, better gods, beneficent gods. His mother had been fond of the idea, though she’d never been foolish enough to say it out loud.

He didn’t care who he was praying to so long as they answered him. 

Everyone was gone. Everyone was gone but him, and he didn’t know what else to do.

“Please,” he said shakily his eyes screwed shut. “Please. Please.”

The blood on his hands was eating into his skin. The grief carving a hole into his chest. 

He shouldn't have left. Maybe if he hadn’t, then…

He was alone. Alone, alone, alone.

And he breathed out the only other words he’d speak for the next day and a half. “I don’t want to be alone.”

And suddenly, the freezing temperature of the room felt like warmth against his skin. The swirl of guilt and grief and despair in his stomach settled, tapered down. He breathed out a disbelieving breath, and the fog that came out of him brushed at his cheeks like a caress. 

Martin, it seemed to croon, like a promise.

He felt it bunch in him like a storm, tugging at him.

Come home, it seemed to say. To me.

When he hesitated, the fog retreated from him, and he felt it all over again, the grief and pain and anguish.

He followed the fog, and did not look back.

It had taken him a long time to reach the Lonely Kingdom’s gates, he remembered, guided as he was only by that small part of the Lonely that had taken up residence inside his heart, but in the dream it seemed to pass in an instant.

The guards at the gate drew their swords the moment he was in view but waited for him patiently, their eyes cold as the fog that swelled in their veins. They took one look at him when he drew close enough that the one on the left put his sword to Martin’s throat, and the two shared a glance. 

“You’ll see Lord Lukas,” the one on the right said, voice flat, as if he could hardly care if Martin wanted otherwise. 

As it was, the fog that had already built up in his chest soothed at the prospect, and the distant ache of memory grew farther away with it. It didn’t even cross Martin’s mind, to protest.

And then he was kneeling on the marble floor in the throne room, fog licking at his skin, and Peter Lukas was telling him, “it’s not often that our kingdom is sought out.” His grey, impenetrable eyes bored into him, and Martin, not yet aware that it was wise to avert his own, looked into them and felt as though he’d been doused in freezing water, felt as though he were the only being on earth, felt as though he’d be utterly alone until he drew his last breath. 

It was only when Lord Lukas himself glanced away, boredom etched on his features, that Martin broke from the strange trance with a sharp intake of breath, blinking tears from his eyes.

“What is it you want?” he heard Lord Lukas ask him, through the roaring in his ears.

“I...” Martin’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, as he searched for the words. That little curl of fog that had already taken residence inside his heart and numbed it, just a little, shivered. He looked up at Lukas, but this time did not meet his eyes. “I want to forget.”

He saw, in his periphery, Lukas tilt his head, grey eyes glinting. “Do you?”

“Yes,” Martin said. “Please. Please, I—”

Suddenly Lukas was stepping out of the fog beside him, a frigid presence. “You would make demands of me?”

Martin swallowed around the dryness in his mouth, his heart thumping hard against his ribs. The fog brushed at him, hungry. “I...of course not, I...I apologize, Lord Lukas.”

The fog abated somewhat, the temperature not so bitter, and Martin took a shivering breath. 

Lukas hummed, his displeasure gone as fast as it had come, like a gust of cutting wind. He took a step back, regarding him, and began to walk around him at a leisurely pace. “The Lonely does have a fondness for you. It’s chosen you.”

Martin faltered, fixated on that curl of fog that he could feel inside. His heart beat faster, high in his throat. His mother wouldn’t have been able to stand the look of him, if she’d been there to see him god-touched. And yet a part of him was caught on Lord Lukas’ wording. Chosen. He’d been chosen. He was wanted by something. “Has it?”

Lord Lukas continued, unaware or uncaring of the breathless disbelief in Martin’s voice, “far be it from me to stand in the way of my patron.” Lukas turned to him again, grey eyes piercing even in Martin’s periphery. “If you accept the Lonely into your heart, all else will be washed away.”

Martin swallowed dryly, staring at the polished silver of the Lonely sigil the man wore on his chest. “Everything?”

Lukas’ mouth curled into a smile. “Everything. Is that what you want?”

It only took the barest flash of memory of his mother's room, of the shattered vase on the floor, for him to answer, “yes.” 

“And do you swear your utmost loyalty and service in exchange?”

Martin swallowed again, hesitating, before the fog that had settled in him shivered again, and his memories—for a moment—abated. That hint of utter quiet in his head, with no guilt or pain or regret, would have made his knees give out had he been standing. “Yes,” he said breathlessly.

“Good,” Lukas said shortly, coming to a stop just before him. “You will see all that the Lonely can offer you.” 

And with that, Lord Lukas reached out a hand, and placed it over Martin’s heart. “Now,” he said, his voice unutterably calm, “to burn the feeling out of you.”

And where Lukas’ hand touched him, a cold so gut-wrenching his breath left him entirely lanced through his skin and pierced every part of him like shards of glass, seeping at any warmth. His nerve endings lit up, and he screamed, every inch of him so devastatingly cold it felt like his body was on fire, like the cold was the only thing that had ever and would ever exist.

For an eternity, there was nothing but that pain. And then, quick as a breath of wind, it cut off entirely. Along with everything else. 

Lukas’ hand remained the only thing keeping him upright. Lukas’ other hand, for a moment, ran through his hair, and then clamped down on the nape of his neck. 

Martin caught a flash of metal, the sound of a weapon unsheathing, and before he could even find the energy to raise his head, a knife was plunging into his gut.

Or...that was what he thought he saw. Though he could feel the pressure where the hilt pressed just under his ribcage, could feel the slow seep of lukewarm blood around the blade, there was nothing else. No sharp pain. No agony. Nothing. 

He couldn’t even find it in himself to be shocked. 

“Now,” Lukas said, low and uninterested. “Did that hurt?”

It took Martin a moment to remember how to speak again, around a leaden tongue, thick and heavy in his mouth. “No.”

“And the memories. The pain of them. Do you feel it?”

His vision was blurring. He could hear, distantly, something dripping against the marble that smelled metallic and filled his nose. For a moment, he could not even recall what Lord Lukas was asking after. When he searched for a memory beyond this moment, there was nothing. 

A part of him he did not quite understand was so relieved he could have cried. “No.”

This time, when Lukas crouched and met his eyes, he looked into them unfailingly, and felt nothing. A lovely, quiet nothing. Lukas smiled. “Now," he said, slowly, head tilting. "Are you grateful?”

A curl of fog caressed his cheek, and Martin shut his eyes. “Yes,” he whispered. 

“Good,” Lukas said. His hand returned to press over Martin’s chest as he pulled out the knife with the other, a strange, dull feeling that Martin only recognized for what it was when the blood poured out in earnest. Martin looked at him, dizzy, as Lukas’ hand pressed over the wound. “Remember this,” Lukas said, as again a frigid cold coalesced under his hand, making Martin’s breath come short. A whorl of fog grew under his hand and seeped into Martin’s chest. “The Lonely will always care for you, so long as you are devoted to it.”

Under Lukas’ hand, the fog quickly knit the skin back together again, the cold numbing Martin to the core. After a few moments, the movement of the fog stopped, and it dissipated away from beneath Lukas’ hand. Martin took a shuddering breath and felt no strange pressure or discomfort. When he looked down at himself, he saw the flow of blood had stopped and left a bright, blooming stain on his tunic. Before, the fabric had been far too thin for the chill of the room. Now, the cold felt like nothing at all.

“There will be a scar,” Lukas said, as he drew back, straightening up. “Let it be a reminder to you of what the Lonely gives and takes away.” Lukas looked up at the doorway behind Martin, at the knights who had remained watchful at the entryway, and said, “take him to the barracks. Ensure he is properly trained.”

Lukas’ eyes dropped to Martin again, cold and dispassionate, and this time Martin struggled to hold his gaze, after a moment letting his eyes drop to Lukas’ shoulders. “Welcome home,” he said, as a curl of fog again brushed Martin’s cheek.

Home, he’d thought, as another curl of fog dragged him to his feet and the other knights waited for him with blank disinterest. 

It never sounded quite right, though no one, not the knights or Lord Lukas, ever used that term again. The Lonely, a home? Perhaps not. 

But it was better than what was behind.

Martin woke slowly, after his dreams had returned to the warmth of the bakery, to a hand on his cheek. It was solid, warm, familiar. He opened his eyes, blinking blearily, to see a familiar face taking shape before him.

Jon was looking back at him, his face breaking into a smile that was so lovely and bright Martin’s breath caught. “Hey,” he said softly, his thumb brushing over Martin’s cheekbone. “How are you feeling?”

Martin swallowed dryly, brows furrowing as he took stock and considered. With each breath, there was a bit of an ache, and he could feel the drag of bandages around his chest. It was nowhere near the blinding pain of before, but rather a slight discomfort as his chest rose and fell. While his head still buzzed with a dull, muggy pain, the unbearable heat from before was gone. A breeze cooled his skin. He could hear the burble of a stream from nearby and the absent shift of Brigadier’s hooves somewhere out of sight. He sat straighter, feeling the bark from a tree trunk at his back. Jon’s hand hovered over his shoulder, as if restraining the urge to keep him still.

He was so close Martin could see the varied shades of warm brown in his irises. So close Martin could smell the lavender soap he must have used to wash his hair in the stream. 

“You look better,” Jon murmured, his eyes skirting over Martin’s face. His hand moved from Martin’s cheek to press against his forehead. “Fever’s gone down. Good.” He sat back on his heels, turning his attention to Martin’s midsection. Martin’s armor was gone, his undershirt rolled up to expose a swathe of bandages, some still curling loosely, not yet secured. Jon reached for those and continued what he must have been doing before Martin woke.

“I found the antidote,” Jon explained, as his fingers brushed gently over the exposed skin of Martin’s stomach. Martin watched him, utterly blind to everything else. “A plant, Basella alba. Anti-venom properties in the leaves. I’m glad it worked quickly,” Jon said, glancing up at him. “You’ve been in and out for a while.”

Martin tried to remember, the thinning fog in his head curling like a warning. “How...how long...?”

“A few days,” Jon told him gently. 

A few days. That was bad. There was something important that Martin knew, at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t recall it. Something Jon had said. But it was impossible to pin down with the lingering fatigue and fuzziness in his head. He searched Jon’s face, frantic, and asked, “you’re...you’re alright? Nothing’s happened, or...?”

The look on Jon’s face softened. “I’m alright,” he assured, reaching up to cup Martin’s face again, the brush of his fingers against Martin’s skin like trailing velvet. “Kept to open territory, stayed watchful after dark.” 

Martin could see it on his face, now that he looked. The dark circles that had appeared under his eyes, the slight traces of fatigue. But in the low light of the evening, with the sun streaming through the trees and speckling his face with light, Martin was caught by how beautiful he looked. 

Jon’s eyes dropped to the bandages, his left hand tracing over them, his teeth worrying at his lower lip. “Beholding can be useful,” he said, softly. “It...it can give over little tidbits of information. Geographic information about sinkholes. The best growing conditions for Basella alba.” His fingers continued to trace over the bandages, but hovered for longer over a spot at the center of Martin's chest, just below his ribcage, where long ago a frigid knife had plunged into him. After a moment, Jon's fingers moved on, and he added, faintly, “the differences between specific poisons. But only when my head is clear, o-only when I can think straight. A-And when you...when you were...” Martin saw Jon swallow, following the bob of his throat and then meeting Jon's eyes when Jon looked up at him. “There was a moment,” Jon said, his voice a little unsteady, his fingers brushing Martin’s cheek, “when I...I thought that you...that maybe you were...”

Martin’s heart thudded hard and fast in his chest as he looked at Jon, that feeling rising up in him again, as if Jon had reached straight into him and pressed the lovely warmth of his skin around Martin’s heart. Martin wanted, suddenly, desperately, to touch him, and so he reached out his hand and gently cupped Jon’s cheek, a mirroring motion. 

Jon’s wide, bright eyes looked back at him, his lips parting slightly, and the words that had long been wrapped around Martin’s heart sprang to his tongue. “I’d never leave you,” he said, his throat warm with the sentiment, with the utter devotion with which he meant them.

Jon stared at him, eyes wide, taking a visible breath that shuddered in his chest. Martin looked at him, at the sunlight in his hair and the lovely brown of his eyes, and thought he’d never had any pull to the word home until he looked at Jon. He would be content, at Jon’s side, until the end of the world, and he’d stay with him there too. 

Jon looked back at him, every line of his face softening, his eyes shining in the low light. Jon's thumb brushed over the swell of his cheekbone, his eyes so soft when he looked at him it made Martin dizzy. And then Jon was leaning in, closing the scant distance between them. The press of Jon’s lips against his was a shock of warmth, a flood of softness and the familiar scent of his skin and the the tender brush of his hands at the side of Martin's face. He didn’t think anyone had ever kissed him before.

The tension slipped from his shoulders almost immediately and he sank into the gentle touch, warmth sparking over his skin like thousands of brushing kisses, Jon on his breath and before him when he peeked through his eyelashes, and that warmth blooming in his chest was rising up his throat and spreading to his fingertips, and suddenly he was nothing but warm and held and wanted and perhaps even what he was supposed to call happy and—

And, all at once, the fog in his head vanished, and there was no barrier to the memories that lay in wait behind. 

There was the vase and the lilacs and then the shattered glass and the crawling, putrid rot and the blood on his hands—

And he was recoiling and so was Jon, who was looking at him wide eyed and shocked and horrified, and panic sent Martin's breath coming wildly and tears sprang to his eyes and he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, the fog had left him and he couldn’t breathe and—

And suddenly, he was sitting, cross-legged, in the Lonely. He looked out into the grey, swirling nothingness, and realized he had no idea how long he’d been there. The winds bit into his cheeks, scaldingly cold, but he knew if he stayed his cheeks would go numb, and he wouldn’t feel it much after that. 

The wind whispered to him, stay, and the suggestion gave him pause, just for a moment. He couldn’t stay. There was...there was...

What?

He couldn't remember. He only felt that there was something missing from him, like a great gaping hole had eroded in his chest. 

Perhaps, he thought tiredly, as the wind whipped at him and the fog settled around his knees, it would fill if he only stayed for a bit longer.

Chapter Text

It was very quiet in the Lonely. There was the roar of the wind, of course, and the distant crashing of an ocean against the sand (though the water, or any break from the wasteland, could not be found, no matter how ardently you looked). But the noise of it was unique in that, after a few moments spent in the cacophony, the sounds all blurred together, a roar that became a buzzing background that became a kind of quiet in itself. A quiet that drowned out his fleeting thoughts and would have drowned out anything he might have chosen to say, could he think of anything at all.

All that he was really aware of was a sense of loss. A deep, aching thing that ate at his chest and told him he was missing something vital, something so important he might die a moment longer without it. But he couldn’t give it a name or conjure an image. It was on the tip of his tongue, just out of reach, and he was certain with every moment that passed that it was slipping through his fingers, and that there would inevitably come a moment where his window to find it would slip closed and he would lose it forever.  

If only he could remember what it was.

He sat in the sand, his arms wrapped around himself, as the wind stung his cheeks and the fog pooled around his ankles. The air stung with salt and smelled like the sea. He could feel his limbs growing numb. Could feel a muted pain around his midsection—under bandages he could not remember wrapping around himself—begin to dim further, retreating far away with the cold.

The feeling that he had lost something refused to go away. It ate at him, made his breath come short. He didn’t know what he’d lost. Didn’t even know where to begin looking for it.

Didn’t even know if it wanted him back.

The wind whipped at him harder, the fog brushing around his waist like a mockery of gentle hands. Whatever it was, he couldn’t help but think as the cold seeped down into his bones, it must have been better off without him. 

And yet the feeling refused to go away. The aching emptiness in his stomach crawled up to his throat and squeezed it like a vice, blurring his vision. The cold stung his lungs as he took a gasping, shivering breath, but it did nothing to soothe the ache in him. The cavernous nothing of his chest was going to eat him whole. 

“Please,” he gasped out, but the wind stole the word from his mouth and smothered it in roaring silence.

“Please,” he said, pressing a hand against the ache in his chest, and lifting the other to brush at his cheek, where he could feel the slow roll of a tear crystallizing in the wind. 

When he brushed his cheek, his hand was cold, but he was struck with a sudden flash of a feeling, a memory of a gentle hand on his cheek, warm, familiar. A touch that he’d wanted to lean into, a warmth that he’d wanted to draw into himself and wrap around all his cold edges. 

The feeling was gone in an instant, with a roar of the wind that sounded almost like a shriek, but it remained at the fringes of his memory, haunting him. 

Whose touch had it been? Who had he lost? The unanswered questions twisted at the feeling in his chest, carving away at him. 

“Please,” he whispered again. 

The Lonely winds roared at him.

“Please,” he said, into the furious, roaring cold. “I...I don’t want to be alone.”

The wind shrieked at him, blowing sand and salt. He covered his face from the onslaught and said it again into the fabric of his sleeve like a prayer. “Please. I want to remember.”

He said it again and again, as if the words themselves could fill that emptiness inside of him and make him whole again, as the wind roared at him and the fog licked at his skin. “Please,” he said, his throat choked with tears. “Please.”

He froze, looking up, when he heard something on the wind, just barely audible over the roar. It was a word, called out. He squinted into the impenetrable fog that surrounded him, searching for its source, when it came again, barely audible through the whipping roar of the wind. “—artin!”

He stared out into the roiling fog, his heart beating faster, crowding at the base of his throat. 

“Martin!”

Martin, he repeated to himself hazily. Martin, that...he knew that word. It settled over him like a cloak, like it belonged there. A word that wanted to be warm. Happy. 

A name, he realized.

And then a shadow of a figure appeared, just beyond the fog, turning to him. “Martin!” they said, and then they were breaking through the fog, wide eyed, cheeks windswept.

Martin looked up at them, a bright, warm thing blooming in the cavern of his chest. He felt so full with it now it was hard to swallow around it. 

Jon, his fog-addled mind named the man, as Martin looked up at him with the wind loosening his braid and the thin tunic he wore not meant for the cold. Jon, he thought, as he remembered again that flash of touch, and then so many others, so many soft looks and small smiles and gentle touches all flooding back at once. It hit him with a force, his breath punching out of him. Jon, he thought. How could he have forgotten Jon? Jon, with his soft eyes and his gentle hands and his lovely smiles. “Jon?” Martin breathed, incredulous. “How...how are you here?”

Jon’s brow furrowed as if this was a question he had not considered. For the first time, he seemed to look up beyond Martin and realize where he was. 

Frost appeared on Jon’s fingertips, his eyes going slowly cloudy, and Martin realized, with a spike of terror, that the Lonely was trying to take him, jumping at the chance as soon as Jon faltered. 

“Jon? Jon,” he gasped, reaching for him, cradling his face and drawing Jon’s eyes back to him. They blinked, and for a moment they were a clear, lovely brown. “That’s it, love,” Martin murmured, thoughtless to what he was saying save for why he was saying it. “Focus on me.”

Jon blinked at him, his hands rising to cradle Martin’s hands against his face. “I...I was looking for you,” Jon said, slowly, as if parsing it out himself. “I...I knew where you’d gone, and I knew I had to go there too.” His eyes, for a moment, drifted past Martin to look at the landscape beyond, his eyes widening. Under Martin’s hands, his skin grew colder. “This...this is...”

“Jon? Jon, love, please, focus on me,” Martin told him, fighting to keep his voice from shaking, fighting the fog that still pressed insistently at his skin. He held his breath until Jon’s eyes met his again, his pupils huge and hazy. 

Martin needed to get them out of there. Before they both forgot, before the fog ripped them apart and never let them find each other again. But when he tried to shift through the Lonely as he had before, reaching for that part of it in him, it was like grasping at thin smoke.

There was too little of the Lonely in him now, he realized, to be of any use. 

“Jon,” he said, trying to keep his voice level, “you…you managed to make it into the Lonely. Do you know how?”

Jon blinked, slow and owlish, fog on his breath and ice settling on his fingertips. Martin’s heart raced in his chest, with every moment thinking you’ll lose him again, it’s trying to take him from you.

“Jon?” Martin said again, letting his thumbs brush over Jon’s cheeks, a steadying motion. 

Jon’s brow slowly furrowed, his eyes dropping to look at Martin’s chest in thought. “I…I was…I was worried. You’d disappeared. You’d…you’d left me alone.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Martin rushed to say, emotion thick in his throat with the way Jon looked at him, a little bit lost. “I promise, I didn’t mean to.”

“No,” Jon said, distantly, visibly working to remember as the wind whipped at them. “No, there was…something happened, just before…a memory,” Jon said, looking up at him again.

“A memory?” Martin echoed, when Jon said nothing else, only looked at him. “A memory of mine?” Through the roar of the Lonely, he could remember nothing beyond Jon and the tangible reminder that he was. As Jon looked at him, the expression on his face grew somber, pained, and Martin couldn’t help but ask, his voice coming out small, “was it bad?”

Jon stared at him, his mouth working soundlessly, eyes shining with more than just the bite of the wind. He reached out, his hands settling on Martin’s cheeks like that flash of touch he’d remembered before, a gentle hold like the cradling of a bird. “Martin,” Jon said, looking at him intently, eyes shining, “what happened…what happened with your mother, I want you to know that it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault, Martin.”

Martin blinked at him, some unnameable emotion swelling at the base of his throat, making it hard to breathe. He didn’t even know what Jon was talking about, but something of the sheer intensity with which Jon seemed to believe it was enough to make him hang on every word. 

The Lonely winds shrieked again, billowing at them so furiously Jon had to stagger back a step with the force of it, as intense as a physical shove. 

“Jon!” Martin exclaimed, reaching for him before he could fall.

Jon clasped his hand and overcompensated, stumbling back against Martin’s chest, eyes wide. “What—“

“It’s angry,” Martin said, watching the wind blow the sand up into the air over Jon’s shoulder. He clutched Jon tighter when the fog billowed at them again. “We need to leave.”

Jon trembled against him, his hands pressed tight against Martin’s spine, though whether it was from the freezing temperature or fear Martin didn’t know. “How?”

Martin lifted a hand to the back of Jon’s head, holding him close. “You need to force the fog to part for you. Will it to bend and break.”

“Me?” Jon asked, his voice wavering with uncertainty. “But...I can’t—”

“Jon,” Martin told him, raising his voice to be heard above the growing wind, “you couldn’t have followed me if you weren’t of the Lonely, too.”

Jon stilled in his arms, as he let that realization sink in. Martin could feel his heart thumping where he was pressed against his chest, could feel his fingers twist in the fabric of his shirt. “I’m sorry,” Martin said, so quietly the wind almost tore it from his mouth. “I’m sorry that I left you alone.”

Jon shook his head, pressing closer, tucking his face into the space between Martin’s neck and shoulder. “Come with me, then,” he said, so close he pressed the words into Martin’s skin.

Martin closed his eyes, turning his face into Jon’s hair as the salt and sand rose around them, stinging, carried by the roaring wind. “Always,” he whispered. 

He didn’t know if Jon heard. He could hardly hear his own thoughts over the cacophony of raging wind, but he felt Jon’s grip around him tighten, and felt him grow tense, and then the air around them shuddered like a living thing and suddenly there was nothing buffeting around them and no sand below them but empty air—

And then Martin was falling back, the wind no longer pulling at his hair or his clothes, and his back met a ground more solid than sand. The breath left him with the impact, with Jon a heavy weight on his chest, but he could see now a night sky filled with stars and a quiet that was real.

“You did it,” Martin breathed, clutching Jon closer where he shivered against him. He pressed a kiss to Jon’s hair, breathless with relief. The world was quiet and real once more. “You did it.”

“Remind me not to do that again,” Jon said after a moment, through chattering teeth. 

Martin huffed a laugh that was more like a trembling breath, shifting his arms, trying to press some warmth back into Jon's body. He wished, not for the first time, that he was a creature of warmth, solely so he could give something back to Jon. 

Now that the Lonely no longer roared at him, he could feel the weight of memory in his head. He remembered some parts of his past so freely now it was like the Lonely had never touched them at all. That one moment, that moment in the bedroom with the lilacs, was still covered over with a thin fog, but Martin knew if he pressed at it, if he thought on it for too long, the fog would dissipate. 

He didn’t press. Didn’t think on it, as he looked up at the stars, but he found he was strangely devoid of any panic that he might have felt before. 

What happened with your mother. It wasn’t your fault, Martin.

Those words sounded in his head like a mantra, like a prayer. 

What happened with your mother. It wasn’t your fault.

“Are you alright?” Jon asked him, peering up at him with bleary, tired eyes. 

Martin looked down at him and found he could answer more truthfully than he ever might have before. He looked down at Jon, and felt that warmth in his chest again, felt it bloom in his heart and spread down through his veins. “Yes,” he said, softly. 

Jon looked at him, really looked at him, and something in his expression softened. He looked so lovely and real, like something indisputable, like the sun or the moon. “You are, aren’t you?” Jon said, just as softly.

Martin nodded, and lowered his head back down, looking up at the stars. “You shouldn't have come after me,” he tried to chide, after a moment. 

Jon made a huffing sound, turning his face against Martin’s chest. It hurt a little bit, with the still healing wounds Martin could now feel again, but he wasn’t about to say anything. “Don’t be stupid,” Jon muttered. “I wasn’t about to leave you there.”

“You might not have made it back.”

“Too bad,” Jon said, without remorse. Then, softer, he said, “I would have thought you’d have gotten it by now. Where you go, I go.”

Martin blinked, swallowing around the way those very simple words made his throat tighten with emotion. He cradled Jon closer to him. “Where you go, I go,” Martin echoed after a moment, a bit disbelievingly.

“That’s right,” Jon muttered, snuggling closer.

Martin let it sink in, and let Jon’s weight on him ground him, as he stared at the stars. 

He paused.

Squinted at them.

The stars were wrong, he realized abruptly.

In the wrong places. 

Martin stared up at them, the warm, dreamy calm he’d felt evaporating like smoke. The stars weren’t right. And he realized then that the quiet was too quiet. There was no sound of chirping cicadas or rustling tree leaves in the evening breeze. It was still and quiet and wrong.

“Jon,” Martin asked, the word suddenly sounding too loud in the stillness. “Where are we?”

Jon looked up at him, frowning, setting his weight on his hands where they bracketed Martin’s chest. He looked up at the treeline and Martin saw his face crease with confusion, but it wasn’t a normal look. It was similar to the fog of the Lonely settling and dimming the senses, but instead...

Instead it looked like Jon was caught by something in the treeline that made no sense whatsoever. “Did you hear that?” Jon asked, his voice sounding strange.

Martin stared at him, going very tense, and then put his hands on Jon’s shoulders, guiding them to sit up. “Hear what—?”

But then he heard it. A call from the treeline, his name.

It sounded like Jon, but Jon was in his arms.

The treeline, which Martin caught sight of behind Jon, was inky black, any light from the moon seeping away as if the forest itself were a black hole. 

“Martin,” Jon’s voice from the treeline called softly, dreamily.

“Oh,” the Jon in his arms said, his eyes widening. “Oh no.”

“We’re not where we were before,” Martin breathed, his eyes locked on the trees over Jon’s shoulder, where he could see shadows shifting in the darkness. They weren't in the same place. Their supplies were gone. His armor was gone, Brigadier was gone.

They had come out of the Lonely in a different place. And with how close Jon had camped them to Stranger territory, there was only one place they could be.

Martin could smell, suddenly, a scent of baking bread that could not have been real. A warmth that drifted on the breeze that could not have been real.

“Martin,” he heard again, from...from somewhere, and it sounded now like Mrs. Graham.

“Jon,” Martin gasped out, reaching for him, but there was a yawning darkness coming from the trees at Jon's back, inky hands extending—

Jon’s eyes locked on his, wide and terrified, and then something was yanking him away, his hands scrabbling for purchase and Martin’s name escaping his mouth, but it mutated on the wind and sounded again like Mrs. Graham--

And Martin was reaching out after him, could hear Jon struggling, but he was suddenly staring at the wall of the bakery, at the rows of bread freshly cooked from that morning—

Martin stumbled to his feet, reaching out a hand and physically trying to wave the illusion away, and caught a flash of Jon struggling between two figures of the Stranger who wore masks that bent and shifted the light, looking like Jon’s face and then Martin’s face and then his mother’s and Gerry Keay’s and a hundred other people he’d never met before.

“Let me go,” Jon hissed at them, and Martin smelled cardamom on the air along with the scent of baking bread and then the scent of lilacs.

A hand reached out behind him when he made to move to Jon, grabbing at his arm, just as the figures around Jon jerked away from him as if burned, compelled to do so.

“Oh?” an echoing, eerily cheery voice from everywhere and nowhere said, “What’s this? A little weaver stumbling into our den? That won’t do.”

Martin twisted, jerking out of the person’s grip and catching a glimpse of shining metal at their side that he reached for on instinct—a weapon, he needed a weapon—

“Get away from—” Jon started, but his voice cut off with the sound of a blow and a whimper and then, after a brief sound of struggle, Jon’s voice came muffled, indecipherable.

“Now, now,” that cheery voice rang out, from all of the figures around them and none of them, “that’s not very polite.”

The figure with the glinting weapon at their side shifted out of Martin’s reach, blurring out of his field of vision with another conjured illusion of the bakery. A sudden blow to his midsection that seemed to come from nowhere brought him to his hands and knees, knocking the breath out of him.

He could hear Jon shouting his name behind what must have been a gag, but when Martin tried to rise, another blow caught him in the ribs and he felt one or a few of them crack as he fell on his back, the blinding pain for a moment cutting off every other sense.

From beyond the roaring in his ears, he heard that cheery, not-right voice mutate into Jon’s, and then it said, “Oh? What’s this? A Lonely Knight? Why can’t you fight, little knight?”

He felt, distantly, raindrops begin to fall on his cheeks, heard the trees around them bow and creak as Jon struggled and panicked and tried to pull at the Vast, tried to do anything. 

Martin blinked, and saw the stars for a moment, but then a mockery of Jon’s face was peering down at him and curious, malicious fingers pressed under his bandages and into a still healing cut. The pain stole his breath away again, a whimper escaping him as he struggled to escape the prodding fingers.

“Oh?” the thing using Jon’s voice said, gleeful. “The little knight can feel pain!”

Jon screamed something through the gag, but the thing ignored him, saying in his voice, “the little knight is broken just for us."

Martin struggled to blink into focus the figure that was hunched over him, rain and illusion magic blurring his vision, but for a moment, he caught a glimpse of steel hanging in a scabbard at their side. Martin reached for it blindly, finding the handle and managing to pull half of it out of the scabbard before a great, heavy weight like a boot came down on his arm, grinding it into the mud.

He twisted towards the painful pressure automatically, catching a glimpse of Jon—wide eyed, a cloth gag in his mouth, struggling between two of the Stranger that held him on his knees—when he turned his head, but then something cold that felt almost like a hand wrapped itself around his throat. 

“Now, now,” the thing that sounded like Jon said, as the real Jon struggled and cursed and shouted Martin’s name. A parody of Jon’s warmth caressed the side of his face, as Martin fought for a single breath of air. “Enough struggling, love. It’ll be over soon. You’ll feel much better soon. You’ll see.”

Martin’s face was growing hot and he couldn’t breathe. His vision blurred, his thoughts growing foggy. Why couldn’t he breathe? 

Jon’s fingers brushed at his face again, gently running over his hair, his lips pressing against Martin’s. 

Oh. Of course, he...he was kissing Jon. It was hard to breathe when he was kissing Jon like this. They’d stop after a moment, he was sure. 

Behind the illusion, Martin’s grip slowly went slack where it was clutched around the figure's wrist, as their grip only tightened around his throat. There was a strange sound like a muffled screaming, but it was very distant, and with Jon in his arms Martin didn’t pay it much attention.

His head was growing fuzzy as Jon only kissed him harder, and he was so very warm and Jon was in his arms, and they could continue for just a bit longer, just a bit...

Distantly, he heard a sound like a scuffle, and then a gasp of air, and then, “Ceaseless Watcher—”

The grip around his throat went still, and then slackened. The illusion abruptly dissipated and suddenly Martin was again on his back in the mud, the rain pouring down, and his lungs were screaming, on fire. He sucked in a desperate, aching breath. 

“Wait,” the figure hunched over him said, their eyes locked on Jon who was kneeling in the mud, the gag hanging loose around his neck. “You—you can’t do that here—”

“—cast your eyes upon these loathsome creatures of untruth and falsehoods—”

“No!” the Stranger devotee shrieked, taking a stumbling step back, as the others stiffened and raced back into the trees. “Wait! Y-You can’t—you were ours, we were promised a sacrifice—”

“—And blot them out,” Jon continued, louder than the figure’s shrieking, “as they have so many truths and realities—"

The figure’s form began to shift, its edges twitching and fading in and out like static. “No!”

“—Watcher Eternal, look upon them as they are and feast on this moment where they cannot hide,” Jon finished, a slow roll of blood dripping from his nose as he stared unflinchingly at the figure, as they began to scream and disintegrate from existence under the Eye’s gaze.

And suddenly, it was quiet again. An unnatural quiet, but quiet, save for Martin’s reedy gasping and the light patter of rain. Jon’s eyes found his, fuzzy as his own vision was, and then Jon was stumbling up from his exhausted hunch on the ground towards him. “Martin,” Jon said breathlessly, his hands fluttering over him, eyes wide. His hand settled on the side of Martin’s face, a thumb gently brushing away the mud and rainwater washing it away.

Martin looked at him, his eyes trailing the  smear of blood from Jon’s nose as his breath rattled and his chest burned. Jon had called directly on two gods—the Lonely and the Eye—in quick succession, and the only sign of fatigue was in the slump of his shoulders and the blood under his nose. Any other person making the attempt would have been dead. “How...did you...?”

Jon swallowed, and said, “I don’t know. I just...realized I could.”

Martin stared at him, and thought, not for the first time, how capable Jon now was of protecting himself. It filled him with a kind of hazy, exhausted relief. 

“Come on,” Jon said, glancing up at the treeline where more shadows seemed to lie in wait. “We have to get out of here.”

Martin slowly wrapped his good arm around himself, already flinching at the pain. “How...?”

“Don’t worry,” Jon said, his hands achingly gentle where they touched him. When he glanced at the treeline again his expression was intent, determined. “I know the way.”

Any movement that pulled at his chest was agony. Every breath rattled, tore out of him. Jon carried more and more of his weight as they went, and Martin didn’t even have the breath to apologize. 

The shadows in the trees watched them, but none made a move. Word, it seemed, had spread quickly.

When, finally, they broke through inky, reaching tree branches to a familiar clearing, with the stream that burbled and Brigadier grazing where they’d left her, Martin’s knees decided to give out. Jon moved with him, sinking down to the ground alongside him, eyes wide. 

“You need medical attention,” he said, gentle hands peeking at the bruising already beginning to form under the bandages. 

“No,” Martin breathed, thoughtless. He could only think that they didn’t have time for that. Why didn’t they have time again?

“Don’t be stupid, look at you,” Jon said, worry clear on his face. “You can barely walk by yourself.”

“Don’t have time,” Martin croaked, barely audible. The pain every time he spoke was dizzying. 

Jon hesitated, his hands hovering. “You said I’m of the Lonely now?” he said, after a moment. “You...you’ve healed yourself with the Lonely before.”

Martin blinked at him, the words slow to process. “Yes.”

“Do you think I could do that for you?” Jon asked, his eyes slightly wide with the prospect. 

“I...I don’t...”

“It’s worth trying,” Jon said, a little desperately. “Isn’t it?”

Martin hesitated, his mind working sluggishly, as Jon’s hands settled lightly over his chest. “I’ll...I’ll just call on the Lonely...” Jon murmured, brow creasing in focus. A fresh bead of blood welled up from his nose.

“Jon,” Martin rattled out, as his chest grew colder under Jon’s hands, “don’t...you’ve done too much—”

A sharp, cracking pain in his chest swallowed the rest of his words. Jon’s hands retreated, his voice horrified. “Oh, oh, a-are you—? I—I’m so sorry, I-I didn’t—”

Martin breathed in a gasping breath instinctually, and found while it still hurt, it hurt slightly less. He took another breath, reeling, and broke through Jon’s stream of apologies. “I...I think you set the break, actually.”

Jon stared back at him, a stricken expression stuck on his face, along with another bead of crimson that welled at the corner of his eye. “Did I?” he asked numbly. 

Martin reached out to wipe the blood away, hating the way it streaked on Jon's skin. “Don’t do it again,” he said firmly, his voice a rattle.

“But—” Jon was quick to protest, but suddenly he went very still, his voice cutting off. Brigadier skittered abruptly in the dirt, agitated. Jon’s pupils dilated huge, his face draining of color and illuminated by something that shone just over the treeline. 

Martin looked over at it, and his heart stopped in his chest.

The treeline beyond their camp, in Stranger territory, had shifted and changed as things in Stranger territory were wont to do. And in the slightest gap that had emerged, the peak of the tower at the center of Beholding could be seen, with its great light like an eye that watched over the city and territory beyond. The light of the Panopticon was fixed on them.

They’d been spotted. And Magnus would no doubt be quick to send his servitors now that they were within his sight.

Martin’s heart was a dead weight in his chest, growing cold, growing colder when he saw Jon’s expression, etched with fear and dread. But Martin felt a wave of something truly terrible wash over him when Jon’s eyes found his and they looked devastatingly resigned. “Beholding has wonderful doctors,” Jon said a bit numbly.

Martin gaped at him, struggling to sit up. “Jon—”

“Magnus will ensure you’re treated well, that you’re healed—”

“What are you talking about—”

“Maybe...maybe this is best. You’ve done what you were supposed to,” Jon said, the look on his face growing more determined by the second, though his eyes still looked sad. “You escorted me to Beholding. He’ll reward you for that, he’ll see that you’re alright.”

Martin stared at him, horrified, and watched as the tension bled from Jon’s shoulders and he sank back onto his heels. Martin realized, all at once, that Jon wasn’t going to try to run and that he himself was incapable of running with him if he tried. Jon was going to stay with him and wait until Magnus’ servitors caught up to them and brought them both to Beholding. “Jon—” he gasped.

“You’ve done what he wanted,” Jon said again, stubborn and brave even though his face was ashen and his mouth trembled. Martin could see, a chill washing over him, that Jon had decided. Jon wouldn’t change his mind. “He’ll help you heal, you’ve done what you were supposed to—”

And Martin said the only thing he could think of that would make Jon see reason. Even if it meant Jon would never look at him kindly ever again. The words punched out of him and rang in the air between them like the slash of a knife. “I wasn’t supposed to let you get this far,” he said.

Chapter Text

Jon stared at him in the sudden silence that followed Martin’s statement as the rain came down from above, the expression he wore freezing on his face. Jon opened his mouth, then closed it, brows furrowing, as if he wasn't sure if he’d heard correctly. 

Martin looked back at him with a sinking feeling in his stomach. It was out now. He’d thought, selfishly, that perhaps he could have just held onto the secret forever. But that wouldn’t have been right. 

“What...what do you...?” Jon looked at him, confused, lost. His hand was still in Martin’s, but his grip was going slack. “I don’t understand.”

Martin swallowed around the choking vice that his throat had become. It wasn’t the already forming bruises that made it so difficult. “Jon...I’m so—”

Jon’s hand pulled out of his, his expression finally taking on a wide-eyed look of devastated disbelief as he shook his head. “No, that’s...what are you...? I-I-I don’t understand.”

Martin’s chest hurt. It was a deep kind of ache that only grew worse as he watched Jon’s expression shift, bit by bit. He wanted to take it back. To bury the truth away. But the light of the Panopticon still shone at them when he glanced up at it. He had to say it. If only so Jon would know staying for him would be foolish. “Lord Lukas never wanted you to reach Beholding alive,” he said, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears. “I...I wasn’t ever meant to let you reach the city.”

Jon leaned back and away from him, a stricken look on his face that felt like a punch to Martin’s gut. “You...no...no, that’s not...” He blinked, his eyes dropping away from Martin and at nothing in particular as he seemed to process.

Martin stared at him, his arms wrapping around himself where he wanted to wrap them around Jon, his eyes burning with unshed tears. “Jon, I—”

Martin cut off, his throat thick, when Jon looked at him again. Jon’s hands were trembling, his eyes wet. He looked horrified. “How long?” Jon asked, his voice hardly loud enough to be heard above the wind.

Martin hesitated, the truth like a stone in his stomach, his breath catching on what felt like a sob. “I—”

Jon’s expression went abruptly cold, seeing something of the truth in Martin’s face. “How long have you had those orders?” he asked again.

The compulsion hit hard, drawing the words up and out of Martin on a trembling breath. “Since I left the Lonely Kingdom to collect you,” he said, his breath hitching as soon as the truth left his tongue.

Jon looked as though Martin had struck him, his eyes wide and tear-filled, mouth trembling. “You...”

“I’m sorry,” Martin told him, choked, “I”m so sorry, Jon—”

Jon scrambled to his feet, taking a step back from him, tears spilling over his cheeks. Martin remained on the ground, staring up at him, that ache in his chest like a wound all its own. 

“You...I trusted you,” Jon whispered, his expression twisting in something that looked like grief. 

“Jon—”

“Tell me what he said,” Jon demanded. Then, grief giving way to anger, he said with more force, “tell me exactly what Lukas asked of you.”

“He said I was to ensure you died on the road,” Martin admitted, the words bitter like ash on his tongue. He dug his fingers into his arms, but he kept speaking, “close to Beholding, so Magnus wouldn't suspect him of a betrayal. Preferably in Stranger territory.”

Jon stared at him, a look of utter devastation on his face. He took another step back, toward Brigadier. When he spoke, it hardly sounded like a question, with what little inflection was in it. But the compulsion was there all the same. “Were you still going to?”

“No,” Martin gasped out, horrified. “No, no, I—I wouldn’t—”

“But you were going to,” Jon interrupted, his voice hard and his eyes cold when he looked at him, “before. Weren’t you?”

Martin looked back at him miserably, the rain soaking him to the bone. “Jon, I—”

“Don’t,” Jon spat out, his eyes shining. “Don’t.” He took another step back, his arms wrapping around himself. A sound escaped him, and it almost sounded like a laugh. “You know, I actually thought...” His voice trailed off, carried away by rain and the wind. The muscles in his jaw tightened as he clenched his jaw shut, casting a look at Martin that was so cold it burned. “My mistake,” he said. 

He turned to the horse.

Martin watched him, unmoving, staring at the tense line of his back and the trembling in his hands as he reached for the saddle. It felt like something in him was breaking at the sight, like he was bleeding internally. He could hardly breathe around the tears that choked his mess of a throat. And yet, there was the slightest flicker of relief. Jon was leaving him. Leaving Beholding behind. He was capable, he could be safe on his own, away from him, away from Magnus. 

Martin just hadn’t expected it to hurt this much. It felt a bit like what dying must have felt like. His hand drifted to his chest, pressing there, against his heart, but the feeling did not abate. 

He watched Jon place a foot in the stirrup, but then Jon paused, his fingers digging into the leather of the saddle, the line of his back tense. Jon’s head turned, just slightly, so Martin could almost see his profile. 

The question came from him, hesitant, almost as if Jon didn’t want to ask but couldn’t help himself. “Why didn’t you?” 

The question came just over the wind, and the compulsion ran through Martin like a tremor. “I don’t know,” he found himself saying, choked with the rising ache of emotion in his throat. And then he kept going, the words bubbling up out of him with all the truth and reverence of a prayer. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you, but...back then I was so disconnected from what I wanted a-and what was right that it hardly seemed to matter. But I didn’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to think about what I’d been asked to do. And you were so afraid, and kind when you shouldn’t have been, and smart, and stubborn, and brave, and so, so lovely I thought I would die looking at you. And I realized I—” his voice broke, as Jon stared at him with eyes that shone wide, but still the words came, “I didn’t want to lose you. I realized that I never wanted to see you hurt ever again. That if you ever bled, it felt like I was bleeding with you. I want you to feel safe, and warm, and cared for, and surrounded by so much love you wouldn’t know what to do with it all. And I think...I don’t know what to call it, I-I never—never really had the chance to feel it like this before, but it feels like love. I think I love you.”

Jon stared at him, as the rain pounded down at them and the Panopticon’s light shone at them, his lips parted in what looked like shock, tears on his cheeks mingling with the rain. His hands slowly loosened their grip on the saddle. 

But there was a shout from the trees, skirting Stranger territory, and both Martin and Jon tensed. Martin’s heart beat wildly at his ribs as his eyes scanned the trees. He met Jon’s eyes. “You have to go.”

Jon stared at him, what looked like a thousand different emotions flashing over his face, and he didn’t move, seemingly frozen in place.

Martin fought the urge to move over to him and bodily heft him onto the saddle. “You were traveling somewhere specific, after you left Beholding. Before the Huntress caught you. To someone you knew, someone you trusted. Weren’t you?”

Jon didn’t respond immediately, but Martin could see a flash of confirmation in his eyes. Jon opened his mouth to say something, but Martin interrupted, thinking on Magnus and what he could do, “don’t tell me. Don’t tell me anything. Just go. Go, and don’t look back.”

Jon stared at him, his eyes shining, brows drawn together. His mouth opened, as if he was about to  say something. But then there was another sound from the trees, what sounded like a shouted direction, and Jon’s eyes flickered to the treeline, the line of his mouth tightening. He turned and shifted his weight, swinging up into the saddle and reaching for the reins. 

Jon paused there though, the reins in his hands, the line of his back tense. When he glanced back at Martin, his expression was unreadable, but his eyes still shone. 

Martin allowed himself a single moment to commit Jon’s face to memory. Then, he said, over the sound of the rain, “go.”

Jon took a visible breath, the line of his throat bobbing as again something like grief crossed his face. But then Jon was turning his face away with a pull of the reins. Martin watched his hands tighten their grip for a moment, as he set his shoulders. For a moment he just sat there, his hands trembling.

Then, Jon kicked his heels into Brigadier’s sides and leaned forward as she barreled into movement, heading in the opposite direction of Beholding. 

Martin watched him go, pressing a hand to that ache in his chest, until he could hardly see him through the rain. A sob escaped him then, grief crowding up in his throat. He’d never see Jon again. He knew it like he knew the pull of gravity would keep him tied to the ground, and for a moment, the knowledge devastated him so entirely he thought it could kill him right there and then. He’d stay there, in the rain, until his heart froze over like the useless lump it now was, until his grief turned him to stone.

But there was another shout from the trees, so close he could nearly make out the words, and he looked in the direction it had come from, shaking himself from the feeling. Jon wasn’t safe yet. He needed to get further away. 

And Martin could, at the very least, give him the greatest head start he could. 

He stood shakily, winding an arm around ribs that still burned when he breathed, and made his way over to his armor and his sword by the remaining bedroll, near the tree where Brigadier had stood moments ago. He strapped his armor on slowly, but determinedly, even as it felt so tight around his torso the pain took his breath away. 

Finally, he picked up his sword, unsheathing it, tossing the scabbard away from him. He wouldn’t need it, after this. He pressed the sword point into the mud, leaning against it, his head hanging. 

He waited. 

When the first of Magnus’ servitors broke through the trees, he was ready. Martin moved quickly, ignoring the pain that burned in him, and cut the man down with two vicious blows. 

They came at him very quickly after that. They were all those that had given themselves over almost completely to the Eye, and so were hypervigilant. They could see the minute movements he made with his sword and so were hard to catch off guard. But they were not as good with a sword as he was.

He cut them down, one after the other. The ones that rushed him. The ones that tried to barrel past him to follow Jon. 

His breaths tore out of him, exhaustion threatening, but he kept going. They wouldn’t get past him.  He wouldn’t let them. 

He fought, viciously, until suddenly a bright, flaring pain exploded in his head. It was agony. Flared behind his eyes until he was sure they must have been bleeding, must have been carving themselves out from inside his skull. No one had hit him. No one had even touched him. But the pain of it sent him to the ground as surely as if that had been the case. 

He might have been screaming. He wasn’t sure. All he knew was pain, a horrific, lancing agony thrumming through his skull. 

When it finally stopped, he went boneless, gasping ragged breaths where his face was pressed into the mud, his arms held firmly between two of the servitors and his sword wrenched out of his grasp. A shining, black boot appeared in his field of vision.

He stared at it, trembling with the lingering memory of pain, and slowly traced his eyes up. 

The man looking down at him had the coldest eyes Martin had ever seen. Lord Lukas, he had thought, had cold eyes simply because they did not care even as they looked at you. But these... these blue eyes looked down at him as if Martin were something breakable and they were eagerly debating where first to strike.

The man tilted his head, and slowly crouched down to be at eye-level. Martin glared at him, jerking against the tight grips that held him, but despite himself, he could feel something like fear creeping into his heart. The man would have looked perfectly ordinary, Martin thought, had it not been for his eyes and the opulent clothing he wore, embellished with the royal green of Beholding and a gleaming pendant of the Eye at his neck.  

The man’s eyes looked into his, and it felt as though he was rooting through Martin’s skull. “Where is he?” Magnus asked him calmly.

Martin glared up at him, and let the words come. “You’ve just missed him, I’m afraid.”

The slightest sign of irritation on Magnus’ face was the tick of a muscle at his temple. “I’ll ask again. Where is he going?” 

Martin tried to bite down on it this time, just to see if he could, but it was like fighting the urge to breathe. He let the words out with a laugh, feeling nothing but a hysterical kind of relief. “I don’t know. I don’t know, he didn’t tell me.”

This time, Magnus’ expression darkened. He leaned back slightly, eyes skirting over Martin’s face. “Look at what you’ve done to yourself,”  he observed. “There’s hardly any of the Lonely left in you at all. Shunning the love of your patron. I can’t even imagine it.”

“What the Lonely made of me wasn’t love,” Martin said. It felt like something Jon would have told him. 

“And you’d know what love feels like, would you?” Magnus asked him, his glacial look in his eyes cutting. 

“More than you,” Martin said back, his voice tight.

Magnus stared at him, his eyes boring into Martin’s, and suddenly he smiled, a patronizing thing. “I see. You think you love him. But he’s left you. With every moment, he gets farther away from you.”

“Yes,” Martin agreed, around the sudden lump of emotion in his throat at the thought. “And with every moment you spend with me, he gets farther away from you.”

That muscle at Magnus’ temple again twitched, but his face remained impassive. “You think I won’t find him? Wherever he’s gone? There’s no place on earth he could run from me.”

Martin itched to run a sword through the flesh of his eye. “You don’t know how stubborn he is,” Martin told him. 

Magnus laughed then, and Martin tensed. “Hm,” Magnus said, smiling unpleasantly. “That’s funny. Because, you see, I know everything about him.” Magnus’ eyes trailed over his face for a moment, amusement on his curled lips. Then, his eyes locked on Martin’s and Martin found, with a spike of terror, that he couldn’t look away. “Why don’t I tell you a story, hm? There once was a boy born in Beholding to two loving parents. It was during the last years of the Dark War—I’m sure you remember, nasty business. And these two loving parents decided that with the war on, Beholding wasn’t the place to raise a child, oh no. They thought, perhaps, a quiet, unaffiliated village near the vast cliffs of the East would be better. There was so little violence when one camped near Vast territory, and so, they packed up all they had and moved there. They wanted a quiet life for this boy, you see, a safe life. Little did they know the Mother had plans for this child. And it never bodes well to go against the Mother’s wishes.”

“Stop,” Martin managed to gasp out, choked, but Magnus merely continued speaking over him. 

“Now, there were some happy years. Eight of them in fact, where they lived in peace by the water and the gentle waves of the beach. But it wasn’t meant to be, you see. No, this boy was destined for something else, and the Mother was ready to claim him for it. One night, as they all slept soundly in their beds, the weavers came. They descended on the little village quietly, as weavers are wont to do. And they whispered into their ears as they slept, and told them it was imperative that they do one, little thing. They whispered to them, walk. You must walk.

“And all the little townsfolk woke at once, the Mother’s orders ringing in their ears, and they got out of their beds, and, well. They walked. The boy rose to the sounds of his parents making their way out the door, and do you know what was curious? He hadn’t felt any need to walk. But he followed his parents as they drifted out the door, their bare feet scraping along in the dirt. He begged them to stop, cried for them to wake up, asking what was going on, trying to catch their glazed eyes, but they wouldn’t stop for any of his pleas. They had to walk, you see, and the whispered commands of a thousand weavers were far stronger than the panicked pleas of one young boy. So they walked. They all did. All 600 and some odd occupants of that sleepy little village making their way across the grass toward the cliffs with a single-minded purpose.”

Martin tried to lurch back when Magnus leaned closer towards him, but the grips on his arms held firm and though he tried to break away from Magnus’ gaze, he couldn’t. “The boy saw what was coming. Of course he did, he’d read about the weavers and what they could do, how strong their compulsion could be. He pulled at his mother’s skirts and at his father’s sleeves, sobbing, trying to get them to turn back, but they just wouldn’t listen. They could only walk. And they did. Straight off the cliffs, and to the rocky waves below.”

Martin was crying. He could feel the slow slip of tears over his cheeks, but he couldn’t even close his eyes. He could only watch, as Magnus drank it all in. “As the boy cried on the cliff face, inconsolable, looking down at the bodies of everyone he’d ever known and loved, one of the weavers came up behind him, and placed a hand on his shoulder. Do you know what she called him, before she compelled him to sleep? Archive. She called him, with all the love of a mother, Archive. And he was marked for it in that very moment.

“He was found by a rescue party from a nearby village a few days later. Half starved, catatonic. It was thought that he was merely a lucky survivor of an unfortunate attack. He was delivered to his last living relative in Beholding, a grandmother who took care of him with a begrudging resentment. And there, he tried to hide away from what had happened to him. He never touched the Mother’s gift, even though it thrummed in him, waiting. No, he loathed it. Reminded him of his parents, how everything that they were had been stripped away in a moment, save for a new, single-minded purpose: to walk.  

“And so, the first opportunity he had, he took a position in a Beholding archive. He’d always been curious enough for it, hungry for knowledge. So much so that he had been Eye-touched long before any of his other peers in school. Now, I knew all of this the very moment he took the position. But how could I have been sure he was truly of two gods? He’d never used any skill of the weavers. I wasn’t even certain he could. It was so tempting, watching him pattering about, playing at a normal life. He’d practically been hand-delivered to me by the Mother, or so it seemed. But I’d thought Gertrude had the gift too, and my rashness had consequences then. So I bided my time. I waited until I could be absolutely certain. Arranged for a Stranger’s NotThem to slip through the gates and into the archive. And then, I watched as he compelled it. Stopped it in its tracks as it lunged for him, and then I knew. I knew what this boy was truly capable of. And what better way to give him every opportunity to grow,”  Magnus said, smile widening, “than to let him out into the world?”

Martin stared at him, horror twisting at his stomach. “You—”

“Did you ever wonder,” Magnus asked suddenly, head tilting, “why it was just you escorting him?”

Martin’s breath was coming faster, mind spinning. “I—”

“Because if I knew how valuable Jon was,” Magnus continued, eyes like chips of ice, “why wouldn’t I ask for a caravan? A whole slew of knights to ensure he came back to me safe and sound? ”

Martin gaped at him, his vision tunneling until he could only see a cold, icy blue. “You—”

“That’s exactly right,” Magnus said. “It would save me a great deal of time, I thought, to let Jon get far enough away, and then ensure someone dragged him right back through all the territories in between. The most efficient way to ensure he was marked. Lukas, I knew, would see it as a marvelous opportunity to try something, and I see that’s what he ordered you to do, isn’t it?” Magnus asked, his eyes boring into Martin’s like he could see all the way through to the opposite side of his skull. “I knew he would want you to wait until you were close to Beholding, to minimize any suspicion on his part, and by then I knew that Jon would have been god-touched enough times that Terminus wouldn’t be able to resist its claim as well. It would have been the true test of his gift, if he could spring back from even death’s hold. What a shame,” Magnus said, looking between his eyes, “that you couldn’t do what you were told.”

After a moment, Magnus pulled back, and Martin could finally break away from his gaze, heaving breaths ripping out of him and horror turning his stomach. “Ah well,” Magnus continued lightly, a considering look on his face, “I suppose I could arrange something for our Jon. Asphyxiation is simple enough to come back from, not too messy. Perhaps drowning. Oh, I do love a good drowning. All the helpless, panicked flailing, the way no one is ever able to just give in to the inevitability of it all until the water is so heavy in the lungs it drags them down before they’ve prepared for it.” Magnus sighed, as if imagining it. Then, his eyes found Martin’s again. “Or perhaps I could settle for punishing you that way?” Those eyes bored into Martin, as Martin’s stomach dropped away from him, and Magnus said, “there was that moment, so long ago you must hardly remember, when you were walking with your father on that bridge over the river—”

“Stop—” Martin gasped out, the memory flashing vividly behind his eyes without his permission.    

“—he wasn’t holding your hand, of course, he never held your hand—”

“Stop—”

“—and then you stepped a bit too close to the edge and you slipped and tumbled into the water, the murk of it crashing over your head and the shock of the fall had you gasping, choking down water—”

“—please,” Martin gasped out, his eyes closed, though the memory still flashed there, behind his eyelids, as if he were living it all over again, “please—”

“—and there was a moment, such a long dragging moment, when you’d swallowed so much of that brackish water and your lungs burned that you thought, certainly, that you would die there, alone in the muck. You didn’t die, of course, your father bodily hauled you out and onto the riverside. And there was a moment, a flash of something that looked like panic in his eyes when he made sure you were breathing, that you thought maybe he really did love you. I can assure you, he didn’t. He just worried, being the town drunk, they might hang him if he was responsible for the death of a child—”

“Stop,” Martin gasped out, his throat choked with tears, “please—”

“Oh, you don’t like that memory?” Magnus asked him, with nothing but false sympathy in his voice as he raked his cold eyes through Martin’s head. “Well, why didn’t you say so? The lack of the Lonely in your mind makes it so easy to pick out another, I really should thank you for the convenience. How about this one? There once was a boy whose mother was very, very ill—”

“Stop, stop—” Martin gasped out again, tears blurring his vision, but Magnus’ voice didn’t stop, and the memory played out, vividly, in his head.

“—and her son was so very devoted to her, even as she’d shown him nothing but scorn—”

“Please. Please—”

“—so he left the small town behind to seek out what he thought might be a cure. He’d only be gone for a couple of days, he thought, what could happen in a couple of days? Poor boy. Because, you see, while he was gone, the neighboring Corrupted territory attacked. Devastating business. So much illness and decay in a matter of hours. And when the boy returned, he knew, instantly that something was wrong—”

“Stop—”

“—there was no one at the gate. It hung open on its hinges, the air reeked of copper and something foul like rot. The boy was terrified, but he could think only of those he knew inside the gates who might still be in trouble, who might still be saved. He raced in only to see bodies littering the streets, rotting in their own, putrid juices—”

“Please,” Martin sobbed, shaking, his eyes wrenched shut, “please, stop—”

“—and the boy retched in the street, terror and horror lancing through him at the sight. He raced to the bakery first, the closest thing to him. The door was a mess of splinters and broken glass, and inside...what was inside didn’t look much like Mrs. Graham anymore, did it?”

Martin could only sob wordlessly now, the image of it vivid in his mind, but still Magnus kept going, relentless.

“The boy stumbled out of the bakery, tripping over his feet, his vision blurring so much he could hardly see where he was going. He fell, but something broke his fall, something that lay on the ground and caved in under his hands. Its face still looked like the blacksmith’s boy, but that was about as much as was recognizable. The boy screamed, scrambling up and pulling his bloody hands from the other boy’s chest, caved in like a rotten fruit, and then—then he could only think of his mother and what must have happened to her.”

“Please,” Martin whispered, one last time through his ruined throat, but even if the word hadn’t been lost to the rain, Magnus wouldn’t have cared to listen to the plea.

“He ran to their home but he hesitated at her door. He was so certain she would be dead. And when he finally gathered the courage to peek open the door, there she was. Pale. Unmoving. Pockmarked so full of little holes she hardly looked like a person anymore. The boy truly cried then, the last of his family gone. He was alone, he thought. He went over to her, and sobbed over her body, so sure she was dead. But then she moved. She moved, and before the boy could regain himself to even gasp out her name, her hand was clamping down on his arm and pulling him closer, and he could see there was something wrong with her. She’d been ill for such a long time. So used to the wheeze of her own labored breathing and the scent of her own decay. Is it any wonder the Corrupted chose her for its own? 

“The boy panicked, tried to move away, but her grip was like iron. His hand flailed wildly, and it collided with the glass vase he’d filled with bright, lovely lilacs just a few days earlier. The vase shattered against the wall and the lilacs spilled onto the floor, and the boy’s mother, hateful as she was, reached for a glass shard. ‘You did this to me,’ she hissed at him. The boy caught her wrist just below where her hand clutched the sharp shard of glass. She was strong now, but he’d always been stronger than he looked, something he’d inherited from his father. It makes me wonder, you see.” Magnus reached out and dug his fingers in a bruising grip at Martin’s jaw, forcing his head up to look. “Did the shard of glass really slip? Was it really an accident? Was he trying to wrangle it out of her grasp, or did he just want to make it all stop?”

Martin glared at him through tears, his breaths tearing raggedly out of his mouth. He saw it in his head. The moment. His mother cursing him, trying to drive the shard of glass into him, deadly sharp on both ends, and his grip on her arm pushing back just the slightest bit too hard—

“Oh, dear,” Magnus said, tilting his head, his voice full of false sympathy. “Look what the boy did. Look at what you did, Martin. You killed the only person who ever came close to loving you. And now...now you’re all alone. You knew that then. It’s why the Lonely chose you, but you seem to have forgotten.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Martin rasped. He glared at Magnus, and though he felt grief like a hole in his chest, and guilt, a soul-sucking guilt, he also remembered something else. The words ran, like a mantra, in his head. 

What happened with your mother. It wasn’t your fault, Martin.

Jon had seen it. That moment. And he had cradled Martin’s face in his hands and looked at him with something like love in his eyes, and he had said that it hadn’t been his fault.

“You’re wrong,” Martin told Magnus simply, swallowing around the mess of tears in his throat. He had too little energy in him to say anything else. 

Magnus’ expression froze in something that looked like confusion, his eyes staring into Martin’s as if searching for an answer. He blinked, drawing back and looking at Martin, something newly considering on his face. “Interesting. I suppose I have just one more question for you,” he said. “Do you think Jon loves you?”

Martin stiffened, not having expected the question at all, and not knowing at all what was about to come out of his mouth. “I don’t know,” he said, wishing he could swallow the words as he spoke them and that Magnus wasn’t stealing them to satisfy his own curiosity. “Sometimes I thought he might have felt something close. He looked at me softly, and touched me more gently than anyone had before. He asked me to leave with him. He told me he would go wherever I did. But I think I’ve ruined that now.” 

Martin sagged, when the tirade seemed to be finished, frustrated tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. He’d never hated the truth more than when Magnus stole it from his mouth.

Magnus hummed, looking over his face impassively, before saying, “I think we should let Lukas see what you’ve made of yourself, hm? And then, I’m sure he would agree that you’ve been lax in your duty. I’m sure he’ll be vying for a suitable punishment as much as I am. How would you feel about The Eternal Wake?” Magnus asked him, looking over his face. He must have seen some flash of fear there, because his answering smile was cruel. “That’s what I thought. An eternity spent drowning where Terminus cannot touch you? Nothing but memory to keep you company as you fight for a breath that won’t come? I think it would suit you very well.”

“Whatever you like,” Martin told him, glaring. He could bear it. He could bear this and more, if only it meant that Jon would get a little more time to ride farther away. Let Magnus focus on him.

Magnus stared at him, his blue eyes boring into Martin’s, and his smile only grew, though he did not say why. 

“Long way back to the Lonely,” Magnus said finally, eyes studying him. “I would hate for you to be bored. Why don’t we,” he said slowly, bringing his hands to the sides of Martin’s face and eyes burning a cold blue, “go over that memory again, hm? I wouldn’t want you to forget it.”

Martin fought to look away, but Magnus’ eyes were inescapable twin points, and his hands on Martin’s face would not let him move an inch.

And so, despite his struggling, Martin remembered. And he remembered. And he remembered. Over. And over. And over.

It was, as Magnus said, a long way back to the Lonely. 

It was almost a relief when Magnus finally broke him from the relentless loop of vivid recollection only to find himself on his knees, his hands shackled behind his back, in the throne room of the Lonely with Lord Lukas’ eyes boring down on him. It was such a disorienting shift that it took a moment for him to fully process. His face was streaked with what felt like drying tears. He was freezing, hungry, his armor stripped from him.

Magnus had taken him all the way back to the Lonely himself, which meant that Jon had, at least, a week’s head start, if not more.

“It seems you don’t train the knights like you used to, Peter,” Magnus’ voice came from behind Martin. “This one not only lost my betrothed, but also fell in love.”

Lukas’ face was as frigid as Martin had ever seen it, when he met Martin’s eyes again. Martin felt nothing at all looking into them but contempt. “That’s impossible,” Lukas said, in an instant stepping through the Lonely and standing before Martin. He hooked a freezing hand under Martin’s chin and pulled his head up, looking into his eyes and searching for the Lonely in him. Martin glared at him with as little love as he’d shown Magnus. After a moment, Lukas released him as if he’d been burned, no doubt seeing what little Martin had left in him, disbelief on his face quickly turning to an icy rage. “You ungrateful, blasphemous traitor.”

“Shame he didn’t do what he was told, isn’t it?” Magnus said, something playfully knowing in his voice. “Could have saved us both quite a bit of trouble. But I’m willing to forgive and forget, so long as he’s adequately punished.”

Lukas stiffened, locking eyes with Magnus. He seemed to understand the subtext, though he didn’t seem to be happy about it, his jaw setting tight and fog billowing at his feet. “What,” Lukas grit out, “did you have in mind?”

Magnus came around to look Martin in the eyes, head tilted, and Martin wished he could ram a sword through his smug face. “Not death. Far too simple, that. No, I was thinking of The Eternal Wake,” Magnus said, glancing at Lukas.

Despite himself, Martin couldn’t help the fear that ran through him, when Lukas’ eyes returned to him and they looked satisfied with the suggestion. “A fine idea,” he said.

The Eternal Wake was a point just on the edge of Lonely and Vast territory where the two intermingled. It was also so far from the high peaks of the Deadlands that Terminus could not quite reach it. The resulting space in the ocean just by the cliffs was a place where one could drown, but never die. It was a common sentence for those with great crimes against the crown, Lonely or Vast. Those sentenced to it were shackled to heavy weights and forced to shuffle over the cliffside to the water below. It was said that they all remained down there, bloated, water-logged, but still, technically alive. For as much as it could be called life. Nothing but their own thoughts—however often they had them anymore—for company. 

Martin stared down at the rush of water below, the shackles already weighing heavy on his wrists, and, strangely, didn’t feel as much regret as he thought he would. He regretted the beginning. Regretted that he ever even considered what Lukas had told him to do. That was a spot of shame he’d never be able to wipe away. 

But he didn’t regret sending Jon away. It hurt still, a pounding, bleeding thing in his chest, but he didn’t regret it. Jon never could have been safe with him. Now, Jon had a chance. He was capable. He was so very smart. And he had a very, very large head start, given that Magnus was still there, eagerly awaiting the moment Martin hit the water. 

Martin had met someone as lovely as Jon. He couldn’t regret that.

He had lived, and despite the unfathomable odds, he had loved. 

It was more than some could say. 

A point of a sword dug into his back. “Any last prayers?” Lukas said, from behind him. “If you beg, the Lonely might relieve you of the pain.”

Martin didn’t even bother to look at him. “I have nothing more for the Lonely. Or for you.”

The air temperature dropped significantly, just behind him. “As you wish,” Lukas said, his tone cold.

The swordpoint pressed harder, forcing Martin to take a step forward. His foot teetered on the edge of the cliff, rocks spraying down into the water. “Wait,” he said, and the pressure at his back paused. “I do have something to say.” Martin turned his head, and found Magnus’ eyes. Martin looked at him and hated him so much the emotion nearly made him dizzy. Jon, he thought, could have been in Magnus’ cruel hands in that moment, if Martin hadn’t gotten Jon to leave him behind. 

Martin set his jaw, and took another step toward the cliff’s edge. “I hope he kills you someday,” he told Magnus.

And then he fell.

And he drowned. And drowned. And drowned. 

And it did not stop.

His last real, coherent thought was that somehow, drowning didn’t feel quite as terrible as it had watching Jon leave in the rain.

Chapter Text

Martin drifted. It was so very cold, but as far away as his mind had gone, he hardly even felt it. 

He dreamed. He dreamt of less than pleasant things, of his mother and his father and the day he’d lost everything. And he dreamt of things that made him feel as close to warm as he could be, in that watery abyss. The bakery. Mrs. Graham. Jon. 

Often Jon. 

He dreamt of Jon’s hair under his fingers and the soft turn to his smile and the way he looked at Martin, as if he could see through to the core of him and was not disappointed with what he saw. He dreamt of the musical tilt to Jon’s vowels and the slight dimple on his cheek when he smiled and the gentle ghost of Jon’s touch.

He dreamt of Jon’s face in the rain, and the devastating grief he’d felt as Jon turned away.

And then, for a brief moment, he would remember where he was, and his lungs would spasm uselessly. He would blink open his eyes to stinging salt and a deep blue nothingness. And his lungs would flutter again, trying to draw panicked breaths that would not come as he struggled weakly against the chains that held him down, and his throat would burn and the pain of it would swell and then—

And then he’d slowly sink back into that semi-conscious state, and it would all begin again. 

And again. And again. 

And it did not stop.

When the current shifted slightly, sending the weight that held him down drifting a few inches in the sand, Martin was too far away to feel it. It came again, just a moment later. And again. And again. A little push of the water that, strangely, seemed to be uncharacteristically gentle for the Ocean of the Vast, wrapping around him like an embrace. 

He drifted, and the current held him like a lover. 

The light that filtered through his closed eyes slowly grew brighter. The push and pull of ocean waves grew more pronounced, and still that strange current held him against it, guiding him determinedly forward. Sand scraped underneath him, as the light grew brighter still. The sounds of the waves crashed just above his head. He was aware of it all in a distant haze. 

The current wrapped around him, and gently pulled him toward the rhythmic crash of the waves against the sand. Once he was caught by them, the waves did the rest. With every give and take of them, he drifted closer to shore, and with that current wrapped around him like a blanket, it only took moments for the water to break over his head and his cheek to be pillowed by sand. 

His lungs tried to work, as they had so often before, and this time it wasn’t water that flooded his nose, but the salt-heavy air by the sea. He coughed, murky water expelled from his mouth and nose, as the sound of someone racing across the sand filtered through his ringing ears. A trembling hand lighted on his cheek, and a familiar voice, wavering, tear-filled, assured, “it’s okay. You’re okay now, I have you. You’re okay.”

That gentle hand cradled Martin’s face, kept his head turned to the side as he coughed up water and gritty sand, and the voice murmured soft, shivering comforts. “You’re okay. You’re okay, love. I’m here, you’re going to be fine. It’s over now.”

Once he could breathe freely, without a ragged cough ripping his breath away, more of that sensation he’d lost came trickling back. The feeling of grainy sand against his cheek. The ache of his arms bound behind his back. The rhythmic, soothing brush of a thumb at his cheekbone. The slight wind, enough to make him shiver violently with the cold he was just beginning to really feel. A light behind his eyes more bright than anything he’d known in the nothingness of the Eternal Wake. 

That voice, lovely and kind and so, achingly familiar it made Martin’s heart race and swell to the base of his throat before he could even name why. 

Slowly, Martin’s eyes blinked open, adjusting to the light of a sun he hadn’t seen in a long time. It was a foggy day. Gloomy, for all purposes, but after so long in the dark it was the loveliest day he’d ever seen.

Another hand gently cradled Martin’s other cheek, trembling just slightly, and Martin followed the sight to look at the figure that blocked some of the light behind the clouds. For a moment, they were backlit, just a shadow, but as his eyes adjusted Martin could see the familiar, unruly hair blown by the wind and the features of his face, just coming into focus. 

Martin could have recalled every feature of his face with his eyes closed. And there it was. There Jon was, haloed by that muted light in the sky, and looking down at Martin, his eyes tear-filled and his expression desperately relieved. Jon tried for a smile and it trembled. “There,” he said, his voice choked. “There you are.”

Martin stared at him, utterly entranced. Jon was looking at him, his mouth trembling, but the look on his face was so soft and relieved it took Martin’s breath away. The wind pulled slightly at the familiar cloak Jon wore, a deep, royal blue. 

None of Martin’s dreams had ever gone like this. He wanted to stay in this one forever. Still, he couldn’t help but ask, a whispered thing around his ruined throat, “are you real?”

Jon made a sound somewhere in between a laugh and a sob. He nodded, moving to gently brush Martin’s soaked hair from his forehead. “Yes. Yes, I’m here, this is real. I was always going to come back for you, I...I just needed to find some people first.” 

Martin stared at him, letting his eyes rake over Jon’s face, his heart like a brushfire burning behind his ribs. He still shivered, but he hardly felt the cold. This was the best dream he’d come up with yet.

Jon did make a sound like a sob then. “It’s not a dream,” Jon said. He blinked and a tear fell over the swell of his cheek, as he looked at Martin with his eyes shining. “I’m here. I...I could never leave you either. I told you. Where you go, I go.”

Martin felt his throat close up with a rush of tears. Even if it wasn’t real, and he was more than half-certain it wasn’t, he had to tell him. Tell Jon how sorry he was. That he’d never meant to hurt him, that it had all spun out of his control so quickly—

Jon shook his head, bending to press his forehead to Martin’s. A tear fell on Martin’s cheek. “I know,” Jon assured, his voice thick. “I know. It’s alright. I forgive you, love, it’s alright.”

Oh, Martin realized, his head spinning with the closeness and the warmth pulsing in his chest. Of course. There was hardly any of the Lonely left in him now. Jon likely would have heard his thoughts as clearly as if Martin had spoken them aloud.

“Come on,” Jon said, his hand moving to support the back of his neck. “Let’s get those chains off.”

Martin let Jon help him to sit up with the kind of hazy, dazedness one tended to feel after waking from a nightmare. Jon held him there, against his chest as he worked at the chains with his other hand. Martin let his head rest against the curve of Jon’s shoulder, his muscles straining from so long spent unmoving, weightless. The warmth of Jon’s skin bled into his cheek, keeping away the chill. Martin smelled lavender, as Jon’s hair tickled his nose with its lazy movement in the wind. 

He realized, all at once, that his dreams had never been quite so vivid as this.  

Martin was shivering and cold and tired and hungry, but Jon was there. Solid and real as the lapping waves that reached for them.

Martin breathed out a trembling breath, his eyes stinging with tears as he looked at the soft curve of Jon’s jaw where it met his neck. “You’re here.”

“I’m here,” Jon repeated, holding him closer. 

Martin heard a spring from one of the shackles release, but it was a distant thing, with his heart racing as it was. “You...you can’t be here. It—it’s too dangerous, what if—”

“Tough,” Jon said, his head turning slightly as he glanced at Martin from the corner of his eye. “I wasn’t leaving you here. Now hold still.”

Martin obeyed, though internally his heart was beating like a jackrabbit in his chest. Jon was there. Jon couldn’t be there. What if—how long had it...?—what if Magnus hadn’t—

“There,” Jon said, a note of quiet triumph in his voice with the sound of the second spring releasing. The shackles fell away into the sand. 

Martin moved his arms slowly, groaning at the ache in his shoulders. Jon winced in sympathy, his hand moving to rub over that place between his shoulder blades. Martin pulled back to look at him, his eyes wide. “Jon, you have to get out of here—”

“We,” Jon corrected firmly, his hand settling against Martin’s cheek again. “We have to get out of here.” His eyes studied Martin for a brief moment. “Can you walk?”

Martin swallowed down the disbelief and the fear, considering the question. “I can try,” he  answered tentatively.

Jon nodded. “Good. Good. We’ll not need to go too far, there’s—”

“How predictable,” a syrupy, familiar voice said, just audible from farther up the shore. Martin froze, horror squeezing at his heart. “Though, you have kept us waiting, Jon. Martin had quite the rough time of it.”

Martin, stiffly, turned his head in the direction Jon was already looking to see Magnus standing beside Lord Lukas where the rocks began to tower up toward the cliffs farther down the water. The man had never left, never even bothered to run after Jon, Martin realized, horrified. Magnus had merely waited for Jon to return.

Magnus tilted his head, his eyes zeroed in on Jon, falsely sympathetic. “ Second thoughts?”

Jon stared back at Magnus, stoney-faced, and said nothing, though the sound of rushing waves slowly petered out as a large shadow stretched over the sand. Martin glanced behind and saw the water had receded and was massed in an ever-growing, towering wave.

“Now, now,” Magnus said, unfazed. “Let’s have none of that.”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t let you drown,” Jon growled.

Magnus smiled lightly. “Alright. Since you asked.”

And then Martin’s head exploded.

Or at least, that was what it felt like. Every nerve fiber alight at once, every thought like barbed wire, a pressure behind his eyes that felt like someone drilling at them from inside his skull—

Jon’s hands pulled him closer, trembling, and Martin heard him say, distantly, “stop! Stop it—”

“Of course,” Magnus said, and as soon as the words left his mouth Martin could breathe again, the pain receding. He slumped against Jon, breathing heavily, the distant memory of pain enough to have his stomach swimming with nausea. 

“You’re okay,” Jon whispered, pressing him close. “You’re okay—”

“Now, I’d be happy to ensure our Martin doesn’t have to go through that again—can cause terrible brain damage if it goes unchecked, I’m afraid. All I’d ask in return is that you come back with me. No fuss.”

“No,” Martin gasped, trying to draw back, but Jon’s arms tightened around him and, to Magnus, Jon said, “I want a guarantee that he’ll be safe. That he’ll be free. From you and Lukas.”

“What are you doing?” Martin hissed at him, pushing weakly at Jon’s chest, but Jon’s eyes were locked on Magnus.

Magnus looked disgustingly pleased. “I have no issues with that. I have nothing against our Martin now that you’re here. And I’m sure Lord Lukas,” he said, casting a glance at the other man, who looked far from pleased, “won’t have any objections—”

“Make him swear it,” Jon said, his eyes darting to Lukas. Lukas stiffened and glared at him, but Jon continued, “make him swear it on his god and yours.”

Lukas, for a moment, looked back at Jon with eyes so hateful it was a wonder the Lonely didn’t immediately swallow him up. But then Magnus was saying, with a curling smile, “alright,” and reaching out his hand for Lukas to take.

Lukas looked back at him grudgingly, but took the proffered hand, unwilling to risk Magnus' ire. 

“Jon, you can’t do this,” Martin whispered fervently. He moved to cradle Jon’s face, and Jon’s eyes slid to him.

“Swear, on the wrath of the Lonely and the piercing truth of the Eye that no harm, nor influence, nor touch of a stray hand shall befall Martin Blackwood, this knight who has abandoned the Lonely...”

“It’ll be okay,” Jon said softly, just for him, a determined look in his eye that made Martin feel helplessly afraid. Jon tried for a smile. “It’ll be okay. You’ll see.”

Martin shook his head, his throat thick. “No—”

“Shh.” Jon’s thumb brushed over Martin’s cheek, his eyes soft. “I’ll be okay. You’ll see.”

“No,” Martin said again, choked, miserable. “No, Jon, he’ll hurt you.”

“I swear it on the wrath of the Lonely and the piercing truth of the Eye...” Lukas’ voice barely filtered through, Martin's attention entirely focused on Jon. 

Jon shook his head, his eyes shining. “It’s okay,” he whispered. He leaned close, and tilted his head, pressing a kiss to Martin’s lips. When he pulled back, just an inch, he whispered, eyes intent on Martin’s, “that will not be the last. Do you understand?”

Martin swallowed around the tears thick in his throat, shaking his head. “Jon, don’t. Please—”

But Jon pulled away from him, his thumb brushing over Martin’s cheek one last time before drawing back. He looked at Magnus, and rose. 

Martin stared at Jon numbly as he crossed the beach to where Magnus waited, the man's expression smug and satisfied. When Jon stopped a few feet from him, Magnus reached for his arm and tugged on it. Though the expression on Jon’s face was one of mingled fear and disgust, he didn’t fight to break away. 

“Very good,” Magnus praised, running the back of a finger over Jon’s cheek. Jon stood rigidly, bearing it, all while glaring at him with hatred. “Come now,” Magnus said, his grip tightening on Jon’s arm to what seemed like the point of pain, Jon’s skin going white under his fingers. Jon winced, visibly trembling, but again made no move to break away. “It’s time you accepted your rightful place by my side.”

“Under your heel, I think you mean,” Jon seemed to grit out before he could stop himself.

Jon looked afraid in the silence that followed, where Magnus looked at him, eyes cold, but after a moment, Magnus smiled. “Semantics,” he said. “Though if you’d like,” he added, suddenly twisting on Jon’s arm and pulling him flush to his chest, reveling in the sound of pain Jon made, “I could make it much clearer for you, where you stand.”

That was enough. Enough for Martin to lose all sense of reason and see red. He tugged on that tiny part of the Lonely that still clung to him, and he threw himself into the swirling nothingness of it. 

The winds whipped at him, digging into him like blades dragging into his skin, but for all the attention Martin paid it, it felt like nothing at all. The Lonely screamed for him to stay, but he was so single-minded he cut through it like a blade through water. Every thought was on Jon, how Martin loved him so deeply it was like a physical thing had taken residence in his chest, how he refused to lose him like this. And the Lonely shied from that love like it was something monstrous in his blood.   

It spat him out onto the sand just before Lukas, and Martin did not hesitate. He ignored the exhaustion of movement and the dark that threatened around the edges of his vision, instead zeroing in on the sword Lukas kept at his side. 

Martin reached for it and pulled it from its scabbard, as both Jon and Magnus turned widening eyes to him.

Magnus’ expression twisted in fury, as he pushed Jon away from him with one hand and reached for a dagger at his belt with the other. He drew the blade quickly, but Martin swung the sword and met the other blade, sending it flying from Magnus’ grasp. Before Magnus could do anything else, utter some word or thought to send that relentless pain shooting through Martin’s head again, Martin adjusted his grip with a speed that surprised even him, and plunged the sword into Magnus’ chest with the entirety of his weight behind it.

Magnus’ eyes widened, staring at him, his mouth opening soundlessly and blood pooling up from behind his tongue. Martin held the hilt of the blade with a vicious grip, trembling with adrenaline and a growing, brutal satisfaction. He’d driven the blade so far into Magnus’ chest that the tips of his fingers brushed the lapel of Magnus’ coat. Magnus looked, for a delicious moment, afraid of impending death, as a bloom of red blood like the opening of a flower spread under his shirt.

But then, Magnus’ eyes drifted and settled on something behind Martin. And, slowly, he smiled, his lips staining with flecks of blood on his breath as he laughed. He looked back at Martin, grinning, teeth stained red.

And Magnus whispered, exactly like that moment by the Stranger’s forest in the rain, “look what you did.”

Martin looked at him for a moment, an unnamable dread welling up in him, before slowly turning his head. 

Jon was standing a few feet behind, his eyes looking in their direction but unfocused, his brow slowly furrowing in what looked like confusion. He took a small, stumbling step back. Slowly, Jon looked down at himself and at the hilt of the knife that stuck out of his chest, just below his sternum, blood just beginning to stain his shirt.

No, Martin thought, his mind gone utterly quiet otherwise. There was a roaring sound growing in his ears.

Jon looked up and met Martin’s eyes, his own foggy and confused. And then he crumpled to the sand, like a puppet with its strings cut.

Martin released his grip on the hilt of the sword, letting Magnus fall. He no longer cared to watch him bleed. There was a roaring in Martin’s ears that was beginning to sound like something, a single word, as he made his way toward Jon on his back in the sand. It sounded like the word no, repeated, and he realized, distantly, that it was coming from his own mouth.

Jon was bleeding. Jon was bleeding and the sand around him was turning red.

Everything else flooded away, as Martin fell to his hands and knees at Jon’s side. It was hard to breathe. It was hard to breathe because he was crying so hard, pleading under his breath, but those reasons didn’t much matter. No, the real reason was, with a wound like that, Jon was going to die.

Magnus had, in a way, gotten what he’d wanted after all.

“No,” he heard himself sob brokenly, his trembling hands going to cradle Jon’s face. “No, no, no, no. Please. Please, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. Please—”

Jon looked at him, his face already ashen and blood on his lips, and his hands—cold, too cold—rose to rest over Martin’s. “It’s okay,” Jon said, a ragged whisper. His brown eyes already looked a little hazy. “It’s okay.” He looked at Martin so softly, as if Martin hadn’t just killed him, and said, through gurgling breaths, “It’s not...your fault. I love you. It’s not your fault.”

Martin sobbed, shaking his head, inconsolable. Jon was going cold under his fingertips. “No,” he whispered. “Please. Please, I can’t...I can't lose you. Don’t leave me, please.”

“It’s okay,” Jon said again, even though it wasn’t, even though it never would be again. His voice crackled with what sounded like fluid in his throat. “It’s okay.”

“No,” Martin choked out again, his vision blurry with the tears that streaked down his face. “No, no, no, no—please, please.” He looked at the hilt of the knife, flecked with blood, and thought if Jon just had a little more time, Jon could heal if he only had a day, there was enough of the Lonely in him—

And Martin’s thoughts froze there, catching there. Jon might not have been able to heal himself before he bled to death. But Jon had set a broken rib in an instant with the Lonely and he had hardly even known how to use it. 

Martin had been Lonely for years. He knew every pull of it. Knew how to drape it over himself and force it to heal him quickly. All he had to do was do the same for Jon. 

Martin reached a hand over the wound, the other held tight in Jon’s, a wordless reassurance. He readied himself to pull out the blade and do it as fast as possible. He would use that last, tiny flicker of Loneliness in him for something good and right. 

“I need you to keep still, alright? This might hurt for a moment, but I-I’m going to make it better. I promise, I’m going to make it better.”

Jon looked at him hazily, his brow furrowing in confusion. That was okay. Martin just needed a moment, Jon would be fine soon. He would be alive and bright and whole and everything would be okay again—

Before he could gather himself to pull the knife out, the edge of a blade, dripping with fresh blood, was pressed to his throat. 

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Martin,” Lukas said, his hand steady where it held the sword’s hilt.

Martin breathed out shakily, his eyes watching Jon’s face growing steadily paler, even as Jon’s own eyes locked on the blade and looked panicked. “Please,” Martin whispered to Lukas, his throat bobbing against the blade, “please, my lord—”

“Begging will get you nowhere now,” Lukas said, utterly indifferent. He cocked his head in Martin’s periphery. “Something must have gone wrong during your induction,” he said. “We’ll be sure to remedy that this time.”

The breath left Martin’s lungs, a tear sliding down his cheek as he turned his head to look at Lukas. “What?” he whispered, horrified.

Lukas looked at him, almost skirting amusement. “You thought I’d just let you go? After what you did? No. You’ll serve me until Terminus comes to take you. And this time, we will burn the heart out of you. I’m sure you’ll thank me, once it’s done,” Lukas said impassively. “You cry for him now, but you won’t feel it soon. The Lonely will take it from you again. And I’m sure you’ll be grateful for it.”

“You...swore...” Jon suddenly croaked out, a wet, weak sound. When Martin looked at him, he was glaring at Lukas even as his face drained of color.

Lukas looked at Jon the way he also might have looked at an ant trying to escape the oncoming heel of a boot. “Magnus is dead, as you soon will be. Any vows made to him have died with him. You will get nothing from me in death.”

“Please,” Martin begged him again. He swallowed, and the blade at his throat nearly cut skin. “Please. Let me heal him, and I’ll do anything you ask of me. Anything.”

“Yes,” Lukas agreed, his eyes cold and unforgiving. “You will, once the Lonely is done with you and he is dead, as he should have been long ago.”

Martin closed his eyes, a sob fighting to escape the vice of his throat. Jon’s hand tightened in his, as if it was all he wanted to reassure Martin, as if he wasn’t bleeding out with every minute that passed.

There was the briefest moment of silence. And then Lukas said, uncharacteristically panicked, “what are you doing?”

Martin opened his eyes, casting them to Lukas to see him staring at Jon, his pupils wide. The sword had fallen from Martin’s throat, the tip dragging in the sand. Jon, Martin saw, was staring straight back at Lukas, his own pupils nearly swallowing his irises, so black and fathomless they seemed to suck away the light. “I see you,” Jon said, around the gurgle of blood in his throat.

“No,” Lukas whispered. Then, with more vitriol, “no!” But still he could not seem to break away from Jon’s stare. The skin around his eyes began to crack, fog streaming from underneath. 

“The Eye sees you,” Jon said, the words hardly burdened by the own rattle of his breathing. He tilted his head against the sand, pupils huge. “And it has no patience for liars.”

And Lukas screamed then, as more fissures cracked over his skin like cracking porcelain, and from beneath the cracks came a light that quickly became so bright Martin had to squint and then close his eyes entirely, and the screaming crescendoed and bled through with static—

And then, as abruptly as it had all begun, it went quiet, save for the distant roll of ocean waves. 

Martin opened his eyes to find the spot that Lukas had occupied was empty, every trace of him gone, his sword lying, harmless, in the sand. Martin looked at it for only a moment before his eyes were snapping up again to look at Jon. 

Jon was lying very still, his eyes half-lidded, foggy and distant. A slow well of blood appeared at the corner of his left eye.

“No,” Martin gasped out, his stomach dropping. “No, no, no—” He cradled Jon’s face in his hands, feeling a wave of breathless relief when Jon’s eyelashes fluttered at the touch. He was still alive. His chest hardly rose and the blood was seeping out weakly now and he was barely conscious, but he was still alive.  

Martin would ensure he remained that way. His trembling hands found the hilt of the knife, and quickly, trying not to damage anything further, he pulled the blade out. The barest breath of a sound escaped Jon’s lips, his eyes closing, brow creasing. Martin held his hand to the side of his face, swallowing down tears. “I know. I know it hurts. It’ll be better soon. I promise.”

Jon didn’t even look as if he’d heard, his eyes barely open, sightless. Martin had to do it now.

He turned his hands over the wound, and held them there. He closed his eyes, taking a steadying breath. And then he reached for that tiny, sliver of the Lonely left in him like a parasite and forced it to be of use.

It resisted him, but he pulled at it, slowly forcing it to gather under his hands. “Come on,” he whispered, through grit teeth. “Come on.”

Jon’s breathing was slowing under his hands. 

“Come on,” he whispered fervently, screwing his eyes shut. He closed his attention around that last bit of fog in him, digging into him. He didn’t need it anymore. He didn’t want it. 

All he needed was Jon, safe and whole and alive.

“I choose him,” Martin whispered to that last bit of Loneliness in him. The fog trembled just as the Lonely itself had balked from him, and Martin said, more forcefully, “I am not Lonely anymore. I love him, and I choose him.”

And, finally, as if shying away from that love inside him that last bit of Lonely power broke away and flooded over Jon’s skin, and Martin—

Martin felt everything all at once. Every ache and pain from the years and years of the knighthood and the worry and the fear and the love, so much love it didn’t seem like it could fit in his chest. It all swelled in him, after so long spent muted, buried away, and it was too much, too much—

Martin felt Jon’s skin begin to knit under his fingers, felt his breaths come stronger under his hands, and only then did he let the darkness encroaching at the edges of his vision sweep up and take him. He slumped against the sand, in the space just next to Jon, fighting to keep him in sight just a bit longer. He saw, through a blurry haze, Jon’s eyelashes flutter and his eyes begin to open. 

And then the sudden flood of feeling drew him under, and he was gone.

Martin woke, slowly, to a gentle, rumbling movement not unlike the sea and a warm hand carding through his hair. It took him a moment to do more than just lie where he was. His head was resting against something soft and warm. There was the sound of drifting voices, but, strangely, hearing them he didn’t feel tense or concerned. The sun was shining on his face. He felt warm and safe, which was a feeling he hadn’t been accustomed to for a long time. 

His body felt like one big bruise, which was new. And not very appreciated, but he figured that would have been the price to pay. It seemed as though the Lonely was really gone. 

He couldn’t find it in himself at all to miss it.

Martin blinked open his eyes. 

The sky was a bright blue, so clear there was not a cloud in sight. But he didn’t fixate on the beauty of the sky first. No, first, his eyes found Jon, as his hand continued to card through Martin’s hair. Jon was looking out into the distance, an absence of any worry on his face. There was a soft turn to the corners of his mouth that was not quite a smile, but something just shy of it. The warm wind blew at his hair and the sun made his eyes look a lovely shade of brown.

When Jon looked down at Martin in the next moment, a smile did break out on his face. He looked so relieved he could have cried with it. “Hey,” he said, softly, the pad of his thumb brushing over Martin’s cheek. “How are you feeling?”

Martin stared up at him, lovely and alive and lit by what must have been the sunlight of an early afternoon. “I’m better now,” he answered, just as softly.

Jon’s expression softened, even as tears filled his eyes. “Good,” he said, his voice thick. “I’m glad.”

Martin looked at him, drinking the sight of him in, and his eyes drifted lower, to that spot just under Jon’s sternum. He was wearing a new tunic, a lovely shade of dark blue, not torn or stained like the one before had been. Martin reached out a shaky hand to cover that spot he remembered the hilt of the knife poking out, so distinctly it was as if the image waited for him on the backs of his eyelids. He swallowed thickly. “I’m so sorry—”

Jon’s hand covered his, and when Martin looked up at him he was shaking his head, his eyes shining. “It wasn’t your fault,” Jon said, just as firmly as Martin remembered him saying before. “Besides,” he added, swallowing, “I’m alive because of you.” 

Jon sounded as close to tears as Martin.

Martin looked at him and slowly turned his hand so that he could thread his fingers through with Jon’s.

Jon’s expression screwed up further at the motion, his eyes brimming with tears, even though Martin had meant it as a comfort. 

“Jon?” he asked, prompting.

Jon visibly swallowed, his head tilting as he looked at Martin with something that looked like guilt. “I’m the one who should be sorry,” Jon whispered. Before Martin could ask, dumbstruck, for what, he continued, his voice trembling a little, “I’m sorry it took me so long. Every moment I wanted to turn back, but I needed...I had to be sure we could both be safe, I—I never wanted...I wish...I wish I could have come back sooner. I wish I could have come back to you sooner, a-and spared you what you went through. I’m...I’m so sorry, Martin.”

Martin shook his head slowly, taken aback that Jon even felt the need to apologize. He bit back the urge to say he hadn’t even thought Jon would come back for him at all. He didn’t think it would have helped. Instead he said, a little dazedly, “it’s okay.” And, because he could, because he knew it as surely as he knew the sun would rise in the morning, he said, “I love you.”

Jon made a sound like a laugh that got a little stuck in his throat, his eyes bright even though they shone with unshed tears. He sniffed, and said, “I love you, too.”

Martin felt, in that moment, so dizzyingly happy he could fly.

Jon looked down at him, his hand running over Martin’s hair, and the look on his face was as close to blatant adoration as he’d ever seen it. 

“Alright, that’s enough with the sap, I’m gonna be sick,” a new voice said from behind Jon’s head.

The only reason Martin didn’t startle and try to reach for a sword that wasn’t there was because Jon didn’t even flinch. He merely rolled his eyes.

All at once, Martin took in the surroundings he’d neglected upon waking. They were in the bed of a wooden cart that rumbled over the road. And if Jon was back there, with him, it meant someone must have been driving.

As soon as he’d thought it a face poked up over the partition behind Jon’s shoulder. A woman with choppy, cropped black hair and brown, almond shaped eyes peered down at Martin, a brow raised. “Good you’re alive. We were beginning to wonder.”

Jon sighed, quite loudly, looking long-suffering.

“It’s really a miracle that things didn’t go worse, since you mucked up the plan,” she told him.

Martin frowned at her, confused, tilting his head where it rested against Jon’s thigh, “I—?”

“We were waiting for that bastard Jonah right outside Lonely lines. It was supposed to be me,” she said, with a thumb jabbed toward her chest and a flash of sharp canines. “I was supposed to kill the prick, not you.” 

“Um...sorry?” Martin tried.

The woman looked mildly placated. “Polite one, isn’t he,” she said to Jon, not looking away from Martin.

“Yes, he is,” Jon murmured softly, looking only at him with a private little smile. 

“You are not being very polite, love,” another voice said from the woman’s right side.

Martin looked to where the voice had come from to see a round-cheeked woman with dark skin and a beaming, white smile turn to him. 

“I think what my wife meant to say was ‘hello, nice to meet you, my name is Melanie’,” the woman said, though the glance she sent Melanie was nothing but entirely fond.

Melanie blustered, “I was getting to that!” She looked at Martin and held out a hand down over the partition for him. “Melanie King. I am glad you’re not dead. Jon would have been all the more insufferable for it.”

Jon sent her a scathing glare that seemed to only make her smile widen, as Martin took Melanie’s hand with a kind of dazed, automatic movement.

“And you can call me Georgie,” the other woman said, her voice soft, and though she didn’t reach out her hand Martin could tell it was entirely because her hands were taken up by the reins.

“Nice to meet you,” he told them, though it all still felt a bit dreamlike.

“We’re almost there,” Georgie told him kindly, “so we can get you to a bed and you can have a proper rest.”

Martin looked at her, as the cart rumbled forward and Jon’s hand ran over his hair and what felt like a summer breeze tickled his cheek. “Where...?” he managed, a bit strangled, though Georgie seemed to immediately know what he was asking.

“Our cottage,” she said. “In the Deadlands.”

Martin stared at her, his mind going utterly blank. “Am I dead?”

Melanie barked a laugh, and Jon reached for his hand, and Georgie looked at him kindly. 

“Not for a while yet,” she answered softly. “You’re just a guest. But you’re safe now. You both are.”

Those very simple words were a strange kind of shock. Martin looked at Jon, and Jon nodded at him, his hand squeezing Martin’s and his eyes soft. “They’ve always wanted me to visit. But...this time it might have to be a one way trip, I’m afraid. At least for me,” Jon said. He hesitated, then said, “I hope...I hope you won’t mind staying with me.”

Martin stared at him, his heart warm and huge in his chest. “Where you go, I go,” Martin said to him without any hesitation at all.

Jon smiled, his eyes shining. “That’s the deal,” he said softly. 

“Oh, wow,” Melanie said, her eyes rolling as she turned around. “How much longer? I really can’t handle this.”

“Stuff it, Melanie,” Jon said, smiling, his eyes never leaving Martin.

“Eat me, Sims,” she shot back.

“I will turn this cart around,” Georgie warned.

Martin fought a smile, a kind of smile that was born from feeling incandescently happy against all odds. He thought, absently, that he’d never thought the Deadlands would be so bright and alive. And yet the sun shone and the sky was blue and he could hear the wind rustling through trees and Jon was smiling at him like an entirely new and bright star. 

It was all looking to be very bright, now.   

Chapter Text

Martin didn’t remember much of those first few days in the cottage. Within a day, a slight hitch in his chest grew to a rattle and then a full blown cough. He felt weak, tired like he never had been before. He slept long and often, waking occasionally when the chills were strong enough to shock him from sleep.

“Pneumonia,” he thought he’d heard Georgie whisper to Jon in one of his more lucid moments.

When he’d come to, he’d often wake to someone at his bedside. Georgie, waiting patiently for him to blink open his eyes so she could encourage him to drink a home brewed remedy. Sometimes Melanie, slumped in the chair, brows drawn as if his affliction was a personal offense to her. And, of course, Jon.

Often Jon.

Jon would run a hand through his sweat-soaked hair and read to him and press his hand in Martin’s.

Martin remembered that distinctly.

It took him a few weeks to chase away that persistent rattle in his lungs, and longer still to feel anything but winded after so much as standing by himself. 

It was strange, to learn how to move again in a body that constantly ached in one way or another. Every poorly healed fracture, every old wound seemed to make itself known again after so long spent buried under the fog. As much as he knew it was a sign that the Lonely was well and truly gone—something that he’d chosen for himself—, he couldn’t help but feel a flicker of frustration whenever he failed in an attempt of something that would have been ludicrously simple before. Walking from one end of the cottage to the other would make an old injury in his knee flare up and leave him out of breath. His hands would shake when he tried to reach for anything. 

Georgie and Jon were very patient with his frustrations, remaining gently encouraging. Melanie was quieter with her support. After one of his particularly bad days, she left the cottage for a few hours, working in the garden. She brought back a cane, hand-carved from the cedar trees that lined the hill, at dinner. She leaned it against the table beside him, and simply said, “here.”

There was a flower carved at the apex, like it was blooming out of the wood. It was a daffodil, like the ones that grew in droves around the cottage walls. 

He’d mentioned to her that he’d liked them, when she’d accompanied him for a brief walk around the grounds a few days prior.

Martin brushed a finger over the detailing, rising emotion in his throat. He looked up at her taking her seat beside Georgie, her face gleaming with a thin sheen of sweat and a pink on her cheeks. “Gods, don’t look at me like that,” she muttered, after casting a glance up at him.

“Thank you,” Martin told her softly.

She sank a little lower in her chair, cheeks flushing darker, stabbing at her food with a fork. “Yeah, whatever.”

Georgie smiled at him from across the table. Jon, beside him, took his hand.

It took a bit longer than that, to adjust to it all. To adjust to the feeling that stirred in the cavity of his chest when Georgie smiled at him, or when Melanie clapped him lightly on the back, or when Jon pressed an easy kiss to his cheek. It was like he was waiting, for those first few weeks, for someone to pull the rug out from under him. As if he was waiting to wake up from the dream to someone who would tell him that he didn’t deserve it all and, of course, that he’d never really had any of it.

And yet, those feelings still came, those unfamiliar concepts tugging at his heart. Home. Friendship. Family. Love. 

All three of them had taken him in so very easily, an unquestioned piece of the puzzle, a filled seat at the dinner table. It took him a little while to accept that it was permanent and wasn’t contingent on anything at all.

“This is real, isn’t it,” he’d murmured to Jon one night, long after Georgie and Melanie had gone to bed and only a few minutes after Jon had finally put aside his book and pressed himself against Martin’s side.

Jon brushed a kiss over his collarbone. Martin caught a hint of the smell of his hair, soap and lavender. 

“Yes,” Jon said, very easily. “I promise.”

Martin slept soundlessly that night.

Martin had never thought the Deadlands would look so…alive. In his mind, he’d always imagined it as a cold place, barren and icy. 

In fact, the Deadlands seemed fixed in that seasonal balance between summer and autumn, the green not yet leached from the trees but the winds promising relief from the blazing sunlight. The grass on the hill of the cottage bowed with the breeze, like rolling green waves. The peach tree Martin sat under rustled, a kind of music he had grown accustomed to.

Martin could make it up the hill by himself nowadays, and he had gotten into the habit of sitting out there in the late afternoons.

He looked up at the cottage when he heard the doors open, smiling at Jon’s approach and, for the moment, placing aside the book of poetry Georgie had recommended. It was written by a poet long dead, and Georgie had said she often liked to visit him down the road, and would he like to join her someday?

Martin had said yes, though he thought it’d take him a few more weeks of building up his stamina to make it all the way.

That’s alright, she’d said. It’s not as if the man’s going anywhere.

Martin moved his cane to his other side by the book as Jon made to sit down next to him, his skirt billowing a little with the wind. The fabric spread around him like a violet against the green.

Martin openly thought that he looked so beautiful.

Jon pressed a kiss to his cheek and handed him a copper glass already chilling with condensation, as he held his own in the other. 

Martin took it, holding the glass with both hands, taking a sip. The light flavor of peach sprang over his tongue, the cold tea chasing away the heat.

For a few moments, they simply sat in silence, looking out onto the rolling green that only ever seemed to end when it met the bright blue of the sky.

After a few minutes, Jon pulled his hair free from a bun and shook it out, the scent of lavender briefly filling the air. It was longer now, reaching the base of his shoulder blades. Jon looked back at him, only the slightest bit sheepish now that they’d done this so many times before. “Could you…?”

Martin smiled as he took Jon’s hair in his hands, the soft weight of it as familiar as the movements he fell into.

He’d used to braid his mother’s hair. He’d learned to let the memory come and not push it away, as he worked. It was always the slightest bit painful, like a bruise that never quite went away, but it was no longer a bright, glaring pain he felt the need to shy away from.

The smile Jon would wear when he looked down at Martin’s work and studied it in his hands was well worth the ache.

Martin wove the simple plait easily, and when he reached for the familiar green ribbon Jon offered, he took it and pressed a light kiss on the back of Jon’s hand.

Jon smiled at him as he leaned back on his hands, his braid pulled over his shoulder. 

Martin looked at him, at his face lit by sunlight specked through the gaps in the leaves. 

“What?” Jon asked, quirking a brow when Martin continued to look at him.

“I love you,” Martin told him.

Jon’s smile widened even as his cheeks flushed. “Well, yes, I know that. I love you, too. But there’s more than that written on your face.”

Martin swallowed, for a moment looking out into the distance. “Do…do you think we’re done?” he asked tentatively, as if even speaking it was a step too far. “Everything that happened with Jonah, with what he said of the Mother. Do you think she’s done with us?”

He looked back at Jon when he felt Jon’s hand light atop of his own, a comforting, familiar weight. “I’m done with her,” Jon said, simply. “Done with choices being made for me. I choose this. I choose you.”

Martin swallowed, though something very light and hopeful was taking up space in his chest. “Are you sure it’s that simple?”

“No,” Jon admitted, though the look in his eyes was very soft when he looked back at Martin. “But it’s like you said. I love you.”

Martin smiled at him, that light lovely thing settling in his chest. And, because he could, because it was the one sure thing in the world, he said, “I love you, too.”

And it was like they said.