Dorian can't breathe. It can breathe, but he can't.

Air moves in and out of his lungs like waves hitting a shore of jagged rocks - a rattling too uneven, too shallow to be human. And he can feel it, but it isn't his. It belongs to the evil inside, that claims his breath, his thoughts, his mouth.

"Watch her," it says. Its voice sounds like a snake slivering over soft sand, like the sloshing of swamp waters. It's a voice that comes from somewhere inside him - his throat, or his chest, or deep in his stomach - but it isn't his own. Does he have a voice? And his name - what is his name? Is it composed of hard sounds or soft? When he held her, did it roll off her tongue or stumble out, like boulders down a cliffside? When he'd touched the hollow at the base of her throat, traced her arching back with his fingers, she'd whispered his name so softly, so pleadingly, but…. What had she said?

"Watch her," it says again. And he tries to look at the ceiling, towering above him and dripping cold water onto his forehead. He tries to look for a door, but the halls around him continue endlessly on every side, the stone walls unrelenting and inescapable. He tries to look away… but "Watch her," it says again, and his eyes are wrenched downwards.

And there is a girl there. A girl he thinks he might know.

She lays against the stone floor, her body still as the dead, as though she could just as easily be laying in a fresh grave. Her long, pale legs are ramrod straight, her arms folded over her chest. Long auburn hair tumbles like curling brambles over her ashen shoulders, just like it always did in the early mornings before she'd brush it. He'd beg her, he remembers, to keep her curls, but she'd always brush them away. He remembers that.

She looks almost serene. Almost peaceful.

But then her eyes flash open, quick as a snake striking its prey. And those eyes - he knows them so well, and loves them with something fierce and deep inside him, underneath all that darkness and cruelty. Her eyes - like freshly turned soil littered with spring grass. Like meadows and golden sun.

"Stop it," scolds the demon, "We've no use for thoughts of springtime."

He builds a well deep inside himself and hides his love for her eyes at the bottom.

His fingers raise - no, it raises his fingers - and together, they point to the girl's neck. The neck he's kissed countless times, the skin there as soft as a sparrow's wings. Each time, she'd inhaled sharply. Each time, she'd pulled him closer.

The demon inside him points to her neck, and slowly, a line appears around it. First pink, then red, then dark, so dark it is nearly black. Deeper and deeper it bores, looking like a ring of brewing fire.

Blood begins spilling from her mouth like red flame, and he tries to scream, he tries so hard, but his mouth doesn't belong to him.

-

Dorian awoke, his hand flying to his own neck. His skin burned where his nails dug, searching. But the wound had been on Soarsha's neck, not his own. Gods.

His magic reared up in him like a silver horse, beginning in the pit of his stomach and then moving its way up to his throat, until even his teeth felt pressure. "I'm safe," he thought to his magic. But it only rose higher, spreading its tendrils farther until the tips of his fingers trembled in pain, singing for him to act. He groaned, grabbing for his blankets, his nightstand - whatever his aching hands could reach. Eventually, his palms met the headboard behind him and he pressed down hard, the wood splintering beneath his touch. Damnit, he thought, that's something I'll have to work on.

It had only been weeks since Aelin and Chaol had come, since his father's reign had fallen, since the glass castle had shattered like a child's toy against Dorian and Aelin's magic combined.

He'd heard since that it looked to all the world like falling snow.

He had to start training, learning how to yield to his magic, commune with it like a friend or a lover. That's what Aelin had told him. He couldn't let it control him. But he also couldn't let it shrink away, like paper to a flame.

Aelin and Rowan had promised to teach him how to wield his magic and Aedion how to fight. "You're a king now, after all. You ought to know how to take someone down," he'd said, laughing. Aedion was right: Chaol had always fought for him. He'd never had the need to learn how to fight for himself. But that was going to change in the coming months. Chaol would be away, healing himself and worrying about his own wellbeing, for once. Dorian told himself that was a good thing.

Aedion had urged him to take the time he needed to heal before coming to visit them in Terrassen. "It's not like I'm going anywhere with her throwing a constant stream of orders at me," he'd said, gesturing to his cousin who looked more like his twin shadow than his distant relative, "I'm pretty much her lap dog."

Aelin had given him a sly smile, shooting back, "Oh, but you couldn't be my lapdog. I like her much more than you."

His friends. He loved them, and they were alive, and he was free, and that should have been enough. It should have been. But it wasn't. During the day, he could hold the pain at bay, creating that well inside himself and pushing the dark thoughts down. But sometimes, they'd come back up with a vengeance, shocking and stilling him, as strongly and surely as any Wyrdspell. At night, it felt like a storm brewed deep in his stomach, bringing with it winds and rain that tore that well apart. He dreamed and dreamed of her, and of it, the nightmares so vivid that he awoke fearing his own body. Fearing it was not his own.

Each day, he'd rebuild. Each night, everything he'd struggled to forge would fall. And on and on it went.

Dorian breathed, focusing on each inhale and exhale, but this only served to remind him of his heart, fluttering like a broken-winged finch. He looked to the staggering pile of books on his desk across the room, tried to focus on the rich reds and blues of their binding, their scent of age and rust that filled his room.

"Dorian," a voice to his right. He startled, shielding himself with his palms.

"It's me," a rough voice, quiet and unsure. A voice that belonged to Chaol. Chaol wouldn't hurt him. Chaol was safe.

Dorian let his hands fall to his sides and looked to Chaol, who sat in his wheeled chair by the window. The red satin of the curtains was thin, and moonlight spilled through, glinting off Chaol's jawline, sharp as a dagger. That long scar - on his right cheek - thin and serpentine. Aelin had given him that for an imagined betrayal. It felt like ages ago.

Dorian would expect any scar from Aelin, once Adarlan's most cunning assassin, to permanently mar her victim - turn him into something forever marked and hideous. But Chaol was still his handsome self, the long scar tumbling off his sharp cheekbones as though it existed only to emphasize their prominence. His hair had grown long in the passing weeks, almost kissing the pale of his neck.

His deep brown eyes reminded Dorian of freshly turned soil - reminded him of Soarsha. But thoughts of her brought flashes of those dreams so vivid they seemed blessed by an evil sort of magic, and his stomach turned.

"I'm sorry…." Chaol began, but Dorian cut him off.

"Why would you come here - uninvited? You could have been anyone… Shadows stop my heart these days, Chaol. You know that," anger turned his voice to gravel and ash, though he didn't know why he felt it. Chaol is safe, he reminded himself. And then again: Chaol is safe. Once more, until it became a mantra.

"I'm sorry," Dorian choked out, his eyes burning with tears he wouldn't let fall, "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too," Chaol said, his words soft. His eyes flitted to Dorians and held them in place, "It's just… I hear you. Every night, I hear you, and at first, I thought the worst. I thought someone… something… was hurting you. That I'd failed you again. So I'd run to you… but this gods-damned wheelchair…" Chaol let out a grunt of frustration and fisted his hands, twisting his torso to punch the wall behind him, but holding back right before his fingers collided with the stone.

Watching Chaol suffer like this was unbearable. He told himself that was why he had to send him away. He told himself that again and again. Another mantra.

Chaol collected himself, and with his voice even softer now, he continued, "I did, though. I came to you, anyways. So much slower than I would have liked. And I was terrified, terrified something had happened, and I'd be too late…. But there you were - asleep, alone, still but for the shaking. You shake during them… the nightmares."

Dorian stirred. He thought of that well he built each day to keep those thoughts - those nightmares - secret. But Chaol knew. Chaol always knew when he was in danger, when he was hurting.

"I told myself I'd let you be... that you didn't want me around. You're sending me away, after all, but when I heard you crying out tonight, I just felt so scared. Irrational, maybe. But I had to see that you were safe."

"I'm safe," Dorian said, looking down. Chaol had always seen to it that he was. Even when they were boys, climbing trees that they shouldn't, skinning their knees on rough stones playing on the castle grounds. Chaol had always cringed at Dorian's injuries, as though they pained him more than his own. Apologized for them, as though it were his job to prevent them.

Dorian raised the blankets circling his waist and rose from his bed, slow and unsure.

Dorian was coming towards him, a line of light spilling through the window behind chaol and caressing his thin arms. Dorian had always been tall - taller, even, than Chaol. But regardless, he'd been small, his wrists thin like bird bones, his clothes always billowing around his wafish frame, despite the constant efforts of the castle's royal tailor. Chaol was supposed to protect Dorian, but he hadn't. He'd planted those nightmares in his head, sure as seeds in spring soil.

"I'm safe," Dorian repeated, kneeling before Chaol and pressing his hands to the sides of his wheeled chair. His eyes met Chaol's, wide and sure. Those eyes - the deep blue of a summer sky, right before the dawn hits. So striking, in such a different way then then when the valg lived inside him. Not piercing, but gentle and sure. How long Chaol had waited, how long he'd hoped he might look into Dorian's eyes like this again. He thought about saying so, but instead looked at his hands, twisting his fingers around one another. At least those he could still move, still feel.

"And I'm not sending you away because I don't want you, Chaol…" he said, shaking his head so that his long black hair fell before his eyes, "I want you to get better. You're a knight. A protector. You fought for this city when I couldn't. And you will fight for it again."

Chaol shrunk away from Dorian. "Fight for this city?" he bellowed, "Fight for it? I can hardly make it to you when you scream out in fear each night." Chaol felt the sting of tears behind his eyelids - a pressure he hadn't felt since he beheld Nehemia a year ago, wide eyed and covered in her own blood. He willed them away. "The first thing I felt when I awoke after the castle shattered was peace. I felt peace because I knew that my city was safe from him, that you were safe from him. But I couldn't feel myself, Dorian. I couldn't feel my body. How can I come back from that? How can I be of any use to the people of Adarlan… to you?"

"Chaol, your value isn't dependent upon your ability to rescue me. I can rescue myself." Dorian's voice was soft and sad, like a mourning dove calling at first light. "You should know by now that your use to me isn't quantifiable. You're all there is. Since we were boys, you've always been."

Chaol tried to mouth an answer, but his lips wouldn't obey.

Dorian sighed, a sound so soft it could have been the wind. He reached for Chaol's hands with his own, twisting them so that they rested in his lap, palms facing up, the rough calluses glistening in the silver light.

Tentatively, Dorian raised his hand as though to cast a spell, but only traced Chaol's fingers with his own, climbing to his palms, and then his wrists. "You feel that, don't you?" Chaol could - it was the feeling of chilling storms and sun-warmed sand. It was the feeling of soft soil and cold stone. It was everything and nothing all at once. But he shook his head. It didn't mean anything when his legs were dead weight - when he couldn't protect Dorian or his people.

But Dorian moved his fingers higher in response, to the crook of his arm, to the curve of his shoulder. "Tell me you feel me, Chaol," Dorian's voice was a whisper now, pleading yet sure. His search quickened, his hands dancing along Chaol's collarbones, moving down to his stomach and lingering there. Chaol's breath caught in his throat. He could feel Dorian, even in the parts of himself he thought he'd lost when the glass castle shattered. He felt him everywhere and too much, and he grabbed for his wrists, holding them at his chest, as though to stop him.

But Dorian's eyes were wide and clear - the sapphire of other worlds, that blue before the dawn - and Chaol didn't tell himself to kiss him. His mouth just moved, colliding with the cold and softness he harbored there. His lips danced against Dorian's, pausing and then hovering, unsure. But Dorian kissed him this time, only harder, the softness melting away and a warmth brewing like golden wildfire between them.

When it was over, Chaol brought a thumb to Dorian's neck, tracing the rose that bloomed there. "And if they can't fix me? What if I'll always be this way?"

"You owe it to yourself to try."

"But if I won't, if I can't…"

"Then I'll love you, still. Just like I have, since we were boys. Since you were dressing my skinned knees"

Chaol laughed, the sound both new and old, "You did make me into quite the healer back then."

"I did, didn't I?" Dorian asked, a half smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. A silence fell over them like light spring rain, and Dorian rested his head on Chaol's lap.

Chaol buried his calloused fingers into Dorian's hair, freshly fallen snow stark against the black of raven's wings.

Chaol thought of the boy Dorian had been, tall and gangly, and littered with the scrapes and bruises of a thousand adventures. Chaol had always tried to protect him, but Dorian had done the same. He hadn't fought cruel guards or threatened to slit the throats of those who hurt Chaol. But when Chaol's father had called him useless - when his home was no longer a home- Dorian had offered him hope. When he had been a boy, his longing for his mother so vicious that sobs rocked his chest and sleep evaded him, Dorian had snuck into his bedroom and read him stories until he fell asleep.

Chaol would go to the Torre Cesme. He would try to heal. He would do it for Dorian.