10th September, 1940; London, England
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On the third night after the bombs first fell on London, England burns.
His skin erupts with suppurating blisters, oozing with the stench of brick dust and smouldering timber. His lungs fill with rubble. Beneath him, his bed pitches and rolls like a storm-tossed ship.
When it capsizes, his mouth floods with the taste of brine. Seawater. He must be drowning in his own blood.
He opens up his throat and screams with the voice of an air raid siren.
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The vultures are already circling.
"You can't have me!" he shouts out to them. "I'm not dead yet."
They speak with the tongues of men.
"Aye, no such luck."
"For heaven's sake, that's hardly appropriate."
A whistling updraft of wind. A long sigh. "Sorry, force of habit. I wasn't thinking. You know I didn't really mean anything by it."
Sharp talons curl around his arm, sinking deep into flesh that feels as swollen as an overripe plum. Before it can burst, he is borne up, up above the clouds to where the sun is merciless and the air is so thin that it's an agony to breathe.
And then just as suddenly, the talons retract and, with a sickening lurch of his stomach, he's falling.
Someone draws blackout curtains over his eyes.
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He awakes to a dull blade being dragged through his guts. Cracking his sternum. Digging deep into the hollow of his throat.
He hates this frail shell he's forced to inhabit. Hates its every last bone, sinew, and treacherous nerve. He should be above this. He should be indestructible. The Pennines are his backbone. The Thames, Trent and Ouse are his veins. His heart is his dirty, teeming, glorious, beloved city.
"You're your people's as much as any of them." The voice sounds like the clash of swords on a battlefield. It sounds like bitterness, disappointment, and love. "And you're hurting because they're hurting. It's only—"
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"Come with me," the girl says as she leads him out of the darkness with a sweet smile and a soft hand. She smells like sea spray and sunshine, and her dark eyes are centuries older than the rest of her face. "It's not safe there."
But here the light is as sharp as a spear, skewering the back of his skull. The pain is endless.
"I know it seems easier, but the longer you stay, the harder it will be to get back. I know you can resist it. You've always been brave."
He can't quite summon up her name, but he can recall that she once asked him for something that should have been a joy to give. Something he had in abundance, but he'd denied it to her, hoarded it to his chest like a miser, because he was too much of a coward to share even a small fraction of it.
She'd cried, then, when she thought he couldn't see.
And because he doesn't want her to see his shame, he hides away in the darkness again.
She does not follow him for a second time.
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An achingly familiar melody drifts through the otherwise featureless black. A lullaby.
It carries him back through the years; back through Northumbria, Bernicia, Rheged, all the way to Dwyrain. Back to a time when he could be sure that his mother wasn't simply a lie that three frightened boys had spun to help them feel a little less alone in the world.
Like her arms did then, the notes surround him, cradle him, and sooth him back into sleep.
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"England?"
This voice is familiar, too. "Gorllewin?"
"No."
His head aches with the effort of remembering the future. "Gywnedd?"
"A little closer."
"Cymru?" Then, with more conviction, "Wales."
"It'll do, I suppose." A light touch to his brow, swiftly withdrawn. "Well, your fever's finally broken."
England blinks his eyes open. His brother is sitting on one of their dining room chairs, pulled up close to the side of his bed. There is a second one beside it, but it is empty.
"How are you feeling?" Wales asks, his normally smooth brow puckering in concern. "Can I get you anything?"
The sky outside is overcast, and the light streaming in through his bedroom window is weak and hazy. England can hear the muted, crackling strains of a song playing on the wireless in the living room, the rumble of a truck passing along the road outside.
The faint scent of burnt toast permeates the air.
A normal day, despite everything.
"England?"
The shrill whistle of the kettle coming to the boil escapes the kitchen, and leads England to the realisation that his throat has been scorched bone dry.
"A cup of tea would be lovely," he says.
"Of course." Wales drops his hand to England's shoulder, but it does not linger long there, either. "Coming right up."
As soon as his brother leaves the room, England presses his own hand to his chest. He half-expects his heart to be charred, shattered to pieces, but it's thumping out the same strong, regular rhythm against his ribs as it ever has.
It carries on because his people do, and as long as their hearts keep on beating, he will endure.