Notes:Some time ago, Rethira and I were talking about Ephraim and Lyon, and either she or I suggested that things might have gone better for them both if they'd just gone on those mercenary adventures Ephraim fantasized about in a flashback scene. (It's in the chapter where the routes branch, if you care to look it up.) The idea sort of ate away at me and this is the result.
I'll soon be doing a non-necessary post with notes and extra content, plus a cut ending, on Dreamwidth at noneedforwings. (I had the post done but I lost it like a loser.)
Special thanks to quasigeek (ancazur) for the beta and everyone I whined at during the making of this.
Wildly, In Silence
Ephraim was dressed in common clothes– plain brown boots, coarse shirt dipping low to expose a bit of collarbone, cloak just thick enough to ward off the cold. The clothes looked as if they might have been borrowed from a merchant or even a servant. Even without the usual finery that came of being a prince, he still had that proud upward tilt of his chin as he leaned up against the stone wall, one hand on his hip, one leg crossed over the other, arrogant, smug, audacious as always.
Lyon thought he had to be dreaming.
He pushed the book he'd been studying to the other side of the desk before standing to face the intruder. "What are you doing here? If the guards had seen you climbing into my room like this, you could've been killed!"
Ephraim just shrugged in his typical careless way, as if to say, Why wouldn't I be here? What he actually said wasn't much better.
"You should come with me."
"Y-you can't just. . . " come in here, uninvited, unannounced, and ask me to– ". . . come where?"
"Carcino." Ephraim said it as if it were obvious, cocking his head to the side and eying Lyon like he always did before they fenced. "Or Jehanna. That's where all the mercenary work is, right? I'm going there."
The words set in slowly, though they fit exactly with what Lyon had seen so far. Common clothes, coming in the dead of night, all of Ephraim's childish plans laid out.
You can't be serious, Lyon almost said, but somehow it wasn't important if Ephraim was joking or not. He couldn't object. Instead, he asked the obvious.
"What about Eirika?"
Ephraim's lips tightened for barely a second. "She'll be all right," he answered, too easily, before pushing off from the wall and pacing impatiently toward the door. "So you're coming, right?"
There were a thousand reasons why Lyon couldn't. He had research to do, meetings to attend, lessons to finish. It would be a huge scandal if he left, and worse combined with Ephraim disappearing, too. He was hardly fit for travel, and besides, what would he do as a mercenary, anyway? And of course he remembered the sound of his father's labored breaths; someone had to make sure he was taken care of, and tend to things in his absence, and be ready to take on the throne should the unthinkable happen–
"Don't go without me."
"This way."
For once, it was easy for Lyon to keep up. It helped that Ephraim's strong hand was wrapped tight around his wrist as they wove through the woods outside the castle, staying there until they reached the spot where Ephraim had left his spear. It was a plain weapon, like the ones Lyon recalled the soldiers using in training.
"I thought Reginleif would give me away. We don't want to stand out, right?" Ephraim had caught Lyon staring and met his eyes with a smile. Lyon tried not to let on that considerations like that were more than he'd been expecting. Despite the ordinary nature of the weapon, Ephraim's hands fit around it with an effortless grace that Lyon could never hope to emulate.
Lyon shivered at the sight, then quickly wrapped his unfamiliar cloak tighter around his shoulders, as if it had been the crisp night air giving him a chill. It was plain scholar's wear, given to him along with a set of fresh vulneraries from the castle supply rooms and a tome less obvious than the ones he'd written himself. He did think he looked ordinary, or at least, as ordinary as he was capable of looking without cutting his hair or changing his face. His personal belongings stayed tucked away along with his royal robes and circlet in some safe reach of the scholars' quarters, hopefully somewhere no one else would look.
It had been a relief to find a comrade within the castle, even if that comrade had been reluctant. Always pliable, the scholar he'd recruited had finally relented with a quiet sigh and offered up what Lyon now wore as well as the supplies, only adding "Just send word that you are well."
Thoughts of the quiet scholar left Lyon quickly as Ephraim's grip around his wrist tightened. "We have to hurry," Ephraim said lowly, tugging none too gently at Lyon's arm. "Come on, while it's still dark. Er. . . Carcino is. . . south, right?"
"North," Lyon corrected easily, though something within him sang at Ephraim's mistake.
"Oh. It's. . . Jehanna that's south, is it?"
"All that's south of Grado that anyone knows is ocean, remember?"
"Right, right, I remember."
"Liar."
"Shove off."
It was almost like the banter that came with their regular afternoon lessons. Geography had never been Ephraim's strong suit, not that anything academically truly was. He had an innate sense of direction, which had to have been what carried him from Renais to Grado on his own, but when it came to maps, he was as hopeless as Lyon had always been in the training fields. Were it not for the cool air on Lyon's skin and the pulse racing at his throat, he might have expected to hear Ephraim sighing about Father MacGregor while staring out the window mournfully as if facing down a death sentence.
You need me, Lyon thought. Ephraim likely would have found a way ther without him, following the rivers and the stars the way he must have come to begin with. But for just a moment, Ephraim looked so helpless in the dim moonlight, as helpless as Lyon was sure he looked himself with a weapon in his hand. He etched the memory into his mind– - see, you are not omnipotent– before picking up his pace to follow behind, out of the shadow of the ancient keep and into the woods beyond.
Ephraim was surprisingly decent at finding places to sleep. He seemed to know the woods intimately, almost as if raised in them. He'd find the best clearings to lay down in, with just enough cover that they wouldn't be spotted, but not so far deep that animals would forage through their supplies. He was even better at hunting, though Lyon tried to act unimpressed. Even if it was Ephraim, there was something grotesque about watching him slice a half-charred thing recognizable as rabbit and shove bits Lyon's way.
Lyon hadn't eaten much, though his stomach rumbled in protest. Ephraim didn't seem to mind, just as he hadn't minded the mud caking his boots from the marshlands or the blood on his hands when he came back from the hunt.
More mercenary than prince.
He was far more suited to this than he was his stiff royal clothing, almost as if he'd been born in the wrong place. Lyon thought the same about himself, sometimes, wondered if he'd been meant for something other than royalty. A historian or researcher, perhaps, a man bound only to the pages of his books. But Lyon would never be as perfect for anything as Ephraim was for this– crouching over the pit he'd built himself, the fire lighting his dirt-streaked face orange-gold as he threw in more tinder.
Lyon suddenly couldn't imagine him any other way.
"Come help me," Ephraim called. Lyon waited, watching the bits of dried leaves writhe and blacken from a distance, before standing up and approaching. There was a singing soreness in his calves that shot up through his knees and thighs. It had only been a day's walk, and he could still see the top of Grado Keep, high on the hills in the distance. Was he really so weak? Ephraim didn't even wince when he moved. It was all Lyon could do to keep from crying.
Dead weight, he thought, as he kept his gaze fixed on the fire, away from Ephraim and his fire-bright gaze.
But that night, as they lay side by side, Lyon told himself he couldn't be that. Ephraim had taken him, after all. Journeyed all the way from Renais to the capital, alone and in secret. And he was next to him now, eyes closed, mouth half open as he slept, surprisingly silent. Lyon had always imagined he might snore. The stars had never looked brighter than they did in that moment, stretched out above them both like gaudy Jehan beadwork, more akin to the illustrations in the books tucked away in the scholars' libraries than like anything that belonged in the realm of reality.
It was not long before he slept, wound up in his own cloak and (subtly, he thought) the corner of Ephraim's, matching the rhythm of their breathing together as if it could somehow unite them.
To journey from one side of Magvel to the other was not an unthinkable feat. Lyon had read of other lands with countries vast and oceans deep, places said to be so far away that even the journey would be a lifetime and a half. To get across them, he'd read, might take even a full year on foot.
Carcino was not too different from Grado, despite the bustling thrum of the city they'd arrived in being far unlike the character of the capital's traffic. It was colder and dryer, but the shift had been a gradual one. Lyon only made sense of it when he noticed how tight he kept the scholar's cloak around his shoulders, and how even Ephraim had started to shiver at night and look haggard by day. None of the merchants seemed to mind it. They shouted through the bone-dead air, loud enough that the mountains in the horizon might have swallowed the echoes were they not drowned out by something else.
The streets between the vendors' booths that dotted the way were full of rogues and wayward soldiers. Ephraim, all overgrown stubble grazing his sharp cheeks and easy smile crossing his lips, blended in so well Lyon was afraid he'd lose him. Only the noble tilt of his chin and the refinement of his gait gave him away, Lyon thought, until he realized half the beer-smelling men he saw walked the streets as if they were kings themselves.
"Let's spend the night at an inn," Ephraim said. "You'd do well with a real bed, I think."
Ephraim didn't need one, of course. The journey had brought him to life, set him aflame as if by commoner's magic. His eyes were brighter, even without the firelight dancing within them, and his stride seemed stronger than it ever had.
"And we'll find work there, right?"
"Right."
Homemade food, not roasted over some lonely campfire. A warm bed with blankets, a ceiling not studded with stars. It sounded like heaven until Ephraim shoved the door open and the hot chaos of the tavern filled Lyon's ears.
He imagined Grado's taverns were much the same, though he'd never been in one. Despite Ephraim's frequent cajoling whenever they were in the city, he'd always resisted somehow, half out of fear, half out of distaste. The latter, he found, was more than warranted. The place smelled of stale water, pipe smoke, and sweat, not that he had much time to make any of those out before being assaulted by the lilting strains of the filthiest ballad he'd ever heard.
"Come on," Ephraim called, latching onto his wrist with one strong hand once again and pulling him through the throngs of people. He wove through them effortlessly, never pausing, not even for the barely-clad dancers who leaned in to beg for attention and tips.
"Where are we going?"
If Ephraim heard the question– Lyon doubted he could over the din– he ignored it and continued onward, his stride quick and confident as he darted toward his unknown destination.
The barkeep's teeth were yellowed, like a paler shade of the murky drink he was pushing toward a customer across the table. Lyon couldn't hear what he was saying, but he made out some of Ephraim's words– work, mercenary, money. The bartender seemed to understand. He gestured over across the way to a table Lyon couldn't quite glimpse through the throngs of other patrons. Ephraim grinned and shoved a bit of coin across the counter, a gesture Lyon didn't understand until a glass of that putrid-looking drink was in his hands.
"You can't be serious," he called out to Ephraim, but Ephraim was already darting through the crowds again, off to where the bartender had pointed.
This charade was going too far. Lyon could feel himself beginning to shake, sure the people pressing in on him meant to crush him alive.
We aren't real mercenaries. We don't know how to do this.
Even if Ephraim were still there, he wouldn't have heard if Lyon said it aloud. And even if he had heard it, he wouldn't have listened. This had to be the worst decision Lyon had ever made.
They were the real thing, Ephraim had explained, and he seemed quite enamored with them. Neither the tall broad swordsman or the smaller one with the ragged hat looked like people Lyon would want to bump into on the street, never mind share a drink with, but that was exactly what he'd forced himself to do. The bitter smell of the ale lingered in his throat as he tried to discern how quickly he could get away if one or both of the rogues should turn on them. Ephraim, of course, could fight them off, but Lyon wouldn't stand a chance against either of those blades. He could half feel them slicing through his skin already.
The one with the hat seemed largely disinterested in the discussions, his dark gaze fixed instead on one of the dancers undulating across the room. It was the bigger one who seemed to be doing all the talking, his voice loud and laced with the same rolling accent that was prevalent throughout the city. His teeth glinted with every word, like the displays Lyon had heard wolves made. Ephraim didn't appear to notice.
"–contract work," the big one was saying, or rather, Lyon thought he heard over the noise, "and I suppose you can take a cut if you pull your weight–"
Lyon's breath caught in his throat. It still tasted like that drink, even though he'd only managed a half–sip before sputtering and "accidentally" leaving it behind on a stranger's table. They couldn't be working with these two low-lives, could they? He tried to shrink up against the wall as if he could disappear, but that only attracted the stare of the man with the hat. The barest hint of a smirk began to stretch across his lips before he turned his attention back to the women across the room.
What right did some dirty sellsword have to mock? Lyon was sure he could spell the stupid smile right off that man's face. His tome was heavy in his hand, and though of course he wouldn't, he could almost imagine what it would feel like to do it, what that sellsword might look like when taught a lesson.
Ephraim's hand was firm on his shoulder, as if he knew. Perhaps he did. His breath was hot on Lyon's ear as he whispered, "We'll talk upstairs. I'll introduce you there."
Introduce? Then it had already been decided, and Lyon hadn't even gotten a word in edgewise. He caught sight of his drink, still waiting, abandoned, and found himself wishing he'd forced it down after all.
The big one was called Caellach, and the one with the hat, Joshua. Ephraim called them generous for offering to let them join, though he seemed to pay little attention to the numbers. A quarter of the pay between them both for half the work, at least? It was no doubt unfair, but better, Ephraim claimed, than wandering about trying to find work on their own.
"Established mercenaries get better jobs," he explained, grinning like a child with a new toy. "So, we'll work with them, gain a reputation, and then go off on our own!"
And you think they'll allow us to become competition? Ephraim cut in before Lyon had a chance to consider saying that, going on about what Caellach said he and Joshua had done, the places they'd supposedly seen, the people they claimed to have met. It all sounded so far-fetched, more like something out of another tawdry ballad than anything that might happen to real men. But it was better to humor Ephraim than to point that out– after all, to be realistic was to know that princes didn't just up and become mercenaries, to remember the gossip they'd heard passing through about missing royals and panic in their homelands.
Ephraim seemed to barely notice that sort of thing. Not for the first time, Lyon was jealous. It had to be pleasant to operate in a world unbound by logic and limits. Especially the latter; none of them ever applied to Ephraim. He only slept because he wanted to, only stopped because the fancy struck him. Were he not bound to someone like Lyon, he might have kept on forever, endlessly running and climbing and fighting and laughing.
Limitless as always, just as Lyon imagined, he spoke of his grand plans at length until they slept. Lyon just watched him talk and move and breathe, content with the thought that for that night, at least, the words belonged only to him.
Caellach and death seemed like perfect companions. Lyon didn't mind the sight of his hands stained with blood or watching him work with animal-looking meat as it cooked over the fire. They were like Ephraim and his spear or Joshua and his stupid ugly hat, fitting together so well that it was hard to imagine one without thinking of the other.
"Someday," Caellach boomed over the soft crackle of the fire, "you watch, I'll feast every night. Maybe I'll invite you." His predatory teeth glinted as he laughed, his smile stretched too wide to display them like the lips of the revenants Lyon recalled from musty illustrations in the castle library. "And if you're lucky, I'll even let you eat."
Joshua let out a little snort at that. He and Caellach seemed used to each other, accustomed to each other's eccentricities. For a moment, Lyon wondered if they were like himself and Ephraim, before deciding he wanted to be nothing like that smirking vagabond either way.
Ephraim, on the other hand, was so taken with Caellach that even the absurdity of his ambitions didn't seem to matter. A prince aspiring to be a mercenary, admiring a mercenary aspiring to be a king. It would have been amusing had Lyon not hated it so much. He grabbed for Ephraim's arm and pulled him away from the fire, breaking the spell Caellach's boasts had woven over him.
"I don't like them," he whispered. "Please, can we leave?"
The shadows from the firelight flickered on Ephraim's face, lighting up the new hollows forming in his cheeks. Rugged, strong, rough– like a mercenary. Like them. Lyon knew the answer then before it came.
"Let's stay. Just for a while. Give them a chance."
Days ran together on the road, and Lyon couldn't estimate the distance between one unfamiliar landmark and another. Each village was mostly like the last in some way, and eventually they merged into one indistinct blur of not–home, marked only by what Ephraim cared to talk about.
Most times, it was Joshua or Caellach. Joshua's been there, Caellach's done this. Lyon tried to listen, or at least to pretend to care. If Ephraim noticed that it wasn't genuine, he made no sign of it.
It was only when they reached a merchant hub near the mountains that the pace of the conversation began to change.
"They say we're going to be helping this faction," Ephraim said. "They're fighting against the other one for rule– we'll help them get what they deserve."
He was smiling again, truly, this time, almost like he did around his sister. Lyon forced himself to smile back, though the vagueness of it all made his stomach turn.
"All right."
Lyon never quite found out who exactly they were fighting for or against or why. The cause never seemed to matter to Joshua and Caellach, and while Ephraim seemed to frown whenever talk of it came up, he never really objected, not to their faces.
"They're honorable men," he told Lyon in quiet, a rare moment shared between them. They were almost alone since they'd joined up with the others. Lyon missed their nights in silence together more desperately than he ever could have dreamed. Nights when the only person Ephraim could look at was him. "I'm sure they're leading us on a good course. I'll ask the leaders myself."
Ephraim's answers didn't come before the first skirmish did. Honor or no, the other side bore blades as long as Lyon's arm, tomes he'd never seen firsthand, crossbow bolts thick enough to fell a horse from a field's distance. It was still with passion that Ephraim ran into the fray, lance in hand, like the soldier Lyon thought he'd always been born to be– and Lyon took cover deep in a thicket, eyes clenched shut and shallow breaths kept close, as if making himself smaller might make him invisible if he worked enough at it.
He heard footsteps close by, not at all stealthy but heavy and fast, accompanied by coarse breathing like a saw on tough old wood. Just on the other side of the tree– he glanced around and saw a man easily a foot taller than him, thick and stocky. One of his hands clung to the hilt of a sword; the other clutched at his stomach. Was he on their side? Lyon couldn't tell. Weren't there colors or something these people wore to distinguish themselves? Wasn't that how it was meant to work? It wasn't as if Lyon could tell one craggy simple mercenary face from another, and with a blade like that–
He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me. I'm going to die.
He whipped back to his own side of the tree and swallowed down the sickness bubbling at the back of his throat. All he could smell was the rich iron in the air, like his father's men after a hunt, like the embarrassing nosebleeds he always seemed to get in the beginning of winter. Where was Ephraim? Was he fighting somewhere else? Was he looking for him, worried for him, hoping he was still alive? And what would Ephraim think if he found Lyon's corpse, broken and bleeding with the tip of that massive sword peeking out from his back?
No, it wasn't worth knowing. He didn't want to die. Nothing he could imagine could possibly hurt like that blade would, pushing between his ribs, tearing his pale skin apart in thick red lines. It would hurt, hurt terribly, and if that man was on the other side and saw him, there was no avoiding it.
I don't want to die–
Lyon's fingers dug between the pages of the tome, separating and spreading them open, shaking as he struggled to draw quiet, quick breaths. The edges of his vision were going dark; the tree at his back seemed to sway back and forth bringing him with it. His fingertips ran across the words; could he say them, really? Outside the safety of the libraries and the cloak of research?
He heard the leaves on the other side of the tree rustle, punctuated by a guttural grunt that had to come from the other man. His body went rigid and tight.
I'm not going to die.
The ancient words of the spell were higher in his voice than he'd imagined, not the authoritative bellow he'd heard from mage-soldiers in practice. For a moment, he thought they hadn't worked– until he felt the power flaring at his palm, rich and dark and dangerous, like a taste of wine pilfered from his father's cup.
He whipped around the tree and let it loose just as the soldier raised his sword. It was surely in attack, of course it was, Lyon was just defending himself–
The scream was like nothing Lyon had ever heard before. Quick and strangled, high and sharp, cut off as the soldier fell to the ground. He writhed, wormlike and pathetic, as the shadow from Lyon's hand overtook him like fire consuming so many dead leaves. Lyon half wanted to look away, but there was something fascinating about the rhythm of his movements.
The man's eyes widened with the curl of Lyon's fingers, his jaw forced open with a scream intensified by Lyon's will alone. It was slow, simple, easy work, perhaps because he'd been weakened to begin with, or perhaps because Lyon was just that strong. Lyon preferred the idea of the latter. Yes, this soldier, this common mercenary scum, was completely at his mercy. His well-muscled arms could do nothing but reach out and clench at the wilted grass. His heavy blade lay discarded at his side.
The soldier's cries faded out into a quiet choking sound before finally falling silent.
And Father thought me weak.
Lyon smiled.
"Are you all right?"
Ephraim was silhouetted in the opening of the tent, his figure trimmer than it had been when he'd shown up in the dead of night at Grado Keep, so long ago.
"What do you mean?"
Ephraim ducked beneath the tent flap. His stubble-grazed cheeks seemed too hollow in the waning sunlight. He didn't look at Lyon, not even as he sat close. His gaze traveled quickly, darting from the half-empty vulneraries scattered around to the worn tome resting at Lyon's side.
"I mean. . . this has to be hard on you." The smell of sweet spiced wine was heavy on his breath, though he retained a certain poise Lyon wouldn't have expected from a drunk. "You . . . well. . ."
I'm not sturdy. I'm not a fighter. Is that what you mean? Lyon exhaled slowly, letting the air blow his bangs away from his face, watching Ephraim's hair rustle lightly with it too. "I'm well. Perfectly well. Don't worry about me."
Ephraim looked up at him and held there, eyes darker than Lyon remembered them from the last time he'd looked this close. Had those bruised-looking rings always been there? There seemed to be a flicker of doubt on his face for a moment, as if he was going to ask more, but instead he finished his thought with a hushed "It's nothing. Never mind".
Ephraim was ill at ease, as if he knew what Lyon had done. There was no way he could have known, but something made Lyon wonder. Was there something about him that said clearly, "I killed a man today?" The thought made Lyon shiver. He was a murderer, a killer. If Ephraim knew, what would he think? He could imagine the horror on Ephraim's face at knowing, the shock and outrage, especially since in honesty Lyon couldn't say which side that man had been on.
"You're not homesick at all?" Ephraim was still quieter than Lyon was accustomed to. Even in private, he was always bright and boisterous, ready to respond to everything with a quick smile and confident tone.
"Not really."
". . .Me either," said Ephraim, before resting his head on Lyon's shoulder and closing his eyes. Lyon forced himself to focus on his hair bristling against his neck, mingling with the stray bits coming loose from his own sloppy braid, and not on how warm Ephraim was against him, how soothing the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing was, how obvious his lies were.
He'd rather be here than anywhere else, Lyon assured himself. He's not going to leave my side. And slowly he closed his own eyes as well, staying that way, quietly, until he heard Ephraim begin to snore.
The cold mountain air left Lyon's lips chapped and blood-dried, despite the honey-smelling balm Joshua offered and the repeated proffering of water by Ephraim. His fingers felt rough to the touch, not like Ephraim's, he thought, but instead like some servant skulking around the castle with a broom in hand. This was not the glamor he'd been promised, and worse, not the glamor everyone else seemed to be living, with their easy campfire stories and drinks. He felt lost amidst all of them, left behind, spared only the dregs of Ephraim's smiles and touches.
His fingers grew tight around the thick, worn spine of his tome. He'd need a new one soon, not that they could afford it, or that he'd have asked even if they could.
He couldn't keep track of the engagements they'd been in, or the number of people he'd fought. It all seemed to blur together from one job to the next, one Carcinese senator pulling the strings one day, a Jehan merchant the next. The allegiances were never fully spoken of, nor did they seem to much matter to Joshua or Caellach. The latter, especially.
"Money's money," Caellach had said the one time Lyon heard Ephraim ask. And Ephraim had said something like "are you certain this is right?", and Lyon didn't remember the rest, save that Joshua had to pull them off each other before either of them had a black eye.
He was more focused on talk he heard on their stops in taverns and shops. The rare bit of foreign gossip always seemed to be about princes, missing princes, inquiries from Grado into Renais, and, even more rarely, barely-entertained gossip about the diminished presence of Grado's emperor in his court. Lyon's throat tightened every time he heard the name of his homeland, as if the sound of it were some spell allowing the loudmouthed shopkeepers to know his face and name, sound the alarms, call in the army to drag him back home.
That was worse than the idea of war growing between the countries: going back. His father would still be the same sallow-faced shadow of a man, and he would still have to bear that dreadful mantle. Worse, how could he explain himself now? It had been months since he'd seen the Keep, and he'd sent no word back, not even a single letter. And going back would mean no more Ephraim at his side, no more Ephraim coming to him to have his cuts and scrapes and bruises healed, no more smiles from Ephraim that he could say were just for him.
It was unthinkable. There was no way Lyon was going to give this up, no matter what the cost was. He was no longer a prince, but a mercenary, a soldier, even if it was one without glamor or prestige.
"You do all right work," Caellach told him later that night as he handed him his little portion of the previous job's gold. "We'll keep you around a while yet, eh?"
All right work. Lyon could accept that.
Ephraim never really spoke of home, never gave Lyon any sort of reasoning forcr why he'd begun this. Eventually it was easiest to think it had simply been one of his impulsive choices. He'd woken up that late summer morning and decided it was time to make good on the intentions he'd bantered about in idle talk. And he'd decided that the one he wanted to share his journeys with, was not one of his knights or a girl he'd tried to court or even Eirika herself, but Lyon. Only Lyon.
Lyon wondered if Ephraim had anticipated this that morning– crouching low behind a craggy boulder outside a Carcinese village as arrows rained over their head, his lance stained and battered at his feet. Lyon certainly hadn't imagined himself like this, close at Ephraim's side with his head down low, hair hanging ragged at his shoulders as he scrambled for his tome.
"Don't," Ephraim hissed, glancing over his shoulder at the enemy before ducking down again, just in time to miss an arrow whizzing by his neck. Lyon's imagination went wild with vivid images of what had almost been. Ephraim might think himself immortal, but Lyon knew better. Every dead mercenary he'd seen before had probably thought the same thing. And Ephraim couldn't end up like them. He couldn't end up like them and leave Lyon all alone.
"I can take them down," Lyon heard himself saying before he fully thought it through.
"Don't."
Lyon was already flinging the tome open, pushing Ephraim down behind him, hard enough that he heard Ephraim cry out as he hit the ground. But Lyon was already up on his feet, arrows whipping around him. His tattered mage's cloak rippled in the bitter mountain wind as he raised his hands high out in front of him. The power crackled between his teeth as he began to chant the ancient words.
"Lyon, get down–"
He shrugged off Ephraim's grip, letting his focus pour into the magic instead. The spell was magnificent, rich and heady in Lyon's mouth. It spread wide in front of him, pulsating rhythmically before sweeping in to crush his foes, all of them at once. He barely heard the screams this time, but he took special note of the order in which the quivers fell. and the shapes their fingers made when they curled and tightened around their useless bows.
When the last archer collapsed, he looked back to Ephraim, smiling, as if to say, "see? I protected you"– only to see Ephraim's dust-streaked face contorted almost like the archers'.
"What did you do?"
Lyon looked back to the bloodless and twisted bodies strewn across the battlefield and found that he had no answers.
Ephraim still smiled at him, as if everything was the same. He still asked if he was uninjured, still offered him food when he was too shy to eat with the others. But the stories he used to tell, the ones Joshua and Caellach would tell him, came less and less frequently, and Ephraim seemed to tell them with little of the vigor he had before. Eventually it tapered into the barest details, only the parts relevant to the mission at hand: how Joshua said one ought to walk in the desert, how Caellach recommended supplies be kept for the mountains.
Lyon hated it. He knew what had caused it, but it hardly seemed fair.
This is war. You've killed too.
He knew Ephraim had. He'd seen him scrubbing the blood off his weapons, watched him bend shirtless into the river to dip his clothing into the water and hope the stains wouldn't stay that time. It wasn't fair for Ephraim to treat him like some kind of pariah simply because he'd done what was necessary to keep him safe. He'd saved Ephraim's life, hadn't he? Wasn't that enough?
It wasn't. It never would be.
It was all he was able to think about as he demolished one enemy after another, quicker with his magic than Ephraim could ever be with that heavy, showy spear. Ephraim was somewhere else, out of his sight for most of the battle, and though he liked being able to show him up, it was better that he didn't see this. It meant that Lyon could strike indiscriminately, not sparing a moment's thought for the men he struck down. Ephraim would have advised him not to be cruel, though it was always plain to see that he enjoyed it all himself just as much.
Lyon felled the last enemy he could see slowly, savoring the fear in his eyes. All it had taken was a flash of his tome to provoke a defensive stance, and the rest was easy. So easy.
He'd detail what he'd done to Ephraim in the barest terms. I defended myself. I didn't lose. And that would be enough. He ran it over in his head as he turned away from the field and ran back toward the camp. The other side was on the run, now, and he told himself it was all thanks to him. No spear could provoke fear like that. The victory, in truth, was his.
Before he could clearly smell the smoke of the campfire or even make out the figures gathered before it, Lyon heard voices. Loud, angry voices, rising above the dry hills and echoing, discordant, until they barely sounded like words anymore.
He kept low and ducked behind a slab of flinty gray mountain rock to listen when he was close enough to make out what was being said. If anyone noticed him, they made no sign of it– good. Back pressed against the cold stone, breaths hushed though he knew no one would hear them, he could immediately pick out Ephraim's voice from the din, richer and cleaner in the air than the others.
"– not going to stand for this, there's no way–"
Someone shouted over him– an insult, Lyon thought, though accent and fury combined to make it incomprehensible. Though he knew he couldn't be detected, he pressed himself tighter against the stone and ducked still lower, wishing the dry dusty earth would reach up and take him down with it. He grasped for his tome. This was so much worse than a battle. At least in a battle he knew what the stakes were. He couldn't just magic a man in their camp into submission.
He dared a glance over the back of the rock , close enough now that he could see the players involved. Joshua, recognizable by his fiery hair beneath that stupid hat, lingered by one of the tents, making no move to aid or hinder either side. A small group of other ruffians stayed at the back, cowardly, just as Lyon expected of them. And right in front of Ephraim towered Caellach.
Ephraim looked so small before him, suddenly slim and reedy next to Caellach's hulking mass. It was painfully clear that if Caellach wanted to, he could crush Ephraim then and there. In spite of that, Ephraim matched his stance in ferocity, head tipped up to meet his opponent's gaze, fists balled at his sides.
Lyon didn't hear exactly what was said next, but in an instant, words no longer mattered.
It was Ephraim who swung first, that much was unmistakable. Caellach barely staggered before returning the blow twice over, each meaty fist swiping in with blinding speed for Ephraim's face. The first collided with his jaw, jerking him to the side, but he weathered it bravely, as Lyon knew he would. The second blow came from the other side with practiced agility, connecting hard with his jaw just as he'd recovered. Lyon saw the blood spatter across Caellach's fist just before he heard Ephraim hit the ground.
The spell was in his hands before he could even think of stopping himself, words tearing free from his throat harsh enough to leave it raw. He didn't even have the presence of mind to enjoy Caellach scream or keep track of where Joshua or the others had gone. He was compelled to stand, somehow, and his hair and clothes and skin seemed to ripple back from the power cascading out from his body, over the rock and into Caellach, who deserved every last drop of it in the worst way Lyon could physically command it.
How dare he how dare he howdarehe–
The power crested within him and burst forth like a wave crashing into the southern Gradan shore, blocking out every sight and sound outside what had driven him to this. He didn't care about what Caellach looked like. He cared about Ephraim– Ephraim clutching his jaw, Ephraim struggling back to his feet, Ephraim turning to face him, his bloodied mouth hanging open, a plea that Lyon couldn't understand tearing loose from his lungs–
For a second, all Lyon knew was blackness and the taste of dirt in his mouth. When vision returned to him, his tome was flung, pages-down, far out of his reach. A pair of hands was pinning him down. He mistook them for Ephraim's until he realized the red in his vision wasn't blood, but hair.
"Enough," Joshua said, without even a trace of his usual mirth. "Leave."
Lyon, to his own surprise, obeyed.
It was twilight at the camp when Ephraim finally ducked into Lyon's tent. He didn't look straight at Lyon this time; he simply tossed his spear to the side carelessly before near collapsing down at Lyon's side.
"They left," he said.
Slowly, Lyon took in Ephraim's full appearance. The eye Caellach had hit was already swelling and dark. A thin trail of dried blood by the side of his lip mingled the same color as the dirt in the dim light of the tent. Ephraim still wouldn't look at him.
A fresh burst of rage welled up within Lyon once again. Reflexively, he reached up and touched the corner of Ephraim's puffing bottom lip. Maybe Ephraim was too stunned to pull away, or maybe he was actually comforted by the touch. Either way, he didn't jerk away as Lyon expected him to.
"You shouldn't have done that back there," Ephraim said instead, slurring his words slightly as his teeth tripped over his lips.
"He hurt you. I don't care."
Ephraim closed his eyes and sighed. For a moment he was quiet, allowing Lyon to feel each fast breath on his fingertips. It was a vulnerable position. Lyon liked that.
Finally, Ephraim tugged away so that he could speak. "This whole time. . . I should have seen it. I should have realized."
Realized what? Lyon wanted to ask, but instead he just let Ephraim continue to talk.
"I thought, they couldn't be wrong, we had to be doing the right thing. They were so friendly, and they seemed so upright, and. . . I'm a fool. I'm sorry."
Had they been fighting for something wrong this whole time? The thought made Lyon slightly sick, though not as sick as he'd expected. He recalled all those bandits he'd felled, all the lives he'd taken, the power he'd felt surging within him, knowing they were the enemy and nothing else mattered. Was he wrong? Had he done the wrong thing? It couldn't be. They were coming for him and the people he cared about; the exact causes and political maneuverings didn't matter. It wasn't as if there was a "good" side when it came to Carcino.
Ephraim was staring at the floor in front of him as if speaking to it rather than Lyon. "I don't know what to do now," he mumbled. "If we go back now. . . if we go back, we can make amends. Eirika can't be angry at me anymore. It'll be easy. We don't have to stay like this, we're princes– I can speak to my father, he can see to it that this all ends, and. . ."
Ephraim kept talking, but Lyon couldn't hear him anymore. All he could hear in that moment were his father's labored breaths echoing in his chambers, his voice gravelly and rough where once it had been so robust, and–
He grabbed for Ephraim in a confusion of hands and hair and faces, tugging him close and forcing their lips together just to make him stop. His mouth still tasted like blood and dirt, and Lyon wasn't sure what he was doing except that it felt good and Ephraim wasn't pushing him away. No, Ephraim was moving closer, despite the surprise of it, threading rough gloved fingers through Lyon's mess of hair and closing his eyes and just moving.
It was obvious he'd done this before. Lyon tried not to think about that.
"Stay here with me," he begged Ephraim as soon as they broke apart. "We don't have to go back. Not yet. Please, not yet."
Ephraim hesitated, inches away from Lyon's face, as if he'd only just realized what they'd done. For a moment, Lyon thought he was going to turn and leave, and that was more awful to consider than anything he could imagine. Ephraim couldn't go. Ephraim couldn't leave him.
"You said Eirika was angry, right?" Lyon was desperate now. He couldn't imagine that– Eirika, angry with Ephraim? How could that even happen? But if she was angry with him, if she'd forced him away, she had no claim on him any longer. Ephraim had no one else out here. No one but Lyon. He moved close again and combed out the clunks of dust from Ephraim's hair with his fingers, as if the gesture might somehow keep them close.
Ephraim didn't withdraw as Lyon half expected. But instead of answering, Ephraim pulled his hands away, grabbing each glove in turn from his own hands and pulling them away with his teeth. He flung them to the side before lunging forward, pinning Lyon to the ground and kissing him again, forceful, rough, deep.
"Don't leave," Lyon whispered again as soon as his mouth was free. His fingernails dug beneath the fabric and into the skin of Ephraim's back to punctuate the words, clenching tighter as his own filthy scholar's clothes were shoved away.
Ephraim didn't leave.
Morning came far too soon. Squinting his eyes against the sunlight filtering in, Lyon willed it to somehow go back down. It didn't work. His head was pounding, as it had the morning after the first time he'd actually tried to drink like Ephraim did. Though he'd woken much like this every morning, with the top of the tent above him and the grass sharp against his back, somehow this time it felt surreal, as if he'd imagined all of it, the same strange lucid dream he'd thought he'd been having when Ephraim clambered through his window.
But he hadn't been dreaming. He had proof.
Ephraim was still next to him, facing the dark side of the tent, his back pressed against Lyon's shoulder. Fresh red marks trailed down his shoulders and back, bright against the rich blue-purple bruises at his throat and collarbone. Lyon traced them again, one after one, just to remind himself that they were his, and waited for Ephraim to open his eyes and look at him again as he had the night before.
When Ephraim finally did open his eyes, they weren't fiery and dark the way Lyon remembered. He blinked slowly, blearily, and stared at Lyon like a stranger before rolling away from his grasp and grabbing his clothing.
"We have to ride," he said hastily as he pulled his pants on and reached for his boots. Lyon stared, transfixed, until Ephraim's tunic hid all the marks from view.
"Why?"
Lyon scrambled away from the bedroll, throwing his clothing on as rapidly as Ephraim had done so that he could follow outside. He stumbled over his feet as Ephraim ducked under the tent and strode outside, ever elegant, ahead, a cruel reminder of the growing space between them.
"I never should have dragged you into this," Ephraim answered. He was already dismantling the tent, easy and efficient, paying no mind to Lyon as he did. "I'll take you back to Grado. I'll answer to your father myself. Don't worry about anything."
Back? To Grado? To his father? Lyon shook his head violently and tried to pull Ephraim from the work he was doing. Ephraim shrugged him off easily. Before Lyon could think of any way to stop him, the tent was nothing more than canvas and sticks once again.
Still barefoot, Lyon scrambled for some kind of advantage, something to delay the seemingly inevitable. Ephraim's spear was by the tomes and staves. Lyon grabbed them both. Ephraim didn't seem to notice.
"Ephraim. Ephraim, listen to me. Just because those two were on the wrong path doesn't mean we have to be. We have a reputation now, right? You and I can keep going. Just the two of us, like we were going to before."
"We can't." Ephraim finally turned back to him, the remnants of the tent and bedrolls bundled in his arms. "We never... I never should have done this."
He approached Lyon and reached for his spear. Lyon, in return, reached for his face, ran his fingers down the bruises he hadn't granted, hoping it might remind Ephraim of the day before.
"We don't need to go back," Lyon pleaded. "We can stay like this. We've done well so far." I protected you. Was it not enough?
Ephraim let his hand linger there only for a moment before reaching up, holding it, leading it away and letting it go.
"I have to go back. I have to apologize to Eirika. We. . . we fought. It was stupid. I was stupid."
Was that what all this was? He had run away after a stupid, petty fight? Lyon felt himself tremble. He'd been a replacement, that whole time, a substitute for her. He couldn't stand it.
He forced his kiss on Ephraim, rough and harsh. Eirika couldn't kiss him like that. Eirika was just as perfect, as perfect as Ephraim was, but they were siblings and Lyon was different. He could offer more, so much more, he'd already offered so much–
Ephraim jerked away, taking the spear with him. There was fresh blood on his lips again. Lyon could taste it.
"You weren't meant for this either. You're too good for this, Lyon." Too good. It lingered and rang in Lyon's mind, over and over again in Ephraim's desert-hoarse voice. "Let's go home."
Ephraim didn't understand. Of course he didn't. He'd return to Renais and of course there'd be hell to pay, but once that was over he'd still be powerful, regal, invincible, adored. People would submit to his easy smile the same way they would in battle, easily, willingly. But Lyon would go back and disappear once again. He'd be buried beneath his father's disapproving stare and ever-weakening gasps, crushed by the expectations of people he'd never met and the crown he'd never wanted.
"No."
Ephraim gave him a bewildered look, as if he didn't quite believe what he was hearing. Lyon wasn't sure he believed it either, but he forced himself to stand tall, as if he did.
"Lyon–"
"I'm not going back."
"I can't go back without you–"
"Then don't go back." Don't leave me. Don't go. A rumble of shame and hunger built in Lyon's belly. He knew well how pathetic he had to sound.
Ephraim didn't answer with words. He stepped forward instead and reached for Lyon's arm, but Lyon tore away with a snarl he hadn't meant to make.
"Please–"
Ephraim could easily overpower him. He was coming closer, closer, and Lyon knew exactly what he meant to do. It would be so easy for Ephraim to lift him and take him home by force, and then there'd be no escape, and Ephraim would leave him again after that, he knew it–
He opened his tome. Ephraim froze where he was.
"Lyon, stop this. You're scaring me."
Good. I want you to be scared. "Stay here with me."
"I can't. We can't. Come on–"
The terror on Ephraim's face as the spell hit him wasn't what Lyon wanted. He wanted Ephraim looking at him in battle like a vital ally, not a liability. He wanted the sensation of their skin together, of Ephraim pressing into him, needing him. But he couldn't have that, no matter how he wanted it. Ephraim wasn't letting it happen, he was ruining everything they'd built, and he couldn't just leave, he couldn't–
Ephraim crumpled as easily as so many common mercenaries before him had. Lyon kept his distance, waiting for him to lift his head and apologize for what he'd tried to do.
I'm so sorry, Lyon. I won't leave you. Let's stay together.
Instead, Ephraim staggered to his feet, keeping his balance only by leaning on the spear as if it were a staff. He looked on Lyon not as a stranger, but as something else entirely. An enemy, or worse, a monster.
"Don't go," Lyon pleaded one last time.
Ephraim was silent. He clutched at his spear and gasped for breath. The sight of it made Lyon sick– I did that, I did that– but also filled him with terrifying glee.
Yes, I did that.
"I... I'll come back. I'll give you some time." Ephraim's voice was quiet, careful. He looked like he might cry. Lyon wanted to see it. "I'll... I'm going to go to the next village, and get supplies for the way home. Wait for me. I'm sorry. I'll come back for you. I promise."
He was leaving. Ephraim was leaving. Leaving, and there was nothing Lyon could do but watch until his back faded from view.
The tome fell at Lyon's feet as he screamed, but the sound was swallowed up by the hills and the sky just as his tears were swallowed by the dry earth.
It was just after dusk in the only tavern in the whole village, a seedy little bar with seedier clientele. A border stop between Jehanna and Grado, it saw all types from both sides. Little registered as "strange" for anyone who knew the place, not after so many years and so many faces.
But there was something odd about the small man with the tome at his side who asked in hushed words for something "strong and hard". He seemed unused to the words, as if he was echoing someone else, not speaking for himself. His hands trembled as they clutched at the countertop; his wide-eyed stare spoke only of desperate need.
Coin slid across counter. The bartender shook the strangeness off. It didn't matter, not at all. He poured the man his drink.