CHAPTER 2

The first thing he noticed was the smell.

His olfactory senses overloaded with the scent of the dying. The putrid smell of pus hung in the air, and a dull iron taste covered his mouth. His throat was dry, so dry, and his skin felt like it was on fire.

He coughed, retching with nothing to come up, and a hand was at his throat. His throat burned. The spittle was wiped from his cheeks and water, warm stale water but water nonetheless, was poured between his unyielding lips. He spluttered.

A voice cursed above him, but he felt those hands move to his chest and pound ruthlessly. He coughed, coughed again, then felt his strength leave him, and slipped beneath the waves once again.

The stench of a salve near his nostrils, something like the earth, overwhelmed him when he next gained consciousness. He wanted to scratch at the thick goop stretched beneath his chin, but his arms felt like lead.

He shivered under several blankets and coughed again. His throat hurt so much, how was this possible-

A cool cloth was placed on his forehead, and the relief was so instantaneous, he slept again.

He was screaming.

There was a demon in his chest, desperate to get out. The claws were embedded in his organs, scratching at the door to his chest that wouldn't open.

The hands were back, everywhere at once, clutching him desperately. His voice crackled and rasped; it sounded like he was screaming through shards of glass. Why was it so hot? He thrashed, desperate to rid himself of the blankets.

For a moment, his eyes shot open, and he saw the ragged top of a dirty tent, a single hole in the middle for the release of smoke from the medicinal fire, and against the sun shining through it, the head of the person grasping his chest was illuminated, the pale hair a halo-

His eyes slammed shut, trying to keep the demon inside so it would not tear him apart. Every part of his being seemed to want to fly into the air in every direction, every piece of him as far away as it possibly could, wrong wrong wrong wrong this is wrong wrong should not be-

But the hands on his chest grew suddenly ice cold, and he was gone once more.

The tent still smelled badly, but through the acrid scents of the dead, he could smell cooking mutton.

He inhaled slowly, slowly, through his nose. His throat still ached more than it ever had in his life, but for the moment, he could breathe again. The air was warm in his lungs; he was under the blankets again, tucked in more tightly than before.

His tongue swiped across his lips. Dry, dry, cracked and dry. A small groan escaped him, and the hands were back, somehow both stern and comforting.

"Drink," came a voice, and he tried to oblige, prying his husk of a mouth open. His tongue felt almost furry. A trickle of water flowed into his mouth, and he slowly sipped at the nectar of life. His throat still felt terrible, but it seemed that he could swallow in small increments, and he lapped at the water for what felt like an hour.

Even that small bit of exertion pushed him to exhaustion, and he fell asleep again. This time, however, it was far more restful, and he woke in the middle of the night, the stars illuminated in the small open hole of the tent ceiling.

He watched them through slitted eyes, crust keeping them nearly shut, trying to recognize any of the constellations he saw turn unyielding overhead. He knew they formed dazzling shapes, stretched across the horizon, but from his limited vantage point, he could only imagine them.

He wasn't aware of falling asleep, but he was cognizant of waking up to a kettle.

Keeping his eyes closed, he realized it was voices, not steam, he was hearing. He couldn't make out the words, but they sounded tense.

He tried to move to sit up and see, but his limbs seemed to be moving through molasses. He let out a groan, and the hands were back, pressing against his bare shoulders and easing him back down.

"Lie down," said the voice, terse and… nervous?

He let out a breath through his nostrils, and lay still.

Finally he awoke to find her sitting on his bed, studying his face.

She looked young, though her general appearance was belied by the weariness in her face. The hollows of her cheeks were pronounced, and her freckles appeared faded, as if she had previously spent a lot of time outside and now had been trapped indoors for some time. The dark circles under her eyes and her pale skin only added to the vision.

Her hair had appeared an angelic golden before, though now it just looked dirty and unkempt, tied into twin tails at the side of her head. He could see that her eyes were green as she stared into his face for the split second they made eye contact until she realized he was awake and jumped up.

"You need to eat," she said, and walked out of his line of sight to bustle about at the other end of the tent. His throat was still sore, and he couldn't form any words, so he stared at the tent ceiling in helpless silence.

The roar of the fire grew more pronounced and he felt the temperature rise in the tent, and she reappeared after a few more minutes, a bowl of some sort of stew in her hands.

"I've been getting broth into you, but I think you need more substance," she said, all business. "Open up."

He managed to crack open his mouth, and her eyes were suddenly riveted to it. He could only imagine how horrid his breath was. She carefully ladled food into his mouth, avoiding his teeth, which felt almost too big for him at this point - he must be emaciated - and he eased the warm chunks of root vegetables down his throat. She occasionally dabbed at his mouth with a small cloth to clean him, something that embarrassed him greatly, but she treated it like she had done it many times. Which, he supposed, she probably had. How long had he been like this?

She seemed unable to tear her eyes away from his mouth. When the sound of the spoon scraping the bottom of the bowl cut through the quiet of the tent, she turned away, looking at the fire. Her profile was illuminated by the crackling flames. "You should rest," she said. "I'll see how you're doing in a few hours, and if you keep the food down, I'll get more." There was something in her voice that was hesitant, slightly strangled, but the food was sitting heavily in his gut, and he slumbered once more.

He must have overslept, because the tent was dark again when he woke up next. Throat still protesting terribly, he was hungry again, which he took to be a good sign. His limbs felt less gangly and uncoordinated, and he managed to heft himself upright a bit before the young woman walked back into the tent.

She looked a little startled to see him up. Her chest expanded as if her breath caught in her throat, but she stomped over to him without hesitation. "You should be resting!" she scolded.

He tried to open his mouth, but it only came out in a cough.

As if she read his mind, she put a hand on his shoulder and tried to ease him back down. "I know it's been a long time you've been stuck here, but you're still extremely weak. Please just lie down."

Letting out a sigh, he obliged, unwilling to admit that even that small movement had tired him out again.

She perched again at the side of his bed, looking like a bird about to take flight at the slightest provocation. He stared up at her, unable to say anything. A trembling hand rose from her side to reach out and rest its fingertips against his forehead. The points of contact felt like lightning, hot and crackling with power.

"I'm a mage," she explained quietly. "I've been working hard to keep you alive."

Laboriously, he lifted a hand and held hers to his forehead. He could see her neck contort as she swallowed thickly. Even if he could not speak, he had to ask.

"Yes, you had a fever," she said, seeming to choose her words carefully. He shook his head below her fingertips. She bit her lip, and his eyes focused on the movement, noting the cracked edges of her lips, worn down as if she had picked up the habit recently. In a gesture more forward than he had ever made before, he curled his fingers around hers. Dragged her hand to his lips. Pressed a light kiss to her peeling skin.

She winced as if she had been branded. He tried not to flinch, but something must have shot across his face because she licked her lips and gave him a wan smile. "Oh," she said, finally understanding. "Yes. My name is Maka."

Maka was a volatile mixture of diligent and impatient. She worked hard to help him regain his strength, but she seemed frustrated when he didn't make good progress, or when he seemed reluctant to heed her advice about not moving too much. His body recovered, a bit at a time, though his throat seemed to take the longest to heal. Maka applied the foul-smelling salve often, something that made him crinkle his nose in disgust. Once when she pulled out the mortar and pestle to begin the process of making it, he let out a high-pitched whine of complaint, and she snapped, "If you don't shut up, I'll give you something to really groan about!" He had frozen, staring up at her; she took a deep breath, seemed to count to herself, then busied herself with the work of creating the poultice. He had suffered silently from then on.

Though he couldn't reply, she seemed to like to talk to him. She didn't tell him much about her past, he noticed immediately - but she talked about things a mage should know, and what her powers were capable of, and how she tried to use them for the army. He also observed that she seemed not to want to use too much magic around him - or perhaps that she couldn't. At times, her fingertips would flare with the cold energy he had felt before, often when she was mixing his salve or cooking dinner, but she seemed exhausted afterwards.

"Used too much," he heard her say once, when she thought he was asleep, muttering and staring at her hands. "Too much."

But the long hours spent sleeping and eating warm meals and drinking cool water seemed to do exactly what he needed it to do, and he felt his strength returning. Maka seemed pleased at his progress when he was able to sit up and feed himself, and the smile she flashed him was more dazzling than he would expect from such a thin, tired young woman.

The hole in the tent ceiling revealed it to be nighttime, wispy clouds drifting overhead. At first he couldn't tell what had awoken him, but soon a sound reached his ears: a ragged, low breathing.

He focused, and was finally able to discern what he was hearing. It was the hiccupy soft gasps of someone sobbing.

With a lot of effort, still shaking off the effects of sleep, he dragged himself to his elbows. Maka was bent over in the small chair by the end of his bed, crying quietly into her hands. The fire had burned low, embers now, casting her into strange relief; she looked almost like a painting that might be hanging on the walls of his father's manor.

He shifted forward again, trying to get a better look. No one seemed to be in the tent. They were alone.

He opened his mouth, but only a ragged hiss came out, too quiet for her to hear. He swallowed, his mouth feeling strangely full. "M…Ma-ka."

Her head snapped up, tear-streaked face glowing in the soft light of the flames. "Oh!" she gasped, using the tattered sleeve of her dress to rub at her glistening cheeks. "I'm so-"

"Maka."

She stood up and hurried to him, sitting on the edge of the bed. Peering into his face, she asked in a strangled voice, "Is everything okay?"

He lifted a hand to her cheek and pressed it against her skin. It was warm to the touch, flushed with crying. She shuddered. Another tear trickled out the corner of her eye, and he brushed it away with his thumb. He was still sleepy, but he concentrated on her blotchy face. He nodded down at her once.

She understood. Biting her lip again, she seemed to contemplate something for a moment, and then her face crumpled, and she launched herself forward. She buried her face in his shoulder and began to sob in earnest again.

He slowly lowered his arms to encircle her waist, barely touching her. Her breath against his skin was overloading his senses, and this strange woman, a paradox of delicate and strong, had her arms wrapped around his neck and her head resting against his collarbone.

His world had been narrowed to a pinpoint, existing only within this tent and this bed and this space, and she was his sun, circling overhead, and he kept time by her, watched her, worshipped her, had to shield himself when she burned too brightly. He could yet not name the feelings she ignited in him, but in that moment, he felt that there was no place he'd rather be. He was content to hold her until she cried herself out, until she exorcised any demons that might be plaguing her.

Maka, as it turned out, was not a great cook.

Now that he was far more awake and aware of what was going on, he found that the food she was serving him wasn't all that palatable. It might have kept him alive, but that didn't make it particularly tasty.

"Maka," he groaned as she handed him a lumpy bowl of oats and nuts. "Eggs. Please."

"There aren't a lot of chickens to go around," she replied, sitting down next to his bed and spooning her own slightly burnt meal into her mouth. "You've been so ill, and I feared having you too close to the rest of the camp, so we're on the very edge of it. It takes too long to go get eggs in the morning; the chickens are kept far closer to the soldiers."

He let out a sad sigh, but obediently began to eat. His throat was still sore, so he was very cautious with his meals, but he was starting to feel better.

He was starting to feel like himself again.

"I believe if you're feeling well enough to complain, you're feeling well enough to do some of the chores I asked of you," she said. Maka tilted her head to gaze up at him from her low stool. "I could really use those reeds cut and sorted for more spells. I don't think I have any spells that might speed the healing of your throat, but-"

Something plapped against the wall of the tent. Maka turned to look as another sound, plap, rang out. Plap plap plap. She stood, upending her bowl, and ran outside, the blast of sunlight straining his eyes, so unaccustomed to the harsh glare after so many weeks in the tent. There were shouts, far away and indistinguishable, but Maka yelled back, high-pitched and angry. Another plap, and he could smell the sulfur that meant Maka was creating a ball of fire in her palm. After another few minutes, she returned to the tent, her hair standing slightly on end and the dark circles under her eyes more pronounced.

"Who?"

"Sorry?"

"Maka. Who was… that?"

Her face was carefully neutral. "No one of importance. Children being foolish. They... threw some eggs at the tent and I told them not to waste the resource." She set about cleaning up her spilled food, making a big show of it. Standing with a slight grunt, she pierced him with a gaze from under her eyelashes. "And I'll thank you," Maka murmured, voice strange and almost eerie, "not to speak to the universe like that in the future."

After the incident, Maka kept him busy. She always seemed to be able to produce some small task that took hours, like sorting a bag of buttons by shade of bone or weaving small spells with extra strands of yarn and thread. He was no mage, so they held no power until Maka imbued them with the necessary energy, but the crafting of them could be done by even his inexperienced hand. "Don't worry if they're messy," she'd say when he'd hand them over, chagrined. "The spells still work even if the vessel isn't perfect. It's the intention that counts."

Once or twice he tried to get out of bed, but she quickly shoved him back down. "I don't think you're ready yet," she would say each time. No matter what excuse he tried to give, she wouldn't hear any of it.

"Could get more water," he rasped. "Running low."

"I'll get it."

But a sense of restlessness had settled over him, and at night the plaps of the eggs that had been thrown against the tent beat against his brain, over and over. The stars through the hole in the tent gave him no answers, and an unease, an itchiness, simmered under the surface.

Maka once returned from getting more supplies and had nearly dropped them all over the floor of the tent when she found him standing and preparing a meal.

"Your cooking is awful," he said with a smug grin, but the wavering smile she offered in return didn't reach her eyes.

He asked her once, now that he was feeling better, if they should move closer to the camp, but she had frozen, like a doe in the sights of the hunter, and explained in a shaky voice that she was still concerned about his health and she didn't want to push him.

He heard voices in the middle of the night once again, indiscernible but angry, and in the morning, Maka's devastated gasp escaped her lips before she could rush out of the tent. He sat up quickly. The sun against the tent caused it to light up so that he could see red painted letters dripping down cloth walls. They appeared backwards to him, but he could still read the word: 'WITCH.'

The morning dawned cold and clear.

He was feeling stronger, more capable of staying out of bed for longer periods of time. He was trying to be helpful, taking the old wooden bucket of water out of the tent so Maka wouldn't have to when she returned. For a moment, the sun seemed almost blistering on his skin, and he hunched over, waiting for sickness to pass. He leaned over the bucket and gazed down into the water to allow for the nausea to subside.

Now that the water was no longer in the darkness of the tent, its surface was glassy, reflective. He could see his face.

Something was wrong.

The bridge of his nose was too long, his eyes were too far apart, his hair was-

He stumbled backwards, his back hitting the side of the tent. The poles holding the cloth snapped, and it came tumbling down on top of him, entangling him and trapping him within the folds. It was as if he were drowning in the fabric, underwater again-

The hands reached for him again, freeing him and dragging him back into the light. He stumbled, breathing heavily.

"What's going on-?"

He whirled on her. Hands clenching around her shoulders, he stared into her eyes. He was close, so close, and he could see his own reflection in them, and it was just as wrong as it had been before.

"What did you do to me?" he asked, ragged and harsh. "What- who- am I?"

Staring back up at him from the bottom of her irises was the face of his brother.