21. Severing

The library was dark, but Merle Dar had been doing this for so long that light was no longer necessary. He knew by memory, by touch where each volume belonged. When something was donated to the collection—which wasn't often, as the library specialized in rare, ancient tomes—he shifted his mental catalogue ever so slightly to take in the new addition. Each book had its place, essentially where it lived, and it irked Merle to no end when patrons misplaced them. This was his morning ritual, to stroll through the rows of shelves, running a finger lightly along the spines and looking for errant volumes, and then to return them home.

Merle let out a long sigh as he tugged a thick atlas loose from the shelf and slid books beside it to the right. It belonged three spaces over, yet someone had squeezed it between map collections from an entirely different era. How careless. He started to slip the atlas into the space he had made, only able to push it in halfway before a gust of wind forced him to slap a hand across a pile of papers stacked atop the bookshelf. At the end of the room, he could hear the front door rattle as it closed. The wind ceased.

Slow, deliberate footsteps struck the tile floor, but Merle couldn't see far enough to discern their owner. He frowned, calling out into the darkness.

"The library doesn't open for another two hours yet, I'm afraid. You'll have to come back then, if you wish to look at something in our collection."

A dark outline of a man appeared in the darkness as the footsteps drew closer. "That's alright. I just have one question."

The voice was almost a whisper. Merle strained to see or hear whether he could ascertain who was addressing him.

"Either way, the library is closed. Questions must wait for later as well, and then I will be happy to—"

"I'm wondering," said the voice, and Merle knew in a horrible instant who it was, "if this is your normal routine. You know. Murdering children, and then getting up before the sun to shuffle moldy manuscripts around."

If it had been any other occasion, Merle Dar would have balked at the insinuation that anything in his library was moldy. Instead, he reached for the knife at his belt and stepped back between the shelves. But he was too slow. Merle hissed when a blade came down on the wrist of the hand holding his knife, biting deep and sending a stream of blood down his arm. The knife clattered on the tile.

"Hm," said Yuri Lowell. "This the knife you used?" Sword still trained on Merle, he dipped to retrieve it, holding it up in the faint moonlight that filtered in from the high windows. It glinted dully and he grunted, sliding it into the cloth belt at his waist.

"Think I'll melt it down. But first, justice."

Merle's mouth had gone dry, a cold stillness washing over him. That boy had caused the Fist a world of trouble, jeopardizing their operations with the knowledge he shared with their enemies and taking some of their finest members out of commission with his betrayal. And in one, all-important case—permanently. Did this long-haired whelp really believe he was the only one facing loss? That the child was an innocent?

"It was a fair trade," he rasped. "A life for a life."

Yuri laughed, short and humorless. "Fairness has nothing to do with it. Lucas may have betrayed your cause, but he's not like you. Wasn't like you. Your friend was a murderer, Dar."

"And what does this make you?" Merle swept his hand to indicate the sword pointed at his chest, mouth twisting.

"Justice," Yuri repeated, shrugging one shoulder. "Death is too good for you. But the idea of you getting to keep breathing? Yeah, that makes me sick."

Merle nodded slowly, making a subtle movement with his fingers toward the pocket of the robe he slipped on when he entered the library. It was often quite cold, in the morning.

"Looking for this?" The capsule of poison flew up into the air and landed back in Yuri's palm.

Merle's eyes went wide. "W-where did you—"

"You don't get the easy way out." Yuri turned his fisted hand over, dropping the capsule to the floor and crushing it beneath his heel. Merle couldn't stop himself from making a soft sound of dismay. He certainly did not wish for death, but this man would not provide him with a pleasant one. Nor quick, he feared.

Time to change strategies, then. Dignity be damned. "Please, don't do this. I will tell you whatever you wish to know. You must realize how involved I am in our operations in Dahngrest. Only Mira herself outranks me. I am privy to information that hardly anyone else—"

"I don't really care." Another loose shrug, the hand not holding the sword resting casually on Yuri's hip. Merle swallowed. He could feel the sword's point graze his skin, sharp and immediate, a dark promise. Yuri held his gaze steadily with half-lidded eyes.

"So, Merle," he said, voice too calm. "Do you have an office or something we can do this in? If anything happened to these books, Rita would kill me."

The sheets beside Flynn were still warm, though gradually cooling, when he awoke. He slid a hand over the fabric, chest constricted with a sudden heaviness as he remembered what had occurred. The party. Lucas. It had all collapsed upon him late in the night, when his training as a knight—of distancing himself from pain and soldiering on through his duties—had faded, allowing him to grieve even as he comforted.

And the warmth was proof. He had held his closest friend, had rested his head against Yuri's shoulder, had wept with him. A strand of dark hair clung to his pillow, though the man it belonged to was missing. Flynn wondered sleepily, with some disappointment but not much surprise, if Yuri had simply not wanted to wake in his arms, slipping back to his own room to avoid dealing with the emotional significance of such a scenario. Without the raw emotion of that evening, he would probably find it awkward.

Flynn sighed, slightly embarrassed by the comfort he drew from Yuri's phantom heat and annoyed by his own conclusions. What a mess everything had become. They had made and lost a friend, a boy who had no reason to be involved in this ugliness. No amount of information was worth the end of a life when it had scarcely begun, and he wasn't certain they had learned all that much at the estate in the end. A sense of failure itched uncomfortably under his skin, but was also somehow galvanizing—Flynn threw off the covers and stood, resisting the urge to pace as he went to the window and looked out into the gray of early morning.

As it stood, the extremists—the so-called Liberty's Fist—owned Dahngrest, whatever the Union might think. It was a city asleep, safe in a belief that the injustices of the Empire could not touch it, that they controlled their own destiny. The guilds hadn't stopped Warren's group from nearly wiping out the Imperial leaders; whether they knew of the scheme or not, likely thought of it as outside their concern. If the Empire fell down around them, what did it matter? Yet it did, of course. And the extremists would never stop there, would seize control anywhere that didn't resist them and win. The records that Flynn and Yuri had found suggested a deeply rooted organization, far more extensive than they had feared, waiting for their moment, waiting to strike.

Commandant or not, Flynn would stop them. He had been committed before, but the events of the previous night had made it far more personal, about more than just his own goals and the abstract idea of "the good of the Empire." The time for watching passively was over—Flynn and his friends had collected all the information that mere observation would provide, and look what that had gotten them. It only allowed the extremists to gather more strength, which they certainly couldn't afford at this point. It was time to act.

When Flynn knocked on the door to Yuri's room, he wasn't sure whether to be surprised by the silence he received in answer. Calling his name quietly, and then a bit louder, also had no effect. He opened the door a crack, peering into the gloom until his eyes lit on the bed.

It was made up—not neatly, but this was Yuri after all—with blankets turned down beneath the pillow. By all appearances, the man had not touched it since the previous night. The room was uncomfortably warm, thick with the muggy air of Dahngrest's spring. Opposite of the bed, curtains stirred in the open window. Flynn crossed to it, noting distantly the ease in which someone might descend with the loose bricks and shrubbery below. He closed his hand around the flat wood of the windowsill.

"Damn it, Yuri. Please prove me wrong."

Another morning, another meeting. Yet the tone of this one was subtly different, grim and focused, lacking even the darkest humor. Papers passed from hand to hand, generating a discussion of what Flynn and Yuri found could mean, if there was anything that they could use. When Flynn found his eyes drifting toward where Lucas normally sat, next to Judith and across from Raven, he clenched his jaw against the stabbing reminder.

Every minute that passed without Yuri returning to headquarters only added to an entirely different sinking feeling in Flynn's chest. Other than a few off-hand early remarks, no one made reference to it, but it was obvious in the exchanged glances and skirting around his absence that seemed to be an unspoken agreement of those present. All waited, though for what no one was willing to voice. When his name was finally uttered, Flynn was so tightly wound that he nearly jumped in his seat.

"This is the document that Yuri found, yes?" Judith slid the paper, creased where it had been folded, across the table. "What do you think it means?"

Flynn frowned thoughtfully, scanning the words. He hadn't had much of a chance to look at it, after everything that had happened. It described a location, citing it as ideal for storing large quantities of…something. There were also oblique references to the difficulty of escaping such a place, with its thick walls and underground chambers, an implication of prisoners that made Flynn's stomach sour. But it was the final passage that leapt off the page in the most startling fashion. No one would know of this place without intimate knowledge of the Empire's inner workings.

"They mean to storm the armory in Desier. Likely this place is meant to store weapons, explosives. And the unlucky ones who survive the attack." He handed the paper back, more calmly than he felt.

Judith blinked. "You're certain."

"Fairly, yes. The armory isn't public knowledge, meant for war and emergencies, but obviously it isn't beyond their capabilities to root it out. This location they describe, however; I'm not sure where—"

Flynn was interrupted as everyone turned at the sound of the dining room door swinging open. Flushed and wide-eyed, Karol took a shaky breath as all eyes watched him expectantly.

"It's all over town," he said, obviously unsure where to begin. "Guys, where's Yuri?"

No longer simply a sour discomfort, Flynn's stomach churned with dread. He closed his eyes for a moment, wishing fervently for the impossible. At Judith's gentle coaxing, Karol spoke and confirmed what everyone in the room had known since daybreak, but hadn't been willing to own.

"Merle Dar is dead. Murdered." Karol paused, though no one looked particularly shocked by the announcement. "They found him in the library, when someone complained that it hadn't opened yet. Um. H-he was…"

The boy looked shaken, and Flynn wondered if he had actually seen the body. As he watched Judith move to comfort him, asking soft questions while Raven listened with one of those introspective expressions that belied his typical antics, Flynn had a sudden need to be away from there. He ascended the stairs and started toward his room, when a flash of intuition stopped him with his fingers just brushing the handle. Turning in the hall, he strode forward until he reached Yuri's room and flung open the door.

Seated on his bed, Yuri lifted his head as the doorknob struck the wall with a dull thump. He raised a dispassionate eyebrow and then returned to what he had been doing, which seemed to involve rooting around in a bag at his feet.

"What were you thinking?" As questions went, it was completely inadequate, but Flynn didn't know where else to begin. He frowned at the bag, where Yuri was stuffing marginally folded items of clothing. "What are you doing?"

"You already know the answer to the first question, Flynn. You just don't like it." Yuri's voice was flat. He wouldn't look at him. "And I'm packing."

A sense of déjà vu washed over Flynn, but he shook his head, numb dismay quickly being replaced with anger and disappointment.

"If I were still a knight," he said, feeling fingers curl into a fist, "it would be my duty to treat you as a criminal. As a citizen of the Empire, it would still be within my rights to bring you in."

Yuri snorted. "But you won't," he said, rolling a shirt haphazardly and tucking it into a corner of his bag. "If I killed an innocent, maybe. I thought you accepted that we had different ideas about justice."

In Yuri's eyes, Flynn was sure he felt that Merle Dar didn't deserve a trial or even to rot behind bars. It wasn't the first time he had encountered his black and white ideas about justice, by any means. But he had thought—hoped—that his influence as Commandant, combating corruption in the Knights and, to what extent that he could, the Council, would end this.

"You can't just take these things into your own hands."

"Seems to work out alright," said Yuri, accompanied by one of his infuriating shrugs.

"You shouldn't. That isn't how things work. There are consequences."

Yuri let out a breath that was almost a laugh, not quite a sigh. "I know. That's why I'm leaving."

"No."

He looked up then, meeting Flynn's gaze. "No?"

"Did you even get any information out of Merle Dar before you killed him?"

Yuri's mouth twitched and he looked away.

"That's what I thought. What purpose did it serve? Tell me, Yuri. Did it bring Lucas back?"

The next piece of clothing got thrown in the bag, crumpled. The questions went unanswered.

"It wasn't just illegal. It was irresponsible and rash. You can't make decisions like that for all of us. That man could have been the key to bringing down the entire operation. So what was this, Yuri. Vengeance? Did it feel good?"

After a moment, Yuri pushed the bag away, looking back up at him. "I told you. That's why I'm leaving. It doesn't fix anything, I know. But I don't regret it." His eyes flashed darkly, as if back in that moment for an instant.

"You can do what you want, Yuri. But I'm the one that's leaving. If you care about me at all, you will stay here and clean up the mess that you've made."

Yuri went very still, though Flynn knew him well enough to detect deep surprise in his body language.

"Huh. And where are you going?"

"Sorry," said Flynn. "That's a secret. I can't have you involved anymore, Yuri. Honestly, I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea in the first place."

"Well, that's what I was trying to tell you." Yuri had closed off, impossible to read. He smirked, though it lacked much warmth or mischief. "Still want me now?"

Flynn's breath quickened at the subject so lightly broached after several days of avoidance. And despite the gravity of Yuri's actions, a repeat of the very thing that had grieved his friend in the past, he knew that the idiot had only done it because he leapt before looking, because he had cared so deeply for the boy, because every cell of his being had an instinct to get at the root of a problem without examining what it might cost.

It did not absolve him of guilt. Flynn was still angry, wished they had not lost a source of information. He still could not stay. But something flickered in Yuri's eyes, if for only a moment. Something like fear, maybe doubt.

Flynn stepped forward and swept a hand along Yuri's cheek in something like a caress.

"Yes," he said.

Then he turned away and left the room, letting the door close silently. Flynn would have to leave soon— to have the strength to do what was necessary, to turn his anger into action, to put enough distance between them.

A/N: So, it's been about a month since the last chapter, you say? *coughs* Obviously a bunch of circumstances contributed to this, including and not limited to: writing gift fics for my writing journal, bad moods, visiting cousins, lack of inspiration and not wanting to write about death and murder during Christmas. Heh. But I hope you like the new chapter. It's a different story arc in some ways from this point, though rest assured that there will be more Yuri/Flynn interaction, despite their separation at the moment.