Chapter Text
He woke in the middle of the night to an empty tent.
The fear that flooded him was automatic, sparking before he could even fully register what was wrong. He sat up so fast his head hit the top of the tent, breathing in, and then coughing on the breath he meant to call out on as his chest ached -
"I'm out here," Nadine's voice came from just outside.
As his breath settled, he could see - her shadow, just a barely-visible silhouette on the outside of the tent. After the chaos of the moon-and-sun battle, the plain moonlight was barely filtering through the trees, leaving a heavy darkness on the campsite. By the time they'd retired to their tents at the first sign of dusk, he'd had no desire to defy Terrence by wandering around outside.
It was a trepidation so strong that he almost didn't go out. Nadine did this nearly every night - sit alone, silent, away from him.
He hated it. He hated how it felt like when she'd been slipping away, years before - or worse, how it had felt when she'd been standing in that cave, less than a shadow, barely recognizable. It was a sick dread swirling in his stomach.
He tried, at least, to hate it where she couldn't see.
They sat, separated by the tent walls, for a long moment. He stared at the shape of her. He stared at the other shadows that crept on the walls of the tent, things that didn't have a natural form, things that moved when the wind didn't. Images of the swirling, shadowed darkness swallowing him flashed in front of his eyes.
He tightened his fists at the flash of fear.
It was better to know.
He opened the flap of the tent.
Nadine hadn't gone far. Her back was pressed to the tent fabric, eyes trained on the darkness - barely flicking over to Nikolay when he emerged. He followed her gaze, but the creeping shadows didn't resolve into anything. Shapes that might have been animals and might have been something worse crept just beyond the line of trees. "You shouldn't be out here," Nadine said softly.
"You are," Nikolay pointed out. He settled next to her, their arms pressing together. Her skin was cool to his touch, always. More so now than before. Probably a modified blood circulation, as she didn't have -
His chest stuttered. His own heart ached.
"The shadows know me," Nadine said, "and I know them. I'm not in danger out here."
Nikolay blew out a breath. "Maybe - maybe not from them, but from the corruption itself, if you went out into the forest again it probably would - "
"I'm not leaving, Nikolay," Nadine said, and it didn't have the note of fond exasperation in it that it would have ten years ago, but it still sounded so much like her that something in his chest loosened.
She was here, and if not intact - if not intact, then at least some part of her remained. Some large part. Her mind. Her soul. The way she saw him in a way he could not see himself. Enough of her was here with him, and they'd figure out the rest.
He watched the shadows and moonlight with her until she spoke again. "I was afraid, today."
Her voice didn't shake but he heard the strain in it. He looked at her. She looked at the shadows. He wanted to ask, Of the dragon? Of the basilisk? Of being trapped again? but he had a feeling he knew. Was afraid that he knew. (Jagged crystal edges ripping up from the ground through the trees with a roar, a broken thing between him and death.)
He didn't think he had the courage to speak, but she had somehow found it, and so he pulled harder. His voice was barely audible. "Of what?"
"Losing you." Her voice did shake, this time. He wanted to put an arm around her but was afraid of what he would do if she shook it off. "I didn't know if I still would be."
That hurt. She knew that hurt. She said it because it hurt.
Between them, her hand found his, and all the courage he had was channeled into not letting go.
He knew that he wanted to say, I'm sorry. He knew, too, that she'd hate that. It was both not enough and too much. He'd gone up there to help Marsh, knowing the risks. He'd known his chances were low, but Nadine was stone and Marsh had tumbled, bloody, from the peaks and he could not just stand there, he could not -
He'd do it again, knowing it scared her, the same way that she left his side every night and watched shadows, knowing they scared him. He'd bring her back again, knowing all that would be left of her love for him would be the fear of losing it. If these were the consequences, he would bear them, and hope that he hadn't left her with a burden too heavy to carry.
She held tighter, and he didn't know why she did it, anymore. Practicality. Some lingering sentimentality, harbored more in habit than the affection she could no longer physically feel.
He didn't know, but he swallowed his urge to ask and just squeezed back. For tonight, he would let this be enough.
"Come back inside," he said, finally, and - greatest miracle of a day filled with gods and death and dragons -
She did.