Archive of Our Own

When news arrives of the first murder, Will is in the throne room with his father, listening to a farmer complain about his neighbor’s irrigation practices.

Will is a good prince and an excellent leader, but he is not a particularly good actor, so he is absolutely certain that everyone in the room, his father included, knows exactly how bored he is right now. It’s not that Will doesn’t care about his people, because he does. But there’s only so many small grievances a person can listen to without feeling ready to burst, and Will has just about hit his limit.

“Your majesty, the flooding from his drainage system damages my crops, and I’m sure you can see it’s only fair-”

It is right about then that the world turns upside down.

The chamber goes perfectly silent and still when the throne room doors slam open and the captain of the king’s guard, Jason Grace, strides through, a couple of his best soldiers right on his tail. Will scoots himself up so that he’s sitting straight-backed and proper, eyes following Jason as he reaches the base of Apollo’s throne and drops down to one knee. The farmer shuffles himself off to the side, pale.

“Captain Grace,” Apollo says, slowly. “What’s the matter?”

“Your majesty,” Jason says, mouth set into a thin, serious line. “Apologies for the interruption, but there’s been… an incident in the lower village.”

“An incident,” Apollo echoes, propping his face on his hand, elbow resting on the arm of his throne. “Elaborate.”

“A death, sire.”

Will watches the way Jason’s face changes when he says the word death, the way a muscle jumps in his jaw. Like he means it more, somehow, than someone usually would.

“And since when do you inform the king of every death in the lower village?” Apollo asks, face and voice both neatly disinterested.

“It’s because this isn’t a normal death,” Will says, leaning forward in his seat, before Jason can say anything. “Not even a normal murder. What happened, Jason?”

Jason looks up at him for a long moment before saying to Apollo, “I’m sorry, your majesty, but I believe you may want to be alone when you hear this report.”

Apollo lifts one shoulder in a languid shrug. “Very well. Clear the room.”

“Wait, no,” Will protests, as the morning’s plaintiffs begin to file out. “I want to hear. I want to help. Jason-”

Jason winces. “I’m sorry, Prince William, but this situation is… sensitive, to say the least. Please understand.”

“You’re kidding,” Will says, horrified, but there’s nothing he can do - he allows himself to be ushered out of the throne room, and stands there, stock-still, as the heavy doors swing shut behind him with a heavy, final boom.

“I’m going to be king someday, you know,” Will shouts at the closed doors. Jason’s soldiers glance away uncomfortably, Frank Zhang giving him an apologetic wince before leaving him to stand there, alone.

By the time he extracts himself from lessons and goes to talk to Chiron, the news has already begun to spread. As the castle tutor and swordsmaster, Chiron usually gets information first, so Will isn’t surprised when he doesn’t even blink when Will explains what happened that afternoon.

“You think he’s right, don’t you?” Will accuses, hands on his hips, as Chiron wheels himself around the room to pick up the scattered weapons left behind from afternoon training. “You think he was right not to let me stay.”

Chiron looks at him seriously, thoughtfully, before settling on, “I think that this is something that the king must face himself.”

Will, it transpires, had been correct. The body in the lower village is not the result of a normal death or even a normal murder. According to Chiron, it is ruined, with strange, grayish-black bruises spread like shadow over the face and hands of the victim. There’s no apparent cause of death, no wounds or lacerations. There is, however, a mark on the victim’s neck, slender and black: a cross topped with a half-moon opening upwards, cradling a circle.

“That’s… not possible,” Will says, voice shaking a little despite himself. “We’re at peace…. our countries are at peace, who would…?”

Chiron turns the sword in his hands over once. Twice.

“Perhaps,” he says, “there is more to this than meets the eye.”

Hades, is the whisper that spreads through the palace that night. It takes flight, casts a shadow over Apollo’s people.

Death where there should have been life.

A body, marked with the symbol of their neighboring kingdom.

Will does not fall asleep until the sun is edging its way up over the horizon.

The rumors are all over the castle by the time Will wakes up the next day.

Lou Ellen, in the kitchens, tells Will that she heard Hades sent an agent into the country to start picking Apollo’s citizens off one by one. During group training, while Chiron is busy correcting one of the young guards’ crossbow grip, Frank Zhang says nervously that he hears the murder was for a ritual, that the people of Hades’ strange, macabre worship of the dead requires sacrifices now and then.

Even in the meeting of his father’s top councilors, every person seems to have a different theory. The atmosphere around the round table feels unusually grim as they weigh in. Jason Grace calls it an attention-grabbing stunt. Annabeth Chase, head of research and intelligence, speculates that it might be a political move designed to set the two nations even more at odds. The future ambassador to Hades drums his fingers on the table and says that this is nothing more or less than an act of war, his blue eyes directed at Apollo.

Apollo says nothing when Will asks him about it once the room has emptied, simply waves him off distractedly and tells him not to worry.

“Why would Hades do this, though?” Will asks, a little frantically. “The peace treaty’s about to go through. We’re going to send them a permanent ambassador. We’re having a ball in their honor in less than two months!”

“You’re questioning me as to what motive King Hades might have to facilitate death?” Apollo asks wryly. Will scowls.

“We both know that just because they worship death doesn’t mean they go around murdering people all the time. We worship the sun and we don’t go around setting people on fire.”

Apollo frowns.

“This doesn’t make sense and you know it,” Will continues, heated. “Even if this was some… some horrible ritual thing, why would they leave their mark behind? Like they were trying to hold our hands and lead us right to them? Something doesn’t add up.”

“William.”

“And with all the business with Kronos up along the northern borders - I’m sure the last thing Hades wants would be to make an enemy out of us, as well-”

“William.” Apollo drops a hand on the table, sharp enough to startle Will into silence. “Thank you for offering your opinion, but I’ve asked you not to worry about this matter. Captain Grace and his team will deal with it quite competently, I’m sure.”

“Someone died yesterday,” Will says, angrily. “One day, I’m going to be responsible for our people. If this happens again, I need to be ready. You can’t just cut me out of this discussion.”

Apollo sighs and goes back to his paperwork. “Yes, William. Someday, you are going to be responsible for our people. But today, I am.”

News of the second murder comes a week after the first, again in the middle of the civilians’ weekly audience with the king. Again, Will is ushered out of the room; again, he begs his father to reconsider; and again, he is forced to get his information for Chiron afterwards, like a commoner looking for gossip.

The crime is exactly the same. Identical. The body is found with no signs of foul play, unmarked except for shadow-like smudges on the face and hands and a delicate tattoo on their neck of the symbol of the house of Hades. There are no clues on the scene that could lead to the killer, no indication of what the murder weapon might have been.

Another dead end, in other words.

Another person, dead.

Will feels like a child, stupid and useless and sheltered.

The third murder happens a week after that, this time in the middle town, with the same circumstances and the same modus operandi, and by now even Apollo seems shaken by it. When Will asks to stay in the throne room, Apollo snaps at him. Will flinches back, and Jason looks uncomfortable, staring down at his feet.

“Father,” Will begins, quietly.

“Get out, William,” Apollo says, tired. “Don’t make me ask again.”

Will storms out, fuming, humiliated, his emotions burning a searing hole inside his chest. His feet take him to the training grounds automatically, hoping Chiron can give him something - information, peace of mind, a reminder that he isn’t completely useless.

“Chiron,” Will calls, storming into the courtyard, but Chiron isn’t there. Instead, a slight-shouldered boy with bronze skin and a mop of dark hair looks up from where he’s sharpening a sword at Chiron’s desk.

“He’s out,” the boy says, his voice flat and bored. He has a funny kind of accent, one Will vaguely recognizes but can’t seem to put his finger on. “Can I help you?”

“You can fetch me Chiron,” Will says, placing his hands on his hips. “I need to speak with him. It’s a matter of great urgency.”

“He’s out,” the boy repeats, slowly, like Will’s a five year old and he’s explaining something dreadfully complicated. “You can come back later.”

Something crimson-bright sparks in Will’s veins, the feeling made shaper and harsher by the frustration and helplessness left over from being tossed out by his father. He opens and closes his fists, several times, while the boy looks at him as if to ask, What are you still doing here?

“You don’t understand. I need to speak with him now,” Will says finally, doing his best impression of his father’s Governing Voice.

The boy looks spectacularly unimpressed. “Is the castle burning down?”

“No.”

“Are you dying actively and Chiron is the only one with the cure?”

“No, I’m not, but-”

“Then it sounds like it can probably wait.” The boy goes back to sharpening the sword, hair falling into his eyes.

“Who are you?” Will demands, his voice pitched higher than usual.

“Chiron’s new apprentice. Have a lovely afternoon.”

Will stares at him for a moment, baffled, before striding forward and snagging the sword out of his hands. The boy looks at his own empty palms, looks at the sword in Will’s hands, and looks at the sky like he’s asking the gods to give him strength before he finally looks Will in the eyes.

“Are you always this obnoxious?” he asks, the flatness in his voice wavering just a little to reveal an undercurrent of annoyance.

Will’s eyes fly wide. “Are you always this insubordinate?”

“Insubordinate,” the boy repeats, drawing the word out long. “And exactly why, pray tell, should I be subordinate to you?”

Will sputters furiously, searching desperately for something to say that won’t make him sound horribly like his father. He is saved by Chiron’s voice behind him.

“Your highness,” he says, voice saturated just a little with his I’m disappointed in you tone. “The king is looking for you.”

The boy behind him makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like, What?

“The king refuses to tell me anything,” Will says, whipping around to face Chiron as he wheels across the courtyard to join them, taking care to maneuver his way around the training dummies and discarded weapons. “This is the third death in three weeks, and he makes it sound like they’ve gone on holiday or something.”

“I can understand your frustration,” Chiron says. “But this isn’t a matter to be taken lightly, as you and I both know.”

“I’m not a child to be sheltered and babied.”

“True. But you’re not king yet, either.” Chiron takes one look at his expression and sighs. “I’ll speak to your father. Don’t do anything rash in the meantime.” and then he’s leaving, and Will still doesn’t have any answers, and he has to fight the urge to curl up into a ball on the spot and sob.

Instead, he turns to look at the boy, who’s gone very still, his eyebrows scrunched together in the middle.

“Your highness,” the boy says, deadpan.

Will points at himself. “I’m the crown prince,” he says, trying not to sound smug. “Hence the subordination.”

“Hm,” the boy answers, but his expression is morphing slowly from studious disinterest into mortification, and Will lets himself grin.

The next week passes without incident. Even though Will is in and out of Chiron’s training grounds basically every day for his morning workout, he doesn’t see the strange, dark-haired boy again until the weekend’s group training. Not that he’s looking for him; it’s just a novelty to have a new face in the palace, especially if that face happens to belong to someone who calls the crown prince obnoxious.

Okay, so maybe Will is looking for him a little bit.

Group training goes by quickly in general, much more Will’s element than the bureaucratic slog of his afternoons and evenings. What Will doesn’t much care for is the group aspect, because while Chiron’s never given him special treatment because he’s the prince, other people do have a tendency to.

“Wow, Prince William, that one move with your wrist was amazing, could you show me how you did that?”

“Thank you for doing the honor of sparring with me, your highness, it’s a real help for me.”

“Seriously, Prince William, you must be the best sword fighter this country’s seen in at least a century-”

The young soldier speaking - Will doesn’t remember his name and his stomach twists with creeping guilt over it - is interrupted by a soft laugh behind him. Will turns around to see the boy, Chiron’s new assistant, standing with his back against the wall. His face is turned away, but Will can see that he’s trying to battle back a laugh.

“Something funny?” Will asks, voice light. “You think you can do better?”

The boy turns his face slowly to look Will in the eyes. He’s fine-featured, delicately built. More like a dancer than a fighter.

“I know I can,” he says.

The other soldiers in the training grounds laugh, some nervously and some genuine, uproarious. A couple of the more veteran guardsmen stay silent - Percy Jackson, Leo Valdez, Piper McClain. Will makes a mental note to comment on that later; it’s never a good idea to underestimate an opponent, especially one that you don’t know.

Will sizes the boy up. He’s slight-shouldered, shorter than Will by several inches, but the way he holds himself - languid and relaxed yet somehow alert at the same time, like he’s waiting in stasis - suggests confidence. Dangerousness.

Will tosses him a sword and he catches it neatly.

“Prove it,” Will says, and the boy unfolds himself from the wall. They look at each other for a long moment; the boy’s eyes are wide and brown, rimmed with feathered, midnight-black eyelashes, speckled with something that glints in the sunlight like gold. He’s pretty, Will thinks, inanely. And then the boy is moving, fast enough that Will actually loses sight of him for a moment, and Will stops thinking altogether.

The boy’s fighting style is fast and brutal, his sword colliding with Will’s hard enough to send shockwaves up Will’s arms. Will stumbles backwards, dropping into a defensive stance immediately, and it takes a couple close calls and quick parries before they’re back on equal ground. They orbit around each other like stars, close and then far again, twisting like a dance, and for a long time Will’s mind is empty.

Their swords throw sparks when they come together - apart then together, apart then together - Will’s body responding automatically to the other boy’s, to his footwork and his movements and the slight rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathes.

It really is a bit like dancing, Will thinks. He’s never fought like this before.

It is minutes, or maybe hours, before their dance is done. Will must be losing steam, because the boy manages to fool him with a quick, graceless feint. And then Will’s sword is out of his hands, the tip of the boy’s blade pressed ever-so-gently against the place directly above Will’s heart, the boy’s eyes blown wide and his shoulders heaving.

Will lifts his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“You win,” he pants. And then, “You’re really good.”

The boy lowers his sword. He looks at Will for another long moment before lowering his gaze, too. 

“I know I am,” he says. And then he braces his shoulders and looks Will dead in the eyes with a kind of intensity that Will doesn’t have a name for, the kind that settles warm in his chest. “You are, too.”

The rest of the courtyard watches in breathless silence as the boy flips the sword in his hand and offers it to Will, hilt-first. Their fingers bump when Will takes it from him, and Will stays motionless until he starts to walk away, head down.

“Wait,” Will says, a little too loud, a little too desperate, and the boy turns.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

The boy blinks. “Nico,” he says, eyebrows lifted, like he’s surprised. And when Will echoes the name and smiles, bright and earnest, Nico frowns down at his feet.

“I’m Will, it’s nice to meet you!” Will shouts after him, and he could swear he sees the back of his neck flush red.

Will stares after him as he pushes his way through the stunned-silent crowd and disappears, feeling a little bit like he’d been clocked over the head with a frying pan rather than beaten in a sword fighting contest.

Nico and Will fall into competition naturally, easily, like they have been waiting for each other their entire lives.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Will learns that he is better than Nico at archery and at any form of hand-to-hand that does not involve a sword. Nico is faster than him, though, and more agile. He is prone to appearing and disappearing like shadow - one moment there, gone the next. He has better stamina and swordsmanship than Will’s ever seen in his life.

Nico does not call Will your highness. He doesn’t bow when he sees Will, or make it a point to avert his eyes, or pull his punches when they’re fighting. When they’re not bickering, he is quiet around Will, but Will thinks it is a natural kind of quiet, the kind that you’re born into. The kind of quiet that feels like midnight in summertime or that blue-gray moment just before the sun breaks over the horizon at dawn.

Two weeks pass, then three. Chiron convinces Apollo to at least let Will talk to Jason about the details of the attacks on civilians, but no new leads turn up, and no new people turn up dead.

Annabeth pushes for caution. The future ambassador to Hades suggests that the three attacks may have been preemptive - something to feel out Apollo’s defense capabilities, something to prepare for a full-scale attack. Apollo says nothing and lets time tick away.

Eventually, Will begins to believe things are back to normal.

And then he is sitting in the throne room, listening to a lady complain about over-hunting in the woods down by the middle town, when Jason Grace bursts through the doors again, chest heaving and expression grim.

Will’s on his feet before Jason can say a word.

“Where?” Will asks.

“High city this time,” Jason says.

On the throne, Apollo swears under his breath.

Later that evening, after training is over and the courtyard is slowly emptying, Will heads over to where Nico is cleaning his sword, alone in a corner. Nico glances over at him and scoots slightly to the side, a silent invitation, so Will sits down next to him and finishes wrapping his sword-blistered hands with bandages. It isn’t until he’s done that he sets his hands in his lap and says, “You’ve heard about the… murders. The ones the king has been trying to solve.”

Nico’s expression doesn’t change, but Will’s sitting close enough to him that he can feel the tension in Nico’s shoulders.

“Yes,” Nico says, like a question.

Will twists the roll of bandages in his hands, trying to find words for the half-formed thoughts he’s got tumbling around in his mind.

“There’s been another one,” he settles on. “This morning. In the high city. I guess she was… the daughter of a nobleman, or something like that.”

Nico goes still. Will sees the flash of pain cross his face though, a horrible sort of grief, before he can school his expression back to neutrality.

“They’re moving closer to the palace,” Nico mutters. “Like they’re challenging you.”

Will takes a long breath before he goes on.

“Your accent. I couldn’t place it at first, but I figured it out, I think. You’re from Hades, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Nico says. It is not a question this time.

Will taps his fingers against the roll of gauze before looking up, meeting Nico’s eyes. There really are flecks of gold in them. Flecks of gold in the bronze-olive tone of his skin, too. They’re sitting close enough that Will can smell the sweat on him, can see the barely-there smattering of freckles across his nose.

“Be careful, please,” Will mumbles, and he watches as the caution in Nico’s expression collapses into surprise.

“I will,” he says. And then, “I think I probably should be the one telling you that, though.”

To keep his mind off the murders, Will throws himself bodily into training. When he’s not actively working with his father on matters of state or with Annabeth on his studies, he spends most of his time with Chiron - and, by extension, with Nico.

He’s probably overtired. Stressed, frantic, more than a little distracted. Will can see the others starting to look at him with care, like they’re afraid he’s going to shatter and scatter at any moment.

One afternoon at the end of training, when one of the senior guardsmen tells Will to get some rest with a soft expression of concern on his face, Will almost hauls off and punches the wall. He’s sitting in the corner, seething, when Nico walks over and settles beside him, tucking his knees up to his chest and shooting Will a sideways glance.

“You look upset.”

“I am upset,” Will growls, and then immediately feels horrible. He groans and buries his face in his hands. “Sorry. It’s so… I don’t know. Infuriating. I don’t like that they look at me like I’m fragile.”

Nico hums, soft in his throat. “They don’t think you’re fragile.”

“I feel like I am, though,” he says, savagely, beating dirt off the knees of his sparring pants with maybe a little too much violence.

“They’re worried about you,” Nico says, tilting his head to look at Will with those dark, dark eyes. “You don’t like being worried over?”

“I don’t like feeling helpless,” Will mutters.

Nico lifts an eyebrow. “You’re a lot of things, Will Solace,” he says, “but helpless isn’t one of them.”

Will lifts his head out of his hands, shocked, but Nico’s already on his feet and walking away. Will watches as he grabs two swords and heads back over to Will, setting one of the swords at Will’s feet.

“You’re frustrated,” Nico says. “You want to stop thinking. So let’s stop thinking.”

Will grabs the sword and shoots to his feet.

They’re in motion again, both of them even better than they were a month ago - Nico always seems to make him better, Will thinks, with something like clarity - but it doesn’t last long. Even here, with Nico, Will is still overtired, stressed, frantic, distracted. Which is why, when Nico darts forward with a particularly nasty slice, Will isn’t quite fast enough to dodge it cleanly and he ends up twisting too hard on his leg.

He feels his ankle give out beneath him and stumbles, going down hard. He hears Nico gasp his name, above him, but the word goes nauseatingly blurry for a moment, and it’s a good few seconds before he’s able to blink away the stars bursting in his vision.

There’re hands on his shoulders, on the back of his head, and he lets himself be eased into a sitting position. Will blinks again, shakes his head to clear it, and watches as Nico gently brushes the hair out of Will’s face before reaching down to push his pant leg up. His fingers burn flame-hot on Will’s ankle as he gently presses down, pushes on Will’s foot gently to determine his range of motion.

“Just a sprain,” Nico mutters. “One second.”

Will stays motionless as Nico jogs over to rummage through Chiron’s desk, retrieving a roll of bandages and then jogging back. He kneels down and carefully takes Will’s foot in his hands again, his fingers immeasurably gentle against Will’s skin as he wraps his ankle.

“Does this hurt?” he asks, voice lower than normal.

Yes, Will wants to say, because it does, gods it does, his chest feels like it’s collapsing under the weight of Nico’s fingers against his skin. He is combusting, every inch of him a oil spill waiting to be set alight.

“Ow,” is what he mumbles, instead.

Nico’s mouth quirks up into the tiniest suggestion of a smile Will’s ever seen.

He works in silence for awhile, careful not to jar Will’s hurt foot as he sets it. Will watches him work, his emotions a tangle of intertwining threads in his chest, and he can’t seem to pull apart any of the mess of what he’s feeling, can’t tell what belongs to the murders and what belongs to his father and what belongs only, only to Nico.

“Do you hate me?” Will blurts, and immediately wants to kick himself.

“Did you hit your head when you fell?” Nico answers, looking alarmed.

Will covers his face with a hand again, presses his eyes shut tight. “No! No, I didn’t. I just… I never wanted to be your rival, you know.”

(The safest thing he could’ve said, in this situation. The least likely part of him to catch on fire.)

Nico lifts an eyebrow, something like amusement twisting at his lips. “No?”

“No. You… just stick with me, for some reason. All this time, you’ve stuck. Under my skin.” Will flinches at the way it sounds coming out of his mouth, silly and inelegant. “I don’t know why.”

Nico’s hands go still on Will’s ankle for a moment before he laughs quietly and goes back to work. “Is this because I called you obnoxious?”

Will gives a weak, breathy chuckle. “Maybe. A bit of that, yeah. Among other things.”

“Hm. Should I branch out, then? Get creative? I’ve got lots of insults, you know. You’re a dickbag, your highness. A certified fucknut.”

Will bursts into laughter; once he starts, he can’t seem to stop, giggling until breathing is becoming difficult and the laughter is turning into snorts. Ugly laughing, stupid laughing. The most un-princely laugh it would be possible to produce.

Nico stares at him for a moment, startled, before bursting into laughter, too.

Nico’s silences feel slightly different, after that afternoon. Warmer, somehow - less like the predawn gray and more like sunrise.

He says Will’s name more often, too.

His laughter come quicker, more easily.

He touches Will more often, corrects his stance with a gentle hand on his shoulders. He lets Will touch him.

Sometimes, when Will turns to look at him, Nico is already looking back.

Stars in orbit.

Friends?

Will doesn’t think he knows.

Despite everything, Apollo makes the decision to go forward with the dinner and ball in honor of the peace treaty with Hades. The council dissolves into chaos when he makes the announcement; some, like the future ambassador, say the decision seems wise; others, like Jason, seem less sure.

The dignitaries from Hades arrive amidst the most coolly contentious atmosphere Will’s ever experienced in the palace. Hades sends some of his top men, though, and they are perfectly courteous and kind. They bow the precisely correct amount when they greet Will. They seem genuine and smart and invested in having this peace treaty succeed.

Will is struck again by how not-right something about all this is. How completely illogical it would be for Hades to be behind the attacks. How important it would be for Hades to gain another ally as a buffer against the tensions with Kronos to the east.

How something about all of this doesn’t feel true.

(He mentions it to Nico, once, the half-formed feeling of wrongness he can’t seem to shake. Nico looks at him for a long time with something Will doesn’t recognize on his face before saying, “Trust your instincts.”)

The night of the event, Will allows himself to be dressed in his nicest black trousers, a high-collared silk black shirt, and an intricately glittering jacket that glows with dull jewel tones under the lights. They smudge orange-gold makeup around his eyes, ruffle product into his hair until it’s sitting just-mess-enough on his head, and Will allows himself to be ushered into the ballroom with fanfare befitting a prince.

Apollo is not the type to hold back, and the party is as opulent and glittering-gold as Will expected it to be. A traditional Apollonian band is setting up on an enormous stage, every kind of food imaginable lining a table along the far wall, an iridescent dance floor in the center of it all.

Will makes his rounds through the party, kissing hands, kissing cheeks, making small talk. A few familiar faces cross his path - Jason, Frank, Frank’s battle-partner and betrothed Hazel Levesque. He catches sight of the ambassador to Hades, his blond hair slicked down sharply, exposing the jagged scar on one of his cheeks. He’s talking to Annabeth in the corner, their heads tipped together.

It isn’t much longer before he catches sight of Nico.

Nico is across the room, speaking to a beautiful woman with similar coloring to her skin and hair and a thick, shining braid twisted up on top of her head. He is talking quietly, his face serious, and for a moment, Will goes still. The room fades away. There is only this, only Nico, his skin warm brown under the yellow lights, in a twilight-blue jacket and high-waisted paints, makeup smudged around his eyes, the slightest hint of color smudged on his mouth.

He and the woman are arguing, maybe. Will sees Nico step away from her, sees the woman say something urgent and low. And then Nico is storming out of the ballroom, into the gardens, and Will is following automatically, drawn behind him like a tide out to sea.

Outside, between the flowers and the trees, Nico is standing with his hands fisted at his sides and his face tilted up towards the moon. Will approaches him slow and careful.

“Nico?” he says.

“Will,” Nico answers, without turning around.

“You okay?” Will asks, and he steps up next to him. Nico is shaking, just a little bit, something raw and unrecognizable on his face.

“I’m okay,” Nico confirms. And then he chews on his lip, closes his eyes. “Just… I’d forgotten what I’m here for. Someone just reminded me.”

“What are you here for?” Will asks, and Nico frowns up at the moon.

“What are any of us here for?” he says, scuffing at the ground with his shoe. “Answers.”

Inside, the band begins to play. It’s a familiar song, one Will grew up with - a tribute to the sun, to the harvest. To the moon.

“You look really nice, you know,” Will says, and Nico rolls his eyes.

“Flattery, Will?”

“Honesty,” Will corrects.

Before he can think better of it, Will turns to face Nico and drops into a bow.

“Dance with me?” he says, like a plea.

Nico stares.

“Will,” he starts, voice a little sharp, but Will just reaches forward. Takes his hand.

Presses the barest hint of a kiss to the knuckles.

“Please,” Will breathes, and Nico swears quietly under his breath before nodding.

They don’t dance properly, not the way Will’s tutors taught him to. Instead, they revolve slowly on the spot, Nico’s palm warm against Will’s, his hand burning on Will’s back. The music lifts up like birdsong, like starlight, and Will guides them through the steps of a simple waltz, Nico’s face close enough to his own that their cheeks keep brushing, just slightly.

“Nico,” Will begins, but whatever he wanted to say dies in his throat when Nico turns to look at him, and his nose bumps Will’s jawline. Will can see every detail of his face, every tiny, pale scar on his skin, every minute movement of his lips. He can feel Nico breathing, feel it against his chest and under his hands and in every soft exhalation against his face.

“You are miraculous,” Will murmurs, and Nico’s expression turns startled and raw before he reaches up to grab the back of Will’s neck and tug him down.

Will feels the earth turn when Nico kisses him.

The dance is forgotten as Will gives a startled sigh and then kisses back.

Nico’s mouth opens against Will’s, breathlessly soft, quiet like midnight, blue like the dawn. There is something blooming inside Will’s chest, something hungry and golden and wanting. Something he doesn’t have a name for.

He cups Nico’s face in his hands and kisses him, like flying, like drowning.

Will takes Nico’s hand and leads him away from the party, away from the lights, under the moonlight. He pushes the high collar of Nico’s jacket aside, presses his mouth to the pulse drumming in Nico’s throat. Breathes.

Nico says his name. Once.

It sounds like a prayer.

It is hours - minutesdaysyears - before they untangle themselves, Nico’s fingers lingering on Will’s skin, Will’s lips lingering on Nico’s mouth.

Midnight-quiet.

Dawn-blue.

They’re laughing a little, leading each other by the hand back towards the party, when they find the fifth body.

Nico freezes when he sees the man on the ground. Will pushes himself between them automatically, hand flying towards his belt for a sword he knows he’s not carrying, but it’s pointless, pointless, because this man is clearly already dead. Will recognizes him. A royal mechanic, son of one of the most highly-respected families in the kingdom. Charles Beckendorf.

“Don’t look,” he begins to say, but Nico is already pushing past him and crouching next to the body, reaching out to guide Backendorf’s eyes shut gently. He whispers something with quiet cadence - a prayer, maybe, to the god of death. Then Will watches, unable to move, as Nico carefully examines the body’s face, his hands, the tell-tale mark on his neck.

“It’s time,” he says, with something like anger, and Will blinks.

“What?”

“That’s what’s happening to them. Their… their time is being stolen from them. Their years of life. The shadows on their faces, the symbol on the neck… Someone was murdering people intentionally and trying to frame Hades for it. Someone with the gift of time.”

Will watches in silence. Nico straightens up.

“I understand now,” he says, and Will’s eyebrows crease together.

“Nico?”

“I have to tell you something,” Nico announces, low and urgent, turning to face Will with the same intensity he’s always looked at him with. Like every time their eyes meet, it’s a matter of life and death. “I’m not just from Hades, Will. I am Hades. I’m his son.”

His son.

His son.

Nico is a prince.

Nico is the prince of Hades.

Will stares, mouth open.

Nico lifts his chin, his expression a mix of painfully sad and defiant.

“After we got news of the murders, we knew something wasn’t right - my people respect and revere the dead, but we do not take life when Death hasn’t decided to claim it. It’s heresy. My father sent me here to… to figure out what’s going on. To try and stop it.”

Will’s throat feels impossibly dry. “You - you’re-”

“Will,” Nico steps forward, reaches out like he wants to take Will’s hand. Stops. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t… when I met you, I wanted to…” Nico goes quiet, presses his eyes shut. “We don’t have much time, Will. I know who the killer is now. I saw him tonight. I know how to end this.”

Nico.

Chiron’s apprentice.

A boy.

His lover?

A prince.

“He’s working his way up the ladder,” Nico says, feverish. “First the lower village, then middle town, then high city. Now this. He’s trying to end the alliance trying to start a war.”

And then he does lean forward, does take Will’s hand.

“Will,” he says, fiercely, “who is higher-ranked than a noble? Whose death would force Apollo to go to war?”

And, oh.

Oh.

The pieces are beginning to fall into place.

“Please,” Nico says.

And Will nods. “Okay,” he says, and his voice cracks. “Okay. Let’s end this.”

When they sweep back into the party, Will feels eyes fix on them. Nico strides forward, confident and proud, and Will can’t help but wonder how on earth he didn’t see it, all this time - how on earth he could’ve ever thought that this strange, impossible boy was anything less than destined to be king.

Will looks around nervously as Nico leads the way through the crowd. He catches Annabeth’s eye, the blond, scarred ambassador no longer beside her, and shrugs rather desperately when she gives him a bemused look.

Nico leads them straight to the side of the woman he’d argued with earlier. She looks alarmed when Will steps up beside him, lifting an eyebrow in Nico’s direction.

“I take it, then, that when I warned you discretion was in order you took that to mean ‘tell him everything,’” she says, in the same lilting accent and dry tone that Nico speaks with.

“Reyna, I need a favor,” Nico says. “We know who the killer is.”

“That’s no favor, then,” Reyna says, her eyes flashing. “That’s a duty.”

“Good,” Nico says, fierce. “Because I know who he’s going after next.”

It isn’t long before Nico is proven right.

That night, when Luke Castellan, former future ambassador to Hades, enters Will’s bedchambers, he finds half the royal guard there in Will’s place. He’s holding a strange sword in his hands, ugly, bronze on one side and steel on the other. It’s marked on the hilt with a sickle and scythe.

“You’re an agent of Kronos,” Will says.

“You’re all fools,” Luke answers, furious, before they clap him in irons and lead him out of Will’s rooms and out of the castle.

A crowd gathers to watch the palace guards cart Luke off. Next to Will, Nico greets the shocked dignitaries from Hades, who drop into low bows and refuse to meet his eyes.

“Your highness, this must’ve been such a difficult ordeal for you,” one of them says.

Nico says, with something like a smile on his face, “Actually, it was kind of fun.”

Apollo is unsurprisingly indignant to find out that the prince of a rival country had been living in his palace for weeks, undetected. Reyna introduces herself as one of Hades lieutenants and explains the situation with impressive calm, and doesn’t even flinch when Apollo demands Nico stay on in the castle until they can be sure the killings have stopped. 

Because of the chaos, and because of almost being a victim of a crazed serial killer, Apollo orders that he stay within the sight of a guard at all times. It is days before he’s finally able to dodge his father and Annabeth for long enough to go to Chiron’s. The courtyard is empty when he arrives, though, no sign of Chiron or Nico.

Will deflates a little and walks over to sit in the corner. He closes his eyes, puts his head down in his arms. Remembers.

(Swords clashing, Nico laughing, a mouth pressed warm and soft against his own.)

“Will,” a voice says, above him.

Will’s head flies up. Nico offers him a lopsided smile and holds out a sword, hilt-first.

Will takes it from him and gets to his feet, spinning it once in his hand before attacking.

When they have fought to a draw, both of them too sore to raise a sword any longer, they collapse next to each other on the ground. Nico’s breathing hard, sweat dampening the hair on his forehead, but he looks lighter, Will thinks. Like he’d been carrying something on his back for so long that he’d forgotten what it felt like to live without the weight.

“Chiron knew?” Will finally asks, speaking for the first time since he gave Annabeth the slip.

Nico’s mouth quirks up into a tiny smile. “Chiron knows everything,” he sings, and Will huffs out a laugh.

“I should’ve know,” he says. “When you told me your name. Nico. I should’ve known you were Nico di Angelo. I was stupid.”

“Why would you have known, though?” Nico shrugs. “I was Chiron’s assistant. Insubordinate. I was nothing.”

“You were everything,” Will says, earnestly, and Nico goes still.

You still are.

“I’m sorry,” Nico says. “For hiding this from you.”

“Mmm. Seeing as how you saved my life and all, I think I’ll be able to find it in my heart to forgive you.” Will looks at him, at the curve of his mouth, the shape of his eyes, the lines of his face. “It does make things easier, actually.”

Nico blinks. “How so?”

And Will reaches out. Grabs Nico’s hand and twines their fingers together, slow. “It’ll be a lot easier to explain to my dad that I’m in love with a prince rather than my swordsmaster’s assistant. Saves me a couple painful conversations.”

Nico looks confused for a second, and then his eyes go round and wide.

“Oh,” he says, wonderingly.

Will laughs. “Oh,” he teases, and then he leans forward and topples them both over, swinging himself over so that he’s pressing Nico against the ground.

“How forward,” Nico says, flat. “Aren’t you supposed to court me first, your highness?”

“I’ve been working on it,” Will says, and Nico smiles.

When Will’s lips catch Nico’s, it tastes like sweat and that morning’s tea and maybe just a little bit like moonlight.