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Yusuf closed his eyes and tried to block out all the horrible sounds of this prison. He was underground, under stone and earth, caged by iron, surrounded by the damned and the dying. After decades of dying, he was finally in a grave.
No one was coming for him. His family all thought he was dead, most of the ones that had known him had passed anyway. In the first few months, he had daydreams of Nicolo saving him. They were fantasies born from his one-sided infatuation. Yes, they had been traveling together, searching for the other immortals in their dreams, but there had been nothing more—barely even trust. They had killed each other too many times for that.
Nicolo had been determined to learn Arabic and Yusuf wondered now if that was one of the reasons he was traveling with him, to make him teach him the language. But that didn’t seem fair. Despite being his former enemy and a reformed invader, Nicolo had been a good partner. They usually took turns sleeping, so that one was always awake to keep watch. It had been difficult the first weeks, when no amount of reasoning could convince their bodies to trust the other. Nicolo slept on his side with a knife in hand. Yusuf had thought it was just because he didn’t trust him but even when the months wore on into years and that wasn’t the case, that was still how he slept. Or maybe he’d never trusted Yusuf? No, that wasn’t right. That was just time alone in this place wearing down his mind. In fact, more often than not, Nicolo had taken the first watch and then allowed Yusuf to sleep longer than they planned, giving himself fewer hours. Had he meant to do that?
He groaned and opened his eyes, staring up at the damp stone ceiling of his little cell. He didn’t need anyone to watch his back while he slept here. He supposed that was something. Where was Nicolo sleeping now? Why did he care? He had probably found the other immortals. How long had Yusuf been here now? Was it a year yet? Sometimes he thought he’d suffocate, the air so thin and stale. Once or twice now he had been sure he’d died in his sleep, from starvation or just exhaustion, and woke with a horrible start, gasping for another lungful of that awful air.
No one was coming.
He closed his eyes again. Trying to find that calm still place inside himself.
He did not like that that place always had thoughts of Nicolo circling it. Had they been friends? Or was his mind playing tricks and making things up? Nicolo had never said anything to suggest he cared for Yusuf more than any other human he wasn’t bent on killing that day. But he had made a habit of handing Yusuf food those last years, even before feeding himself. He would always offered Yusuf the water first too. No. He was probably just hoping to see if it was poisoned. Yusuf was twisting his own memories now and for what? Why did it matter if they had been friends now? Nicolo was out in the world and he was in here, forever.
Forever.
What if it was forever?
What if no one noticed that he hadn’t aged? What if no one kept track or stayed at their post in this hole long enough to realize? What if he was just here, dying and quietly waiting for nothing forever? All he had then were his dreams—glimpses of the others out in the world. That was the only time he ever saw the sun or stars now.
Yusuf must have fallen asleep again because he woke to a rise of clatter in the dark halls outside his bars. He sat up, slow with exhaustion. His body felt too heavy to bare. Someone was coming up the hallway and it was making all the newer inmate scream and shout, the ones with energy left to do so. He almost understood when he saw the man with the guard. He wore a deep hood and carried a long sword. He might look like death to others. They stopped, the guard holding up a lantern near the doors, searching for someone—for him. But Nicolo had already turned toward his door before the guard. “This one. Open it,” he ordered in the Arabic Yusuf had taught him.
The guard hurried, as though frightened and Yusuf wondered if Nicolo had managed to threaten his way in. The door opened with a horrible creak and Yusuf dragged himself to his feet. He would never have to test his legs to see if he could still walk though, because Nicolo stepped in and ducked under his arm to bear his weight. It couldn’t be much. His clothes were hanging on his bones. “There you are,” Nicolo said pleasantly, leading the way down the halls and ignoring the way the guards they passed stared at him like a ghost or how the inmates shouted. “You couldn’t have picked a less solid prison to occupy? Perhaps something wood next time so I can burn it down and just pick you out of the ashes?”
Yusuf smiled and the effort of it almost lost him consciousness. He was pretty sure this was an elaborate hallucination. He had no intention of ruining it though. He’d rather indulge the fantasy of escape. “I will endeavor to make it easier on you next time.”
Nicolo laughed low.
Yusuf did pass out at some point because when he opened his eyes again, he was on a horse with Nicolo riding behind him, one arm around his middle. The air was so sweet and cool and the stars were more than he remembered. He might have cried because Nicolo slowed the horse to ask if he was in pain. Yusuf shook his head but couldn’t find the words. “We will be someplace safe enough soon,” Nicolo promised.
When he woke again it was in a jolt of surprise, his body sliding into warm water. He sat up, clutching at the sides of a tub and blinking at the room in dizzying confusion. Nicolo was crouched beside the tub, sleeves rolled up and hands held palms up when he woke—a promise that he was not up to anything nefarious. Yusuf sighed and leaned back into the tub, into the warm water. He had a vague memory of eating and drinking water. Of being fed by someone. He dunked himself under the water and came up again, a part of him still expecting the dream to fade. He pushed the water off his face and looked around the room. It was night outside, he could still see the stars from the window. The tub was beside a fire, pushing shadows around the far sides of the room where the shape of a couch and a table lurked. “Is this real?” he asked seriously, too tired to even care.
Nicolo nodded. “You were a skeleton when I brought you out. A little food and you already look more yourself,” he marveled, as though they had not tested that particular aspect of their immortality before on a few long and deadly treks. They recovered quickly from all wounds and ailments. But Yusuf still felt tired down to his bones. He wanted to grab that mirror on the little table beside the tub and take a look at himself. There were even little scissors for trimming his hair. Had Nicolo laid those out? No. It had to have been the staff of this place.
His eyes closed, too heavy. “I am going to drown if you leave me in this tub…” he thought aloud.
“You will not,” Nicolo said, sounding awfully certain.
Yusuf fell asleep again.
When he woke it was evening. He must have slept the whole day through. He only got up because he had to pee, and his stomach was empty, demanding food in a way it hadn’t in months—like it remembered food. He sat up slowly, expecting pain and the weight of exhaustion, but it was gone. He was naked in bed and looking down at himself, he looked much the way he remembered from before his time in that living grave. He got up and found new clothes, in his preferred styles and colors, waiting for him. He picked up the mirror to examine his face, surprised to find his hair and beard trimmed. He touched his own face, reassuring himself again that this was real. It did not feel like the hallucination he had thought it was when he was half-dead. This was definitely real. Who had trimmed his hair and put him to bed?
He looked around for Nicolo, pulse jumping in his throat when he realized the man wasn’t in the room. He stalked to the door, pausing when he saw his belongings on a low table against the wall—his scimitar and blades and rings. Everything the guards had taken from him when he was dragged down to that pit of forgotten souls.
He opened the door, finding the room with the fireplace. The tub was gone and Nicolo was on the couch. It was too small for the length of him but he had seen the man sleep in a tree once so he wasn’t surprised he’d managed.
The Italian jolted from somewhat-awake to full-awake when Yusuf opened the door. He sat up, blinking. He looked Yusuf over and nodded. “Good. You are alive.” He got up and stretched. “You ate everything we had up here this morning. The hotel serves food on the first floor if you are still hungry.” Nicolo slipped past him through the door, into the bedroom. “I’m going to sleep for a bit.”
Yusuf turned to watch the man fall onto the bed where he had been, eyes closed before his head hit the pillow. Did Nicolo turn his face into the pillow, where Yusuf had just rested, and inhale? Or was that a trick of the eye? Had to be…
“You will be okay if I go downstairs?”
Nicolo snorted, one leg kicking at the air as though to physically shove him out of the room, even though he was far from any chance of reaching him.
Yusuf nodded to himself and headed out of the room. It was strange to come out of a room into a building he had no memory of. He found his way down to the first floor and the woman running the inn practically screamed at the sight of him. Calling it a miracle after how horrible he had looked the other night when his friend brought him in. She hurried him toward a comfortable seat with a table, as though he was still weak, and promised to have food sent out.
“The demon came to the prince, demanding the life of a prisoner. It said that it owed the prisoner a debt and could not leave him. The prince gave the demon an impossible task!” a young man was saying at a nearby table, the little crowd all ears.
“The prince sent the demon to steal a ruby from a giant serpent,” the boy went on. Yusuf smiled to himself and settled back into his chair. That was shaping up into quite a tall tale. “But when the demon returned with the ruby, just as commanded, the prince still refused to release the prisoner. My brother said the demon had eyes like icewater, skin like death, and wore a deep hood to hide itself.”
Yusuf stopped smiling, suddenly sitting very straight. He had only ever known one man with eyes that could be described that way, though he had always thought they were more like pieces of the moon.
“The demon demanded the prisoner so the prince had him killed right there in the grand room. But before they could even drag the body away, it revived!” The crowd gasped, some giggling at the dark wonder of the tale. “The demon climbed to his knees in his own pool of blood, looked up at the prince, and said that it could not die. That its life belonged to the prisoner and only the prisoner. They say when it stared at the prince with those cold eyes, he shivered from winters that had never touched his lands. The demon said, ‘You will give him back to me, or I will haunt you.’”
Yusuf shot up from his chair and headed for the stairs again. It had to be a coincidence, or the story being stretched. Obviously Nicolo had not gone and stolen a jewel from a snake. That was absurd. Maybe he had purchased him back from the prince? That made sense, he supposed. Not that Nicolo should have coin enough to hold such a man’s attention to negotiate for a prisoner.
Yusuf threw the door of their room open, first the front and then the bedroom, driving Nicolo so fast from sleep that he was almost on his feet before he even recognized Yusuf. He groaned, knife in hand, and flopped back onto the bed. “What?” he whined against the pillow.
“How did you get me out of that prison?”
Nicolo looked up at him, that exaggerated irritation dissolving into careful curiosity. “I came in through the front gates, asked the guard where you were, and we found you and brought you out. Do you not remember?” Nicolo grinned and it was devastatingly handsome. “Did starvation addle your brain?”
“Nicolo.”
The Italian stopped smiling. He sat up slowly, throwing his legs over the side of the bed to plant his boots on the floor and tossing the dagger on the bedside table.
“What did you do to get me out of that prison?”
Nicolo looked up at him, holding his gaze the whole time he spoke and then when he answered, “Everything. I did everything they wanted.”
Yusuf came closer, waiting for more.
Nicolo sighed, relenting. “He wanted his rival dead. I assassinated him. When I returned, the prince thought I had gotten lucky or taken credit for someone else’s work. He refused to let you go. I offered to trade places with you, but he said my life was not worth the same as yours.” Nicolo shrugged like he couldn’t argue that.
Yusuf almost sat down right there on the floor. He had been surprised when Nicolo had come for him, when he thought it had been little effort and a large fee on his part. He had underestimated him. He had questioned even the slightest friendship between them. Had that been the madness of solitude and starvation or had he just not seen it before? “You would have taken my place?” Perhaps it had been a bluff? A plan to get inside the prison?
Nicolo nodded, looking at him like it was an odd question. “Of course. It had taken me time to find you, to try to break you out, and then to get an audience with that prince when I could not—not to mention planning and carrying out an assassination. You had been in there for almost a year.”
Yusuf stared. Nicolo said it like it was the obvious choice at that point, to switch places. Like it was a burden they could share, trading off the weight of it.
Nicolo sighed. “The prince was very unreasonable. He told me to leave. I said I would not go without you.”
“Why?” Yusuf interrupted.
Nicolo blinked up at him. “Why?” he repeated, like maybe he hadn’t heard him correctly. His eyes narrowed and then softened. “You did not belong there.”
Yusuf wasn’t sure what to say to that so he just nodded, waiting for him to continue the story.
Nicolo frowned, obviously having hoped he’d give up on the telling. He looked away, jaw ticking the way it did when he was uncomfortable. “When I refused to leave, he had me run through. I died and then I woke up, of course. I told him I was a demon and that my…” he stopped.
Yusuf stared. Nicolo had never cut himself off like that. Never hesitated to say whatever he damn well pleased. Pretty much as soon as Nicolo had started learning Arabic, he had not relented until he learned to tell every damn story he knew in the language. Yusuf had enjoyed it for the most part. And the more they learned each other’s languages the easier it had been to communicate. Nicolo had not been shy about voicing his opinions. He was brutally honest at times, blunt even.
Nicolo stood so suddenly that Yusuf had to take a step back. “Why are you asking? If you are already this well rested, we can head out to find the others—”
Yusuf caught his arm when he tried to walk around him, to escape. It wasn’t like Nicolo to retreat either. Nicolo looked down at his hand on his arm, surprised by it. They did not make a habit of touching each other unless they had to—not since they stopped killing each other years ago. But who had put Yusuf to bed? Who had bathed him and even trimmed his hair? Yusuf let go, not because he wanted to, but because he didn’t want Nicolo to take it as a threat of some kind. “Tell me the rest,” he asked, gentling his voice.
Nicolo stared hard at him and Yusuf was sure he would argue or refuse but then he sighed and turned toward him rather than away. He held his gaze when he said, “I told him I was a demon and that my soul belonged to that prisoner—that I could not go without him—that if he denied me my soul, I would haunt him. I swore to be a curse not just on his lands and his life, but on his entire bloodline. I told him I would not leave without you, whether it took days or centuries.”
Yusuf stared at him, wanting to pretend he had been bluffing because he had not prepared himself for this—for the full force of Nicolo caring about him. But he knew Nicolo, he knew that it wasn’t a bluff, that he would have tormented that city until he got him out one way or another. And then he would have acted like he had done nothing, just like he had this time. Yusuf reached out slowly. Nicolo tensed. He had known he would, because they had killed each other too many times to have any other reaction. But he didn’t drop his hand, he touched his palm to the side of Nicolo’s face.
Those gray-blue eyes stared back at him, surprised but not pulling away.
“How many times did they kill you before they believed you?”
Nicolo shrugged, still watching him curiously but leaning his cheek into his palm. “A lot. They got creative. But when I spit out some teeth and then new ones came in, I think he lost his stomach for me.” He smiled briefly and then it faded. “If I had known I could spin a story about being a monster from the start, it would have saved a lot of time. I am sorry.”
Yusuf shook his head. “I should be the one apologizing. I should not have doubted you.”
Nicolo shrugged again but still hadn’t removed his cheek from Yusuf’s touch.
“You cleaned me up and put me to bed?” Yusuf asked, but he was already sure he knew. It had been foolish of him to ever think otherwise. Nicolo would not have let anyone else do the job, there was no one they trusted, so it had to either be him or no one at all.
Nicolo straightened at that, removing his skin from Yusuf’s palm. “I did not mean to overstep. But you did not look yourself and you would sleep better after being cleaned up.”
Yusuf’s heart hurt and he shook his head. It was bad enough that Nicolo had apologized for not saving him sooner but now trying to defend his efforts to care for him as well? Yusuf had assumed because there were no words to speak to their relationship that it had not formed the way he wished. He was wrong. He thought about how Nicolo had leaned his cheek into his palm. “Do you have feelings for me?”
Nicolo’s eyes flared and he took a step back. “I did not take advantage.” He did not sound as angry as he did hurt. He lifted a hand between them, as though to stop a coming fight. They had fought a lot, but not physically since they called a truce and set out together. Yusuf couldn’t help but notice that Nicolo made no move to grab the dagger he’d put down on the bedside table. He would have definitely reached for some way of defending himself back when they started. Yusuf reached out and grabbed his hand. Still Nicolo did nothing to actually defend himself, those pale eyes like shards of the moon begging him to understand something Nicolo did not seem to have words for despite all his efforts to learn languages.
Yusuf tugged him forward and kissed him. Nicolo tensed for a second and then relaxed, kissing him back, one hand sliding to his waist and pulling him closer still. The relief and joy was almost enough to buckle Yusuf’s legs. When they parted for air, Yusuf held on to the sides of Nicolo’s neck, looking at him, wondering how he’d missed it before when the affection was so obvious in those eyes.
“I took the moon for granted,” Yusuf admitted. “It will never happen again.”