Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first thing Martin hears as he wakes is the cry of a hawk. The first thing he smells is smoke, and the first thing he tastes is ashes. He opens his eyes to see the muddy field strewn with bodies.

The hawk's cry resolves into words. "Lord Magnus is dead!" it calls. "Long live our Lord Jonathan! Lord Magnus is dead!" Near Martin's feet a banner has fallen. Though it's muddy and torn, now, Martin can still make out the owl that is Lord Magnus's sign.

Was. Was Lord Magnus's sign.

Martin's simple leather armor bears no sign, but he'd marched under this banner until it fell. How long has it been? Martin doesn't know. He looks around him. The other heartless are milling around in confusion.

Next to him, there is a tree, and the hawk lands on one of its branches. It's a large bird, almost as big as Martin's torso. The branch bows under its weight.

"What are we to do now?" Martin asks the hawk.

"Die," the hawk says, and takes flight again.

On the field, several of the heartless have taken the hawk's advice, lying down unmoving. Martin could join them. But he remembers, now, that he has a mother. He can't remember how it felt to love her, but she didn't have anyone else.

He turns his back to the field and starts walking.

Chapter Text

Martin carefully counts his copper coins before entering the inn. His coins won’t suffice for both a room and a meal, but they might let him spend the night in the stable.

The inn is called The Hart and the Hound, with a creaking wood sign that has seen better days. The common room isn’t terribly crowded, and when Martin asks, the matron in charge assures him he can use their stable for free, and even gives him a free bread roll with his bowl of chicken soup. Martin thanks her, and sits down to eat. Her generosity is especially notable given the recent drought and the hunger it brought with it.

He’s soaking the last drops with his roll when he starts hearing the commotion outside. He leaves the bowl and takes his meagre pack, walking cautiously outside.

He needn’t have bothered. Outside, men and women are clustered around a tree. There is a man tied to it, grimy, big and strong. Martin can’t quite make out the words the crowd is yelling, but he doesn’t need to. He’d seen this before.

Martin’s heart can no longer pound, of course. Stone hearts don’t do that, only real, flesh and blood ones. But Martin feels an ache, still, a ghost of a memory of what fear felt like. He should leave.

“Please!” the tied man yells hoarsely.

“The heartless know no mercy,” chants one person in the first row. The others take up the chant. “The heartless know no mercy!”

A bespectacled woman steps near the tied up man. She brings out a sheet of parchment and reads, in a tremulous voice. “In the last five years of Lord Magnus’ reign, he conscripted criminals and other undesirables to become his soldiers. He took their hearts, so that they won’t know fear or pain, and gave them a heart of stone instead.”

The heartless man writhes in his chains. Under the tattered rags of his shirt, Martin can see the glowing fissures begin to form, the cracks in his chest.

“The stone men killed mercilessly. They followed every order, any order, without question. Today, we have found one of their number, and we will dispatch of it. We do this not in anger, but in kindness, in memory of the person they used to be.”

Could’ve fooled Martin.

The woman approaches the heartless man. “You, who should have been dead,” she says. “Remember where you came from. Remember how you were made, and show me the emptiness where your heart was.”

The man screams as his chest opens, glowing. The woman reaches inside and takes out a carved stone heart. Then the light extinguishes, and he falls silent, sagging in his chains.

“So let all the relics of Magnus’s reign be gone,” she intones. The crowd cheers.

Martin walks away while they’re still preoccupied. Inability to feel fear is all very well, but there’s no point in staying here to let them execute him as well. He may as well spend the night walking. He doesn’t feel fatigue, either.

The Capital is walled, with guards at the gates. Martin walks to the back of the line awaiting admission, behind an old woman. She offers him an apple from her basket, and Martin accepts with thanks, apologizing that he doesn’t have anything to give back.

“What brings you to the city?” Her voice creaks like old wood.

“My mother is ill.” The lie rolls smoothly off his tongue. His mum was dead before he woke up on that battlefield. “I was told only the magician Fairchild might have the remedy for her.”

The old woman clucks her tongue. “Oh, your poor mother. I’ll give a blessing for her tonight.”

“Thank you.” Martin does appreciate the intention.

The line moves slowly. The old woman, whose name is Rebecca, offers Martin some bread; he refuses. He doesn’t need to eat much, really. She tells him about her grandchildren in the city, and the cats she left in her village cottage, and her worries of whether the neighbor boy will remember to feed her goats.

Before Martin can think of any reassuring platitude to offer, they’re at the gates. Rebecca is questioned and let in. The guards take a closer look at Martin.

The trick, Martin has learned, is to fake nervousness. Guards expect people to be worried by their presence, and inability to feel fear is a mark of the heartless. So Martin approaches them with his head cast down, wringing his hands. He tells them the same lie he told Rebecca; they grunt and let him in when he’s less than halfway through.

Inside the walls, the city is large and crowded. Martin starts walking, swept up in a stream of people hurrying to and fro.

Martin stumbles a little, shading his eyes to try to find his way in the unfamiliar streets. He doesn’t actually know where he’s supposed to be going. He should find someone to ask. Not too many people, though: with his luck, he’ll run across someone who knows Fairchild was the one to devise the de-hearting ritual, and put two and two together.

He’s casting about for someone to ask when a man in brightly colored garb nearly runs him over. “Make way!” he bellows. “Make way!”

There aren’t many places to go, in the crowded street. There are people already pressed to the wall behind Martin, and so Martin finds himself at the head of the crowd when the procession goes.

First, come many armed guards. Then some more people in brightly colored clothes, riding on horses. Then, in a lavish open carriage, sits a single man in plain brown robes and a crown that seems about to fall off his head any minute now.

The carriage and the crown are hint enough without the cryer calling, “All hail our Lord! All hail!”

The procession moves slowly enough that Martin gets a good look at Lord Jonathan from his place at the front of the crowd. His wrists look very thin, peeking through the hems of his robes, which themselves look oddly ragged. Why doesn’t the Lord have something more spruced up to wear?

As Martin watches, the Lord’s head slumps. The crown begins sliding off, only for the Lord to jerk and catch it, straightening.

Martin looks around him. Surely the Lord couldn’t have fallen asleep during an official procession. Surely someone else would have noticed, and commented.

The street empties, and Martin hears someone mutter beside him. He turns around to see a beggar. “I’m sorry,” Martin says, “could you repeat that?”

The beggar blinks up at him in surprise, and not a little suspicion. His shoulders square. “I said, look how little the Lord cares for us. He falls asleep when we all can see him.”

Martin has his own thoughts. But maybe he only imagined the dark bags under the Lord’s eyes. Surely the Lord sleeps in a golden bed with a goose down mattress. He supposes a beggar earned the right to complain rightly.

It is an opportunity, at least. Martin offers the beggar a copper coin; when he accepts, he pulls out another and asks about the mage Fairchild’s workshop.

The mage’s workshop is in an affluent area of town; Martin recognizes it by the sign featuring the image of a man flying - or perhaps falling, it’s unclear - into a blue sky. Just like the beggar said.

Here he is. The goal toward which he’d walked for so many days.

Now what?

The thought of threatening the mage with violence occurs to Martin, but he dismisses it. Apart from his time in Magnus’s service, he’d never so much as thrown a punch in his life. He seriously doubts his ability to believably intimidate anything bigger than a cockroach. What’s left, then? What does he have to bargain with?

The door opens with a bang, as though blown in by a powerful wind. Out comes an old, sprightly looking man. The blue of his eyes is notable, and distressing. They settle on Martin and brighten. “Ah! There you are. Come in, come in.” He walks back inside.

Martin follows, but says, “I think there must be some mistake.”

“Nonsense. You are one of the stonehearts, are you not?”

“Um,” Martin says.

The magician waves airily. “Don’t worry. If I hadn’t wanted you to come, I wouldn’t have left all these clues!”

Martin frantically tries to remember how he’d made his way here. Something his commander had said, before succumbing to heartloss; an abandoned workshop; an oddy knowledgeable old woman in the woods… “You wanted me to come here?” he says, incredulous.

“Oh, well, not you in particular,” the magician says. “You’ll excuse me for having no idea who you are. It hardly matters, does it? But you’re clever enough to follow my hints, and resilient enough to survive up till now. You’ll do perfectly.”

Martin does not like the sound of this. He opens his mouth to object.

“And you will do as I say, if you want to know where your original heart went,” the magician says. He sounds perfectly nonchalant, as though it’s all the same to him.

Martin shuts his mouth. He considers. “What do you want me to do?”

“Oh, nothing that should be terribly difficult, for you,” Fairchild says. “I’ll give you an address. I want you to go down into the basement, and retrieve a worm.”

“Any particular worm?” Martin says, confused.

Fairchild shrugs. “Any of the ones you find should be fine, yes.”

That doesn’t sound terribly difficult. “And then you’ll tell me how to get my real heart back?”

Fairchild makes a noncommittal noise. “Maybe I will! Maybe I will. I certainly won’t unless you bring me the worm, will I?”

Martin reviews his options. It doesn’t sound like he has a better one than going into that basement. At least he shouldn’t be able to feel afraid, the way he’d been before at small enclosed spaces.

There are guards standing nearby. Martin holds on carefully to the note with the address like a talisman. If he’s stopped, hopefully they will accept him being on an errand on behalf of the magician.

Nobody says anything as he finds the correct building and makes his way to the basement. It’s pitch dark in there, the meager traces of daylight filtering inside making the room seem even darker by contrast, the black swallowing up the illumination.

A silver-black worm crawls over Martin’s shoe. Well, that should be easy enough to handle, at least.

He halts when he feels a hand on his wrist, gripping it hard. “What do you want with my baby?” asks a voice in the darkness.

Martin stands very still. “Oh. Is the, uh, worm yours?”

“Yes,” the voice hisses.

“Is there any chance you could turn on the light, and we could discuss it?” Martin heavily suspects that he will regret this.

He is correct.

If Martin can no longer be scared, he can still be startled. It’s fortunate he can no longer be nauseated. In front of him stands a woman, her skin dotted with holes and eaten by rot, with those same silver-black worms peeking out of the open wounds in her skin.

“Gah,” Martin says, before catching himself. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting… well. Hello.”

The woman blinks at him. “Hello.” She sounds half like she’s replying, half like she’s questioning the meaning of the world.

“Yes. So.” Martin clears his throat. “My name is Martin.”

It takes her a moment to answer. “I’m Jane.” She offers her hand. Martin has to steel himself, but he manages to shake it. He hopes she wasn’t aiming for a courtly kiss. All she says, however, is, “Don’t worry, I’m used to much worse.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Martin looks at her. After some hesitation he asks, “Does it hurt?”

“What does?” She blinks at him. Her eyelids don’t close all the way, on account of the worms. One slithers out and plops on her shoulder. “Oh! My babies? Well, yes. Childbirth always does, you know.”

“So I hear,” Martin says, fascinated despite himself. “Is there anything I could do for you?”

Jane tilts her head. A worm crawls out of her ear and disappears into a hole in her neck. “I don’t suppose you could brew me a cup of tea, could you? I’ve never had the knack for making it properly, and I’m afraid my babies would fall in the brew.”

It’s rather fortunate that she’s landed on Martin’s one reliable skill. He puts down his backpack and rummages through it for his special blend.

Fifteen minutes later, they’re both sat next to her small table, chatting and drinking tea. Martin added some cold water, to keep from scalding the worms, and extra sugar which Jane seems to appreciate. “This is very good,” she tells him. “Thank you.”

Nobody’s thanked Martin for anything in a very long time. “Oh, it’s nothing. I imagine it must be very distressing if one of your, ah, babies lands in the hot water.”

“It’s death,” Jane says matter-of-factly. “A very small death, but I still feel it.” Her clouded eyes land on Martin, and she nods, decisively. “You may borrow one.”

It takes Martin a moment to parse her words. “Oh! A, a worm?”

She nods again, her expression grave. “It’ll do them good to have a look about town. Only bring her back before sundown tomorrow, alright?”

“I promise.”

She takes a small jar out of the cupboard. She sings, soft and low, and a single worm crawls to curl up inside the little container. Jane hands it to him, unstoppered.

Martin considers. “Maybe you should close the jar?”

Jane shakes her head. “She’ll stay where I told her. Don’t worry.”

“I won’t,” says Martin, physically incapable of the emotion. “Thank you, thank you so much. You have no idea how much you’ve helped me.”

For some reason, Jane looks sad. “Thank you for the tea,” is all she says.

Rising up from the basement, Martin’s eyes take a moment to adjust to the light and noise of the street. It takes a moment longer to realize that both light and noise are coming from a bespelled orb hovering near the entrance to the building.

“The first challenge was successfully carried out!” comes from the orb. “All hail the challenger!”

Martin looks around, trying to understand what the fuss is about, when a guard in a uniform bearing the Lord’s crest comes to him. “Congratulations,” the guard says, and hands Martin a sealed envelope.

Martin accepts the envelope, grateful when the orb shuts up. He finds a quiet corner and opens the envelope with shaking hands.

Congratulations, suitor! says the first line.

“What,” Martin asks the worm, “the fuck.” The worm has no answer. He continues reading.

As you have completed the first of three tasks necessary to win Lord Jonathan’s hand in marriage, please arrive in the palace courtyard tomorrow morning to be instructed on the second task.

Martin blinks at the paper. The message on it does not change. “Seriously, what the fuck?” The worm flattens in its jar. Martin sighs. “Thanks for the sympathy, I guess.” He sets about going back to Fairchild’s workshop.

Chapter Text

It’s dark by the time Martin makes it back to Fairchild’s workshop. The door opens with a bang again; Fairchild is inside, stirring a giant, bubbling cauldron. “Ah, there you are,” he tells Martin. “Successful, I see - commendable! The odds were good that you’d be worm food by now. Now, hand it over.”

Martin stands still. “What do you want with the worm?”

“Do you care?” Fairchild asks, sounding honestly curious. “If it hadn’t hurt you so far it won’t begin now.”

“Did you really send me to get the worm?” Martin asks in return. “Or did you want me involved in this, this contest?”

Fairchild hums. “Possibly! But in the meantime, I would like the worm. It’s a valuable ingredient.”

Martin looks at the bubbling cauldron and thinks about Jane talking about the pain of childbirth and death. “No.”

For the first time since Martin entered the workshop, Fairchild looks up at him, brows furrowed. “Really? Is a worm worth your only chance at getting your heart back?”

Honestly, Martin is wondering the same thing. Why shouldn’t he give Fairchild the worm? He can’t feel guilt anymore, after all.

And that’s why he won’t give him the worm. Because he can’t become the thing the mob at the village thought they were killing. No matter what he feels, or doesn’t, there is right and wrong, and hurting someone who helped him is wrong. “It is,” Martin says.

Fairchild looks miffed, but he shrugs. “Oh well. Suit yourself.” He makes a complicated gesture, and a gust of powerful wind blows Martin out of the workshop.

Martin stands there, worm in jar in hand, and watches the door slam on the last chance he had of regaining his old heart. A hollow space that might, once upon a time, have been grief, opens in him.

“Nothing for it,” Martin tells the worm with a sigh. He better find somewhere inconspicuous to spend the night.

In the morning, Martin makes his way back to Jane’s basement, rather wishing that Fairchild had taken the time to make his joints stone as well. They creak alarmingly after a night spent curled up on cobblestones.

This time, she turns on the light as he enters. “You’ve brought her.” She sounds relieved.

“I promised, didn’t I?” Martin hands over the jar.

Jane tips the jar over, letting the worm roll into a hole in her wrist. “Come here,” she tells Martin, beckoning him back to the little table where they drank tea the day before. “I want to give you something.” Martin follows her with some wariness.

She sits down. “Can you sing?”

Martin blinks. “Um. Sort of? I can carry a tune if it’s not too fiddly.”

Jane nods, satisfied. “Pay attention, and remember.”

She sings. It’s low and wordless, simple enough to commit to memory. When she does, worms poke out of their holes, as if listening. A few crawl out, lining out into a neat line on her arm, neatly plopping themselves into the jar.

When the song is done, Jane pushes the jar at Martin. “These are for you. If you decide you want to be a mother, as well, all you have to do is put them on your body and sing the song.” She smiles. “You have the aura for it.”

“Thank you,” Martin says faintly.

She beams at him. “You’re welcome. You’ve earned it.”

The worm jar is heavy in Martin’s pocket as he makes his way to the palace. He finds his destination easily by the gaggle of young - and not so young - men milling there, with a few shrewd-looking women among them. Martin settles near the back, where he can hear the lot of them talking.

“--kind of skinny,” says one of the younger men. “But it can’t be too bad, can it? Close your eyes and think of the kingdom.” He sniggers, as do a number of the others.

“He’s not even proper nobility,” says an older man with a haughty expression. “He’s some commoner that Lord Magnus, may the Gods forever torment his soul, scraped out of an alley somewhere.”

Martin glances furtively around. The guards are far enough that they can’t hear anything being said. Even so, the words raise a curious, odd sensation, like bees buzzing inside his skull.

Mercifully, the guards soon start calling for the suitors, and the men near Martin quiet down some. Martin rocks on the heels of his feet as he watches the line ahead of him slowly dwindle. He’s starting to get awfully peckish by the time the guards call his name.

One guard, armed with a sword, accompanies Martin to a dilapidated tower on the edge of the courtyard. It occurs to Martin that this is far enough from the entrance that if, say, someone had been screaming, he wouldn’t have heard it from the gate. Mostly, though, he’s eyeing the stairs: they look like a lot to climb on an empty stomach.

Instead of climbing the stairs, though, the guard leads him to a stone cell in the basement. What is it with the Lord and basements? He briefly considers asking the guard, and is distracted by his eyes adjusting to the light, revealing a man and a woman dressed in rags.

The man is covered in stitch marks, his limbs mismatched in size and color. His face is quite handsome. The woman, as far as Martin can tell, is made of wood: she moves and breathes, but he can see the subtle grain in her skin. When she leans against the wall, the sound is the hollow thock of wood hitting metal. Her hair looks like autumn leaves.

“Your task,” says the guard, “is to discern the one who is not a person, and kill them.”

Martin blinks. “What?”

The guard repeats, “Your task is to discern the one who is not a person, and kill them.”

Well, fuck. “How am I meant to kill them?” Martin says, stalling.

The guard hands Martin his sword. So much for that.

“Don’t kill her,” says the patchwork man. He has one blue eye and one brown, and both are intently focused on Martin. “If you have to, kill me, but leave her alone.”

“Hey!” protests the wooden woman. “What have we said about stupid, misplaced chivalry? Nobody has to die,” she says, looking at Martin. “But if you have to - Tim’s at least made of human parts.”

“Well, Sasha’s made of all her own original parts,” Tim retaliates. “So that’s more personish, isn’t it?”

Martin is painfully conscious of the heavy weight in his chest, neither flesh nor his own original part.

“You must choose quickly,” says the guard. Tim and Sasha are bickering about whether “personish” is a word. “The time will soon run out. Kill the one who isn’t a person.”

Tim tries to get in front of Sasha, who puts her foot out to trip him and stands in front of him. “Please,” she says. “Please,” says Tim.

Once again, the guard says, “You must choose,” so Martin whirls around and slashes the sword through the guard’s neck.

The sword meets little resistance. Martin remembers very little from his days on the battlefield, but his muscles remember how it felt to plunge his blade into flesh, so he overarches and almost falls over. Sasha catches him and steadies him.

“Th-thank you,” Martin says, dropping the sword from his shaking hands. The guard has collapsed into an empty pile of armor. “What was that?”

“One of old Magnus’s servants,” Tim says. “Don’t worry, no humans were harmed in the making of this walking suit of armor! It’ll put itself back together in an hour or so. Congratulations, by the way.”

Martin looks at him, suddenly aghast. “What does this Lord think he’s doing? I could have killed you!”

“Nah,” Tim says.

Sasha continues, “The guard would have knocked you out and left you outside the palace walls if you tried.” She adds, “I think you had the fastest turnaround of anyone I’ve seen. I’m impressed. How did you figure it out?”

Martin should probably say something about how their self-sacrifice defined their humanity or some such horseshit. Instead, he does the dumbest thing he could possibly do, and lifts up his shirt to show them the scar on his chest, the minor cracks from when he’d dreamed of the de-hearting ritual, waking before the dreams could push him into heartloss.

“Huh,” Sasha says. “Interesting.” She shares an unfathomable look with Tim.

“So, what brings you to try and win the hand of our Lord?” Tim asks him.

Martin shrugs. “Honestly, I just want to find my old heart,” he says. Talking about it to these odd people, who surely can’t judge him, is a relief. “I got into this competition by accident. I might just have to win it out of spite.” To Tim’s raised eyebrows, he explains, “The other suitors are pricks.”

“Can’t argue with you there,” Tim says with a sigh. He seems to reach some sort of decision. He goes and rummages in a pile of discards: old clothes and such. Finally he pulls out, with a triumphant sound, a pair of eyeglasses. He hands them to Martin with a flourish. "Here."

Martin's, "Thanks?" comes out a bit puzzled, but he takes the things.

"Put them on and you'll see what's hidden," Tim says. "They used to belong to J-- the Lord."

"Take the guard's cloak, too," Sasha says. "It keeps the wearer from being noticed."

Martin thanks them. He slips the cloak on: it's dark, now, and getting chilly. He puts on the glasses and heads for the palace.

He wishes he could hope to find his heart there, but mostly he's motivated by a hope to scrounge some dinner and a soft place to spend the night.

Chapter Text

At first, Martin doesn’t notice anything different with the glasses on. It’s only when he’s wandering the palace corridors that a sudden pang of hunger makes him think, dinner, and he sees something flicker in the corner of his eye. When Martin turns to look at it straight on, it disappears, but returns as soon as he looks away.

He follows the flicker through six more corridors until he finds a little kitchenette. The pantry has a wedge of a hard cheese Martin doesn’t recognize, berries and pears and even a few oranges Martin barely dares look at, bread and nuts. Martin finds a plate and eats tucked into the corner. Nobody comes in while he’s eating.

When he’s done, Martin rinses the plate - no point leaving a mess behind him - and sees another little flicker in the corner of his eye. He follows it to the room next door, where he finds a bed, plain but very nice looking. The room also contains a large wooden desk piled high with papers, and a similarly plain but well-made chair. Martin surmises he must have found some clerk’s inner-palace residence. They have things like that in the palace, don’t they?

He doesn’t know, but he can feel his thoughts running slow, like molasses. In the absence of fatigue, that’s the best sign he has for needing to sleep. Martin climbs into the bed, wrapping himself snugly in the cloak.

Martin wakes up to the sound of muttering.

He slowly sits up in bed and blinks, checking his chest for any signs of heartloss. It’s a bit silly: if he truly remembered becoming like he is, if his chest had fractured and split apart as the heartless’ chests do when remembering, he’d be dead.

The familiar cracks are no wider, though, and it can’t hurt to check.

Now Martin can pay attention to the other resident of the room, a dark-haired man in a shabby brown cloak sitting at the desk. The room has a window, and through it Martin can see the crescent moon. The room is well-lit, beeswax candles burning merrily in their holders.

“I’ll just be going,” Martin says, foolishly. The man at the desk grunt and pays him no attention.

When Martin gets up, though, he can see the man’s wrists, bony and oddly familiar. Where had Martin seen him before? More importantly, when had this man last eaten?

Before Martin can think better of it, he’s back in the kitchenette, boiling water and preparing a plate of food that’s easy to eat one-handed. It’s beyond stupid of him. The guard’s cloak can only do so much. He should leave immediately.

Instead he watches the kettle, and puts it off the fire as soon as the water begins to bubble. He sniffs the tea in the canisters, purses his lips, and makes a mug of his own blend. He brings the tea and the plate to the man at the desk, barely finding an empty space to put them.

The man grunts something that might have been a thank you, which draws Martin’s attention to his face. It’s very fortunate that he’s no longer holding anything he could drop when he realizes the man is none other than Lord Jonathan.

Miraculously, the Lord still doesn’t seem to have noticed Martin. He is still talking to himself. “One motion can’t fix everything,” he murmurs, “but surely it’s better than letting people murder them in the streets?”

Martin sneaks behind the Lord, and catches the title of the paper. It says, On the treatment of the stonehearted men and women. Now that Martin’s looking up close, something else catches his attention. The Lord’s shirt has a hole in the back, and his ratty robes - what Martin thought were ratty robes - come out through the hole. They move when the Lord mutters, and not like shifting clothes do, fluttering in little ripples.

Martin swallows and leaves the room hurriedly.

Thinking about his old heart, even as intently as Martin can manage, shows no flicker. Martin considers, for a moment, that that may just mean the heart isn’t in the palace. Surely the glasses have a limit.

Then he thinks of his mother’s grave, left many weeks’ walk behind him now, and sure enough there is the flicker. It comes from the west; reasonable enough, when he’d spent all this time walking east.

Maybe he’s thinking about it wrong. After all, the old heart is no longer his. They made him sign it away when they--

Martin gasps and grabs his chest, casting about for something else to think about, anything. He’s repeating the times six table in his mind when the agonizing pain across his torso numbs again.

Right. Anyway. He needs - a heart. That’s not helpful: as soon as the thought comes to him, the glasses try to direct him in six different directions. The palace is full of people, most of them have at least one heart. A heart without a body?

That yields just one flicker, small and hesitant enough that Martin almost misses it. He follows it, feeling it more than seeing it, a prickle under his skin that gets stronger as he keeps going. The hunt takes him in circles. Eventually Martin realizes the corridor is listing ever so slightly downwards, that the air is damper and colder around him.

Basements again. Seriously?

When Martin reaches his destination, he spends a few minutes gazing around in incomprehension. The room is vast, but almost empty: all it has a hovering dark orb in the very middle, about half Martin’s size, connected to many tubes and pulsing gently.

Martin blinks, and looks again. Oh.

That heart never lived in a human chest, he’s sure of it. It’s not blood-dark but pitch-dark, flecked with maggot-white. It seems to struggle for every beat, the clear tubes of the room carry away diseased-looking liquid.

Martin shakes himself out of the reverie. Right. This isn’t his heart. Time to figure out what happened to it.

Martin spends a few hours looking through the palace, but his heart - literally - isn’t in it. He regroups. If he could have found the heart just by searching, he would have had some kind of lead by now. But every trail has gone cold. The only person he could have asked had barred him from coming near.

The cloak swishes gently around Martin. He puts his hand into his pocket, feeling the heavy weight of the worm jar.

“Alright,” he says quietly. “It’s worth a try.”

He lurks by the door to Fairchild’s workshop. Entering is as easy as waiting for a woman off the street to come in and following on her footsteps. After that, he finds the magician’s bedroom and waits there.

It’s a long, dull wait for the magician to go to sleep, but Martin is motivated.

When Fairchild is snoring faintly in the bed before him, Martin takes the cowl of the cloak off, holding the jar of worms tightly.

As soon as the cowl’s removed, Fairchild wakes. His eyes catch on Martin and widen. “Well! There’s a surprise. Quest going well, then?”

“You could say that,” Martin says, and uncaps the worm jar where Fairchild can see it.

“What’s that supposed to be?” the magician asks, but his voice trembles faintly.

“I know the song to make them burrow into flesh and multiply,” Martin says.

Fairchild flinches. “You’re bluffing.”

Martin holds his gaze. “Maybe I am,” he says mildly. “Do you really want to take that chance?”

There is a tense moment, and then - to Martin’s bewilderment - Fairchild sits and claps his hands, looking delighted. “I do not!” He sounds much happier about this than Martin would have liked. “Alright, my boy, you win. What do you want to know?”

“My name’s Martin,” Martin points out, just for form’s sake. He doubts the magician will remember it. “And I want to know where my heart is.”

“Oh. Hm. I might have guessed.” Fairchild scratches his chin. “I’m afraid that’s long gone.”

“Excuse me?”

Fairchild waves a hand. “You know flesh and blood hearts. No stamina, poor things. Can’t thrive outside the chest where they first beat.”

The stone in Martin’s chest does not, cannot pound with rage. Martin remembers hating to feel angry, the stupid futility of it. “So, what? You just threw it away to rot?”

“Of course not! They were valuable ingredients.” Fairchild attempts a pacifying gesture. “Trust me, the stone heart is much hardier. Wouldn’t you rather keep it? It’ll keep going for millenia. True, true, it can’t feel; but trust me, feelings aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, especially when you’re a poor serf. Do you really want your misery back, your loneliness, your fear?”

“Yes,” Martin says softly.

The magician blinks, knocked off-kilter. “Pardon?”

“You think I forgot?” Martin grinds out. “You think I didn’t know I was unhappy? Fuck you. That was mine. You had no business taking that from me. Not you, not Magnus, not--” he chokes as the blinding pain in his chest rises, the only kind of pain he can feel anymore. He pulls himself together. He refuses to give Fairchild the satisfaction of seeing him fall apart.

“Well, if you feel so strongly about it,” Fairchild says, “you might be interested in the other option.”

Martin freezes, wary. “What option?”

“You could grow a new one.” Fairchild pauses. “Of course, it will hurt; the stone heart would have to go first, and you’d need something to keep you going until it grows.”

“I don’t suppose you could help,” Martin says sourly.

“Not if my life depended on it!” Fairchild’s tone is disgustingly cheerful. “Which I suppose it does, if you’re going to menace me with the Flesh Hive’s get.”

Abruptly, Martin caps the jar of worms. He turns and leaves the workshop. He doesn’t look back as Fairchild yells after him, “Good luck on the quest!”

Martin walks the streets for the rest of the night and well into the morning. The heat finally gets to him, and he finds a secluded corner where he takes off the cloak.

As soon as he does so, an orb of light materializes in front of him, startling him.

“Arrive at the palace by sundown for the final task,” the orb says, in a deep voice Martin is surprised to recognize as Lord Jonathan. “You have my congratulations for making it so far.”

Perhaps it’s only Martin’s imagination, but even this magical projection of the Lord’s voice sounds tired.

Chapter Text

The day passes unbelievably slowly, and yet when sundown is near, it seems like no time has passed at all.

Martin comes to the palace with the cloak bundled neatly at his side. The guards nod at him, and one of them walks inside with Martin. Martin takes a moment to ask her name (Daisy) and whether she knows what the next task is.

All she says in reply is, “He’ll ask you a question.”

Martin has a ludicrous mental image of the Lord presenting him with a math problem. He’d never learned much beyond basic sums.

Would that be so bad, really? It’s not like he’d die. The worst that could happen, to Martin’s knowledge, is that he would fail. Of course he’ll fail, really. Even if he squeaks past this task, surely the Lord will come up with some technicality that disqualifies him. Perhaps the challenge was only open to nobility to begin with, and Martin intruded on a matter he didn’t understand at all.

Daisy takes Martin to a large chamber, richly appointed to an intimidating degree. The windows have lavish lace curtains and the doorknob shines golden. Lord Jonathan stands in the center.

“My Lord,” Martin says, and tries an awkward bow.

“Please. Call me Jon.” The-- Jon’s expression is pinched. He’s shivering lightly, and Martin has the ridiculous impulse to find a blanket and lay it over his shoulders. “You’ve made it this far. At least we can do away with the pointless honorifics.” He doesn’t look happy, not at all.

Martin cringes, trying to make himself small. “I’m sorry.”

Jon looks up at Martin. His pupils are slitted, like a cat’s. “You’ve done nothing so far requiring an apology.”

“I mean, you seem really displeased with me,” Martin says, halting. “And I don’t blame you, not at all. Um. If you decide you’d rather marry someone else, of course I won’t do anything. What could I do? But I’d want you to pick someone you liked.”

“I’m the one who devised the tasks,” Jon says quietly. “If you’re here, if you succeed today, then you’ll do for my needs.”

Martin gawks at him. “You don’t even know me,” he says. “I could be a, a completely unbearable person to be around.”

“If that mattered,” Jon says, still with that same awfully even tone, “then the tasks would check for that. It doesn’t. If you’re ready, we should begin the task.”

“What is it?” Martin feels a little foolish for asking, but he might as well not go in blind.

“I will ask what’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, and you will tell me.”

Oh. So Martin will die today after all.

Jon must see his expression. “You could choose to leave, instead.” His voice is very soft. “You will not come to any harm if you do.”

Martin doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t really want anything; the best he can do is make an educated guess at what he should do next, and hope his situation improves. But his old heart is gone, and the hope Fairchild dangled in front of him is false and cruel. All Martin can do is continue as he’d been doing: trying his best.

If he answers the question, his chest will come apart and his heart will extinguish like a blown candle. If he refuses, one of that pack of power-hungry jackals will come to stand here before Jon. He doubts any of them will make sure Jon eats properly.

“I’m ready,” Martin says. What choice does he have? Maybe he could just lie about it. Make up some story.

Jon nods. He closes his eyes. A little furrow appears in his brow, and then the not-robes start twitching and rising around him.

Wings. They’re wings. Golden on the inside, with patterns that make Martin dizzy if he tries too hard to follow them, shining with their own blinding light. They flutter, releasing dust which glitters in the sun beam from the window.

“Oh,” Martin says faintly. He feels weak. Jon leads him to a chair before he can fall down. Martin can’t take his eyes off Jon’s wings. “I thought they were robes at first,” he says, dizzy. “Then I saw you in that room, working, and I thought… I don’t know what I thought, I just didn’t realize. Wings didn’t occur to me.”

That gets Jon’s attention on him. His gaze has a palpable weight, and Martin gasps under it. “Was it you?” Jon demands. “Were you the one who made me tea?”

“Yes.” Words come out easily, like water pouring from a fountain. “I know I shouldn’t have slept in your room, but I needed to sleep and I don’t have anywhere else to go. And then I woke up and you looked so tired.” Martin is vaguely aware he shouldn’t be saying all this. “I know how to make tea that’s good for sleep. You take valerian root--”

“Thank you,” Jon says abruptly. “For the tea. And I apologize for asking an additional question when you are in this state. In return, you may ask me a question of your own later.” Martin, too dazed to follow, can only nod. “Now answer me this question to my satisfaction, and if you so choose, you can become my consort and heir.”

Martin nods, unnecessarily. Of course he will answer. He will tell Jon anything he wants to know.

Jon takes a deep breath. “What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?”

Martin opens his mouth and prepares to die. “They took my heart away three years before Lord Magnus was defeated.”

Jon’s eyes widen in alarm. He folds his wings at once, small and tight, but that just sets the dust flurrying.

Martin can no more stop speaking than he could have flown. “My mother was very ill when I was taken,” he says. “I was the person who took care of her. But the magistrates didn’t care about that, and while I was bound to Magnus’s service neither did I, so off I went.” He feels the cracks in his chest widening.

Jon covers his mouth, his face a mask of sorrow.

“When he died--” Martin blinks. He was not expecting to talk about that part. The flow of words carries him onwards with it. “When he died, I found myself on the battlefield. I remembered my mother, so I went home.” He swallows.

“I walked for weeks. I don’t know where I was. I barely remembered the way. I had to hide from villagers who’d kill me, and maybe I should have let them. Maybe I deserved it. But I had to get back to my mum. She didn’t have anybody else.”

Maybe it’s just the cracks in his chest, still smarting from his earlier recollection, but he feels a deep, sharp ache when he says, “I arrived and my mother was dead. She’d died the week after I’d left, a sudden fever.”

He raises his head, looks Jon in the eye and wills him to understand. “I didn’t feel anything.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jon whispers.

Martin lets out a ragged breath, faint with relief that he didn’t have to explain why that was so awful, why the numbness wasn’t an unexpected boon. “Yeah,” he says, feeling heavy as lead.

Jon sits down a little way away from Martin. They sit together in silence until the air clears, and then Jon says, “Do you want anything? Something to drink, something to eat?”

That’s not a question Martin was expecting. “I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”

Jon exhales. “You’ve passed all my tests.” His voice is oddly gentle. “If you choose it, we will marry, and everything in this palace will be yours. If you don’t, then some food and drink is the least I owe you for what I put you through.”

Martin considers demurring. He tries to stand up, and realizes he can’t. His knees won’t carry him. “I suppose I should eat.” He hesitates, but asks, “When have you last eaten?” If he’s to marry Jon, he can ask him about such things.

Jon makes a rueful face. “If I can’t recall, I suppose I should also have something to eat.”

Dinner is venison, turnips and some delicate greens Martin doesn’t recognize. Martin eats more than he expects to before remembering he hadn’t eaten at all the day before. Jon forbids the servant from pouring them wine. Instead he asks for orange juice, golden and tart and perfect, which Martin has never had before.

“I owe you an answer,” Jon says, nibbling on a honey cake. “If you’re too tired, you can ask me tomorrow.”

Martin gives him a slight smile. “I can’t get tired, remember?” It feels surreal to joke about this at all, even more so with the ruler of the kingdom, but after today - why not?

He’s not expecting Jon to frown and say, “You can’t feel fatigue. You still need to sleep. Especially after an ordeal.”

Martin is about to argue, but he notices his thoughts running slowly. He wants to be sure he understands what Jon is telling him. “Tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow.” Jon finishes his cake and rises from the chair. “A servant will lead you to one of the guest rooms.” He looks up, and hesitates. “Unless…” he shakes his head. “No, nevermind.”

“What?” Martin asks, mystified.

“I won’t ask you to choose yet,” Jon says. “Not when you’re tired. You can decide in the morning, after a good night’s sleep, some breakfast, and the answer to your question.”

Chapter Text

The next morning progresses much as Jon has suggested. Martin wakes up and eats breakfast - with more orange juice, a treat he hadn’t expected for himself alone - before he’s led to Jon’s office.

“Have you slept?” he asks as he sees Jon rubbing his eyes.

“That’s beside the point,” Jon says.

Martin crosses his arms, unimpressed. “You have a decision to make, as well,” he says, “and a question to answer. If I should rest, it stands to reason that so should you.”

“My decision is made already.” Jon sighs. “I’ll concede that you have a point, but I don’t intend to sleep now - I doubt I could if I tried. I’d rather know if you’re staying or not.”

“Why is that even a question?” Martin’s feeling a little exasperated, and it comes out in his tone. “Pros: I get to live in a palace with you. Cons…?” He waves his hands in incomprehension. “I could understand someone bailing before the final task, but I’m past it. Why wouldn’t I stay?”

“You saw me yesterday,” Jon says quietly. “You should know that this is something I have to do, every so often. I… I feed on terrible experiences, secrets and awful truths. It’s part of what I am, now.”

Martin considers. “How do you get them?”

“Right now? From suitors, mostly. Ones who made it this far. It hasn’t been very nourishing.”

Martin eyes Jon’s wrists, the stark column of his throat. “I bet. Why not take it from prisoners?”

Jon’s eyes darken further. “I’m not Magnus,” he snaps. “I refuse to be like him. I will not take anything that isn’t freely given.”

Not even an answer to a question like “Have you been snooping in my palace”, Martin notes. “Make it a tithe, then. A, a condition of becoming your courtier: monthly confessions, or however often you need them. You have plenty of people who’d sell their mothers for a position in court.” Martin waves his hand. “But that’s exactly what I meant. Yeah, you have some unusual features. I don’t know if you noticed, but so do I. Why should that bother me, when you’re not hurting anyone but yourself?”

It does bother him that Jon is hurting himself, but Martin figures that’s best kept for later.

“Flawlessly reasoned.” Jon still looks preoccupied somehow. Unconvinced. “I’d still prefer to answer your question before you make your decision.”

There’s no shortage of questions Martin wants to ask. What had Magnus done to Jon? What is that heart in the basement? What is the deal with all the basements? But there’s one that’s pressing, and so Martin asks, “You said it didn’t matter if you hated being around me. Why?”

Maybe the answer is perfectly pedestrian. Maybe Jon is just heedless of his own well-being - evidence would point to that. But something isn’t sitting right, something doesn’t fit. Nobody above the age of six expects a sovereign to marry for love, but Martin would have expected him to at least check his partner wasn’t completely incompatible.

From the unhappy draw of Jon’s mouth, the answer is more than that. “You’ll have to come with me,” he says, and gets up.

As they walk down long corridors, Martin’s suspicions grow and grow. Finally, Jon opens a familiar door, and there is that odd shadow heart, pulsing. “This,” Jon says, “is the heart of the kingdom.”

Martin regards it with a frown. “It doesn’t seem like it’s doing too well.”

“Yes, well, it isn’t,” Jon says snippily. “Neither is the kingdom, in case you haven’t noticed. It’s just the draught, for now, but as the heart deteriorates, so will our situation.” He sighs and rakes a hand through his hair. “Magnus used to use the hearts of arrested dissidents and-- um.”

Magnus had arrested a lot of dissidents. Martin keeps from reaching for his own chest. Instead he gestures at the heart. “Where did this one come from?”

“One of Magnus’s old generals.” Jon twitches. “J-- Magnus never met a person he didn’t think could use some kind of magical enhancement, and Hopworth was one of his prize specimens. I was planning to use Magnus’s heart; it seemed fair enough, but he’d poisoned himself and died before we could reach him. His heart died with him. I killed Hopworth trying to get to Magnus in time, but his heart kept beating.” He shrugs guiltily. “It seemed a waste not to use it. But now that’s dying, too. There’s only so much magic can do to keep a heart going.”

That’s very interesting, but together with Martin’s original question, it’s shaping up into an answer he doesn’t like one bit. “So what are you going to use?”

“The one heart I have a claim to,” Jon says. “Not right away,” he adds in a hurry, completely misinterpreting Martin’s dismayed expression. “This heart can carry on for a little longer, and I’ll teach you everything. I’ve been working harder, trying to put everything in order for you. You’ll have advisors.”

Martin hazards a guess. “Tim and Sasha?”

“Among others, yes.” A fleeting smile graces his face, before fading back into that awful earnestness.

“Do they even know about this?” Martin demands. He remembers Tim and Sasha literally falling all over themselves to protect each other. He doubts they would go along with Jon’s plan.

Jon’s gaze darts away guiltily. “I’m sure they’ll understand.” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. I have an heir now. You’re clever and kind: that’s what the tasks were set to discern. You’ll do fine.”

Martin looks at Jon, at the heart, and back to Jon. He reaches a decision.

In the last five years of Lord Magnus’s reign, Martin thinks, remembers, tries to hear it in his head, he conscripted criminals and other undesirables to become his soldiers. He took their hearts, so that they won’t know fear or pain, and gave them a heart of stone instead.

“Martin?”

He doesn’t know what made them take him. He’d never broken a law in his life before he was conscripted. Perhaps it was just his poverty that made him undesirable.

“Martin, what’s going on?” Jon’s voice takes on a sharp edge.

Martin tries to keep from clutching at his chest. He breathes through the pain. Lots of worthwhile things hurt. He remembers the men in armor - stonehearts like him, he’d learned later, when he served by their side - forcing him down on the rough wooden table, another body in a long, long line. They held him face up, the better to get at his chest. He remembers the glint of sunlight on the knife.

“What are you doing?” Jon demands, in a voice gone deeper. Martin blinks his eyes open - when had he closed them? - to see Jon’s wings spread, fluttering like an anxious bird trapped in a room, seeking escape.

Like yesterday, the words come pouring out of his mouth. “I’m trying to take my heart out.”

“Why?” Jon sounds genuinely broken up over this.

That hurts, too. Everything hurts now. “It’s a stone heart,” Martin says. “It should last you millenia. It’s a better use than anything I could do with it.”

Maybe they only took him because he was easy to take. The magistrates ordered him to sign away his heart, a voluntary conscript. Martin had seen guards bearing torches standing next to the cottage where his mother slept, so he signed.

“No.” Jon’s hands are running nervously through his hair, clenching, tearing it out. “This isn’t how it was supposed to happen. Stop. Please.”

“Too late now,” Martin says, dreamily. The pain is giving way to numbness at last. That’s how you know that the cracks are beyond repair and heartloss is at hand. “It’s better this way. There’s already a kind, clever man ruling the kingdom. No use swapping you out for a less experienced model.”

“It is not!” Jon yells. His eyes glisten. “You deserve to live. You deserve to be happy.”

Martin sways on his feet. The light pouring out from his chest is warm, hot even. He hadn’t expected that. “So do you,” he whispers. As he speaks, he hears something inside him break, and he knows Jon will not believe him. He has to tell Jon something, anything, so Jon will not blame himself for this as well. “I couldn’t have been happy. Stone hearts… can’t.” Speaking is getting harder, but Martin tries. “My best chance was. Fairchild says. Take the heart out. Grow a new one.” He tries to smile. Jon looks horrified. “One out of… two?”

Jon blinks. His expression shifts in ways Martin can’t read, or perhaps that’s just his eyesight going blurry. The light in his chest is waning. Soon it’ll be over.

“Don’t let it go to waste,” Martin says, one final plea.

“Never,” Jon says, and reaches into his own chest. It opens like a gate, bloodless, and Martin sees the flickers of magic around his hands. He takes out a heart: flesh and blood, with a thin film of glittering violet coating it. Jon stares at it, and tears it in half.

Martin can’t speak. He shakes his head, powerless, mouths, No.

To his relief and bewilderment, Jon puts one half of his poor, torn heart back in his chest. He walks to Martin, stumbling, and reaches inside Martin’s chest, putting the other half inside him.

For a moment it’s too much, the heaviness of stone mingling with the pain of Jon’s wounded heart, and then Jon takes the stone heart out and holds it. He carries it to the center of the room like a holy relic. Before he puts it inside the circle, he presses his lips to it gently.

Something inside Martin flutters, and he gasps at the overarching pain of feeling. It’s unbearable. It’s wonderful. He might die if it doesn’t stop; he might die if it does.

The stone heart settles into place, pulsing gently. The previous heart melts into a disgusting puddle on the floor.

Jon stumbles to him. Martin catches him in his arms without thinking, careful of his wings, still not quite folded on his back. “You shouldn’t decide yet,” Jon slurs, resting against Martin’s chest. “After what you’ve been through just now--”

“You gave me half your heart,” Martin says, still hoarse. “If you think I’m ever going to walk away from you, you’re not half as clever as I thought.”

Jon collapses back into his grasp. He’s so light. Martin’s going to have to think up some ways of fattening him up. If it’s bad memories that can do it, well, Martin has plenty of those.

“Do you think you could sleep now?” he asks, for the time being.

Jon groans. “For a week straight.”

“Good,” Martin says firmly. “Let’s go find a bed.”

Chapter Text

Martin wakes up to a warm body beneath his and the final rays of the setting sun in the window. He stills, uncertain. Jon and he fell into this bed in a mess of limbs as it was the first one they found, barely large enough to contain both of them, but they never discussed cuddling.

As Martin starts to slowly move away, though, Jon makes a protesting noise and digs his fingers into Martin’s arms. “Don’t go.” He sounds plaintive, muzzy with sleep.

“Okay,” Martin whispers, and lies back down, feeling Jon return to the pliancy of sleep.

Not ten minutes later, Jon stirs again. His, “Martin?” is very alarmed.

“Sorry.” The words come out in a hitch of breath, gasped for between silent sobs. “I don’t know what’s happening. It’s so much.”

“Oh.” Jon is still tense. “Is it the heart?”

“Probably?” Martin grasps for words. “I don’t know. For all this time I just, I didn’t feel anything. And now I am, only I have no idea what I’m feeling, only that it’s a lot. I don’t remember emotions being like this.”

Jon wraps his arms around Martin, rubbing a circle over Martin’s back. “It might be my influence,” Jon says - sounding guilty, the ridiculous man. “I have very little idea about the effects of heartsharing. Magnus made some experiments, but they were inconclusive. You might be feeling my emotions instead of your own. It’s only temporary,” he hastens to add. “Once your own heart grows back, you’ll be the same as you used to be.”

Martin doubts he’d ever be the same, but more pressingly, “Don’t you dare feel bad about this,” he says, sniffling and poking Jon with a finger. “I said already, you gave me half your heart.”

Jon makes a protesting noise. “Only because you tried to die for me! What else was I supposed to do?”

Martin starts to answer, only to be interrupted by Jon’s stomach growling. He laughs, hiccuping sobs mixing into it. “Maybe we should eat something, and then decide who sacrificed what for who.”

“Must you always be so reasonable?” Jon grumbles, but he sits up.

They’ve just disentangled themselves and stood up when the door slams open.

“There you are!” Sasha cries. “Oh my God, we were about to bring out the bloodhounds.”

Tim walks in behind her, eyeing Martin with interest. “So does that mean you two are getting married?”

“If he decides to,” Jon says, and Martin cuts him off with a, “Yes.” Then doubt strikes. “I mean, unless you’ve realized I’m actually unbearable to be around. Now that, um, that is a factor--”

Jon lifts himself to tiptoe and presses his mouth to Martin’s, soft and chaste. Martin, to his gratitude, is too stunned to start crying again. “Alright, I can see that this line of discussion can be tiring,” Jon says. “Please assume that if I don’t want you, I will have zero difficulty in asking you to leave. Well-compensated, of course,” he hastens to add, “for your service to the kingdom.”

Martin would argue that he’d been compensated, but he’s still a little too dazed by the kiss to say everything.

Tim fistpumps. “Hell yeah. I was rooting for you,” he tells Martin. Then he and Sasha herd Jon and Martin in search of food, which is probably for the best.

Some days are like this:

It is afternoon, and Martin is still curled up in bed, silent tears streaming down his face. The window is tightly shut, because it hurts to even have the light touching his skin.

A soft, barely audible chime sounds, just within what Martin can tolerate. He raises his hand, thumb held up, and the door opens soundlessly.

Jon walks inside, a shadow among shadows. He doesn’t join Martin on the bed, doesn’t reach for him. All he does is lift his wing and drape it over Martin’s back, a softer caress than sunshine.

If he asked Martin anything now, anything at all, Martin would be unable to hold back. But Jon wouldn’t speak, never speaks when Martin is like this.

Instead, the grains of truth light up flitting thoughts, and cast down others into a pit of oblivion. Martin can’t so much as think I deserved this or I am disgusting and unlovable without the notion immediately disintegrating into ashes.

Martin can’t stop crying long enough to speak, but his gratitude is amplified by the dust off Jon’s wing, his humble gladness for Jon and everything he is and does reverberating in his mind like a shout in the palace’s cavernous halls.

On other days, Martin can barely feel his new, emergent heart at all. It is on one such day that he goes to visit the magician Fairchild.

He goes without the Stranger’s Cloak, this time, walks right up to Fairchild’s door and knocks. He wonders what he’d do when it remains locked, and instead has to quickly decide what to do when it swings open. He starts by walking inside.

Today, Fairchild is sat at his desk, writing furiously on a piece of parchment. “Do come in,” he says. “I regret I can’t offer you any refreshments befitting your station, but I could charm you up a cup of tea if you like.”

“I’ll pass,” Martin says dryly.

“What brings you here, then?” Fairchild lets his quill drop, rubbing his hands together. “I could devise a ritual for you, or source rare and valuable ingredients for rituals.” His eyes are mocking.

“No thank you,” Martin says, more repressively.

Fairchild spreads his hands. “What can I offer you, then?”

“Answers.”

Fairchild tsks. “Such a one track mind.”

Martin crosses his arms. “Well?”

“You’re going to have to ask your questions first,” Fairchild says sweetly.

Martin sighs. “Why did you set me up on the quest to get married to J-- Lord Jonathan?”

Fairchild seems to be considering evasion for another moment, but then he says, “Since the two of you are still alive, you have lost the stone heart and are still walking around, and the kingdom hasn’t collapsed into ruin, I believe you’ve stumbled on the solution to the kingdom’s heart problem.”

Martin blinks.

“I’ll admit, the part where he gave you half his heart? Lovely touch, very romantic, I positively teared up. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“You expected me to die,” Martin says blandly.

“Well. Yes.” Fairchild shrugs. “It seemed like the neatest solution. Most stonehearts didn’t last long, anyway, before the latest reforms, and Jon seems like a fine young lord. A pity to waste him.”

Martin holds himself back from snapping, Don’t call him that. He contents himself with saying, “Don’t expect a wedding invitation.”

Fairchild has the temerity to look put out. “I do excellent fireworks, just so you know,” he calls after Martin as he leaves the shop.

Speaking of wedding invitations, Martin has one to deliver.

There are no longer guards posted outside the building, and Martin brought one of Jon’s light spells to guide his way. He knocks, and Jane calls out, “Come in!”

Speaking to her now that he has a flesh heart again is odd, and he gets a little nauseated sometimes, watching the worms sluggishly crawl from one hole to another. Martin supposes friendships are like that sometimes.

When he produces the invitation, she squeals and claps, dislodging a few squeaking, disgruntled worms. “Oh my goodness!” Then she hesitates. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Martin says firmly, and smiles. “You did help us get together. If you don’t want to come, you don’t have to, but we’d be happy to see you there.”

Jane gives it some thought, frowning. “Double-check it with Lord Jonathan, alright?” Her answering smile is bitter, self-effacing in a way he’s not used to seeing from her. “I wouldn’t want to cause a diplomatic incident.”

Martin agrees mostly because he doesn’t want her to think he’s being glib. “I’ll go put on water for tea, shall I?”

“Ooh, yes.” Jane brightens at once. “And tell me all about the wedding plans.”

Of course, first Martin needs to make sure Jon survives until the wedding without collapsing.

Jon doesn’t stir as Martin places the teacup next to him, where he’s unlikely to spill it. He does raise his head when Martin takes a seat in the corner of the office. “You shouldn’t wait up for me,” he tells Martin.

“No, I rather think I should,” Martin says.

Jon scowls. “Your heart is still growing. You need your sleep.”

Martin holds his gaze evenly. “And yours isn’t?” Jon likes to forget, sometimes, that in halving his heart he also has to face the mortifying ordeal of growing it anew.

“It’s not the same,” Jon grumbles. “I have half a heart to start from.”

“So do I.” It’s a familiar, well-trodden argument by now. Martin sticks it through, because he knows he’ll win.

“Technically,” Jon says, and Martin has to stop and breathe through how much he loves this man, “You had to grow yours from scratch. My heart was just a, a scaffolding. A stopgap. I am rebuilding mine from existing foundations, and you have to create your own.”

Left to his own devices, Jon can go on about magical theory for hours. Normally Martin loves to hear him talk, but it’s late and Jon has an early meeting tomorrow, so Martin plays dirty by letting out a pointed yawn.

Like he usually does, Jon folds. “Alright. Just this last document.” He eyes Martin, still comfortably ensconced in his chair. “Are you going to bed?”

“After you,” Martin says comfortably, and settles in the chair for the additional half-hour it will take Jon to drag himself from his work.

As Jon finally allows himself to be herded to bed, Martin takes stock of his own emotions. He can sort of determine, sometimes, when he feels echoes of his own nascent emotions and when the emotion is coloured by the presence of Jon's heart. Right now, the two are harmonizing: fatigue and affection and anticipation.

Jon had asked, nervously, if Martin even wanted to share a bed with him; not wanting to get into another war of self-sacrifice, Martin simply said that he did, and let Jon decide the rest. So they do share a bed, albeit one large enough for four people to sleep in without touching.

They touch. Jon clings to Martin like a lizard to a sun-warmed rock, digging his icy fingers between Martin's back and the mattress. Martin presses a fond kiss to the top of his head and lays a hand carefully on Jon's back, between his shoulder blades, where wings connect to skin.

"How are you?" Jon murmurs.

After a moment's thought, Martin says, "Not bad." The mass of feelings he gets from touching his hand to Jon's bare back is just this side of manageable. They're good emotions, obviously, but it's hard to go from no emotions at all to the avalanche of attachment that comes with Jon's proximity.

Jon nuzzles close, wings fluttering. Martin's free hand clutches the sheets, trying to handle his response to Jon's adorableness. He might have to leave the bed to hyperventilate, hypocritical though it might be.

Jon shuffles on top of him, still distressingly light but heavy enough that his weight keeps Martin grounded. His hand finds Martin's, and laces their fingers together. "Shh," Jon says, indistinct. "Sleep."

Sleep might take a while to come, but Martin is lying in a soft bed with his betrothed over him. He doesn't mind waiting.

Other days, the emotions are… well.

Martin wakes up to Jon lying on his side next to him, the golden underside of a wing peeking through and shining in the morning light. Martin reaches to push a stray curl behind Jon’s ear, his fledgeling heart thudding in his chest.

The morning itself is of little note. He eats breakfast with Jon, reminds Jon to go and attend a courtier’s confession, and lazes about in his room while waiting for him to finish.

“I need a word about the wedding invitations,” he tells Jon when he next catches him. He did promise, after all.

Jon groans good-naturedly. “What is it now?” He sets aside the papers he’d been examining, though, and listens.

“Jane asks if we’re sure we want her to come.”

“We do. Next question.” Jon’s voice is flat and brooks no argument. “If we’re going to bar folks from arriving because they look upsetting, we’d have to start with me and half my government. She doesn’t have to come, but she’s invited.”

Martin lets out a small sigh. “Yeah, that’s what I said, but I wanted to run it by you just in case.” He tilts his head, taking mental stock. “I keep feeling like there’s something missing. Someone we’re forgetting.”

Jon frowns. “Do you want me to, ah, ask?” His wings quiver, betraying his meaning.

Martin considers and nods. “Might as well. It will just drive me mad if I don’t.”

Martin still has no name for what he feels when Jon spreads his wings, bright and shining. “Tell me,” Jon says, “who are you forgetting? Do you have any family or friends you want to invite?”

“My mother,” Martin says, then freezes. He’s torn between the pull of Jon’s wings to speak and the torrent of memories commanding his concentration. Words come out of him in an unsteady trickle. “Obviously she can’t come, she, she’s dead. But she should have a spot. That’s right, isn’t it? A seat. She should have a seat at my wedding. She never thought she’d see me married,” and now he’s crying too hard to speak, word fragments coming out incomprehensible.

Jon rises from his chair with alarm, closing the distance between him and Martin in three strides, wrapping his arms around Martin and guiding his head to lie on Jon’s shoulder.

Martin has come to expect numbness. The grief is not unexpected, either, but it’s mixed with all sorts of other responses: relief and anger and love and blinding guilt.

“Is it too much?” Jon whispers anxiously. “Do you need to go to our room?”

Martin shakes his head, not knowing how to explain, unable to speak even if he knew. His heart beats and beats, stirring up the vortex into something nameless, too large to contain: but real, and all his own.