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You are not making sense.
It is the fever talking.
Do you realize what you are saying?
Lorian's voice, just like the pain, came and went in pitch blackness. Lothric was burning, or thought he was. In the dark of his nightmare, fever was fire, and fire licked at his skin, clinging hungrily to his robes. He breathed in with the intention to scream, only to gag as his lungs filled with air that reeked of his own flesh burning, smoke and ashes dancing as they got stuck in his throat. It burns, burns, burns, burns. Every single one of his nerves ignited with a blinding pain. Even dead, he still felt it. When the last remaining piece of his body had finished burning, when all his blood had run dry and his bones had been charred to a crispy black, and his consciousness had disappeared, he still was burning, century after century – forever. Dead, yet still aware just enough to keep suffering and despair. In his torment, he begged incoherently for the pain to stop, dumbly holding onto the hope that it will eventually get better, or at least easier to endure. Instead, there was no end to the pain, nor was there any time off to it. It was constant, a tide that never receded. What was the point of begging fire?
It burns, burns. Gods, end this. I beg of you, please. It BURNS, IT BURNS, IT BURNS–
He woke up in a cold sweat, shivering and his head filled with a summer storm cloud, feeling like his body had broke into hundreds of pieces that were put back together wrong. He recognized his room, and there was no fire. Lorian was there by the bed, with a strange light in his eyes that Lothric had never seen before.
“I will not let you go alone into the unknown, brother.”
What do you mean? Lothric tried to ask, but before he could figure out how to turn that thought into words, his eyes slipped shut and obscurity pulled him back into its bottomless entrails. Once again, he dreamed of burning, the flames so real he thoughts he could feel their scorching touch.
*
* *
That evening, the sun set blood red in a black winter sky. Moonlight bathed the kingdom of Lothric in an ash-gray hue, casting shadows that stretched out in all directions over the castle walls. Snowflakes dotted the air. It was almost a month since Lorian had slayed the Demon Prince and returned home with two and third-degree burns all over his body, a seared armor, a scalding sword, and the beast's head as both a trophy and proof of his accomplishment. The gods only knew what Oceiros had done with it, but Lorian cared very little whether he had hanged it on a wall or thrown it away; the only thing that mattered was that Lothric had seen it and that his eyes had widened at the sight of this maw full of twisted fangs, that there had been awe and plaudit on his face. That made it all worth it, from the scorch marks which would never fully heal to the painstaking recovery.
And painstaking the recovery certainly was. Lorian had spent over two weeks confined to his bed, recovering as the burns turned to thick blisters and the blisters to red, itchy rashes, before he finally was able to walk again. Every step hurt like hell, but he welcomed the workout. In a way, he was thankful for the pain. It hurt because he was alive. The same could not be said about the Demon Prince.
He had not seen Lothric since that moment he had caught him staring back and forth at him and the giant detached head he had brought home. According to Emma, his brother had visited him twice while he was out, then had caught a cold and been bedridden himself since then. Lorian had sighed. Typical Lothric. For as long as he could remember, winter had always offered Lothric nothing but fever and coughing fits, from the moment he was old enough to walk and peek at the snow outside, to this very day when he was sufficiently wise to know better than to actually step outside when the temperature dropped. He had more memories of his brother bundled up in bed with a runny nose and hot forehead than he could count, and as he very slowly made his way down the hallway, he heard Lothric coughing before even reaching his door. One more sick memory to add to the sick memories pile.
Lorian knocked, loud enough for his brother to hear if he was awake but softly enough to not wake him up in case he was resting. Just knocking made pain erupt in his red, raw knuckles.
“Lothric? Are you well enough to talk?”
No response. He waited a moment, to be sure. There was more coughing through the door, but no sound, no movement.
Lorian leaned in, got his ear closer to the door and counted to ten, and just as he was about to leave, he heard Lothric mumble something in a vaguely acknowledging tone. It was impossible to tell what he had said exactly, but he stepped inside anyway. The smell of medecine hit him as soon as he opened the door. It floated, heavy, in the air, had long sank into the walls and the woodboards of the floor, so much that he suspected it would never quite ever leave, even if they were to open every window and clean every corner of the room many times. It reeked of sickness, always. Lorian recalled a time when this smell bothered him, made him gag, but it was a long time ago. Now, he was so used to it he only felt a fleeting sense of nostalgia.
He shut the door behind him, careful not to slam it. The only source of light came from a candle on the night table – he would put it out before leaving. In the bed, amongst white and brown fur throws, Lothric lied as still as a corpse, his head sinking into the pillow and his frail body barely making the mattress dip. Even in the dim light, Lorian could see the deep, dark circles under his eyes, as well as the blueish lines of his veins on his neck. He watched as his brother's chest rattled from another fit of coughing, noticing with some worry how it shook from breathing in.
“Brother? Can you hear me?”
Lothric's eyes shot open, so suddenly Lorian felt his heart stutter.
“Lothric?”
Seconds passed. Perplexed and somewhat nervous, Lorian kept his eyes on his brother, who was staring at the ceiling, seemingly unaware of his presence. Just how bad was his fever for him to act like this?
“Lo–”
“I'm burning,” Lothric slurred out.
His head lolled to the side and he stared at him – no, through him – from under his heavy eyelids, as if he was staring down the bottom of a pitch black well that was about to swallow him whole. There was a pause, then he repeated:
“I'm burning.”
I know a thing or two about burning now, Lorian thought. There was a shuddering in his blistered forearms, down to the tips of his benumbed fingers, twitchy reactions to the memory of the Demon Prince's open maw that discharged curly flames, engulfing him in light and pain. It was not comparable to Lothric's fate, was nothing in contrast to throwing yourself into the kiln of the First Flame and becoming a Lord of Cinder, but he had had a taste of fire; not enough to imagine how painful it will be for Lothric but more than enough to dread the day he will fulfill his duty with brand new intensity. He looked him over, imagined him burning, and shivered.
“I'm burning,” Lothric repeated one more time, quietly.
“Just the fever,” Lorian convinced himself out loud. His legs were killing him and he carefully sat down on the edge of the bed, groaning in pain between his teeth. “You have fallen sick, brother, like every winter. That is why.”
“No. I am burning.”
It was not true, of course, but Lothric thought it was. Until this very moment, despite the warning signs, it had not occurred to Lorian that his brother's fever was so high he was delirious. His hair, spilled over the pillow around his head, was damp with sweat, his fingers gripped the bedsheets so hard his knuckles were white, his chest heaved, and he kept staring at the wall behind Lorian's back, seeing things that were not there.
Gently, Lorian brushed his fingers against Lothric's forehead. He expected him to flinch, and so was not surprised when he did.
“No, you are not, I promise. You have a fever and you are in your bed.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. I would not lie to you.”
Still, Lothric would not look at him. For a brief moment, his eyes, open so wide they looked like tiny crystal balls, darted back and forth between the wall and the window. It was not hard to guess what he was seeing right now, that inferno he thought he was in the middle of, and Lorian insistently ran his fingers through his hair, trying to bring him back to reality as gently as he could, until he saw Lothric's shoulders relax a little.
“I suppose I am not burning... If I was, you would not be with me, brother.”
The words stinged. For as long as Lorian could remember, he had always been aware that Lothric would not live for long – that he lived on borrowed time, as he himself liked to say – but, when they were children, it seemed so distant, not quite real. It would happen, but it would happen in a very long time. No point in thinking about it. Yet the days had gotten shorter, the nights longer and darker, and the sun had become dimmer, casting a cold, ashy light where it used to shine bright and warm, and Lorian had found himself thinking about it at last. For all the nights he had slept unbothered in the past, he now lied in bed wide awake for hours staring at the ceiling, haunted by a single thought.
Soon.
Soon the bell would toll and Lothric would depart and offer himself as fuel for the First Flame, so that the sun may shine strong again. Soon he would burn, and die. That thought terrified him, in a way that even the Demon Prince had not. Right now, as he sat by Lothric's side, taking in how dreadful he looked, it terrified him even more.
For all they knew, the bell could toll tomorrow.
Don't think about it. His heart was pounding. It will not be tomorrow.
“I just meant to check on you,” he said, somehow managing to keep an even voice. “I will leave now if talking tires you.”
“Are you certain I am not burning?” Lothric muttered.
Goodness gracious.
Lorian spent the next fifteen minutes patiently trying to convince his brother that he was, in fact, not burning – that he was sick and delirious in his bed, in his bedroom, not at all burning. Outside, the snow kept falling and twirling in the darkness, coating the castle rooftops with an alabaster dusting which glistened softly under the moonlight. A distant wind roared behind the windows. Molten wax dripped down the candle on the night table.
Plic.
Plic.
Plic.
A foreboding silent.
As the night grew darker and Lothric seemed to have fallen asleep, Lorian let out a deep sigh, blew out the candle and stood up on his own two legs at the cost of a burst of pain like rusty teeth sinking into his raw flesh. He had managed to drag himself as far as the dresser, halfway to the door, when Lothric mumbled something again – something so unexpected he felt time itself come to a still.
“I will not link the fire.”
In a single second, the whole world changed. Lorian sucked in air through his teeth, unaware he had stopped breathing. Air tasted like iron on his tongue.
“What did you say?”
Maybe he had heard wrong. He knew he did not, definitely not, but he had to make sure. Turning around slowly, he stared at his brother, squinting to make out his expression in the dark.
“How many worthier men have offered themselves to kindle these embers? How many whose sacrifice the world has selfishly forgotten? Why even worry anymore? Up until now, there has always been someone to raise their hand and say they will do it. What used to be exceptional has slowly become ordinary... customary. Now people are not thankful anymore; they are expecting someone will do it. Someone who is not them. And even if no one volunteers... Remember Saint Aldrich? They pushed him in. And what have all these sacrifices accomplished? The fire is still dying out, always needs to be fed more people. Nothing was ever solved this way. The Lords of Cinder have all died in vain, and without a second thought everyone expects me to as well. The sun is fading yet again, but they are not worried, because Prince Lothric will feed it. Because it is what he was born for. Enough of this. No more feeding the sun.”
“You are not making sense,” Lorian blurted out without thinking. “It is the fever talking.”
Delirious or not, what Lothric was saying was nothing short of heresy, and Lorian turned the doorknob as quietly as possible to peer into the hallway, making sure no night owl servant had inadvertently walked by and heard everything. It was all too easy to picture Oceiros' already deformed face distorting even further into a grotesque mask of outrage, were someone to report that his precious younger son was not exactly thrilled about his sacred duty.
“It has to be the fever,” he argued half-heartedly. “Tell me it is, brother. Is it?”
But Lothric was not paying him any attention.
“The mantle of Lord is a trifle of no importance to me. Must I be burnt to ash to keep the darkness at bay for a while longer? I am much too weak to make for good fodder anyway. My life for mayhaps one or two more years of sunlight... Quite the bargain, is it not?”
“Do you realize what you are saying?”
“I do not want to die,” Lothric confessed. “Not for something so vain. I... I only wish to remain here with you, brother.”
His voice was but a whisper, soft and weak. Lorian's heart stammered. So it was as simple as that, wasn't it? Granted, when it came to his duty as a Lord of Cinder-to-be, Lothric had only ever displayed a sardonic resignation – on and on about how his meager body would barely be enough to fuel a camp fire – but as far back as Lorian could remember, he had never spoken any word that might have been interpreted as an outright rejection of his duty. It had all always been willful yet subtle contempt, insolent disdain; some people were aware of Lothric's reluctance but were convinced he would go through with it anyway. At least, that was what Lorian had thought up until this very moment. He looked at Lothric as if he had never quite properly looked at him before, and Lothric smiled in his general direction – a dry, feeble smile.
“Will you curse me and call me a heretic, dear brother?”
Heart pounding in his throat and legs feeling like marmade, Lorian came back to Lothric's bedside, reached for his claw-like hand, grasped it as gently as his shaky fingers could manage, and professed:
“If they call your will to live heresy, I must confess to the same crime. I am a heretic as well; I want you to live. And should you decide to stand up to Father and turn your back to the whole kingdom, rest assured that I will be with you. I promise I will not let you go alone into the unknown, brother.”
He spoke while staring directly into Lothric's eyes, his voice dripping with honesty. Lothric's eyes shifted, and for a brief moment he looked like he was about to say something, or trying to, but then his hand went limp and his head lolled to the side like a discarded doll's.
Even with Lothric out cold, Lorian remained here for a long time, thinking. A promise was a promise, but going against the linking of the fire would prove easier said than done, no doubt. They were not without opportunities to take advantage of nor allies to rally however. From recent reports, he knew that the Hollows were becoming harder and harder to contain, that the Angelic Faith was growing dangerously stronger, and with Oceiros gone mad and their mother, the Queen, gone altogether, chances were anyone disapproving of Lothric's decision would be far too overwhelmed with everything else already to pose much of a threat to him. At least in the short run. Lorian ran through in his head all the people he knew who may either be loyal enough to side with them or disillusioned enough to want the end of the Age of Fire. This plan would not be polished overnight. If only they had more time... If only they had started getting ready for this years ago...
In the orange flicker of the candlelight, Lothric, back to his nightmares, was seized by a sudden fit of shivering. His mouth contorted into a grimace and his hands clawed at the bedsheets. Burning again.
Slowly, both with fear and with a strange sort of fated inevitability, Lorian looked through the window at the pale sun rising in the gloomy, snowy sky, and for the first time he noticed how weak its light was. How famished it looked, like a dying dog.