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Albedo sat beside Barbara, studying her craft for the day. The foundations of healing and Khemia were remarkably similar. When he had suggested to Rhine that he watch the healers at work she had only shrugged indifferently and allowed him to set up the appointment. He hadn’t been surprised, exactly, but had expected her to have at least some input. 

Healing wasn’t exactly Rhine’s area of interest. He had seen her plans. She worked tirelessly on diagrams and encrypted notes. It had taken him weeks to decipher the first set of notes he had stolen from the chancery. She hadn’t even known it was missing–the moment she had moved on to another project and deemed the one he stole useless, she had forgotten it.

Her trust in her own code had been so strong that it never occurred to her to be worried.

And now, after months of studying her writings and his interesting trip up Dragonspine, he was beginning to understand what Khemia was. Why she studied it so ardently and how it led to those monsters that littered the countryside. Why she’d been allowed into Mondstadt in the first place.

So far, he’d made connections in the way the healers were able to pull together the wounds and stitch together the bones and muscle sinew. It was the same basic principle as Khemia–to bring vitality to what was dead, to add something to what had nothing. 

“How do you know where to pull the muscle together?” Albedo scratched down a likeness of the wound onto his parchment, layering below it the muscle half re-threaded and half not. He wrote notes so he could know what he was looking at later. The knight at his side nudged his arm and Albedo had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from snapping at him. “Sir Huffman, a step back please.”

Huffman dutifully stepped back… for the third time. 

“It depends on the skill, to be honest.” Barbara held up her hands, beads of water gathered at the ends of small fingers. “Water tends to be easiest–our bodies naturally take to it, and water leads itself through, connecting like small rivers in the body. But for healers like Bennet, he’s best used on the field. His skill lies in energy restoration and lighter bruise and bone healing. He can do greater detailed healing, but it requires time and a level of uncomfortableness for the patient.”

Albedo nodded, scribbling down a shortened version of what she said, and followed her as she shook the bits of water from her hands.

They left the room where the healers were actively rebuilding bodies.

“This next room is usually not filled.” Barbara paused in the doorway, her usually soft eyes sharp when she looked at Albedo. “Lately, with everything that’s been going on, it’s had more activity than usual.”

The room was quiet. None of the busy energy that permeated their previous rooms broke through here. No, this room was completely still. A single nurse, no visible vision ready, stood at the bedside of one of the patients and pulled a damp rag over the dirt crusted on their skin. The patient was dressed in Inazuman attire, his bright hair kept back with a tie. An anemo vision was strapped to his waist. Only half the beds in this room were full, all with vision wielders like him.

He didn’t expect to see Mona on the table Barbara led them to, body unnaturally still. Bruises and cuts covered large portions of the sorceress’s exposed skin. He watched her chest rise and fall in slow, shallow breathing. 

“What kind of treatment are you planning for her?” Albedo swallowed, pen poised over his parchment. 

Mona was a good friend. Though her lessons on astronomy and astrology hadn’t stuck, she’d held no grudges and they’d grown close. Dried, crusted blood caked under her fingernails, remnants of it reddening the bottom of her nose. They’d cleaned her off, healed the worst of it, but still she was here.

Mona was not a fighter. She shouldn’t have been here.

“There’s not much we can do. She had already passed this point when we got her. We wait on the Archons to answer and bring her back to herself. Sometimes they answer. Sometimes they don’t.”

This wasn’t the healing Albedo came to witness. Not that Barbara was slacking in that department–he had plenty of notes. But “just wait and see what happens” wasn’t what he expected. “What happens if the Archons don’t answer?”

“Then she fades. Mona is here a lot. The Archons have favored her every time.” Barbara placed a comforting hand on his. “Don’t worry. She’s seen worse and come back.”

They meandered on for a while, though Albedo could see Barbara had accomplished what she’d set out to when she’d brought him to that room. They wrapped up, Albedo letting Barbara look over the notes he’d gathered for any inaccuracies or discrepancies. She approved them with a soft smile, curtsied quietly, and continued to her work.

Albedo dismissed Huffman as soon as he got to his room. The man looked dejected, and Albedo wasn’t in any sort of mood to figure out the man’s expectations. Besides, when he opened his door, there was already a Knight waiting for him, tapping his fingers against his desk with impatience.

“You know, your guards at your door are useless without me. They have no idea I’m in here. If I was an assassin, you’d be dead.” Kaeya laughed. The sound was forced.

He tried not to think of Mona, unmoving in the church, when he saw Kaeya had a new eyepatch over his eye. The knight's smile was pained instead of easygoing.

“What happened?”

“Just an accident. I’m sure it’ll be off in a week or two.” Kaeya’s uncomfortable smile pulled wider, as if that would make it more convincing. “Don’t you want to ask me how I got into your room despite the guards?”

“An accident doing what?” Albedo scoffed. “You haven’t had a mark on you since you became my guard. Since when do you get an eye taken out?”

“It only takes one lucky swing, Prince,” Kaeya sighed and stretched his arms wide. “One lucky swing and one idiot knight not paying attention.”

Albedo frowned. Too many questions still presented themselves. How had the wound been healed so quickly? Kaeya hadn’t been in the hospital. How was it covered so quickly with an eyepatch? Why weren’t there bandages and salves and treatment plans? Why wasn’t he replaced immediately with someone who hadn’t just had their eye sliced open? 

No. He didn’t believe Kaeya for a minute, but when Kaeya didn’t want to reveal a secret, there was no line of questioning that could trick him into it. Albedo had tried often enough.

He still didn’t know how Kaeya and Diluc became brothers. Or why Kaeya had such an affinity for stars. Or why he’d plucked the favor from around his arm and tied it carefully into Albedo’s hair the last time they’d been out in the woods searching for the glowing spines of a certain large species of firefly. Kaeya had many secrets, and Albedo wanted to know them all. 

Which was a problem. Since Kaeya had been keeping his distance since their little incident on the mountain.

Nothing else had happened after he fell down the steep hill. It had been a misstep on his part, resulting in nothing more than a few bruises and cuts. His ribs hadn’t thanked him for it. And Kaeya had chastised him over the bump on his head for a good hour that night. 

But when Kaeya had pulled him up from that fall, the look of panic on his face so blatant that Albedo was afraid he’d broken something, it had shifted something between them. The kiss had only solidified that shift. A return to before wasn’t possible. Albedo certainly didn’t want it.

Kaeya, on the other hand, was trying to forget the whole ordeal. He hadn’t said anything aside from “Sorry” and “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Albedo sighed, flipping his pen around in his hand. “It’s going to be hard to be my guard and also keep avoiding me.”

“I’m not avoiding you.” 

“You were supposed to report this morning. I had to use Huffman instead. He kept asking when I was going to schedule our next session.” It had been a little embarrassing when Rosaria had walked in. The amused smirk on her face had been out of place until Albedo had realized how someone who didn’t know about Albedo’s sketching sessions with various knights would have taken that question. He’d been red faced until Barbara had shown up and asked him if he had a fever.

In a rare show of princely power, Albedo forbade Huffman from asking any other questions. The poor knight had barely held himself back as they toured through the lower levels of the church. The nosy knight had satisfied himself with staring over Albedo’s shoulder in an extremely distracting fashion, occasionally bumping Albedo’s arm so that a stray line went across the paper.

Huffman was not a bad knight. He was very dedicated to his job. He was just. Overenthusiastic.

Kaeya laughed. “I assure you, I would not lightly miss my duties, my grumpy Prince. I was called on by a higher authority to report this morning. Rhine wanted to check in on my progress with the other guards and your father gave the order.”

The mention of his father cut off all further questions Albedo could ask. That must be why Kaeya was so secretive today about what he’d been doing. For reasons unrelated to Albedo’s annoyance with Huffman, he had asked around at the training grounds and the taverns for Kaeya’s whereabouts. Most only stammered out that they hadn’t seen him. Only Diluc, a man who Albedo had never actually seen but who now led his Cavalry, had looked surprised at the question. The barkeep turned soldier promised to find him if Kaeya hadn’t reported for duty by the end of the night.

Albedo sighed and turned away. He’d have to tell Diluc he’d found his brother. Or Kaeya would go visit by the end of the night, probably. He always did. Despite his and Diluc’s strange squabbles, they appeared to get along well enough. “I was worried. You’ve never missed a shift before.”

“Hm.” Kaeya hummed, pacing around Albedo in a wide circle until he could see the Prince’s face. “You seem more upset than usual. Did something happen?”

Mona’s body, unmoving and beaten up, flashed through his mind. Albedo swallowed, hard. Did he want to talk about that with Kaeya? Any way that conversation could play out left an ache in his chest that he wasn’t sure he wanted to explore. Still… He could talk about part of it. Even if not all of it.

“When I visited the church, Mona was there.” Albedo crossed his arms over his chest. His jacket, usually a comforting weight on his shoulders, warmed him far too much now.

Kaeya gave Albedo a quizzical look, motioning for him to continue with his story.

“Well, the fighting is more serious than it has been in a long while. Mona’s not even usually martial. She’s a Navigator–she’s supposed to help us come up with strategies and plans. The King says she’s one of the best we have. So when she was laid out on a table… It didn’t make sense.”

“She was waiting, then?” Kaeya’s voice was soft. Softer than it had ever been for Albedo. 

“Yes.” Albedo nodded. Despite his best effort, his eyes flicked to the eyepatch. He forced himself to look away quickly. The room was too hot, his jacket rubbing against his over-sensitive skin like sandpaper. He had more to say but all of it faded on his tongue.

He endured, waiting for the uncomfortable silence to fade.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Your Grace.” The heavy thud of Kaeya’s boots told Albedo the knight moved closer. “She’ll be fine. The Archons have always answered her before.”

“It only takes once,” Albedo turned towards Kaeya’s voice, traveling up the broad chest that now was only a foot from his face. “Right, Sir Kaeya?”

Kaeya stood still, allowing him to reach towards the eyepatch. Albedo’s curiosity had always gotten him into dangerous places. Albedo trusted Kaeya with his life. With more than that, in honesty. But this still felt like a moment where he had crossed somewhere alarming. His hand rested on the swell of Kaeya’s cheek, under the lip of the eyepatch. His fingertips brushed against the fabric–silk, soft. He didn’t try to push it up. Didn’t move after the way Kaeya flinched. 

“It must hurt. You never do that.” Albedo wanted to leave his hand there forever on the warmth of Kaeya’s face. 

“Your hands are never as they should be, you know that?” Kaeya tilted his face towards Albedo’s touch. “Rough, callused, but not in the right places. Not where a Prince holds a sword or a bow, not where he wields his weapons.”

Albedo held his breath, unable to break the spell of the moment. The way Kaeya said it was just a statement–whether good or bad to be clarified later, by whatever Albedo did with his callused hands.

“No, yours are callused at the fingertips. Hardened by scars and burns of study.” Kaeya’s own hand cupped Albedo’s, holding it in place as Kaeya placed a kiss on the crease inside Albedo’s palm. The angle made it impossible to see the touch of Kaeya’s lips, the pressure almost imperceptible. “The hands of a scholar. Someone who won’t lead by the sword.”

Albedo opened his mouth. What was he supposed to say? It was true–he didn’t trust the strength of a sword to carry them through this conflict. To eventually end it in any way that mattered. “Everything is so complicated. All the events of the world seem tangled together. It only makes sense to try to untangle it.”

Kaeya smiled, taking a long step back. He dropped Albedo’s hand. “To you. But you may be surprised to find your tactic is not as common as one might hope.” 

Albedo scoffed. His palm buzzed with a desire to reach out again, to see what Kaeya would allow. But they’d moved on from that now. And Kaeya was back to being careful. “I want to go on a trip.”

It was out of his mouth before he’d really even considered it. Of course he wanted to go on a trip. It had been all he’d talked about the entire time they’d been back from Dragonspine. Going back–for longer this time. Really finding out what they could excavate, what they could discover. The mountain drew him. Going there, to the ice and the cold and the strange peaks, was like slotting a final piece into the gaping whole in his chest that had been there so long he hadn’t even known it was gone.

“And your father says?”

“The King says no. As he is wont to do. But Rhine said she would convince him. That the mountain has valuable assets.” His room was still unbearably hot. He moved to his window, pressed his forehead against the cool glass. He could see Kaeya reflected back at him.

Kaeya stiffened at the mention of Rhine, his face carefully neutral. “And a group of knights can’t go retrieve these assets?”

“A group of knights wouldn’t know what they were looking for or how to properly gather the samples.” Albedo sighed. “You were supportive before. Why are you worried now?”

“I only have one eye now.” Kaeya eased himself into the seat at the desk, resting the uninjured side of his face in his hand. “You think the King will trust a one eyed knight on such a dangerous mission? An extended one at that.”

“Have they removed you as the head of my guard?” Albedo turned around. His hair clung to his face. He ignored it, leaning back against the sill of the window. Kaeya watched him. He watched Kaeya. 

Technically, Kaeya was supposed to remain standing until Albedo sat down and allowed him to sit. Socially, Kaeya would have been expected to turn down that offer and continue standing and at attention as long as he was in Albedo’s presence.

They didn’t find any use in that type of dynamic. Maybe it would have been safer for them in the long run. Kept them from falling into whatever was between them. Or maybe it would have just taken them longer. Either way, Albedo didn’t regret that Kaeya didn’t bother to treat him with deference. 

Most of the time. 

Eventually they would move past Your Grace. Again.

“So when do we leave?”

“And if your worries play out?” Albedo pushed off the window sill, crossing the mostly empty room. “If they send you off to some other assignment? Replace you with Huffman and I’m to roam the mountainside with him hovering over my shoulder?”

“Then I will have to abandon my new assignment and save you from Huffman’s inattentive protection.” Kaeya looked up at him as he drew closer. Albedo wondered if Kaeya realized his knees parted to let him in, his hands falling to his side? Did Kaeya mean to respond to him this way? 

“Huffman is quite attentive. He stares at me wherever I go.”

“His attention is not on your safety, Your Grace.” Kaeya’s chest rose slow, his exposed eye watching Albedo’s mouth. “But on your pretty hands, so you may sketch him some other sunny day.”

“And you?” Albedo leaned forward, careful not to touch Kaeya and risk breaking the spell between them. “Your attention is only on my safety? You do not want me to sketch you out on Starsnatch Cliff, among the cecilias?”

“I’m partial to the calla lilies.” Kaeya’s head tilted, hair sliding over his shoulder.

Albedo could have painted his Knight just like this, a hundred times. 

A knock, powerful and thoroughly disrupting, shook Albedo’s door. 

He’d love to banish whoever was on the other side of that door to the other side of some far off, unreachable border. He took several steps back quickly, trying to ignore the light of panic on Kaeya’s face as he brushed his hands over his jacket. 

He’d only finished tugging his hair away from his face when she strolled in. 

“Your Grace.” Rhinedottir bowed, her hand delicately placed over her cravat and her shoulders so poised as they turned in just slightly. Such a false humility. Albedo gestured for her to rise and she obeyed so quickly it was a shock there was no snap from her back. 

“You need something, Lady Gold?” He kept his voice level.

Rhinedottir Gold was a frightening presence. The confines of his room only amplified her nature. “I heard you were in the hospital this morning, Your Grace.”

“For research, as we discussed earlier.” Albedo smiled, moving to gather his notes to show her for approval. The more impressed she was with his progress, the more she advocated for his father to allow him the freedom to expand his studies. “It appears Khemia shares several qualities with healing, though obviously they have their differences.”

“Ah, yes. Healing is so passive, isn’t it?” Rhine’s expression was impassive, as hard to read as ice. “Just returning something to its previous state, leaving nothing new.”

Albedo’s stomach churned. He didn’t look down on healing–he didn’t look down on any of the magics as Mona called them. Somehow, when Rhine spoke of the abilities of others, Albedo felt as if she considered them to be the games of children. Interactions with Rhine left his chest tight, anxiety twisting like a knife through his lungs. 

Still. Freedom was never closer than when he was in Rhine’s good graces.

“Did you need anything else, my lady?” Albedo allowed the smile to fade from his face. He tried not to notice how Kaeya stood, silent and tense, eye focused on the wall behind Rhine. “I was about to have my lunch and begin my sword training for the day.”

Rhine’s gaze drifted to Kaeya. Her coats could have bought Kaeya’s armor and the livery beneath it several times over. She was so highly esteemed. Yet they’d entered Mondstadt together, him on her back like a wounded animal. From that moment they’d been separated, yet Kaeya found himself under her scrutiny often. 

Albedo didn’t dare turn to see if Kaeya reacted. He wasn’t supposed to care about the state of his knights. His father had told him they were to be a tool–a sword pointed at his enemies so that by the time he drew his own, he only had what was left. Albedo had found that approach to be inefficient. 

Every knight under his command had eventually shared their histories and their desires for the future. Albedo did what he could to make those futures a reality. Most of the knights, by now, had at least one sketch of his that they’d passed among their families. So far, none of the slips of paper had ended up on the market. And for that, he had some of the most loyal knights in all the kingdoms. And, despite them falling short of Kaeya’s high standards, they were talented. 

“Your father has agreed on your voyage to the mountain.” Rhine turned back to him, her smile wide and genuine. “You’re to go gather the supplies for study and see what other items of use you could bring back to help us shorten the coming war.”

Albedo nodded. “I’ll begin packing right away then, my lady.” 

“And Kaeya is to accompany you, along with several men.” Rhine sighed, her mouth twitching into an amused smirk. “And he insists on you taking young Sucrose with you as well. She’s the daughter of a noblewoman and quite interested in the sciences.”

“And gay.” Albedo said dryly. “As well as taken. By a nun, if the rumors are true.”

“Yes, well, your father is under no illusion about your proclivities.” Rhine shrugged, as if she hadn’t just made a wild assumption and stated it as fact. “He and the woman’s mother think it may be a suitable match with the desired outcome for both of you. And then you’re both free to your dalliances.”

Abedo’s face burned, his eyes wide. He placed his hands behind his back to hide their angry shaking. “I have given no inclination of my proclivities , as you put it. I simply don’t see a purpose in dragging someone on a trip they’ve shown no interest in going on.”

“Then think of it as allowing her the opportunity to further explore her alchemical studies. After all, what tools and resources will she have access to being a part of a royal study that her mother would be unable to provide for her?”

Unable and unwilling. Albedo bit his tongue. “I’m sure she’ll be a pleasure to have along.”

On a frozen mountain. To study dragon bones. 

From what he had heard of Sucrose, only one of those would be of remote interest to her.

“Certainly. Well, Sire, I must be off. I just wanted to share the good news with you.” Rhine bent a little at her waist, a bow of a sort, and left.

Kaeya didn’t relax until after her footsteps had disappeared down the hallway. He let out a long, slow breath. “So, your trip will happen then.”

“Yes,” Albedo frowned. “It appears so.”

A month ago, the conversation he’d just been subjected to would have turned into him ranting at Kaeya about the uselessness of internal politics. What kind of match were he and Sucrose? They were both interested in science, but Albedo had no interest in her and she certainly had none in him. They’d met before and the conversation, when it eventually happened, was pleasant enough. Had the decision been made to allow her greater access to subjects for her area of study, Albedo would never have objected. But her mother and his father would be expecting something more.

“Your enthusiasm seems to have faded from earlier,” Kaeya’s voice was low, cautious. He still hadn’t sat down again. “You could always refuse to go on these conditions. You are the Prince.”

“The King is the King. If he wants this and I refuse, then he’ll deny me the next time I want to push the limits of–” Albedo stopped himself from saying prison. It sounded pretentious. He had more than most in his kingdom would ever dream of. And Mondstadt wasn’t a poor nation. 

Still. 

He had to beg to leave this castle. Beg to do anything that actually interested him.

“We all have our cages, Your Grace.”

Albedo spun on his heel, grabbing the cloak draped so prettily across Kaeya’s broad shoulders. He was shorter than Kaeya now, the Knight no longer looking up at him from where he sat in his chair. Kaeya didn’t move to accommodate him, only stared down at him with his lone eye. 

“I don’t like this shift that’s happened between us,” Albedo’s voice was steady, though his hands still held a tremor from Rhine’s visit. “I don’t like when you call me Grace. I’ve never needed to be that to you before.”

Kaeya leaned down, his gloved hand wrapping around Albedo’s grip on his cloak. His lips brushed over Albedo’s ear when he spoke, his voice low and quiet in a whisper. “I apologize, Your Grace. I will have to keep your displeasure in mind.”

Albedo stilled, his cheeks red. 

His father was wrong. Albedo did not have a proclivity for men. His preferences ran specific to one man. In as long as Albedo had been alive, through his bashful childhood and hormone riddled adolescence, he had never felt for anyone. And now he did. 

If the King had any fondness for his only son, he’d allow him to choose this. To be amazed that what he thought didn’t exist for him at all simply rested in the hands of a specific person. 

Kaeya took a step back. He bowed, eye watching Albedo’s face until he stood straight again. “If you’ll excuse me, Sire, I’ve got to chastise the knights outside your door for not realizing I’ve been here.”

Albedo’s voice stuck in his throat as his knight left his room. What was there even to say?

Stay with me. 

Even if Kaeya wanted to stay by Albedo’s side, he had to carry out his duties. It was why he was allowed by Albedo’s side at all. His proof of loyalty, his hard work to rise up the ranks, his singular success on the field. He was a jewel in the shit, as Rhine had put it. To polish the shit to diamonds, they’d called on his brother to correct the cavalry. A whole family of talented knights, with the Ragnvindr name. 

Except, Rhine had pointed out to the King when the man had been deep in his cups, his face red and his voice booming about the Ragnvindr boys, Kaeya wasn’t a Ragnvindr.

He did not have a prestigious name. He did not have any name. This was why the knights called him only Sir Kaeya, and his brother was the sole proprietor of the Ragnvinder estates and the winery. This left Kaeya with a fancy family in reputation only and all the trappings of a nobleman with none of the coin or backing. A lesser man would have drowned in his brother’s bar.

The stories of how Kaeya ascended to Captain of the Cavalry were varied and wild, each new version more unbelievable than the last. The worst was that not a single of the stories resembled the last. There was no gleaning the truth from the different versions.

Albedo forced himself to move from the middle of his empty room and begin to drag out his pen and parchment. He’d need a list of supplies. He’d have to plan it, carefully, or else he’d be stranded on a mountain and stalled on any progress. Returning early would be a humiliation he didn’t want to consider.

***

Albedo crouched below the root of a tree, the red glow from the splits in the bark casting an eerie glow over his blue-tipped fingers. He tucked them into the slight dampness of his cloak and tried to shrink further into the snow.

If he could stretch across to his sword…

But there was no use. The creature ahead of him–taller than any man, blue and white with frost–paced, waiting for his return. It appeared to be unable to cross the barrier of the tree. Though, Albedo still crouched further. His barrier hypothesis was only one possibility. He couldn’t dismiss other potential explanations. Maybe this creature was unable to see him due to the light? Or maybe it was no longer sure where Albedo had gone. He had no measure of its intelligence yet. 

His heart beat loud, pounding against his ribcage with the effort of outrunning the beast and the fear of the giant ax in its hands. He leaned against the dark wood, catching his breath.

He’d become separated from the others by pure accident. He and Kaeya had been following a trail of those crimson stones, their smooth, gem-like tops peeking out from beneath the snow. The ambush had come by surprise, a swirl of snow, a fierce wind, and Kaeya had been pulled from him with the other knights.

He wasn’t sure why he’d been unaffected by whatever wind and storm had whipped his knights away. He’d have to investigate that later. 

He glanced up to see if the hulking creature had left from his position over Albedo’s sword.

The sword had fallen from his hand in his blind run. He’d held it in a tight grip, slid between the legs of the beast to the hollowed out space the tree occupied, and his fist had bumped against the steel-hard foot. He’d not bothered to scramble for it before he fled to the other side of the twisted tree in the center.

The creature still paced. 

Albedo sighed. He may be stuck here until his knights returned. If they returned. This mountain was huge, with plenty of cracks and caverns to fall into. Who knew where they’d end up. He could be stuck here for days.

Albedo tugged his bag, untangling it from his side. They hadn’t found much yet. They were only two days into the mountain, the first day and a half spent establishing a base camp and several sources of food. The knights had seemed embarrassed about the mint and radish soup they offered him, but Albedo didn’t care. He’d eaten with them. Though he was quiet, they appeared relieved that he hadn’t made a fuss over their accommodations.

His father had attempted to double up on his clothing and provisions. Albedo had simply nodded in agreement and dumped the extra supplies to the people who waited outside the gate, allowing them to pick through and haggle over whatever they liked.

He hadn’t regretted that decision once. He tried to imagine what it would have been like trying to run from the ambushers with twice as many supplies in his bag, along with whatever samples he collected. He’d have never survived the first swing of that great ax.

He rummaged around the bag until he found his vial with the silvery chips of stone he’d managed to break away from their strange, splintered clusters. It glittered in the red light, glinting back at him with a greater intensity. The way the stone broke and compressed reminded him of flint. If it had a similar make up…

He didn’t have a choice. He’d have to get creative, or he’d be stuck here. 

He broke off a bit of the dry, dark bark that surrounded the strange tree. It was brittle, crumbling where he’d accidentally exerted just a bit too much pressure. It would only be good for a quick fire, if he could start one.

He cradled the wood on his legs, dumping the silver stone onto his hands. He struck them, quickly, watching as bright sparks flew from the slivers in his hand. The stone was reactive–an interesting quality for it to have that may have explained its explosive appearance from the ground. 

After what felt like forever, Albedo’s hands trembling and aching from the cold and the cramped position of his hands on the thin stone, the wood lit. 

He threw it, quickly, at the bulkiest part of the creature’s back. He’d been lucky. A large, jagged shield the creature carried ahead of it could have easily made all his efforts useless. 

Anything being hit in the back by a moderately sized, flaming piece of driftwood, would shout. Albedo hadn’t been quite prepared for the strength or volume of the roar, but he didn’t allow it to distract him. The creature took several lumbering, ground-shaking steps backward and Albedo sprinted, scooping his sword up and getting behind his adversary once more.

He’d never taken on anything like this before. Nothing so big, nothing with a shield that looked like one good knock from it would send Albedo flying into one of these rocky walls surrounding them. He tightened his grip on his sword and took a deep, steadying breath.

The creature turned, trying to face him, but Albedo was light on his feet. He wasn’t a dancer like Kaeya, he didn’t shift shift shift to the opponents openings, barely touching the ground between strikes. But he was fast, and small, and strong.

He struck, once, watched the blade bounce off the bulge of an impossibly bulky shoulder. The creature howled, and a slow drizzle of wine-red blood trickled from the cut left behind by Albedo’s sword. 

This would be an exhausting fight. He’d have to put all his strength into each hit for it to even matter.

He shifted on his feet again, trying to watch the snow for stray branches or rocks as well as keep his eye on his gargantuan foe. 

He lunged again when he found himself squarely in the center of the creature’s shoulders, his sword crashing hard down the line of the spine. 

This time the creature stumbled forward, ax swinging wildly over its head. Albedo barely jumped back fast enough to avoid the shield, trying to slide back to the safety of the creature’s blindspot. 

It was no good. He could hear, rather than see, that back up was coming for the creature–smaller versions of itself, with less bulky shields and what looked worryingly like bows. He could only hope their aim was poor and they shared the limits of forethought that their larger counterpart possessed. He didn’t like balancing his fate on so many hopes and wishes.

He grunted, catching himself as he almost slid down one of the glittering red stones that had so easily lured them here. He braced himself against it, using it to kick off from and drive his sword between the ribs of the creature. Blood spurted warm across his arm, but the creature’s eyes only grew more fierce inside its mask, its roar deafening up close. 

Albedo tried to tug his sword away, but the thick banded body of the creature wouldn’t let it go. He had to abandon it to roll away, narrowly avoiding the blunt end of the ax to his face. 

He was not so lucky this time with the shield. The surface was cold as ice and hard as stone. The power of the swing crushed the air from his lungs. He struggled to catch himself, arms crossed over his head in case another strike came from above. His ribs ached. One for one, it appeared.

The hilt of his sword stuck from the creature's side, entirely useless until the adrenaline ran out and the thing died. The large horns on it’s mask swayed as it stepped forward, the ax lifted over its head.

Albedo needed his legs to move, but he was frozen to the spot, unable to push through the shock. He took a deep breath, faced the attack. Finally, his feet shuffled. An arrow whizzed past his shoulder, embedding itself between himself and the giant still stumbling towards him.

The ax came down just as Albedo was able to force his calves and knees to cooperate and move together.

He rolled, landed beside where the creature fell. His sword still stuck from its side, its mask askew on its large face. The shoulders, still trickling blood, rose and fell with labored breathing. Albedo tried to ignore the screech of the smaller ones that had appeared, watching the creature’s eyes widen in panic.

He slid his hand along the back. There were no words to comfort a dying thing. Death was the final terror. So Albedo didn’t waste what little breath he’d managed to regain. Instead he kept eye contact with the creature and grabbed the hilt of his sword.

He could see now where his mistake had been. He had pierced its lung. Not the heart. He slid his sword from the now relaxed muscles. Kept his hand against the creature’s back. 

Leaning forward, he tried to approximate where the ears may be hidden within the mane. He slid the sword back up through the center of the chest. “I am sorry for this. I would have preferred a different way.”

The creature grew still. 

Albedo stood, his limbs heavier for the exertion and the displeasure of having to kill something so clearly worth learning about. 

The arrows had stopped. The smaller ones seemed to have withdrawn. Either they were frightened by the fall of their larger leader, or they were unsure how to react to him. At the moment, he was covered in their blood and their musky, heavy scent.

He looked at the edge of the stone around him, searching the trees and snow banks for any sign of further attack. When he saw nothing, he sank down and allowed himself to rest.

A stone dug uncomfortably into his side, like a thorn after a briarpatch. He dug it out, only to find not a stone. A vision, golden with a swirl on the inside, sat in his palm. He was the first of Mondstadt royalty to receive one.

He recognized this symbol. It was the symbol of Rex Lapis, an Archon of Liyue who resided over contracts and war. He scoffed and dropped the vision back to his side. He’d figure that out later.

It felt ridiculous that he, a scientist, would be rewarded by a God of War. For what? Defending himself against something that was defending itself against him.

Albedo waited until his chest didn’t squeeze tight with each breath and then stood. He would have to get to higher ground and see if he could find the others. His muscles screamed at the abuse of movement. Even his fingers were tight from their grip on his sword.

He reassembled himself–sword in the scabbard, bag shifted more comfortably onto his shoulders, chilled clothes readjusted to the least wet he could achieve. Then he began to climb up a crumbled wall. He was careful, testing each footing with only some of his weight before pulling himself up. He tried not to look below, or above. He only had one more little bit to climb and then he’d be done. And then again. And again, until he finally reached a spot with enough solid ground for him to sit, stretched out in the snow. He’d have to catch his breath again. His ribs ached, pain pulsing across his entire torso.

Likely broken. He tilted himself to an angle that didn’t put pressure on that side and looked out over the mountain.

The view was beautiful. Whatever lived on this mountain, he couldn’t see any more of them. A few hints of their presence were dotted down the slopes. Fires still curled gray smoke into the air. Spears and arrows littered the ground nearest him. He didn’t doubt there were more weapons further down. He could even see a mask, unaccompanied by a body beneath it, that hung on the branch of a tree, the eyes empty and the red paint scraped mostly away. 

Missing from this picture were his knights. He’d expected to see at least one or two trying to make their way back to him, but there was no sign of them. He frowned and fidgeted with the opening to his bag. He hadn’t gathered much, and the knights had insisted on carrying a majority of the supplies. Now look at him, out here with practically nothing.

He needed to get warm and dry, first off.

The little fires below, mostly just ash and embers, were awfully enticing. But he didn’t want to be the one caught there when whatever had made that fire returned. If it did.

He sighed and began his climb down.

Maybe they’d return here to look for him. It would likely be the best option for him. But he couldn’t just sit out in the open. 

He gathered up what sticks and twigs he could. The mountain air, despite the snow and ice, was dry. So he had no shortage of suitable firewood. When he had enough, he searched the snow near the strange tree for the silver stone he’d dropped earlier.

It took ages to find it in the muddy remnants of his footprints. He cleared a spot. The fire took half an hour to get started. By the end of it his starsilver had begun to crumble in his hands. The sparks were sporadic. More than once a powerful spray of sparks attempted to light the dirt to the left or right of his pile of sticks.

He was a genius, by any metric, and yet he couldn’t start a fire unless his life was in danger.

He sighed as a spark finally caught, and slowly began to build it with leaves and a shredded piece of parchment he’d been willing to sacrifice. 

Once started, the fire took beautifully. He allowed himself to sink into the warmth. His hands were cold, the tips of his fingers tinged blue. His other extremities had to be just as bad off. Without intervention and a replacement for his clothes so these could dry fully, he’d be in real danger when the night truly fell.

He had to find a way to get his knights back to him. Or find his own way to the camp. 

But warming was most important, for now. 

He held his hands in front of the fire and tried to think of what could have happened to his knights. To Kaeya. He trusted the others–but Kaeya had shown, time and again, that he’d put himself between any harm and Albedo. It was only because of Kaeya's attention to his training that he’d been able to take down something so much bigger than himself.

How would Kaeya feel about the vision at his side? It was such a useless thing–a blessing from an Archon. An archon who certainly didn’t know he existed. It was not like he’d one day go to meet Rex Lapis and the Dragon of the Sea of Clouds would recognize him and tell him how impressed he was.

Besides, any Archon who was actually impressed by murder was not one Albedo particularly cared for. Rex Lapis was a God of War, after all. There were few of them left, though Rex was the one most renowned. His brute force had shaped the very landscape of his country. One could still make out the shapes of the spears in the Guyun Stone Forest. 

Albedo’s grip tightened on the vision. He considered throwing it into the fire, leaving it here and returning to his studies and science and figuring out how to approach this upcoming war in a preventative way as opposed to the King’s headstrong strategy of hit them first and hit them hard . 

The vision fell from his hand, still at his side. A tool was a tool, no matter where it came from. He’d use this tool counter to the Archon’s nature. He’d use this tool to lay a more solid foundation. After all, Rex Lapis was the God of Contracts, as well. A strong enough contract could stop this war.

He wrapped his arms around his knees, trying to soak as much warmth from the fire before he had to leave and make his way back to camp.

It was possible that’s where the Knights were, as well. If nothing else, Sucrose had stayed behind to study the agate they’d found from last time. She hadn’t fared too well on the mountain so far, but she was learning and not being insufferable about how uncomfortable everything was. She would be able to help him find the others. 

The world blurred as he started to drift into sleep. He jerked himself awake. That was too long at the fire. He tossed snow on top of it until it was nothing but smothered smoke. Gathered himself together once again. And then began his way towards the camp.

He hoped against hope that he’d find someone on the way down. Someone who would tell him everyone else was waiting at the camp and they’d been sent to collect him, whatever state he was in. 

Their absence didn’t feel right.

The more he walked, the more pain flared up his side. It wasn’t agony. Not yet. 

Kaeya would be cross at him for getting hit. He’d probably be forced to practice dodging for the foreseeable future.

Still.

His foot caught on a lump on the ground, sending him tumbling into the crusty snow. He scrambled up, brushing the cold off as quickly as he could, and looked back to see what tripped him.

A face, thinly frosted over, stared up at him. Huffman.

Albedo held in his scream–he didn’t need more of those creatures finding him before he got to camp. He dug around the limbs and chest, uncovering as much as he could.

To his surprise, the man was still breathing. The frost crackled with every rise and fall of Huffman’s chest. Albedo shoved his arm beneath the man, around his shoulders, and lifted with all the strength left over from his fight earlier.

Huffman’s cloak was stiff with ice. The man was probably three quarters dead. They had a healer at the camp, but not one trained at the hospital like Barbara or Bennet. Just a knight with a pyro vision who spent some time in the stables healing other knights after practice. Albedo didn’t allow himself the time to wonder if that would be enough.

“Huffman, can you hear me?” The man was limp against his side. The frost began to melt. Albedo’s side would be soaked soon. “I need you to use your legs. Even a little would be useful.”

Huffman groaned. He did not try to use his legs. Almost certainly he was unconscious or at most barely conscious. 

Albedo wasn’t sure how much longer they had until camp. It wasn’t far, but the sun was sinking lower, the temperature dropping quickly. The trees and rocks and short shrubbery cast long shadows across their path. He started to count their steps to keep track of his concentration and pacing. If he started to slip, he needed to know.

By the time he could see the glow of firelight in the direction he was almost certain his camp had been in, he was losing count every twenty or so steps. Huffman’s feet dragged behind him. The man, like most people, was taller than him and bulkier too. Albedo wasn’t weak by any account, but his arms and legs were like wet noodles. The weight of the Knight and his armor, his ice crusted cloak, his dead-weight muscle beneath all that. Albedo could barely stand. 

He dragged himself to the campfire just in time to see Sucrose and Timaeus, their psuedo-healer, pacing around the flames. He grunted an indecipherable greeting at them and fell to his knees.

When he opened his eyes again, he was dressed in one of the knight’s woolen sweaters and rough canvas pants, his torso wrapped top to bottom in gauze. His vision was laid beside him and a meal, long gone cold, beside that. He tried not to imagine which knight had been tasked with cleaning and bandaging him. Worse yet, Sucrose may have been forced to do it if the other knights were similarly incapacitated. 

Albedo sat up with some effort. Every muscle was at least ten times heavier, every movement taking so much more effort than before. He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled his way out of his tent. He was the only one with a private tent. Some of the expectations of the knights couldn’t be overcome with reason. 

Sucrose and Timaeus sat at the fire. A few of the other knights–Swan, Amber, Eula–sat across from them. Amber and Eula had visions, and no doubt they’d been able to help each other reach the camp quickly. 

“Your Grace!” Eula jumped to her feet. Albedo had tried, to uncertain success, to befriend her, but she remained steadfast in upholding every politeness. Including standing when Albedo was standing.

“Please, Sir Eula. I have no desire to waste time on formalities. Where’s Kaeya?” Albedo’s voice rasped out. It was dark, the night having swallowed the mountain whole sometime while he was recovering. “Did he return? What happened out there?”

“Well. That giant thing showed up and headed straight for you, but he had a whole group of tiny ones who used some kind of magic. They produced…” Amber’s cheeks burned red. “I know it sounds. Ridiculous. But they produced small tornadoes? We weren’t prepared for an anemo attack so precise, so we ended up getting carried pretty far down the mountain. Between that and fighting them off, we’d been separated from you for quite a while.”

“And it would make the most sense for those who were injured to return to camp immediately. And of course, they’d need protection.” Albedo nodded. “What happened to Kaeya and the others?”

“He and Owen and Huffman went out after you. Owen returned shortly after we arrived back at camp with a twisted ankle. . You found Huffman. I guess he’d gotten separated at some point.” Swan scowled. “It wouldn’t have been my first pick for a rescue team. Captain Kaeya, of course, but Owen’s still green and Huffma–OUCH!”

Swan didn’t finish whatever he wanted to say. Eula had stomped indiscreetly on his foot. Her heel was quite sharp. 

“We don’t speak poorly of our fellow knights, Sir Swan.” Albedo rubbed his hands. Without his gloves he felt vulnerable, exposed. “I’ll be needing better clothes. Amber, were you able to rest after returning?”

“Yes, Sire,” Amber stood, her arms crossed across the furred jacket she’d brought from home. It had been a wise decision, considering her usual outfit in the city. Of course, Amber’s usual duties valued speed and distance over bulky protective wear. “Eula and I both slept until shortly before you awoke.”

“Good.” Albedo considered the state of Sucrose. Her eyes were red-rimmed, dark bags hanging beneath them. Her limbs trembled–with cold or exhaustion or low blood sugar, he had no way of knowing. “Sucrose. You’re to take a second watch after Eula. Get a lot of rest, eat some good food. Try to remember you’ve done an impressive job handling things at the camp. I’m sure your mother will be proud.”

Sucrose’s face burned bright red, but she didn’t respond. She only nodded at him and hurried into her tent, which she shared with Amber usually. She would likely appreciate some time alone.

“Are you sure, Sire? I am more accustomed to the cold than Sir Amber, since I have a cryo–”

“Sir Eula, I’m sure your intentions are the best. I know it’s difficult to watch someone you care about head off to danger without you,” He gave her a sharp look. “But your vision would be useless out there for me right now, and it does me no good for you to be resistant to the cold if I freeze to death beside you. Sir Amber can light torches and attack enemies from a distance. I’m in no state to assist in a close quarters fight. I assure you, I’ve considered every possibility.”

Eula’s mouth snapped shut, though her eyes burned. She and Amber had been building a friendship that anyone with eyes could see was blooming into more. Albedo didn’t need Eula or Amber trying to protect each other or being distracted. 

He took a deep breath. “Now that that’s settled. Eula, if you begin to feel tired at all, please tag in Timaeus to help with your watch. If someone attacks the camp, remember your flares.”

Eula nodded. The storm in her eyes was beginning to calm. Albedo would bet anything that Amber was shooting her calming, commiserate glances. “You two talk while I get changed.”

Timaeus had returned with his clothes sometime during his speech at Eula about her vision. His face was pale at the suggestion he may have to take over for her, but he hadn’t argued. He really wasn’t a strong knight–his only claim on being here was truly his healing and his potion-making. Which, while creative, often had sporadic results. Still…

“Sir Timaeus, were you ever able to come up with anything that could increase resistance to cryo? Or simply the cold itself?” Albedo watched Timaeus turn from worried to sheepish to proud. Good.

“Actually, Your Grace, I did manage to come up with something. It’s only been tested on me so the results–”

“Good. Give me whatever you’ve managed to produce. We won’t use it unless absolutely pressed to.” Albedo nodded, grabbing his clothes from Timaeus’s arms, and entered his tent to change.

Even the brief exposure left him freezing. His shirts were made of a thicker, fleece lined fabric than the knight’s wool shirt. He considered, and then tossed the wool shirt back over the top of his. His bottom half was already nearly too layered–thigh high socks, lined pants and fur lined boots. He looked down at the vision on the ground. It was attached to a thin leather strip. How convenient for him the Archon had decided to include a tether.

He tied the leather around his neck, trying to ignore the heavy cold of the stone on his chest. Finally, with everything else on, he tugged his gloves on and felt complete. Nothing could touch him, he could touch nothing. Not directly. 

He sighed. “I’m coming, Kaeya. Just hold on.”

The fact the Knight hadn’t returned for Huffman meant Kaeya was either in bad trouble, or he’d tried to send the other knights back when they proved overwhelmed by the challenge and he was still out there trying to find Albedo. Either way, he was in trouble now. 

“Sir Amber, are you ready?”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Amber’s hands were covered in her archer’s gloves, her headband replaced with Eula’s heavy furred hat. He bit his cheek so he wouldn’t smile at the soft gesture, and nodded. 

Heading out of the camp was intimidating. The darkness yawned on either side of them. Albedo could feel the skittering of things across the ground, the breaking and stretching of twigs and limbs on and in the dirt. He assumed this was his vision at play, as he’d never been able to do that before. It was not an appreciated effect, at the moment. He had no way to discern between the scurry of a fox on the top of the leaves and one of the creatures from earlier pacing ahead. 

Amber, on the other hand, was proactive in lighting just enough torches to provide them with splashes of light. Just enough to keep them oriented. He’d feared he’d have to curb her fire to keep their cover. Amber was one of the best with a bow; faster than any on the nock, draw, and release than he’d ever seen. But she could be excitable and that speed made her hard to stop when she’d started. 

“Sire.” Amber’s voice was quiet in the stillness of the dark. “I may be overstepping, and the knights would never say so themselves but.”

He waited, breath held. He thought he knew what she was going to say. It would be a kind thing to offer, but he’d rather she didn’t.

“You’re one of us. Through and through. And we’d protect you, all of us, with our lives.” Amber took a deep breath. She’d decided against what she was going to say, apparently. “And that includes your secrets, Your Grace.”

Albedo’s footsteps faltered, just enough for Amber to purse her lips and turn her gaze to their right. He didn’t respond. Didn’t have to. The offer was touching–more so than he had expected. 

“Sire!” Amber aimed and shot an arrow ahead. It landed in a fire pit, catching immediately. The fire bloomed to life, revealing a creature curled up asleep, wrapped in an unusual blanket. 

A second look revealed not a blanket, but the dark blue of a cloak. A cloak topped in white fur, tipped with baby blue and lilac. Kaeya’s cloak. 

Albedo’s feet were rooted to the ground. The camp was heavily manned–besides the one wrapped in Kaeya’s cloak, he could see another large one, though smaller than the creature he’d fought, sleeping with its arms crossed, propped on its shield. A couple of smaller creatures, their masks full of horns and their furs laying over most of their bodies, were sitting awake, watching where the fire had come alive suddenly with interest. 

Albedo and Amber hadn’t been spotted. Not yet. Albedo slowly lowered himself into a crouch. His thighs and calves ached. Amber followed his lead, her arrow held at the ready at her side. They didn’t speak. Only observed. 

They couldn’t act. Not until they actually knew where Kaeya was being held. If he was being held. It was possible they only had his cloak and nothing else. He could have lost it in a fight or simply taken it off and it had been stolen.

Both seemed unlikely to Albedo, but the possibility was there. He couldn’t risk making assumptions. 

The creature under the cloak shifted. The fire from the arrow was fading with no new wood to catch on, fading back into darkness.

Albedo recognized the sleeping one as one of the archer’s who’d run away from his earlier fight. Up the path from the fire pit was a large building–a yurt constructed of loose boards and patched with fraying fabric. They’d have to fight through whoever was below and hope that whoever was inside either would run or would be easily defeated. Amber may have more energy than him, but her specialty was long range and at least one of these creatures looked unlikely to be taken down by one or two arrows. 

“I can take out two, most likely, before they realize we’re here.”

“Let’s confirm Kaeya is at the camp. I’d rather not disturb them any further if they’re just innocent bystanders.” Albedo could see a way above the yurt–one that didn’t take them through the camp but would be strenuous and slow to traverse. Still… they’d need to preserve Amber’s arrows and his strength. If Kaeya wasn’t even here, they’d have fought an entire camp for no reason.

He gestured for Amber to follow him. He stayed crouched, careful to place his footsteps in broken snow when he could. They took a wide circle, climbing up the side of stone ruins when they could and keeping as silent as possible. Luckily the wind and rustle of leaves hid the soft crunch of snow beneath their feet. 

Finally they reached the stone cliffside that towered just slightly over the yurt. Albedo lay himself down on the snow bank, grateful for his wool layer that protected him from the wet and the cold.

The roof of the building was full of gaps and holes. Some big enough Albedo could fit through.

Unsurprisingly, he saw a shock of sapphire hair. Kaeya was tied to the center support, his uniform ripped and his skin exposed to the cold. Albedo could see a small puddle of blood behind him, where his hands were bound. Albedo took a deep breath, forcing his racing thoughts into order. The blood could be from any kind of wound. Though a puddle of blood was never good, it wasn’t necessarily fatal. Especially not if Kaeya had been there for a long time, and that amount of blood loss had accumulated slowly. 

Inside the yurt were two other of the creatures, the mid-sized ones. If they were meant to be guarding Kaeya, they were doing a bad job. They were asleep. Sprawled across the floor. ALbedo caught sight of a third, smaller creature pressed against the wall.

Albedo waved Amber down beside him to look. She wouldn’t be able to get a good shot in here, but if she could find a way on top of the yurt, at an angle she couldn’t be seen from below, they may be able to rescue Kaeya with minimal bloodshed. 

“1… 2… 3.” She muttered, counting the creatures laid out. “I think they’re dead, sire.”

Albedo frowned, looking back down at the yurt. 

Kaeya wasn’t unconscious. Albedo could tell that from the firm posture of his shoulders and the angle Kaeya’s head was tilted. He was listening, though for what Albedo couldn’t imagine. Was he listening for the other knights? Was he listening for more of the creatures to show up? Albedo furrowed his brow, trying to puzzle out what was happening below.

“Shoot them anyway. Just in case.” Albedo lowered himself over the side of the cliff, testing his footing like he had before as he made his way down to the roof of the yurt. Amber followed above him, placing her feet where his had gone, her hands where his had held. This way, she moved faster and was dropping down beside him only a few seconds later.

They each paused on the roof, listening for a disturbance below. Amber’s arms shook, her breath shallow as she tried to make as little noise as possible.

Albedo moved first, making his way to a large hole that he’d judged from above would fit him through. He’d need Amber to remain on top after she made sure the creatures below were truly dead. With the cold and the blood loss, they’d have to lift Kaeya through the roof. Hopefully he could remain quiet until after they’d gotten far enough from the camp that the creatures couldn’t hear them any more.

Amber shot each of the creatures once through the head, the arrow fast and true to its mark. There was only the thud and split of the mask. They listened again for a few minutes, and then Albedo lowered himself into the yurt.

His muscles burned with the effort of lowering himself. He was still short enough that his feet didn’t quite touch the ground, so that when he dropped, the thump was heavy. Kaeya still hadn’t looked at him, nor had he responded to Amber’s arrows.

Albedo pushed any worrisome thoughts from his mind. Kaeya was here, clearly alive, and Albedo was rescuing him. That was enough for now. They’d figured out the rest at camp.

Albedo crept over the twisted bodies until he’d made his way to Kaeya’s side.

Several things were unusual about what he found.

Kaeya’s skin was warm. When he placed his hand against Kaeya’s cheek, heat radiated through his gloves. Even still, Kaeya didn’t stir. Albedo frowned, tugging his gloves off and placing his chilly fingertips against Kaeya’s face, his chest, his arms. All warm. Not just warm, hot . And not even a twitch from Kaeya.

The eyepatch was missing. Despite what Kaeya had said before about a knight slicing it in practice, the eye below was undamaged. Only a thin scar stretched from the right corner to reveal there was anything unusual about it at all. 

It was also not Kaeya’s. Albedo knew Kaeya’s eyes. They were blue and filled with stars, like a night sky reflected on an evening ocean. This eye, though still quite beautiful in its way, was golden and bright. The complete darkness in the hut should have made it difficult, at best, to make out the features of Kaeya’s face, but instead Albedo could make out all of him in the dull gold glow. 

He pulled a knife from a hidden sheath in his boots and sawed Kaeya’s bindings loose. Kaeya didn’t move, though his hands did fall. The knight didn’t seem to be unconscious. His body was working to sit as he was, his ear tilted up as if he were listening to something far off, his face set in an expression of interest. 

Most disturbingly of all, the puddle of blood Albedo had been concerned over was not from a wound on Kaeya’s arm or back or anything he’d considered. No, a steady stream of wine-red blood poured from Kaeya’s strange golden eye, trickling down his jaw, his neck, his arm, until it dripped onto the floor behind him. Albedo didn’t have time to investigate what was happening.

He ripped off a long strip of fabric of his shirt from beneath the wool overshirt he’d kept. Whatever was wrong with Kaeya, he didn’t want the other knights to know about it. 

He wanted to call Kaeya’s name, to shake the man until he woke up, but he couldn’t risk speaking. Couldn’t risk that when Kaeya returned from wherever he was in his head that he’d make a sound and alert the creatures outside to their presence. So he closed the eye as gently as he could and tied the strip of fabric around Kaeya’s head, carefully, so it only covered the one eye.

He’d hoped that maybe just those few movements would have jostled Kaeya back from whatever he was doing, but no such luck. Albedo took a deep breath and pulled Kaeya to his feet.

He’d half expected it not to work. His arms were ready to catch Kaeya if he fell. But the man, tall and heavy as he was, did not fall forward. He only stood where Albedo had pulled him, unmoving otherwise.

Albedo swallowed. Something was wrong with his knight.

He looked up at Amber, who shrugged at him and dangled her arms for Kaeya.

Kaeya didn’t move. He didn’t even look up to where Albedo was staring at Amber. 

Albedo held in his groan of irritation. Of course it wouldn’t be as easy as rescuing a functional Kaeya. He stood in front of Kaeya, his eyes resolute, and took hold of the knight’s chin. Kaeya didn’t respond. Albedo tugged Kaeya’s chin down until he was looking into the blue eye–the eye that was still Kaeya’s. 

“Kaeya,” he hissed. “I need you to lift your arms.” 

Kaeya didn’t respond. His arms also did not move. Albedo looked up at Amber, trying to see if there was another way. She only gave him an exasperated look in return.

They were running out of time. Every moment they spent in this godforsaken yurt was another moment that any of the ones outside could come in to relieve the others, or even just check, or maybe they’d come in just to sleep. With so little information on the creatures, Albedo couldn’t guess what they’d do.

Albedo went for a more aggressive method. He wrapped one hand around Kaeya’s neck, tugging the tall man down to his eye level. “Sir Kaeya, Captain of my knights and head of the Prince’s Guard, you will reach up and grab Sir Amber’s hands, and we will get you out of this camp without further incident.”

Kaeya didn’t respond, but his arms lifted gradually, as if with great effort.

Amber didn’t wait any longer than for his fingertips to reach hers. She lunged to cover the last little bit of space, grabbed his forearms, and waited for Albedo to get underneath and push. It worked. Though not as quietly or as gracefully as Albedo would have liked, Kaeya was through the man sized hole and up to the roof. Albedo had just ran and kicked off the center pole to grab the edge of the broken wood above him, hanging in the wide open, when one of the smallest of the creatures, its mask full of horns and its club sharp and swinging, burst through the only door. 

Albedo quickly pulled himself through, shouted at Amber to run, and together they dragged Kaeya away from the camp.

They hadn’t bothered with a direction, at first. Away had been enough. Taking out the three inside the yurt had been one thing–and Amber had likely been right, they were probably already dead. But a full camp had been risky from the beginning, and with Kaeya fully incapacitated, it seemed unlikely they’d achieve anything except one or more of them captured again and the ramainder with a worse fate.

At least Kaeya didn’t slow them down. When they ran, he ran, though it appeared that was the extent of his participation. Any attempt to speak to him was met with silence.

Once they were certain they’d lost the group following them–persistent as they had been through multiple layers of trees and through several crumbled ruins–they headed back to camp. Albedo allowed Amber to lead the way, her arrows lighting torches every few feet.

By now they were both exhausted. Amber’s imprints in the snow were slowly becoming one continuous line as she dragged her feet. The sing of the arrow was preceded by a hiss of pain when she lifted her arms to shoot. And eventually the arrows stopped.

She’d run out.

Luckily, Albedo could see the glow of firelight by then, and could see the prints in the snow where Eula had paced to watch for them. On some other night, he would have been concerned that she’d been wasting energy pacing around, her mind clearly not focused on her task. But he had planned for this tonight. Planned that when they returned, they’d be seen immediately.

His thought, originally, had been for Kaeya. He’d assumed Kaeya would be gravely injured. Perhaps even half frozen, like Huffman.

But no. 

Kaeya strolled beside them easily. He stopped when they stopped and moved when they moved. 

Albedo all but collapsed into camp. Eula was already on her way over, catching him before he actually hit the ground. Amber lifted an arm in greeting, leaning forward on her knees to get closer to the fire. She hardly looked better than Albedo did, and she’d had time to rest.

“We got him,” she said, weakly. Bits of frost had encroached onto her cheeks and nose. It was a reminder of the real danger they’d been in. Not the danger of the strange beings they kept running into, but the danger of the ever present and persistent ice. “But there’s something wrong.”

“I’m taking him to my tent for assessment. Amber, follow me.” Albedo pushed himself off of Eula’s supporting arm. His voice was clear, strong, with none of the fatigue he felt. He hooked a finger through one of the tears in Kaeya’s shirt and led him as carefully as he could to his tent.

Thankfully, Kaeya bent when he needed to and didn’t give any outward sign of his affliction besides his far off stare. Amber followed behind them, her expression already nervous.

“I’m not good at keeping secrets from Eula, Sire.” 

“I’m aware of that. But we don’t know what’s happening and we can’t stir up fear right now.” Albedo sighed. 

“Without context, Sire. Keeping him in your tent will be,” Amber’s cheeks turned pink, her eyes falling on Kaeya’s blue hair. “It will be difficult to explain.”

Albedo smiled at her. “Then don’t. Let people make their assumptions. The truth is the truth, regardless of what people whisper to themselves.”

Amber’s cheeks grew a few shades brighter, but she didn’t say anything else about it. “Understood. Well, Your Grace, I guess I best go check in with Eula before she has a tantrum.”

Albedo laughed. Amber was the only one who could, or even would, say that Eula’s hint of an attitude was a tantrum. Amber grinned back at him and exited the tent. 

With her gone, Albedo turned to Kaeya. 

His eye was still bleeding. The same wine-red blood stained the bottom of the cloth wrapped around his head, slipping like macabre tears down his cheek. “Kaeya?”

Kaeya didn’t respond, his head tilted again as if he were listening. What in all Teyvat was he listening to?

Albedo removed the wool outer shirt and worked his boots down his calves and off onto the ground beside his pallet. With Kaeya in the tent, the space was heating up fast. Albedo observed him for a moment longer and then scooted forward until he sat with his knees against Kaeya’s knees.

He placed one timid hand over Kaeya’s ear and then the other. Kaeya’s dark blue eyebrow scrunched, his exposed eye blinking. 

Albedo waited for any further reaction, but while Kaeya’s expression had changed, there was no indication that he recognized Albedo or where he was. Albedo tugged Kaeya’s face towards him, until Kaeya couldn’t possibly not see him. 

“You’re a liar, Kaeya.” Albedo whispered. The knight’s eye narrowed, his body relaxing. “You told me a knight cut your eye. Did he also replace it with someone else’s?” 

Kaeya leaned against Albedo’s hand. It was a promising sign. Something Kaeya would do, though if he were fully here, he wouldn’t linger. He wouldn’t press into Albedo’s hand insistently like he did now.

“Would you tell me who did this?” The question was cool, calm, even. Everything Albedo didn’t feel at the thought of someone taking his knight and experimenting on him. “Would you tell me why?”

Kaeya closed his eye, leaning forward until Albedo would only need to lift, just a little, to kiss him. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. I can’t do that.”

Albedo nodded. His nose brushed against Kaeya’s, blue hair tickling his cheek. “I’ll find out anyway, you know.” 

“Mm.” Blood slid from beneath Albedo’s palm, leaving a line of red from Kaeya’s jaw to his chin. The Knight didn’t seem to notice. “Please do,” he said, before his lips connected to Albedo’s.

It was a different kiss from the first one. Soft, tired. Almost like a kiss in a dream, where Albedo would wake up with his head on his desk and some parchment or other had smudged ink on his face. 

But the cold pressing in on them from the outside told him this was real. The blood under his palm, the aching in his side, the smell of the dirt. Too many details for a dream. All of it fell away to the gentle movement of Kaeya’s lips against his. Kaeya’s fingertips trailed up his arm at a cautious pace, as if any moment now Albedo would remember that several other knights sat right outside his tent.

He didn’t care. Damn them all. 

When Albedo hadn’t turned him away by the time he’d reached his shoulders, Kaeya slid his hands behind Albedo’s neck, pulling him closer until Albedo climbed onto his lap. 

He was too tired to do anything else. The desperate need for rest weighed him down, left him feeling so heavy he could hardly move. But he could do this, for even a bit longer, after waiting so long. Kaeya’s fingers tugged his braids down, smoothing out the hair that fell free. 

They stayed like that, hands roaming lazily, mouths moving slow and easy against each other, until Albedo pulled away to breath. Kaeya’s chest rose and fell quickly, his eye narrowed on Albedo’s face.

“I can’t go back from this, can I?”

“I’m glad you figured that out.” Albedo leaned down once more, kissing the unbloodied cheek. “Don’t hide from me after we get back? Please?”

“How can I deny my Prince?” Kaeya buried his face in Albedo’s chest. No doubt there would be a smear of blood on the rich blue shirt Albedo wore, but he didn’t care. There could be worse things.

Albedo wrapped his arms around Kaeya’s shoulders, resting his head on Kaeya’s hair. It reminded him to ask something else. “Why are you so warm? Everyone else has had at least a little frost try to settle on them when they sit still too long. But you’re practically a lit hearth on your own.”

Kaeya sat silently for a long while. “I don’t know.” 

Albedo nodded. If Kaeya said he didn’t know, he usually didn’t. To pretend like it had nothing to do with this new eye would be foolish. But Albedo couldn’t draw any final conclusions without testing.

How was he going to do that?

“Will you stay here tonight? They know you’re in my tent to be assessed.”

Kaeya tensed under his arms. Albedo could feel the no like a physical force between them, the desire to run from being seen palpable in the Knight below him. 

“You don’t have–”

“I almost lost you today.” Kaeya readjusted, so that Albedo sat between his thighs instead of on them. His forehead rested against Albedo’s, his eye searching Albedo’s face for something Albedo didn’t know how to show. “I got dragged away from you and worried it would be the last time I ever saw you again.”

“I remembered what you taught me. About staying in the weak spots, keeping on my feet.” Albedo chuckled. “I wasn’t as fast as you. Don’t think I’ll ever be. But I did well enough.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“You were. And you still saved me.” Albedo grinned. “And a bit of ingenuity. I threw fire at him.”

“Fire?” Kaeya’s eyebrow drew in, a wrinkle creasing his forehead. “How’d you manage that?”

“You know those silver stones we found? They are far more efficient than flint.” Albedo leaned back so he could see Kaeya’s face. 

And they were back to themselves. More open than before, more free than before, with a lot more questions between them. But Albedo told Kaeya every bit of information he’d gleaned from when they were lost, all the theories he was still forming about the creatures on the mountain. And Kaeya listened, asking questions where he could. Mostly he just allowed Albedo to speak, to unleash all the observations his mind had been churning all day.

They weren’t sure when they fell asleep. Neither of them had realized it until they woke up, muscles hurting and limbs entangled.

The sun lit the tent. The small space had grown chilly some time in the night. When Albedo placed his hand against Kaeya’s cheek, the skin was barely warm. 

“You appear to be almost back to normal,” Albedo sighed. “I guess that means your assessment is over. You should go get breakfast.”

“I’m sure the other knights have been worried.” Kaeya smiled, then grimaced. “Do you know how unpleasant it is to realize there’s blood crusted on your cheek?”

“You’ll need to clean up as well, then.” Albedo grinned, tapping a finger against Kaeya’s nose. Kaeya’s face scrunched up just a bit, but his mouth twitched into a smile. 

“Hm. So will you. You look like you fought a bear.”

“A bear would have been easier, maybe.” 

Kaeya surprised Albedo with a quick kiss before he pushed back the makeshift door on the tent. It was just a curtain, thick and layered over itself several times. It muffled sound and cold quite well, but still. A tent was not much for privacy.

When Albedo eventually made his own way out of his tent, everyone was sitting around the fire. If anyone found it odd that Kaeya had come from the Prince’s tent, not a single one of them was willing to draw attention to it.

They spent the next several days without further incident. Now that they knew the creature’s existed on the mountain, they were able to send scouts out ahead to check that the coast was clear and avoided any further interaction. Albedo took special care to stop at any abandoned–however temporarily–camps and take detailed notes. 

The appearance of the creatures meant their trip was far more limited than they’d expected. They couldn’t leave the King unaware of their existence for too long. Though Dragonspine was largely left alone by Mondstadt, it was still technically inside its borders. The existence of a new and organized organism in the region would need to be discussed. 

Albedo would avoid any mention of their hostility. He didn’t want the King to make rash decisions. He was aware that he was the one intruding here. 

The last trip up the mountain had only been several months ago. He didn’t know how they’d managed to build so much in such a short amount of time. Maybe they had been further up the mountain, closer to the peaks and deeper in the valleys? Could something be pushing them down and out in the open?

Albedo wrote all his questions in his notes and kept them tucked away.

He was going to have to hide these from Rhine as well. If she thought there was anything to take from these creatures, she’d be there with her own loyal knights and her own crafted weaponry.

“There’s a cave up ahead,” Eula huffed out, her breath catching from where she’d run all the way back. “It’s unoccupied, but I think the Prince will want to see.”

They knights had finally stopped with their Your Grace and Sire , speaking to him as if he were just a person. It probably helped his case that he no longer looked even remotely princely. Several days on a mountainside had left his hair a frizzy, tangled mess. Brushing it did not help much. His clothes were all dirty and torn seconds after he changed due to his inability to care about their state while he climbed and dug for samples and clues as to the origins of these new creatures in Mondstadt. Even his hands, covered by gloves, were riddled with blisters and small cuts that made their way through the thick leather and fur. 

Kaeya didn’t correct anyone. Just gave Albedo an amused look whenever he beamed at the lack of titles. 

The cave wasn’t far. They had a small climb, a close call with a crumbling side of a ruin, and then they finally saw the gaping entrance of the cave. Eula waited for them at the opening, her expression full of pride. Whatever she’d found, she was certain her Prince would be impressed.

And he was.

The whole cavern glowed crimson, littered with the stones they’d found outside. Though fascinating, the stones weren’t what Albedo was most interested in.

No. all the way at the back of the cave, centered and pulsing, was something new. Albedo looked at the twisting vines–no, not vines. Whatever this discovery was suspended by wasn’t botanical in origin. The twisted, dark ropes looked organic. When Albedo reached out for them, Kaeya grabbed his hand, pulled him back.

To Albedo’s surprise, the golden eye was bleeding again, the grim tear-like tracks painting Kaeya’s right cheek with dark lines from beneath the bandage. Kaeya still seemed to be present, though. Albedo watched the blood drip from Kaeya’s chin, then watched as Kaeya reached up, fingertips brushing against the bottom of the bandage. He frowned when they came back wet.

“Oh.” Kaeya looked down at him. His uncovered eye was wide, confused. 

“I’m going to start sketching. Will you be ok?” Albedo asked as quietly as he could. Kaeya swallowed, nodded. 

Movement from the mouth of the cave caught his attention. Sucrose had found their cave, brought along by Amber. Albedo waved at her with one hand, but didn’t look up.

She wasn’t one who got upset about etiquette. In fact, he’d quickly learned that etiquette made Sucrose close herself off so fast it was almost like a magic trick. So he’d taken to treating her as casually as he could without risking falling into anything that could be considered flirtatious.

Not that he had to worry much about that. Sucrose had been busy making wistful eyes at Eula and Amber every time they slipped up and got a little extra chummy in the field. She must be missing her nun.

“This is a heart.” She said, immediately.

Albedo’s pen paused. “What?”

“That’s a heart.” She frowned and tilted her head dramatically. “Yes. These–” She ran her hands along the ‘vines’, carefully, pulling them away and inspecting her gloves. “These were veins. And here,” she pointed to the darkened spots on the bright thing, “is the pericardium. Or at least, what’s left of it. It usually would cover the heart like a protective sac, but this one has been exposed so long it dried out and shrunk.”

“How do you know it’s a heart?” Albedo scribbled down her observations around his sketch, drawing careful, clear lines to each part. “I was trying to work it out. It does pulse. It could just be a large stone or some kind of encased specimen.”

“No, no. I recognize a heart when I see one. The local lupical has a spokesperson, and he brings me boar hearts when he can. I study them under different elemental effects. Anemo is the one I’m most familiar with, of course, but I have access to several others.”

Albedo turned to her, his eyes wide. He knew she was familiar with science, fascinated with it as he had been for as long as he could remember. But he hadn’t known that she was as fascinated as him. “Oh. Please, can you point out more areas of the heart? I fear that in the palace, my father frowns on using any fresh animal parts so I’m limited only to prepared specimens inside my lab.”

Sucrose nodded. “Yes, my mother feels the same way. I just lie.”

Kaeya snorted back a laugh, his hand covering his mouth. Sucrose realized what exactly she’d said and turned a bright, ridiculous red from her forehead all the way down her neck. “I mean. My mother isn’t interested in science anyway, so she rarely asks and I just trade supplies that Razor may need and then he… he…” She was babbling, arms waving ahead of her, when she caught sight of the blood trickling slowly down his cheek. The eye had not quite stopped bleeding yet.

“You’re injured.” She said, the redness fading. “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine. It’s just a residual injury from when I was captured, my lady.” Kaeya bowed his head, just slightly, though Albedo could see the tension in his shoulders.

“You’re lying.” Sucrose frowned. Then the blush returned. “I mean! I’m sure you have your reasons! It’s fine. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry.”

Kaeya’s eye widened, his mouth dropping in surprise. “No, my lady. It’s fine. The truth is that it is a previous injury, from before the trip. It has acted up more than expected, but I’ll be fine.”

Albedo knew what Kaeya was doing now–a careful version of the truth that revealed none of what the lie was meant to hide. 

Sucrose looked confused, her mouth opening and then closing as she realized she was about to repeat her last mistake. “Of course. I hope your eye heals soon, Sir Kaeya. I hear there are no better knights in all of Mondstadt.”

“All of Teyvat, my lady.” Kaeya corrected her, a charming smirk slipping onto his face like a very comfortable mask. “I strive to be the best.”

Sucrose relaxed, more at ease now that the awkward moment had passed. “So, you said you wanted me to point out the parts of a heart? Well, you can see here, under this stone? That’s likely the left atrium. It’s hard to know for sure, because it looks like this heart has been turned around a bit. And it is very large, which means it probably belonged to something we haven’t studied before.”

“It belonged to a dragon,” Albedo didn’t look up from where he wrote right atrium in tiny letters. He’d already begun to sketch out what that may look like below the stones. “Those are its bones outside. Eula has discovered a still beating dragon heart. There are those who would consider this dragon still alive.”

“Oh!” Sucrose’s eyes grew wide, her glasses sliding partly down her nose. “I mean, it has no other functional life signs, but–”

“Yes, well, I didn’t say those people were smart.” He had specifically been thinking about the King, and how neither the King nor Rhine could know that a beating dragonheart lay inside a mountain within Mondstadt’s borders. The King would tell everyone who would listen about it and Rhine would find it and he’d never see it again. “But they do exist.”

“Well, let’s hope they aren’t ever in charge of categorizing discoveries because that would be a disaster.” Sucrose hummed, moving around the heart. She pointed out a few more parts of the heart she could visibly recognize and then started getting into what must have been there or was still likely there to a lesser degree, though time and exposure had whittled it down. 

Kaeya, whose interest had started strong and then gradually waned as the conversation grew more and more into bio-alchemy and boar and dragon anatomy, began to wander around the cave. There were enough of the strange stones from outside that the faint glow from the heart was multiplied several times. The snow shifted in hue–red, pink, purple in the shadows. It was almost artistic. He didn’t doubt that Albedo would be returning before they left for good with his small set of paints and special canvas paper. It was exactly the kind of scene that grabbed his attention.

He ran his hands along the snow, feeling the twigs and roots below that led to bumps and dips above. The cold was a strange thing to him. Winters in Mondstadt tended to be short and pleasant. Snow didn’t fall for long and rarely were there bad storms. But Dragonspine was always cold. It was full of ice and life frozen in time. 

And that was what Kaeya found fascinating about this place. The ruthlessness of it–hidden under layers of picturesque scenes like this one. Even the dragon’s heart, while ominous and haunting with its eerie glow, was beautiful. And Kaeya had read about Durin as deeply as Albedo had. Little was known about him except he terrorized Mondstadt in his final days.

He was still exploring, walking the parameter of the heart, studying the base of the strange organ, when something unusual caught his eye. It was hardly visible, more an outline than a solid sight. Still, Kaeya paused, focusing as to see it more clearly. Was that…?

He had only just bent down to lift it when Albedo caught on to what was happening and moved towards him. It was the last thing he saw with his own eyes before his hands closed on the sword in the ice.

He woke, hours later, back at camp. He sat, once more, in Albedo’s tent. He only knew that hours had passed because of the flickering of the candlelight. It had been the middle of the day when they’d reached that cave. 

His thoughts were fuzzy, disconnected by miles of static so strong it almost felt like a physical presence inside him. With careful, deep breathing he untangled the strings inside his head, until he opened his eyes and didn’t feel the slight spin of the world. 

“You’re back.” Albedo’s voice was smooth, close, but the Prince was nowhere to be seen. “I’ve been worried. Will you explain what’s happening now?”

Kaeya turned, finally catching his Prince with the sword from earlier behind him. The blade was dark, shimmering between a black and silver. Albedo glared at it as he turned it, hands careful on the blade, fingertips barely on the hilt. It was a beautiful sword, if a bit too flashy for Kaeya’s taste. 

A strange gem, bright and almost fluorescent in the candlelight, was set into the cross guard. A vein of purple grew from that gem, a core cutting through the center of the blade. Now that Kaeya truly looked at it, it shifted from lovely to hideous and back again, like an illusion.

“We’re going back tomorrow. After you’ve had a chance to rest.” Albedo didn’t look up from the sword. Kaeya’s stomach flipped. Was Albedo upset at him?

“Why?” Kaeya smiled, allowing only a lighthearted confusion to enter his voice.

“Stop that.” Albedo turned to him, finally. His eyes were wide, his cheeks pink, though not for Kaeya’s closeness or any pleasant embarrassment. Kaeya could see the red against his lips where he’d chewed on them. It was a nervous habit Kaeya had witnessed many times when Albedo was facing a problem he could see no solution to. 

Kaeya’s smile faded. 

This secret was hurting Albedo. He could see it, could almost count the cuts as worry dug away at the Prince. He couldn’t lie. Not to him. But he couldn’t tell him either. That had been made perfectly clear. Kaeya cleared his throat, reaching for Albedo’s hand. 

Albedo watched him, uncertain, then put the sword down. When he took Kaeya’s hand, there was a tremor in his fingers. “You reacted to it, somehow. When you grabbed it, you went completely still. No matter how many times I said your name or tried to wake you up you just…”

Albedo’s mouth snapped shut, his bright blue eyes searching Kaeya for any sign of ailment or injury. 

“I don’t know why,” Kaeya sighed. “Whatever purpose this eye is supposed to serve, I wasn’t informed of it.”

“I could help you figure it out.” Albedo pulled his hand away, crossing his arms tight across his chest. “Whatever you’re worried about can’t be worse than disappearing like that.”

Yes it could. Kaeya shook his head. “Am I to spend another night in your tent?”

“If you’d like. Everyone in the cave saw what happened this time. Including Sucrose. I don’t think people are going to be too concerned if you choose to stay.”

Kaeya pulled Albedo to him, wrapping as much of himself as he could around the alchemist Prince. “I’m sorry we’re leaving early.”

“We were going to have to leave early anyway. This is just a little bit earlier than that.” Albedo shifted until he could look up at Kaeya from Kaeya’s chest. “I don’t mind. I’ve discovered more than I thought I would.”

“There were a fair many surprises this time, weren’t there?” Kaeya hummed, pleased at the way Albedo’s cheeks turned pink again. This time, the reason was clear as he buried his face into Kaeya’s shirt. “How much are you going to share with them this time?”

“I’ll have to share the existence of these new creatures. They’re very settled for a group we saw no sign of the last time we were here, nor were they reported in any books on the mountain.” Albedo frowned. “It is probably time to share the strange floating agate. The sword, however, and the creatures' hostility, will be left out.”

The sword confused Kaeya, but he had expected Albedo would feel protective over the reputation of the creatures on the mountain. 

Kaeya weighed the probable dangers in revealing a secret. Just one. “I know what–no, who-they are.” 

Albedo shot up, hands gripping Kaeya’s shirt so tightly that Kaeya feared the seams would burst. “You’ve seen them before?”

“Yes.” Kaeya smoothed his hand through Albedo’s hair, tugging down the braids. He loved when Albedo’s hair was tangled and wild, like he was hit by a storm. “I used to see them all the time, back in my home country.”

It was well known that Rhine had brought Kaeya from Khaenri’ah after the fall. She was supposed to come alone–her pardon had only been for herself, after all, for her considerable contribution to Mondstadt’s efforts to fight off the Khaenri’ah advances. Kaeya was young and terrified. He didn’t remember much of that time. Though his memories from before it were well intact. And the memories of after. She told everyone he was an orphan boy she picked up on her way from the city. Said she couldn't bear to leave him orphaned in the streets of a dead place.

“Were they common?”

“Eventually they outnumbered those of us who were unaffected.” Kaeya kept his fingers tugging through the knots that had formed over the last several days. He tried to be as gentle as possible, though he did occasionally hear Albedo hiss. 

The Prince, with his constant questions, was being patient now. Waiting for Kaeya to say what he wanted, without pressure. It was kind, as the Prince always was to those around him. Considerate. 

He would rule so well one day.

“They were called hilichurls. And the one you fought–lawachurl. There’s one in between called mitachurl that I think you saw when you came to rescue me. We’re not certain why they turned like that, some smaller and inclined to magic, and some larger and inclined to brute force.” Kaeya sighed. “The little magic ones, those are samachurls. Once, they were all Khaenri’ah. They were all people who studied and cooked and kept house. And now all of my home country is just like them.”

“We killed three of them, to save you.”

“No you didn’t,” Kaeya kissed the top of Albedo’s head. “That was me. Or sort of me. Though I don’t know how long it would have taken me to get out of that camp, had you not come to me.”

“I killed that Lawachurl.” Albedo swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

Kaeya laughed. It was not the response Albedo had expected, based on his confused stare. Kaeya lifted him, until they faced each other directly. He didn’t allow the question on the tip of Albedo’s tongue to escape. Kaeya kissed him instead, and when Albedo pulled away to attempt to ask again, Kaeya captured his lips in another. This repeated, until he and Albedo laughed together.

“Don’t apologize for fighting for your life.” Kaeya murmured against Albedo’s neck, when the laughter had died down. “They would not want to live as the monsters left over from someone else’s war. They deserved more than to be left that way. The curse is incurable.” 

Albedo hugged him tighter. “I’m sorry for that, then, that you had to see your neighbors and friends suffer.”

Kaeya wanted to respond, but the words caught in the tightness of his throat. So he just ran his hands through Albedo’s hair until the Prince fell asleep. And then, shortly after, he fell asleep too.

The trek back to the castle went quicker than the one to the mountain. Kaeya and Albedo had relaxed around each other, their steps falling together, their jokes coming easily again. The fear that had tightened Kaeya’s chest since their first visit had been buried under the weight of the Prince’s sincerity, and neither they nor the knights seemed bothered by it.

And it was clear the knights knew. Or at least suspected. Maybe not Owen, who had yammered on obliviously to Eula for a whole day and a half until she’d told him, deadpan, that she was very much taken. Amber had been a fluttery, blushing mess the rest of the day. But all the others had noticed, pretended not to, and went on their way. 

If Huffman seemed a bit out of sorts, that was his prerogative. It’s not like he was going to start yammering about it at the pub. Albedo was their Prince and they’d protect his secrets like they protected the rest of him.

Kaeya took the sword and the parchments, kept well separate and clearly marked, detailing the hilichurl’s fighting tactics and what provoked them. He’d been very careful to have on his thickest gloves when he grabbed the sword, which Albedo had wrapped in a cloak. It appeared whatever had taken Kaeya earlier wasn’t inclined to do so again.

The guards were surprised to see them. Diluc had given Kaeya a cross look when they entered the gate. His brother only barely caught the swing of a sword that came down on him, returning to training whatever poor knight had happened to be there when his mood dropped. Kaeya didn’t envy them. Diluc turned downright cruel when he was upset and worried, and nothing would be more upsetting or worrying than the Prince’s untimely return. 

As far as Diluc would ever know, they’d only been turned around by the surprise of the hilichurl and nothing else. In fact, Albedo planned to tell the King they’d returned immediately upon finding their camp part way up the mountain. The full details were to be kept entirely secret.

Kaeya liked that Albedo didn’t trust his father. He liked that the Prince was smart enough to see the King’s likely reaction to finding out about a group of strange, near-human (nearer than he’d ever know) creatures who’d attacked his son. That he wanted to withhold the sword because his instincts told him it wasn’t as it appeared and he didn’t trust his father with a weapon that Albedo didn’t know the full details for yet.

It showed the Prince thought things through. He didn’t believe in people just because they were familiar. 

Kaeya would have hidden things for him regardless of what their relationship became. 

The small band of knights watched the windows. Albedo made a small noise towards Kaeya, who looked up to find Rhine staring at their return with a displeased expression.

Sucrose waved goodbye to them when Amber and Eula offered to escort her home.

The knights separated in pairs, until only Kaeya and Albedo were left entering the castle. Their supplies would find their way back to their respective places. Albedo handed off his notes and discoveries to a passing maid, who nodded enthusiastically when he asked her to please take them to Rhine. Rhine would tell the King whatever she thought he would care to know–usually very little.

It was not routine, but Kaeya knew eventually it would be. Rhine had been downright eager for Albedo to return to the mountain. She’d accommodated him easily, reaching out to the King herself to make sure it was done. Whatever her reasons, it wouldn’t take long for Albedo to make the connection between the hilichurl and his strange, almost teacher.

And once that connection was made… Kaeya wondered how long their comfortable secret would last. How long until Albedo worried about Kaeya’s allegiances? Would he be as suspicious as Crepus? As Diluc, when he’d eventually found out?

Kaeya didn’t know which he preferred. For Albedo to trust him implicitly or for the Prince to recognize a potential threat when he saw one. Kaeya stole a glance at his Prince and found Albedo staring at him. 

“You best wipe all that worry off your face now,” Albedo’s mouth quirked into a half-smile. “I’d hate for someone to think you’ve done something wrong.”

“Hm. Maybe I have,” Kaeya gave Albedo a sly look. “I think I’ve done several things wrong in just the last few days.” 

“We’ll have to do something about that,” Albedo’s eyes slid away from Kaeya’s face as they neared his room. “Some other time. It looks like I’ve got a visitor. You should come in with me. It would be expected, since I’m returning to an unknown audience.”

Kaeya only shrugged and dropped a couple of steps behind Albedo so that he entered the room just a bit after the Prince. He was supposed to be behind Albedo, unless the situation was dangerous and warranted a leading position. It had never really mattered to the Prince but Kaeya remembered the rules.

Albedo was glaring at his guest when Kaeya entered. Rhine sat quite comfortably in the chair to his desk, her eyes lit up with a cold sort of joy. 

“Hello, Albedo.” Her head tilted in the faintest semblance of respect. “So good you’ve returned. A bit early, yes? I remember quite clearly bargaining for an extended trip for you on the mountain.”

“There were unforeseen complications.” Albedo’s frown deepened. “Noelle should be arriving at your office with the details soon. I didn’t realize you’d be visiting today, or else I’d have sent her here. Though, I admit, I’m not certain how it will look, you rushing to meet me in my private quarters right after I return from a long trip.”

“Oh, I don’t think we’re concerned about improper behavior here. Not a single one of us.” Rhine’s tongue clicked at the end of the sentence, a sharp laugh rising in her throat. “You’ve been so curious about your little knight. So worried.”

Albedo looked to Kaeya, but the knight didn’t know any more than him what she was referring to. It sounded like—but she couldn’t. Kaeya’s hand rose to rest on his covered eye. She hadn’t told him what it did, only that it was necessary. Only that she’d know if he told anyone what she’d done. 

She hadn’t even had to threaten him. He knew all her threats already. And they were so effective against him.

But Albedo knew nothing of her other side, of the way her plans twisted again and again in a maze that always ended up back in Khaenri’ah. He only knew her as his somewhat distant, somewhat cold alchemy teacher. And the King’s trusted advisor.

Rhine lifted her hand, spoke a word that Kaeya couldn’t hear, and then Kaeya saw nothing. 

When he woke again, Rhine was gone. The sword at his side had disappeared. A glance around the room confirmed it was fully gone. The same fogginess from before clouded Kaeya’s thoughts. The room was dark. “Albedo?” 

“I’m here.”

Kaeya looked to where the Prince’s voice had come from. Albedo sat in his chair, his clothes changed, his hair clean. The sky blue eyes Kaeya liked so much were far away, face twisted in an almost tortured sort of way. 

“Did you know?” 

Kaeya didn’t know how to answer. There were so many possibilities–so many ways he could answer that question, depending on what Albedo referred to. 

“Did you know about me?” Albedo looked up sharply, eyes searching Kaeya’s face for honesty. 

“I don’t know what you’re referring to.” Kaeya sat up, rubbed his face. His hand came back bloody. “She used the eye again.”

“I know what it does now.” Albedo looked down at his hands. He’d apparently seen what he was searching for in Kaeya. “She said I’m… She said she created me. Sent me here. And that’s why the King trusts her so much.”

“What?” Kaeya’s head swam. Would it always be this disorienting? How much blood would he lose when she used him this way? “How could she have… Mondstadt celebrated your birth. The Hall is filled with paintings from your childhood.”

“Yes.” Albedo swallowed. “My mother and father wanted a child, but not each other. They wanted a specific set of qualities and to guarantee the Prince would be well received. So they commissioned her to make me, and then the relations between Khaenri’ah and… everywhere. Fell apart. Several noble families had requested her services, but she was only able to fulfill one.” 

“Albedo,” Kaeya spoke slowly, trying to make certain he didn’t say anything wrong. “You’re not making any sense. How did your parents commission you? You were born–”

“I was made in Khaenri’ah, from Khaenri’ah clay and Khaenri’ah blood.” Albedo crossed and then uncrossed his arms. 

“Did she have any proof of this, or did she just spout off a frightening fairy tale that would leave you confused and hurting?” Kaeya had never trusted or liked Rhine. She had never been particularly kind to him, even when he was a boy in the Khaenri’ah palace and she was his teacher. His actual teacher, not whatever she was to Albedo now. Not that she’d ever considered him worth her lessons–he’d spent the hour of her class time practicing with his sword and reading as many books as he could about the world outside. 

“She had proof.” Albedo swallowed. “Have you ever studied Khemia, Kaeya?” 

“Not extensively.” Kaeya pushed himself up. Each step was carefully placed so he wouldn’t wobble on his way to Albedo’s side. The alchemist clearly didn’t need more to worry about. “You talk about it often enough.”

“It can create living things from nothing but the dust in the air. But it has its limits. It can only create what originates from that dust. If I were to pull up a handful of dirt in Mondstadt, I could create any flower that grows here. Cecilias, calla lilies, windwheel asters. Any of them. But I couldn't create, say, a naku weed.” Albedo leaned over, plucking something blue from his desk. “But this. It doesn’t grow anywhere in Mondstadt. It doesn’t grow anywhere in all Teyvat.”

“And you’ve searched all Teyvat to know this?” Kaeya swallowed down the rising anxiety in his chest. “Teyvat’s a big place.”

“I don’t have to search all of Teyvat.” Albedo twirled the shining flower between his fingers. Five luminescent petals blurred together. Kaeya recognized the flower. It used to grow in his father’s gardens. A whole section had been dedicated to this flower and its many variants. “I only need to know that it’s not from Mondstadt to know that the nature of my birth was a lie.”

“How did she get the material to make that flower?” Kaeya was afraid to know the answer. Rhine would have wanted to leave proof of her little test. And likely, the flower would live for a long time. 

Albedo stretched out a wrist to reveal a patch of skin covered in gold, the shape of a Khaenri’ah star. It would be instantly recognizable by the older members of court. Albedo would have to keep it covered. The color didn’t escape Kaeya’s notice, either. A true marking. 

Anger burned hot, a deep ember that he thought had long ago grown cold. “Did she leave any others?”

“No. But she says there will be more.” Albedo turned his wrist inwards, not meeting Kaeya’s eyes. 

“There’s nothing wrong with being from Khaenri’ah,” Kaeya pulled the wrist to his lips. “Or being made.”

“I’m not even human.” Albedo’s voice was so small. It didn’t fit the confident alchemist. “I’m something else. Something made . Something that can be unmade. Why would she do that?”

Kaeya didn’t know the answer. Whatever Rhine’s plan was, there were probably dozens of layers to it. This would be a web that wouldn’t be unweaved easily. Still, Kaeya would find a way. Eventually. “Will you let me distract you, Albedo?” 

“What?” Albedo’s eyes caught Kaeya’s, as if he was just remembering the knight was there. “Distract me how?”

“Rhinedottir Gold would like nothing more than to know she was able to torture you with her secrets all night, leaving you tossing and turning with fear.” Kaeya pulled Albedo to him, wrapped his arms around Albedo’s waist. “Don’t let her do that. You are human enough for me. When I do this,” Kaeya rested his head against Albedo’s chest, listening to the strong thump-thump of a pulse through all the solid muscle and bone. “I can hear your heart. Do you want to hear mine? I’m sure they sound the same.”

“Not the same,” Albedo smiled, but turned his ear to Kaeya’s chest. Kaeya watched him close his eyes, the smile spreading. “Yours is so fast.”

“Hm,” Kaeya pulled away, tipping Albedo’s chin up with his fingertip. “I wonder why that would be? Could it be the handsome and talented Prince with his eyes on me, getting me all worked up?”

“Do I work you up, Kaeya?” Albedo’s question was only half teasing. Kaeya could tell his Prince was somewhere fragile. 

“Why do you think I called you by those silly titles so often?” Kaeya slid his free hand up Albedo’s shirt, gently. “I had to remind myself constantly that I couldn’t touch you.” 

Albedo sucked in a breath, his gaze lowering to Kaeya’s lips. “Well, you can touch me now.” 

“Can I?” Kaeya lowered his face, until his lips hovered above Albedo’s, then kissed the side of his mouth. “Do you want me to?”

“Please.” Albedo said, simple and straightforward. He tried to turn his head to catch Kaeya’s lips with his but Kaeya held him firmly forward. Kissed the other side of his mouth. 

“Hm. I will, definitely.” Kaeya bumped his nose against Albedo’s, smiled against Albedo’s lips as he finally kissed him where he wanted to be kissed. “But first, I desperately need a bath.”

Albedo laughed, pushing Kaeya back. “You’re insufferable. I’ll have one brought up. I doubt they’d be too upset at me for asking again. After all, some inconsiderate Prince’s take several baths a day.”

“I’m sure their skin is dry and unappreciative.” Kaeya wrinkled his nose, imagining the damage that many baths must take on a person. “But you’ve been through an ordeal. They’ll probably just think you need the extra comfort.”

“How will you get back here?”

“I did it before, remember? I’ll be back before you know it.” Kaeya leaned in, kissed Albedo again. 

It was harder to pull away, with the promise of more later.

Harder still to leave, to go to his brother and confess again, when he knew Albedo was struggling. But they both needed a moment to process the things they’d learned. Or not learned. And Albedo would have to come to terms with a few things about Rhine. About his father. Many revelations about his upbringing would come to light. 

And when he was ready, Kaeya would be there for him. 

And some time in the distant future, maybe Albedo would do the same for him. Maybe he’d be ready to learn Kaeya’s true origins, the family he’d had, the palace he’d called home. 

Maybe one day all these fears would be put to rest, buried deep in Mondstadt’s fields with Gold.