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When he turned around, golden eyes peering past rocks and dunes and the never ending nothing that swallowed the shallow imprints of his bare feet in the cooling desert sand, it was almost gone; but not quite. Though his companion had been thorough in its destruction, he had also been careless: collapsed walls and splintered beams still reached for the skies like broken fingers, crippled with murder but alive with nightmares, fresh and vibrant as the setting suns dyed the thirsty soil surrounding the destroyed settlement an even darker crimson.
The boy knew that looking back at his once prison would do him no good. And still his gaze lingered.
His feet hurt, throbbing with every step taken and heavy with the distance travelled, aching with the knowledge that it was over, that that place could not hurt him again.
He could not erase the things that had been done, for they clung to him like fading bruises, like scars badly healed, like a sizzling, simmering anger pooling in his gut, a rage too big to contain in his tired body. His shame burned bright.
But his relief burned brighter.
His bones were weary. They had walked all day. It should not feel like the ruins of his cage were only just out of reach. With his gaze turned back and his feet stumbling forward, it was all he could do, to wait for the creeping dark of night to come and swallow the last traces of his suffering so he could no longer turn around and see it lingering on the horizon in silent mockery.
If only Knives had razed it all to the ground.
He had been brilliant in his mercy.
Never before had the boy seen violence could bloom and take root among destruction, spreading petals bright with demise and clad in carnage and fragrant with a scent as coppery as its thorns.
Revered for his own beauty, the boy had been made a goddess to be worshipped with his face in the dirt and his knees on the ground, his body an altar of sin and every prayer a sacrilege painted in reds and whites and bruising blues until he choked on false glory and breathed through the bitter tang of bile and blessings that he could never rid himself of, no matter how many times he tried to spit them out or swallow them down.
But he had never known true beauty.
Not until it had put a knife to his throat and promised him salvation.
However, even an angel’s mercy had its limits, and the boy was not fool enough to ask for more.
“I am getting tired of waiting for you to catch up.”
The boy did not feel the telltale prickle of stinging steel against his neck again, but he didn’t need to; in the near-stillness of a slow evening breeze, the angel’s voice carried an air of impatience as sharp as his blades.
“I’m sorry,” the reply spilled forth through cracked lips before the words could fully register in the boy’s mind, his answer as much a muscle memory as the slight bow of his head, the raise of his slim shoulders, the crossing of frail arms before his stomach, his body readying itself to receive the blow that was sure to come.
But never came.
As the boy peered back through matted strands of midnight hair, Knives’ eyes were cold and hard, but his fists were not. They clenched, they unclenched, and against the bleeding evening sky his face grew darker. It was a look the boy was not familiar with. A bitterness he could not quite comprehend. He knew anger. He knew disgust. He knew not the shadow casting the other man’s angelic features into a look of what he could only think of as divine rage; a fury so fatal it could burn the world to dust and ashes with its primal fire.
Beneath the stained fabric of his too large clothes, the boy felt his knees grow weak.
He dared not speak. He dared not move.
In the face of Knives’ ire, the boy felt his mere existence to be an act of blasphemy.
And he longed to repent.
Between them, the silence dragged on for a breath, then two, heavy in the boy’s chest as celestial blues shifted and peered past his cowering form, unblinking. He did not need to turn back to know what Knives looked at, annoyance written in the fine lines of his frown and the slight crease of his brows.
“I don’t need you to be sorry.” Knives said at long last, face turned and back straight, his features slowly easing back into that careful blankness that the boy had grown almost familiar with, step by arduous step that he had followed the other man through the desert, unaware of their final destination, but uncaring as long as their strides would halt besides each other.
“I need you to keep moving.” The boy knew an order when he heard one, no matter how disguised in calmness or veiled with forced restraint. Knives was a dangerous man, and dangerous men did not plea; they commanded. Before his saviour’s unkind glare, the boy was laid bare, nothing to hide, nothing to withhold. It didn’t matter.
Knives had found nothing to love.
And yet, he had never met a man as sincere as the one standing before him, dried blood clinging to the soles of his feet and murder caught within his every breath, draped in twin sunsets and a coat of literal arms. Knives wore his hatred on his sleeves.
And maybe that was why, with the taint of unkind devotion still clinging to his skin and rough sand chafing his calves where the loose fabric of his makeshift coat had ridden up on slender legs, that the boy fought through the exhaustion tugging at his bones and the heat slowly dwindling into the night, to get back up on shaky feet, to follow in Knives’ footsteps, chasing them before the desert breeze could pick them up and brush them away again.
Nowhere, he was sure, could be as bad as the hell he had already escaped from. No place that Knives would go, he knew, could ever even resemble the inferno of days past.
For angels did not dwell in unholy spaces.
“This is the last time I will wait for you. We’re not going back there,” Knives added with a nod so minuscule the boy might have missed it, had he so much as blinked, “so keep your eyes ahead.”
Not trusting his words to make it past the lump in his throat, the boy nodded. His steps were uneven, slipping as the sand threatened to steal his footing more than once, his limbs as heavy as lead. His throat burned. His skin stung. With a heavy sigh, the boy allowed himself to feel the pain, let it linger, let it settle. He had made it through hell alive.
Trudging through purgatory would be a small price to pay for the paradise that was sure to await him at the end of his journey.
“If you cannot keep up with me, I will leave you behind,” Knives’ voice cut through his thoughts, already several paces ahead of him and almost faint with distance.
“I can keep up,” the boy said then, his voice cracking with thirst, but his words devoid of even a single shred of hesitation. “I’ll keep you in my sights!”
He had not known it back then, but it was a promise he had intended to keep.
Every day.
Every breath.
Until his last.
His words did not carry far and Knives had not turned back around again. Had not acknowledged his words. His steps, unfaltering and determined, had not stopped to rest until caught in the dark embrace of deepest night. But they had slowed down. Not much. But just enough.
Only once more had the boy’s searching gaze strayed back, in the cold light of an early morning, to find the ruins long gone from his sight. The vacancy left behind by their looming silhouette had felt foreign and bruised, too sharp to forget but too dull to sting.
His mind still sluggish from restless sleep, he had stared, seeing before his mind’s eye structures that were far beyond his reach now, soon to be buried beneath dust and sand and oblivion, devoured by this unforgiving planet like the rotting carcass it had always been.
Never to be seen again.
Not anywhere but in his nightmares.
“We’re moving on.” Knives’ voice had not been gentle as it cut through his dreary thoughts.
The boy had not expected it to be.
He had not been desperate enough to mistake Knives’ careful indifference for kindness nor was he delusional enough to expect any. Not until he turned his head and found a gloved hand outstretched his way, reluctantly, grudgingly, blue eyes as cold as ever, as they peered down at him, harsh and expectant. A tad brighter than they had the day before.
The boy felt his body ache with a fickle warmth he could not yet put words to.
With trembling lips and shaking fingers, he cradled it close, this flicker of hope that ignited in his chest as dirty fingers touched the pristine fabric of Knives’ gloves for the first time of many. A persistent burning stung in the corners of his eyes and he tried to swallow it down, down, through the shame and hurt and unvoiced gratitude that threatened to choke his throat with the weight of non-forgotten yesterdays and bright tomorrows.
What the boy’s grip lacked in strength, Knives’ tug on his hand more than made up for, bringing him upright stumbling and graceless and clinging, holding on for dear life until his stance became steady and the ache in his heart became dull, became soft, became soothing; a reminder that he was alive and free and the future lay before him, vast like the desert.
“Yeah,” he said through a smile tugging at his dry lips, “let’s move on.”
As twin suns rose high up on a blue summer’s sky, he kept on walking, sand between his toes and salt on his cheeks, chasing Knives’ shadow on their way into the unknown, wandering and wondering.
How far he had come.
How far they would go.
Everywhere, he hoped.
His eyes never left Knives’ retreating back.
Not once.