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“My king,” says James.
Will, sitting across from him in the cramped inn room, flinches. His back is turned to him as if he can’t bear to look at him. He doesn’t look at anything; the hostel they’d stumbled upon was far enough from the dig, the distance expedited by James’ newfound power, that they had at least a day’s start on Elizabeth, Violet, Visander, and whatever became of Cyprian, but they couldn’t afford to linger for long.
They appear abruptly distinct, especially now that Will has come into his full power—his eyes, now darker, look consumed, and James’ throat is enclosed in the collar. On top of that, Will’s streaked in dirt and damp patches of an indistinguishable unsavory material and refuses to take a bath with James in the room, not that he can go anywhere else.
The room isn’t any more of a shelter. The bed is small and cramped, though it seems that Will has resigned himself to sleep, if he even can, in the tiny wooden chair in the corner, facing away from the deer’s head peering at them from the wall. Fake as it is, no doubt stuffed with threaded cotton, it seems to elicit distaste in Will, perhaps due to its distant but inevitable resemblance to a unicorn.
“Don’t call—” Will cuts himself off with visible effort, the words pincered. The curve of his back, miserable as it is, suggests a heavy burden. A small part of James whispers, Will. “Do you have to call me that?”
“Would you rather I just call you Will?” James asks conversationally, crossing one leg over the other. He sits on the bed since Will refuses to, not one to give up comfort just because Will decides to. “It’s just that I’ve just found out you are the person that I was promised to since I came into my powers. I’d always felt drawn to you. But now I understand.”
“Please,” Will says, sounding broken. He finally turns. His face, familiar in its angularity, looks even more shadowed than it normally does, the hollows of his cheeks deeper, the sharpness of his jawline accentuated. Lovingly, James imagines the top of his dark hair adorned with a crown that matches the gold encasing his own neck. The king and his prize.
That curious voice kicks again. Not the king’s, it says. Will’s.
“Please what?” James asks, desperate to please. He feels the need to satisfy Will fill his entire body, a warmth unlike anything he’s ever felt before, pleasant as it sinks into his bones with a sigh. He’s always wanted Will since the moment they first met—the moment in the hall when Will had captured him, sinking the horn into his shoulder with perverse rapture, and James, taking it through gritted teeth from the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen.
The desire is almost painful, nearly as acute as the horn had been. Unable to resist any longer, he leaves the bed, sinking to his knees in front of Will to look up at him. The ache lessens the closer they are. My king, a large part of him wants to say. The minuscule rest of him says, Will, look at me, my boy-hero. I believe in you.
Please take the collar off.
“I’ll do anything.”
Will’s jaw clenches; a muscle jumps. “No,” he says, sounding horrified. His eyes stretch wide, terror leaking out of the sockets. One hand clasps over his mouth as if he’ll be sick again. “Act like yourself, not Anharion.”
James scrambles to his feet, one finger between the hot metal of the collar and his throat. “I am Anharion, reborn,” he insists, a little bit of frustration permeating his voice. “Neither of us can escape our destiny, Will. I already tried. Is it so impossible to believe that I want to stay by your side, if we’ve tried every other alternative? That I believe in you? You gave me my freedom once; I have faith that you can do it again. Will, I want—”
James reaches forward, his fingers bare centimeters from resting on Will’s shoulder before he pulls away, hesitant. In front of him, Will seems to have collapsed even more into himself, pitted like a fruit that’s had its insides scooped out. An apple that never wanted to be a sin, fated to crumble to dust in Eve’s mouth even as humanity resigns to doom.
“It’s no use,” Will says, eyes unseeing. He seems to be speaking to himself. “You’re only acting because I commanded you to.” He brings his hands in front of his face, his skeletal fingers shaking as if the tremor of the earth breaking for them had never left his flesh. “James, I can’t get us out.”
Will, the voice says sadly. It will be okay.
“It will be okay,” James says, falling to his knees again, but this time so he can lower into Will’s field of vision again. He stares up to him, trying to get him to gaze back, to erase the haunted look in his eyes. All of the deaths that haven’t occurred yet live in those eyes. “You’re more powerful now than ever before. Whatever your mission is, I was born to help you achieve it. I will never leave your side.”
He feels the infallibility of it thrum in his body, dancing along his skin. He has never felt so certain, so sure. It feels good to be so confident in something. To believe in an absolute truth instead of an abstract figure. A hand to kiss. A boy to worship. A collar made for him, as warm as a hand around his throat.
And Will—
If James’ submission to the Dark King was inevitable, then he is glad it was Will. He can’t imagine it being anybody but Will. He and his quiet, haunting beauty, his assured ability to lead a group, his trailing fingers that decree everything he touches become a little more real.
James certainly felt more real after the first time Will touched him. In the years before that, after he’d barely escaped from the Stewards with his life, running to Sinclair with his manifesting powers and his naivety, the world had become less corporeal, everything smeared with the residuals of magic and bodilessness. And then, Will’s hand on his shoulder, the other driving the horn into his body, the pain had burst open like a flower soldiering through the winter to erupt in the spring of his life. The beginning, it seemed, of everything.
Now, Will holds himself at a distance from James as if afraid that touching him will leave a scar. He keeps himself from almost everything, holding himself deep within his own body.
“I want you to be with me because you want to be,” Will says, low, “and not because you’re compelled to by his power. You weren’t born to serve me. If I don’t want this power, then you shouldn’t be obligated to loyalty. And yet—” He glances away, despairing. “I need to figure out how to get the collar off.”
“I do want to be here,” James says automatically, and a mournful part of him continues, but I wish I had been given the opportunity to find that out myself. “The collar isn't a priority. We need to stop Sinclair first. You can use my power.”
James knows that Will is aware he’s right, even if he doesn’t want to accept it. They’re stronger because of the power the collar gifts James, fueled by an ages-old reservoir of power. There’s a higher chance of being able to stop the uprising together, especially now that it’s just the two of them. A kick of anger spirals deep inside James at the thought; he still remembers the look on Will’s face when he thought James had arrived to fight him as well, the unearthly despair, the wretched way he had said, “Both of you.”
Will stares at James for a long while, evidently sorting out conclusions in his head. “I’ll get the collar off,” he says. “I promise you, James, if you can hear me. I’ll get it off.”
“I’m still James,” he says, and the voice says, thank you.
A terrible sadness stretches across Will’s face, slow as puddling rain. “I wish you were.”
I’m here, insists the fragment of himself as far removed from Anharion as possible. The piece of himself that never learned what betrayal meant before it was labeled a traitor. “I’m here,” says James.
Will makes a small, wet sound. “You won’t leave.” It’s either a question or an admonishment.
“I won’t,” promises James, fingers digging into the edge of the chair as he rests his forehead on the rim, all but prostrating himself before the other. He wants the words to be a comfort. “Will, I won’t leave you.”
“I know,” says Will, wretched. “I know.”
Come morning, Will stands by the window, staring moodily out at the rising sun. He turns when he hears the shifting of sheets, James stretching into consciousness. “We should leave as soon as you are ready.”
He’s getting good at that, the specifying what he wants before outright telling James what to do. He would have followed him anyway. The thought appears in his mind before dissolving. It feels like a great honor to wake alone in the same room as Will.
“All right,” James says, and Will turns once again as James redresses himself, though it’s not much, merely the small effort it takes to rebutton his jacket and strap his boots back on before he’s ready to leave. “Shall we?”
Will sweeps for the door without another word, simply holding the handle open for him as he goes, his front swallowed by the darkness that awaits them, and James, as always, follows.