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Piper had seen many things and lived many deaths, but this one might be the one that killed him.
Galen.
On his table.
Pale, as he always had been, but there was no life in his freckled, scarred skin. No fluttering heartbeat at his neck, at his wrists, no colour in those sharp cheekbones that Piper had spent hours tracing.
Stephen and Istvhan had been the ones to bring him to Piper. The two tall, hulking men carrying the lifeless body of their brother, his husband, between them.
The only time Piper had seen them as near to broken as they were now had been at the Saint’s temple.
He decided that this was worse.
‘At least I’m not threatening them with a bone saw,’ Piper thought to himself, the memory of the first time Galen had come to his place of work rising unbidden in his mind. He pushed it aside, feeling too much, and too little, as the red hair he had loved so much fell gently against the dark stone. It had come free of the tie at some point and his fingers itched to pull it back, restrain it, knowing Galen preferred to have it out of his face except when he was at home or at the temple.
Someone had closed Galen’s eyes. Distantly, Piper was grateful for that. He didn’t know what he would have done, whether he would have been able to do what he needed to do, if Galen’s eyes had been open.
“Do you need anything from us?” Istvhan asked. Piper didn’t look up at the paladin. He had lost the battle of wills against himself and was working free the band he kept around his wrist for exactly this purpose and was gently tying back Galen’s hair. He wasn’t avoiding eye contact, he told himself, he absolutely wasn’t.
It was the look of sorrow, of pain, of grief and loss and despair that he was avoiding. All of the things that he had managed to restrain until Galen had been carried through those doors.
His doors.
He couldn’t look up and see those emotions written so plainly across someone else’s face. Not yet.
“What happened?” He was proud of the way that his voice only shook a little. Istvhan, ever the paladin, launched into report about how and where they had found Galen as Piper cupped his husband’s cheek. He had been two streets away from the temple of the White Rat, which is how he’d been found so quickly, with a knife in his heart. It had gotten through the armour, the armour that was supposed to protect him. Piper stopped listening after that. Anger had joined the emotions swirling in his head and he snapped at himself, willing himself to pay attention.
This was a murder. A gross injustice, and he could help. He would help.
They would find who had done this, why someone had killed the man who had loved him despite everything. It wouldn’t bring him back. Nothing would bring him back, but they would have answers.
Piper didn’t take off his gloves. It felt wrong, somehow, to treat this like any other time he had used his minor talent to see a person’s last moments.
Instead, he pressed a kiss to Galen’s forehead.
‘Shrive me, lover, for my heart is heavy’ Galen’s voice was a ragged whisper, the knife had torn through his lung in the first strike. A second would quickly follow, he knew. He did his best to look up and see his attacker, the one who had slipped through his guard, who’s knife had slid through his chain mail like butter. His chest burned. He couldn’t breathe properly. ‘I have been temperamental, and often trying, and you deserved none of my moods, and yet you stayed with me.’ If he could just make it to the temple, he might be alright. Galen dodged a blow, and it sparked off his armour. The face beneath the blue hood was younger than him and scarred from jaw to brow, with eyes the colour of river stones. That scar, those eyes, tugged at some memory in the back of his mind. That was all he could see before the knife was there again, in that weak spot in his armour that hadn’t been there before.
‘I am sorry, Piper. I love you, I—’
Piper didn’t so much as throw himself backwards as the knife slid home. His knees gave out underneath him as the death blow to Galen’s heart struck him and the haze of pain washed through his mind. Hot tears streaked down his face, and he imagined they would have been during the memory too, if the glistening on Galen’s cold cheeks was anything to go by.
The two paladins had dropped down beside him. Their hands hovered around Piper’s shoulders as he angrily swiped at his face.
“He knew he was going to die,” Piper said, almost forcing the words out. His voice wasn’t much louder than a whisper but he knew the other two men heard him. They both went deathly still and the air began to take on that odd, charged feeling that Piper knew was the battle tide. He glanced between the two paladins, first Istvhan, then Stephen. When they both met his gaze he knew they wouldn’t give in to it, but it was there all the same.
“His armour, there was—is—something wrong with it. The knife got through and pierced his lung first. He wasn’t fighting them, just dodging blows, but he recognised their scar.” Piper described what he had seen as he stared at his hands. If he had been looking anywhere else, he might have missed the moment the two paladins beside him went deathly still.
“The scar, you’re sure it was on the right side?” Stephen asked, the first words he had spoken since arriving.
“I’m sure. I—he—thought it looked familiar.”
Istvhan and Stephen exchanged a look over his head. Piper looked between the two of them, waiting expectantly.
“We need the others,” Istvhan said, his voice low. The salt-and-pepper haired paladin looked at his brother on the table, and raised a hand to squeeze Galen’s shoulder gently. “It wasn’t his fault, the scar, but we were all part of the events surrounding it. I won’t tell that story here.” The giant of a man hauled himself to his feet and then held out a hand to Piper, who took it. His own gloved fingers were dwarfed by Istvhan’s scarred ones but, like all the paladins he had come to know, there was gentleness in that grip.
Piper let his gaze drop to Galen’s body. It wasn’t him, not really, he knew that. The body before him wouldn’t smile like Galen had, wouldn’t laugh, or rage, or cry out in the night the way he had. Would never wind those long, calloused fingers through Piper’s own, or trace the lines of his ribs and kiss his way along his collarbone.
A body was a body, and his husband was dead.
“Let’s go,” Piper said, cutting through the silence. He didn’t look at the two paladins, but he could imagine their stricken looks at his tone, at the cold calm that he knew was settling over him. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, fall apart. Even as his heart felt as though it was shredding in his chest, he wouldn’t allow himself to break. Without thinking about it, he stretched out a hand and smoothed the crease in Galen’s brow the way he had done a thousand times before. It hadn’t been enough. It would never be enough.
‘I love you too, Galen.’
~~~~~
Piper didn’t speak on the walk across the city to the Rat’s temple. His mind kept playing Galen’s last words. He had known. He had known he was going to die, and that Piper would see his final moments. He had used that time, not to defend himself, not with his lung punctured and filling with blood the way it had been, but to give confession. Galen had been a berserker long enough, and Piper a doctor long enough, for both of them to know that would have been a fatal wound. He might have made it to the temple, might have held on long enough to say goodbye one last time, but then the knife had found his heart and torn them both in two. He had shrived to Piper in his final breaths, knowing he would be heard.
“Such a paladin,” Piper said under his breath, too quiet for his stoic companions to hear. Not that either of them were keeping stride with him. The two paladins had settled into a guard position, one ahead of him and one behind, and Piper knew from Galen’s stories that the pair of them had often joined Bishop Beartongue as her honour guard. He supposed he should feel flattered to receive the same treatment, but instead the space next to him felt wrong.
Galen was the smallest of the Saint of Steel’s paladins, barring Wren. Lithe and lean where the others were thick and tall. He had still been taller than Piper, but they had matched their strides together easily when they walked through the city, their hands intertwined more often than not as they walked. Piper’s hand twitched towards the empty air now, reaching for something he would never have again. The sunlight seemed too thin, the sounds of the city too hollow as they rang in his ears. All he could feel was the cool, empty space at his shoulder where Galen had so often brushed up against it.
He wondered whether he should ask the paladins walking with him what the words were to finish a shriving. The process had been explained to him, and he understood why it was an appealing ritual, but he had never been told the ending of it. One way or another, the conversation had always strayed away from the topic. Piper had determined that he was going to ask Stephen, who was walking ahead of him, when a figure in a blue cloak rocketed out of an alleyway and leapt at the paladin.
In an instant Istvhan was pushing Piper behind him and Piper, well trained in the ways of overprotective berserkers, took steps backwards and away from the tussle without thinking. Stephen had already flung his assailant off him and had drawn his giant sword. The hooded figure was already on their feet again by the time Istvhan had drawn his own sword and taken a flanking position. The hood, deep blue and fraying at the edges, turned and ran. Neither of the paladins followed.
Piper waited several seconds before approaching, knowing that it had been too quick of a scuffle the battle tide to rise, but paladins could be temperamental when threatened. At least, his paladin was temperamental when threatened.
Had been temperamental.
He didn’t slump against the wall behind him, but it was a near thing.
It took a moment for him to realise that there was only one paladin in the street with him. Istvhan had disappeared, leaving Stephen at Piper’s elbow. The man was murmuring gently in soothing tones. Piper would have laughed if it wasn’t having the desired calming effect on him. Galen had never been able to do The Voice, but Piper still found himself wishing it were his husband’s voice in his ear, with or without the reassuring cadence.
“We need to get to the temple, Doctor,” Stephen was saying.
“Hm? Oh, yes. Of course,” Piper replied, sounding distant even to his own ears. They couldn’t be more than a few streets away, and yet he found himself not wanting to go any further. There would be echoes of Galen there, places where he had stood and laughed and trained and been patched up time and time again. Corners where he would never linger again, doorways he would never lean against with a smile tilting the corners of his lips up or a frown creasing his brow.
A shock of red hair flashed in the corner of Piper’s eye, and he turned his head so fast his neck popped. Loudly. With a hiss of pain, he searched the crowd for that hair and found it easily.
It was too coppery, more ginger than the deep red shade that Galen’s was.
Had been.
“Let’s go then, shall we?” Piper said to Stephen, who had followed his gaze with a solemn expression on his face. Without thinking, Piper put a hand on the paladin’s elbow and turned them both away. Through the leather of his gloves some part of his mind ran through the differences between Stephen and Galen’s arms. Stephen packed more muscle and his gait was longer, even if he slowed it for Piper’s sake. He was tall, and moved through the crowd with an almost apologetic air.
Worst of all, he just wasn’t Galen.
Piper dropped his hand.
If Stephen noticed, he didn’t say anything.
~~~~~
Istvhan was already at the temple when they arrived, having gone ahead to ask the Rat’s people for their assistance in the search for Galen's murderer. Piper didn’t claim to be familiar with the inner workings of the temple, or the various networks within it, but he knew they were very, very good at what they did. Beartongue was there in quiet conversation with Istvhan and another of the paladins. Piper recognised Shane from his blonde hair, even though he wore the whites of the Dreaming God now. He still wore the cloak of the Saint, but there was something different about the way he held himself. A surety of self that hadn’t been there the last time Piper had seen him, even though that had been brief and they hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words. Galen had just waved it off and explained that as ‘Shane being Shane’, but he had been so happy for his brother when he had been claimed for the second time. They all had been.
“Oh thank the Saint, you’re here,” Wren appeared on Stephen’s other side and wrapped her arms around his middle. Stephen let out a little huff of air when she squeezed him tightly. Her head barely reached his chin, but that evidently didn’t stop her from being a formidable fighter. Piper had watched her train with her axe once, and found every reason to be on her good side since. Her eyes were shining when she let go of Stephen and turned towards Piper.
“Wren,” he said, inclining his head to her. Her throat bobbed, and she opened her mouth and then shut it again before she extended her hands to him. There was still something strange about being offered a hug from someone who knew exactly what he did and didn't think twice about it, but he supposed he had seen exactly what the paladins could do and he never held that in judgement either. Piper stepped forward and Wren was suddenly around him. She applied less pressure than she had with Stephen, but the breath still left his lungs in one go. He wasn’t sure whether or not she was hugging him more for his sake, or her own.
He wasn’t sure he cared.
“How are you doing, Piper?” She asked, her voice slightly muffled by his shoulder.
“I’m—oh,” he started to reply, to say that he was fine, but found that he couldn’t. His words were choked off by a lump in his throat, and his nose started to prickle fiercely. Heat built up behind his eyes and he closed them, willing the tears not to fall, not here. Wren didn’t let go of him completely, but her arms shifted around to his shoulders as she guided him to a chair in a small alcove tucked into a wall. They weren’t completely out of sight, but it was far enough away from the bustle at the entrance of the temple that Piper found he didn’t care who saw him as he finally let himself cry.
Beside him, Wren’s sniffles accompanied his own. He wasn’t sure who was leaning more heavily on who, but the two of them kept each other upright. At one point, Shane appeared at Piper’s side and offered a handkerchief before dropping into the seat across from him. The blond paladin made for quiet company, though the white of his tabard was a stark contrast to Piper’s usual blacks and made them more conspicuous than they had been before.
There was a sombre mood in the air at the temple despite the movement inside the walls. Galen hadn’t lived at the temple for some time now, but it was a different kind of loss that had settled on the shoulders of its inhabitants. It was quieter for one thing. Conversations were hushed, especially around Piper and the paladins, if they continued at all.
It made Piper want to scream. He found himself searching for something to say to break the tension, to hear some terrible joke of Galen’s that would snap everything into focus and bring some normality back into the world.
But of course, Galen wasn’t here.
He was lying on the cold stone of Piper’s examination table. Alone.
Alone, while Piper was surrounded by the people that had loved him. He had left him behind, left him there, all alone in the dark. With a strangled sob Piper tried to push himself to his feet, only to be met by Shane. Well, more accurately, Shane’s armoured chest. Piper fell back into his seat and then Shane was kneeling before him. It was then that he noticed the red rimmed eyes of the blond paladin, the weariness and the pain beneath that solidified strength.
“Piper, just breathe. It’s okay,” Shane’s voice was low, deep, reassuring in a way that resonated Piper’s ears. He just shook his head.
“I left him there, alone. He’s alone, and we’re here, and it’s not… it’s not…” Piper couldn’t finish his sentence, didn’t know what he had meant to say. That it wasn’t fair? Of course it wasn’t fair. That they should be there, standing vigil over his husband’s dead body instead of trying to find his killer, the killer that had appeared in broad daylight and jumped Stephen with murderous intent?
The body of his husband was all alone and in the dark and Piper kept reaching for his hand like he was still alive.
“No, it’s not fair. None of this is,” Shane continued, picking up where Piper had trailed off. “We will mourn, are mourning, for Galen. Istvhan didn’t want to leave you alone in your grief, we know how all consuming it can be. ” Piper closed his eyes as Shane kept talking, that low and trustworthy voice taming the tangles in his chest. They would know. Of course they would know just how hard grief could hurt. Losing their brother might not have sent them over the edge, but they were a unit and the loss would not go unfelt.
~~~~~
Wren and Shane stayed with Piper in that alcove until a commotion at the entrance drew all of them to their feet. Marcus had joined them at some point, leaning against the wall in his quiet way. He had offered his hand and clasped Piper’s forearm, squeezing gently, when he had arrived before standing guard over the three of them. Stephen and Istvhan had been coordinating with Beartongue, and now the two of them stood holding a small, blue-hooded figure between them. Piper had barely made it three steps before the hood fell backwards and he came to an abrupt halt.
River stone eyes burned with hatred as they snarled, the scar that stretched from their jaw to their brow twisting as they did. Those eyes drifted right over him as they looked from paladin to paladin, locking eyes with the three that weren’t restraining them as they struggled to free themself. Neither Stephen or Istvhan moved an inch, and when their captive tried to turn and bite at their hands they each reacted so quickly to twist their arms behind their back that Piper hadn’t even seen the two paladins moving.
“There’s a chair in the courtyard,” Beartongue’s voice cut through the silence that had descended over the entryway like a knife. When he turned towards her, Piper found that he wasn’t surprised to see that she was flanked by Clara. The nun met his eyes and the sorrow in them was almost too much. Piper wondered what she was thinking, and how she might handle Istvhan’s death if he had been the one to die in that alley. There was something in her gaze that made him think that it might very well have ended with something close to a berserker fit.
“I’m sorry, Piper,” Beartongue said, shaking her head. “He was a good man.”
“Yes, he was.” Piper watched as Wren and Marcus helped restrain the murderer in the middle of the courtyard, Shane standing watch with his giant, demon killing sword in hand. Piper snorted, drawing the attention of the Bishop and Clara as they stepped up beside him. He shook his head, waving a hand towards the five paladins. “It’s just… them.”
His companions gave understanding murmurs, but didn’t say anything. In the sunlight of the courtyard, their captive tied to the chair, the paladins formed a loose semi-circle around them.
“You understand, this isn’t how we normally would handle these kinds of situations,” Beartongue said quietly, “but I rather value having them around, and I know their interrogation techniques won’t end with a body on the ground.” Piper raised an eyebrow at her, knowing that she knew as well as he did just how quickly trapped people were willing to throw themselves on a blade if they saw no other option.
She ignored him.
If looks could kill, there wouldn’t just be one dead paladin. The glare that Galen’s murderer was giving Shane was positively lethal, but he was unfazed as he knelt down before them a sword length away and asked for their name.
“Why should I tell you, paladin?” They spat the word at him, disgust dripping off every syllable. “Learn my name, pretend to help me, and then leave me to to the demons again? As if.”
Shane had gone very, very still. All of the paladins had, but Piper’s focus was on the Dreaming God’s chosen.
“I remember you, and your village.” He was using the voice, calm and slow and melodic as if he was trying to tame a wild beast. “We joined the Dreaming God’s people to put down a demon cattle herd, but we left supplies and provisions and promised that the cattle that had been slain would be—”
“Not that.” Even from this angle, Piper could see those river stone eyes filled with hatred. “Afterwards. You missed one.”
If Piper hadn’t spent so much time around the paladins in the time he had been with Galen, he might have missed the nearly imperceptible change in the five of them. There was a shift in their stances, a firmer set to their shoulders than there had been before. Wren’s hand strayed to her axe, Marcus’s to the knife at his hip, Stephen’s sword had appeared in his hand, and Istvhan kept his hands free. Piper could almost imagine how Galen would be standing, arms loose at his side but ready to draw in seconds. Judith would have filled out their number, her quiet, fluid self standing shoulder to shoulder with the others.
Two paladins, missing.
One to the wind and one to the grave.
“My sister. You did all your fancy little tests but you missed that she had been taken by a demon.” They kept talking. It seemed to Piper that once they started they couldn’t stop. The whole story came rushing out, how they blamed the paladins of the Saint of Steel and the Dreaming God for the mess the demon in their sister had created, for abandoning them to the demons whims. They had been the one to drive the knife through their demon-sister’s ribs, realising in that moment that they were a wonder worker, and their talent allowed all their blows to reach their intended target despite the physical barriers.
Almost all, Piper thought, remembering how Galen had dodged the knife in the alley. Only barely though, so he wondered whether it had been an intentional miss or not. Beartongue took over after a while. Once a lawyer, ever a lawyer, Piper supposed. Between her and Shane, they managed to get the whole story laid out.
~~~~~
“Are you alright?” Clara asked, pulling Piper’s focus away from the body on the funeral pyre. It had been three days since Galen had died, and their small group had carried Galen’s shrouded body outside the city walls to be burned.
“No,” Piper answered. “No, I keep reaching for Galen’s hand. Turning and expecting him to be at my side, and he’s not.” He tamped down on the tears that threatened to spill free, pulling off a glove and pressing his fingers into the corners of his eyes.
He thought of how he had pressed a kiss to Galen’s lips as he’d left their home to go to work on that fateful morning, and Galen had made him promise to be safe. Piper couldn’t remember if he’d made his husband promise back. If he had decided to stay home that morning, even just a little bit longer, would Galen still be alive and standing beside him now?
Their bed had been cold, afterwards, and Piper had found no sleep in it. Instead, he had wrapped himself in blankets and slept on the couch. His back had protested profusely, but it was better than the alternative of a too-empty bed.
“Don’t start down the path of what if,” Clara’s voice cut through his thoughts, gentler than he felt he deserved. He looked up at her, because she was taller than him by several inches, and he could see the echoes of her own loss in the lines of her face. “It doesn’t help. I wish I could tell you what does, but…” She looked over at the paladins where they stood vigil around their fallen brother, at Istvhan, and then back to Piper. “We just have to go on. We say goodbye, we hold them in our heart as best that we can, and we live for them.”
“Does it get easier?” He asked, thinking of the time Galen had broken his heart. Had decided what was best for him without even talking to him about it. Piper had gone through those few weeks like a ghost haunting his own life. In the last three days, he had been visited by a rotating cast of people until Stephen had shown up at his door and Piper had asked him, politely, to leave him alone for a while.
It had been a brief reprieve, and then Piper had realised that he didn’t want to be alone and had walked across the city to the temple. Marcus had been the one to find him lingering in the entrance. The paladin had said nothing, only led Piper into the salle where they trained, handed him a candle, and sat with him for hours. The others had come in and out, coming and going and sharing the vigil as they were able. All of them grieving in their own way, but never alone.
“With time it does, but the love for those we’ve lost never goes away,” Clara said.
It was Istvhan that rose from the kneeling vigil first, beckoning Clara and Piper forwards. He held out a hand, and Clara grasped it so firmly Piper’s hand ached in sympathy, but Istvhan didn’t even flinch.
“When you’re ready, we’ll light the pyre together,” he said to Piper, who only nodded as he stepped past the giant of a man. He had never expected to become friends with the paladins, but now he found himself grateful that he had. It didn’t lessen the pain of Galen’s death, but their company made it easier to bear.
Piper slid his hand free of his glove, winding his fingers through Galen’s one last time. Listened to his husband’s final words, his confession and his profession of love as he took his last breath. He twisted that beautiful red hair in his fingers, brushed Galen’s cheek one final time, tracing the freckles across Galen’s nose and the sharp dip in his upper lip the same way he had countless times, and said goodbye.