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Phainon blinks back into reality to the taste of blood in his mouth, the scent of ash in his nose and pain.
He can’t move. He can’t even think of moving, with the way the pain sears through his entire body. Every limb is alight, his spine in agony, his head splitting. He lies sprawled out over jagged, sharp clumps of rock like a criminal left for the birds. Bits of rubble cage him in on either side, filling in the grooves between his flesh and the stone.
And, almost like a carrion scavenger waiting, another large hunk of dark grey stone lies very firmly over his left leg and part of his abdomen. When Phainon blinks his eyes into focus, he can see the splatters of gold on it.
He’d swear, but his tongue hurts too sharply for it to cooperate with words. Something wet drools out the corner of his mouth. He recalls stepping onto the bridge, the sickening crack, and then his stomach dropping as he felt it give way beneath him. That horrible one second lurch as he fell.
Phainon does not know how long he lies there, feeling nothing but agony before he finds the strength to twitch his fingers and his thoughts manage to evolve from just feelings to actual words. He registers the exact position of his body, every point where the rock - the remains of the bridge - digs into him, the places where his skin feels wet.
But his fingers on both hand move when he tries, as do both sets of toes, so that’s a positive. Maybe he can crawl out of here.
Yes - he just has to crawl out, and then he can staunch the bleeding. And then he can make it back to Okhema, or close enough that he’ll find someone, and they’ll take him to the Twilight Courtyard. He just has to crawl out.
He lifts his arms and presses his palms against the edge of the stone on top of him, and presses.
It does not move.
No, no, no! He pushes harder, with all the strength he can muster, until his arms shake and his palms are smeared with gold.
It does not move.
He hooks his fingers under the edge of it, and tries to lift instead.
It does not move.
His fingers, slippery with blood, scramble against the sharp grooves, trying to get a better hold. Surely he just needs a better position to lever it. He heaves with all his might.
It does not move.
Just a centimetre would be enough. Any progress - he just has to move it a little, and then a little again. He grits his teeth. He goes back to pushing it off. It will move, it has to move! He’s a Chrysos Heir and he can definitely move one measly rock! This isn’t the end. This can’t be the end.
It does not move.
Even Phainon has to give up eventually, every muscle in his arms screaming at him. He just needs to recover his strength a little, and then he can move it. And then he’ll crawl out and stop the bleeding and get to Okhema and he’ll be taken to the Twilight Courtyard and they’ll put him in a soft bed and give him something for the pain and it’ll be alright.
Wait - his teleslate. Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? He just has to message someone and they’ll come and find him and help him and it’ll be alright.
It should be in his pocket except - except it’s not. It’s not, because he’d been holding it in his hand when he’d walked across the bridge and -
His eyes dart over the ground he can see from his position, scanning, scanning, praying to anything above that he’ll find it.
And he does. He spies it far too far away for him to reach, even when he pulls and twists his aching body to try and get closer. The screen remains dark, and from this distance he doesn't know if it’s broken or not.
How long will it be before people come looking for him? How will they even find him?
Is he really going to die here? He can't, he can’t die, and not here, not like this!
He tries again to push the rock aside, to wriggle out from underneath it, but still nothing. He is still trapped here, blood in his body being slowly replaced by agony.
He feels weak. He feels stupid. A Chrysos Heir, meant to protect and lead, and he can’t even move one single rock. Tears well in his eyes, and he clumsily rubs them aside. Why had anyone ever believed he was capable of anything? What had Aglaea even seen in him?
He doesn’t have anything useful like her endless threads, nor js he as smart as Anaxa, nor does he have an incredible body like Mydei. All his blood had done was make him tall enough to hit his head on every other doorframe in Okhema.
Just a boy with a name that didn’t matter from a place that didn’t exist.
Just a farmer’s son, who trained with the sword because he didn’t have anything else in his life.
He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to die here. There’s too many things he has to do, too many promises that he can't leave unfulfilled. But what else can he do but follow people into the underworld? Has any other Chrysos Heir ever died in such a pathetic and ignoble way?
The screen on his teleslate is still black. He doesn’t know how long he stares at it, hoping it will light up. There is no sense of time here, in this dark grave of his, just an endless longing for the light.
He thinks of the wheat fields of his home. He remembers what it was like to have that endless, golden sea part around him as he ran. He remembers the sun. He remembers Cyrene, and his parents, and his friends. It’s like he’s there again, a child who just dreamed of simple things and didn’t know death.
Then he’s back in the pit, and he’s still staring at his teleslate. Yes - that’s right, everyone is dead. He might be too, soon. The sole survivor of Aedes Elysiae, only to meet his fate so far from home without having accomplished anything.
Will Aglaea send someone? Will Mydei come to look for him? He can picture him, standing over him with his beautiful immortal body and seeing all the injuries Phainon’s too scared to look at. Will he be disappointed, that Phainon is so weak? That Phainon cannot hold a candle to him in any way?
He’d wanted to stand shoulder to shoulder to Mydei, to match him in every way. And yet Mydei would never do something as stupid as fall, never be so weak as to be trapped. Phainon has always been entranced by Mydei, beautiful Mydei who is everything a man and a leader should be. How could he ever think he could attempt to be his equal? How could he ever imagine them having a life together?
He grabs the rock again, with his gold stained fingers that have lost their grip, and once again pushes with his pale arms that won’t stop shaking. He has to move it, move it so he can crawl out, so he can live and look Aglaea in the eyes. So he can live up the title of deliverer. So he can see Mydei again.
But the rock does not move.
He pushes, and pushes, but it does not budge, and it starts to sink in that he is really going to die here. He was the one who got away, the one who thought maybe he could learn to never let Aedes Elysiae repeat and here he is, dying just as easily as the rest of them. So pathetic, so small. It would be nice, to see Mydei one last time, beautiful Mydei… he should have told him that. That he’s the most beautiful man Phainon’s ever seen. That Phainon wanted them to be together. That he could never picture anyone else by his side.
He blinks, but maybe he doesn’t - he isn’t sure. He thinks of the wheat again. He stands alone in it, watching the way it ripples with the wind, and runs his hand through it. In the distance, he can see his home, and he's sure if he runs there once again his mother and father will greet him. His father will swoop him up into his arms, and his mother will kiss his cheeks, and there will be no bad things.
Phainon struggles to open his eyes, but his bones ache and it’s so light and it’s so loud -
“Snowy!” A loud voice exclaims. “Snowy, you’re awake!”
The sound Phainon lets out is not really a word. The vision of Tribbie swims into focus. She’s beaming at him, but keeping his eyelids open is a monumental task.
“Tribbie?” He slurs. Is he… his thoughts are so thick, like honey. Is he… Where is he? “I…” His words trail off. He doesn't even remember what he was meant to say.
When he wakes up again, there is no Tribbie.
Instead Mydei sits by his bedside, plucking pomegranate seeds from the fruit into a small bowl.
“Mydei?” Phainon asks shakily. He recognises the room now - he must be at the Twilight Courtyard.
“Deliverer,” Mydei says, evenly. “How do you feel?”
Awful. Really awful, actually. But he’s alive. “I’ve certainly had better days,” he says. His vocal chords feel rough with disuse.
Mydei doesn’t smile, which is a bit of a bummer, but he does snort. “Let’s hope this means your personality is still intact after that fall.”
Right. The fall. The embarrassing fall that was stupid of him. Some heir he is. Stupid Phainon, who can’t even go clear titankin without a babysitter. If he’ll even recover enough for that again. Maybe he never will.
“Tell me, Mydei,” he says. “Did the doctors… say anything about my recovery?”
“Not to me, at least.” Mydei’s fingers hesitate round a ruby red seed for a few moments before he pops it into his own mouth. “A lesser man would be dead from that fall, though.”
“Is that meant to make me feel better?”
It certainly doesn’t. Titans, how embarrassing this is. How useless Phainon is. If he can’t fight, what use is he? What does he have to offer? Who can he protect? What wishes can he fulfill if he’s too weak and clumsy to even do something as simple as go somewhere alone?
Phainon’s already lost one family. He doesn’t want to lose another. He doesn’t want to lose Mydei.
But he will. He’s always felt like a fraud, slotting in somehow as Aglaea’s protege, and now they all know just what a mistake she made in that. He’d always known that Mydei would be a better fit, anyway. He’s beautiful, and strong, and undying, and wise. He knows leadership better than any of them.
How could Phainon ever live up to that? How could he do anything but sigh longingly?
Of course he’d tried - Phainon can never not try, but he’d always suspected he’d lose eventually.
Mydei doesn’t reply - not directly to Phainon’s question, anyway. “I was the one who found you.” His hands pause, the tips of his fingers stained red. The gem of a fruit gleams in the candlelight as Mydei looks at it. “I thought you had died,” he says quietly.
Oh. Phainon can imagine he would have looked quite a mess. He feels like he ought to make a joke about it, something poking fun at Mydei for thinking he’d die from a fall and a rock to the abdomen, but it wouldn’t be right when Phainon had thought that too.
But what do you even respond to that kind of comment? Well you were wrong?
It’s better than staying silent, he supposes. He reaches an arm out shakily, and tries a grin. “But I’m alive,” he says. It doesn’t come out as reassuring as he would like.
Nethertheless, Mydei’s hand grips his own. His fingers are calloused from many years of holding weapons, but still so warm and soft and gentle. The hands of not just a warrior, but a homemaker, a son, a leader, a friend. Hands like a lover. Phainon had, for almost as long as he’s known Mydei, hoped that he could have Mydei as a lover. And maybe they’d almost had something before this. Back when Phainon could delude himself into thinking that maybe he stood a chance to be Mydei’s equal.
“You’re alive,” Mydei echoes to him. He squeezes Phainon’s hand tightly as though Phainon could slip back to that dark pit he’d fallen into. “Deliverer, I…” It’s unlike him to not finish his sentences, and all Phainon can think is that Mydei will tell him that he has no need for Phainon now. Phainon will take too long to heal. If he even heals right.
“Mydei,” he says. He will tell Mydei the truth. Maybe Mydei won’t want to hearp it, but then there will never be another time to tell him. He can’t remember if he thought of Mydei when he was bleeding out, but he must have. He must have thought about all the poetry he could weave about Mydei’s face one last time. “I know that I’m not worthy of you, and I know that this injury will change things, but Mydei… I really like you.” He swallows nervously. “You’re strong and beautiful and kind and I like you so much.”
“HKS,” Mydei says, and Phainon doesn’t understand, but Mydei hasn’t let go of his hand yet. “Why are you talking like this? This injury will change nothing.” And then Mydei leans down and presses his lips against Phainon’s.
His lips are soft, and full, and for a blissful moment Phainon forgets everything else going on because there’s just Mydei, and the way he feels and smells and tastes. It’s better than anything he could have even dreamed of.
Then Mydei pulls back. Phainon lets out a wounded noise.
“There will be no more self-depreciating talk, deliverer. You will focus on recovering and you will return to full health.”
He says it so convincingly, like the idea of Phainon being weak is a foreign concept. Even Phainon is convinced for a moment. “I will?”
Mydei nods. “You will recover so that you can kiss me properly. In the Kremnoan fashion.”
“There’s a Kremnoan way of kissing?” Phainon’s head feels like it’s spinning with this new information. Maybe right now the world feels so very big and Phainon feels so very small, but this - this feels like something small enough that he can reach. Agalea’s plans and Okhema’s future remain out of his grasp, but right now that feels okay. Mydei doesn’t think he’s too weak. “Just you wait, Mydei. I’m going to rest up until I can kiss you better than you can kiss me.”
“Nonsense, deliverer. I will always kiss you better.”
No he won’t. Phainon will make sure of it. But right now, he will fall asleep again and Mydei will still be holding his hand when he wakes up.