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The black cloak with its red elements looked powerful, terrifying, and almost divine all at once. Its dark surface caught the moonlight, while the stars reflected across it as if something had torn pieces of the night sky loose and wrapped them around Ewron, who was sweeping through the darkness above Ash with ease. He moved through the open air with his bow raised high in one hand, showing what he could do, how far his reach could stretch, as multiplying arrows burst from the string and scattered across the territory below.
When he descended, his feet touched the ground lightly. He straightened, with a breath that trembled with laughter. Beneath the shadow of the hood, Ewron’s eyes shone wide and bright, still lit by the destruction he had left behind. Ash felt his pulse kick harder at the sight of him and at the wildness in his expression.
It was hard for Ash to look away from Ewron’s face - which was exactly why he noticed the thin, dark line slipping from one nostril. It was barely more than a slow thread of red against his skin, but once Ash saw it, his gaze fixed there with intensity. He followed the movement of the blood as it slid lower, gathering at the edge of Ewron’s lip while Ewron breathed through his parted mouth, still smiling.
Curiosity was always the first thing Ash felt toward blood, toward the deep red color of it and the comforting warmth it carried beneath the other people’s skin. He stepped closer with his eyes still locked on Ewron’s mouth, and Ewron stood beneath the shadow of the hood, bright-eyed and almost trembling with satisfaction - like a hunting animal waiting to be praised after dragging something dead to its master’s feet.
Ash slowly reached out, lifting his hand between them, and touched the space between Ewron’s nose and upper lip, dragging his finger lightly over the blood. The motion smeared red across Ewron’s top lip, leaving a messy mark that made him look even more undone. Ash’s thumb hovered there, feeling the heat of Ewron’s breath against his skin, and then he pulled his hand back, looking at the blood shining wetly across his fingertips.
“You sure you’re good?” Ash asked, rubbing his fingers together slowly, spreading the wet blood between them. Ewron blinked, as if it had not even occurred to him that there could be anything wrong, and then his smile widened into a delighted grin.
“Good?” he repeated, his voice coming out breathless, while his eyes stayed fixed on Ash like he was trying to drag him into the same rush and make him feel it too. “I’m perfect.” He gave a small, restless spin in place, the cloak sweeping around his frame as the wind caught beneath its edges and made the dark fabric flare behind him. “But Ash, Ash,” Ewron said, stepping closer, his blood-smudged mouth curling with delight. “Did you see what we can do? Did you see that? We’re so powerful.”
Later, Ash would think about that.
He should have told Ewron to take the armor off. He should have grabbed his face and properly checked his eyes, should have looked closely enough to notice the tremor in his hands hiding beneath all that excitement. But in that moment, with destruction spread around them after the demonstration and Ewron looking at him like the whole world had finally opened in front of them, Ash only felt the pleased warmth of victory, along with the intoxicating certainty that everything they had wanted was no longer just a distant promise, but it was within their reach.
“Yes,” he said quietly, still looking at Ewron’s mouth, at the red smear his own finger had left behind and the thin streak of blood slowly drying above his lip. “I saw,” his gaze lingered there, before he licked his own lips.
Ewron looked almost hungry for more acknowledgment, and his whole body seemed to leaning toward Ash. The cloak shifted when he stepped closer, dark fabric dragging softly over the ground, but neither of them looked at it anymore - not when Ash’s hand had already found Ewron’s cheek. His fingers settled against warm skin while his thumb rested just beneath the smear of red above his mouth.
Ewron’s eyes brightened beneath the dark hood, and his sharp smile remained as Ash leaned in.
The first touch of Ash’s tongue was slow, dragging over the blood smeared across Ewron’s upper lip, taking the taste from him with a low, satisfied hum when the metallic warmth spread over his tongue. His hand tightened against Ewron’s cheek, fingers pressing into his skin, and he felt the faint tremor that moved through Ewron’s jaw in answer - proving that this was exactly what he had been waiting for.
Ewron pressed more firmly into Ash’s palm, his head tipping to the side with shameless willingness, offering more of himself. The corner of his mouth lifted beneath Ash’s tongue before his lips parted in invitation, his breath brushing hot against Ash’s mouth. He looked unbearably pleased and almost dazed by the attention.
Ash lingered, cleaning the blood from Ewron’s upper lip slowly, not because there was much left to taste, but because Ewron stayed so still under his hand, breathing against his mouth, waiting, wanting, letting himself be held in place.
Ewron moved, closing any space left between them, his fingers catching in the front of Ash’s clothes as his teeth found Ash’s lower lip. He bit down with enough pressure to sharpen the warmth in Ash’s stomach, and before Ash could decide whether to pull him closer or shove him back, Ewron soothed the place with his tongue. Ash stayed close, feeling that smug little curve of Ewron’s mouth against his own, then caught his lips again in one last hard, brief kiss before pulling back with a smile that still had some of Ewron’s blood on it.
“You did good,” he said.
After that, Ash saw Ewron use the cloak from time to time, testing its limits with the same bright, restless hunger he had shown the first night, trying out new tricks, new angles, new ways of pulling power through the bow. Ash accepted the pride that came to him as he watched - but one night, in Prawdziwa Polska 2, that pride twisted into something more complicated.
Ewron, again, was above him - a distant shape cutting through the sky with impossible speed, his cloak leaving a smoke-dark trail behind him. Ash could barely track him through the shadows of the night, catching him only in flashes between the clouds: the dark sweep of fabric, the bow raised against the moonlight, the flicker of his hand drawing the string back before streaks of power split the air and something exploded exactly where he had aimed, proving that the newest enchantment worked just as they had predicted, and that it was every bit as deadly as they had hoped.
Then Ewron turned back, diving with the same reckless speed that made Ash’s chest swell with pride, but halfway through the descent, the line of his movement wavered. It was subtle enough that anyone else might have not noticed it at all.
Ash’s smile shifted into a more analytical one, his eyes narrowed as his mind reached for an explanation. He took one step back as Ewron struck the ground a few paces away, landing hard enough for the cloak to snap around him before spilling over his shoulders.
Ewron tried to straighten, but his balance gave beneath him. His foot caught on the stone as he stumbled forward, and Ash barely had time to lift his hands before Ewron crashed into his chest. Ash caught him, one arm locking around his back while the other grabbed his shoulder to hold him upright, and for a second Ewron’s forehead pressed against Ash’s collarbone, his weight heavy against him.
“Ewron,” Ash said sharply as Ewron slipped through his grip and hit the ground on his knees, one hand bracing weakly in the dirt. Ash dropped down after him, his hand catching Ewron’s shoulder again. “Ewron, hey. What’s wrong?”
The silence that followed made Ash feel uncomfortable. Ewron knelt with his head bowed, shoulders rising and falling beneath the dark fall of the cloak, his hair slipping forward around his face while the red glow woven through the fabric slowly dimmed into something more muted. It should have made the cloak look less dangerous, but somehow it only made Ash more aware of the way Ewron was still clutching it, fingers curled weakly into the fabric.
“Look at me,” Ash slid his hand beneath Ewron’s chin and lifted it carefully. Ewron’s head followed the movement with visible effort. His face had gone pale, almost hollow in the dim light, and blood was running from his nose in a thick line, slipping over his mouth and down his chin.
Ash’s gaze scanned over Ewron’s face and stopped at his eyes, where red threaded through the blue of his irises.
“Ash,” Ewron breathed, amused, as if Ash was the one being dramatic.
“...What did it do to you?” Ash whispered.
Ewron blinked slowly, and the small smile dragged itself across his bloodied mouth.
“What do you mean, what did it do to me?” he asked, the words coming out still touched by that stubborn pride. “It made me strong.” His fingers tightened faintly in the cloak. He swallowed, his throat working with visible effort. “I just... need a second.”
Ash took a long look at him.
“Looking at you right now, strong is the last word I’d use.”
Ewron looked offended, and almost confused by the anger in Ash’s voice. Ash could hear it himself - could feel how quickly concern inside him had sharpened into something crueler, but there was no room to soften it.
Not while Ewron was kneeling in the dirt with blood on his mouth.
“But you saw it,” Ewron said, excitement coming back into his voice. “You saw what we can do-”
“Ewron.” Ash’s hand tightened around his arm, his gaze locked on the red fractures threaded through Ewron’s irises. “Is this the radiation, or is it the cloak?”
“Neither- what?” Ewron said, shaking his head, then wincing as the movement made fresh blood spill over his lip. “No, you’re not listening. Ash, they can’t touch us.” His hand lifted unsteadily to grab Ash’s wrist, fingers trembling around him with barely enough strength to hold, but Ewron still tried, still leaned into the words with red-threaded eyes and a bloodied smile, as if this mattered more than anything else. “They can’t even reach us.”
“This is not what I’m asking, Ewron. Something is wrong, and you’re trying to play it off,” Ash said and Ewron’s smile faltered.
Ash reached up with his free hand and wiped beneath Ewron’s nose, just as he had done the first time, but there was no quiet pleasure in the warmth of it against his fingers now. This time, he touched him carefully because Ewron looked breakable. Ewron’s fingers tightened around his wrist, and when he looked up at Ash, there was anger cutting through the exhaustion in his eyes.
“I’m not playing it off,” Ewron countered. “I’m fine. Why do you have a problem with it?”
Ash looked past Ewron, toward the ground still littered with black arrows, the terrain broken unevenly in the places where the explosions had torn through it. Somewhere nearby, a branch cracked and fell, hitting the dirt with a dull sound, but Ash barely looked at it before his gaze returned to Ewron.
“The problem is that my blade is getting dull from being sharpened too much,” Ash said, frowning.
Ewron stared at him, and for a moment Ash thought he might laugh - either missing the meaning completely or, worse, understanding it and taking pride in being called his blade.
“I know what I’m doing,” Ewron said instead, like he believed it completely, and the worst part was that he looked almost peaceful with the thought - even half-collapsed against Ash’s chest, blood wet on his mouth and his breath dragging through his parted lips.
Ash stared down at the top of his head, at the dark hood covering his ears, leaving only two small bumps in the fabric to show where they were hidden. He wanted to seize him by the shoulders and shake him until that terrible certainty cracked, and until Ewron understood that he was playing with something neither of them knew how to control. He needed Ewron to understand that there was no victory worth this.
He needed him out of the cloak.
Ash shoved Ewron back from his chest, and Ewron let out a surprised, hurt sound at the sudden loss of support. Then Ash caught him by the back of the neck before he could fall, fingers closing firmly beneath the hood, and dragged him in again. Ewron’s breath broke into a startled laugh, just before their mouths met.
Ash did not know how to make himself soft when his whole body was locked around panic, but he forced himself to be careful, and made his mouth move slowly against Ewron’s even as his hands wanted to tear at every clasp, binding and fastening holding that damned cloak around him.
Ewron made a pleased sound into the kiss,and leaned into Ash with his full weight, body giving up the pretense of strength the moment Ash’s arm slid more firmly around his back. His mouth opened with a dazed obedience. He was smiling into the kiss, even with blood on his teeth.
“You saw it,” he whispered, his lips dragging clumsily against Ash’s as he tried to chase the kiss again. “We’re unstoppable.”
Ash slid one hand up to the side of Ewron’s throat, his thumb pressing gently beneath his jaw to keep his head tilted, to keep him close and distracted.
“I saw,” Ash said, and kissed him once more because Ewron was trying to lift his head, “I saw everything.” Ash felt sick with himself.
His fingers slipped beneath the edge of the cloak, searching for one of the bindings hidden in the dark fabric, and he kept his mouth on Ewron’s while he worked at it, steady, steady - forcing every motion to look intentional rather than desperate. The clasp resisted under his touch, and Ash’s fingers trembled so badly that he had to press his wrist against Ewron’s collarbone to hide it.
Ewron noticed, but whatever meaning he found in Ash’s trembling hands was the wrong one. His head tipped back, exposing his throat, lips parted and red, the ruined triumph still clinging to his face as if he thought Ash was unwrapping him out of admiration rather than trying to get the cloak off.
“Ash,” he breathed, and the sound of it nearly made Ash lose the clasp entirely.
“Yeah,” Ash whispered, his jaw tight enough it hurt. “I’ve got you.” The clasp gave beneath a sharp twist of his thumb, and Ewron’s body jolted as if something had been pulled out of him. His eyes opened wider for a second, the red in them flashing strangely beneath the blue, but then he blinked slowly and smiled again, already trying to turn his face back toward Ash’s mouth.
“You did good,” Ash said quickly, because he could not let Ewron think too hard. “Just let me-” He shifted closer, one knee pressing into the dirt between Ewron’s, his arm locking around his back, while his other hand worked fast beneath the cloak. His fingers found the next binding by touch alone, tugging at it with as much control as he could force into his shaking hands.
The one on the other side gave faster now that he understood how it opened, and the cloak slid lower around Ewron’s shoulders, loose except for the hood still caught over his head.
“You’re shaking,” Ewron murmured, amused.
Ash kissed the corner of his mouth, then his cheek, leaving a faint red smear where his bloodied lips brushed Ewron’s skin. Ewron gave a small laugh when Ash kissed his temple, and Ash felt as Ewron’s hands wandered lower over his chest, fingers trying to find their way under the layers of fabric.
Ash raised his hand and caught the edge of the hood, careful of the ears hidden under it. He pulled it off quickly, threw it to the side, and Ewron’s fingers dug into Ash’s waist. Even through the layers Ash wore, he felt the strength of it.
Ewron inhaled hard, and a broken sound tore through his chest, as if the cloak had been making breathing difficult all this time. He lifted his head with visible effort, his eyes unfocused, mouth smeared red from Ash’s kisses and his own bleeding, and he still looked so proud, so wrecked and pleased and far away.
He wanted to ask if this was still worth it. He wanted to ask if power felt good enough to make up for the fact that Ewron’s body could barely hold itself straight - but he already knew his answer, because of course Ewron would call it worth it as long as he was still useful.
With the hood off, Ewron looked frighteningly pale even in the dark, the shadows beneath his eyes standing out sharply now that the red around his irises had started fading slowly back into blue. Ash pulled him against him, and without the dark fabric making him look stronger, Ewron suddenly seemed horribly human.
Ash cradled the back of Ewron’s head with one hand, hoping Ewron was too exhausted to notice the frantic rhythm of Ash’s heart.
“Did I do good?” he whispered, confused.
Ash’s face twisted. He lowered his forehead to Ewron’s, closing his eyes for one second as his fingers curled into Ewron’s hair.
“Sure,” he said, not believing himself at all, and then forced himself to swallow the tight, uncomfortable feeling rising in his throat before giving Ewron the answer he was clearly waiting for. “You did good.”
The cloak lay beside them in the dirt, looking like nothing more than a crumpled piece of rag.
Ewron moved only his fingers toward it, his arm dragging against Ash’s lap as he tried to reach for the cloak. The movement was nothing more than a pathetic attempt of his body to follow what his mind still wanted, but it sent something cold straight through Ash, because Ewron could not even hold his own head up properly and still he was reaching for the thing that had done this to him.
“No,” Ash said sharply. With one arm still keeping Ewron against him, he shifted and grabbed the cloak before throwing it away from them. The wind caught the dark fabric and dragged it several meters across the dirt. Ewron made a wounded noise in his throat as his hand stretched after it. Ash caught his wrist and Ewron tried to struggle against the hold, but there was no real strength behind it.
“Ash. Ash. Ash, please,” he whispered, and there was something in his voice that made it sound as if he did not know whether he was asking for the cloak or for him. “Ash.”
Ash brought Ewron’s hand closer, folding those trembling fingers carefully into his own. He lowered his mouth to Ewron’s knuckles and kissed them one by one, firmly enough that Ewron’s unfocused gaze finally pulled away from the cloak and returned to him.
“You did well,” Ash said, his voice low and rough, while his thumb stroked once over the back of Ewron’s hand. “I saw all of it.”
Ewron’s expression softened with the beginning of satisfaction.
“But that’s enough,” Ash said, cutting it off before it could settle on Ewron’s face, before it could become another reason for him to reach back toward the cloak.
Ewron’s expression turned conflicted, as if the praise and the limit did not fit together in his mind - as if being told he had done well should have meant being allowed to keep going until there was nothing of him left to praise. He slumped against Ash, his cheek pressing to Ash’s shoulder while his body lay almost completely limp in his arms.
Cucurucho ran and that was the part Ash could not make sense of at first.
Through the blood in his mouth, through the ringing in his ears, through the sharp, ugly pain burning somewhere beneath his ribs every time he tried to breathe too deeply, he watched that white shape retreat into the smoke and broken light, damaged enough to stumble, damaged enough to disappear rather than finish what it had started.
It should have felt impossible- it should have felt like victory. Instead, all he could do was sit there with his back pressed to cold stone, one hand braced uselessly at his side, trying to understand that the fight was over, Cucurucho was gone, and impossibly, Ash was still alive.
The world blurred in and out around him, sounds reaching him too late and too softly, as if he were underwater. He could see the blackened marks across the ground where Ewron’s shots had torn through it, scattered pieces of stone, smoke dragging across the floor.
Ewron was levitating above him, swaying slightly, the cloak still moving around him in waves, partly hiding how badly the body beneath it was shaking. Blood ran from his nose in thick lines, over his mouth and down his chin, dripping onto the ground below, while darker smears marked his throat where he must have wiped at himself without even noticing. His eyes were fully red, feverish, making him look as if he had not fully returned from the fight.
Ash tried to say his name, but nothing came out except a rough breath. But that small attempt seemed to be enough, because Ewron dropped to his knees in front of him so hard that Ash almost flinched, the cloak spilling around him. His hands, when they reached for Ash’s face, were careful to the point of trembling, palms finding Ash’s jaw while his fingers spread beneath his ears and his thumbs pressed lightly against his cheeks.
“Are you okay?” Ewron asked, his voice strained beneath the steadiness he was trying to force into it. “Ash?”
Ash blinked, trying to focus past the blood on Ewron’s mouth and the wrong shine in his eyes, trying to hold onto the fact that Ewron was kneeling there in front of him, that Cucurucho was gone, that the fight was over.
“Ash,” Ewron repeated, softer, his thumbs pressing just a little more firmly into Ash’s cheeks. “I’m taking us home.”
Ash heard him, but the words reached him strangely, delayed and distant, like they had to pass through the ringing in his ears before they could mean anything.
“Yeah, yeah. Okay,” Ewron whispered, and his smile flickered for half a second, small and bloodied and desperate enough that it almost looked like pain. “I’ve got you.”
He stood and moved closer, the cloak suddenly taking over Ash’s vision. Ewron reached under Ash’s arms, and Ash’s head tipped back, his breath catching sharply at the pull through his ribs.
“I know,” he said quickly, then swallowed, blood shining wetly at the corner of his mouth. “I know. I know, but you have to stand.”
It should have been impossible with the way Ewron’s own hands trembled, but the cloak seemed to push him through it, dragging strength out of him from somewhere his body no longer had any right to offer. He hauled Ash up from the ground, and Ash’s boots dragged once before finding the floor, his weight falling heavily into Ewron’s hold.
Ash felt a sudden, violent pull beneath them as they flew upward, his stomach turning sharply when the ground dropped away. The world lurched, stone and smoke falling beneath his feet, and his hands grabbed blindly at Ewron’s shoulders while Ewron tightened his hold around him, dragging him close enough that Ash’s face pressed against the cold fabric gathered near his collar.
Ash felt the wind, cold against the blood drying on his face and sharp enough to sting his eyes whenever he forced them open as they flew impossibly fast. He lifted his head once, barely, and saw Ewron’s profile through the blur of his own exhaustion, his face pale beneath the blood and ash, his eyes fixed forward with that same hunted intensity, as if he was not flying home so much as fleeing the moment his body finally realized what he had demanded from it.
The familiar shape of Prawdziwa Polska 2 came into view through the dim light. Ewron began to descend too quickly, then corrected sharply, making Ash’s stomach lurch again. His weak grip tightened around Ewron’s shoulders as Ewron made a low sound under his breath.
He let Ash down first, and Ash stumbled the moment his feet touched the ground, but somehow he stayed upright, one hand catching the nearest tree while Ewron’s arm slipped away from around him. For a few seconds, Ash could only focus on his own feet, on the astonishing fact that the ground stayed beneath him, on the way his knees threatened to buckle and then - by some miracle - did not.
Ash heard something to the side and turned to see Ewron taking two uneven steps away from him. His chin was lifted, blood still marked his mouth, and for one brief second he looked at Ash with sharp, trembling focus, as if making sure he was alive was the last thing his body had agreed to do.
Then his eyes rolled back.
“Ewron-”
Ewron collapsed, the strength going out of him as if a string had been cut, his body dropping sideways before Ash could fully reach him. He hit the ground with a heavy, brutal sound, and the cloak spilled after him in a dark heap, twitching once before it went still.
Ash pushed himself off the tree and pain flared through his ribs, bright enough to nearly blind him, but he ignored it and staggered forward, dropping hard beside Ewron with a broken sound of his own. For a second, all he could do was stare, because Ewron looked too still, his mouth parted around breaths so shallow Ash had to lean close to see them at all.
“Ewron,” Ash whispered, grabbing his shoulder. “Hey. Hey, no. Don’t do this.” His fingers moved from Ewron’s shoulder to the cloak, grabbing a fistful of the dark fabric. It looked like nothing now - and something beneath the pain and panic hardened, making his hands stop shaking.
He reached for the clasp with blood-slick fingers and began tearing the cloak open. The first fastening came loose under his grip, and he moved to the other side, shoving one knee into the ground beside Ewron’s hip to brace himself despite the sharp pull through his wounded ribs. Every movement sent heat tearing through his side, but he kept going, fingers dragging through fabric and blood and dirt.
“Come on,” he hissed, yanking at the next clasp. The motion ripped a groan from his own throat as pain split through his chest. He had to stop for half a second, one hand pressed against the ground, his forehead dropping toward his shoulder as he forced air into his lungs through clenched teeth.
Then he felt the terrible awareness of being watched and lifted his head, only to meet Ewron’s red eyes. They were open but barely focused, staring at him from a face too pale to belong to someone still conscious. Ewron’s lips moved slightly, but no sound came except a broken little drag of breath.
“Fuck, Ewron,” Ash whispered, the words leaving him with more fear than anger - though his hands were still moving like rage was the only thing keeping them steady, “Why?” He found the last clasp and yanked at it hard enough to make the fabric strain, his fingers slipping once against blood and dirt before catching again. “Why do you keep using it?” Ash asked, and tore the clasp away, ripping through the material with violent force.
A shudder ran through his arm the moment the fabric split, as if the cloak had tried to pull back from him. Ash dragged it off Ewron completely, gathering the dark material into both hands and crushing it into a tight, furious ball before throwing it as far as his injured ribs and shaking arms allowed. The cloak hit the ground several meters away, finally away from Ewron, finally out of reach. Ash stayed frozen for half a breath with his arm still extended, as if he needed to make sure it would not crawl back.
Ewron’s head rolled a fraction to the side. Ash’s gaze snapped back to him just as one of Ewron’s arms slipped uselessly from where it had been resting against his torso, falling limp against the dirt.
Ash, slowly, lowered himself beside him because his body gave him no other choice, even though he hated it, hated the weakness inside him and outside of him, hated the need to rest and catch even a few breaths when Ewron was lying there barely able to take his own.
He went down on one knee first, then the other, pain pulling through his ribs with every careful shift, and when he finally let himself sink onto the ground, exhaustion settled so heavily into his bones that the position almost felt like mercy. The world spun less from there, at least, the dirt felt steady beneath his back while the sky and trees stopped tilting so violently above him.
He turned his head to the side, toward Ewron, and found Ewron already looking back at him, his eyes open and fixed on Ash with an expression Ash could not read.
“We made him run,” Ewron said, the words slipping out through an uncoordinated mouth, as if getting rid of the cloak had made him lose whatever control over his body the power had been pretending to give him. “Next time, there will be no more running. We’ll get him.”
“We’ll find a different way,” Ash muttered and Ewron’s brow furrowed, weak confusion passing over his face, as if Ash had said something strange. “Why do you do this, Ewron?”
Ewron took a deep breath. His head stayed turned toward Ash, but his gaze drifted past him and upward to the sky, as if the rest of him still wanted to be there - untouchable and impossible to reach.
“Because I need us to win,” Ewron said, blood slipping past his lip.
“That’s it?” Ash let out a fake laugh, his teeth clenching hard enough to make his jaw ache when the sound sent pain through his ribs. “Ewron, I need your honesty.”
“I need us to kill everyone,” Ewron said, his gaze moving back to Ash with unsettling focus. “That’s what we promised each other, right?”
Talking seemed to come easier now, each word less tangled than the one before, and the red in his irises appeared to be thinning back into blue, though Ash could not tell whether it was truly fading or whether his mind was giving him the version of Ewron he needed to see.
“We did, but that’s not what I’m asking,” Ash said. “Why?”
Ewron stared at him, searching his face for something Ash did not know how to give him, and for a moment there was such open conflict in his eyes that Ash almost regretted asking at all. Then Ewron let out a broken breath that came close to a wet laugh pushed through his teeth, bitter enough to make Ash go still, and although his head remained turned toward Ash, his body limp against the dirt, something in his face sharpened with sudden, exhausted anger, as if Ash had reached into the wrong place and found something Ewron would rather have bled out than handed over willingly.
“You want the real one?” Ewron asked, his mouth twisting around the question as fresh tears slipped from the corners of his eyes. They moved silently over the ash and blood on his face, catching red at the edges where they crossed the dried smears near his cheekbone. “You.” Ewron swallowed, his gaze flickering past Ash again, toward the sky, before forcing itself back. “It’s you. It’s always you. Is that what you wanted me to
“Ewron, I-”
“Shut up,” Ewron snapped, or tried to snap, but his voice was too weak for it, anger dragging itself through exhaustion until it came out thin and shaking.
Ash closed his mouth.
Ewron’s fingers twitched faintly in the dirt, like he wanted to move, but his body gave him nothing.
“They always find it,” Ewron said, his voice roughening as his fingers twitched uselessly in the dirt. “That’s what people do - what they always do. They look at you, and they don’t care about the weapons first, or the plans, or the fucking magic, not really, because all of that is obvious. What they really want is your real weakness. The person you turn toward before you even think about it.” His mouth twisted as if the idea itself disgusted him. “And then they take it, put a knife to it, or a chain around it, or they lock it in a room, or they make it bleed in front of you, and then they wait for you to get stupid. They wait for you to forget every plan you ever made because suddenly nothing matters except that one thing still breathing. So no, Ash, I was not going to hand you over like that.” His expression almost crumpled beneath the anger. “I am protecting you,” he said, bitterly. “And you can call it stupid if you want, you can look at me like I’m being dramatic or reckless or whatever else you’re thinking, but I know what happens to things that matter. I know what people do when they realize you love something.”
Ash could not move. He could only lie there beside Ewron, pain pulsing beneath his ribs, and listen as Ewron dragged the truth out of himself like it hurt.
“You keep saying that love is unnecessary,” Ewron said, and now there was anger there again, clearer, shaking harder because it had nowhere else to go. “And you say it like it’s simple. Like it’s just a word people use because they don’t know how to say useful, or loyal, or mine.” His mouth trembled around the next breath, and another tear slid down toward his jaw. “But it’s not simple to me.”
Ash’s lips parted, but no sound came. Ewron looked at him, dazed and furious and almost pleading beneath all the blood.
“You’re the person I care about most,” he said. “You are. And I hate that, because everyone always wants to hurt the thing that matters, and now it’s you, of course it’s you, and you’re sitting here asking me why I keep using the cloak like I’m supposed to choose between destroying myself and letting them take you from me!”
Something inside Ash’s chest went very still.
“Stop,” he said, but he did not know whether he meant stop saying it or stop meaning it.
“No,” Ewron’s expression tightened, almost offended. “You wanted honesty.”
Ash’s hand moved, dragging weakly over the dirt between them until his fingers found Ewron’s wrist. Ewron’s skin was cold beneath his palm, and the feeling of it made Ash’s grip tighten.
“I love you,” Ewron said, and it came out angry, like an accusation. “There. Fine. I love you. I love you, and I would do anything for you, and I did not say it because I knew exactly what it would become if the wrong person heard it.”
Ash stared at him, stunned so completely that even the pain seemed to fade.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he huffed, finally turning his head away, as if his body had recovered just enough strength to let him hide from Ash’s expression. “Don’t act surprised. You knew. You had to know.”
“You’re an idiot,” Ash said, but the words came out ruined. Ash’s grip tightened weakly around his wrist and he swallowed against the tightness in his throat, against the old instinct to dismiss the word.
Love was unnecessary. Love was inefficient. Love had no meaning.
He had said all of that, once.
Ash dragged himself closer with a sharp breath through his ribs, pain flaring hot beneath his skin as the movement made Ewron’s head tip slightly toward him, leaving them close enough that Ash’s forehead nearly touched his again.
“Don’t ever use that as a reason to kill yourself in front of me,” Ash said, his voice shaking. “Do you hear me?” He closed his eyes again, his thumb pressing over the inside of Ewron’s wrist, feeling the faint, fragile pulse beneath his skin like something he could not afford to lose.
“I heard you,” he said and Ewron’s breath trembled. “And you’re going to stay alive long enough for me to figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do with it.”