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Abandoned to time, the dilapidated temple to Mnestia still emanated beauty. Only an echo remained of the clean lines and angles that had previously stood proud against the hills and forest, but the Titan’s presence lingered in the eroded remains of old artistry. The once carefully maintained gardens had encroached over the pristine marble and brought weeds into cracked floor tiles, sunlight through a fractured roof, vines up crumbling columns. 

Of the many temples left abandoned to Amphoreus’ wilds by people fleeing disaster, this was a kinder fate than an invasion of black tide creatures and Titankin. Its collapse was inevitable but would only continue nature’s reclamation and spring new life from weathered stone. If Mnestia still existed in anything other than a Coreflame claimed by someone new, Phainon was certain they would appreciate the scenery and their statue, adorned by stone butterflies and sprouting resilient, fresh flowers. 

Phainon lowered his travel pack—food rations, water skin, fresh clothes—to the ground. A few rogue animals might come to curiously sniff at the strange scents invading their home but there wasn’t much damage they could inflict against the thick, sturdy leather that had served him well thus far. 

He rolled his shoulders, loosening them where the muscles had tensed beneath the straps, with a sigh. “Shall we get to work?” 

Ahead of him, half in shadow and half in daylight, Mydei turned away from the statue of Mnestia’s graceful form. “All right then. Though I doubt the records Aglaea sent us to find have survived.” 

Upon their arrival the same pessimism had struck him but he chuckled with a small shake of his head. “Perhaps. But there’s no harm in searching for a little while.” 

Supposedly there may be records regarding Nikador that could prove pertinent to the Flame-chase. The mobile fortress was still lost among the mist but Mnestia and Nikador possessed a unique relationship before one disappeared into grief and the other into madness. After all, the heat of battle and the heat of passion were intertwined: thumping heart, racing blood, irrational impulses. It was easy to mistake one for the other. 

For now, they were spared the fervent rush of battle. The temple sat in disrepair, along with the local town, after the people preemptively fled from an encroaching black tide as it swept away the surrounding areas. It had never reached the nearby plains where they now grazed their dromases nor the temple itself, but the people fortunate enough to escape with their lives hadn’t been eager to return and test their luck again. 

Their journey here had been free from trouble and there were no signs of corruption deeper than the depths of night. It was no excuse to become complacent as they ventured into the temple at each other’s sides, covering their blindspots, with their weapons at the ready. 

While Mydei stood guard at the doorways, Phainon pilfered each room. Many of the shelves had rotted away and the cracked walls, opening the way for rain and insects, had not been kind to the scrolls. The stone tablets had fared better so long as their shelves hadn’t collapsed and smashed them against the floor; once he dusted them off, they were perfectly legible. He skimmed both for whatever information he could parse but there were scarce mentions of Nikador and none of the mobile fortress that followed behind their spearpoint. 

“Find anything?” Mydei asked, quite lax for a watchman when he leaned, arms crossed, against the doorframe. 

Phainon wriggled his greatsword into the opening of a crate. “Not yet.”

Once the tip was in place he levered the crate open and the wood, expanded from the damp and seasonal weather, groaned. The lid popped off and the wooden panels shuddered on the brink of collapse but held before they could collapse on top of whatever was stored inside. 

It was mostly mouldy fabric riddled with holes where the insects had eaten through it but, at the very bottom, was a smooth stone box. Carved into the lid was the symbol of Mnestia so there was no mistaking who it was associated with, and the punishment that came with theft, yet the weight seemed to come from the box more than whatever precious object must have been stored inside. 

The lid snuggly fit to the box and a slight musty smell wafted when it clattered free but the contents had been spared any damage. The untainted gold plates, smoothed into a conical shape, was practically radiant in the sparse light of the drab records room as he lifted it for further examination along the wide opening. 

It was undoubtedly a spyglass, crafted with a skill that surpassed even Chartonus. After all, glasswork was notoriously difficult: it required comprehensive alchemy to ensure the glass came clear rather than cloudy, a fine surface to grind against lest the glasswork remain uneven, and a skilled hand that wouldn’t waver and fumble the process far more difficult to rectify than more basic metallurgy. Yet the lens was flawless along its surface and the edge where it met the gold casing. 

It was beyond the ability of any master craftsman Phainon had heard of let alone seen for himself. Inhuman. Perhaps divine. 

He hummed and turned towards Mydei, still gazing down the hallway for intruders other than themselves; although the permission of Mnestia’s successor had to count for something in separating them from ordinary thieves or black tide corrupted trespassers. 

“Maybe there is something worthwhile here after all,” Phainon mused with a raise of the spyglass like a celebratory chalice. 

Except he levelled it to his eye and there was nothing. He frowned. The lens had been clear but he swivelled his head to and fro as though it would shake loose whatever dark film had settled over the glass sometime between him examining it and attempting to peer through it. The complete darkness persisted. 

He spun about the room for a different, hopefully better, angle but his view didn’t change. How curious. If it was a divine tool then its purpose was beyond him. 

“Stop fooling around.”

As Phainon turned towards Mydei’s disapproving voice, the darkness gave way to a single, thin streak of gold but his hands were already following the motions of lowering the spyglass from his eye. It was only once he was met with Mydei’s stern expression that he realised, too late, something had changed and he had missed it. 

“I wasn’t fooling around,” he defended himself. “I was appraising this artefact of Mnestia.”

”To satisfy your own curiosity,” Mydei rebuked, plainly unimpressed. 

“Nonsense. This spyglass could have been the key to revealing Nikador’s location.”

Mydei arched a brow. “Well? Did you happen to see Strife stood proud above their legion of Titankin? Or were you too busy staring at the wall?” 

“The results are inconclusive and require further experimentation,” Phainon… didn’t quite lie but was certainly liberal with the truth as he knew it. There was no evidence that this divine relic wouldn’t lead them to a Coreflame. 

Mydei scoffed with a small shake of his head and reached around him. On the way past, his hand grazed Phainon’s arm and his eyes were drawn to the slightest graze of bronze that glimmered gold in his peripheral vision. 

Mydei held out the empty stone box Phainon had left discarded atop the open crate. “You can look all you like when we make camp tonight. For now, we still have Aglaea’s task to finish.” He shook the box at him. “Are you listening to me?”

Phainon squeezed his eyes shut in a prolonged blink, opened them again, and made a vague noise of affirmation but swiftly followed it with the more pressing topic: “Did you finally feel the need to embellish your outfit a little? After all these years?”

Mydei’s unimpressed face didn’t waver. “What are you on about now?”

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad choice,” Phainon hurried to placate the vexation in his voice and likely his expression if only Phainon averted his eye from Mydei’s hand long enough to check. “Unexpected. A little more subtle than your usual bold fashion sense. It adds a bit of a delicate touch. But are you sure such a thing won’t hinder you on the battlefield or the training grounds?”

Mydei clicked his tongue and swiped at him in a streak of bronze and red ran through with a thin line of gold. Attuned to Mydei’s tells from their innumerable bouts on the training grounds, Phainon’s body moved before his mind that lingered in the same place as before. 

“Did that relic scramble your brain?” Mydei accused and attempted to grab the spyglass again but Phainon easily evaded. 

“Are you trying to play me for a fool?” Phainon asked with a small, disbelieving shake of his head. “Speaking of, how dare you accuse me of fooling about while you were scavenging and toying around yourself."

Mydei’s hand reeled back for another swift strike but paused beside his confused face. “Deliverer,” he said slowly, eyes narrowed, “Explain.”

Phainon laughed. “Come now, Mydei. It’s right there on your finger.”

Befuddlement pinched Mydei’s features and he glanced at his side where he stared for a few extra moments of dragging silence. “What is?”

Phainon blinked because Mydei wasn’t one for acting the fool nor practical jokes. There were the occasions he laced Phainon’s food with borderline inedible concoctions but Mydei had never pretended he was innocent, he merely asserted that Phainon deserved what came to him. His only known deceptions were his skilful feints during a spar. Otherwise, he spoke the truth as though there was nothing else to tell and wore honesty on his stoic face that had never needed to rely on lies. 

So Phainon lifted his hand to mirror Mydei’s own and pointed at his fourth finger. “It’s right here. A golden…”

Thread. Wrapped neatly around Phainon’s finger. It drooped towards the floor in a long, low loop and rose again to knot around Mydei’s finger. They were connected. 

Mydei’s eyes narrowed and in place of the exasperation that usually arose in response to Phainon’s outrageous claims was concern. It lurked at the edges of his stern features but was undeniable as he raised his empty hand. “How many fingers do you see?”

”Two. I’m not blind, Mydei!” 

”It was worth a check,” he said, unfazed by Phainon’s indignation. “Tell me if your vision changes. And have your eyes checked when we return to Okhema. For now, some fresh air would do us both good.”

He wasn’t hallucinating! Except the argument never swelled further than the writhing pit of his stomach as, nearly removed from his body, he watched Mydei pluck the spyglass from his pliant hand, seal it away again, and turn to leave. All while the golden thread tying them together swayed with each motion. 

After a brief reprieve outside—which Phainon spent pointedly not looking at Mydei and certainly not his finger. Nor his own—they resumed their digging through the temple for any relevant records. Mydei’s position by the doorway had been abandoned so he could stand a little closer. He was always an arms length away, wordlessly and casually following Phainon around the room, as though he would suddenly collapse from whatever had afflicted him and Mydei would be there to catch him—a fair maiden and a chivalrous knight. Phainon almost laughed. 

He staunchly ignored Mydei’s loitering. Any debate of words about Mydei’s odd behaviour would inevitably circle back to Phainon’s earlier misstep. Instead, he climbed a decayed stepladder and reached for the topmost shelf to prove his capability through his actions. It was the Kremnoan way and the most efficient when they were partway through a mission. 

Their scouring only rewarded them with one fragment of a larger document that had since been lost or damaged. It recorded a part of Mnestia’s journey to recover Ceres’ scattered body and the brief time they had spent in Castrum Kremnos along the way. Apparently, Nikador had seen Mnestia’s flames of passion flared into grief and encouraged them to redirect their mourning into the heat of battle that burned away all except the struggle between death and the desire to live. 

For the purpose of the Flame-chase, it wasn’t quite what they had hoped to find but they didn’t leave completely empty-handed either. Their search uncovered a number of old relics that could potentially prove useful, if only they could figure out what they did, but the final verdict was Aglaea’s to pass once they returned to Okhema. 

A sharp whistle brought their dromases running across the plains to greet them. They were some of the finest in the city, thoroughbred to be sturdy against Amphoreus’s harsh landscapes and swift to cross them. It was still best they stopped to let themselves and their steeds rest for a night determined by their bodily routine rather than the sky that sat stagnant on the cusp of an all-encompassing, endless night. 

In the darkness of their shared tent, the golden thread stretched from one end to the other in twists and turns. Despite the gleam, akin to a gold coin fallen to the riverbed, its light did nothing to illuminate the cramped space. Utterly removed from the world.

What had Phainon gotten himself into now. His only consolation was that Mnestia was one of the more benevolent Titans so it couldn’t be that bad. If it had been a trick of Zagreus then he would have cause for concern. 

He waited until Mydei’s breathing had evened out with slumber before he snuck his hand from beneath his thin blanket, woven by Aglaea and embroidered with flowers by the triplets. There was nothing wrong with what he intended to do; certainly no laws were written about this odd situation and, morally, he meant no harm. Yet there was something illicit about it, chasing away his exhaustion and sharpening his mind with the same instinctive rush as battle, when he hooked the thread in the crook of his finger.

The texture and slight weight felt real as it ran against his skin, slipping through his finger to flutter back to the ground. If he tugged it, would Mydei feel the movement on the other end? He had fallen asleep facing the tent wall and the golden thread draped over his side to dangle towards the floor where it stretched to wrap around Phainon’s finger reaching out from his cot. A connection beyond the mundane, as immutable as their golden blood, and yet imperceptible to anyone except himself. 

Phainon flopped onto his back and sighed through his nose. Anything louder and Mydei might rouse, ever the light sleeper prepared to spring up and strike at the first hint of danger. Before he could risk waking him, and incurring a proper interrogation this time, Phainon closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep. 

Come morning, the golden thread remained strung, unmistakably, from Phainon to Mydei’s finger. It was stubborn too: long enough to always hang slack no matter how far they wandered from each other to clean up their small encampment and Mydei prepared a light breakfast while Phainon packed away the tent. Even as the dromases galloped home, the thread weightlessly billowed in the wind. 

Since the expedition had involved only the two of them, there was little fanfare when they returned through the city gates during Parting Hour. The day’s activities had petered out with the evening’s arrival, nudging people through the doors of their home, a nice restaurant, or the bathhouse to unwind in preparation for tomorrow. Only one person waited to greet them in the stables. 

“Welcome back, Dei, Snowy,” Trinnon greeted in her usual subdued murmur that should have hardly carried above the bustle of the few stable keepers still on hand. Perhaps it was the Coreflame of Janus, who once delivered messages on Amphoreus’ four winds, that ensured she was always heard as loudly as her boisterous counterparts. 

Phainon grinned as he hopped from the saddle with his travelling pack slung over his shoulder. “It’s good to see you, Trinnon.”

A stable hand hurried to take the reins and lead the dromas away, seeking somewhere more convenient to shed its equipment and provide a proper grooming before a well-earned rest.

Mydei dismounted, landing light and agile on his feet with a rattle of metal. Before his dromas could be guided away, he retrieved a small box from the saddlebag. “How has the situation been in our absence?”

It had been a five day journey but a lot could happen within the sprawling metropolis, people and agendas mixing and clashing within Okhema’s high walls like an alchemical crucible constantly on the brink of a volatile reaction. 

“Aggy has been busy with the council,” Trinnon said and her wings fluttered to fly beside them as they left the stables behind. “That’s why she sent us to meet you.”

“A shame we didn’t bring good news to lift her spirits,” Mydei said. A single council meeting had a way of souring the mood, let alone successive ones. 

Trinnon frowned. “So there was nothing there either.”

“Unfortunately not,” Phainon commiserated with a shake of his head. “But we were hoping to get Aglaea’s input on some other things we found.”

Mydei lifted the box to garner her attention. “Relics associated with Mnestia.”

“Who better to appraise them than Romance’s successor,” Phainon said. 

“It’s best to give them to someone who knows their worth and their dangers and won’t be so reckless with them,” Mydei stated his insult like common sense and Phainon pointedly looked away, a hand cupping the back of his neck, as Mydei glanced sidelong to try and meet his eye. “Speaking of, do you need an escort or can you be trusted to see a physician on your own?”

“Snowy, you’re injured?” Trinnon spewed, alarmed, and she began flitting to and fro for a better look at him. 

He laughed off her concern. “No need to worry. It may sound unlike him but Mydei is just being too cautious is all.”

“It only appears as much to someone rash,” he retorted. 

“What happened?” Trinnon asked. 

“I may have mishandled one of those artefacts. The effects were minor but…” he trailed off as Trinnon stared up at him. As always, her eyes were covered by her headband but her pursed, wobbly bottom lip, along with her hands clasped to her chest, said enough. “But I will be going to Hyacine. Just in case.”

She nodded with an energy that usually permeated her sisters, her other fragments, rather than herself. “We can go with you.”

”No need to trouble yourself. I can make it on my own.”

”So long as your eyes don’t play any further tricks on you,” Mydei interjected, completely unaware of the golden thread still hanging from his finger.

Phainon politely smiled, at him and Trinnon. “I’m sure I can manage.”

Unmoved, Mydei tipped his chin towards the box in his gold-laden hand. ”And I can manage leaving these in Aglaea’s office. Trinnon, the decision is yours.”

She glanced between them, uncertain in the terse atmosphere rather than her steadfast decision: “We would like to go with Snowy.” 

Only a truly heartless person could deny her so, just like that, the matter was settled. Mydei didn’t even have the decency to appear smug over his victory. He merely nodded his head, pleased in his own way that was subdued beneath the last apprehensive glance across Phainon’s face. 

They parted ways: Mydei to deposit the relics in Marmoreal Palace for Aglaea to examine at her convenience, and Phainon with his chaperone to the Twilight Courtyard. Little Ica was already hovering by the entrance so someone must have informed Hyacine about their impending arrival and it couldn’t have been Trinnon, who had been content listening to Phainon’s account of Mnestia’s temple and hadn’t pulled out her teleslate even once. 

But Mydei’s efforts amounted to nothing. Despite a thorough check-up of Phainon staring into this light and in that direction and meeting Hyacine’s bright eyes shadowed with a perplexed concern, there was no diagnosis. He was in perfect physical health. 

Hyacine’s brows pinched, as though she couldn’t believe it either. Just what had Mydei told her. “You say you saw a streak of gold across your vision?” 

“That’s right.” 

“Well, if something had physically afflicted your eyes, then it must have been minor and healed on its own.” 

There wasn’t much comfort in her conclusion when the golden knot glimmered out the corner of his eye. If he followed the trail through the city, it would lead to Marmoreal Palace where Myde had locked the relics in Aglaea’s office and then immediately headed for the Hero’s Bath to refresh after their journey. 

He smiled, an easy one full of confidence. “I’m glad there’s nothing to worry about after all.” 

Deaf to the confirmation of his good health, the golden thread stubbornly remained, ever present somewhere in his peripheral vision, as he travelled to Marmoreal Palace. Despite the time taken by his long walk and change of clothes into the scant bathing attire, the glimpse of gold beckoned him onwards through the steam of the Hero’s Baths still occupied by a lone figure. 

The water was blissfully warm where it rose up his ankles to sooth his tense calves and sore thighs as he lowered himself to sit. “I see you’re still here, Mydei.” 

They were shoulder-to-shoulder. Their thighs could have touched if either of them spread just that little bit wider; still decent but also deliberate where hard-earned muscle would knock together. 

He blinked away as the heat from the baths seeped beneath his skin, sank into his blood, and rose fast to envelop him. The steam entered his lungs with his long, quiet inhale and settled in a haze over his mind. 

Meanwhile Mydei was completely at ease, lounging languorously when he was usually so tense he could be mistaken for a renowned sculptor’s most beloved masterpiece. “You returned quick. If Trinnon hadn’t left with you, I would have assumed you decided against the Courtyard after all.” 

“You have more faith in Trinnon than in me.” 

Mydei was undeterred by Phainon’s exaggerated hurt. “When it comes to your health.” 

“Well let me assuage your worries. I’m in perfect health. Hyacine said as much herself.”

“Did she now.”

“You can message her if you like and carry on your conversation from earlier.”

At the acknowledgement that Mydei had informed Hyacine of Phainon’s symptoms, like a child tattled to their teacher, he merely sank deeper into the water, slouching his back accustomed to remaining rigid and proud with a spine forged from steel. “I’ll take you at your word, Deliverer.”

A little guilt welled in his throat and he cleared it as he straightened his gaze. It hadn’t exactly been a lie: that had been Hyacine’s conclusion! If her skills as a physician had failed to detect anything amiss then there was nothing worth concerning others over. 

But the golden bath waters bobbed and a lazy streak lagged behind, swaying in a ripple, so thin it almost disappeared if only it didn’t glimmer bright even amongst Phagousa’s blessed waters. With Mydei awake, and the steam and waters for cover, there was no better opportunity for Phainon, hand hidden from his companion’s view by his thigh, to loop the thread between his fingers and tug. 

If Mydei felt the slight pull then there were no signs on his serene face, savouring the peace of the baths and the sensation of being clean—cleansed of impurities by Phagousa’s thorough blessing that couldn’t be matched by a quick dip in the river—after so long. Despite the thread undeniably within Phainon’s grasp, no sensation followed his deliberate tug. Another quick glimpse confirmed it was pinched between his fingers but there was nothing where it was tethered to him. Something that did and didn’t exist in the same moment. 

Yet Mnestia must have had some sense of humour because the thread didn’t completely transcend the world around it. It followed Okhema’s streets, ever present out the corner of his eye, as it trailed the paved streets behind his footsteps. It slipped beneath doorways and hung out of windows but refrained from cutting straight through walls and uneven terrain. The one time it had hung from the sky had been after one of their overzealous spars where they retreated and gave chase across the rooftops, circling each other, trading blows, and changing scenery to do it over again. 

Besides their spars and challenges there was another game they played: Mydei going about his day and Phainon seeking him out to be indulged when he inevitably tracked down the crown prince, never in hiding but not quite out in the open either. It was almost cheating how much simpler the task had become in the labyrinthian city when the golden thread unwound like a spool with Phainon on one end and Mydei on the other.

“You found me,” Mydei said, sat with his back to Phainon, before he had the chance to announce his arrival in the largest library off Dawncloud. “Quicker than I thought.”

It’s not like Phainon wanted to use underhanded tactics. He took pride in knowing Mydei’s favourite and most frequent spots scattered about the city; the satisfaction wasn’t the same without the actual test to triumph over. But the golden glimmer was impossible to avoid when purposely averting his eye was as much of a hint as following it to the other end. His first guess of the day had been the Garden of Life, where Mydei relished the company of little chimeras who batted at his gauntlets like they were as harmless as their little claws, but the absence of the golden thread stretched in that direction had already revealed the answer. 

“Perhaps you’re getting too predictable,” Phainon teased anyway. 

Mydei glared at him but it was short-lived as he straightened from his hunch over the desk, where a parchment scroll had been unfurled and held open by some weights, and stretched. He raised his hands above his head and the exposed muscles of his back flexed as it arched, fiery red tattoos rippling, mesmerising, along the surface, before he dropped his hands with a pleased sigh. 

“Perhaps you have too much free time,” he retorted but any edge had been dulled by the satisfaction of changing position after so long. 

Phainon was far from the busiest person in Okhema—that unfortunate position likely went to Aglaea. Regardless of how often he offered his services he wasn’t exactly capable of monitoring her elaborate, golden web laid over the city—but he didn’t have the leisure of languishing his days away either. 

His tasks came and went whenever the council decided to make trouble and then drop the matter once they realised it was too much trouble for themselves. Or the arrival of a new refugee caravan that necessitated a hand to help them settle and a friendly face with charming rhetoric to persuade a few council members to allocate additional funds. Between his duties as the Deliverer, he ensured he made time for whatever activities he could rope Mydei into for the day: a spar, a contest, a meal and bath together. Despite the burdens that accompanied the title of Kremnos’ crown prince, Mydei did the same. 

“You’re one to talk about free time. What is this you’ve got here?” Phainon set a hand on the table so he could lean on the back of Mydei’s chair and peer over his shoulder at the open scroll. He skimmed the first few lines and frowned. “What are you reading?”

The top had been allowed to furl back over itself as Mydei moved down the long sheets sewn together, leaving Phainon to plunge into the middle of the text where he was clearly missing some crucial context. 

“A Hymn to Mnestia,” Mydei casually replied as he lifted the weights to begin carefully closing the scroll.  

“Poetry?” Phainon incredulously blurted and earned another glare, sharper than before. “And to Mnestia of all Titans. Are you looking to become a convert?”

That would certainly be… something. There was no temple to Nikador within the city limits, and the council had every intention of keeping it that way, so he had never witnessed Mydei or any Kremnoan celebrating Strife and his scouring of Okhema’s libraries had revealed scarcely anything on Kremnoan rituals. Any scrolls or books he did find were, to put it mildly, questionable in their veracity. Shockingly, Okhema’s past writers had very few positive things to say about their rival city-state. 

Over the years, a few rituals had occurred outside the city walls where they couldn’t attract the ire of Okhema’s more disdainful citizens and risk spiralling into a riot that spilled fresh blood in the name of an ancient hatred. Of course, Phainon hadn’t been invited so he had never witnessed Mydei worshipping the mad Titan left behind with his bloodstained crown. But he already knew that Mydei wasn’t the most devoted follower of Strife and all their teachings, yet couldn’t completely remove himself from them either—whether he desired it or not—when they still harboured such great significance to his people that had already lost so much. 

From everything Phainon had seen since they first clashed on the battlefield for ten days and nights and emerged from it as steadfast allies, Mydei upheld Strife’s greatest tenets: courage, honour, reason, tenacity, sacrifice.There was no one who lived up to each one as Mydei did but it spoke to his character rather than devotion. If he ever stepped outside the footfalls left by Nikador for the Kremnoans to follow, it would be to walk his own path. Without any Titan to restrain him. 

But Mydei certainly had the beauty to become a follower of Romance. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mydei scolded him harshly. Yet he stood and the golden thread around his finger was aglow with a soft, warm light as he tucked the scroll under his arm. 

“So it's not religious interest that drew you to their hymn,” Phainon mused as he pursued Mydei through the library’s shelves. Then it had to be intellectual or emotional. “Don’t tell me you’re planning to beseech a fallen god for a romantic story of your own.”

Mydei and some nice girl. Likely Kremnoan when Okheman families were still so reluctant to dilute their lineage with Kremnoan blood, derided as too hot and too fast in an “explanation” of their fiery tempers and predisposition towards the violence of the battlefield. None of detachment members could match Mydei’s status when Kremnos’ aristocracy had become indistinguishable from their common folk the moment they went into exile; even Mydei’s royal title came without riches nor territories, only the recognition and hopes of his people to crown him. 

Mydei wasn’t so shallow to choose the most beautiful of the Kremnoan girls, none of whom would compare to Mydei’s looks anyway, but it would have to be someone close to his strength, of body and character, and that was quite a feat. As a warrior, Mydei was unmatched by any of his fellow Kremnoans. How would Mydei choose her? Who would he choose? What time would Mydei be able to afford for Phainon if he welcomed someone new in his life to diligently lavish with attention? 

Why was the golden thread suddenly basking in a fiery glow?

“Sometimes you speak as though you don’t have a brain,” Mydei jeered, not sparing Phainon a single glance as he climbed the stepladder to reach the tallest shelf. “I have no interest in whatever the Titans have to offer me.”

Phainon extended a hand with the proof of exactly what Mnestia sought to give Mydei and forced a light chuckle. “Then I won’t feel bad for interrupting your reading time.” 

Atop the stepladder, Mydei scoffed and there was no need for him to take Phainon’s outstretched hand—he could jump from the top of Marmoreal Palace and land perfectly on two feet, a feline through and though, and break the stone before any of his steel bones—but he slipped his fingers across Phainon’s open palm. He clambered down a couple steps and hopped the remaining height, landing silently on the stone tiles. 

Loosely cupped within Phainon’s hand, the red had disappeared from the thread but it had yet to regain its gentler light, reminiscent of the Dawn Device on the horizon. 

Mydei reclaimed his hand and Phainon tried not to mourn its loss. “Your face was far from apologetic when you walked in.”

“I’m not a complete open book, you know. There’s plenty going on inside here—” he set a hand against his chest, golden thread swaying with the dramatic motion, “—that you aren’t privy to.” 

Mydei stopped in the middle of the shelves and his brows rose with disbelief. “Whatever you choose to believe, Deliverer.”

Phainon pouted and threw an arm over Mydei’s shoulder, moving them along before they could get in anyone’s way. “I would appreciate less skepticism and more sincerity.” 

“You’ll have to earn it.” 

“And how would you suggest I do that?” 

“You can start by telling me where you’re taking me.” 

“The Garden, of course. I saw something on the World Wound Web about teaching the chimeras tricks.” 

At the mere mention of the little creature he was so fond of, the thread was illuminated in a soft golden light. Even as Mydei huffed and crossed his arms, he refrained from shrugging Phainon off, “And I’m sure the Garden being so close to the bathhouse has nothing to do with your decision.” 

Phainon chortled. “You think so low of me, Mydei.” 

It was true that the Garden was a convenient distance from Marmoreal Palace but he intended to drag Mydei to the bathhouse no matter where they spent the rest of Action Hour. Mydei glanced at him, side-long and skeptical, like he knew it. 

Phainon prided himself on being one of the few people in the city who could read Mydei’s subdued moods and subtle emotions, making themselves known in the smallest shift in his expression, posture and language. The golden thread woven between them only confirmed the suspicions and connections he had slowly accumulated over the years, hoarding them away like treasures he was lucky enough to find washed up on the shore, even if he was uncertain what each meant. 

The pulse around Phainon’s finger was the quickened thump of Mydei’s heart after one of Phainon’s particularly well-aimed jab that primed them both for a simple spar or inane challenge. A glimpse of colour was a peek into any myriad emotions, the strongest of them that burned bright for a time and then settled again, that remained largely undetected in Mydei’s demeanour. The glow of a comforting warm light was Mydei’s joy at spotting fine pomegranates for sale across the marketplace, a chimera that had come seeking some affection, the Kremnoan children running past happy and healthy. 

Each blatant hint refocused his attention, searching for the trace of Mydei's emotions in his face rather than unspooled thread. It was all old, indecipherable information that he had noticed in passing without a name to call them by, yet the sight of each minor reaction made the knowledge emerge anew and known. 

All of Mydei’s well-guarded sentiments had suddenly become so easily discernible to Phainon alone, and the guilt of it weighed like a stone upon his chest—a criminal suffering their slow, deserved execution. But there was little he could do to reverse the effects of the relic: he couldn’t conduct an appraisal without it to hand and there were no mentions of it in whatever books he could get his hands on. He didn’t get so much as another glimpse of it until Aglaea summoned him to Marmoreal Palace more than a week later. 

The spyglass sat on her desk, safely nestled within the stone box they had transported back with them. 

“I’ve been told you had a particularly close encounter with this artefact.” Aglaea motioned to the box but didn’t betray exactly how much she knew which, in these troubling situations with someone called to account, usually meant everything. 

Phainon wasn’t guilty of any crimes yet he was certain this is how Cleaners felt, apprehended and stripped of the poison reserved for their own end, faces warm enough to work up a sweat and limbs twitchy with the urge to move, when faced with the imperious Goldweaver. Phainon had seen them squirm often enough and kept his feet still, back straight, and easy smile intact. 

He scratched the back of his head with a chuckle. “Something like that. I’m sure Mydei made it out to be worse than it was. Hyacine already checked me over and cleared me for duty.”

“Naturally,” she said confidently and dragged her finger along the glimmering, golden edge. “This is merely a harmless gift from Cerces to Mnestia. One made to be imbued with Mnestia’s power so they may ever be able to see their love no matter the distance nor obstacles between them.”

“Fascinating.” Leave it to Aglaea to deduce what no one else could about of the Romance Titan’s remains. “So, if I had peered in the direction of the Grove, I would have seen Cerces’ divine tree? Or even the unclaimed Coreflame at their heart?”

Aglaea raised her head, unseeing eyes on Phainon, some small emotion breaking through only to be sequestered away just as quickly. Unreadable. “Not at all. For what it reveals to Titans and mortals alike is the one they are bound to by the many contrivances of Romance.”

Bound? Contrivances of Romance?

“I’m not sure I understand,” he tentatively admitted despite Aglaea’s befuddlement, head tilted and delicate eyebrows pinched, at his own confusion. 

Aglaea’s hand rose and the air shimmered along her palm, pulling from the air a thin golden thread that had been hidden out of sight to all but their master weaver. “Mnestia’s golden thread of fate. Tethering two souls—from the realm of the living to the eternal sea of flowers.”

His finger itched and the skin chafed where the golden thread that had seamlessly and imperceptibly melded into his routine existence was now suddenly too tight. A burdensome constraint. He knew where this was going even before she delivered the final verdict:

“The one you now see drawn between you and Mydei.”

There was a simpler word for it. One he had admittedly never cared for whenever he heard it tossed about Okhema’s streets. It was usually swept along the sweet-scented breeze in the days preceding and following a festival for Mnestia, or in buzzing response to a popular new play, or even simply in the longing sighs of young children. 

Soulmates. 

“Are… are you certain?” Phainon stammered despite himself and the years of debate skills instilled in him by two particularly uncompromising teachers. “Perhaps it merely connected me to Mydei as the first person I saw through the spyglass. Or the closest presence at the time.”

His desperate reasoning was met with a flat stare, so blatantly unimpressed by his suggestions, and questioning his intelligence for believing she could ever be mistaken about the lingering relics of her predecessor. All in a single look that made Phainon shuffle between his feet like a berated child. 

“No,” she stated, scathing and without room for misunderstanding. 

But it wasn't her that he doubted. Yet he didn’t have the courage to mention where those doubts had been seeded and left to sprout, unnoticed until the spotlight was suddenly and discomfortingly shone on the thriving weeds.  

The rest of the meeting passed him by. He must have responded in the correct places because Aglaea would speak, pause, look at him, and then continue, occasionally nodding her head at whatever reply he had scrounged up from some hidden well of strength and self-preservation. Yet the entire thing felt distant from himself, as though he was watching it through the distortion of a spyglass showing something that was never his to see.  

The word haunted him in the echo of his footsteps through the bathhouse’s hallways. It was Descent Hour. It must have been because the baths were beginning to fill with people, their murmuring voices coalescing into one noise nearly indistinguishable from the splashing waters. Its only distinguishing feature was the raucous bursts of laughter that turned his head towards his hand from some nape-prickling feeling that they could see it too. See exactly where, who, it so audaciously led to. 

Of course, the golden thread was beyond the sight of those around him. Unless there were any bold enough to trespass upon Aglaea’s office and steal the artefact for themselves, the thread was a secret between him and Aglaea. But their laughter rattled off the single word in his mind long after he left the bathhouse behind.

To be bound to Mydei—with his low, deep voice that turned insults into compliments. His sharp mind made for military strategy. His golden tresses reminiscent of the plentiful wheatfields that, surprisingly and endearingly, fluffed up after a bath. His sharp eyes capable of cutting anyone, even Phainon, through their weaknesses to the core. His body defined with hard-earned muscle that appeared chiselled from the purest slab of marble. Proud but not arrogant because he was capable of proving his strength in a single blow. Stoic but so very soft beneath that stone mask of duty—was a fate anyone would spend a lifetime supplicating Mnestia to bestow upon them. 

Yet Phainon tucked himself away in an antique shop off the main shopping street and didn’t leave until the owner kicked him out with the beginnings of Curtain-fall Hour, long after the streets and the bathhouse had emptied. 

From then on, he committed himself to avoiding the gold in the corner of his eye, wrangling his thoughts and impulses before he could wonder where it led and let his feet follow. He knew all the places in the city that Mydei frequented and the routes he took between them, so he knew the streets and buildings to avoid as he engrossed himself, wholeheartedly, in his duties.

Mydei didn’t seek him out either. That was normal in their usual push and pull which was really just Phainon pushing and pulling his way closer while Mydei did no pushing nor pulling of his own to discourse Phainon. Still, he tried not to think about it. About the implications of it. But it was difficult when the council meeting was so dull that he could see the eyes of those opposite him glaze over from sheer boredom. Any of the waning interest after an already long council meeting was carried away from this drab speech on increasing taxation on non-essential goods transported in and out of the city by non-citizens. 

Perhaps Mydei didn’t value their time together the same way Phainon did, constantly squeezing in time for a duel here, a meal there, or a simple chat while they walked together until their paths laid by their own roles inevitably diverged. Mydei had never mentioned as much and he tended to be blunt about his likes and dislikes. In Kremnoan fashion, even more telling than his words were his actions and Mydei had never once spurned him despite all his grumbling about Phainon dragging him to the bathhouse again.

Mydei definitely didn’t dislike him; he didn't need the soft golden glow between their fingers to know that much. But a simple like and respect, as enemies turned comrades and confidants but still rivals through it all, was different from being tethered by Romance.

He absentmindedly toyed with the thread, twirling it around his finger and letting it unravel again, while he wondered if he would be able to see from the heights of Dawncloud where it had been strung about the city. He loosened his grip to allow it to unspool but it remained tight around his finger. Before he could sneak a glance, it suddenly constricted and stymied the blood flow so quick it sent tingles down his twitchy finger. This had never happened before but the pulse through the thread and clashing against his own were familiar enough: Mydei’s racing heart.  

It constricted one final time and slackened. There was no time for relief before it completely unravelled and fell from his hand. 

A frayed end hung from Phainon’s finger but the rest lost its lustre before it could even tumble to the dusty floor and he knew what it meant in the depths of his quaking heart. 

“Aglaea,” he whispered through a stiff mouth and her head tilted in silent acknowledgement but the rest of his words clogged his throat, sharp and sticky and unyielding. 

Aglaea crossed her arms, hand delicately lifted to her mouth and politely masking its movements when he would have preferred she shout it from the top of her lungs if it meant the information came any quicker. “An incident has occurred. The Kremnoan detachment is subduing the fire.” 

Before he could consider—his polite reputation, his standing with the council—he vaulted over the railing and sprinted for the amphitheatre’s exit. Over his pounding footfalls reverberating up his chest, Aglaea shouted something and disquiet erupted from the audience but he was already sprinting down the stairs. 

The elevator was so, so slow as he watched smoke rise from a district out in the west. It was far from the city centre and the Okheman guard posts but close to the training grounds reserved for the Kremnoan detachment. The detachment’s military commitments to the city only encompassed external threats. The council had never mandated fire suppression training that would have exposed the city’s underground aqueducts to the potential for sabotage. There was no illustrious gold anywhere. 

People knew better than to stop him as he dashed over the rooftops. It was an emergency and they didn’t have to ask what kind when the wind brought the acrid scent of smoke and fire across the city. 

By the time Phainon arrived, a number of homes and storefronts had been reduced to burnt out husks while people stamped out the remaining embers. It must have been a relatively small fire, contained easily enough to prevent disaster sweeping the city. The Kremnoans and city guards were clearing the debris and searching for survivors with the aid of citizens rallying to lend a hand amidst the soot. 

Phainon didn’t need to search the grim faces of those bustling around him. He wouldn’t find who he was looking for when the thread, faded and frayed where it had fallen limp to the ground, led deeper into the wreckage. The dullness of deadened wheat was still stark among the ashes and he raced after it. 

He cut through the wreckage straight to the worst of it where the fire must have started. All that remained of the building was cinders and loose debris that had tumbled from all around, capable of crushing and burying a person. 

The broken thread disappeared beneath a fallen chunk of jagged stone. It must have collapsed from the upper floor or even the roof. It was too difficult to tell with the smoke marks and he had no time to waste pondering. He grabbed it with his bare hands—hot. Still harbouring the heat extinguished around it—and hauled it upright. 

Red fabric. Ripped, singed, and stained black. He kept digging. 

There were others nearby. He could hear them, calling out to each other, crashing debris to open ground and stacking it high as they searched for anyone trapped and lucky enough to survive the initial disaster. He was the only one looking for someone he knew was already dead. 

Someone completely limp beneath a pile of bricks. 

Death’s hold on Mydei wasn’t an unfamiliar sight. He had stood vigil over Mydei’s prone body, eyes glazed, limbs slack, blood sluggishly seeping from his fatal wound, more times than he cared to count. But this was the first time he had witnessed a symbol of the Titans, of fate itself, that had been severed along with his immortal life and left him to fear that, this time, Mydei wouldn’t be able to shake off the Hand of Shadow. 

He rolled Mydei off his front. There was no point. He didn’t need to see his face to identify the body. He didn’t need to check for vitals. He did it anyway. It was more dignified than laying face down in the dirt with the charred skin of his back exposed. 

But a pair of big eyes stared up at him from the space Mydei’s body had just been lain. A chimera. They trembled to the tips of their blackened fur stood on end but the only blood was the gold splattered across the top of its head. It had survived the building’s collapse unharmed. Of course, of course, Mydei let himself get swept along the River of Souls in place of someone else.

He shed his chlamys and swaddled the terrified chimera in the soft fabric with quiet, reassuring noises but he couldn’t take them into his arms just yet. First he shrugged off his coat and swiped the sleeve across the corner of Mydei’s mouth, cleaning away the blood but only smearing soot in its place, before he cast the long garment over Mydei. Then he closed Mydei’s eyes so, if anyone came searching, they would see him at rest in the brief moment before Phainon dismissed them entirely. Mydei would be caught dead before asleep in the middle of a crisis and everyone knew as much but he deserved the dignity that came with the illusion of sleep rather than the vulnerability and brutality of a painful death. 

All he had left to do was take the chimera in his arms and wait. 

There were a few shouts from the guards and helpful citizens at the sight of the Deliverer sat unmoved at the centre of the ruins but he dismissed them with a slight smile, made convincing by distance, and a dismissive wave. The Kremnoans knew enough to stay away on their own. This wasn't Phainon’s first time keeping watch of a dead body, waiting for it to be reinvigorated with life, nor the Kremnoans’ first time witnessing such a scene. But it was usually reserved for the merciless battlefield than the refuge of Okhema. 

No one came close before a gasp sounded like a drowning man come up for air. Mydei’s body followed and lurched upright, hunching over himself with a cough and ragged gasp. The chimera leapt from Phainon’s arms but he needed them anyway to pat Mydei on the back, dislodging the speck of black phlegm Mydei spat to the ground. 

“Deliverer?” he croaked, hoarse from smoke and the exhaustion in his dazed eyes, shrinking away from the daylight until Phainon eased his burden by shifting to shade him. “How did you…” He shook his head. “Nevermind. Move. I need to help clear the debris.”

He pushed himself to his feet and didn’t even stumble, voice evening out and eyes already more alert with frightening speed for someone who had just escaped death’s otherwise inexorable clutches.

“Absolutely not!” Phainon burst and snagged his arm—golden knot still withered on his finger even as Mydei was warm, from more than a raging fire and ashy grave, beneath his hand—to prevent him from marching straight into the chaos. Mydei stared at him, struck by surprise and incredulity that Phainon would dare stop him. “You need to go to the Courtyard."

He scoffed and tried to shrug Phainon off but his hold was too sturdy. A swordsman’s grip capable of withstanding Mydei’s attempts to knock his weapon away. It would take more force than a small tug to push him away. Real force, a brawl in the ashes before the eyes of everyone. 

“I’ve survived worse than this. Besides, you of all people should know that none of the damage remains upon my return,” Mydei reminded him smoothly and let Phainon’s coat slip off his shoulders to prove it, the expanse of his back had healed, unblemished except for the ash smeared alongside his red tattoos.

He tugged again with the force of someone expecting Phainon to let go. As though his life and wellbeing were the most inconsequential thing in the world. Worth less than a pile of ashes long beyond saving.

There was a thrum in Phainon’s ears, raging in fast and heavy slams against his skull, echoing up his ear canals, while the crackle of leaping flames followed in hot pursuit behind him. It was so loud he almost didn’t hear himself when the word escaped him: 

“Please.”

Finally, Mydei paused. His muscles tensed, warm and firm and alive, but he didn’t struggle and break away. It was unusual of Phainon to ask. To plead. Sincere and vulnerable without a witty retort or cocky taunt to cover up the care that felt too much like judgement and restraint when their responsibilities demanded sacrifice. 

The acuity had returned to Mydei’s eyes that stared and stared and stared, piercing Phainon through as though he could uncover, with the same ease as scattering ashes to find what was buried underneath, the truth Phainon had kept hidden from him and the remains of the golden thread dangling broken between them. 

“Fine,” Mydei acquiesced. Far too easily but Phainon didn’t question it as he gathered the chimera in one arm and guided Mydei with the other, leading them away from prying eyes. 

The chimera’s checkup came first while Mydei waited and did his best to avoid touching anything and leaving ashy marks behind. The chimera’s lungs had suffered from the smoke and heat, so Hyacine kept them for treatment but assured both of them that they would likely be returned to the Garden soon.

A much briefer examination confirmed Mydei had suffered no lasting damage from the fire nor smoke inhalation. Flawless physical health, as Mydei had known from his innumerable past encounters with death. It didn’t feel like relief. Not yet. 

Before Mydei could insist upon returning to the disaster zone, an alert from Aglaea over teleslate informed them that she had commandeered both the Kremnoan detachment and city guards for a smoother response, so their services were not required. And that they should both consider taking a bath instead. For hygiene’s sake. 

The minor catastrophe had left the bathhouse relatively empty as people went to lend a hand while others flocked to gawk or were simply too unsettled by the event to do something as mundane as bathe. Still, they sequestered themselves away in the privacy of the Hero’s Baths. 

“You avoid me all week and now you want to take a bath together,” Mydei remarked, dry but not accusatory of anything in particular. 

“Who said I was avoiding you?” Phainon’s lie was so poor it tasted sour on his tongue, discordant and unconvincing. Mydei didn’t even spare him the look to tell him as such. He cleared his throat. “It seemed unwise to test Aglaea’s patience.”

Mydei snorted his disbelief but, mercifully, didn’t sink his claws and fangs into the thin lie to uncover the truth thrumming just beneath the surface. He changed the subject: “An expedition is being planned for two weeks from now. Will you be joining us?”

“What reason would I have not to?” he countered, a bit too sharp along the edges of his blase tone, and his finger itched. 

Mydei hummed. “A stray piece of golden thread perhaps.”

The bathwater continued to cascade from Phasgousa’s pearl, crashing against itself in a raucous swell like the ocean waves. Constant. As though nothing had changed even as Phainon felt his heart slam against his chest only to fail to escape and collapse into itself. 

He chuckled, stilted and reedy. “I have no idea what you’re referring to. Perhaps you’re in need of another visit to the Courtyard.”

“Mnestia’s golden thread woven into a tapestry of Romance,” Mydei elaborated wryly when they both, apparently, knew it was needless. “Your reaction back then and even now speaks for itself. Does the revelation that it’s drawn between us truly warrant such a reaction?” 

His cheeks were aflame, flushing so dizzyingly hot the colour must have shown. He could only hope Mydei was generous enough to dismiss it as the consequences of warm waters and steam. “Apologies.” 

Mydei shook his head. “The word means little to me. Reject me outright instead of playing such childish games, so that we might both move on with our lives as comrades on the battlefield and the Flame-chase Journey.” 

“Reject? Why would you—it’s you who should be…” He struggled for the words when Mydei’s had left him in shock, like plunging from temperate summer waters into frigid depths that jolted the thoughts from his mind and left him to drown. “Who would reject you?” 

Mydei’s expression soured, lips thinned and eyes hard, but he refused to look away. “Don’t bother with this misguided attempt to spare my feelings. Your actions since we returned from Mnestia’s temple have said enough. First your overbearing attempts at normalcy and then your avoidance.” 

“No!” he blurted and rose from the waters in a great splash that lapped against the opposite wall and also his companion. “Sorry. Again. But could we just—can we have this conversation fully clothed?” 

Mydei’s mouth twisted but he didn’t object as he rose to join him. The waters shimmered across his skin like specks of gold dusted along his illustrious form, accentuating the toned muscles of his warrior’s body like a proud artist emphasised the light and shadows on their greatest masterpiece. Seriously, who could ever see Mydei like this and turn him away?

They walked in silence to the changing rooms where they dried themselves off without any of their usual back and forth. Phainon kept his eyes staunchly ahead at his basket of belongings. If he let them wander to Mydei at his side, wringing and patting his hair dry so it fluffed up without the added wet weight, and stay there then this little intermission would be for nothing. 

He took a deep breath and slipped his chiton over his head, breathing in one of the many freshly laundered scents that Aglaea instructed to be left on the bathhouse’s commodities, especially the spare clothes she allowed a select group of people to borrow as needed. Under the emergency circumstances, neither of them had brought a change of clothes but a garmentmaker had already secreted away their filthy ones and left these in their place. 

Slowly, he smoothed the fabric down his waist to the small jut of his hipbones. Then he checked the hem fell straight and reached for the golden belt in methodical movements quickened by practice and slowed by his weighty, unwieldy thoughts. 

In hindsight, knowing that Mydei knew, somehow, about the golden thread that had pronounced them as destined lovers only for Phainon to begin avoiding him certainly did appear like a rejection in all but words. It hadn’t been Phainon’s intention because, again, how could any living being even consider rejecting Mydei. 

Mydei’s small knowing, arrogant smirk when he preened at landing a retaliatory blow. The sight of it tasted like blood and something else, thicker but sweeter, easier to swallow, on his tongue while he grinned back. 

Mydei’s hands that were practically one with the bronze that adorned them, forged into both weapon and armour, and he was scarcely seen without. Only when cooking, bathing and sleeping in the safety of the eternal city where its defences came in the form of a radiant gold web rather than a lion’s claws and fangs was he free to bare pale, supple skin. 

Mydei’s fluffy hair, his sharp eyes, his literal mind and his strange sense of humour. His quiet thoughtfulness and his blunt compassion that had brought them here. That had made Mydei conclude that he was the problem when the fault was entirely Phainon’s own. 

A consideration for others that ensured Mydei was generous enough to allow it when Phainon suggested they move, again, to seek out some comfort and privacy in one of the guest suites. His thoughts weren’t in order yet. Rather, his mind hadn’t bridged the gap between his scattered thoughts and his stiff mouth. Yet it was only a short walk before they were both seated in one of the guest rooms. 

With Mydei’s back to the door, Phainon’s only escape route was the balcony. But it would be a disservice to Mydei if he were to run away again, retreating not to strategise and return victorious but simply to disappear from his sights in shame. 

“I never intended for my actions to come across as rejection,” Phainon clarified first of all because if anything came from this conversation it had to be Mydei’s understanding that nothing about him had chased Phainon away. The opposite in fact. Always. 

Somehow, the golden thread between them had become so inexplicably tangled. 

Mydei arched a brow, arms crossed and chin back: judge, jury and executioner to Phainon’s misdeeds. “Then what was the purpose of you avoiding me?”

“I wasn’t aware that you knew about—about any of it. The golden thread. It’s meaning. The connection between…” 

Us. The short utterance shrivelled and lodged itself in his throat. 

“Of course I knew. What fool wouldn’t have known,” Mydei said with a light touch of offence and Phainon kept his mouth shut. “References to it are written into every hymn and poem that invokes Mnestia’s divine authority.” 

Right. Because Mydei consumed poetry like military treatise of their own while Phainon’s education at the Grove had been based on logic and mental acuity. If you care for such frivolous things as Romance then run back to Okhema and learn first hand the meaning of the word from that heartless woman.

“Yes,” Phainon said thinly, “those.” 

“But you haven’t answered my question.” Mydei propped his elbow on the chair and leaned against it, suddenly as imposing as a king upon his throne demanding answers. “Why the avoidance if not as rejection?” 

“I…” 

He waited for the white lie, the diversion, the distraction to roll off his tongue but all that left him was a harsh exhale. There was nothing that Mydei would accept except the truth and he scratched at his neck as though he could pry it out and give it to him rather than painfully speak it aloud.

“The problem wasn’t you. It was me.” 

Wasn’t that a classic line? A weak one that he had seen people roll their eyes at in the theatres or heard others mock in passing conversations that came and went before Phainon took any interest in them. 

But Mydei didn’t huff, roll his eyes and demand, once again, that Phainon didn’t bother to spare his feelings and he had to wonder what feelings those were for this conversation to end up here. Yet it felt too large and nebulous for him to even dare to hope for, let alone ask. 

“That you were bound to me,” he explained pathetically, eyes flitting over Mydei’s shoulder to the doorway. Escape meant either the door or the balcony and one of them was at least slightly more dignified, as though he had any of that left to preserve. 

“That I am tethered to you. Rather than you tethered to me,” Mydei repeated, confusion in his slow, deliberate speech but Phainon didn’t understand what could be so befuddling about it. 

He nodded and his finger curled against his thigh. His nail must have broken on the debris while he was too distracted to notice but the fabric was too smooth to catch on the rough edge as he ran it back and forth in consideration. He could proudly claim to be Mydei’s only equal and rival on the battlefield. It was a feat that had been proven in the blood shed across ten days and nights ringing with the caustic clash of metal that had never sounded better in his ears. With how often they fought side-by-side, back-to-back, entrusting their blind spots to one another, Mydei must have agreed. 

Yet to be partners—not in battle. Nor a recognition of the heavy burdens they carried alone but recognised upon the other’s shoulders and felt less weary, less alone, for it—was something entirely different. 

“You deserve the very best that still remains in this world. If you and I, you and anyone,” he said despite how his chest uncomfortably tightened, “were to ever… be together, it should be your choice. Wholly. To have found someone you can entrust yourself to. Not the decision of the Titans nor Fate.” 

Not when both had been so cruel to him.

Mydei blinked slow and the complex emotions flitted across his eyes, passing through without making themselves known on his carefully composed expression, no hint to the verdict Phainon was about to receive.  “And who is to say what I deserve? The Titans that have already fallen and a disastrous Fate that we fight every day to subvert—what influence would they have on us?”

The breath caught in his chest. And left him in a shuddering exhale. “I don’t understand.” 

He did. Maybe. Or perhaps it was only his traitorous heart that had infected his mind and twisted Mydei’s words out of misguided hope that would lead him nowhere except shattered at the bottom of a cliff. 

A small smile curled Mydei’s lip, crooked and subtle but transforming his entire demeanour as he rose from his seat and rounded the table. He loomed over Phainon, perfectly poised to push him off the cliff edge of hope into despair as he raised a hand. 

The golden thread had returned in all its illustrious glory. He couldn’t see it long enough to check the long spool for any knots where it had been broken and retied before Mydei pinched his chin and tipped his head back to meet his eye. There was no running away, no possible avoidance, no room for misunderstandings, when Mydei spoke. 

“I choose you. I would have even without Romance, Fate, or whatever else to bind us. My heart had already decided long before this measly spool of thread.” 

Tension trembled through him and then released all at once in a drawn out, quiet breath that relaxed him into Mydei’s delicate grasp. “That’s a good clarification to have.” His eyes drooped, at ease without the prickling of guilt and self-doubt, but he peered through his lashes. “Are you certain? I won’t hold it against you if you change your mind.” 

Mydei scoffed but it didn’t harshen his soft expression, gentle thumb sweeping up from Phainon’s chin to the corner of his lip in a smooth caress. “I’m not so fickle.” 

Once Mydei was set on something, a battle, a code of honour, a future for his people to have, he couldn’t be swayed from it. The world could be against him and he would cut his way through, opening the sky to welcome a new dawn. 

The same one that burned, bright and warm, in his half-lidded eyes as they leaned closer, finally in sync, and met for a kiss. 

Phainon knew Mydei’s routine through the city they shared, the dance of his footsteps during a spar, the shape of his body through the steam of the bath that provided enough cover to look just a little longer. But this was brand new. 

Their noses bumped and they both instinctively turned the same way only to bump again. Phainon felt Mydei’s laugh before his lips and the first soft press—wet in the aftermath of their bath, lightly scented with the floral bath oils, warm from Mydei’s beating heart matched to Phainon’s own erratic rhythm—was followed by a quiet sigh. Of satisfaction. Of disbelief. Of an emotion too heavy to name that he could scarcely believe Mydei had harboured all this time. Just as Phainon had. 

Quietly, privately, nurturing something that may have never seen the light of day if only the golden thread hadn’t snagged its shadowy form about to flee and dragged it into the sun. 

Perhaps Mnestia did know something of Romance after all. 

Phainon cupped Mydei’s nape and tugged him closer. His knee between Phainon’s legs. His hands on the kline’s curve behind his head. His body heat descended to swaddle him in a dizzying hot spell he hoped burned hotter still between them. 

He would need practice. He could already envisage his proposal for a contest of endurance: who could hold their breath the longest, and who could goad the other into losing their composure and stealing their breath away. For now, Phainon pulled back with a gasp for air and Mydei panted against his warm cheeks. They were both flushed and breathless and Mydei wore his satisfied little grin that was all teeth while Phainon grinned back, equally sharp. 

“You didn’t know, did you,” Mydei murmured and Phainon quizzically tilted his head, eyes still on Mydei’s lips that currently were not against Phainon’s but should be. “The meaning of the golden thread.” 

What fool wouldn’t have known.

He coughed. “So you take me for a fool after all.” 

Mydei simply hummed. “One who can’t keep his mouth shut. If you had known the truth back in the temple, your lips would have been sealed on the matter instead of carelessly babbling about it.” 

“You have your answer. And you still tease me by asking.” He tugged Mydei again, forehead bumping together and lips so close to doing the same, especially as he pouted. “My heart can be quite delicate, you know, Mydei. You should take better care of it.” 

“I do enjoy taking care of what’s mine,” he drawled, smooth in his low tenor but his searching gaze flitted across Phainon’s expression for disapproval. 

Phainon smiled. “Then I’ll choose to entrust it to you.”