“How did you even get him out of there?” Jak asked.
“It was that or die there with him,” Dagan said with a snort. After a nap and a bath, he felt almost human again, if still incredibly numb to his own hurts and thoughts. Perhaps that was for the best. “So I thought I should try the former and save the latter for a backup plan.”
Jak looked even more dashing with one eye covered by a blue silk headband that doubled as a hair accessory. A long, angry pink gash crept out from under it, at once marring his perfect, dark skin and adding an indefinable charm to it. He brushed long, clever fingers over Hendrik’s blanket once before backing away and returning his full attention to Dagan. “Make yourself at home in my little paradise,” he said with a small, self-aware smile. “I won’t be needing it for a while.”
“No. You’ve all got your work cut out for you. But he’ll be safe here?” Dagan nodded to the bed.
“Very. The Lantern’s been a resistance stronghold since before I was born. Everyone’s at your disposal. Is there anything else you need before I get back to the See?”
They’d made the square in front of the Great See, which had been emptied, considering the instability of the tunnels beneath it just then, into a kind of resistance headquarters with their pavilions. Open-air so all could approach but also so no one could sneak up on them. Pockets of guards and priests still held out in the High City: the Guardhall, the place where they kept the Children of the Blood, known as the Complex, and the Archives, oddly enough. But the resistance had been busy during the 24 hours Dagan, Innan, and Hendrik had been buried beneath the See, taking control of the City and rallying support.
Dagan shook his head. “Is there anything you need?”
“No,” Jak replied immediately. “Sister Eva has everyone under strict marching orders. If we can recover the corpse of that fucking monster, all the better. If we can’t, then we can’t.”
“What will you do with it?” Dagan wondered.
Jak sighed faintly, shoulders slumping. “Display it. So everyone can see the monster. By all the burning hells, I don’t want to see it again, and I didn’t even get a full look at it. It was too dark, and I was glad.”
Dagan nodded solemnly. He couldn’t have said it better. “See if you can convince Innan to join us here, once the recovery effort’s finished.”
“I will—Kajja’s already trying. Piret should come too. She’s wrecked, but she won’t stop.”
No, Piret wouldn’t. She seemed to have decided the resistance was her show to run as much as it was Sister Eva’s. As for the others, Gareth was likely already with Alonza, sending messages to the Heart Wood for earthsingers and healers to come. But Bartolo hadn’t made it, killed in a fight with guards who had rushed into the tunnels just as they’d all been emerging. Went out like a scout. He’d be proud of it, even if it was devastating news for the Heart Wood.
“Oh, I have something for you.” Jak went to a side-table lit up by a multicolored glass lamp. He took a little key from a string around his neck to unlock its drawer. From it, he pulled a soft-looking bag; its contents made clicking sounds, like stones knocking against each other, or maybe metal. “Hen asked me if I could find some.”
Dagan accepted the bag with a curious look. “What is it?”
“Open it and see.” Jak smiled knowingly, then turned and headed for the door. “Or wait for him to wake up. But I didn’t want to forget.”
“Thanks,” Dagan said, suddenly uncertain.
“You’re welcome, beautiful. I’ll send a healer in the morning, but if you need one tonight, let someone downstairs know.” Jak opened the door.
Dagan wanted to tell him thank you again. To tell him that he knew this had to be difficult for him, when he so obviously cared about Hendrik deeply; to tell him that he understood, of course he understood, and was grateful for his help in spite of the awkward emotional position, and…and…
And Jak shut the door softly behind him.
Dagan sank down into the mattress, his entire body groaning in relief at the soft support of it beneath him. He was so, so tired. He’d never been this tired in his fucking life. He untied the bag and poured its contents into one hand. Small metal rings glinted in the evening candlelight. He turned them over in his hand; five of them, each with a long, almost knife-like protrusion, gently pointed at the top. They were silver, inlaid with black. Gorgeous work.
And then he realized. They were meant to look like fingernails. Wearable fingernails, because Hendrik kept his so short.
Dagan squeezed his hand around them, letting them bite at his palms, and fell back into the pillows next to Hendrik. He touched the leather covering the itchy scratch-marks on his thigh and tried to draw a deep breath, but it stuttered, ragged and wet, into a painful sob.
*
When he awoke, the room was darker, in spite of the long tapers flickering in their sconces. His eyes burned, the skin around them puffy and irritated, as if he’d rubbed his face in poison oak. He blinked away the sand and grime and sat up, gaze going immediately to Hendrik’s still form beside him.
He still looked pale, lifeless but for the faint movement of his chest up and down. The faint sheen of sickly sweat forming on Hendrik’s upper lip did not bode well.
Dagan pressed his lips to Hen’s forehead gently. “Fuck,” he mumbled into it immediately. He was burning up. “My love. I’m so sorry.”
At first, he didn’t know what for. He stood and stretched, testing the soreness in his ribs and legs, his backside and neck. It was dire but nothing that another hot bath and a few weeks of not being pummeled by falling rocks and eldritch horrors couldn’t heal. His mind, on the other hand…
He cut off the thought and busied himself with the mortar and pestle Jak had kindly procured for him, grinding up willow bark from his kit. He only had a little; hopefully the healers from the Heart Wood would arrive soon with fresh supplies, since most of the City’s were stored with the remaining garrisons of guard and priest loyalists scattered throughout the High City.
It was a shame Hendrik wasn’t awake to appreciate this. Not so much the unrest in his City; that wouldn’t bring anyone pleasure, though it was necessary. More that in spite of it all, in spite of the turmoil and trouble and need for warm bodies and bright minds to handle it, they were here, alone, quiet and safe. Their friends had all agreed that Hendrik’s part was done, that he needed and deserved rest and comfort, and there hadn’t even been a question about whether Dagan would stay with him or be conscripted to help further, scout or no.
Just the two of them. It wasn’t the Heart Wood—Jak’s had been chosen because it was the most comfortable place in the City that anyone knew of—but other than that, it was precisely what Hendrik had longed for.
Something wet plashed into the mortar. Dagan froze for a moment, wondering, then realized he was crying again. The rage and despair of the collapsing cavern was a distant memory, but he still recalled the metallic edge of them and how his blood, his mind, his heart had reacted to them. He shrunk from the memories instinctively but forced himself to hold onto them, confront them.
Just a petty little boy, angry that no one wanted him. That’s what it had been, wasn’t it? Hendrik had tried to leave him, after promising he wouldn’t, and even if it was to save his life Dagan’s ego couldn’t survive it. You said at least we’d die together. He hated himself for the thought. Of course, Hendrik wouldn’t let him die just because he thought he was doomed. It was romantic, melodramatic nonsense born of lonely, adolescent fantasy.
And yet the smallest shard of anger still twitched deep in his belly. The perverse part of him that had decided it was a good idea to flirt with Gareth to try to make Hen jealous. The part that had wound him up again and again on the forest path just to get a reaction, just to make Hen feel something, anything for him, even when he’d still thought it an impossibility.
He didn’t have to do those things. None of them helped; all of them hurt. But especially this last one. Hen, bruised, beaten, broken, dragging himself across the floor to make sure all the suffering of the past year, of the past few days, hadn’t been in vain. And Dagan, angry and petulant because Hen just wanted him to live.
He went to the fire for some hot water, then made tea from the bark. It’d need time to steep fully and then to cool enough to give Hendrik sips. They’d gotten a little broth into him earlier,but it had been too long now, and with the fever on him he’d need strength. He couldn’t go back in time and say kind, gentle, loving things to Hendrik in that cave, now. All he could do was nurse him back to health and spend the rest of his life making up for it. If Hendrik would let him.
Knowing he would might’ve been the most shaming part.
It was almost morning, gray dawn peeking through the slits in the silk curtains, by the time Hendrik opened his eyes. “Dagan?” he croaked.
Dagan, who had been dozing against his pillow, sat up straight and began examining him. “I’m here, darling.” He leaned in to test Hen’s temperature beneath his lips again. “Still hot.”
“My skin hurts.” Hen’s voice was thick and confused. “I had the strangest dreams.”
