Even without the bliss of sleep, morning came. The dark had coated Nezael in a chill he couldn’t shake, and then pale oranges and yellows bloomed into the room, chasing it all away. Before long, even the sun shined inside, golden and bright. Alive. And right there, Nezael felt the soul folded against his back like Yorick had done so many times in his own bed. Arms wrapped tight around Nezael as though he might lose him otherwise.

Nezael let the sensation linger for as long as he dared before he lifted his hand. The soul followed it, leaving the ghost of soft kisses along his fingers, and he wove it into the skeleton’s heart. With a shimmer, Nezael’s magic bloomed across the bones in earnest as the soul helped them connect to what was once its tissue and muscle. There was a sort of life there now, blazed anew by magic, and the bones trembled together like someone rousing from slumber.

Yorick sat up, wavering, and Nezael came up with him, a steady hand at his back. He never looked away once as Yorick stared at him, eye sockets empty of the blue eyes that used to be there. Yorick touched Nezael’s cheek with his hand and Nezael held it there. Warm. It was warm.

“You are mine,” Nezael whispered and magic sung softly across his words. “You are mine, Yorick, forevermore.”

“I am yours, Nezael,” Yorick whispered, his voice ringing clear. “Forevermore.”

Even as the tears renewed and fell, Nezael leaned close and kiss the skull, perhaps for the last time in the privacy of the morning before he locked himself away until he felt nothing else. “And, in return,” Nezael whispered, “I am yours, Yorick, forevermore.”

Epilogue

Darkness At the Heart

of My Love

The fluttering kisses became softer and softer, up and down the length of Nezael’s body. It did every night. He’d arc into the touch, wanting it closer. Wanting to feel the weight of the kisses against his skin, but it was always fleeting. They were gone. A reminder softening slowly over time and Nezael feared it becoming so soft, it became too fragile to recall. Already, memories hid behind the ethereal shroud in his mind, completely out of reach by the time morning light slid across his room.

Nezael awoke alone and let himself be for a moment, so still and silent, until he was sure. He rolled over to his back and ran his fingers through his hair. Spring and half of summer had dragged by. Each day, he found himself beside his lord to assist in the army he was still raising. Lord Carrow’s promise of change had failed. They were still in the decrepit tower as the summer winds blew back the soft spring air. Carrow had ceased making such promises again. Things took time, he insisted, and that was the last Nezael heard about any timeframe. Mercenaries came and went like the wind and the nights grew long when Carrow had Nezael entertain them as well. Many lingered longer than Nezael liked.

Days blurred together in the throes of pulling the dead apart. As they magicked bones into motion which had long since lost sight of their souls together. As the heat of his lord’s lips tinged in blood found his own. Blood always rushed down his throat. Splashed across his skin. He tasted it on the hungry lips of his lord. Then, by the night’s end, the skeleton awoke, its mind melded between both their magics.

Even now, Nezael still tasted blood against the burn left yesterday by Carrow’s teeth on his lips. Nezael sighed and dropped his arms onto the blankets.

He wanted to return to when it was simple. When he watched his lord raise skeletons. When Carrow treated him not as something to be completely devoured, but as a devoted pupil. Even more, Nezael wished he was in that grove clearing again. Dreaming of the ways Yorick could touch him if he’d simply ask. Dreaming of Yorick’s body. Nezael thought deep, trying to remember it. The way his body vibrated when he laughed. The crinkle in his nose when he smiled. The warmth of his skin against Nezael’s. The sounds they made when pressed so tightly together.

The door to his chambers opened, drawing Nezael out of his fantasy, and he stopped short of slipping his hands beneath his blankets to release the tension. A skeleton dressed in a tunic and breeches strode inside. His skeleton. His Yorick. Magic fluttered across his bones like foregone kisses and it let Yorick’s once heart beat against Nezael’s own. It had taken getting used to, but Nezael found solace in it now. Especially because Yorick had distanced himself as the months went by. The heartbeat reminded Nezael that Yorick was still there, even when Yorick tried desperately not to be.

Like now: he hardly glanced at Nezael as he placed a tray of breakfast on the desk. Wouldn’t turn as Nezael sat up, letting the blanket pool around his waist to reveal his pale skin beneath. Marks Yorick had left once upon a time gone.

Maybe they couldn’t go back to the touches they’d had before, but Nezael wished Yorick would look at him again like he used to. He’d feel it, Nezael was sure, and it would make everything right.

But it wasn’t to be.

“Good morning, master,” Yorick said, the timber of his voice hollow in his skull.

Nezael scowled. “Carrow’s been talking to you.” He grabbed his robe from where it hung on his bed post and extracted himself from the bed. What was once a tease back in Yorick’s cabin where he’d delight in the man’s eyes roving across his naked flesh was a cold reminder Yorick would do no such thing again. Nezael tied the robe tightly.

“Don’t call me master or lord or anything of the sort.” He gently took Yorick’s hand. The bones were covered in the colorful wraps Isabella shared with him and magicked with Nezael’s own spells to keep his bones from breaking. Nezael kissed each knuckle as he gazed up at Yorick who still would not look at him. “I’m still Nezael. Don’t let him convince you otherwise. Please.”

Yorick hesitated. The other skeletons in the tower had accepted him like an old friend as soon as he was walking alongside Nezael. But nevertheless, Nezael and Yorick agreed to keep their short history a secret. Bellamy already knew and perhaps for that reason, it took him the longest to warm up to Yorick. Perhaps he blamed the man for changing Nezael so. No longer a little lord kept protected, but now a willing participant to every nefarious or otherwise plan their lord deigned to give.

Agatha adored her new helper in the kitchen and alone with her, Yorick acted like his old self. A warm man relishing in ways to make her laugh. Isabella enjoyed a go-for that wasn’t Nezael, but Nezael still took every opportunity he could to leave the tower in search of herbs with Yorick. Just to pretend winter hadn’t ever ended. Even if Yorick was now a skeleton.

“I’m sorry,” Yorick murmured and brought Nezael’s hand to his mouth. No lips, but Nezael remembered how soft and warm they’d been and begged his magic to fashion a way to feel them again. “Isabella has a list of herbs for us to purchase from town. She says the desert merchant should have arrived by now. We’ll go as soon as you’ve eaten and dressed.”

“Thank you,” Nezael whispered and like all mornings, Yorick took his leave silently.

Nezael furiously wiped his eyes, willing back the tears gathering for months at the loss of something once so profound, and focused on his breakfast. Cinnamon spiced porridge with a slice of bread baked with a cinnamon swirl. No icing, but Nezael found himself more than fine with that. Nezael breathed in the aroma, knowing the cinnamon and sweetness was Yorick’s own touch to show he cared, and ate.

He couldn’t change what happened. Day by day, the hurt faded. One day, it’d simply be and he and Yorick would continue to be whatever they were now. Warm or cold to one another, it didn’t matter. Their lives were entwined forevermore.

~

Warmth stretched across the land, the sun above bright. Dew glistened beneath it so early in the morning. Everything was honestly so vibrant and cheerful, it soured Nezael’s mood even more. The warmth dictated a lack of a cloak for Nezael, and he’d dressed simply like any other traveler with a thin billowing linen shirt cut low with light breeches Lord Carrow had given him recently. Too normal of an outfit for a necromancer; Nezael would rather be in his magic armor.

Yorick, meanwhile, had learned very quickly how to wrap a scarf around his skull to hide his skeletal visage. Unfortunately, with his height, he turned a lot of heads, and Nezael had to learn a glamouring spell to make people not notice him so often. He’d never needed it for Agatha or Isabella so it was just one more thing to learn.

The markets in town were crowded in the summer, the thrum of bodies bustling past one another to lighten their coin purses. Many were locals, but also travelers passing by the area. It was also in such crowds, people began to notice Nezael and tried to engage with him more than they ever had before. He never bothered to respond; he had herbs to get and then he’d return to the safety of the drafty tower that was home. No matter how often there was the soft press of fingers against his arm to get his attention, smiles when Nezael looked at them, or the voices flirting with him to see if he cared, he wasn’t going to be tempted.

When Nezael expressed his concerns with the newfound attention, Carrow simply told him he’d ceased glamouring Nezael to go by unnoticed. Damning as it was to be enchanted and not even know it, Carrow also told him to use the attention to his advantage. Bring unsuspecting people to the tower to have more skeleton fodder.

“It worked once, after all,” Carrow had said with such a self-serving smile, Nezael wanted to scream. He’d held it in then, however, and simply bowed.

Carrow acted like Yorick was on purpose. Yet he knew he wasn’t, but it was all part of the punishment. Even more, that Carrow believed Nezael wanted to draw others into his bed only to pull them apart like they were nothing made him sick. Nezael wanted none of that. He’d rather find a poor body abandoned in the woods and make a skeleton from that than anyone he tricked, no matter how much weaker the skeleton would be.

In response to the newfound attention in town, all Nezael could do was smile, whisper a platitude that meant nothing, and leave before anyone thought to grow bolder. Yorick sometimes stepped in, but that would risk his glamour, so he and Nezael agreed he’d only do so if someone turned to anger after a rejection. Seldom did it happen, but Nezael hated having to deal with the touches at all, knowing Yorick was right there beside him having to endure watching it the same.

The herbs today came from an older woman dressed in colorful clothes. She arrived only in the summertime and was always sought after. Herbs grown in the desert were rare in these parts and she happily parted with her rarities for sufficient coin.

These herbs were essential to keeping them safe. Would-be heroes, thieves, and spies sought their tower for nefarious means and Carrow used a potion derived from these herbs and others to suss out enemies before he tore them apart. Even mercenaries he’d hired weren’t spared; one thought against anyone in the tower and that’d be that. Sometimes, they deserved it too.

And, once more, Nezael found himself so deep in his head thinking of everything and nothing to detach himself from reality, he’d blanked out the purchasing and the walk away from the crowds. It was only when he felt the wood of a bridge beneath his feet did he jolt back. He slowed and considered the holly still wrapped around the posts. Traces of his magic bloomed still, keeping the holly alive. A spell he’d never tell Carrow of.

“Nezael?” Yorick whispered his name so soothingly, Nezael shivered.

“It’s fine,” Nezael insisted and continued.

“Bellamy said all our lord’s experiments stay deep in the forest,” Yorick said as he walked in stride beside Nezael. “But… thank you for keeping the charms going. The town may never know, but it means a lot to me.”

Nezael nodded, but did not smile. It was through no act of altruism; simply self-serving. A way to assuage the guilt eating him up from the inside. One day, Carrow would come for the bones in town and no one—no charms, no magic spell, not even Nezael—could stop him. Nezael buried the feeling, let the guilt burn him until he was nothing inside. It was easier that way.

The walk back was bereft of any meaningful conversation. Nezael preferred it, especially now. He was sure he and Yorick had plenty to say to each other, but neither wanted to parse the thoughts into words. What was done was done. Easier to bury it like everything else.

The afternoon sun was as bright as the morning had been, making the green leaves glitter when the wind rustled through them. There were a few other travelers on the road, but their pace was quick while Nezael kept his and Yorick’s slow. They came to the path leading into the wards too soon for Nezael’s liking, and like always, Nezael feigned a break to drink some water.

Yorick’s fingers grazed Nezael’s side and he paused.

“Someone’s been following us,” Yorick said, his words almost silent if not for the magic linking them together.

Nezael gulped down some water and made a show of dousing his head as though to cool off to give himself a reason to turn. A young man flinched out of sight too quick for Nezael to see much of him. Most people interested in propositioning Nezael directly did sometimes follow him away from the crowd because of their own shyness, but not once did they jump to hide behind a tree when Nezael noticed them. Muggers would have already charged Nezael, thinking him vulnerable, only to be met with a tall skeleton’s fist.

This one likely wanted something else, but Nezael didn’t want to bother.

“He’s skittish,” Nezael whispered. “Once we’re through the ward, we’ll lose him and he’ll lose us.”