Esra’s heart dropped in his chest. How he would have longed to hear Kian say those words, only a day ago. Back when their world was still the same.

There was no happiness now, only the cold twist of fear. Esra shrank back, stuttering: “What? No! They’ll kill us for sure!”

Kian tightened his grip on Esra. There was a trembling desperation in his eyes that bordered on madness. “No one’s here, Esra. The soldiers... they’re all back in the village. Not a soul knows of us. Let’s take our chance now! We can slip away, head to the market town. I know a family there that will hide us--”

“From a knight of the Order of Balor?” Esra shook his head, trying to get Kian to see reason. “He will hunt us down within the day. The whole family will be in danger! And when he finds us...”

He will kill you, Esra thought, and do worse to me.

Had Kian forgotten? The ruthless soldiers of Balor’s Fist, the swiftness of their steeds. Balor’s predatory black knight, tireless and unstoppable. That way led to the blacksmith’s tools, the hungry cawing of the gulls.

Kian didn’t let go. This embrace was no longer a comfort. Instead, his closeness was overwhelming, a fortress locking down.

“Fine,” Kian relented. “Not the town. You’re right, they’ll think to look for us there. So we’ll hide out, live off the wilds for a while. Make our way east, to the Weald. No-one will know us there.” He trailed off, then his eyes glowed. “We could get a boat to the Continent!”

“Live off the wilds? Get a boat to the Continent?” Esra’s voice was tiny, tremulous, as his world dissolved to nightmare. “Kian, I… I cannot even swim. Maybe you could make the journey, but I...”

Kian was not seeing sense. He was hardy, while Esra’s frailty had prevented him from even travelling to the neighboring towns with his father. A journey on the open sea was out of the question. There was a reason he was not considered a sailor.

“I… I would get us both killed.”

“I will not go without you!” Kian insisted, and went for him again. Esra skittered back, and tremulously got to his feet.

“Kian, I don’t understand!” he said, bewildered. “You have not spoken to me in years! When you became a man, it was like I no longer existed to you. I was…”

Heartbroken. He could not bring himself to say it.

Kian crawled to his feet, hands outstretched, a placating gesture. “I’m sorry, Esra. I was…” He swallowed thickly. “I was afraid.”

“... Of what?”

“Of how much I felt for you,” Kian professed, in an agonised whisper. “It was wrong to feel that way about another boy. I didn’t want to feel that way.” His face was miserable. “And I could keep it down, as long as I didn’t look at you. But… when I did…”

The taller boy took a step forward. Esra had seen children hunt small animals this way, hands at the ready, slow movements.

But Kian kept speaking in that awful hushed tone. “It was like the whole world shifted. All I wanted to do was look at you. It was wrong. No,” Kian shook his head earnestly, “it is wrong. But I don’t care anymore. There’s nothing left anymore but us. I want you, Esra. Run away with me. And when you can’t run, I’ll carry you. I’ll look after you. You know I will.”

Esra’s chest clenched to hear those words.  Just a day ago he would have given anything for a confession like this. It was something he could never have dared imagine. He would have forgiven Kian every previous hurt. He’d adored the older boy, with his sly smile, and laughter in his eyes.

But there was something strange about Kian now, desperate and ungrounded.

“What about Lynn?” Esra asked, a lump in his throat. “You should be saving your promises for her…”

The name landed like a blow. Kian had not been braced for impact. He could have stumbled. “Why must you bring up Lynn?” he snarled.

“She is your wife... ”

“Lynn is gone, Esra!” A guilty madness flushed his face. “Do you think I did not search for her? I would not abandon her! I looked for her the moment I escaped, but there is no trace of her in the village! They must have... carted her away already.”

They had thrown her to the soldiers...

Esra closed his eyes with sorrow. He had barely known Lynn, but she had given up her family to stay in the village with her handsome young husband. She had fallen for Kian, just as Esra had, and Kian had chosen her.

“Listen to me, Esra,” Kian said, springing forward. He gripped both of Esra’s hands in his own. “There is no Lynn. There is no village. There is no purpose, anymore. There is no wrong or right. There is only the two of us! When I escaped, I had no idea that I would find you. Yet I did! Can’t you see?”

Kian was rambling, wild, the clasp of his hands tighter with every word. His eyes were madness-bright, looking at Esra like he was his salvation.

“This is fate. You are the one. You have always been the one!” He stood far too close. “Isn’t this what you always wanted? I know you must have loved me for years. And now we can finally be together!”

It frightened Esra to see him like this. The pain he’d suffered, his losses, the deaths, all of it, must have fogged up Kian’s mind and stolen all reason. The man before him now was not anyone he recognised. Looking into the feverish blue eyes, Esra could only see death.

“I cannot go, Kian,” he said softly, but with certainty.

Kian’s face blanched. “Why are you being like this?” It came out cracked, near a whisper. Kian pulled the youth forward, towards him, before he could back away. “You can’t want to stay here!”

“Kian,” Esra begged, as his hands were crushed in that desperate grip. “You’re hurting me!”

Kian loomed over him, refusing to release his hold. “What lies has the knight told you?” he snapped. “Do you think you will somehow survive as his whore? He will use you and slit your throat once he has slaked his lusts with your body. Or perhaps he will be merciful, and take you to market to sell you to the highest bidder. Is that what you want? To be a whore to the enemy?”

Esra’s eyes blurred wetly. Kian’s words hurt him worse than his bruising grip. “Why are you being so cruel?”

“Because you aren’t thinking clearly!” At Esra’s pained expression, Kian loosened his hold, but barely. His voice softened. “It’s the truth, even if it is ugly. You must come with me, Esra. It’s the only way.”

He’d gentled, if only for a moment. Esra stood there, silent and trembling, too afraid to pull away his hands and tighten that grip, spark his fury. Kian’s yearning was a chasm, black and needy. He could not let himself fall in.

But even Esra’s silence was offensive.

“Why must you look at me like that?” Kian bristled. “You act as if I am trying to hurt you. I am trying to save you!”

Because you will doom us both, Esra thought. “Have you forgotten everything about me?” he said, a plea.

That startled Kian into silence.

“I’m not… like you. You threw that insult at me yourself. I’m… I’m weak. I’m a burden.” He was stumbling over his words, but he carried on staring at Kian’s shoulder so he didn’t have to meet those clear blue eyes. “ I can’t keep up with you here in the village, how am I to survive in the wilds? Do you really expect me to make the journey to the Weald?”

“I--” Kian stuttered. Finally, he released Esra’s white hands. Esra immediately clasped them together.

“Can you think back to when we were small, and you wanted me to race you to the top of the outlook?”

At the high points where the cliffs overlooked the sea, you could see where the vastness of the sea met the wide open sky. The wind had been sharp, cold, that autumn morning when Kian, halting their ambling walk up the hills, had challenged him and bolted off ahead.

Before him, Kian’s expression dawned with remembered horror. “I... looked behind myself, and you weren’t there.”

He’d found Esra collapsed on the cold grass, making helpless wheezes, barely able to draw breath. His screams had summoned the adults, who had known what to do. That time, Esra had been soothed through his suffering. In the wilderness, it would only be the two of them. 

Esra met his eyes again, and he could see the moment Kian understood him, and the heartbeat after, where he tried to forget.

“If you go without me…” Esra pushed on. “You are strong, you see? You might have a chance. But the only way you can make it is if you can leave me. For,” and he squeezed his clasped hands, “how are the two of us supposed to survive?”

Kian’s pale face was his answer.

“I can’t just leave you here,” Kian said simply, clearly flabbergasted at Esra’s decision. “I can’t. To leave you to die, with that… that…”

He broke off, paced away, wide-eyed.

“Is this some punishment? To find you here,” he muttered, more to himself than Esra, “and not be able to take you with me?”

In the dappled light through the trees, Esra could see that the shadows were getting shorter. Noon was drawing nigh. “You must go now,” he said, with startled panic. “They’ll be looking for me soon.”

Kian turned and looked at him, the ruined side of his face.

“You won’t get another chance like this,” Esra begged him. If he did not head back to the village now, the knight would grow suspicious. “Please, you must go.”

Kian jittered where he stood, and for a moment, Esra feared that he would rush forward and grab him.  

But with a shudder, Kian pulled away.

“All right,” he muttered. “All right, I’ll go on my own.” He ran an agitated hand through his hair. “Fuck, Esra, this feels wrong…”

There was nothing right about any of this.

“I want to kiss you,” Kian said, with sudden fierceness.

If you’d asked me only yesterday… Esra thought helplessly. His heart thudded, heavy with pained memory. 

But now the idea of it repulsed him.

“You’ve had years to kiss me, Kian. Our whole life. Like you said, I wouldn’t have stopped you from doing anything.”

“Please…” Kian came forward anyway, so full of intent. Esra turned his head.

“No,” he said to the river. He let his eyes dip close. “You should go, before those soldiers do a patrol.”

Above him, Kian gulped in a needy breath. “All right,” he whispered, those two syllables overfilled with a profound, painful regret.

He lingered there a long while, just looking at him. Perhaps he was reeling over his memories. How many times had they stood alone together on this very riverbank? The years lay behind them, the thwarted desire. He could have kissed Esra at any time, if he had only tried.

Esra would have let him, then. Once upon a time, Kian had been his whole world. 

Strangely, it wasn’t hard to watch him go.

* * *

It was nearly noon. The shadows were short, and the sun glared directly above as Esra rushed back to the village.

He couldn’t run, not with the pain inside of him, and the familiar terror of losing his breath if he overexerted himself. But desperate fear drove him to push himself into small bursts of sprinting, gritting his teeth through the pain. He had to stop after every burst to catch his breath, bent over, his hands on his knees, panting through the whistle in his chest. And then he would hurtle forward once again, because the fear of punishment was far greater than the discomfort.

As he neared the town hall, Esra saw them: the knight in low conversation with the captain of Balor's Fist. Captain Pierce stood at wary attention as Umbra towered ominously over him. Was Esra so late already that others had to be called? Yet he dared not interrupt.

“You have ordered a search already, I presume,” Umbra was saying, his voice dark.

“The moment I heard,” the captain replied tightly. “We’ve found nothing yet, but -” the captain’s restless eyes landed on Esra. “Ah!” Esra startled as Captain Pierce sharply gestured him over. “Here, boy!”

Esra dashed to stand before them in a whirl of sick panic, gulping for air. His eyes flickered between the two in apprehension. Apologies stuttered and died in his throat, his mouth and tongue dry. He barely had the breath to speak.

What would Umbra do to him, now that he had been found disobeying a direct order? How was he to be punished?

Umbra stood tall and imperious in his formidable black armor that gleamed in the morning sun, the breeze brushing at his ashen hair. He gazed down at Esra, unreadable behind his mask. All Esra could see was the perfect line of his jaw, and his mouth, neither smiling or frowning.

The captain looked a bit worse for wear, with dark shadows in the hollows under his eyes and his mouth a thin line. He was furiously angry as ever, but his weathered face was tense with dread that all the fierceness in the world could not conceal.

“See how guilty he looks,” the captain said, looking Esra over, and then to the knight, for approval. “He certainly knows something. They were friends after all, were they not?”

Kian.

Esra swallowed down his immediate terror, blood rushing from to his face, his gaze dropping to the dirt beneath his feet as before him flashed his future. It was inevitable. They were going to take him to the smithy, he thought, ragged. They were going to hurt him, in unimaginable ways, until he betrayed Kian, and he couldn’t, he couldn’t do that to someone who had been so broken.

But he dreaded being tortured, being ruined. He had seen what these men were capable of. Kian’s distorted face, the ugly pain of his half-smile, was something Esra was never going to forget.

The captain noted his fear. “I’ll take him indoors,” he barked, reaching forward to grab him.

“You won’t,” said Umbra calmly.

Pierce shot an incredulous look at the knight, his hand dropping to his side. “But, Sir Knight,” he said, voice haltering, “if he knows something, which he must, it’s important... that you…”

“That I...?” echoed Umbra, slowly turning to face the captain again, exuding latent menace.

Pierce opened his mouth to respond, and then clearly thought better of it.

Umbra’s brief smile was anything but pleasant. “Perhaps we should question your men,” he suggested coldly. “They tell me that the boy picked the lock on his shackles, though I've never seen a peasant manage such a thing.” He shrugged his broad shoulders, and turned to look out at the empty village. “Suspect he pick-pocketed the keys from one of those drunken louts when they were having their fun with him,” he continued, his lips curving ever so slightly into a frown, “and they were too far gone to notice.”

The captain nodded, hurried, his eyes fixed almost reverently on Umbra. “It is probable, Sir Knight,” he agreed. “They will be disciplined regardless, for letting their guard down around him. I cannot comprehend that such an injured wretch managed to slip away unseen.”

“They certainly must be punished,” said Umbra, his dangerous attention landing back on the captain with full force. “And disciplined further if they do not find him.”

A fearful expression darted across the captain’s face, if only for a moment, before he schooled himself into something more neutral. “I will get to the bottom of it, I assure you.”

Umbra stared at the captain in silence. After a moment, he nodded graciously. The captain seemed to deflate with relief.

Together, they turned to Esra.