Under the sheets, Umbra pulled him close to the heat of his body. Esra felt his skin, sweat-sheened, and the rapid beat of his heart in his chest, gentling now that they were still. He heard how, together, their breath slowed in the warm air.

The knight stroked a strong palm over his side; up to the nape of his neck, then down, across his spine, backside, to his thighs. Esra, left so exhausted by their union, could barely respond, but the hot tingling of Umbra’s touch over his still sensitive skin had him curling up to the other. He needed that touch, that wordless praise.

Umbra, maybe knowing this, maybe simply enjoying the feel of it, ran his fingers through the silk of Esra’s hair. He massaged over Esra’s scalp, stroked the length of his hair, feeling the texture of the inky black strands.

A quiet sigh escaped him when Umbra took him into the shelter of his arms. He could never admit such a thing aloud, but the feeling of lying so close to the knight, surrounded by the lazy strength of him, was something close to bliss.

Esra was weak to such affection. He had never been touched so intimately, so warmly, in his entire life. Umbra’s embrace ignited something in him; an unspoken need that Esra had always quashed. Even now he tried to tamp it down, the desire to be touched, to be held, just like this. But he did not have the fortitude for it; drained of spirit and besieged by loss, he craved this comfort.

The fire had burned low, and the room was lit with a dim red glow that shrouded them both.

“Look at you,” murmured the knight, his deep voice so hushed that Esra might not have heard him, had he not been cradled so close. “Who would’ve thought I’d find something like you in such a wretched place?” He brushed the back of his knuckles over Esra’s cheek, watched the youth wet his lips. “The wilds eat the weak, and yet, here you are.”

Esra averted his eyes, not daring to meet that smouldering gaze. His heart pounded to hear such softness. He had to remember himself, for Esra supposed that when the knight said he was to keep him, that he meant as a slave.

The only slaves Esra had ever known were the runaways that had come to the village, seeking refuge. They bore the brands of their previous masters, in tattoos, in scars, in old injuries from punishment.

He had to be careful to not be so intoxicated by the warmth, that venomous bliss. For if Umbra owned him, he could do anything to him, no matter how tender his embrace.

Rain hammered down overhead. The storm had not yet run its course.

* * *

“Do you know what a Reaper's Rest is, Esra?” Umbra asked him. The question startled Esra, firstly because Umbra wished to talk to him, secondly because he had no idea of the answer.

“I do not,” he admitted, not without timidity.

“We lie together in an ancient place.” Umbra rolled onto his back. He kept Esra close, a possessive arm curled around the youth’s torso. Esra, nervous, rested his cheek on Umbra’s chest. “It has stood for many hundreds of years. Before us knights, before the Order; or at least, before the Order as it is now.”

His voice reverberated in his ribcage as he spoke, so that Esra could feel it deep in his skull. “Did… did Balor make them?”

Umbra made a sound to himself, a quiet huff of laughter. Perhaps Esra’s lack of knowledge about his own country amused him. “His Majesty raises cities, Esra. Not little stone huts.”

Esra felt his face heat, embarrassed. He knew very little about life outside his village, apart from what he’d heard in stories; less still about anything relating to the God King, or as he had always known Balor, the seabeast. “I didn’t mean to--” he began, then, “I only know what I’ve been told.”

He hadn’t been incurious. It was the opposite; he hungered for tales of the world he thought he would never get to see. But, trapped as he’d been in the seclusion of his village, he had no way of knowing truth from tale.

He felt Umbra squeeze him, the pressure of his forearm against his spine, and looked up into the beautiful face of his captor. Umbra was considering him; this magnificent knight who wielded a God’s power, peering down through the many layers of society from his lofty perch to the boy in his arms, born in obscurity to a peasant and a traitor. He could hurt Esra on a whim without consequence, but he didn’t seem so inclined. Instead, he sought to instruct.

“In the days when time was not recorded,” Umbra began, “life was dangerous for the common man." He spoke lowly, his voice a sonorous rumble. "The God King Balor had risen from the seas to defeat the cruel fae regents, but the fae were infuriated by the loss of their unholy power. In retaliation, they started turning themselves into beasts.”

“Monsters?” asked Esra, his eyes wide in the dark. He had not heard this tale before.

“Yes, and this is where a lot of Fomori myths come from.” Umbra settled his towering figure more comfortably against the pillows. “The beasts, giant in size and immoral in spirit, hungered for human flesh. They roamed the lands to terrorise villages, towns, even cities. Balor wanted to protect the faithful, but though his power was almighty, he could not be everywhere at once. So, he chose twenty of the greatest soldiers in the lands, and made them into his reapers. The ritual was similar to what knights of the Order go through now, but the reapers were transformed... further, to be closer to the God King. Larger, stronger. More bestial. More fitted to their onerous task. ”

Umbra’s eyes were far away, reverent. This was both a religious and a personal tale, Esra realised. The knight himself had been changed by his god, altered to better serve his duty. Esra couldn’t imagine the knight before him as anything other than what he was, but no normal man was born to be so towering in height, so savagely strong.

Esra tried to picture what Umbra would have looked like at his own age, before the transformation; the unearthly beauty of his knight on a youth just come-of-age. What had he been like? What had even been his name?

"A reaper’s duty," Umbra explained, resuming his absent stroking down Esra’s skin, "was to travel the wilds from village to village, and hunt down the fae beasts where they skulked in the caves and forests. They saved many a humble life, for the glory of the God King. In gratitude, folk built stone sleeping huts, just like this one, in the lands by their villages for their protectors to stay in along their journey. The huts, over time, came to be known as…" He trailed off, looked down at Esra, a brow raised.

“Reaper’s Rests,” Esra finished for him, and was rewarded with a gentle smile that had his heart beating a little faster.

"When the villagers saw smoke from the chimney of a Rest, they knew a reaper was sleeping there. They would bring offerings for him - food, drink, that sort of thing. As such things go, this became a tradition. Even when reapers were no more, and the brotherhood of knights began, they carried out the same tradition for knights of the Order."

“Even today?” Esra asked.

“Even today. You’ll see for yourself, when we wake tomorrow.”

There are stories, Esra thought to himself, that you know to be true. Things you have yourself experienced, or that have been related to you by someone trustworthy. His father, and the rest of the resistance, had not been liars. Their tales of Balor’s cruelty were evidenced by the runaways that fled to them, their poverty, the whip-scars over their flesh, their burnt brands of punishment.

Umbra, who walked the path of loyalty to the God King, saw things differently. Balor’s kingdom had been generous to him, rewarding his beliefs with prestige and authority. Well served by his devotion to Fomoria, he saw the traitors as somehow deserving of their misfortune. If they had been more like him, after all, the world would have worked somehow to compensate them.

Sleep tried to take Esra. He couldn’t open his eyes, and he felt boneless and small in Umbra’s embrace. As he drifted off, he thought that there too were stories that you wanted to believe, because otherwise it would be too painful to live. You would be the murderer; you killed innocents, and you thought it just.

* * *

When Esra dreamed that night, he was a young child again, with a child’s fears.

He ran and ran, his tiny bare feet splashing over puddles, lost in his own village. In his frightened haste, he fell, split his lip on stone, cutting deep down the middle. But he was on his feet again, racing, racing, against the rising ocean, blood running down his chin.

The storm wouldn’t stop. Heated water rained down from the sky, the steaming river burst its banks in a flood, and the deep grey sea rose high and drowned the homes and halls in fierce waves and smoky foam.

“Help me!” he begged as he tried to outrun the storm, his voice an airless rasp. “Father! Help me! Save me!”

But the hot water continued to rise, reaching his knees, his waist, his chest, and he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t even scream, like an invisible hand had wrapped around his throat and sealed it shut.

“Father,” he mouthed, tears falling, as he was dragged into the boiling sea.

* * *

He was still crying as he woke, throat clenched, wheezing wetly, smothered in heat and darkness. Hot hands soothed down his sides, rolled him on his back, a gentle voice murmured his name, had him thinking, father...

“Esra..?”

A hand soothed over his forehead. His father was dead. Umbra stared back into his eyes.

The shame caused another sob to wrack through his chest. His father was dead, and he lay in the arms of the man who had killed him. In the back of his throat, a whistle had started.

Instinctively, he gulped for air, and heard the whistle again, louder. It had been a long time since he’d had one of his attacks. He had learned to get a handle on it as he’d grown older, always careful not to exert himself, never running too quickly or staying out in the cold air too long. But his breath was becoming short, like he couldn’t get enough air, and it didn’t seem to be passing.

Fear tightened his chest. It was going to be like drowning, slipping under the black water and coming up spluttering. He could hear his own wheezing but could do nothing to stop it. And Umbra had no idea of his affliction, and everyone who could possibly have known what to do had been killed or sold, and his village was gone, and his father was dead, and Esra could not breathe--

I am going to die, Esra thought, I am going to die, I am going to die--

Umbra’s brow was creased with concern. “Esra, what’s the matter?” he asked, voice rough with sleep.

Esra clutched at the hand that tried to soothe him, coughing and whimpering. “I … c-can’t…” he attempted, and then his chest heaved uselessly, cutting off his words.

“All right, all right,” the knight groused. “Don't talk if you can't breathe.”

The bed dipped as Umbra sat up, movements slow. He was still waking up. He took hold of Esra under the shoulders and pulled him up too, settling the gasping youth between his legs in a sitting position, his slim back to Umbra’s chest.

“You sound like you've a whistle in you,” came Umbra’s voice from behind his ear.

Esra sucked in a narrow breath to apologise, but could not push out the words, and hurriedly sucked in a few more breaths to try again, but Umbra shushed him.

“I told you not to talk,” he muttered, then, “Your breath is moving too fast,” A large hand went over his ribcage. “Slower, with me.”

He breathed calmly for Esra, loud enough for him to hear. Slow breath in, an even breath out.

Esra could feel his heart pounding underneath Umbra’s hand; was aware of every point of contact on his bare skin, the strong, hot palm on his chest, and the breadth of every finger outstretched, holding him firm. That touch, that steadying strength, was like an anchor in a storm.

He followed Umbra’s breathing as best he could, still making that awful frightened wet sound.

“That's it,” Umbra murmured gently. “That’s it. Good boy.”

Despite himself, that soft praise put a glow in him. He could have cried for the comfort he found in obedience. But Umbra’s deep breaths guided him, and the firmness of his touch calmed him. His panicked breathing slowed, and the tightness in his chest eased, as Esra let himself fall back into the powerful solace of Umbra’s embrace.

Umbra stayed with him for a good while, until Esra only had the slightest wheeze.

The rain had become a gentle patter overhead. It was pitch black now, cold everywhere but under the covers, or against Umbra’s skin.

The knight’s long legs bracketed Esra's, his warm chest rising and falling against his back. He was unusually lax, and Esra would have thought he'd dropped off to slumber again if it weren't for the absent caresses over his torso. The knight must have been in deep sleep when he heard the sounds of Esra's fitful dream.

“I am sorry to trouble you,” Esra said quietly, when he had recovered enough breath to speak. “I… I suffer from an affliction... of breathing. Ever since I was a small child. When I push myself too hard, or when I am very afraid, or sometimes, I don't even know what I did to make it happen, it comes upon me…” he trailed off, embarrassed at revealing this part of himself. “It is my weakness and I, I know it is a burden...”

He wanted to curl into himself as he spoke, hide his face away. He had never enjoyed talking about himself, and admitting such frailty to the knight was humiliating.

“It is all right, Esra,” Umbra said quietly, his hands skimming Esra’s sides. His voice was tired. “Did you have a nightmare?”

It all seemed so childish. “Yes,” Esra admitted to the darkness. He dreamed most nights, fancies so vivid that he sometimes awoke quivering in bed. It had been that way for as long as he could remember.

A sigh, not unkind. “Come here,” rumbled the knight. “Lie down with me.”

He pulled Esra close once they were under the blankets, although he was careful not to put too much pressure on Esra's ribcage. Soft lips touched Esra's forehead, a blossom of warmth.

“No need for nightmares,” a low voice hushed in his ear. “You needn’t fear anything, Esra. I protect what's mine.”

Esra shuddered very gently. He knew that Umbra believed it, that he had the right to rip Esra's life apart, take away everything that made him, him, and still position himself as his protector. His possessor.

Umbra’s vow was true. He never spoke what he didn’t mean. But to the knights of the Order of Balor, words had... different meanings.

A large hand trailed down his spine, rested at his hip.

“Sleep, Esra. I'm right here. I've got you.”