He couldn’t let it go.

Dropping a name like that into a conversation had all the impact of a star crashing into the earth. Eli felt his heart quicken as he swung his leg over the mare’s back and settled in against the blood knight behind him. His shoulders still ached, and the snake’s body remained a constant, oddly warm reminder of his current captive status. But, greater than all of that had been the name.

Fiarac.

It wasn’t common. And to Eli’s knowledge, only one man carried it with any sort of notoriety. 

The knight urged his horse into line behind the rest of the Winter Guard. Eli tipped his head back against Fia’s shoulder. Despite the movement of his charge, the knight kept his gaze trained resolutely on the road before them, which was quickly losing the light from the north gate. 

“About that,” Eli started. He swallowed. Not even a flick of a glance to suggest he had been heard, but Eli knew the knight could hear him. “This name business. Fiarac. As in the Broken Fang’s son? Last commander of the Death-Sworn?” Still no reaction. Eli lifted an eyebrow and shifted his head toward the point of Fia’s shoulder to get a better view of his face. “The man so feared the empire supposedly put his body to flame after they took his head at the Starved Marsh?”

Not even a breath out of place. It would be all too easy to say he had the wrong man based upon that, but even if this knight had no relation to the man he had been talking about, you had to have been a real backwater recluse not to know the name Fiarac Basdlan. 

The blood knight who made the empire drop to its knees and bleed, whose very actions kept hope burning on the fringes of her borders. 

“Kailtírai’s beloved bloody prince? They mourned for you, you know. They still mourn,” Eli said softly. A twitch ran through the fingers woven into the mare’s mane. A stutter in the heart that beat against his back, but perhaps Eli imagined it. No sooner had it been felt did everything in the knight return to its former impenetrable stance. “Do you know how many believe you dead, Fiarac?”

Movement from the knight’s lips. No words, only a tongue to moisten, an opening left between them as though the ghost of a thought still danced upon them. Then, he dipped his head in toward Eli’s. 

“I am dead,” the knight whispered. 

What a miserable confession. 

It wasn’t about the truth of that statement because in no way was the man behind him part of the dead, not like the horse beneath him or the wolves still running through the darkness. It was the heartache nestled within those three words that cut into Eli so deeply he might as well have closed his hand around a fistful of glass shards and squeezed. 

So quiet. So broken.

“I can still hear your heart, knight,” Eli murmured. “You don’t sound dead to me.”

Fia huffed, less a laugh and more of a sigh that could only soothe itself with bitter amusement. Disentangling his fingers from the horse’s mane, Fia lifted his left hand and moved it to Eli’s hip. His touch light. His words lighter still. “Did I not tell you, thief? Not all deaths happen in a moment’s breath.”

“You did,” Eli acknowledged. “And you do have quite the reputation as a world-ender yourself if the stories have any truth to them, but I don’t seem to recall anything about you being a coward in any of them.”

“Elios…”

That was a warning.

Eli grinned and set himself back against the knight’s chest more firmly. A small act, but making of himself something entirely and undeniably present. “Eli. I’d rather you call me that. Only you, though. I'm not too sure about the rest of them yet. And my point still stands. Also, I was quite correct about you being the fearsome sort.” That finally earned him a glance from the knight. Eli exhaled, the sound edging toward a whistle, low but unmistakably impressed. “You have a very intense stare.”

A blink greeted that comment. Genuine surprise. The hand on his hip settled a little heavier against it like a bird finally committed to roosting. 

“Do you always spit out the things running through your head?” Fia asked, the beginnings of a smile tugging on his lips.

“Is that what you think of me? Some sort of rambling fool? I’m just being honest.”

“I think honest is the last thing you are.”

“Well, that’s rather unfair of you, considering we met all of an hour ago and under less-than-ideal circumstances.”

“Circumstances of your own crafting.”

“Were they? Because I was quite happy to mind my own business.”

The smile finally decided to show itself over Fia’s mouth, a little more restrained in its amusement than his tone would have suggested. “See? Exactly what I meant about you being honest.”

“Perhaps you have a point,” Eli said as he turned his attention to the five horses plodding on in front of them. They had begun to fan out, sliding into an arrowhead formation with what Eli suspected, based upon his interactions with Fia, was their leader serving as the point. “You do have very green eyes, though. I’m sure a thief would be very tempted by them.”

“But you aren’t a thief.” 

Warmth crept into the knight’s smile as he spoke. 

“Is that what I said?” Eli replied with an aggravating level of nonchalance. 

Trailing last on either side of the formation rode two of the guardsmen. Smaller than their leader but still solidly built and more than capable of the destruction the Winter Guard was known for wreaking. Eli watched as the group slowed their mounts until they surrounded Fia and his horse. The guardsman on his right grinned over at Eli, a scar cutting through the left side of his lip and skewing his smile so it looked less like a grin and more like a grimace’s best attempt at humor. Eli smiled back at him. 

“Fine night for a ride, wouldn’t you say?” 

“You’re a real cheerful kind of guy, aren’t you?” the guardsman replied. “Wonder how long that’ll last now that we’ve got you.”

He kept on grinning.

Eli didn’t drop his smile. Instead, he shrugged, acutely aware of the way his fingers scraped along the knight’s leather cuirass. Though he hadn’t been able to see it in the dark, Eli could now feel something intricately carved into its surface. The snake pulsed tighter around his wrists, a reminder of her presence. Eli stopped investigating the design. 

“You mean we’re not heading off for drinks at The Glass Horse? And here I thought I was getting a personal escort to the festivities being planned there. Rumor has it they’ve got a drink to put even the stoutest soldier on his ass.” 

The guardsman to his left, riding just ahead of the bay mare, barked out a laugh. “You hear that, Isak?”

“Oh, I heard it. Sounds like we’re getting drinks,” Isak answered, turning around in his saddle to fix Eli with an easy smile of his own. “Though, I’m not sure I follow where exactly. We getting them at The Glass Horse lower or The Glass Horse proper, thief?” 

Eli continued to smile, though his eyes narrowed at the one called Isak now staring at him. The things that lived in the shadows iced nerves less than the look this man now gave him. Hungry in the way that blood made men crave a certain brand of violence. 

“What?” Eli said, careful to keep his tone airy. Yet, every inch of his skin wanted to crawl right off his body under Isak’s gaze. “You mean to tell me the palace doesn’t have all the proper fittings to call itself a tavern of good repute?” A gasp full of feigned shock, followed by a grin so vicious Eli could feel it sharpening itself on his teeth. “How could the good Emperor Edvin have ever let his humble abode fall so low?!”

The hand on his hip tightened. Eli grinned through the pressure applied to his side by the blood knight and continued to meet Isak’s gaze unbothered. 

“Don’t you worry, my friend! We’ll make sure to take you somewhere nice and cozy,” Isak said before twisting back around in his saddle with a laugh. “Treat you so good even Death will beg to be let in on the action.”

“Well, now, that does sound promising,” Eli replied. His smile lingered, tight as a noose. 

Around him, laughter worked its way through the other two guardsmen flanking the knight until, eventually, silence filled the night around them. Only their leader remained untouched by their apparent amusement at his expense. 

Eli finally exhaled. How long had he been holding that last breath?

Tension soaked air now. It swam around them, thick and uncomfortable, so fraught with unease Eli thought he could feel it rubbing up against his skin like silk threaded through with a thousand miniature needles. He shifted against the knight. The pressure on his hip eased only slightly. 

Dipping his head, Fia breathed out slowly, the warmth of it heating up Eli’s cheek. During the entire exchange, Eli hadn’t heard him trip up once in his breathing. Everything meticulously controlled. Another breath. Then, he lowered his head further and brought his mouth to rest against Eli’s ear. 

“Do you value your life at all, Eli?”

No louder than a moth’s sigh. His mare snorted. 

Eli turned his head so his lips brushed against Fia’s throat. With his voice held to a retrained whisper, he said, “More than you, it would seem, my dear dead prince.”

Fia swallowed. Eli smiled at the motion against his lips.  

“Then stop being an insufferable moron.”

His smile grew. For the longest moment, Fia didn’t move. He stayed there as if pinned in place by reluctance. Another exhale, then he pulled his head back up, gaze centered on the road before him. Eli scratched at the cuirass again with his index finger. 

“I think you meant charming.”