Chapter 12 #2
Kylix watched, smug and content, a slow grin curving his mouth.
“Good?” he asked, voice low. “You look like you’d let me feed you all day if I wanted.
Take one for the road. Or two.” His eyes gleamed, hungry with satisfaction as Mirel swallowed the last bite and his pride, as he stole two more from the plate.
Kylix tasted the edge, slow. “You would.”
A Luminary guard appeared. “The car is ready, sir.”
Kylix slipped into his jacket, cigarette clamped between his lips. Smoke curled from the corner of his mouth as he spoke, the words rough and precise. “Any news?”
“Not yet. The escaped prisoners are still unaccounted for. We set out an alert to find both him and that medic. His identity has been confirmed. His name is Doctor Serrin.”
“And the press?”
“Silent so far.”
Kylix exhaled a thin ribbon of smoke. “They won’t be for long.”
“Sir.” The guard’s eyes flicked once toward Mirel, curious and assessing, before he turned and left the room.
“Mirel,” Kylix said, soft. “Stand. Come here, little ghost.”
Mirel stood.
Kylix crossed the short distance. He reached out, fingers brushing along his jaw before stopping at his throat, the touch both claim and warning. His eyes glinted with hunger and possession. His hand lightly touched Mirel’s temple, brushing strands away.
“As you have noticed, I haven’t chained you in bed.”
Mirel nodded, bouncing on one leg.
Kylix's voice was even. “We’re going to the hospital today. That’s close to the graveyard.
So I’m going to tell you this once, and only once.
If you run, I will find you. Do you understand?
” The words were a caress and a threat all at once.
He let his hand fall, the heat of it lingering on Mirel’s skin.
Mirel swallowed.
“Not even your silence will be able to hide from me. Tell me you understand.”
“Yes.” It came out hoarse.
Kylix’s lips curled. “If you let me hunt you down, I will treat you like prey. You don’t want to be treated like prey, do you?”
Mirel shook his head.
“Good boy. Then stay by my side and nothing like that will happen.”
Outside their hover car, Cyprian and Moargan were already waiting.
Cyprian smiled the moment he saw him and pulled Mirel into a quick hug.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” he said, warmth breaking through his usual composure.
When he turned, his gaze brushed the direction of the graveyard in the distance, and he shuddered. “Let’s not keep her waiting.”
Kylix glanced at them, his voice cool again. “We should go in.”
The courtyard air hit cooler than expected.
Sunlight fractured on the metal of the hover car, scattering faint reflections across Kylix’s jacket.
Vandor’s men moved in quiet precision, boots clipping the stone.
For a second, Mirel almost turned, almost ran, just to feel space again, but then Kylix’s shadow crossed him.
His hand brushed the small of Mirel’s back, a fleeting touch that steadied and warned in the same breath.
“Inside,” he said.
The door opened with a hydraulic sigh. The scent of metal and smoke followed them in. Heat pooled between them as the doors sealed, the hum of engines blending with Mirel’s pulse.
The ride was silent. Frost gathered on the hover car’s windows, melting in streaks as they crossed the morning district.
The city moved around them, vendors setting up, guards changing shift, lights still burning from the night before.
Mirel watched it all, the rhythm of lives that had gone on without him.
Kylix sat beside him, still as flame behind glass.
Smoke curled from the cigarette between his fingers, scenting the air with spice and ash.
Their arms brushed once when the car turned.
The contact sent a flicker of heat through Mirel that he couldn’t hide.
Moargan’s voice drifted from the front, calm and amused, Cyprian answering with a quiet laugh, but the space beside him stayed heavy.
Mirel could feel Kylix’s gaze even when it wasn’t on him, like warmth waiting to burn.
The Hospital of the Living Dead was white. The floors, the walls, the uniforms. The air smelled bleached and old. Machinery hummed through the hall, steady and cold. The air felt too clean, too still, and he shivered despite the warmth outside.
Mirel had watched this place for years from the other side of the gate, his chest twisting each time, half with dread, half with hope that someday he might walk through it. Many times, he had imagined what it would look like from the inside. Never like this.
The marble reflected them as they walked.
Mirel caught his reflection beside Kylix’s, his pale face next to the Imperial Prince’s darker one, and wondered if this was what belonging looked like.
Four silhouettes moving as one. Outside, the courtyard was rimmed with frost though the morning was warm.
Engines hummed low. Guards waited at attention.
Moargan flicked a cigarette away before they entered. “You still owe me that drink.”
“Later,” Kylix said.
Cyprian hooked his arm through Mirel’s. “Come on, brother, let’s go and meet our mother. I remember how nervous I was the first time I came here. The guards wouldn’t let me in. I got arrested.”
Mirel glanced at him, forcing the words out. “How did you get in then?”
Cyprian laughed, a blush rising as he nodded toward Moargan. “Because of him. My bonded.”
Moargan grinned. “All the things you wouldn’t be able to do without me.”
Cyprian rolled his eyes, but his smile was filled with affection.
Mirel met Kylix’s gaze for a breath, something fierce and unspoken flaring in his chest before he looked away.
They stopped at the very end of the corridor.
The corridor narrowed there, ceiling lower, light harsher.
A nurse passed them without lifting her gaze, shoes whispering over marble.
Mirel’s pulse quickened. Each step sounded louder than the last, as if the hospital itself was listening.
Frost whispered over the glass panels and melted as he breathed.
He caught his reflection again beside Kylix’s.
The contrast was sharp, dark heat beside pale frost, two halves of something neither could name.
The thought unsettled him. For the first time since his capture, he wondered what the others saw when they looked at them together.
Protector and prisoner? Or something far less simple.
“You’re not alone. She’ll know you.” Cyprian’s hand reached, steady. Mirel let their fingers touch.
They went in.
The room opened wide and white, the light falling thin through small windows that looked out onto the graveyard.
Mirel froze at the sight. He realized he had lived all this time just beneath her window.
If he tried hard enough, he could almost picture his few belongings scattered between the stones.
His tarp roof, the ribbon he’d used to tie it down.
A tremor passed through him as he imagined it from her view, his small, hidden life beneath her silence.
The other Wastelanders came to mind. Their faces.
Their laughter over scraps of firelight.
Would they notice he was gone? Would they miss him?
The thought pressed at him, fragile and strange, like remembering another version of himself he had already begun to lose.
His gaze drifted to the bed in the corner, stark and white against the wall, the sheets pulled tight.
For a long breath he simply stared, the sight pulling at something deep and uncertain inside him.
Celia Fandi slept beneath that window. Black hair spread on the pillow. Breath thin. The room smelled of antiseptic and a faint soap
he could not name. Mirel hesitated at the threshold, his chest tightening at how small she looked beneath the sheets. She seemed fragile enough to vanish if he breathed too loud, and the thought made his throat ache.
Mirel stood and watched. Years of fear and want climbed his throat. He tried to breathe, but the sound felt too loud for the room. His chest hurt from holding it in. Every dream he’d ever had of her seemed to press behind his ribs at once, fighting for air.
They stepped closer together.
Celia’s lashes fluttered. Her eyes opened. Blue, wet.
“My boy.” Her eyes filled with tears, her hand lifting slightly from the sheet. “My sweet one. My light.”
Mirel swallowed hard, his smile shaking. “I missed you every day,” he whispered, his thumb brushing her fingers before she reached toward him again.
Celia smiled. “I know. Because I felt you before I saw you.” She reached. Cyprian drew Mirel close enough for her hand to find his cheek. Cool skin. Small tremor. The frost stilled.
Mirel’s words cluttered in his throat. “So long,” he managed, the whisper breaking apart. “So long, I have waited for you.” His voice cracked, and he pointed toward the window, where the graveyard lay beyond the glass. “There. I stayed there, all these years. Close, so you wouldn’t be alone.”
Her eyes widened, tears spilling as her hand trembled on his cheek.
Mirel’s throat worked, a sound catching that wasn’t quite a sob.
Her hand was cool against his skin, a kindness so gentle it hurt.
He felt Kylix watching him from the doorway, and for a breath, he didn’t know if the heat in his chest came from love or fear.
“You came,” she said, wonder in the thin voice. “You both came.”
“Yes, Mama,” Cyprian said. “We’re here.”
She smiled faintly. “You’re home now,” she whispered.
Silence held. Three heartbeats measuring the room.
Lavender ghosted the air. Mirel pressed his forehead to her hand and let the warmth break him open.
He did not try to stop it. For a long while he only listened, to her breathing, to Cyprian’s quiet sniff beside him, to the low hum of machines.
The air carried the faint sweetness of lavender and heat.
He had never known silence could hold so much life.
When she drifted back to sleep, Cyprian kissed her brow. Mirel could not move for a moment.
Home. The word home followed them out like light.
Kylix and Moargan waited at the door, their voices low in quiet banter that faded the moment Mirel and Cyprian stepped out.
Moargan gave a small nod, the trace of a smile lingering before he took Cyprian’s hand in his and kissed his palm.
Kylix’s gaze found Mirel’s. He reached out briefly, his fingers brushing Mirel’s hand in a silent question, a fleeting softness.
Mirel clung to it, words cluttering in his throat.
Part of him wanted to be grateful for this moment.
He wouldn’t have had it had he still been in the graveyard.
Mirel lingered by the doorway, the hum of the machines still caught in his ears.
The scent of lavender and metal clung to his clothes.
He tried to hold onto the feeling of his mother’s hand, the weight of her voice, but memory already began to thin around the edges.
He turned once toward the window where frost had started to melt down the glass, each line slowing into a heartbeat of light.
For years he had watched this building from the graveyard and believed it unreachable, a world that belonged to others.
Now he had been inside, and it frightened him how small it was.
He pressed a palm to his chest, as if he could still feel her touch there, and the warmth that shouldn’t have been his.
But then Kylix withdrew and turned back to his cruel self. “We go now. The Imperial grows impatient.”
Mirel glanced up at him, the words scraping out. “Yes.”
As they stepped into the hall, Kylix’s hand brushed the small of Mirel’s back, barely there but enough to remind him who held the leash now. The touch was brief, claiming, a promise wrapped in heat. Mirel’s breath stuttered before he caught it again.
Outside, the day waited bright and cold.
The brightness hurt his eyes after the still white of the ward.
The air smelled of metal and dust. A faint breeze carried the trace of lavender from the open door, fading as they walked.
He told himself not to look back, but his body did anyway, drawn by instinct.
The hospital’s walls gleamed in sunlight, distant and unchanging, while the world inside him shifted slowly toward something that almost felt like belonging.