Chapter 6
August has been carried exactly twice in his life before tonight.
The first time, he was seven. He'd broken his ankle falling out of a tree, and his mother had scooped him up and rushed him to the hospital before he'd fully registered the pain.
The second time, he was fourteen and had burned through too much magic trying to help a dozen spirits at once.
He'd staggered home and collapsed in the entryway, and his father had carried him to bed and begged him to stop.
Both times, it had been by someone he trusted. Someone who loved him without question.
This is almost exactly the opposite of that, and yet his body doesn't seem to know the difference.
Vale carries him through the Old City as though August weighs nothing, arms steady, stride sure, his body warm against August's side in a way that makes August's treacherous nervous system want to curl closer.
But Vale is essentially a stranger, someone August has known for a matter of hours and fought beside out of necessity rather than trust. They are natural enemies.
Twenty-four hours ago, this man was chasing him through these same streets with a sword and a clear intention to bring him in.
Now August doesn't know what to think. And everywhere they touch, Vale's arm beneath his legs, his hand against August's back, August's own hand resting over Vale's heart, the corruption recedes. The pain fades.
Last night in the graveyard, Vale's holy power had made August's skin prickle with warning, his magic recoiling instinctively. Now that same power is pouring into him, warm and impossibly gentle, and it is healing him.
It makes no sense. August has spent fourteen years understanding death magic, learning its rules, its costs, its immutable laws.
Holy magic destroys death magic. That's not a theory.
That's a fundamental truth. And yet here he is, cradled against the chest of a Templar, and instead of being incinerated, he's being put back together.
"That's it," August says quietly, nodding toward a narrow stairwell wedged between a shuttered bookshop and an apothecary. "Door's unlocked."
Vale's eyebrows rise. "You don't lock your door?"
"It's warded." August feels heat creep up his neck. "And no one besides a Templar would be stupid enough to break into a necromancer's home."
Vale makes a low sound that might be amusement, which is unexpected and does something inconvenient to August's pulse.
He doesn't argue. He carries August through the door and up the narrow staircase, following August's murmured directions to the third floor.
August tries to focus on navigating, but exhaustion is dragging at him.
He's been running on nothing for so long, always clawing forward, always pushing through, and the combination of the fight's aftermath and Vale's soothing warmth has stripped away every defense his body uses to keep going.
The adrenaline is gone. The pain is quiet. There's nothing left to prop him up.
"Third door," August manages, his voice sounding distant to his own ears. "The wards will let you—"
The world tilts. The edges go dark. He feels his fingers loosen on Vale's coat.
"August?"
Vale's voice comes from very far away. August tries to answer, tries to hold on, but his body has been demanding rest for days and he can't outrun it any longer. The last thing he feels is Vale's arms tightening around him, not restraining, just holding on, and then nothing.
***
Sunlight.
August wakes to golden bars of it streaming through familiar windows, painting faded white walls in warm afternoon light.
For a long moment he can only lie there, disoriented, as the world slowly reassembles around him.
He's in his own bed. His own room. The sheets smell of his laundry soap and the pillow is the flat, useless one he keeps meaning to replace.
Why is he in his apartment? The Order is more likely to find him here than anywhere, since the place is saturated with lingering death magic that he's never been able to fully suppress. He knows better than to make things easy for that Templar looking for him.
Vale. The Templar's name is Vale.
August sucks in a breath as the memories resurface in fragments.
The subway station. The rift tearing open in the wrong place.
Fighting alongside a Templar, alongside and not against, and then falling into his arms. The holy magic pouring into him.
Being carried through the streets of the Old City while the corruption melted under Vale's hands.
And then passing out. Right in Vale's arms. While being carried like a damsel in a penny novel.
Fantastic. Exactly the impression he wanted to make on the man who'd been hunting him twenty-four hours ago. Nothing says I'm a capable, independent necromancer quite like losing consciousness mid-sentence.
August sits up slowly, bracing for the familiar greeting of pain, the low, constant ache that has been his companion for fourteen years, the price of every spirit he's ever helped.
It's always there when he wakes. Always.
Some mornings it's a whisper. Most mornings it's a shout.
He's forgotten what it feels like to wake up without it.
It's not there.
Well, it's there technically. A faint pressure, a distant hum. But it's not screaming. It's not clawing. For the first time in longer than he can remember, the pain is background noise instead of the first thing he's aware of.
He looks down at his hands and his breath catches.
The black veins have faded dramatically.
They're still visible, thin grey lines tracing his palms and winding up his wrists, but nothing close to the dark web of corruption that had consumed him yesterday.
They look the way they did years ago, before things got bad.
Before the cost of his choices started writing itself across his body.
Vale's touch did this. The thing that felt most like a dream is somehow the part that's real.
When Vale caught him in the subway, when those hands closed around his arms, the holy magic hadn't burned.
It should have. Every piece of knowledge August has about the interaction between holy and death magic says it should have seared into him, should have left marks in the shape of Vale's hands.
Instead, Vale's energy had poured into him, warm and bright, seeking out every shadow with a tenderness that August has never experienced from another living person.
The corruption that has been his constant companion had simply yielded.
Melted away beneath Vale's fingertips, as if it had been waiting for permission to let go.
August has no idea what to do with that. He's spent years learning the rules, and this breaks every single one of them.
He pushes himself out of bed. His boots have been removed, placed neatly beside the bed, laces loosened, which is a detail that makes something complicated twist in his chest. The quiet thoughtfulness of someone unlacing a stranger's boots while he slept.
He's in the same clothes he's been wearing for two days otherwise.
He needs a shower and clean clothes desperately, but there's a prickling awareness at the back of his skull that won't let him relax, and he pads out into the main living space with socked feet and a hammering pulse.
Vale is sitting at his kitchen table.
August grabs the doorframe as the reality of it hits him.
There is a Templar in his apartment. One that he invited in himself, if memory serves, but there's a vast difference between remembering that and seeing it.
Between the abstract concept of I told a Templar where I live and the concrete reality of that Templar sitting in his kitchen, looking as though he belongs there.
Vale has cleared a workspace among the chaos of August's research.
The notes and maps that have been accumulating for weeks appear to have been organized, cross-referenced, and meticulously reviewed while August slept, which suggests the Templar is keeping his word about being genuinely interested in August's findings rather than building a case against him.
Either that, or he's building a very thorough case.
August chooses to believe the former, because the alternative is too exhausting to contemplate.
There's a teapot on the table. Two cups.
Vale has one in his hand, reading what looks like one of the lunar maps from August's bag.
He's taken off his grey Templar coat and left it with his sword by the front door.
In just his shirt and trousers, sleeves pushed to his forearms, settled comfortably in the space he's occupying, he looks less like a centuries-old holy warrior and more like just a man.
A ridiculously attractive man who has made himself at home in August's kitchen and figured out where he keeps the tea. August isn't sure whether to be charmed or alarmed, and the fact that he can't decide is probably an answer in itself.
Vale looks up as August enters, and August hates the way his whole body stiffens in response.
He hates the instinct, hates that he can't control it, hates that Vale can probably see it.
Fourteen years of survival instincts don't switch off because someone made you tea and unlaced your boots.
But Vale's expression softens rather than sharpens, and that's almost worse.
"You're awake." His voice is quieter than August expects. "How do you feel?"
"Better." August moves to the table, feeling out of place in his own home. His hands grip the back of the empty chair. "Did I— how long was I out?"
"It's nearly two in the afternoon." Vale nods toward the chair. "Sit. I made tea."