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Aslan wakes with a start, a name tearing itself from his lips before he can even know what he’s saying.
“Eiji!” he cries. He jolts upwards, but it hurts. Everything hurts. Why? What’s going on? And why did he yell Eiji’s name?
“Shh, kitten,” someone says. Griff? Griff calls him kitten. He looks around himself. No—Max. It’s Max. And they’re in a beat up cart, Max and Nahoko and him, but Nahoko is sleeping, and the cart is being pulled by a horse that was certainly stolen, and the castle is nowhere in sight, and—
It all comes back to him at once.
“Eiji!” he yells again. “Where’s Eiji?”
Max puts a hand on his shoulder. “Calm down first, Aslan. You’ll wake Nahoko. It’s okay. They won’t kill him. The Lees took him as their ward. They’ll keep him ... safe.”
But Aslan can tell that Max only means that word in the loosest definition possible.
“You left without him?” he demands. “We have to go back! Eiji!” Aslan all but jumps out of the wagon, but Max pulls him back. It hurts. “Let go of me!”
“They don’t care about killing you, Aslan. Eiji will be safe there. You will not.”
“I don’t care, I don’t care! We have to save him!” But he stops struggling, and feels hot tears start to pool in his eyes. “I have to save him ...”
“Aslan,” Max says, and his voice is soft. As soft as it is when Aslan gets hurt, but this is so much worse than a scraped knee or a fall into a freezing cold river. This is Eiji. It’s him leaving Eiji behind. “Aslan, listen to me. There’s nothing we can do now. We’re a day away from the capital already. We need to leave Unshuan territory. We can’t stay here. If we do, you, Nahoko, and I will be in danger too.”
Aslan shakes his head. “Eiji, Eiji ...” he whispers. Suddenly another thought hits him, and his eyes widen. “Where’s Griff?” he asks.
Max’s expression softens even more. Aslan sees tears collecting in Max’s own eyes, and nothing more really needs to be said. But Aslan can’t accept that answer.
“Max?” Aslan whispers. “Where’s my brother?”
Shaking his head, Max blinks back tears. His bottom lip quivers before he replies. “I’m so sorry, Aslan ...”
Horror rises in Aslan. His eyes widen further, burning hot. They wouldn’t have kept Griff alive. Not the commander of the Unshuan knights. There’s no way.
“Max?” he asks again. His voice is tight—higher than usual, strained beyond belief, and barely audible. “You mean ... I’ll never see them again? Eiji, and—and Griffin?”
“I’m sorry,” Max says again, and this time his tears fall. It takes Aslan a second to realize that his own are already streaming down his face. He’s horrified, and sad isn’t nearly a strong enough word, and he’s—he’s angry.
“Did you even try?” he demands, face contorting in a hundred different types of pain. He wants to lash out, to rip the tarp over them, or hit the floor of the cart or something, maybe even to hit Max himself.
“Oh, Aslan. There was nothing I could have done.”
“Did you even try?” he asks again. “I fought for Eiji. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t win! I fought for him! Did you fight for Griff, Max? Did you?”
“Aslan, please calm down. I had you to take care of—”
“That doesn’t matter!”
“And Nahoko,” Max finishes.
Oh, Aslan thinks. Nahoko. But at the cost of Eiji and Griffin? This isn’t—it’s not fair! Lives aren’t just numbers, and you can’t just trade them around or pick and choose which ones to keep. They should have saved everyone. They could have found a way, he knows, if—if they had just stayed and—and tried a little more and—
His crying turns into full sobbing. He doesn’t even care if Nahoko wakes up. She’s normally a light sleeper, but she’s slept through all of Aslan’s yelling so far. She must be as exhausted as he is.
It hurts. Everything hurts. He’s sore and dizzy—how much blood did he lose, anyway?—and everything everything hurts. His heart, too. He wonders how it can keep beating like this. It should have stopped yesterday, when he was bleeding out at the castle. And if not then, certainly when Griffin died. And after that ... Eiji ...
He feels sick to his stomach, and he can’t tell if it’s from how many times he was kicked or from the sheer horror of losing the two people who matter—mattered—most to him.
“Eiji,” Aslan sobs. “Griffin ...”
“Shh, Aslan, it’s okay,” Max says, though he’s crying too. “Come here.” He opens his arms, and as much as Aslan doesn’t want comfort from the man who abandoned Aslan’s brother and his betrothed, he does want comfort. So he reluctantly makes his way across the cart, tucking himself into Max’s arms. If he closes his eyes, he can almost pretend that he’s Griffin. But no, not quite. Max’s hold is a little too firm, pressing on his wounds a little too much. And his chest is a little too soft, and his shoulders are a little too broad. He doesn’t feel like Griffin.
And no one will, not ever again. Griffin is gone, and Eiji might as well be.
No, he—he can’t think that. Eiji is alive. He’s out there, somewhere. And if he’s a ward of the Lees, then maybe—it might be too much to hope for, but maybe—maybe he’ll be okay, in some sense of the word. Maybe he’ll be all right, even if Aslan never sees him again.
But that last thought just has Aslan crying harder.
“I miss them,” he sobs into Max’s shoulder. “I just found out and I already miss them so much, Max!”
“I know, kitten. I do, too.”
Kitten. Griff calls him kitten. Called him kitten. Used to call him kitten. Aslan doesn’t think he can get used to this, this past tense that Eiji and Griffin are now.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asks. “What am I supposed to do without them?”
“Just live, Aslan. That’s what they would have wanted for you. To live, and find another way to be happy.”
Happy? Without ever seeing the two most important people in the world to him ever again? It sounds impossible. Aslan has never ... never grieved before. Not like this. He grieves the loss of the flowers in autumn, after Eiji has kept them alive for Aslan as long as he can with his sunlight magic. But now the flowers will die a little sooner, without Eiji. The winter will be a little colder, without Eiji to steal blankets from and Griffin to hold him. He wonders if spring, if summer will ever really come again.
“What happened to Eiji’s parents? To the king and queen?” Aslan asks, trying to quiet his sobs.
“They’re ... probably going to be executed,” Max admits.
Aslan knew that would be the case, but it still hurts to hear it. Not for him, but for Eiji. Eiji, who lost everyone in a single day. At least Aslan still has Max and Nahoko.
He looks over to Nahoko. Her sleep seems fitful. She hasn’t cried out, but she’s been tossing and turning. Aslan wonders how much of Eiji’s sunlight magic she shares. If maybe she’ll keep the summers bright. If Max will keep the winters warm.
But it must be too early for those thoughts, because he can’t bring himself to believe them. Regardless of the weather, he feels like his heart will be iced over for a long time.
“Where are we going?” Aslan whispers.
“We’re leaving Unshu. Headed for Ecolisina. There are towns near the border. We need to find somewhere safe to hide. And you need to heal up, kitten. You’re hurt.”
Hurt in more ways than one, Aslan thinks, but not as bad as Eiji must be.
Griffin is dead.
Eiji is ... not. He’s not. Aslan will never see him again, but he’s out there, somewhere. Probably being taken away from Unshu. Probably being forced to speak a language he barely knows, to live a life that’s not his own. But he’s alive.
And if that’s all that Aslan focuses on, if he holds that in his heart ...
Maybe it’ll be enough to keep him going, for a little while.