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"Laurent!"
He'd seen this before. He'd been here before.
"Laurent!"
He knew the sights of it, the smells. The slip of trampled grass under his feet.
"Laurent!"
The hoarse call of a raven, landing heavily on a starburst marred with red, turning to regard him with one beady eye.
"Laurent!" Damen called again, but his voice sounded small and thin in the huge, empty expanse of the battlefield.
He'd done this before, a thousand times, thrashing against bedsheets soaked with his sweat, jerking away from the cool touch of pale hands, fighting to take a breath. He would walk forever, he knew, call out until his throat was bloody. There would be no end to it.
No. This wasn't a dream. He'd seen this happen, had watched it unfold before him, opening and opening again like a puzzle-box. Ugly rumors becoming ugly truths. Pacing angrily in his room, fists clenched. Laurent's rigid shoulders and tightly folded mouth as he wrote letter after letter, gathering as much information as he could.
Jokaste's armies, headed by a Prince of the far North, were already massing on Arles in the name of the true King of Akielos. A child Damen had once thought could have been his, one he'd never seen, and whose name even now he couldn't bear to allow himself to know.
Damianos had been killed in a coup organized by the then-Regent of Vere, the rumors had said. Those same assassins had later come for Kastor, after a long and bloody campaign in which an imposter had surfaced, claiming to be the fallen Prince. All knew he was nothing more than a Veretian palace slave, the young Prince Laurent's bedmate. All knew that Kastor had been murdered in the slave baths following the taking of his palace at Ios so that he could not cry treachery. All knew that the man who now sat the throne at Ios was little more than Vere's puppet and catamite.
A wild tale, and a flimsy excuse for a war, Damen knew. But it was enough for the Kyroi of the South who had prospered under Kastor's rule, and certainly more than enough for the remains of the Regent's factions at court in Arles. Vere and Akielos' shaky alliance was about to dissolve into a civil war. Jokaste had to be stopped, and quickly, her lies exposed, before Damen and Laurent found themselves trapped between the pincers of two enemies united in the common cause of their deaths.
Damen knew all this. He'd pored over the maps with Laurent, organized supply lines, favors and troops called in from Vask and Patras.
Just now, he didn't care. He didn't care about any of it. Jokaste, the baby, their kingdoms, the other dead he stepped over in his search. Jord and Nikandros following along silently, a good distance away.
"LAURENT!" Damen roared, voice cracking. The raven flew off, cawing.
He'd been walking the battlefield, straining his eyes in the bright sunlight, looking for the telltale flash of blond hair. At first, he'd fully expected to find Laurent sitting his horse in the middle of a pile of bodies, not a single hair out of place nor splatter on his armor, smirking and waiting for Damen to find him.
That had been hours ago. Pallas, who had been following them up until then, had been sent back to camp to await an official order of ransom, or at least some sort of sign that Laurent had been taken hostage. But then Nikandros had called out that he'd found the body of the Northern Prince, half buried under two men wearing his colors, still curled around the sticky bulge of his exposed intestines. True to form, Laurent had gone straight for the point of the attack. Certainly the tide of battle had turned in their favor after that: there were seventy-eight prisoners shackled together some ways from the camp to attest to that.
Several yards from where the Northern Prince lay, Damen spotted a flutter of blue, incongruous against the red and brown of the churned earth. He came across the dead hulk of Laurent's horse, limbs hopelessly tangled, already bloating in the sun.
They'd taken him, then. Someone had taken him, pulled him off of his horse, struggling, cursing, and he'd have known then that if their Prince had been killed then there was no reason to keep him alive, no reason to bring him down except for vengeance, and he'd have fought for his life but they'd taken him, would have shoved him down in the mud and taken his head--
"Damen."
--filthy gauntlet fisted in his yellow hair, yanking it back to expose the creamy skin of his throat--
"Damen!"
--and then the blade cutting in, sawing, that first gout of blood splattering down to the earth--
"Damianos!"
Damen whirled.
"It's Enguerran." Nikandros was panting; Damen wasn't sure how long the man had been calling his name.
Things began to slowly come back into focus, only to threaten to scatter again when he saw the body splayed out on the earth. There were others, of course, but the guard captain's armor was unmistakable, even smeared with mud. He had been laying half on his side, the pike lodged in between the chinks of his armor having kept him from rolling onto his belly. The ravens had already been at work here, to say nothing of the flies.
Damen stood back, heart pounding, stomach churning, mind still reeling with images of Laurent's head held triumphantly aloft as Nicaise's had been, his eyes blank, mouth hanging ajar. He watched as Jord and Nikandros turned Enguerran onto his back, the body moving stiffly. There was someone underneath him, having been pressed into the mud by the captain's weight.
It wasn't Laurent. Damen wanted to laugh. It wasn't Laurent, despite the starburst on his armor, despite the familiar lines of his lithe body and the well-made sword still clutched in one hand. Jord stepped forward, shouting something, and Nikandros had moved very quickly to hold Damen back, which didn't matter, it didn't matter in the least, because Laurent was blond and this man's hair was unmistakably blood red, curling in sticky strands against the curve of his white cheek.
"Damen," Nikandros was saying urgently, "Damen, look at me--"
He had laid his hand against that cheek, last night. He had felt the fine curls of that hair between his fingers.
"--Damianos--"
And had been called that, his name coming sweetly on the end of a sigh, their breath mingling, their bodies intertwined.
Jord looked up, face white. "He's alive!"
Damen went to his knees.
[--------]
"Have you slept?"
Damen didn't look up. His shoulders and back sang with tension; his knees were raw from kneeling on the tile floor beside Laurent's bed for so long. How long, he couldn't quite recall: only that he had remained there, unmoving, watching the shallow rise and fall of Laurent's chest as the world spun on around him.
It was Nikandros, of course, the only man brave enough to approach Damen in the past several days. "Damen. Isander--"
"I thought I told you to get out," Damen said lowly, eyes still on Laurent.
"And I'd have stayed out, if the little slave hadn't tattled that you'd been refusing meals."
Damen said nothing. He'd become good at ignoring people; he found that if he remained silent long enough, eventually he would be left alone. Only Isander had stayed, and he knew better than to disturb Damen or his silent vigil. He supposed that, after several months in Laurent's service, Isander had become good at being ignored.
"Damen." Nikandros had come closer. "Pachal has done what he can." A gentle voice. Pitying. Damen felt anger boiling up inside of him, almost enough to make him get up. "He wouldn't want this for you, going without food and sleep. You haven't even-- you're still covered in blood, Damen--"
"I won't," Damen said evenly, "leave here. I will be here when he wakes."
Nikandros' silence said, if he wakes.
"And you can do little to convince me otherwise," Damen finished. "So if you'd be so kind as to waste your breath somewhere else."
Nikandros withdrew. Damen let out a slow breath, reaching foward to brush his fingers against Laurent's still face.
The swelling had been bad, when Laurent had been carried back to camp on a litter with Damen staggering alongside it. And there had been blood, so much of it that it had soaked through Laurent's hair and down his shirt and jacket beneath the armor.
Damen thought the wound would look better after it had been cleaned, and was sure that Laurent would wake to the touch of cool water on his face, and was proven wrong on both counts. Laurent had lain still, looking very pale and very young, while Pachal cleaned some of the caked blood away from the side of his face. Nikandros had stood beside Damen, one hand firmly gripping his arm.
A blow to the head, Pachal had proclaimed, hard enough to crack bone. With a morningstar or mace, scarcely an inch below his temple. It had nearly been a fatal blow, "though that remains to be seen," Pachal had said, and Nikandros' fingers had tightened around Damen's bicep before he could step forward.
A gash underneath his right eye, from his ear nearly to his nose, was where most of the blood had come from. It was an ugly wound, jagged and torn, difficult to close. Someone might have said something about Laurent's lovely face, ruined in an instant. No one did.
They'd moved Laurent to his old chambers at Arles, then, and a gaggle of very nervous servants had come to drag the armor off of Laurent's body, and to wash most of the blood from his yellow hair.
Nikandros had gone; Damen had been alone with Laurent for hardly ten minutes before people had started streaming in. Conselors, courtiers, pets: everyone seemed to have some business that involved coming to lay eyes on the wounded prince. Damen, relying on not only his authority as a King but on his reputation as a very violent and agressive slave, had snarled them out of the room.
It wasn't until a troupe of healers came in to prod at Laurent and talk of bleeding him to cleanse the toxins from his body and Damen had drawn steel on them that someone had ordered guards put on the door so that they wouldn't be disturbed. Only Isander was allowed to slip in and out, bringing trays of food, clearing away clutter and, Damen realized now, keeping Nikandros informed. He found he didn't care. He cared for very little at the moment.
And of course, it was Isander who returned a few hours after Nikandros left, leading two servants carrying a steaming tub of water between them. The servants were careful to stay silent, keeping their heads down. Isander was carrying a pile of towels and clear glass bottles of soaps and lotions, which he set to one side of the tub. A shuffle against the tile told Damen the boy had prostrated himself again.
"Exalted," Isander said.
Damen ignored him.
"If it would please you, this slave would be honored to attend you."
"Did Nikandros send you?"
"This slave is not worthy of the Kyros' attentions, nor his kindnesses. I am pleased to serve him."
"And act as his spy, I suppose."
Months ago, Isander might have faltered at Damen's tone. Time in the service of the Kings had changed him; he no longer cowered away so easily in the face of aggression. In a different time, Damen might have admired that. "I've brought the tub near to the bed," Isander went on. "So that you will not break your vigil." Softer, he added, "You need not even turn away."
Damen didn't move. He heard the soft shifting of cloth as Isander stood, the pad of bare feet on stone as he approached. Then, Isander's hand against Damen's arm. It was perhaps the boldness of that touch, when few others would even dare to approach him, that brought Damen to his feet.
He stood, eyes still on Laurent, as Isander undressed him. He'd discarded his armor that first day, but still wore the padding beneath it, stained with sweat and dirt and stinking of blood and horse and his own body. He'd worn Veretian clothing beneath it, to show the strength of the alliance between the two countries. Isander's nimble fingers undid the laces, though he strained to reach the highest ones at the nape of Damen's neck. The jacket and thin Veretian shirt were peeled off of him and discarded, and Damen had the sense to feel ashamed at how filthy they were. Isander simply dumped the clothing in a smelly pile by the door, along with the pants, boots, and undergarments.
Naked, Damen could feel clearly the places where his clothing had pressed too tightly against his skin, the creases where sweat had pooled and dried. On his neck, where the collar of his jacket had been, his skin was gritty with road dust. He started to smile, thinking of Laurent's reaction to the state he was in, but the thought was like a stab in the gut.
Isander touched him again, taking Damen's arm and guiding him backwards, step by step, until Damen felt the edge of the tub against the backs of his knees. He steadied himself on Isander's shoulder as he stepped into the water, feeling at once the sting of the heat against his skin and the trembling of the boy's body as he strained to take Damen's weight. The water sloshed as he settled into the tub, already beginning to turn brown.
And so he sat, eyes always on Laurent, as Isander worked all around him, scrubbing off days of pain, of anguish, of waiting. He did it in blessed silence, careful to never obstruct Damen's view of the bed. When the washing was done, he once again took Damen's weight on his shoulder to help him up, then let him stand, water dripping down his legs, while he toweled him off and spread lotion over irritated skin.
A chiton was wrapped around him, soft and loose, pinned at both shoulders and secured at the waist. For his feet, soft shoes of the kind that Veretians sometimes wore about their chambers when shining, knee-high boots weren't appropriate. Once finished, Isander left him standing there for a moment, then returned to take Damen's arm, guiding him forward to the bed again and then down beside it, to kneel as he had been. Instead of hard tile, Damen felt a cushion, cool silk and thick padding a blessing to his knees.
It was while Isander was pulling a comb through Damen's hair, scented with oil, that Damen finally began to feel his eyelids droop. He snapped upright, shaking his head, dislodging Isander's comb and sending it skittering across the floor. Isander went to retrieve it wordlessly, but a few moments later, Damen's head was nodding forward again. He clenched his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms, determined to stay awake.
"Exalted," Isander began.
"I'm not going," Damen snapped. "If this was your plan, to get me to leave him and go to sleep, it isn't going to work. And you can tell Nikandros--"
"If you lay your head down," Isander said, "I will keep watch for you."
"If something changes, I--"
"I will remain here," Isander promised. "I will look nowhere but at him. As you have done, Exalted." This said, he set the comb aside, kneeling down beside Damen on the tiled floor.
Damen hesitated for several long moments. The days had been too long, his body pushed to its limit in battle and then further in the long hours afterward. He hadn't recalled that he had slept since the battle, other than the weary unfocusing of his eyes in the deepest part of the night. Sleep would come to claim him, whether he wanted it to or not.
"If he wakes," Damen said.
"In that instant, you shall know," Isander said. "This slave is more than honored to serve you in this way."
Damen reached out to take Laurent's hand, clasping it in his, then lifting it to his cheek, letting his eyes sag shut. He lay his head down beside Laurent's hip, feeling sleep rushing up to envelop him.
[--------]
"Exalted."
"Mm."
"Exalted. Please. Damianos."
Damen lifted his head, feeling sticky and groggy. He'd had a nightmare, he thought. The same he'd been having for months, wandering the battlefield calling for Laurent. And then, a peculiarly soothing dream about being bathed by Isander.
"Damianos," Isander said again. Damen looked over at him, confused at the slave's use of his first name. Isander, despite his wide-eyed alarm, blushed. "Exalted, he wakes," he said, and reality came crashing back down Damen in an agonizing rush.
Laurent was stirring, his lips pursing, brow furrowing as he struggled toward consciousness. Damen was on him in a second, brushing his hair back, stroking his unbruised cheek. "Laurent," he breathed. "Laurent. Wake up."
Laurent's brow relaxed. His mouth opened slightly, taking in a shallow breath as his eyelashes fluttered. "...Auguste...?"
Damen's heart seemed to turn over in his chest. "No. No, it's me, it's Damen."
"Damen," Laurent echoed softly, then, "Damen. Damen."
Only one eye would open; the other was still swollen shut, underlined by the row of stitches along his wound. He turned his head slightly, then went white with pain, the lines of his face going taut for a moment. "My head," he said, his words oddly softened, as if even the syllables moving past his teeth hurt. "I thought..."
"I love you," Damen choked, holding Laurent's hand to his cheek again. "Laurent. I love you."
"Damen," Laurent said fuzzily, "I am... unused to being so wrong about so many things, all at once."
Damen shook his head, laughing, tears coursing down his cheeks. "What are you talking about?"
"I was sure I had died," Laurent said, struggling to focus on him. "I thought Auguste had come to guide me home."
[--------]
Laurent's healing took months, against all his best efforts to make things move along more quickly. He attacked his own recovery as he would attack everything else, each day pushing himself to his limit and then past it. Any other man would have been abed for weeks, but Damen watched in awe as, only three days after waking, Laurent hauled himself out of bed, took four steps, then staggered sideways into a table, going down on his knees. Damen had rushed to help, only to be waved away. A moment later and Laurent was on his feet again, picking his way more carefully across the tile and to his wardrobe.
He did still let Damen dress him, for old times' sake.
There were some setbacks, which Laurent handled calmly and smoothly in public and roundly cursed in private. Despite Pachal's best efforts and best salves, the scar marring Laurent's left cheek stood out plainly against his pale complexion. Damen caught him looking at it in a mirror one evening, running his fingers over the pink ridge of skin. He came to put his arms around Laurent's waist, resting his chin on the man's shoulder.
"You must think me monstrous," Laurent had said faintly, avoiding his eyes.
"Laurent." Damen kissed his cheek. "You tried to have me flogged to death, and I still pursued you. Do you think this little blemish is going to put me off?"
Laurent's lips twitched upwards, but only briefly. "I've been told it may not be as... obvious. As I grow older."
"Then it's a good thing you have the luxury of growing older," Damen said in his ear. "Come to bed."
There were other issues, as well. Laurent suffered from dizzy spells, sometimes several times a day, though they came more frequently when he overworked himself. He hid them masterfully, but Damen would watch Laurent rise from his seat, then stand and chat amiably with a courtier while his hand held the back of the chair in a white-knuckle grip. They were lucky that the first of Laurent's falling fits happened in their room, just as Pachal had arrived for a check-up. The second, Damen and Laurent weathered alone in a quiet corridor, Laurent's jaw and fists clenched as his body jerked and twitched. Like the dizzy spells, however, Laurent's fits seemed to lessen as time dragged on.
He never did fully regain sight in his left eye. Damen had feared it would affect Laurent's swordsmanship, and it did: Laurent was twice as cold and three times as vicious against opponents who attempted to use his disability to their advantage. Those who pitied him for it he gave even less quarter.
Isander remained in service to his Kings. Damen, for his part, honored him in as many ways as he could, which resulted in a great deal of blushing, stammered denials of his worthiness and, one warm summer night, the joint thanks of both Damen and Laurent which left Isander glassy-eyed and panting with exertion for some time after.
Lady Jokaste, having been roundly defeated at Arles, vanished with her would-be princeling into the forests of the far North. Damen and Laurent spoke little of her to each other, nor of what she'd tried to do and how it had nearly undone all they had accomplished together. Damen knew better than to think Laurent would allow Jokaste to go unpunished again, and nor did he think that all was quiet in the North just because he himself had not had news of her.
A year after the battle, Laurent received a message, rolled tightly and sealed with wax. He'd opened at the desk in their room, sat reading it for a moment, then stood and tossed the missive into the fire before coming to press himself against Damen, standing still in the circle of his arms. He'd sighed out, a sigh of relief, of ending, and that night had slept as sweetly and deeply as Damen had ever seen him.
Damen still dreamt, sometimes, of walking a battlefield, though now he did it with Laurent at his side. And when Auguste appeared, smiling and beckoning, Damen drove him off on the point of his sword.