"I'm not planning to sit here idle waiting for you." August watches him pull on his coat and buckle it to his chin, the transformation from man back to Templar happening in real time. The softness goes first, then the ease, then the warmth, until what's left is the soldier August had first seen in the cemetery. The contrast is jarring. August isn't sure which version is the real one. He suspects the answer is both. "I have spirits to help."
"Far be it from me to tell you what to do." Vale finishes with his coat and reaches for his sword, and the last of the man disappears into the Templar. "But you should rest. We don't know what tonight looks like."
August stares at him. Vale's voice is flat, his expression giving away nothing, but underneath it August catches the shape of something the Templar is clearly unaccustomed to expressing. It's concern. Genuine, uncomfortable, probably unwelcome even to himself. The kind that a man like Vale would deny if confronted with it, because admitting you care about a necromancer's wellbeing is probably not covered in the Templar handbook.
August has been told to take care of himself before. He doesn't usually listen.
"You'll come back?" August asks. Then, because the man might need the reminder: "Alone?"
Vale's expression shifts. Just slightly, just enough. A softening that cracks through the armor he's just finished putting on, and August watches it happen with the helpless fascination of someone seeing something they know they shouldn't be seeing. "Yes. I'll be alone."
August blows out a breath. "Fine. I'll rest."
He gets one brief moment of seeing something close to relief cross Vale's face, something that confirms, beyond any remaining doubt, that the concern is real and that this completely unorthodox Templar is choosing to care about him in defiance of every rule that governs his existence. Then Vale grabs his sword and walks out the door.
August watches him go.
He tries not to think about how the apartment feels colder the moment Vale leaves. Tries not to think about the phantom warmth still lingering on his wrist where Vale's thumb had rested against his pulse. Tries not to think about what it means that, for the first time in years, the most dangerous thing in his life isn't the corruption. It's the growing, treacherous suspicion that he might be in over his head in a way that has to do with steady hands and a warmth he's already learning to crave.
He is in so much trouble.
Chapter 7
Vale is well aware he's breaking every rule the Order has ever written.
The protocols for handling practitioners of dark magic are unambiguous: immediate arrest, isolation, interrogation, trial. He has personally never brought a necromancer to trial, since they're uniformly too stubborn and too proud to surrender, and the encounters end the same way every time, but the principle stands. Necromancers are meant to be contained by any means necessary. Not consulted. Not collaborated with. And certainly not healed of their corruption and carried bridal-style through the streets of the Old City.
Then again, Vale has never been a strict follower of rules. He bends and breaks them as the mission requires, and the way he sees it, this is really no different.
He tells himself that while watching August study the warehouse from across the street, and almost believes it.
August looks better. Markedly better, now that he's eaten, showered, and changed into clothes that haven't been worn through two days of running and fighting. His dark hair is clean, falling across his forehead in a way that softens those sharp cheekbones, and the veins on his hands remain that pale grey, evidence that the healing touch accomplished something tangible. He's steadier on his feet. More present. The feverish, half-gone quality that had haunted him in the subway is muted now, replaced by a focus and clarity that makes it easier to see the person underneath the dying.
It also makes it considerably harder not to stare.
The black veins at his neck are the problem. They disappear beneath his collar, threading downward toward whatever origin point the corruption has claimed on his chest, and they're still dark. Still active. Vale finds his gaze drawn there more often than he'd like, tracking the lines, wondering how far they extend, thinking about what it would feel like to press his fingers against the column of August's throat and watch the corruption recede under his touch the way it had on his wrists. Thinking about the skin beneath August's shirt, tattooed and pale, and how much of it has been claimed by those dark veins, and how much of it might yield to Vale's hands if he were allowed to try.
He shakes his head. Focuses on the warehouse. He has never been distracted by a mage, and certainly never by a necromancer. But necromancers, in Vale's experience, are aging scholars with hollow eyes and grasping ambitions, and August is none of those things. August is vibrant and defiant and full of a stubborn, burning life that refuses to accept its own expiration date. Despite having a Templar willing to heal him with a touch, he insists on pushing through alone, and something about thatfierce self-reliance gets under Vale's skin in a way nothing has in a very long time.
"I can feel it from here," August says quietly. His hand presses against his chest and Vale catches the wince, involuntary, quickly suppressed. Even at this distance, the rift's energy is reaching for him. "It's smaller now, unstable, but still open. I can sense the undead inside."
Vale crosses his arms. "We've had it under guard for two days. The Templars on rotation are keeping the undead contained, but our resources are stretched thin between the rifts and every other piece of otherworldly activity in the city. Closing this one permanently would free up manpower we badly need. But we can't do it without a necromancer."
"That's because you can't close a rift from this side. Not permanently." August turns to look at him. "Someone has to cross through and disrupt the anchoring magic on the other side."
"Cross through." Vale's eyes narrow. "You mean go into the rift. Into the underworld."
"Just barely past the threshold. You'll probably still be able to see me through the opening." August turns back to the warehouse, his expression carefully neutral, as though he's delivering a technical briefing rather than explaining that he intends to step into the realm of the dead. "But yes. Someone with death magic has to enter the rift space and break the anchoring points to seal it."
Vale had assumed the Order couldn't close the rifts because they lacked the ability to interact with the tear itself, that it was a matter of magical compatibility. He hadn't considered that closing a rift required physically entering it. The idea of stepping across the veil, even a few feet, sits badly in his chest. That barrier exists for a reason. The living aren't welcome in the land of the dead, and the dead aren't shy about enforcing it.
August knows the consequences better than Vale does, which means he's already weighed the cost and decided to pay it anyway. But knowing what Vale knows about the corruption, how it accelerates with exposure, how every use of death magic shortens the time August has left, the thought of him voluntarily walking into a space saturated with death energy makes Vale's jaw tighten.
"How much will this cost you?" Vale asks. His mind is already running scenarios, most of them ending badly, and he doesn't like how many of them end with August on the floor. "And what happens if you get overwhelmed inside the rift? I can't cross the threshold to pull you out."
August's mouth sets in a firm line. "Your healing bought me more margin than I've had in years. I feel better than I have in a long time. I should be able to sustain significant exposure."
"You don't sound as certain as I'd like."
