***
They search for hours. Vale pulls books and scans indices while August works through the Old Script texts, slowly at first, then with increasing fluency that surprises Vale until he remembers that August has been stealing from university restricted sections for years and has probably taught himself halfthe dead languages in the building. Self-taught, self-directed, self-sustained. Everything August is, he built alone. The thought makes something in Vale's chest ache with complicated admiration.
The references to the Mortis Cabal are extensive but familiar. Rise to power. Conflict with the early Templars. Ultimate destruction. The official histories paint them as unchecked necromantic tyrants, power-hungry and cruel, brought down by righteous holy warriors. Standard.
But there are gaps. Inconsistencies. Things that don't add up when Vale cross-references them against what he knows of the Order's founding. Dates that don't align. Accounts that contradict each other. The narrative has been curated, and not subtly.
"Vale." August's voice is tight with discovery. "I think this is something."
Vale crosses to where August stands over a heavy tome open on the reading table. The text is Old Script, the formal language that predates the modern era, and Vale can read it well enough. He predates the modern era too.
"Here," August says, pointing. "The Cabal's primary artifacts. The Mortis Crown, granted the wearer dominion over death within a localized area. The Binding Chains, could anchor spirits to the material world, willing or otherwise. And this," his finger traces a passage, "the Soul Lens. Allowed the user to perceive through the veil permanently. To see death and the living simultaneously, without cost."
"All of which are in the Order's vault," Vale says.
"All of which Maren Voss spent years guarding." August looks up at him, and his grey eyes are sharp with understanding. "He doesn't just know what's in there. He's studied them. Probably for decades. He knows exactly which artifacts he needs and exactly what they'll do."
"The Crown," Vale says, following the logic. "If it grants dominion over death within a localized area—"
"Then it might negate the corruption. Make the cost of death magic irrelevant within its range." August's voice is quiet with the weight of it. "He doesn't just become immortal. He becomes a necromancer with unlimited power and no price. Every spell he casts, every undead he raises, every rift he opens, none of it touches him."
The silence that follows is the kind that accompanies the realization that things are worse than you thought. Which, in Vale's experience, happens with a frequency that suggests the universe has a sense of humor and it isn't a kind one.
"We need to document this." Vale turns the book toward the light. "Do you have a phone? Can you photograph the page?"
August produces a phone from his pocket that looks as though it's survived several near-death experiences of its own. He raises an eyebrow at Vale as he frames the shot. "Too old-fashioned to keep up with technology?"
"The last thing I need is to be more accessible. It's bad enough my partner can track me."
They keep searching. The hours unspool around them, the library silent except for the rustle of pages and the occasional murmured observation passed between shelves. Vale hadn't expected to find anything of real value, and the steady accumulation of useful fragments keeps them both longer than planned: ritual diagrams, Cabal organizational charts, references to artifacts that might still exist in the vault and whose capabilities the Order may not fully understand.
It's nearing two in the morning when Vale remembers there's a rift opening tomorrow night that they need to be prepared for.
He shelves the book he's been reading and rounds the corner of the aisle to find August.
August is standing at the end of the row, one hand gripping the shelf in front of him, the other pressed against his chest. He's shivering, a fine, continuous tremor that runs through his frame, and even in the low light Vale can see the tension in his jaw, the carefully controlled breathing of someone managing pain they don't want to show.
The corruption has been rebuilding all night. Hours of research without contact, the healing slowly losing ground, the familiar ache reasserting itself one degree at a time until it's become a problem August can no longer hide behind focus and adrenaline.
"How long?" Vale asks quietly.
August's jaw tightens. "A while."
"And you didn't say anything."
"You were reading. I was managing."
"You were suffering in silence three aisles away because you're too stubborn to—" Vale stops himself. Takes a breath. Arguing about August's self-destructive stoicism is a battle he's going to be fighting for as long as he knows this man, and right now it's beside the point.
He pulls a reading chair away from the nearest table and sits down. The chair is old and deep-seated, the kind designed for scholars to spend hours in. Vale settles into it, legs apart, and looks up at August.
"Come here," he says.
August stares at him. His hand is still pressed to his chest, his breathing carefully measured, and Vale can see the internal war playing out behind his eyes: the pride, the self-preservation, the refusal to need anyone, all fighting against the simple, devastating fact that he's in pain and Vale can make it stop.
August comes to him.
He steps between Vale's knees, close enough that his legs press against the inside of Vale's thighs, and Vale has to lock downevery nerve in his body because this position, in this low light, in this silence, is doing things to his composure that have nothing to do with healing. August is looking down at him with those storm-grey eyes, uncertain and wanting and trying so hard not to show either.
