Chapter Text
Even with the whisper of the Final Days coursing around all of Eorzea, life does go on somewhat as usual. Ishgard has ever stood fast in the face of constant peril, after all, with suffering the surest mortar to bind her people together.
Like all others who call the Holy See home, Aymeric had been born inheritor to a millennium-long war from which there seemed no true hope of peace. The threat of looming annihilation is no stranger here. Indeed, it had chiseled itself into Aymeric young, as it surely had every Ishgardian before or after him—and as surely as the raking claw marks that still scar the edifices of ancient greystone spires.
Even a year removed from the end of the Dragonsong War, such grim inclination remains. By habit, Aymeric still catches himself scanning the skies for the distant silhouettes of beating wings; he hunts the clouds for shadows lurking within them, breaking free of the mist. He still wrests himself awake from nightmares born of decades old memories, bathed in Coerthan-cold sweat.
And amid reminders of horrors new and old, he still wakes, still works, and still attends official meetings that could have been simple missives.
It is easier to persevere this way, truthfully. If Aymeric cannot be there, at the front line with his dearest compatriots, then he must endeavor to do his utmost here, for Ishgard, while the Warrior of Light confronts this newest peril on their world’s behalf.
And they shall succeed. In that, Aymeric’s faith does not waver, his conviction surer than the ancient foundations he stands upon. The Warrior of Light and the Scions have done much and more for Ishgard and lands beyond it, and even the Final Days will not come to pass whilst they guard this star.
Especially with Estinien now among their number.
Though this afternoon’s parliament session ran long—well past the hour when Foundation’s street lanterns were lit and its shops closed their doors for the night—Aymeric does not lack for work to bring home with him. There is the eerie tower risen in the Dravanian Forelands to contend with, after all, and thank the Fury that they can now count on allies like Vidofnir in monitoring it. There are knights to train and make ready for the next inevitable confrontation, rations allotted and armor smithed, logistics to be discussed with their allies in Eorzea and across the sea. With an escort of two temple knights flanking either side of him, Aymeric carries home a leather satchel stuffed full of papers that demand his attention and his signature, parcels of letters both urgent and mundane, and even a revised volume on canon law that the Scholasticate means for him to weigh in on for some reason?
He cannot complain, though. After years of pulling at the yoke of tradition and Ishgard’s strict policy of isolationism, stifled under the weight of a thousand years of most stringent orthodoxy, his homeland is changing—and for the better. That his efforts and grueling hours lead to meaningful results is encouragement enough, and Aymeric will not let himself sit idle while the iron is hot and there is progress to be made.
House Borel’s lone servant, Michault, already has supper waiting on the desk of Aymeric’s study when he arrives with heavy satchel in hand.
He reads as he chews braised venison and pens notes in between bites of silky potatoes. The steady scratch of silver-tipped pen across finely pressed paper could almost be called soothing, were it not for the weight of the words he writes—their recent losses at the Cartenau Flats, his skin-crawling witness to the tempered at Pag’lathan, and the pressing need to prepare the city once more for a battle that could very well arrive at their doorstep.
Another sheaf of documents soon takes the place of his half-finished plate and in spite of himself, Aymeric cannot help but sigh.
Even prior to the recent elections that cemented him as a fixture of their nascent governing body, Aymeric had been no stranger to long hours of grueling paperwork. Now, what had once been a perpetual-yet-manageable snowdrift—with Lucia and Handeloup’s stalwart aid, of course—is more like an avalanche.
On top of the usual requisitions and reports from his Knights Most Heavenly, there are petitions. Many of them. Proposals for everything from a review of the Church’s tax code to a square in the Firmaments dedicated to the late Lord Haurchefant. Drafts of new legislature, to be annotated and revised and rewritten, worked over until both houses of representatives find agreement. Formal complaints lodged by a number of highly orthodox priests, missives from other heads of state, invitations to lavish dinners and fine parties thrown by minor lords and ladies hoping to curry favor.
Aymeric works steadily through the stack, incapable of shirking even the most frivolous of letters. He dutifully pens answers and affixes his signature where needed, until his wrist aches and the blazing fire in the hearth has died down to ash and skeletal embers. And in a moment’s pause, Aymeric’s thoughts inevitably slip somewhere far, far from Ishgard, to someone who stands even more out of reach than usual.
Borel Manor sits heavier and quieter for lack of Estinien’s unannounced visits. Where he is at this moment, Aymeric cannot say—after leaving him in the care of the Scions at the Rising Stones, he has heard nary a word from the man.
But such is his nature. Estinien has always been given to wander according to his own whims, and Aymeric has always been given to worry. And, one day, perhaps he will grow used to the absence of him.
The dimly lit study steadily grows colder as Aymeric pens one last letter for the night, all other distraction having failed.
Dearest Estinien,
I do hope this letter finds you well, and I am counting upon one Tataru Taru to ensure that it finds you in the first place.
There are many greetings to be given in the hopes they will be passed along—to their mutual friend in the Warrior of Light, to young Alphinaud, to the rest of the Scions. As the words spill across the paper, his flowing, well-trained script gives way to something slightly looser. The hour is late, his writing hand is tired, and Estinien cannot rightly judge Aymeric for a few scribbled letters here and there when what few reports he provided as the Captain of the Knights Dragoon often came blood-smeared and nigh illegible.
He fills a further two pages with news of Ishgard, knowing full well that no matter how far Estinien roams, his homeland remains ever near to his heart: their completion of the Firmament and Empyreum, the promising changes among the nobility, the tenuous resettling of previously abandoned swathes of Coerthas, the good work Ser Heustienne has done to regather and rebuild the dragoons' ranks. The hearth is completely dark by the time Aymeric finishes writing out the last few lines.
Should time and circumstance allow, I would very much appreciate anything in the way of a response from you. And even should you keep your silence, as is your wont, know that I am thinking of you and praying for your safekeeping, always.
Your faithful and affectionate friend,
Aymeric
He stares at the ink as it dries, mulling over the words on the page. Where it concerns Estinien, they never seem quite enough.
Nimble fingers fold the letter within protective vellum and secure it with a length of thin silvery cord, carefully and artfully knotted. With a sigh, Aymeric holds a delicate stick of Borel-blue wax to the flame of a candle and coaxes it to melt. The blue gleams as it warms and drips, forming a glossy pool atop the corded knot. Before it cools, Aymeric gently presses it with a heavy silver seal—the crest of House Borel rather than that of his office as lord commander, as the nature of this letter is decidedly personal.
He will see to it that the letter is sent to Tataru first thing in the morning, trusting her to ensure it reaches Estinien’s hands. It is a far simpler thing now, having that uncannily resourceful woman keeping an eye on Estinien; in years past, he’d often had to track down other dragoons and charge them with delivering mail to their most elusive captain.
The halls are still and deathly quiet as he at last retires to his bedchambers. Michault likely went to bed hours ago, leaving none but Aymeric’s own feet to tread down unlit halls lined with the portraits of Borels of ages past. The solitude is a blessing at times, having no one to see nor scold him for working himself to such a dreadfully late hour.
Excepting Ser Petalpaws, of course.
The cat pauses in her grooming to level Aymeric with a perturbed, judgmental stare, though it gives way soon enough to a low purr and a soft blink. After a long stretch, she trades her perch atop a footstool for the velvety blankets at the foot of Aymeric’s bed, thick tail swishing impatiently while he changes into a nightgown.
“Yes, yes,” Aymeric gently shushes as Ser Petalpaws gives a meow of complaint. He scratches behind her ear and then rubs a crooked finger under her jaw, smiling as the often-cantankerous cat leans into the touch. “You need not have waited for me, you know.”
It is only once he settles under the down-stuffed covers that Ser Petalpaws, now satisfied, curls up to sleep. And Aymeric, too weary to think at all—much less worry or want or wish—falls to slumber shortly after.
The Dusk Vigil hums with voices and footsteps on stone, every sound echoing through its vaulted, tapestry-lined halls. The bells of St. Guenriol’s chapel sound out the evening hour, marking the changing of shifts and reminding all to feed the fires burning in the great hearths of every room.
On the narrow, wool-blanketed mattress of his bunk, Aymeric sits and runs his fingers over his newly issued suit of chainmail armor, feeling out its hundreds of interlocked links for breaks, for rust, for remainders.
There is little waste and much want among the ranks of the Temple Knights, especially this far from the walls of Ishgard. It is not uncommon for armor to be salvaged from the battlefield—from the unknowing and unfeeling dead of lower rank—and put back into use, and often with minimal repairs.
And this chainmail still bears the mortal scars procured by its last occupant, it would seem. The tips of three broken teeth, each just under an ilm long, sit lodged within the mail; the links surrounding them are bent and broken, though clearly not damaged enough to concern the quartermaster who had issued it to him.
Donning his most worn gloves, Aymeric pinches around the teeth one by one and carefully pries them from the armor. By the set and spread of them, he can almost picture how the bite must have landed—over the shoulder, fangs crushing in over brittle ribs and struggling lungs. So distracted is he by the thought that he knicks his thumb on the edge of one broken tooth as he pulls it loose, blood quickly welling up before seeping into the edges of the tear in his glove. With a thin hiss, Aymeric pulls his hand free and winds his handkerchief around his thumb to stymie the bleeding.
The movement draws attention—the unwanted sort, which unfortunately comprises much of what Aymeric receives. At the far end of the barracks, a handful of knights from his cohort pause in their boisterous chatter and collectively glance his way.
Fury preserve me. Aymeric returns to the work at hand, nevermind the aching slice across the pad of his thumb, and hopes their interest is only passing.
A few moments pass before metallic footsteps ring down the narrow aisle of the Vigil’s barracks, louder as they approach, putting an end to any such wishful thinking.
“Oh, dear,” says a drawling voice dripping with false sympathy. “Ser Aymeric, surely there is someone more suited to such a banal task than a man of your breeding.”
“‘Tis nothing I cannot handle, but I thank you for your concern.” Or the mocking imitation of it, at any rate. He glances up as a broad shadow crawls across his bunk and blocks the light he’d been working with, now resigned to this interaction. “May I help you, Ser Belgrisois?”
The smile Ser Belgrisois Legrand wears sits too broad and insincere upon his lips. Whatever thin veneer of polite interest it is supposed to offer never reaches his eyes, their vivid green alight with some keen amusement which Aymeric is not privy to. His bulk is reinforced by the three other knights with ties to House Dzemael arrayed around him, all of them wearing matching grins. And, with a quick look over his shoulder at the loyal men backing him up, Belgrisois tucks a length of blond hair behind one ear, braces a hand on the stout bedpost, and leans over Aymeric.
“I should hope so, Borel. You see, a few of the resident garrison knight-officers bid me the responsibility of ensuring none among our cohort is in possession of any… contraband,” he says, gaze sliding from Aymeric to the neatly packed rucksack sitting at the end of his bed. “And I could not help but recall that you received quite a substantial package in this afternoon’s delivery of post.”
“‘Twas an early Starlight gift from home.” A home which feels particularly far away, here at the far-flung edges of Coerthas’ heartlands and so, so close to Dravanian strongholds. Predictably, Belgrisois appears unmoved. “As I recall, I was not alone in—”
“Shall I fetch the knight-sergeant?” Belgrisois cuts in, putting his face inches from Aymeric’s nose. The curl at the corner of his mouth is goading, as if he’d like nothing more than to drag Aymeric up before one of the knight-officers deferential to his family's house. “And have him explain it to you? Times are lean, Ser Aymeric. And while your brother knights make do with porridge and stew, you have yourself a personal stash of...”
With a wave of two fingers, the other knights take Aymeric’s pack and dump it over, shaking out half the contents onto the bed.
“Ah, marron glace,” Belgrisois drawls, taking a small, white-papered box in hand and picking at the lacy ribbon woven around it. “What an indulgence.”
Nerve-prickling heat builds under Aymeric’s skin at the sight of a gift his ailing mother had sent him being so carelessly handled. Vultures would offend him less, in truth.
“And that is not all, is it?” Between the pawing hands of Belgrisois and his eager lackeys, they quickly find a heavy satchel of tea and a sizeable parcel in decorative paper amid Aymeric’s disheveled clothing; before his eyes, Belgrisois undoes the parcel’s twine and peels back the waxed parchment to smell the sweet, fruit-studded, brandy-soaked bread within. “A fruit cake and Fury’s Grace tea leaves. Lord and Lady Borel certainly do spoil you as if you were one of their own.”
“For I am, aye,” Aymeric responds in near reflex, voice at an even keel despite the clench of his hands around chainmail and the itch to act. “And Starlight is a season of generosity, is it not?”
“So it is.” Belgrisois hefts the cake in one hand, as proud as if he'd won it. “So consider this a contribution to the garrison pantry, Ser Aymeric. We all must make sacrifices for the cause, no? Lords and lowborn and… those who dither somewhere between,” he adds, nose wrinkling.
“By all means, then.” Aymeric exhales slowly through his nose and calms himself, knowing there is naught to be gained in lashing out. Even if Belgrisois is only a lesser son of a High House, the product of some branch well out of line for succession, he holds enough sway here to make the rest of Aymeric’s assignment pure misery. “Take the confections and see that they’re fairly distributed to our brother and sister knights, if the knight-officers deem it so necessary.”
Belgrisois smirks as he straightens up, plainly satisfied to have gotten his way—and gotten under Aymeric’s skin as well. His smile is white and sharp, and his voice gloating. “Ah, you are a reasonable man. And, in the spirit of Starlight, I see no reason to report any of this to our superiors.”
“To report what?”
The low, steeled voice is accompanied by the swift and purposeful steps of a knight in full armor—one who clearly did not see the pack of knights gathered around Aymeric's bunk and decide to return later, as all other passersby had. Aymeric has to straighten up and peer between Belgrisois and Ser Mortedair to catch a glimpse, although he already has a sizable suspicion of who it is.
Ser Estinien casts a rather long shadow for one of smaller stature, wiry lean even under layers of padded plate and snow-dusted chainmail. Sharp eyes sweep the barracks room as swiftly as they might survey a battlefield, lingering over Aymeric just a second longer than the rest.
Belgrisois turns on his heel to answer, any pretense of a smile vanished. “A seizure of contraband.”
Estinien’s unflinching, unconvinced glare moves to fix upon Belgrisois.
“Contraband?” His gaze flits briefly to the items Belgrisois holds in hand, derision building in the voice muffled behind a refitted temple knight’s helm. “Holiday gifts from mothers and sweethearts are contraband now, are they? What will be next? Ale and bread purchased with one’s own honest coin?”
“The Vigil has too many mouths to feed for any one soldier to hoard supplies to himself,” Ser Belgrisois condescends, the splotchy color on his face deepening six shades at being so questioned by someone of markedly inferior rank.
“Aye, we agree on that much,” Estinien says after a moment’s consideration. Before Ser Belgrisois or his knights can even fathom it happening, Estinien handily plucks the satchel of tea back from his grip. “I’ll be taking this, then.”
It is a testament to the barbed reputation Estinien has carved out for himself that none of the four move to stop him. And fair enough, considering he is as unshy of striking his fellow knights as he is of confronting Dravanians ten or twenty times his size.
There is a twitch in Belgrisois’ cheek as he attempts to stare down Estinien, clearly debating whether it is worth the risk of fighting him when the lancer is so damned capable of brawling—and so competent a dragon-slayer that he’ll not be tossed into the stockade for it, either.
With a clenched jaw and a beet red face, Belgrisois abruptly takes his leave, shouldering roughly past Estinien as he and his entourage of knights stalk from the barracks.
They do not go silently, though. Amongst themselves, they whisper and cast dark looks back over their shoulders.
“... dragon or two… an affront, above his station… with a bastard, and not even one of the better liked ones.” Perhaps Ser Belgrisois raised his voice purposefully there, Aymeric thinks—or maybe his ears are just more attuned to the word that has dogged him since he was but five or six years old. “... brought to heel, like a… and when my aunt hears of this…”
Their murmurs fade within moments, and all that is left is the crackling of a nearby brazier.
“Here,” Estinien says as he gently tosses the tea onto the bed, as though he’d merely found it set upon the floor and sought to return it.
“My thanks for your intercession, Ser Estinien.”
Estinien grunts dismissively, armor clicking as he passes Aymeric’s bunk on the way toward his own. A few beats later, he adds, “If you’re going to indulge in your little luxuries, you’d do well to find a better hiding place for them.”
“I fear I am running out of options,” Aymeric murmurs, glancing around the narrow space allotted him in the Dusk Vigil’s barracks. A mere Temple Knight recruit has little in the way of privacy or security, really, without the necessary connections to pull the right strings.
It is a fact Aymeric had pointedly learned before they’d even left Ishgard, during an unannounced sweep of the Congregation of Knights Most Heavenly—in which a zealous inquisitor had tipped out his belongings with so little care that the cup and saucer he’d brought from home spilled onto the barracks’ stone floor. The shards of gold-trimmed porcelain were then crunched small underfoot as the servants of the Church continued their tireless pursuit of heresy, and Aymeric was left to sweep away the pieces.
For now, he wraps the Fury’s Grace tea in a handkerchief and tucks it inside his pillow. The smell will be a comfort of its own, at least.
“Pack of ravening wolves,” Estinien grumbles. He pulls off his helm, shakes out the length of his tied-back hair, and scowls in the direction of the arched stone doorway. “They’re just going to eat it all themselves, you know.”
“I am only too well aware.” Aymeric peels back the handkerchief to examine his thumb before staunching the bleeding once more. He hesitates a little longer before quietly adding, “I fear that Ser Belgrisois will not let the insult go forgotten.”
“I care not,” Estinien snorts, heedless of who hears. “The Horde stirs in the south and their scouts harry us left and right. A lordling whelp’s easily bruised sense of superiority is naught of concern by comparison.”
And then he speaks no more as he doffs his armor, breaks the veneer of ice over the washbasin to splash his face, and falls into his bunk, eyes pinched shut and a scowl in place even as he dreams.
Aymeric removes all but one of the broken fangs from his chainmail before curling onto his side under his covers, his thumb a tender reminder of what damage even a dead dragon can do.
Ser Belgrisois’ retribution does indeed come quickly—before dawn, even, in the form of an abrupt change of assignment.
At the knight-sergeant’s order, Aymeric and Estinien are awoken in the deep of night and made to don their armor, pack their meager things, and depart for Gevaudan’s Watch with two knights from a different cohort.
“Bleeding whoreson,” Estinien mutters as they tread together across the Dusk Vigil’s drawbridge, over ice floes and dark, swirling waters. The mist hanging in the predawn air grows frost upon his pale eyelashes. “I’d not weep if that Dzemael lordling choked on one of your marron glace.”
“A thought perhaps better saved for when we are further from the Vigil,” Aymeric comments, glancing back over his shoulder at the fortress’ imposing, lance-spiked walls—as in Ishgard, they have ears for even the thinnest whispers of heresy or treason or scandal.
Two hazy, steel-grey figures slowly take shape in the mist ahead, waiting at the end of the drawbridge.
“Wyrmblood? And Ser Aymeric? Who did you two piss off?” Sabinien de Chalons asks. When neither of them answers—Estinien out of unconcealed annoyance and Aymeric for lack of a tactful way to explain—the knight continues, “Me, I apparently stepped on a knight-captain’s toes by taking her sweetheart out for some stargazing.”
“As if you can see the stars from the hay of the chocobo stables,” Ser Aurelie scoffs, whipping her head around from where she has already taken the lead to guide them through the knee-deep snows that cover the path southward. “Or have you found some new place to commit indiscretions under the Fury’s gaze?”
“You fair slander me, my lady,” Sabinien retorts, huffing as he hurriedly follows in her footsteps.
And whilst the two of them argue, Aymeric settles into their single file at a few paces behind Estinien. With his bow drawn, he peers into the skies as their stars give way to bright blue smeared with icy wisps of cloud, ever alert for dark wings and swift shadows. They’re small targets, the four of them, but he knows well that a dragon can strike anywhere and any time they please, regardless of what even their best astrologians may predict.
Estinien knows it well, too.
The Wyrmblood moniker is apt, if unpleasant. Whenever Aymeric surveys the field with his fellow archers, supporting from afar, there is no form more fierce than Estinien’s and none more reckless in his thirst to wheel upon another foe. Wyverns and drakes and full-fledged dragons alike have crumpled around the killing thrust of his lance, their dark blood dripping down the haft of it, coating his chainmail with the scent of iron and rot, staining his skin where it seeps through metal and wool. It is but a matter of time before the Order of Knights Dragoon claims him, and the daunting spikes of their armor certainly will suit the prickly man.
And at present, for as long as they are bound together by the Congregation and the tragedy that befell their old squadron some moons ago, there is no one else Aymeric would rather be in the company of while facing the flame-licked maw of a dragon.
It takes every hour of light they have—and there are few, with the days this short—to make the arduous trek south to Gevaudan’s Watch to relieve its current guards.
The tower is a cramped, nearly derelict thing, no doubt built in an age of saints long passed. Older even than the Dusk Vigil, perhaps, though it now serves only to warn the fortress of imminent attack from the Dravanian lands to the southwest. Icy air whistles faintly through the gaps in the tower’s masonry, the annual freeze and thaw having steadily worked the stone apart. The heavy slab of oak that serves as a door sits uneven in its ancient frame as well, allowing puffs of snow to push their way in.
It is not but three days into their sennight-long assignment—punishment?—that the pleasantly clear skies give way to an unrelenting storm of snow and creeping ice, penning them within the tower’s walls with nary a window to hunt, forage, or gather firewood outdoors.
With the winter sun sitting behind a heavy shroud of clouds and a dark pall cast over the snow and stone that stretch for malms around them, their watch shifts atop the tower turn from their usual frigid to utterly marrow-chilling. Sunset only makes itself known by drawing away the last, weak vestiges of muted light, and the deepening darkness that follows serves as a whetstone for the cold that knifes through the slivers in Aymeric’s armor and chainmail.
Perched high atop the watchtower, there is little to stymie the wind and flecks of ice that cut across the highlands like a whistling scythe; the battlements are scarcely waist-height, and the enormous, icicle-lined brazier that dominates the center of the tower’s rooftop does nothing to abate the chill so long as it sits unlit.
Wet flakes of ice sting where they brush the bare skin around Aymeric’s eyes, and he wonders—not for the first time since they arrived—if there is any point to be had here. For all the howling darkness and snow, how would they ever glimpse an onslaught of the horde’s wyverns and drakes on its way across the countryside? If they lit the brazier now, would the other watchtowers along the way see it? Could they light it, even, amid this burgeoning gale of snow and ice?
He hopes they are not put to the test. And regardless of what he ponders, their orders are to stand here and remain vigilant, blizzard or no.
So Aymeric paces round the battlements in the hopes that the motion will be enough to bring feeling back to his legs, his feet, his toes.
He cannot imagine simply staying still the way Estinien is, arms crossed where he leans his hip against the snow-filled brazier, just a sliver of eyes visible through his helm. They are unreadable aside from the sharp, scornful heat that sits behind his stare, though it is not quite ferocious enough to melt the frost that laces Estinien’s faceplate.
He does that sometimes—the hollow stare at some unseen point a thousand yalms away, burning in its intensity. Often. In the barracks. After meals, when the rest of the recruits blow off steam and make social conversation. Even during homilies and lectures by visiting inquisitors, unconcerned by what they might make of his lacking interest in avoiding heresy. Like so many other Ishgardians, Ser Estinien’s grievance with the Dravanians is born of blood and loss. The fixation and fury he displays in battle against them is, however, quite singular.
A sudden gale wind nearly tips Aymeric’s balance, the cold of it stealing his breath for a few sluggish heartbeats. He recovers, but slowly.
The sound of his own breath swims in his ears, held close by his temple knight helm and the woolen face mask underneath it. Aymeric’s eyes—the only sliver of himself exposed to the elements—ache against the winds carving their way across Coerthas, the howling of it like enough to a dragon’s bellow that Aymeric’s spine crawls with half-remembered dread. Tears well along with rims of his lashes before they freeze; he winces away the frost again and again and again, for all the good it does him.
Their shift mercifully ends when Aurelie and Sabinien at last emerge from the stairs below to relieve them, shadows still pooled under their eyes and grim resignation etched in what few furrows are visible through their slitted helms.
Aymeric stumbles in his haste to duck down the open hatch, wracked with shivers that make his frozen mail and armor rattle around him. He regains his balance atop leaden legs—momentarily—before teetering on the sixth step of the spiral staircase that descends thirty yalms down to their meager living quarters.
A gauntlet rings where it claps his armored shoulder, chilled metal brittle against chilled metal.
Aymeric fears it means to push him on, urging him down to make room so that Estinien can pull shut the hatch leading to the roof above. He braces a hand against the curved wall and waits, then blinks, and then realizes Estinien’s hand is only there to steady him.
“Thank you, S-Ser Estinien.” Hand still skimming the wall, Aymeric carefully works his way down the staircase, frozen joints protesting all the while. But better to be agonizingly slow than to topple off the side and take the quick route to the bottom floor.
“You’re still too accustomed to four walls and a warm hearth,” Estinien mutters behind and above him, only a few steps behind.
Aymeric is too sapped of strength to offer any rebuttal, and in truth there is none. Thanks to Lord and Lady Borel, his childhood had indeed been one of plenty, never wanting for winter wools nor fur-lined gloves nor a roasting fireplace in every room. And perhaps he is paying for it now, in cracked lips and chattering teeth and a numbness that coats him head to blue-tinged toes. “I d-dare say such ferocious cold does not agree with me.”
Still, it is warmest down here by the tower’s massive hearth, even with the fire burning far lower than he’d like.
Aymeric sighs, eagerly making his way toward its feeble flames, hands outstretched to embrace its warmth. “It could certainly use some tending.”
“Those two never clean out the ashes,” Estinien gripes as he drops to his knees and does it himself, reaching close to the still-living embers to scoop away handfuls in his gauntlets.
Aymeric kneels to help, and not for entirely selfless reasons. The ash, especially close to the remnants of the flame, still holds some blessed warmth, though it can scarcely be felt through the frosted steel and karakul leather and wool that wrap his hands.
Once the hearth is reasonably clear, Estinien piles more split logs onto the measly fire and coaxes it back to a bright, crackling burn within minutes.
The heat is as welcome as it is uncomfortable to reacclimate to. Aymeric’s skin prickles painfully wherever warmth kisses it, the cold that had gripped him for so long now loath to leave without a struggle; he shucks off his light gauntlets and pinches at the frozen tips of his ears to warm them.
His fingers are laughably stiff as he undoes the clasps on his plate armor and wrests himself free of as much as he dares. The breastplate is too uncomfortable to sleep in, of course, along with the pauldrons. The chainmail can stay, though, in case of a sudden call to arms. It would be smarter to leave his greaves on, too, but the lure of letting his sore, freezing feet warm by the fire is too tempting.
Aymeric sighs as he settles down on the ragged fur spread before the hearth and stretches out his legs, shivering even as he places his feet within inches of embers and orange flame, toes curling within his once-fine socks. The wool is worrisomely damp, courtesy of snow finding its way down into his boots. With a groan, Aymeric peels off his socks and lays them close by the fire in the hopes they might dry by mid-morning.
There are eight bunks arranged along the tower’s far wall, woefully far from the hearth. Unwilling to forsake the fire, Aymeric fetches four or five quilts, sweeps them around his shoulders, and settles himself cocoon-like by the burning logs.
From his swadling cloak of blankets, he stares bleary-eyed and transfixed at Estinien as he wolfishly devours the leftovers from a pot of thin stew that Sabinien and Aurelie must’ve prepared from their dwindling rations.
Aymeric finds it twofold curious, as he has from the moment he first set eyes on Estinien earlier this spring, that such strength and bitter ferocity resides in so slight and wiry a frame, for one, and that no matter how much Estinien eats, he scarcely seems to grow at all.
A particularly late bloomer, perhaps. Or it could be that nursing such a deep wellspring of fury is simply hungry, taxing work.
Aymeric catches himself staring before Estinien does, for a mercy, and diverts his gaze elsewhere. It is such a rude habit to form and yet he cannot quite seem to shake it. What began as a matter of practicality—training his bow to cover Estinien as the man inevitably arcs toward the greatest threat upon the battlefield—has bled heavily into more mundane affairs, especially with so little else in the way of occupation or entertainment out here.
Aymeric’s voice rasps as he says, “When Ser Belgrisois was pilfering my belongings back at the Vigil, he missed a few items at the very bottom of my bag. More presents courtesy of my very kind, very worried lady mother.”
“Is that right?” Estinien continues poking at whatever little remains in the pot and then, with a frown, sets it aside.
“Aye. ‘Tis nothing so nice as marron glace but if you still hunger, you are more than welcome to the wedge of Comté cheese and herbed bread in my pack.”
Estinien pauses in the middle of tending the logs in the hearth with a charred poker, at last looking Aymeric’s way. Under the fringe of pale, soot-flecked bangs, those sharp eyes narrow further. “Why? Something wrong with it?”
“No?” Aymeric doesn’t mask his bemusement as well as he ought to, but the thought of such had never crossed his mind. “No, of course not. The only issue lies with me, I can assure you. My appetite is not especially strong of late, is all, and I do not want what is left to go to waste.”
“You have to eat,” Estinien counters after a few moments of silent glaring, a warning edge to the admonition. Then he turns back to the fire and murmurs, “Can’t have you fainting off the side of the tower on our next watch.”
A reasonable worry, but it is a mighty chore to muster the will to eat when Aymeric is so cold all the time, and longing for the comforts of home, and rather alone even among his more amiable knight companions. “I appreciate your concern, but I shall be fine. Currently, sound rest will be more nourishing for me than any meal.”
Estinien grunts, openly unsatisfied with the answer. It does not hinder him from digging into Aymeric’s bag to find the wrapped parcel of bread and waxed Comté, though. With a knife drawn from a sheathe on his boot, he slices off chunks of the hard, alpine cheese and chews them down with bread and weak tea.
“You’ve my thanks.” In between bites, Estinien’s glare cuts toward Aymeric. “Do you intend to stare while I eat this, too?”
Aymeric blinks, taken aback, before the meaning in Estinien’s words sinks in. A surfeit of heat blooms under his skin at having been caught behaving as ill-mannered as their more gossipy temple knights. “I—that is—no, I will not. My apologies, Ser Estinien.”
Oh, so now his body chooses to burn. Excellent. Where was such a scalding blush when he was slowly freezing solid atop the tower?
“Good night, then.” Without another look in Estinien’s direction—nor with any dignity at all—Aymeric slowly tips onto his side, curls up, and squeezes his eyes shut, hoping he might will himself unconscious in an instant.
When did he lose all sense of manners? Of awareness? Estinien is one of the few in the Congregation who does not cast sidelong stares at him whenever some new social scandal revives older gossip about other probable bastards and their parentage, and Aymeric has repaid the man’s decency with open gawking.
He draws the heavy blankets wrapped round himself tighter, brows knitted as he tries to think of anything but embarrassing himself: the Dusk Vigil’s grand, comparatively warm halls and courtyards; leisurely summer rides through verdant countryside with Lord and Lady Borel, bow in hand; evening tea in the parlor, with a stack of books and a tray of sweets; home, in general, and all the comforts it affords.
Tucked between the blazing fire and layers of wool-stuffed quilt, the cold abates just enough for the last of Aymeric’s shivers to fade. At last halfway warm, he drowses to the crackling of fire-splintered logs, the steady hiss of what sounds like Estinien working a whetstone along the edge of his lance’s blade, and the ever-churning wind just beyond the ancient stone walls.
And perhaps it is the wind that chases Aymeric even into his dreaming, its grating, distorted howl so akin to the blood-freezing roar that never fully retreats from the back of his mind, because all at once Aymeric is there again.
The Ever Lakes. The wildflower strewn hills scorched black. The vast, blue skies punctuated only by shadowed wings, there and gone. And he, a knight alone amid the charred gore of his fallen compatriots, spared the flame just to be spurned by his only fellow survivor.
Estinien Varlineau. So unbelievably strong-headed. Foolhardy, even. What recourse does one man—or even two, or four—have against a dragon capable of laying waste to a dozen soldiers in one short, agonizing minute?
But Aymeric cannot let this reserved, reckless brother knight of his face death alone, and neither can he return to the Holy See by himself without being branded a craven villain who had abandoned his comrades to their fates.
He follows the same trail of cooling dragon’s blood that Estinien had embarked upon, a stitch steadily growing in his side as he traverses craggy foothills and scales fraught drops along the mountainsides.
A roar reverberating through stone quickens Aymeric’s unsteady steps, rushing him on and upward and into the mouth of a smoke-hazed cavern.
Here he finds Estinien confronting a dragon—the dragon, the very one who’d broiled their comrades alive in their armor and clawed them open at the seams—all on his own. He can smell the scorch in the frigid air, acrid enough to bring tears to his eyes, the scent itself kindling for memories of bodies blistered red and black by searing jets of dragonflame, the boiling of blood, the baking of earth.
Aymeric drops to one knee as he takes aim to aid Estinien, an arrow knocked and leveled at the beast’s roiling eye. He exhales in a whisper, looses his bow, and watches as the arrow cuts across the dragon’s lair—
And misses. Widely.
No. How? No, no, no.
Panic swells in Aymeric’s gut and spills over, crowding up against his lungs. A fumbling hand digs into his quiver, clammy skin too slick against the smooth birchwood. Aymeric knocks another arrow and pins his fervent hopes to it, all the while fixed on the familiar armored form pressed against the cavern wall—Estinien, trapped as the dragon draws up and fills its lungs with a breath of fire.
His fingers are as heavy and stiff as that of a corpse as he draws the bowstring tight and releases. The arrow’s coarse griffin feathers scrape along his cheek as it departs.
The would-be-fateful shot travels but a few yalms, miserably short. Its tip spikes into the cavern’s floor and shatters; splinters of wood clatter over jagged stone, somehow louder than the din of dragon roar and labored shouts.
Aymeric can scarcely see straight as he slings one frantic arrow after another, each missing its mark of the beast bearing down on Estinien. Dread mounts in him by the moment, rooting him to the spot. It grips him by the throat, shakes him, casts the last arrow from his hands. Estinien calls out his name like a plea—Aymeric!
A billow of white-gold fire answers before Aymeric can.
He can do naught but watch as it swallows the too-brave knight whole, devouring cloth and hair and all things fragile in less than a heartbeat. Cobalt armor groans as it is twisted and deformed by blistering heat, the man’s shape turned unrecognizable. The smell of scorched flesh turns Aymeric’s empty stomach and forces bile to the back of his tongue; the blaze is enough to sear away despondent tears before they have even left tracks down his smoke-smeared cheeks.
He dares not look away, though.
Aymeric is alone once more as the wyrm then snakes its head toward him, flame flickering behind rows of its bared teeth. Alone and just as surely doomed as all the rest of his comrades, and with no defense to lay before the Fury for his abject failure to act—
“Aymeric!”
Aymeric recognizes Estinien’s voice even as he’s roughly shaken out of slumber, bewildered relief worming its way through the haze of confusion that always follows this awful dream in particular. His bleary eyes open to the red flickers of a low fire and smoldering logs and scratchy fur under his cheek.
“Enough of that, now,” Estinien’s gruff voice carries on. Annoyed, he adds, “You were fussing in your sleep. Like an infant.”
Aymeric lifts his head, shakily pushes himself up from the pile of blankets he must have cast off in his fitful sleeping. It takes another few moments for the fresh dream to settle and true memories to resurface in its place: he’d struck his mark, they’d slain the dragon, and Estinien is alive and well and enduring freezing isolation alongside him.
“I must apologize again, then.”
“One of your fancy socks burned as well.” Estinien tosses the offending sock toward Aymeric, who finds there is indeed a sizeable hole scorched along its toe.
“Ah, delightful,” Aymeric mutters to himself as he starts slipping his sorry excuse for socks onto narrow, bruised feet. They’re dry enough, at least, and he shall have to make do. The two other pairs he had brought with him from home both went missing shortly after he’d first arrived at the Dusk Vigil, likely pilfered from his rucksack while he was on duty by the riverside docks—along with his warmest shirt, his spare set of gloves, and a silk handkerchief Lady Borel had embroidered for him.
Aymeric is not foolish enough to voice any further complaint to Estinien—Halone knows he has lost enough face with the man for one night—so he lays his discontent at the Fury’s feet instead. Eyes closed and nose wearily pressed to steepled hands, Aymeric silently prays that She might keep them and keep them well, and end this wicked storm, and perhaps even grant the return of his socks to him when they are at last delivered to the Vigil.
“So,” Estinein says, poking again at the fire—faithfully keeping it fed and stoked while Aymeric had fitfully slept, “what was the dream?”
“Pardon?”
“You said my name while you were sleeping.”
Aymeric’s lips part in a silent sound of realization. He sighs, studies his hands—paler than usual, his tendons standing in sharper relief, but thawed enough to flex and bend as normal—and murmurs, “I dreamt of that day in the Ever Lakes. With a worse outcome, if you can imagine it.”
Estinien does not speak straight away. His lengthy hair, now worn loose and uncombed, shields his face like a curtain.
“Aye. I can.”
A faint, grateful smile forms itself on Aymeric’s cracked lips—not for the dreadful memory itself, but for the consolation of having someone who shares it.
Sleep does not return quickly or easily, as much as Aymeric knows he needs it. And as the tower’s frigid air finds the cooling sweat on his skin, he cannot help but begin shivering anew.
Estinien lets out a labored sigh that can be heard even over the whistling of Coerthan wind outside. “Alright… come here, then.”
Aymeric reasons he must still be half-asleep, his ears filled with cotton. It’s more reflex than anything else that has him murmuring a polite but muddled, “I beg your pardon?”
Estinien’s stare reads like he has half a mind to throttle Aymeric. “Nevermind it. I’ll just come to you.”
With a grunt, Estinien pushes himself up to stand, crosses the yalm or two that separate them, and resettles within inches of Aymeric. He takes the coarse yak wool blanket he’d been huddled under and casts it around his and Aymeric’s shoulders, enveloping them both. The rest of the quilts and covers serve as cushion or extra insulation.
“We’ll be warmer together,” Estinien mutters, though he shifts uncomfortably when their arms brush under their blankets.
The quiet that Aymeric is used to sharing with Estinien—from walking cliffsides on patrol, sitting watch round fires, and falling asleep in the same barracks rooms—suddenly feels stiflingly close. Deafening, even, if not for the punctuation of drawn breath and shifting embers in the hearth.
Aymeric is not about to turn up his nose at any morsel of comfort or body heat so generously extended to him, though.
“You have my gratitude,” he whispers, almost afraid that to speak too loudly will break this charitable spell and send the other man skittering away again, to the distance he prefers to keep.
For while it is true that Estinien is friendlier with him than anyone else in their cohort, at least since the Ever Lakes, that amounts to little more than toleration of his presence. They had slain a dragon together, aye, and for that Estinien had paid him the courtesy of finally remembering his name. They’d shared an ale together, yes—one time—but Aymeric’s following invitations had been declined in favor of training. Alone.
And while Aymeric certainly counts Estinien as a capable and trustworthy companion in battle, he can scarcely say he knows the man behind the lance at all.
“I envy how little the cold seems to bother you,” he admits without thinking, pointedly looking anywhere but at the man directly beside him.
Estinien’s shoulders shake with the briefest huff of amusement. “I am merely used to it. As you will be soon enough, lordling.”
“I should hope so. I feared earlier that once I removed my armor I would find my arms and legs thoroughly frozen.”
Like the wayward souls that inevitably unearthed themselves come the first melts of spring, their bodies preserved by the woeful cold. Aymeric feels colder just imagining it, shivering despite the collective warmth under their blankets.
Estinien groans something under his breath as he shifts himself a hair closer; with a shrug, he adjusts the blankets around their shoulders to give Aymeric a greater share. “Can’t have you losing fingers to frostbite, Ser Aymeric. How would you sling your arrows then?”
“Poorly. More poorly, anyway,” Aymeric answers, thinking of that dream—of worse fates, of gnawing fears, of the sinking in his stomach that follows any shot missing its mark.
Estinien snorts outright, head whipping to face Aymeric. Seated this close, it leaves just inches between their noses. “Says the man who pierced a raging dragon’s eye at sixty paces. Spare me.”
“It was forty paces at most. But thank you nonetheless.”
Estinien’s throat hums with some low note of disagreement, but he says nothing more.
The fire further wanes in spite of Estinien’s sleepy, half-hearted stoking. And though it grows feeble in these deep, dark hours before dawn, winter’s bite does not clench around Aymeric with its usual ferocity.
Warmth catches and holds in the narrow gaps between himself and Estinien. It burns brightest wherever their arms brush or their knees knock together, increasingly careless as they settle for the night. It is enough to make Aymeric drowse once more, the spectre of broken arrows and dagger-long teeth crunching through armor fading from his thoughts like footsteps in falling snows.
As his eyelids sink shut and his frame goes blissfully limp, Aymeric’s cheek comes to rest against something firm, though not uncomfortable—far more comfortable than bare stone or the taut canvas of a cot, honestly, and far less frigid. Notes of oiled, well-worn leather attach themselves to a hazy, half-formed memory of the moment. The forlorn isolation of their post is held at bay, a small flicker of refuge forming within the very same tower that Aymeric had privately likened to a dungeon.
Sleep whisks him up in the blink of an eye. It’s only afterward, while Aymeric is lost in the midst of a deep and blessedly dreamless slumber, that the tensed shoulder under his cheek finally slackens and Estinien’s weight leans into him in turn.