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Phainon keeps a record of Mydei’s deaths. In the little black ledger hidden in his room, there’s no title, no words at all apart from rows and rows of dates, each followed by a tally.
It’s not an all-encompassing record, of course. There were many before they met, many more before he started the record and some he never gets to hear about even now.
These are deaths Phainon witnessed and deaths recorded by Aglaea’s threads. Each is a failure, though they disagree whose. Mydei, of course, thinks they are his. Phainon considers them to be as much his own, unable as he is to turn Mydei’s stubborn head.
On the first row of them all, the tally is nine, the highest count for any date.
If he can help it, Phainon will never allow it to reach ten.
—-
On the first day Phainon records, everything goes wrong.
On that day, he listens to Mydei fight and die on the other side of a trap wall, surrounded titankin, unable to do a thing. To Mydei’s snarl cut off by the sound of a blade sinking into something solid, the sound followed by a wet cough, a gasp–something thudding against the floor.
Then silence.
Phainon winces, first at the sounds, then their absence. It's far from the first time he has witnessed one of Mydei's deaths, but it’s never exactly easy. Even if he knows Mydei can revive, It's not something he's learned to place his trust in.
The heavy steps of the titankin disperse, seemingly unaware of the other human concealed behind a nondescript wall, until the only sound Phainon can hear is his own breath.
As he waits, the seconds tic by slowly. Until, finally, Mydei lets out another gasp.
“Mydei?” Phainon hisses through the obnoxious wall between them, still unable to see a thing, his hands are busy, scaling every inch of the wall separating them: There has to be a mechanism somewhere to open the trap door again. He just needs to find it.
There's no answer.
Strange. Mydei is usually quick to stir.
“Mydei!” Phainon calls again, but after that single gasp, Mydei has again gone silent.
A minute or two later, there’s another single, broken gasp, but no answer when Phainon calls. “Mydei! Stop messing around!”
Again he is left in an uneasy silence.
It’s only by the third unsuccessful gasp, minutes later, that Phainon realizes what they are: Each one is a revival if only for a few seconds, followed by a new death.
Behind the wall, Mydei keeps dying–and Phainon has no way of knowing why. Even worse is that the revivals are starting to slow down, the time between the gasps growing longer and longer.
Each one is more worrying than the last. No one really knows how his curse works. Are his deaths numbered, like a cat with nine lives? Each time Mydei dies is to cast an unknown die, to place his trust in the Fates that he will come back.
Mydei, of course, has told Phainon that he doesn’t care, that he’s long since stopped counting. It’s the way a warrior should fight, aware of their own mortality, ready to look death in the eyes when that time comes. Phainon has bitten his tongue, declining to mention Mydei never fights like a mortal man should or could. To tell him otherwise will just goad him on.
An undying warrior is an asset to the Chrysos Heirs–however long he lasts. And Phaimon would rather spend the time he has with Mydei doing more pleasurable things than pointless arguing– at least the kind that doesn’t end with Mydei pinning him against the wall and his mouth against Phainon’s.
As Phainon’s fingers dig into every crevice of the wall in turn, Mydei keeps wasting deaths.
There are nine until the wall suddenly comes down, slotting neatly back inside the floor like it was never there at all.
The image that greets Phainon then will haunt him in his dreams.
In front of him, his back leaning against the opposite wall, Mydei is entirely still. Slanted to one side, he's kept upright only by the blade thrust through his torso, pinning him in place, his head resting limply against his chest.
Phainon stumbles across the floor to where his companion is. “ Mydei?” he calls again, hoping he’d missed him gasping back to life, but again there’s no answer. When Phainon cradles his face in his hands, Mydei’s features are slack, his eyes staring ahead into nothing, drying blood speckling his lips.
No wonder he can’t revive, with a blade inches from his heart cutting through any regrown tissue.
“Hang in there, I'm going to take it out now,“ Phainon says, his fingers curling around the hilt of the sword.
The blade doesn't come off clean. Stuck into Mydei's ribs, it forces Phainon to twist and push just to release the damn thing, each movement slicing deeper into Mydei’s flesh.
But with enough force, the sword does come free, accompanied by a wet squelch that will haunt Phainon in his dreams.
Without the weapon’s support, Mydei collapses limply to his side, blood and air trapped in his damaged lung making their escape with a wet gurgle. The sword clatters at Phainon’s side as he catches him.
“There, it’s out. You should heal now,” Phainon mumbles. “Please.”
But stubborn as always, Mydei shows no sign of doing what Phainon asks. When Phainon turns him on his back in his lap to get a better look, the wound has stopped bleeding–as it would on a corpse, not because it’s healing.
How long has it been since he last revived? Phainon has no way of telling time, but it has been too long, minutes turning to at least a dozen, more likely two by now.
Under his hands, Mydei’s skin is growing cold.
What does it mean for Mydei if the revival is too slow? The tethers of the soul are a mystery. If it takes too long, is it possible for his spirit to flee, leaving behind only a body trapped in eternal life?
Waiting for the miracle Mydei calls a curse, Phainon cradles Mydei’s still form against his chest. He catches himself swaying Mydei slowly from side to side. It’s a futile, reflexive attempt to soothe him–or perhaps Phainon himself.
Phainon is painfully aware that there’s nothing he can do except perhaps pray, and the Titans have long since stopped heeding those.
There will be enemies on each route and Trianne is too far. He won’t make the trip back carrying Mydei with him. But to leave him here not knowing what happens next….Phainon can’t really bring himself to do that, not yet. Not when there’s still hope.
It’s rare for him to feel so helpless. He thought he’d left that behind when he accepted his role as a Chrysos Heir in the broken remains of his home.
He hates it, being unable to do anything but wait until the looms of fate have taken their next turn.
Until there’s a gasp so silent it's almost a sigh, Mydei’s body stirring in his arms like he’s just waking from a dream. But almost immediately, he stiffens in surprise. Raising his head, his hands grasp Phainon's shoulders.
“Deliverer?” Mydei , his voice hoarse, squinting at him with his customary scowl. “What are you doing? Where's the enemy?”
Under the blood still staining his chin and chest– and apart from the still-healing skin on his torso, he looks like nothing's been wrong at all.
With a shuddering breath he hadn’t realized he was holding in, Phainon throws his arms around Mydei again.
“You were dead,” is all he manages to say.
Mydei half-snorts, still stiff in Phainon's embrace– but this time, he doesn’t pull away. “You've seen me dead before,” he says.
Not like that, Phainon wants to say. Never like that.
Please, never again like that.
—-
“Promise me, you’ll try not to die,” Phainon says to Mydei much later, when they are back in Okhema, safe and sound, their wounds treated–and, finally, alone again.
In the baths reserved for the Heirs, Mydei’s heartbeat is steady under Phainon’s hands, his skin warm with life.
Mydei stares at him, his gaze piercing. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” he finally says.
Phainon bows his head, resting it against Mydei’s chest in defeat. If Mydei won’t promise it, he’ll look for other solutions–behind his back if need be.
So he takes his findings to Aglaea.
She watches him in silence as he recounts what he's seen, her peerless gaze calculating as she pulls on her threads. To the Chrysos Heirs, Mydei is an asset they’re ill-equipped to lose. A one-man army, even without the acceptance of a Coreflame. His reputation alone, is worth keeping intact. When he tells her that much, she agrees.
Between her threads and Phainons blade–not to mention Mydei’s own considerable strength– it takes a few months for Phainon to fail for the first time. He waits anxiously at Mydei’s side, unsure how long it will take for him to revive–or if he will revive at all.
It’s a relief when Mydei gasps back to life as quickly as ever only a few seconds later.
Perhaps it isn't about the number of deaths at all, but instead their frequency.
And so the ledger begins.
—-
Years later, the highest tally in Phainon’s ledger still remains at nine. But after it, there are too many sevens. Too many eights.
And after the battle with Nikador, there is no number at all.
Phainon offers for Mydei to be the one to take the Coreflame. Perhaps if he takes it, he'll truly become invulnerable, like he's famed to be.
Mydei refuses it–like that promise so long ago, seeing only a curse in the blessings of the Titans.
Phainon sighs. It's fine. He can keep his ledger for a little longer. It should be easier as a Demigod.
And when the prophecy is finally fulfilled, in the world ruled by Demigods, there won't be any need for one.