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There was a rotten thing on the breeze. Scott closed his eyes, feeling the writhing of decay under his feet, deep in the earth and dusting its surface. Decomposition was life of its own. It was essential to the cycle of all things. This sickness was not a villain. But it came from one. It was unchecked, overstepping its role.
Hurting his loved ones.
Scott tightened his grip, staff groaning under his fingers. He hoped the worms and beetles and vultures could restore the land. He hoped he could do this right, only taking the rot that was thick with unnatural ill.
But if he did nothing, there was no hope to be had. Blue would be lost, Red to follow.
Nom would wither away.
Scott could admit the way he cared for the knight reached beyond what he deserved. Beyond the bonds he forged together with Mae and Eloise and Owain.
He loved Nom in a bright and budding way. And maybe, in another world, in a different time, he could have cultivated that love. He wanted to see what would grow between and from them, side by side.
But absent that, Scott wanted Nom to know peace, to sail his sea and soak up the sun. To be loved, even if not by Scott.
That’s why Nom was approaching the little mage, steps heavy and a weary smile on his face. Scott called and Nom came.
They could have been something beautiful.
“Dark weather for dark times.” He took his place at Scott’s side, glancing down at him before turning to the building storm in the skies. “Hopefully the sun will shine before this is all over.”
Scott couldn’t make himself speak. His hand reached for Nom’s, fingers twining together like a plea.
Nom held him tight. “I’ll make sure it does. I would hate to see my flower without his sunlight.” He turned, bringing his other hand to Scott’s cheek. “Was there something you needed?”
Leaning into the touch, Scott took a heavy breath, almost keeping it from shaking. “You.” His smile was warmer than the blood pounding in his ears. “I needed to see you. I needed to see–” He met Nom’s eyes. Those shining, amber eyes. “I need to watch.”
Tilting his head, Nom chuckled and pressed a kiss to their joined hands. “I was with you for a second but you’ve lost me again.”
“No.” Scott would have enjoyed playing with their words for the rest of the night. For the rest of their lives. “I won’t lose you.”
Something akin to understanding on Nom’s face turned to grief– to pity. “It might not be up to us–”
“You’re not listening.” Scott nuzzled into the hand on his face more. He soaked in the touch. “I won’t lose you. It’s not up to you. It’s not up to any royalty or gods. Not anymore.”
“Scott, you can’t fight fate.” Nom pushed his hand to the back of Scott’s head, holding their foreheads together with fingers in thorn-dressed hair. “When it’s time, it’s time.”
He hummed. “Okay. Then I say it’s not time.”
Nom started to protest again but yelped at a sudden feeling.
At the tightening of a weave of vines and brambles around his legs and waist, climbing his torso.
“Wait– Scott, come on, what is this?” The edge of panic to his voice wasn’t fear for himself. “Let me go, this isn’t funny.”
Selfishly, Scott kept their hands held together. “It’s not funny, you’re right. You taking a deal isn’t funny. Deciding you alone are in charge of protecting us all isn’t funny. You choosing to die without us– without me, isn’t funny.” There was no anger in the accusations. Not anymore.
Nom pulled at the vines, three more growing for every one he managed to snap. “I know, I know it’s not funny and it’s not fair!” His voice cracked as his shoulders were wrapped by brown and green. “But it’s the only way you all survive! I can’t live with myself if I don’t try everything possible, if you get hurt because I wasn’t brave enough to do what I needed.” The tears that were building in his eyes were thick and smelled like oak resin. “I swore to protect you. Please, let me keep this oath.” His hand was pulled away from Scott as vines immobilized him entirely.
“You aren’t the only one who swore this oath.” His words were hoarse, like his own throat was full of thorns. “You need to protect them still. They don’t just need a knight. They need you.”
Head held in place, Nom begged. “Don’t do this. Don’t make me watch you do this.”
Scott was crying too. “I’m sorry. I love you.”
And he brought his staff down into the damp earth.
Nothing changed and everything shifted. Covered by foliage growing wild over the hilltop, there was no sign of the great churning happening within the ground. Scott clenched his jaw, holding against the surge of rot that threatened to throw him from the soil.
It wasn’t the sprawling, reaching tendrils of mycelium, so different from the deep and anchoring roots of great trees. This was a cloud of spores, writhing into plants and choking insects. The deer that remained in the forest were heavy with it, each step attaching more of the miasma to their coats, climbing into their skin.
And in Nom, Scott found a storm.
He pulled his focus in, blocking out the death rattles of the kingdom to listen to the screaming decay in his knight’s veins. It was deep, dispersed, moulding his very core to heartwood and blood to sap.
Scott groaned, the pain of sickness fighting back, responding with equal force through the bond he had created.
But he had prepared. He had practiced on sacrificial flowers and infected cats in the empty streets. He could do this.
Nom was saying something, and Scott wished he could listen. He pushed in, forming his magic into a moss and scrubbing through every capillary. He knew how to make himself irresistible to the decay. It sought fading life, that which still breathed but not for long. Scott could offer that, something nearer the boundary than Nom. In the eye of the storm, in the center of Nom’s light, Scott gathered the infection.
His form flickered and suddenly there were half a dozen of him, all facing Nom, all pulling a thread of the tangled rot.
The protests Nom was continuing faded. He could only marvel, and tremble with exhaustion as the curse was unraveled.
Stray spores tried to escape. The fog was impossible to grasp and contain. But somehow, it was working. Nom sagged in the vines as his heart was freed, as his mind became his own again.
Scott took a steadying breath and broke the barrier between Nom and himself.
The rot poured itself into the vines, a dam broken and pressure overwhelming. Scott felt it withering the brambles, travelling through the earth and into the roots anchoring him to the spot. He didn’t slip. Insisting on his magic reshaping again, Scott had half the duplicates continue guiding the infection out. Himself and the others dove back into Nom.
With a light that might have only been visible to Scott, he flushed through Nom’s system, purging any lingering decay through sheer force.
The vines fell away and Nom stumbled, catching himself on his hands and knees.
“You…I feel…You did it?” He pressed a hand to his chest, as if there would be some trick he could unveil.
Scott smiled.
Then he let go again.
Once more the whole of the kingdom was laid bare to him. Once more he shaped his magic like a moss, like a cloud, like a dying starling diving into the midst of the infection.
This was not the precise, loving cleanse of Nom. This was raw, angry. This was a demand and refusal was not possible.
A wave of power washed through the forest, scattering birds and rodents even as they felt a lethargy lifted. A net dragged the river, wresting the wasting from stirred silt and gasping gills. A lantern drew death’s moths to the center of the surge, to a little light mage with legs turned to bark and root.
And when he felt the infection enter, Scott did it all again. He knew he was blazing bright. He knew auroras danced overhead and sparks rose on pillars of air. He knew it was working, and so he pushed again.
And again.
And again.
Until, upon its return, his power came clean. There was nothing left, no straggling infection or choking miasma. The land was clean. The rot was gone.
But that was not enough. Shaking, but barely depending on his body, Scott turned to the last step of this plan. He focused, knowing when he fell the decay would simply slough away from him. Back into the earth, back into whatever life it could consume. Scott refused to let that happen.
He found a darkness. A door. He traced roots and binding amber. From this distance he could not hear, could not see. But he could grow. A barrier completely independent, out of reach of a king in the dark. He grew a prison, around and ensnaring, cutting the destroyer off from flora, fauna, and stone. There would be no influence he could exert, nothing he could grasp at. He would starve and wither in there, alone, in a locked box that was alive and fed by the land around it.
Scott felt the walls settle, and moreover, he could no longer feel the king.
Gathering the last of his strength, Scott celebrated.
His roots dug, cementing themselves in the soil, burying themselves in the clay beneath the hill. Arms lifted, reaching for the still hidden sun. He pushed from within, feeling as the rot itself died, cut off from its source. It was easier to collect it this final time, to gather it on the tips of his fingers and keep it away from the surface it had so damaged.
His body was stiffening, every spark of mana and life used in this impossible ritual. He hoped flowers would bloom on him. Maybe there would even be some planted at his base, a memorial for the gardener who could never be high mage. It was more than he deserved, but as he lost the warmth of Nom, hugging him tight, he couldn’t help but think he might get this wish granted.