Chapter Text
Fashav sees the spear too late to evade it. The pain is immediate. It spreads, burning through his torso, until he cannot withstand it. He falls. His mouth fills with the taste of iron and dirt. He clutches at his wound, blood overflowing between the gaps of his fingers. He cannot move, and breathing feels as if he is being torn apart.
His sight fades first. Blurs, narrows, blackens. He hears the screams of machines and humans alike. He cannot move. He cannot speak.
His senses fail. His last coherent thought drifts to the Grove. Not to the Sun Palace. To the Grove. To the throne room.
Goodbye, my friend. The last line of his final journal. Hekarro would never hear it from him.
I should have stayed …
I should have stayed .
Marshal Fashav sinks into blackness.
____________________________________
He does not expect to wake. He does. It is not pleasant. Pain and numbness lick at his bones. He’s had no food, but he feels as if he might be sick.
Hold him down! Someone is shouting desperately.
He’s too weak. He won't survive it.
Hands at his arms, legs and shoulders. Panic and bile rise in his throat. He receives no warning before something molten presses ruthlessly against his side. He screams. His throat and lungs burn with it.
Blackness sweeps over him once more, and he welcomes it.
______________________________
Sensations occasionally penetrate the darkness that surrounds him. Voices, unfamiliar, mutter lowly with concern. A steady swaying makes his stomach hurdle before he fades again. He feels detached from his body; he cannot lift his eyelids, let alone move a hand or turn his own head.
Darkness pervades. He wonders if the few years he refrained from praying to the sun in the company of the Tenakth have caught up with him. This is not the soaring glory the Chaplains had described when they told tales of the dead Tenakth joining the Wings of the Ten. This is not the sun-bathed gardens the scrolls of the Sun Priests told of. There is no sense of the passage of time. He is caught in limbo, neither dead nor alive and without the strength or awareness to decide in which direction he will go.
Consciousness slips away from him again.
Finally, he well and truly wakes .
A cool breeze across his damp, feverish skin is the first thing he registers. He opens his eyes; soft sunlight fills the room from the balcony before him. The curtains flutter gently with the wind.
He realizes he cannot hear the sounds of the training pits or the forges. The room, and the hall, is quiet aside from the dry rasp of his breathing. Ornate silks and intricately carved furniture artfully fill the room. There is gold filigree and depictions of the sun all around him. Even from the bed, he can see the verdant rows of farmland extending into the jungle, with imposing mesas erupting from the foliage.
He remembers this view. His pain and sleep-addled mind takes an embarrassingly long moment to place it.
Meridian?
Fashav startles upright, and immediately falls back as his side scorches with pain. It sends stars dancing behind his eyes and reverberating pain through the rest of his torso. He cannot bite back a grunt of agony.
Footsteps, muffled by the door, approach rapidly. The door slams open.
“By the Sun. He’s awake!”
The shout starts an ache in Fashav’s head. There are more footsteps that pound away and fade.
He lies there, staring up at the silk curtains draping artfully across the ceiling. How could he be in Meridian? He had seen Studious Vuadis and Commander Nozar fall. He had seen the soldiers meant to guard them cut down by Regalla’s forces. He had fallen. How had he survived?
Another sharp wave of pain interrupts his spiraling thoughts. By the Sun , everything hurts.
He breathes through it, working up the strength to attempt to sit up again.
Fashav has just struggled upright enough to rest on his elbows, hissing at the agony of it, when more footsteps come pounding back down the hall at a quicker pace.
The door, left open by the earlier guard, emits Blameless Marad. He’s quickly followed by a surgeon and a trio of fully-armored royal guards.
The spymaster’s weathered face crinkles with a broad smile at the sight of Fashav. “Thank the Sun; we thought you were lost to us.” He approaches, and motions the surgeon forward. The slighter, spectacled man bows, and pulls away the silken sheets to inspect the bandages around Fashav’s torso. Fashav tries not to wince at his touch.
Blameless Marad continues. “Sun King Avad will be pleased to see you.”
Fashav cares for his cousin, but he nearly scoffs aloud at Marad’s surety.. Instead, he bites back a curse as the surgeon prods at a tender spot below his ribs. “How…?”
“Soldiers at Barren Light recovered what they believed was your body. Miraculously, you still drew breath. They cared for you as best as they were able at the fortress, but when your fever became worse, they took the risk of transporting you here. It seems to have paid off.”
Nearly a six day journey at a soldier’s march. Likely more with resources spared to keep him alive. And an indeterminate time laying both in Barren Light and in Meridian, deathly ill. Fashav is taken aback at the effort.
“Thank you,” he murmurs. “The men who brought me back served admirably.”
Marad’s eyes crinkle. “They knew of your attempts to derail the Red Raids, and thought you deserved the best chance of survival.”
Fashav winces again as the surgeon’s ministrations send fiery pain licking along his ribs. He bares his teeth. The man apologizes, but seems to be relieved. He replaces the silken blanket, dipping his head once more in deference to Fashav’s rank.
“Your wound is healing well, General Fashav. There are no signs of infection, though it may pain you for a while yet.”
Marad thanks the man quietly, flicking his eyes toward the door. It is a clear dismissal. The soldiers follow the surgeon out, though Fashav suspects they have only returned to their posts outside.
Marad sits at his bedside. He has more silver in his hair than Fashav remembers. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes are deeper, partly with age, but some of them follow the curve of his warm smile. But then, it has been nearly seven years since Fashav was last in the Sun Palace, so change was to be expected. Fashav remembers Marad as more guarded, more aloof, under Sun-King Jiran. Avad must be a good King, if his spymaster has more smile lines now than before.
Marad lays a hand on Fashav’s shoulder and gently guides him back onto the cushions. Fashav means to resist — he has been laying helpless for too long already — but what little strength he’d been able to muster to sit upright has abandoned him.
Marad, even observant, chuckles. “Now is not the time to live up to your name, Fashav. You still have some healing to do.”
“The Embassy…was all lost?”
“No. Aloy — the Saviour— a Nora who-.”
“We met.” Fashav interrupts, remembering the fierce young woman with the blazing hair. “She is well?”
Marad nods. “Ensuring the safety of the world as we speak. The soldiers at Barren light told me she defeated a significant number of the enemy forces who felled you.”
An ache grows near Fashav’s sternum. “What of the other Tenakth Marshals?”
Marad’s features tighten sympathetically. “I am not certain. Even if some did survive, that knowledge is not available to me.”
Fashav nods, if weakly. “They…do not know I survived?” Exhaustion stings his eyes and rasps in his throat.
At this, Marad looks faintly guilty. “You were so close to death…only recently did it seem as if you would pull through. I did not wish to send word with false hope.”
So it has been weeks . His comrades are flying with the Ten and his Chief — he released you from his service, a venomous part of his mind whispers — believes him to be among them.
He tries to struggle into a seated position again. He fails. His body burns and shakes with the effort. Marad’s hand squeezes his arm lightly, and there is not a chance he does not feel Fashav’s weakness.
“All will be well. I swear by the Sun’s light.”
Fashav nods. Something in him screams to get up , to go to him , but his body fails him. He is so tired.
“Rest. Please, Fashav.”
Marad does not leave until Fashav falls asleep again. As he drifts off, he feels the breeze flow over his unpainted skin.
________________________________________
The Marshals are dead. The one who survives is maimed.
Hekarro hears the news from the Embassy and does not need to be told it was Regalla’s doing. The survivors, dutiful as always, confirm his worst fears anyways. The tale of the flame-haired huntress interests him — he resolves to meet her, to persuade her into protecting his people and fighting for peace in the West as soon as he learns she defeated Regalla’s champion, Grudda. For now, he can do nothing but protect his people until the opportunity to strike back arises. He orders his scouts to keep an extra watch for rebel forces, ensures that Marshal Kotallo will survive his wound, and then retires from the throne room.
He missteps unexpectedly as he retreats to his private quarters in a more secluded part of the Grove. He catches himself with a hand on a nearby wall, and only as he feels its steadiness does he realize he is shaking .
He reaches his rooms without further incident. He keeps few possessions: a few trophies from prior battles, a spare ax, a sleeping pallet with a few blankets, and a rack for his armor and headdress. The other items which occupy the space he does not consider his own, though he keeps them.
His eyes drift to the stack of parchment near his pallet. He knows the Carja glyphs that fill the pages in neat, even lines. The topmost page — the most recent — he remembers.
I will send word when I have reached Meridian. Hopefully you will receive it amongst the goods exchanged in the next Embassy. It will be pages long. I trust tales of Carja politics will not bore you.
Fashav’s eloquence had always pleased Hekarro. He had not wasted time on the flowery spoken language the Sun Priests used, but in writing, his words danced like light on water. During their lessons, Hekarro had questioned Fashav near-endlessly about the difference in contextual uses and the formality of the style of the glyphs. Fashav had always born the interrogation with good humor, his pale brown eyes bright.
Now he is gone. Hekarro feels himself trembling.
He sits on his plain, functional pallet. He can feel the fatigue of the news and his grief weighing across the line of his shoulders. He removes his armor in preparation for sleep, but it does not relieve the ache.
He lays down. The stack of letters and reports from Fashav has permeated the space near his pillow with the smell of parchment and ink.
Sleep does not come easy, but with the practice of a long campaigner, he dozes.
He does not expect to dream:
Fashav sits before him, armor removed but paint still applied. He has a portable writing desk unfolded on one knee. The smell of the ink — tart berries, honey, and soot melted together with water and cooled — fills the space between them. Fashav writes carefully, but with the speed of years of practice. The quill marches back and forth across the page under his guidance.
Hekarro shifts to look over his shoulder. He can decipher most of the words, though some still escape him, despite nearly three years of Fashav’s patient tutelage. Hekarro realizes he is keeping a journal. The newest line describes Hekarro’s ruling on a salvage dispute.
“You write about me?” Hekarro asks.
Fashav starts. A tinge of pink dusts his patrician nose. “Sometimes. Even in Meridian they have heard of Chief Hekarro.” He looks up, and Hekarro is surprised to find seriousness there. “I hope to disabuse my people of some of their more ludicrous misconceptions about the Tenakth.”
“And how will you accomplish it?”
Fashav’s expression smooths in deep thought. Hekarro can see the scholar and the warrior in the calm steadiness of his eyes. “By telling them the truth of what I have seen. How you treated me with fairness, and how you want the best for your people, just as Sun King Avad wants the best for the Carja.”
Hekarro hums in agreement. “Do you think your cousin will welcome your goals for diplomacy?”
A more difficult question. Fashav laughs dryly. “Avad has always been the consummate politician. I do not think he will need to be convinced that cooperation between the Carja and the Tenakth would benefit both tribes; it is his council — the Sun Priests, the nobles — who will be the most immovable.”
Hekarro can see Fashav’s thoughts branch behind his eyes — how he will convince them, which words he will use, how long it will take for Embassies to turn into negotiated treaties. Hekarro knows each of his Marshal’s skills. Outside of obvious martial prowess, Fashav observes people with the keenest of eyes. He watches, he listens, and then he acts. Hekarro has come to value it more than he wants to admit to himself.
Fashav is well and truly caught up in his thoughts now. Hekarro cups a hand around his jaw to bring him back.
Fashav leans into the touch, smile sheepish. “You drive me to distraction, Hekarro.”
Laughing, Hekarro pulls him close, thumb tracing the sharp line of the Carja’s cheekbone. “In politics or in flirtation?”
“Both.”
They laugh together, breathing each other in for a moment before Hekarro slots his mouth over the other man’s. Fashav’s lips are chapped, but warm.. The Carja is not a small man, but he fits wholly beneath Hekarro on the pallet, and he responds to the ministrations of Hekarro’s hands and mouth beautifully. But Fashav’s hands are clever, and before Hekarro realizes how close he is he falls apart under Fashav’s touch. His Marshal grins wickedly beneath him.
Hekarro returns the favor until that grin becomes dazed with pleasure.
Fashav sleeps first. Hekarro holds him close, smelling the ink and paint and lingering machine oil until his eyelids grow heavy.
Hekarro wakes to heat flushing his body and a bed bereft of the man who had most frequently shared it. A sigh rumbles from his chest. Judging by the lack of birdsong, it is not yet dawn. He has a few more hours yet before he must resume carrying the chiefdom of the Tenakth.
His eyes sting. He has not wept since he was small. He should not feel the need; Fashav died a noble death in battle. He flies on the wings of the Ten.
But he will never receive another letter with careful, even lines. The smell of fresh ink will fade from his quarters.
Fashav will be buried in Meridian. His tags will never return to the Grove.
Hekarro’s composure collapses then; he would have carried Fashav’s tags to his dying breath. But he had never said so.
He rises. He suspects he will not sleep any more tonight. He must continue, and hope that without Fashav’s council, he will be able to do enough to bridge the tribes.
Before he leaves his quarters, he does two things. First, he folds Fashav’s letters and places them beneath the pallet. Second, he retouches the paint around his eyes.
Hekarro will mourn. But the Chief of the Tenakth will honor his Marshal, and move forward.