It happened fast.

The skirmish had ended hours ago, smoke still clinging to the broken stone of the outer wall. Evening stretched long over the fortress ramparts, blue-gold light catching on shattered spears and discarded helmets. The blood on the courtyard bricks was already drying. Most had gone—off to drink, to stitch wounds, to tell stories they'd earned. But Solian remained.

He stood in the corridor just outside the farm boy's chamber, armor stripped, gloves gone. The faint smear of someone else's blood stained his left sleeve. Not his own. Not tonight. But the echo of it buzzed beneath his ribs like a second pulse.

He almost died.

Solian's hands curled into fists at his sides. He almost died, and it barely left a mark.

There had been a sword. Not even a clean swing—just a glint off steel in the corner of Solian's eye. And before he could reach the farm boy, it was over. The wound was shallow. A nick. Nothing. But it had bloomed red all the same.

And Solian had felt it—his ribs clenching, breath skipping, something behind his sternum twisting like a snapped string.

The curse hadn't taken the cut. It hadn't needed to. Too small, the gods must've decided. Not worth the price.

But Solian had seen the fear on the farm boy's face. Had smelled that same iron tang from the field years ago. Had remembered the last time they bled, the last time he held them in his arms as the world nearly broke.

He couldn't feel his fingertips now.

The door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open with the barest touch.

The chamber was dim—one candle lit on the desk, the hearth glowing faintly in the corner. Their armor was resting on the chair, cloak still damp with the sweat of battle. And there—there was the farm boy, finally still, cleaning a thin cut along his forearm as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience.

Solian crossed the room in four long, quiet steps.

"You don't get to die."

The words came out low. Shaken. Not a command. Not a plea. Something in between.

His eyes dropped to the wound. No worse than a scratch. But his gaze lingered like it had bled through bone.

You can't do this to me again. I don't have enough left to bury you twice.

He reached for a cloth from the table, fingers brushing the farm boy's wrist for a fraction of a second. The contact was electric—too warm, too real.

He dressed the wound in silence. Slow. Careful. Like he was trying to undo something the gods had already written.

Only when he finished did he look up. The candlelight caught in his eyes—silver dulled, rimmed with something exhausted and sharp.

"Not again," his throat bobbed with the effort of swallowing it back. "Not while I'm here."

"Let the next one hit me. I'd rather that than watch you bleed."