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“Deliverer.” Mydei’s voice is low and reverent, almost breaking around the syllables.
He used to call Phainon by that name as a jest. Now he’s dead serious.
“Deliverer,” Mydei repeats again, “Command me.”
On his knees in front of Phainon, he nuzzles his face against one of Phainon’s hands like a cat. There's blood splattered across his face, his chest, his hands. Even the hair hanging down his shoulders is doused with it, tinting it in shades of red and gold.
Most of it isn't his. What lies around them isn't a battlefield. It's carnage.
The new Strife knows no mercy. No remorse. But unlike Nikador, his blade rises and falls for Okhema–as Phainon commands.
Phainon stares at him in dismay, though Mydei won’t notice it. He never does.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Mydei,” he whispers under his breath, as he so often does nowadays.
He should never have offered Mydei the Coreflame.
—
Something is wrong, Phainon knows it as soon as Mydei steps back from the Spirit Basin. The way he carries himself is off, his posture now hunched, like a beast ready to pounce. The set of his mouth is strange, his eyes burning with unfamiliar glee.
Phainon knows something is wrong, and still, he waves his hand, calling for him. “Mydei! How did it go?”
As he speaks, Mydei turns towards him, all his attention now on Phainon. Then he grins, all teeth.
It’s all the warning Phainon gets before he launches himself at him with full force, his armored hand reaching for Phainon’s throat. It's not a clean attack, far from it. Just brute force without finesse and none of Mydei’s usual techniques.
Unprepared for anything of the sort, Phainon only barely manages to dodge it. If he didn't, he's pretty sure he would dead.
“What–” he grunts out in surprise.
Mydei still doesn’t speak. Instead he roars in wordless rage, crystals blooming from the floor around him, sharp as any blade.
Phainon jumps back only just avoiding them. Behind him he can hear Castorice cry out in surprise, but he can’t see her, all his attention on Mydei. He hopes none of the others got hit.
“Mydei! Snap out of it!” Phainon shouts, drawing his own sword, but he's still hesitant to use it.
None of this is making any sense.
This is Mydei , not an enemy. Mydei who fought at his side against Nikador. Mydei who he spars with, drinks with, bathes with. Mydei who just yesterday, last shared his bedroll.
Mydei who only begrudgingly accepted the Coreflame when Phainon couldn’t do it.
Why would Mydei attack him out of the blue like he means it?
Phainon hesitates for too long. Mydei doesn’t still, charging forward for another blow
With a flutter of white cloth and glint of gold, one of Aglaea’s Garment Makers throws itself in front of Phainon just in time to block the strike. Mydei's fist goes clean through its body, shattering its frame to pieces. When the broken doll falls at his feet, the golden threads that bound it withering into nothing, Mydei is already moving again.
Phainon stares at its remains, hardly believing what he's seeing. That could have been him. That would have been him if Aglaea had been a second slower. It’s becoming clear that, like titankin consumed by bloodlust, Mydei attacks with an intent to kill, seeming not to care who his opponent is.
Right now he's looking past Phainon at Aglaea. Two more Garment Makers hover at her side, half-hiding the triplets she's stepped in front of.
“Stop it, De!” one of them yells–even Phainon can't tell who.
It's a mistake. With a roar, Mydei charges towards them, leaving Phainon no choice but to throw himself between him and his next prey, sword rising for an attack of his own.
Phainon can keep up with Mydei in a spar–on a good day. But that is with Mydei showing restraint and adhering to the rules– and to common sense not to impale himself on his opponent's sword just to get closer.
Mydei is none of that now.
Before he even understands what's happening, Phainon can feel the resistance as metal cuts through flesh and sinew, and smell the metallic scent of blood. He stares at his sword in incomprehension, its blade now half-buried into Mydei’s chest. Blood gushes freely from the edges of the wound like liquid gold.
It should be mortal. It doesn't even slow him down.
As if barely feeling it, Mydei grins madly, his armored hand reaching for Phainon again–only to be stopped by golden threads spinning around his wrist.
“Castorice!” Aglaea commands. “Subdue him!”
She freezes, asking uncertainly, “Are you sure–”
“Now! ” Aglaea cuts her off. “We don't have a choice.”
She obeys. Phainon has never seen Castorice run, but now she does, throwing her arms around Mydei’s neck from behind.
For a moment it looks like it won’t work either. Mydei growls, wrenching his arm back to snap Aglaea’s threads. With his hands free, he tries to grab Castorice, but a twist of Phainon’s sword stops him.
Under the combined toll of Phainon’s blade in his chest and Castorice’s touch, Mydei finally slows down, a confused frown marring his face as his arms fall to his side. He sways unsteadily on his feet, stumbling slowly first to his knees, then to his side. Twitching in Castorice’s hold, he looks like he’s merely struggling not to fall asleep.
When Phainon pulls his sword free, the wound on Mydei’s chest immediately knits back together.
Perspiration is starting to gather on Castorice's forehead. “It's not working like it should,” she says. “I don't know how long I can hold him.”
Beside her, Aglaea’s mouth is pressed in a thin line, her golden threads shimmering around her as she spins them tighter around Mydei, binding him in place.
“What in Aquila’s name is going on?” Phainon asks. “Did the ceremony not succeed?”
Was Mydei’s resolve not enough? No, that can’t be– Something has changed. He seems stronger, even more resistant to death than he used to be.
“No,” Aglaea says. “The Coreflame hasn’t reappeared, by all accounts, this should be a success.”
“A success? You call this a success?” Phainon hisses.
Aglaea ignores him. For a moment there is silence as she closes her eyes, listening to her threads. “He is now a Demigod. But the price he paid–” she draws in a sharp breath. “The price he paid is his reason, the same as Nikador during their madness.”
A cold lump is starting to form at the pit of Phainon’s stomach.
No. That can’t be.
It’s a cruel mockery of fate: The last prince Kremnos falling to the same madness he fought so hard to eradicate.
“It is a heavy price indeed,” Aglaea says solemnly. “But all is not lost. He can still fulfill his purpose as the new Strife–if someone else acts as his reason.”
“That's–You can't be serious!” Phainon says.
That she can even suggest for Mydei to stay like this–
“What else do you suggest? The Coreflame has accepted him. It can’t just be removed,” she snaps. “Or would you rather we try to kill him? I doubt we'd have much luck.”
Phainon goes silent.
“My threads can only hold his body for so long. Even now he's fighting against them. But the threads to tie the mind are a different story. Much more subtle– and even Nikador wasn't impervious to love.
“His most suitable bond is with you. Only you can do it,” Aglaea says. “Be his reason. Control him. And perhaps later, we can find a better solution.”
In Castorice’s lap, Mydei is already starting to stir again.
Phainon looks at him, bound by Aglaea’s threads, already straining against his bonds. At Aglaea above him, her sightless gaze steely, but her hands starting to shake. At the triplets cowering nearby, tears in their eyes. At Castorice, frozen in place in horror.
“Mydei? Can you hear me?” Phainon says, crouching in front of Mydei, cupping his face between his hands.” Come back, please .”
Mydei only snarls. Wordless. Feral. A mirror image of the thing he’d hated the most in the world.
What else is there to do?
Phainon doesn’t look at Aglaea when he speaks, “Fine. Do it then.”
—-
“Deliverer,” Mydei says again, snapping Phainon back to the present from his thoughts.
How Phainon wishes that moniker were true. That he could deliver Mydei from this evil.
He's not sure what thoughts, exactly, Aglaea had planted into Mydei’s head, for Mydei to act like Phainon is the god, when he himself is the one accepted by the Coreflame.
She'd denied it when he'd asked. I don't have that kind of power. I simply reinforced what was already there.
She'd called it love .
What Phainon sees is obsession. Worship without question.
Is this what Titans call romance? A twisted extreme of once noble ideal–just like strife.
Phainon draws in a deep breath. Collects himself.
He crouches in front of Mydei, hoping against hope for a glimmer of recognition, to find even a shadow of his old self. Once more, he finds none.
Just Mydei’s mouth against his in a bruising kiss.
“Well done, Mydeimos,” he says when he pulls away. “Take a rest.”