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In retrospect and against his will, perhaps it was a good thing that Tribbie had given Mydei that damned Deliverer’s teleslate number before they set off on this accursed journey. He had not wanted the Deliverer’s—Phainon’s—number when he had no use for it but Tribbie had foisted it upon him, borrowing his brand new teleslate and saving all the Chrysos Heirs’ numbers in his contact list. Mydei had thought about deleting Phainon’s number, but the teleslate was new, a strange piece of technology conjured up by Aglaea for her Okhemans and extended to the Kremnoans once they entered the protection of the holy city, and he had not quite figured out the finer details like getting rid of Phainon’s number without accidentally wiping everyone else’s numbers.
So there it stayed and Mydei would never admit it but it does have its uses, like now, when it is the only thread of communication between Phainon and him after being separated in the bowels of a Janusopolis temple.
“I said to put the red tile in place, Deliverer. Is it your ears that do not work or your eyes?” he yells into his teleslate, the small device gripped so tightly in his hand that it begins to creak against the metal of his gauntlets.
“Like I told you, Kremnoan, there are tiles in multiple shades of red before me! Would your royal highness be so kind as to give this lowly guard more detail about which red tile you’re looking at?” comes Phainon’s voice from the teleslate. Phainon may have started out this journey somewhat nervous, no doubt still thinking about their unconventional first “duel” and his victory over Mydei, but the longer they remained stuck in this temple, forced to work together without seeing each other or knowing what the other was doing, his tongue has steadily grown more and more insolent.
Phainon does have a point though and Mydei squints at the tile before him, trying to think of the best way to describe the shade of red before him. He cannot see what lies before Phainon’s eyes even though the man had described to him his surroundings in painstaking detail. From what he knows, Phainon has to form a specific mosaic using tiles of different colours. As for Mydei, he has the completed mosaic before him but he can only use words to convey what he sees.
“It’s red,” Mydei starts hopelessly, but at the first annoyed sound from the other end of the line, he feels an answering fury rise within him, unwilling to lose to this HKS of a man a second time. “The colour of pomegranates, when their ruby-red, jewel-like fruit are at their ripest.”
He hears a muted click from the other end of the line and across from him, the door that had been so stubbornly shut the whole time he was in this room swings open.
“It worked!” he hears Phainon exclaim. “Thank you, Mydeimos.”
Mydei only grunts back as he strides towards the door where, no doubt, their next puzzle awaits them. He is getting tired of this nonsense, the endless puzzles that Phainon and him have been thrown into, trapped in the depths of this foreign Janusopolis temple. If he had it his way, this place would be a pile of wreckage by now. But Phainon, with his silver tongue, cautioned Mydei to stay his hand. There were too many unknown variables at work after all. The temple could be structurally unsound. There could be hidden traps that would go off if triggered by a violent explosion. The temple they are in is one dedicated to Janus and there could be tricks up the Titan’s sleeves that neither of them know about. Mydei has a duty to his people to return to them safe and it is only this thought in his mind, this responsibility weighing down on him, that stops him from smashing the walls caging him in to pieces.
“That was surprisingly eloquent of you,” he hears Phainon natter on, chattier than he had been on the road here. “When you mentioned pomegranates, I knew immediately which tile I needed.”
Mydei grunts again, unwilling to make conversation, even though he bristles at the subtle taunt in Phainon’s words.
“You like the colour red, don’t you?” Phainon continues, despite the lack of response from Mydei. “After all, your chlamys is that very colour. And so are your tattoos, as a matter of fact.”
Mydei is partial to that colour and pomegranates but he feels like the Deliverer has no need of that information.
“If you are too tired to even speak, perhaps we should take a short rest, prince?” comes Phainon’s next taunt and Mydei has to consciously keep his hand from crushing the teleslate—his only form of communication with this HKS—into bits.
“I am perfectly fine. I simply do not waste my energy on meaningless conversations. Perhaps you should consider taking a break yourself, Deliverer. After all, that tongue of yours has to be tired of prattling on.”
A laugh comes from the teleslate, tinny through the faraway connection. “It seems you could stand to have more of these ‘meaningless conversations’ as you call them, prince. It could do wonders for your communication skills and the gods know we need them now.”
Mydei rolls his eyes. Phainon can’t see it but Mydei hopes he senses it from wherever he is in this accursed temple. “My communication skills are fine. My people know exactly what I mean when I speak to them. You, on the other hand, need to improve your listening skills.”
“I’m an excellent listener! I’ve been told that by my friends and fellow guards. I only stumble when the instructions given lack clarity.”
“What lacks clarity is your head—”
“Oh, I found a book! Hold on, let me read what it says.”
Mydei stops and takes a look around him. While he had been talking with Phainon, he had entered another room with a different setup from the previous one. Like the other rooms he had been in, it is sparsely decorated apart from the murals on the walls, which had held scenes of religious worship or depictions of the people's daily lives. However, the walls of this room are bare and the one thing that catches his attention is the raised circular platform in the middle of the room. Along the circumference of the platform are twelve pedestals, evenly spaced out, each with a marble bowl filled with clear water placed atop it.
“What does your book say, Deliverer?” Mydei speaks when the other man on the line is compelled into silence for an unusually long time.
“Hm, that’s the thing," Phainon says slowly. "I can’t read it.”
Mydei scoffs. “You can't read? That comes as no surprise to me.”
“No, it’s not that. I can read the script it’s written in but the words themselves… they are unfamiliar to me.”
“Not the Okheman language you’re used to then.”
“Probably not,” Phainon agrees.
“Read it aloud. You can still read the words even though their meaning is lost on you, can’t you?”
“Well, yes. Have a go at it then, prince.”
Phainon reads. The moment he speaks the first word of this unknown language aloud, Mydei winces. His pronunciation is rough, his tongue unused to the combination of words and which syllables to be emphasised—but Mydei recognises it with some surprise. The ancient language of Castrum Kremnos.
“So, did that make any sense to you?” Phainon asks, pausing after the first line.
“Your pronunciation is atrocious, but yes I can understand it. It’s a letter,” Mydei informs him.
“What language is this written in?” Phainon asks, fascination colouring his voice. “I’ve perused ancient texts in Okhema but I’ve never come across something like this.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. It’s Kremnoan.”
“Kremnoan? In a Janusopolis temple?” Phainon says, surprised.
“You’ve just described me, Deliverer,” Mydei says, deadpan. “I do not know why or how there is a book with Kremnoan text in it but this temple has made little sense to me ever since we entered it. Tell me the rest of what it says.”
“Was that a joke that you made?” Phainon says incredulously, only to be met with silence from the prince once more. “Mydeimos? Fine, I’ll read your text.”
The contents of the page is indeed a letter, written in the ancient Kremnoan language and there is a little pang in Mydei’s heart as listens to the familiar cadence of his language, clumsy as it is from Phainon’s tongue. He misses home, his detachment, his people, and those he calls his friends. He may have been tossed from his home at an early age, forced to fend for himself in the Sea of Souls but Castrum Kremnos has always been his home, whether he is in Okhema nor Janusopolis. Wherever his people, his Kremnoans, are is where he belongs.
The contents of the letter itself are normal, addressed to someone called Tribios. A letter from a friend, a Kremnoan warrior who had travelled far from home and met a friendly face in a foreign land. The letter is a wish for Tribios to be well before the warrior set out for their home of Castrum Kremnos. After Phainon finishes reading, Mydei ponders the words, casting his eyes over the room he is in.
In the letter, there had been three things that stood out to him. The names of three Titans that had been mentioned: an offering to Janus to guide the Kremnoan warrior’s path home, a prayer to Nikador for strength and tenacity for the journey ahead, and a ward against Thanatos not to visit the homeward bound warrior just yet.
Mydei walks up to the bowls of water on their pedestals and peers in. In each of the bowls, he sees a symbol carved into the bottom of it, clearly visible through the clear water. Twelve symbols for twelve Titans. The three Titans mentioned: Janus, Nikador, and Thanatos. Mydei goes from bowl to bowl, hunting for the symbols of the three. Once he locates them, he searches each pedestal until he finds something that feels like a raised button near the base of the bowl, the pointed fingers of his gauntlets clacking against marble.
Mydei presses down on the button and something clicks, the water in the bowl containing the symbol of Janus draining out through a hidden opening at the bottom. He repeats this with the bowls marked with the symbols of Nikador and Thanatos and the same thing happens each time, the clear water forming a miniature whirlpool in the bowls as it drains away. As the last of the water vanishes from Thanatos’s bowl, he feels stone shift under his feet and he braces himself as the circular floor under his feet starts to rotate ever so slowly, descending into new depths.
“—Mydeimos. Mydei,” comes Phainon’s incessant voice from the other side of the line.
“Do not call me that, Deliverer,” Mydei says into the teleslate.
“Oh, now you answer me.” Phainon sighs. “Did you do something over at your side? The floor started moving.”
“I solved the puzzle,” Mydei says, a little smugly.
“You did?”
“Why? Is it that surprising that a Kremnoan like myself can solve something as easy as that?"
Phainon falls silent for a moment before he speaks up, the light-hearted tone of his voice turning abashed for a moment. “Some of the prejudices that Okhemans have of Kremnoans may have rubbed off on me in my time here.”
Mydei raises an eyebrow. “Is Okhema not your home?”
“No, I’m from Aedes Elysiae. You probably haven’t heard of it before but it’s across the sea. It’s a little village, known for its fish and bread.”
Even though Phainon tries to keep his voice light, Mydei recognises the underlying emotions under that deliberately steadied voice. Homesickness. Grief. Loneliness. Mydei has not heard of Aedes Elysiae before but he can guess what might have happened to the Deliverer's beloved hometown.
“You’re a long way from home,” Mydei settles on saying eventually. He has never been particularly good at comforting people and how can he comfort Phainon? The black tide has taken too much from everyone.
“It’s why I have to become the Deliverer,” Phainon says, steel in his voice, sounding the most solemn that Mydei has ever heard him. “If not, it would have all been for nothing.”
“There is nothing that is ‘all for nothing’,” Mydei says. “We are the sum of our experiences, good or bad. Turn all that you’ve lived through into strength, Phainon of Aedes Elysiae.”
There is another stretch of silence between them for a moment, contemplative, pleasant even, and then Mydei hears Phainon speak with a light chuckle, “Words of wisdom from the crown prince of Castrum Kremnos himself.”
“If you prefer silence, we can default back to that once again,” Mydei shoots back.
“No! That’s not it,” Phainon exclaims, his voice rising over the teleslate as he scrambles to clarify. “I don’t mean to offend. You know, growing up in Aedes Elysiae, I wanted to go to Castrum Kremnos. It was my dream to train my swordsmanship under the best of the best.”
Surprise blooms in Mydei again, hearing Phainon speak so highly of his home and people. This is the first time he has ever had such a lengthy conversation with Phainon and, despite himself, he feels like he has learned much about the other swordsman. Perhaps he had been the hasty one, painting all the people in Okhema with the same broad stroke that they seem determined to paint him and his Kremnoans with. It seems that are lessons to be found here, even so far from home.
“It may not be too late for you,” Mydei tells him. “We’ll make a proper warrior out of you yet.”
The floor under his feet grinds to a stop, announcing Mydei’s arrival at his destination, wherever it may be, and he raises his head to look around him. There is… not much to look at. While he was in conversation with Phainon, the floor had continued its descent, the wall wrapped around its circumference, forming a continuous elevator shaft that traps and confines him to the circular floor that he stands on.
Now that he is right at the very bottom, he sees that there are symbols scrawled all over the walls, linked to each other with glowing golden lines like fruit on the branches of a tree. The symbols are utterly foreign to him, not part of any language he knows nor standing for representations of the Titans. Perhaps they might be alchemical symbols but Mydei is not familiar with the work of alchemists, having never formally studied it himself.
“Deliverer?” he calls through the teleslate. “What do you have over at your side?”
“Hm,” comes Phainon’s voice, contemplative and distracted like he is looking at something. “I think it’s my turn to do the solving. I’m assuming that you have the clues over at your end. I have what looks to be a large slate with some symbols on them but it appears to be incomplete. Only some of them are lit up.”
“I'll guide you through this,” Mydei tells him. “I have some symbols over here. I’ll describe them and you can tell me if they match up.”
Just as he begins thinking about how best to describe the unfamiliar symbols, he hears the floor click under his feet again. It rotates, inching downwards and Mydei feels heat crawl over his feet, his legs, rushing upwards in the cylindrical elevator shaft he is trapped in. He looks down and sees that under him, under the floor, lies a sea of molten gold lava. The elevator he stands on is gradually taking him down to a fiery end.
Fuck.
“Deliverer, we’d better hurry it up.”
“I’ll go as fast as I can. Why? Tired of this lovely, hospitable place already?”
“Yes,” Mydei replies calmly as he crosses his arms and stares at the symbols before him, “and also I suspect if we do not solve this particular puzzle quickly I will be experiencing death by a warm molten bath.”
That gets Phainon’s attention and he lets out a little confused “Huh?”
"There is lava under me and the platform I am on is descending towards it."
Phainon snaps into action, his voice turning business-like. “Alright, Mydeimos. Lay it on me.”
They try, they really do. Phainon doesn’t even stop to chatter and neither of them pause to taunt and bicker with each other. It is a perfectly lovely cooperative exercise which he suspects Aglaea, that all-knowing woman, would be happy to hear about.
However, it is not enough.
The heat is unbearable, sweat pouring down Mydei’s bare skin in rivulets. He tries to climb his way out multiple times while still communicating that endless wall of symbols to Phainon but the walls are smooth, giving him no traction even when he peels off his gauntlets to get a better grip. The elevator he is on only continues its slow descent into the lava and at some point Mydei has to accept his fate. He sighs, wedging his teleslate into his gauntlet and praying to Nikador that it survives the lava bath he is about to take.
“Phainon,” he informs his unwitting partner. “Do not be alarmed but I believe I will lose my life from this.”
“What?” comes Phainon’s voice, high and agitated. “No. Mydeimos, we’ll get through this.”
“It is of no consequence to me.” Mydei closes his eyes as the golden lava begins to lap over the edge of the floor. “I will come back.”
“Come back? What are you talking about? You don’t just come back from Death’s grasp.”
“I do.” The molten gold spills over, reaching for the centre of the floor, greedy for Mydei’s flesh and bone. He feels it lick against his armoured feet, metal searing his skin with a hiss before the lava even starts to eat away at it. “I’ll be back in a while, Phainon.”
---
“Mydeimos? Mydeimos? ” Phainon shouts into his teleslate, pressing it to his ear and holding his breath, listening closely for any trace of Mydei’s voice.
There is nothing from the other end of the line. Not the sullen silent treatment the prince had given him for most of their journey when Phainon knew he was still there, just unwilling to speak, but a true silence, apart from the unsettling gurgling of heavy, molten liquid and a long, slow hiss. The blood curdles in Phainon’s veins, turning to ice.
He just heard Mydei die.
“Mydei?” Phainon speaks into the teleslate again, his throat dry, his voice cracking. “Hello, Mydei?”
Silence.
Phainon swallows and then presses his hand against his closed eyes, trying to calm himself. Mydei said that he would come back. He has heard stories about the crown prince of Castrum Kremnos, Mydeimos the Undying. He can fight for ten days without rest. All wounds that open in his body close up even without a healer’s attention. A death blow is nothing more than a minor inconvenience to him.
Mydei said that he would come back and he had sounded so calm when he said that, not the slightest trace of fear or hesitation in his voice as he went off to face death like an old friend. Phainon believes him, he wants to believe him, but death has always seemed so certain to him. So all consuming. So unyielding.
What if Mydei doesn’t come back?
Phainon stares sightlessly at the half-completed slate before him, with its multiple symbols lit up by Phainon's touch. Mydei had been doing his best to convey all these strange symbols to Phainon and Phainon thought he was moving at a steady pace. But he had been too slow and Mydei was the one who paid the price for it. He has always been too slow, too late, not enough —
“Still there, Deliverer?” comes Mydei’s voice from his teleslate, gravelly like he had just woken up from a long rest. “Or has this cursed temple gotten you as well?”
“Mydeimos!” Phainon clutches his teleslate, his shoulders slumping in sheer relief. So the stories were true—Mydei truly was the undying, immortal prince of Castrum Kremnos.
“Have you made progress since I was… occupied?” Mydei asks, as if dying was simply him stepping out to grab a quick snack from a thermopolium.
Phainon laughs a little at that, his heart still pounding even with the relief that flows into him knowing that Mydei is back. “Like I could. You stopped talking to me.”
Mydei scoffs. “For obvious reasons. Now, where were we?”
With the puzzle already on its way to completion, Mydei is spared from a hot lava bath for a second time and they both proceed into their respective next rooms. This has to be the tenth puzzle they have come across and Phainon wonders just how many there are in this temple, how many they have to complete to finally reach the exit. How many had died trying to see this to the end? He shakes his head to banish the thought. He has to be focused for what comes next, for Mydei and his sake.
There are statues in the next room, made of heavy bronze and depicting stoic warriors, each holding weapons and, for some, shields in their hands. Phainon looks around but there is nothing more for him to find. Given the pattern so far, it must be Mydei’s turn to solve the puzzle while Phainon gives him instructions.
“What do you have over there, Mydei?”
“Don’t call me that,” comes Mydei’s reply instantly. “There are statues along the walls and an armoury at one end of the room.”
“Are your statues holding anything?” Phainon hazards a guess.
“No. Should they?”
“Aha.” Phainon snaps his fingers, figuring it out. “I think what you have to do here is to arm those brave bronze warriors.”
“What, with any weapon?”
“No, they’re holding specific ones where I am. I’ll tell you which ones to pick.” Phainon says, idly eyeing his surroundings. He is sure that the walls had seemed further from him the last time he looked and, yes, he is right—the walls are slowly closing in on him. “Not to alarm you, prince, but it seems that our time is limited here too.”
He can hear the frown in Mydei’s voice as he asks, “You have lava there too?”
“Well, no. It’s just that the walls are closing in on me. Literally.”
Mydei curses in a language he hasn’t heard before—probably the ancient Kremnoan language he had just butchered—and says, “Alright, Deliverer, start talking.”
Phainon smiles. “I thought I would never see the day where you would say that to me.”
“It’s like you want to be crushed to death,” Mydei mutters darkly.
They go fast, focused once more with Phainon’s impending death looming over them. Unlike Mydei, he doesn’t come back and he doesn’t fancy meeting his end as minced meat between two walls. There is still much he has to do, or him surviving the burning wreckage of his hometown would have all been for nothing.
Still, at the back of his head, he has to admit to himself on some nights that death does have its allure. It is peaceful for one and perhaps he would be able to meet his parents again, and little Livia and Piso and all those lives swept up in the sea of flames, lost to him forever.
“Whatever it is you’re thinking of, quit it,” Mydeimos growls, his voice cracking over the stretched-out connection of the teleslate. “I can hear that you’re distracted. You’re not going fast enough.”
Phainon startles. For a moment, he wonders if "Mind Reader" is another one of Mydei’s epithets on his already long list of them.
“Last one then. We’re almost there,” Phainon informs Mydei, the two walls on either side of him close enough to touch if he just reaches out his arms. “The last warrior, the hooded one, holds a greatsword with a cross-guard of gold and a blue jewel affixed to its pommel.”
Mydei doesn’t respond but the walls start inching away from Phainon and he breathes a sigh of relief. The prince solved it again.
A door creaks open at the far side of the wall and he strides towards it with purpose. “Mydei, you there?”
“Where else would I be?” Mydei responds, somewhat grouchily, and Phainon notices that he has given up on correcting Phainon over the nickname he gave him. He also notices that Mydei’s voice sounds different from how it had been in the past few hours they had been conversing by teleslate. He could have sworn he heard it—
A flash of red and gold passes by ahead and Phainon grins, hurrying to catch up.
“Mydeimos— ack, blessed Oronyx, where are your clothes!?”
Before Phainon stands the crown prince of Castrum Kremnos in his full glory, and by that he means all of it. Mydei still has his gold gauntlets and greaves on but is otherwise devoid of a single speck of fabric clothing. His chest is bare to the world—or temple—which Phainon is used to, but so is the rest of him and Phainon doesn't know where to look.
“It burnt away in the lava,” Mydei responds simply, completely unbothered by his state of undress.
“And you couldn’t, you didn’t— Was there nothing else for you to wear along the way?”
Mydei blinks slowly at him, his face its usual meld of impassiveness and royal disdain. “There were the suits of armour, but as you can see, I have my own.”
“You can’t just walk around like that. This isn’t the baths.” Phainon unclasps his chlamys from his shoulder, sliding the length of blue fabric out from under his pauldron. “Here, take my chlamys.”
Mydei stares at him and the outstretched chlamys but makes no move to take it, his powerful arms crossed over his impressive chest. “Why does it matter? We are both men and even if we were of different genders, it still does not matter. People of all genders in Castrum Kremnos train and live side by side.”
“Well, yes. But aren’t you cold? And once we’re out of here, we will run into others. There is a thing called decency, Mydeimos,” Phainon implores him, still not quite looking at Mydei.
Mydei cocks his head at him, his golden eyes glinting like he finally figured out the solution to a puzzle. Phainon sees a flash of perfect white teeth out of the corner of his eyes as Mydei grins at him.
“Does my nakedness bother you, Deliverer?” Mydei asks wickedly.
“It would bother anyone, your royal highness, ” Phainon says with emphasis, flapping his chlamys at Mydei until he takes it.
As Mydei wraps it around himself like a makeshift chiton, he tells Phainon, “Not the Kremnoans. Once you’ve trained like we do, nakedness is the least of your worries.”
The blue fabric goes rather nicely with the blue of Mydei’s ornaments, Phainon thinks to himself absently, eyeing the glinting blue jewels inlaid in the fine gold that Mydei has draped across his sternum and at his ear. Mydei himself looks quite nice in blue, a change from the daring red he drapes himself all the time. Perhaps when they return to Okhema he could make a suggestion to Aglaea to recommend Mydei clothes in that colour.
“Now, since we have reunited, this must mean that our way out is close,” Mydei says, fastening Phainon’s chlamys at his shoulder with one last knot and sweeping his braid away from it, the gold and red strands brushing against the blue fabric, its colours reminding Phainon of the rosy dawn over the wheat fields in Aedes Elysiae for one fleeting second.
Phainon nods, peeling his eyes away from Mydei and taking a look around. Mydei is right. They must be at the end of this temple and its puzzles. The last room they step into is a vast, echoing chamber with four smooth walls and a door that shuts permanently after Mydei and him step through it. The only thing of note is the imposing set of scales, Talanton's scales, along one wall and no sight of an exit anywhere.
“Look,” he hears Mydei say and turns to see him stretch out an armoured hand, one golden-clawed finger pointing upwards at a space above one end of the scales.
There looks to be a single opening there, a passageway carved into the wall, with a faint bit of light illuminating it from within. The issue is that there seems to be no way to reach it except for…
Phainon glances at Talanton’s scales and sees Mydei’s head dip to do the same. Its meaning is clear, a cruel trick played by the architect of this temple and its puzzles. After making it through all the rooms, devised to be impossible to clear on one’s own, only one of them can leave the temple.
“There has to be another way.” Phainon shakes his head. “This must be another puzzle.”
Mydei does not respond but Phainon sees him cast his gaze over the chamber, his golden eyes looking for a solution. This must have been how he looked all that time when they were separated, calm, in control, analytical, so unlike the bloodthirsty crown prince of Castrum Kremnos he had heard so much about. Mydei's greaves strike the floor as he goes from one corner of the chamber to another, running his armoured hands over every nook and cranny in the walls. Phainon does the same, even though his eyes keep drifting back to the scales taking up most of the chamber with a sinking feeling in his chest.
Half an hour of searching later, they still have nothing but Talanton's scales.
“You could leave first,” Phainon offers. “Go find reinforcements and come back for me later.”
Mydei shoots him a scathing look. “And what if something happens to you while I’m away. Unlike me, you do not come back from the dead.”
“I’ll be fine.” Phainon flashes him a reassuring smile. “I can handle myself.”
Mydei scoffs and does not agree. “I have another proposal,” he says instead, rolling his shoulders like he is gearing up for a fight.
Phainon eyes him somewhat nervously. If the prince of the city of warriors, blessed by Nikador himself, wishes to fight him, he might as well have just accepted Phainon's offer to stay behind in the first place. What can he, a lowly city guard, do against that much raw power?
“I am tired of playing by this place’s rules,” Mydei declares and Phainon finds himself replacing one concern with another.
“To be fair, I thought you would have wrecked this place by now,” Phainon admits. “But remember, prince, we’re still in here.”
Mydei shakes his head, tossing around his magnificent mane like the prideful lion he is. “Not for long. Listen up, Deliverer, I have a plan.”
“I’m listening.”
“Go and stand on the side of the scales that will take you upwards towards the exit.”
“And?”
“I’ll take care of the rest.”
“What?”
Mydei looks at Phainon, his golden eyes piercing through him. There is the slightest trace of a smile on his face as he commands Phainon easily, the confidence of a commander exuding from him. “If you must, just step back and be ready to receive me.”
Phainon is no more illuminated on the details of this plan than he was before but he supposes Mydei has a plan. Besides, if it turns out that Mydei is the self-sacrificial sort, Phainon won’t allow him to go through with it. He has that much sense to prevent something as obvious as that.
So he goes to stand on one side of the scales, watching Mydei take up position on the other side. The moment that the both of them are in place, the scales start to tip heavily, sending Mydei down and Phainon up until he is level with the passageway in the wall they had spotted. Fresh air brushes against his face, ruffling his hair, and he can see the light from outside. He glances down at where Mydei is, diminished in size with how far away from Phainon he is, resplendent in his gold and the borrowed blue from Phainon.
As he watches, Mydei reaches up and grabs the chain holding the dish he is standing on. Then, he begins to climb, pulling himself up the chain with just his arms until he reaches the balancing beam at the top. It is now that Talanton’s scales start to sense that something is amiss and Phainon feels the dish under his feet start to tremble, as if in rage at this foul play.
“Deliverer, GO!” Mydei roars as he pulls himself up on the beam in one swift motion, balancing catlike on the narrow walkway.
The dish sways under Phainon’s feet, the scales threatening to crash down at any moment, and Phainon leaps off, landing in the passageway. Without hesitating, he draws his sword in one swift motion and turns, jamming it under the beam so that it stays tilting upwards for Mydei to keep running on it towards him and the exit. The prince charges up the beam, even as it rocks and sways, the dishes they had previously stood on crashing into the ground below. As Phainon watches Mydei run, he sees the fulcrum in the centre of the beam start to dislodge from the support structure holding it in place and he curses under his breath.
“Mydei, jump towards me!” Phainon shouts, reaching out his free hand towards the prince. There is still a fair bit of distance between them but he trusts in Mydei’s strength and agility.
In that split second, he sees Mydei’s leg muscles bunch under his swathes of blue fabric just as the fulcrum and beam completely tear away from the structure holding it up, and he leaps, one arm outstretched towards Phainon. Their hands meet, the sharp points of the prince’s armoured fingers digging into Phainon’s uncovered ones. The connection made, Phainon grits his teeth and growls deep in his chest as he grips Mydei’s hand with everything he has and throws himself backwards, tossing his sword to the ground, uncaring of how it clangs pitifully down the passageway. He doesn’t allow Mydei’s weight to drop, for him to start falling and have the chance to send them both plummeting downwards with the scales, pulling all of Mydei’s momentum when he made that powerful leap into him and dragging Mydei against him instead.
Phainon falls backwards with the prince on top of him, his crushing weight knocking the wind out of Phainon’s chest. His back hits the ground hard enough to bruise his ribs and he lets out a pained whine, the sound weak and deflated without any air in him. He thinks Mydei’s head might have hit his nose in the process because it hurts and he is seeing stars where the back of his head collided with the hard ground. But still, he gropes for Mydei, patting him down blindly through the white starburst of pain filling his head. His hands find warm metal, the worn, flowy fabric of his own chlamys, and firm, but also surprisingly soft, flesh.
Mydei groans on top of him. “Deliverer, were you not just blushing over my nakedness a mere moment ago? Why are you groping me freely now?”
Phainon’s vision clears and he finds himself holding a warm handful of Mydei’s thigh as he stares back at Phainon, clearly unimpressed.
Phainon drops his hand immediately as if he had just stuck it into burning lava. “Sorry. Just checking that you were all in one piece.”
“I am,” Mydei responds, still sprawled out on Phainon, his legs tangled with his and weight still on Phainon’s chest, looking winded from his mad run up the scales. He seems to be thinking about something, his golden eyes thoughtful, before he meets Phainon’s inquisitive eyes and says, “That was a good call you made at the end, telling me to make that leap.”
Phainon warms at the praise, the first nice thing he has heard Mydei say to him ever. “I knew you would make it. It’s all that warrior training in you.”
Mydei snorts and finally sits up, and Phainon finds that he can breathe again when he is not being squashed by the weight of Mydei’s impressive body. “Of course I would make it. At the same time, I must commend you on your arm strength. I didn’t know you had it in you, Deliverer.”
“Hidden depths, my ma used to say. Also, a daily weight training routine. I don’t swing that greatsword around just for fun.”
“Could have fooled me.” With that, Mydei gets to his feet properly and reaches a hand down to Phainon. His golden eyes meet Phainon’s but he doesn’t say anything, just waiting.
But Phainon understands him all the same, grinning as he reaches up to grab Mydei’s hand and lets him pull him up from the ground.
---
“Prince Mydeimos, Phainon,” Aglaea, the Goldweaver, greets them when they finally make it back to the Hero’s Bath, after a long trek back to Okhema from Janusopolis, “I’m glad to see you unharmed. How was your mission?”
“It went well.”
“The outcome was acceptable.”
Phainon and Mydei glance at each other, pausing after their words overlap.
Aglaea grants them both a faint smile. “I’m glad to see that the two of you are in sync now. It seems that working together has done you both good. Now, there is more work to be done to see the Flame-Chase Journey through.”