ERICK

  HE WANTED TO RUN TO HER. Even though he could feel his legs, they weren’t there. Phantom sensations, they called them. They. People who cut them off. The ones who said it was the only way to save him. The ones who never knew what it meant to be saved and left like this.

  Big Mike helped him off the wagon and onto the chair. Wooden, heavy, with thick wheels that groaned beneath his weight. Then he pushed him up the stone path toward the house. Toward her.

  She opened the door before they reached it. And froze.

  Her hands went to her mouth first, then her eyes filled, spilled, overflowed. She didn’t even try to hide it.

  Erick tried to smile. He failed. His lips trembled before the tears came, and when they did, they came from somewhere deeper than wounds.

  It was not the victorious return from war he’s been promised, but at least it was a return. Most were not that lucky.

  She fell to her knees before him, wrapped her arms around what was left of him, pressed her cheek to his stomach like she was listening for the heartbeat of the man he used to be.

  “I thought you were gone,” she whispered.

  “So did I,” he said.

  He couldn’t lift her, so he bent as much as he could and kissed her hair.

  They stayed like that, in the doorway, while the wind carried dust across the empty road.

  *

  Supper was quiet. Felt more like a wake than a long awaited return.

  The food was simple. Some grains, flatbread, a bit of meat. She’d cooked it the way Erick liked, or used to like, back when he could walk into a room without the help of wheels.

  Back when strangers didn’t have to help him get back home.

  “I missed your cooking,” Erick said at last, just to say something. His voice came out cracked. Foreign.

  She smiled, but her eyes stayed on her plate.

  “I missed feeding you.”

  “You don’t have to stay,” Erick said to Big Mike. “If you’ve got somewhere to be.”

  “I don’t,” Mike replied. “I have nowhere.”

  Another silence. This one deeper.

  Erick tried to laugh. It came out broken.

  They kept eating. In silence.

  When she rose to clear the table, Erick’s hand brushed hers. She paused, held it for a breath, then walked away without a word.

  Mike got up too.

  “I will sleep in your barn,” he said. “If that’s alright with you.

  “It is.”

  Erick listened to the slow, heavy footfalls fade.

  The candles were dying out. Soft kind of light that supposed to soothe, but only made the silence more fragile. The air smelled faintly of rosewater and smoke. Outside, the wind gently tickled flowers in the garden. Even the stars seemed to be watching.

  She helped him into bed.

  He hated it, the way she moved so gently around him, like he might break if she pulled too hard. Like he was something fragile now. He didn’t want to be fragile. But he couldn’t stop shaking, and it wasn’t from the cold.

  She lay beside him, careful not to crowd his legs. Or rather what was left of them. Her arm curved around his shoulders, her fingers brushing his chest like she was trying to remind him he was still here. Still wanted.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered the way she used to whisper into his ear long time ago. Whole lifetime ago.

  Erick leaned his head against her collarbone and closed his eyes.

  For a moment, there was warmth. A shared breath. The sound of her heartbeat under his cheek.

  But he couldn’t move right. Couldn’t pull her close the way he used to. Couldn’t press himself to her, skin to skin, in that way that used to feel like home. The phantom sensations mocked him. His hands knew where they wanted to go, but stopped. The distance inside him was too vast.

  She nuzzled her face into his hair. Kissed his temple. Held him.

  He wanted to give her more. But his throat tightened.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, voice hoarse. “I’m not a man anymore.”

  She froze. A breath caught in her lungs.

  Then her hand came up and rested over his heart.

  “You’re still you,” she whispered.

  “But not enough,” he murmured. “Not for this. Not for you.”

  She didn’t answer. Didn’t try to fix it. Just lay there with him, her arms a kind of shelter, even if the storm was inside.

  They held each other like that for a long time. No fire between them. Just the ache of love that couldn’t find a way out.

  *

  “I wish I could see him,” she said, straining slightly as she helped ease him onto the wheeled chair. It turned out to be easier this way, bed to chair.

  Erick groaned softly, adjusting his weight.

  “I wish that too,” he said. “But that was the dea

  l I made with those people.”

  “You mean the gods.”

  A pause.

  “I don’t think they’re gods.”

  She looked at him sharply.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged, though the gesture felt hollow, slow. “Just… not gods. Not really.”

  They sat in the hush that always followed these conversations. A silence that wasn’t peaceful, but careful. Balanced on edge.

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  “Is he safe?” she asked. Her voice was quiet. “You know… over there?”

  Erick didn’t answer right away. The garden was visible from the window, its familiar shapes and soft, wavering greens. His gaze was fixed there. He remembered little Yanick, no more than a toddler, crawling through the rough soil while they struggled to soften the hardened earth for planting. That life, hard at times, seemed so much simpler that this one.

  “They’ve changed every place they could into prisons,” she continued. “I worry for him every waking moment.”

  “They promised me,” he said. “That he’d be safe.”

  “Then they must be gods. How else could they promise something like that?”

  “They promised, yes. And they can keep that promise.” He looked her in the eye, slowly. “But they’re not gods. They’re something more. Something worse.”

  Confusion passed over her face, subtle and sharp, like wind across water. She didn’t speak. Maybe she didn’t want to know more.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, breaking the tension with a long sigh. “Can you take me to the garden? I want to sit there for a bit before I go.”

  She nodded.

  Together, they rolled through the wide doorway, then along the stone path beneath swaying branches. The air was warm, thick with jasmine and something earthier. The shadows were just starting to stretch.

  He asked her to leave him for a moment. Just a few breaths of solitude, he said.

  She kissed his forehead and stepped away.

  Erick waited until she’d rounded the hedge, out of sight, then shifted the chair forward with short, uneven pushes. The old garden corner came into view, just beyond the cracked basin where the rain collected, under the warped wooden trellis.

  There it was. Moonwort. Silvery leaves veined like old scars, curled upward to drink the last of the sunlight.

  He braced his arm against the wheel rim and leaned forward. A little more. And a little more.

  The world tilted.

  The edge of the chair bit into his thighs. His chest pressed against the edge of them, inched below the knees that were no longer there. He could feel them, but they were gone.

  His fingers outstretched, fumbling toward the plant. He nearly fell.

  A breath caught in his throat.

  Then finally. Contact. The leaves broke off with a soft snap.

  He clutched them like stolen treasure, shaking slightly. Three. No, four. That would be enough. Maybe five.

  He tucked them quickly into the inside fold of his shirt, near the ribs. Pressed them flat.

  *

  The knock on the door was softer than he expected. Erick waited. His palms were damp against the wooden rims of the wheels. When it opened, he saw his boy standing there, tall and sharp-edged, older than he remembered. Grief hit him like a hammer to the chest.

  “Father?” Yanick’s voice cracked like old timber.

  Erick offered a strained smile.

  “My boy,” he said.

  The look on his son’s face nearly undid him. Yanick’s eyes locked on the chair, then the blanket that hid what was no longer there. Then up, to Erick’s face. Something in the boy shattered.

  He wheeled himself over the threshold, the big wooden wheels catching on the uneven stones. No one offered to help. He wouldn’t have accepted it anyway.

  Yanick didn’t move. Just stood there frozen, his breath shallow.

  Then, slowly, he dropped to one knee.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Erick steadied himself before speaking. “Ambush near the fortress ruins. Pike took me in the thigh. Crossbow bolt caught the other. They tried to save them. Didn’t work. First the foot. Then more.”

  Yanick looked like a man trying not to drown in air. His hands clenched at his sides.

  “Why did you have to go to that war?” he asked, voice tight.

  Erick let the question hang, suspended in the cold air between them.

  He rubbed his jaw, still sore from nights spent clenching through pain.

  “Because I believed…” he began, then stopped.

  He met Yanick’s eyes and didn’t look away.

  Yanick sank down against the wall, knees drawn up. Candlelight flickered across his face. So young, yet already worn at the edges.

  Erick closed his eyes for a moment. He wanted to hold his son like he used to, wrap him in arms that once felt strong and safe. But he couldn’t. Not now. Not like this. Not just because his body was broken, but because love and affection had no space in this life. Not anymore.

  The burden beneath his shirt pressed heavy against his chest.

  “There’s something you have to do, Yanick,” he said quietly.

  “What is it?”

  “If you want to live… if you want your mother to live… you’ll have to do it. But know this. A day will come when they’ll ask for something that would make you hate yourself.”

  Yanick leaned forward, urgency tightening his voice.

  “Do what? Tell me.”

  “Mike!” Erick called. “You can come in.”

  *

  They ate in silence.

  Erick didn’t push for conversation. It wasn’t disinterest, he ached to know what Yanick had been pulled into, what role he had play in this game. But something deeper warned him not to ask. It was better this way. If he doesn’t know he won’t have to lie to her anymore than he already did.

  He watched Yanick’s cup more than his son’s face.

  The Moonswort leaves had steeped long enough. Crushed fine and stirred into the brew. Just a few sips that was all it would take. No bitterness. No scent. Only silence, settling into the blood.

  Yanick drank without hesitation. A few mouthfuls of stew. Another sip. Then the cup back down with a soft clink.

  “I feel tired,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palm. “I’m gonna lay down.”

  Erick nodded softly, voice barely there.

  “There was a lot,” he said. “I know, I understand. Sleep will bring you peace. And courage.”

  Yanick rose slowly, muscles worn from worry, from weight. He crossed the room like someone twice his age, moving not through space but through fog. Lay down with a groan, the bed creaking beneath him. He curled slightly on his side, the way he used to as a child when he’d fall asleep in the hay cart or by the hearth after storms.

  “I will do it, father,” he whispered. The words floated like flames of the candlelight, fading before they reached the floor. “Everything…”

  And then he was still.

  Breathing slowed. Shallowed.

  Erick watched. Not blinking. Not praying. Just watching.

  He waited long enough to be sure. Long enough for guilt to settle like ash in his lungs.

  Then he rolled the chair forward, the wooden wheels whispering against the stone. His hands moved without strength, but with purpose. From beneath his shirt, he drew the cloth-wrapped object.

  Unfolded it carefully, like a relic or a weapon.

  They called it a syringe.

  Small. Clear. A thin glass tube filled with dark liquid, something between ink and blood. Or poison. Or mercy.

  He held it in fingers that no longer trusted themselves. Lined it up just as they’d shown him. Angle. Depth. Timing. Not too fast. Not too slow.

  He leaned forward, almost toppling from the chair. Face close to his son’s arm. Closer still. The boy didn’t stir.

  “I’m sorry, my boy,” Erick whispered. The words cracked at the edges.

  And he pressed the needle in. They promised it will not kill him. It was to help him finish the mission he has been tasked with.

  The plunger sank.

  And so did something inside him.

  *

  The wheels groaned beneath them as the wagon rolled out under cover of night. Cold wind crept into the seams of their cloaks, but no one spoke of it. Not even Yanick, slumped and breathing softly beside Erick, head bobbing with the rhythm of the road.

  Big Mike walked beside them, one hand steady on the sideboard. The other stayed near his belt, always ready, always waiting.

  “Don’t turn back,” he said. “Not even once.”

  Erick nodded. He didn’t ask why.

  Mike moved Yanick to the front of the wagon, propping him up with blankets and furs.

  “He can’t see,” he muttered. “It’s better this way.”

  Erick knew better than to ask what this meant.

  But still he turned. Just once.

  The road behind them glowed red, then orange. Smoke smeared the sky, dulling the stars.

  The academy was burning.

  Flames leapt high from the spires. The same walls that had kept his son prisoner, but safe, now cracked and screamed and fell inward like dying lungs. Those walls were just an illusion of a life that no longer existed. An illusion created for his son. And since they were taking Yanick away from that place, it had not more reason to be.

  “I’m sorry,” Big Mike said, not looking at him. His voice was quiet, but sharp enough to cut. “I had to give the order straight away.”

  Erick didn’t answer. Didn’t blink. Will of the gods.

  *

  The candle burned low in his hand, dripping wax onto his thigh, but Erick didn’t flinch. He sat in the dark like a statue carved from regret, wheels locked in place at the edge of the bed.

  She slept on her side, arms folded under her cheek, lips parted slightly. The blanket had slipped down her back, exposing the curve of her shoulder. Even in sleep, she looked like she was bracing herself for more sorrow, for another goodbye.

  He watched her the way a starving man watches bread behind glass.

  They used to sleep tangled together, legs a knot, her breath warm in the crook of his neck. She used to trace the scar on his ribs with her thumb, whispering stories into his skin. Now her skin seemed a world away.

  His legs weren’t the only things missing. Something deeper had been cut from him, something that would never grow back.

  He lowered the candle slightly, letting the shadows reclaim part of her face. Her eyelashes twitched. A dream, maybe. A memory. Something they shared once before the war, before the gods, before the chair.

  He thought of the wedding day. Not the ceremony, but the night after. The laughter. The way her body had felt against his, like water and fire all at once.

  And now?

  He was just a man in a chair. A ruin on wheels.

  “I never stopped loving you,” he whispered into the dark. “Not for a moment.”

  His voice barely stirred the air.

  She didn’t wake. Moonwort had taken her far beneath the surface of dreams, into that heavy, unshakable place where no sound, no touch, no whispered name could follow.

  He sat like that for a long time.

  Listening. Waiting. For a sign. A pause in the universe. A moment where the gods might change their minds. But nothing came.

  The candle guttered in his hand. Wax crept across his knuckles. He barely noticed.

  Then, slowly, he moved.

  He reached down, fingers fumbling under the hem of the blanket, then the straw mattress beneath it. His shoulders ached. Every small shift cost him something.

  The fabric lifted with a rustle.

  And the flame followed.

  The will of the gods.