It is not even the fact that Master Ikithon is holding a body that stops Eodwulf in his tracks. That is normal.
(He thinks - he thinks - has he even been thinking before this? Has he even really seen, until this moment? Oh gods, Astrid, Astrid, did he do the same to her?
How much of their lives are truly their own?)
It is normal, right up until Eodwulf’s eyes - which lag slightly, hopping from space to space within his own personal quarters (that Master Ikithon has entered, without permission, when did that become normal, why is that not strange, it was strange when they were children, the only ones who could enter his bedroom as a child were Astrid and Bren and now - )
Now his gaze catches on a stretch of hair like flame, and he thinks, no.
No, hazily, a rather useless sentiment. Still his fingers hover over a pearl encrusted with green powder that he first thought, blindly, to be sugar, until he recognized the color and placed it as residuum. No, to the fact that twenty years of his life are gone, wasted under the tutelage of a man who cared not one whit for his wellbeing, nor Astrid’s, nor any of theirs; no, because his mission, the one he just executed (and the traitor, too, likely not a traitor at all) was done for the poorest of reasons; no, to the crumpled form of his childhood friend dumped unceremoniously in the threshold of his doorway without so much as a word.
He looks up, looks away, from unseeing blue eyes and the mottled web of sickly gray-and-purple spilling up Bren’s throat, the wrong way, unnaturally still, away, and Master Ikithon is strangely still on half of his body. When he steps forward he moves his leg as though it were no more useful than a senseless lump of flesh, and his right arm does not move at all.
“Cremate it,” Ikithon growls. Acid scars trace the curves of his face, but no flame. That is strange. Bren always fought with flame when they were younger. He jerks his head toward Bren’s body. “We cannot afford to let this body continue.”
“What - this - “
Ikithon turns and glares, fully, spitefully, and despite himself, Eodwulf shrinks away. He has seen his teacher angry, seen him furious, but not like this. “I lost all my work today,” he seethes. “All of it. All of it. Everything I have done, everything that I have worked toward, destroyed in an instant by this.” He kicks Bren’s body, hard. Eodwulf looks quickly away, nausea bubbling in his stomach. “You do not doubt, Eodwulf.”
And the answer comes easily: “No.”
“Good,” Ikithon says, snaps, snarls, and then turns, and walks away.
No.
Eodwulf, shaking, sits back against the wall. He leans over just enough to close the door, because no one else should see this, should see Bren beaten and sprawled out on the floor, not like this, not when Eodwulf thinks -
He touches Bren’s coat. It is of a fine material: a deep purple that suits him well. He checks one pocket, then another. And another. And he finds a pocket that feels stiff, crusted around the edges, and when he pulls his hand from the fabric he finds a faint coating of residuum dust on his fingers.
He sits back against the wall, hard. He does not look around. His room is dark; he has not been home in some time. The candles extinguished long ago, and the door is closed.
It has been so long since he has cried that for a moment he does not recognize the sensation. It burns, strangely, behind his eyes, and too late he thinks to hold his breath, bury his forehead against his knees.
Bren.
Bren.
What have they done? Gods, what did they do? To each other, to their country, to their parents?
Why is Bren here? How did he die, like this, unaided and alone?
Well, that is a foolish question. He knows how Bren died: his teacher dragged his body into Eodwulf’s room. That is obvious enough. Stupid. Foolish.
With shaking hands and blurring vision, Eodwulf reaches out, and takes one of Bren’s shoulders, like he did when they were very, very young. It hurts, achingly, in the pit of his stomach, to find that Bren is light. Too light. Unhealthy and small. His shoulders are stick-thin, just as they were when all three of them were still just children.
His breath hitches. He drags his friend up by the lapels of his coat and, without looking at the face, tucks Bren’s head against his shoulder.
He holds Bren tightly, eyes squeezed shut, thinking of everything and nothing all at once, and remembers slowly, intimately, what it is to break.
