a silver splendour, a flame

The Prince’s council went on for hours, after that, and much more seriously, too: for the first time, Yuuri saw Yakov’s hard edges reflected in Viktor’s blue eyes. The two of them together were ruthless tacticians. It was a part of Viktor that he did not seem to relish using, cold and a little bit savage, but given the circumstances, neither did he flinch. They settled on a strategy that would rely upon the Princes of the South and the West creating a diversion in the desert, something to draw some of the revenants back away from the center of the ranges, enough to allow a small party time to reach the cauldron.

Otabek and Rafael were confident in their ability to get there, albeit somewhat wary of the two Northern princes who insisted they’d be coming along, the most direct descendants of the aes sidhe the revenants were so bent against. “… Besides, at the risk of stating the obvious,” Rafael murmured wryly, “it’s very hot there.” This he directed at Viktor, who hesitated long enough to consider the facts, remembering the last time he’d disregarded this advice, and then waved them off nonetheless.

“We will all be at risk,” he said quietly. There were other obvious things that Rafael wasn’t saying, Viktor knew, like whether or not the decision to come along was objectively the best one. Last time he’d been heartsick and confused, arrogant, unaware: ready to put as much distance between him and Yuuri as possible after the fires of Beltane.

This was very, very different.

Viktor was not sure he was capable of leaving Yuuri to this task by himself; fortunately, he did not think it was the wiser course of action in any case. He was the son of Lilia and Yakov, currently the most accomplished mage in all four of the realms, coming up into his prime at the same time that his father’s powers threatened to wane. Besides, the odds were terribly stacked. He had a way of evening them. “You will need what luck I can give you.”

“Try not to jump in front of the dragon this time, if I’m fighting it, idiot,” Yuri muttered, to which Otabek merely studied him in silent but clear surprise. “Don’t,” the younger prince warned Beka, with narrowed eyes. Don’t make me say it. There were things that were easier when they weren’t said out loud, because then they were witnessed, had meaning beyond just the thought of them, which was dangerous enough, and if you’re going then of course I’m going was one of those things. Viktor’s attending was an objective fact, logical. Yuri couldn’t manage a corporeal familiar. Still: he was coming, and that was that.

“Yuuri is the only person who needs to engage the dragon,” Viktor said, and that he could say so as smoothly and objectively as he did reminded Yuri that his brother hadn’t gone entirely soft in the wake of his whirlwind romance. He volunteered his husband for the task in perfect, steely calm. Still, Viktor’s blue eyes trailed sidelong, and in so doing he gave himself away: he could say the words. He also hated them. “The rest of us are there to try to ensure that outcome occurs, and nothing else.”

By the time the council drew closed even Seung-gil seemed to be regarding Viktor in a new light, subtly and begrudgingly impressed, even if he’d subsequently pulled Yuuri aside to give him a warning:

If you put yourself in mortal peril I will not be able to spare you from actual death.

From Seung-gil, this was almost something like caring, even if it wasn’t encouraging in the least. … Thanks, Yuuri remembered muttering. Thanks for that.

Now, after dinner, alone on a balcony — there’d been something Viktor wanted to talk to Yuri about, alone — Yuuri turned the council over and over again in his thoughts, considered with new eyes this part of Viktor that was ruthless and cold. Yuuri had once been intimidated by Viktor’s reputation alone: the Northern Kingdom’s Prince of ice, all frozen strength and power. He was not so intimidated now. It was a reputation that lent itself to an interpretation of cruelty, and this was, if anything, the pure opposite of that: Viktor lending the strength of all of the courts he could command to loyalty to help people he did not know and had no reason whatsoever to risk his life for.

So even this, his cold determination, the brusque efficiency with which he and Yakov made decisions: even his hardest edges were admirable at their core; and Viktor had once promised everything he was to Yuuri, even this.

It was noble, and yet not beautiful, all at the same time. It was Viktor’s strength, and also Viktor’s promise of changing tides, usually steady, sometimes ferocious. Even Viktor’s cold determination belonged to him. Yuuri felt a flickering of the same possessiveness that had crept over him at Imbolc, had to hide a little bit of a smile, and suddenly there wasn’t even any point in that because Viktor had come back, had arms around his waist, was nuzzling into his neck.

In the morning they’d ride off to danger, which Yuuri decided he wasn’t going to think about.

“Are you —“

Viktor sounded like he was about to ask if Yuuri was alright, and that meant talking. Talking was the very last thing Yuuri felt like doing after an entire day of listening to the council, standing now in the twilight with cold stars twinkling what he hoped were their blessings from so terribly far away. He had no desire to examine his own doubts, to be reminded of the uncertain future. Before Samhain he’d been comforted talking about the years that stretched out ahead of them, of the things they’d get to do together. The word itself was a miracle: not once had Yuuri allowed himself to imagine that someone might be willing to share in his suffering, and certainly not someone like Viktor. Then Viktor had done better: he’d sat on the threshold of Samhain with the power of life and death in his hands, and he’d chosen death because he wanted whatever Yuuri was enough to not mold him into something else, something easier to love, for his own benefit.

Now Yuuri was almost wishing they could be selfish, could leave the cauldron and the dragon and all of the leftover pain of the first age to other people, different ones. Viktor was brave and noble and cold; Yuuri was flickering doubt, a single candle in the middle of a thunderstorm.

He did not feel especially heroic.

What he wanted was to remember all of these facets of Viktor properly, to carry them with him into the danger they’d all agreed to face together. “No,” he said, pre-empting the question before it could finish. Yuuri turned around and cupped Viktor’s face in both of his hands, smoothed his thumb over the Prince’s high cheekbones. “But you knew that already,” he murmured, and before they could talk about it, Yuuri decided that he could still be selfish now, tonight, at least: he could have that much.

He kissed Viktor deeply and without restraint.

Give me this much, he pleaded, whether with Viktor or the old gods, Yuuri did not know. This is all I want.

Viktor obliged. The old gods were silent as they’d ever been, but he had Viktor, and that was enough.

- - -

If you’re here to try to talk me out of it, don’t bother, Yuri had snapped at Viktor shortly after dinner, when his brother insisted on taking a walk. I’m coming and that’s final.

Viktor shook his head, but Yuri recognized the sharpness of his gaze, blunt and assessing; braced himself for an order. Do what you need to do to make sure you’re not a liability when we get there, Yura.

What?

I’m not the only one who’d throw myself in front of danger to protect you, Viktor murmured, aloof, and before Yuri could hurl insults or curses or venom his way, he’d grabbed his brother by the chin, held on with a preternatural calm that the blonde hated when it was directed at him. Think of Otabek.

He’d hurled a beam of light at Viktor’s retreating back after that, fuming, but the lucky bastard dodged, like he always did. Then Viktor stopped, halfway back to the villa, and looked back, briefly contemplative: … it’s not your fault, Yura.

What?

It’s not your fault. Why these words had such an effect on Yuri he’d never know, but he ground his teeth and clenched his fists to distract himself from the traitorous prickling of his eyes.You’ve been around some very hard people who’ve been very unforgiving to the world, Viktor thought, a hand on his chin. He was softer now, and for the life of him Yuri couldn’t figure out which one he preferred: the cold Viktor, telling him to make sure he didn’t cost them the party’s best guide, or this one, the brother with gentle eyes, who seemed to wish he didn’t have to say these things. It makes sense that you’d want to take your time getting to proper magic given what it’s done to everyone you love. But don’t you think you’ve waited long enough to be what you really are?

Then Viktor smiled that damnable, guarded smile of his, the one that wasn’t entirely sincere, and Yuri had thrown another ray of light at him for good riddance as he left. Now he sat alone on a rocky overhang that extended over part of the oasis, braiding streams of light as they fell through his fingers, and to say that he heard Otabek approach was only true because it was the heartbeat he detected, not the Ranger’s near-silent footfalls.

“You too, huh.” Otabek sat next to him, irritatingly silent, and when Yuri couldn’t stand it he looked over at the ban side, found himself the study of another round of scrutiny. A small muscle in Otabek’s cheek twitched tellingly and Yuri scowled. “What, you’re angry? Seriously?”

“… Getting yourself hurt for my sake is the opposite of courage, Yura.”

Yuri had been called many things before, but a coward had never been one of them, and in a blind rage he reached up, light pooling in his palm. He nearly reached to strike the ban side, might’ve even gone through with it, but Otabek caught his wrist, his own fingers coiled in shadows. It stung, this swirling darkness, and it occurred to Yuri that this was the first time either he or Otabek had reached for each other with the power to hurt, had acknowledged the dangerous duality between their two opposing forces.

Still. “Who said I was going to get hurt,” Yuri ground out, ignoring the sliver of pain in his wrist as he focused on the light he’d summoned, made it twine back around Otabek’s hand in return. The very idea of it stung: that Viktor, and now Otabek, thought he might wander out into the desert with them, lovesick and selfish, that he had nothing to offer them on his own merits.

What have you ever done to make them think otherwise?

It’s not your fault, Yura. Viktor’s voice.

Not your fault.

Not your fault.

Not your fault.

… but don’t you think you’ve waited long enough?

The light in his hands grew stronger as Yuri glared at Otabek, waited for one of them to give up on this game they were playing. “I am not,” he said coldly, eyes narrowed, “your liability.” He thought back days, weeks, months, played Otabek’s own words back at him: “What I want to say to you is this: what you have, Yuri, could never possibly be a thing like weakness.”

It was Otabek who let go first, who looked at him for a long moment with an unreadable expression, and Otabek who stood up and left Yuri alone with his hollow victory and the rock he’d won all to himself, the sparse winnings of contest. This was what it was like, he thought, to win wars. He’d gotten a bruise and a rock and he still wanted to cry. It was, he reflected, rubbing at the angry marks on his wrist, their first fight. Did Viktor fight with Yuuri? It didn’t seem like it. He almost asked, but Viktor’s mind was very far away, and that meant he was preoccupied elsewhere. Yuri might’ve been young, inexperienced even, but he was not stupid: he knew precisely what with.

He glared up at the stars and summoned the unicorn over the lake, over and over and over again: as many times as it was going to take until he got it right.

don’t you think you’ve waited long enough?

never possibly be a thing like weakness.

It’s not your fault.

- - -

In Shen-Osheth, Guang Hong finished telling the story in its entirety — at least to the extent which he knew — to Phichit, explanation enough for why they were currently packing bags and preparing for a ride out into the desert, which was a place nobody wanted to be, least of all Phichit. “… and that is why you’re going to pack a bag and head out with us into the desert,” he concluded finally.

Phichit had only this to say: “Yuuri better survive that dragon,” he grumbled, “because he and I are going to have words about how you’re supposed to invite your friends to your wedding when he’s done.”

“All that,” said Guang Hong, shaking his head slightly, “… and you’re mad about the handfasting?”

“I’ve got a whole list,” Phichit promised ominously, and for a moment it was easy to forget that his familiar was the moon rabbit. It looked adorable until it wasn’t. He was one of their more talented mages, after all, with magic and exuberance in equal measure. “You don’t just accidentally get married to the future king of the world. These things have steps. That boy owes me details.”

- - -

Twelve days after Imbolc, 1018 II Age

Otabek slept uneasily. Shortly before dawn he gave up all pretense of pretending to go back to sleep, rose, cast a considering glance back at the villa. Christophe would know all about how aes sidhe went about apologizing, but Christophe was probably also asleep with Rafael, and after the ordeal they’d been through it felt like something trivial to crawl upstairs to ask. Trivial and young, like he was still the boy who’d been here all those years before, incapable of handling his own mistakes, and not a captain of the rangers about to lead a party off to handle a chaos dragon which happened to be nestled into the slope of a volcano.

No: this was something he needed to do on his own, and he went for a walk to shake off sleep, decided absently to gather some of the early desert wildflowers on the way. They were pretty, after all, and pretty things reminded him of Yuri just as often as harder, fiercer things did. Yuri could pretend all he wanted that he didn’t enjoy beautiful things but it didn’t change the facts: he’d walked in the parade at Lughnasadh carrying an arrangement of flowers, had braided them through his hair, had been irritatingly, distractingly radiant in a way that he didn’t even seem to recognize he was capable of. Otabek had noticed because it was impossible not to notice. Just like it was impossible not to think of him now, wandering around the oasis like a lovesick idiot.

Yuri was going to take the damn flowers and he’d like them, and then they were going to talk, because Otabek was not going to ride all the way to the cauldron with this hanging over his head.

He rounded the edge of the oasis, back to the rocky shore where they’d had the entire argument, and stopped in place, because there Yuri was: source of both his admiration and his irritation, all in one. The blonde was combing his fingers through the very tangible mane of a unicorn, leaning drowsily against the magical horse, looking suspiciously like he’d not slept at all.

It was exasperating. Exactly as frustrating as the night before had been, when Yuri had looked at him with those gemstone-hard eyes, piercing, and thrown his own words back in his face as if challenging Otabek to actually prove he actually believed them this time.

Because that’s really what it had boiled down to. He had deserved that, and he’d nearly kissed Yuri for it, but for the smarting on his wrist, tangible reminder enough of the temper Yura had inherited from Yakov. Lilia had chosen not to spend the rest of her life tolerating earthquakes; Beka was going to do her one better, and head them off at the pass.

“Sleep well?” Otabek asked dryly, and Yuri looked up at him with narrow eyes, about to say something cutting and clever, no doubt, until he saw the bundle of wildflowers and hesitated for a moment.

“… You brought flowers?”

“I’m not good at apologies,” Otabek murmured curtly, and held them out as he crept closer, ignored the way Yuri’s fingers lingered for a moment over his as the aes sidhe accepted them. The drift of Yura’s eyelashes as he closed his eyes to smell them was harder to ignore, and so was his almost, not-quite smile. Otabek fixed his gaze out on the oasis, rippling ever so slightly in the morning wind. That was a better place to stare. Safer. “… I just want you to be safe,” he admitted.

“I can handle myself,” Yuri muttered. “I did alright in the desert the first time, and I kept Viktor alive with your help and we shouldn’t have even been able to do all that, and I’ve been trained my whole life, you know —“

“I do know.” He’d gotten a taste in Mosciren and again in Vaux Romandith, watching Yuri compete in the harvest games. The blonde was a menace carrying a sword and a shield, quick and lithe, fast enough that he’d given Otabek trouble every time they’d sparred for practice. Yuri was formidable. Now he was showing what he could do when he was determined, too; the unicorn in front of them both was proof enough of that. “It just. Those things hate you, and if something happens —“

“Let me be perfectly clear,” Yuri stated, and when Otabek looked back at him he was looking at the dread and awe that was one of the Northern princes, standing tall and resolute, with hard eyes and that same piercing look which had made Otabek want to kiss him, and kiss him thoroughly, the night before: “if you do anything besides your duty to this endeavor on my account I will never forgive you.”

He felt himself smiling wryly. “Understood.” Otabek paused for a moment, made sure he’d held Yuri’s gaze. “However.”

“Yes?”

“If you ever lose your temper and raise a hand like that in my direction again —“ Yuri’s gaze faltered, and Otabek recognized the precise moment in which it gave way to remorse. “This will stop.”

“… I’m not good at apologies either.”

“Have you considered flowers?”

Yuri hesitated for a moment, and then stepped forward, touched the fading marks on Otabek’s wrist with a gentle brush of his fingers. He bore a similar sweep around his own hand; they’d each left the fight with a tangible reminder of what not to do again. “How do I make it up to you?”

“You ride with me on the wyvern, so I don’t have to watch you falling asleep on your horse.”

“Unicorn,” Yuri pointed out, raising his chin with a stubborn, proud smile. “Corporeal unicorn.”

“Corporeal unicorn,” agreed Otabek, and he turned his palm over to capture Yuri’s fingers, and as he leaned forward, intending to brush a kiss over the top of the prince’s forehead, Yuri stood up on his toes, and kissed him on the mouth, just left of center.

Between the two of them something uneasy settled a little bit further, this volatile thing Yuri wasn’t ready to put words to yet and which Otabek still didn’t entirely understand, but might come to, someday, in the fullness of time.

If they got so many days. For the first time, he found he could empathize with the aes sidhe’s addiction to time.

Apology accepted.

- - - 

They left for the cauldron: Rafael led the way on the ground, trailed by Christophe, and in the air Otabek’s great wyvern was flanked by three eagles, two of which bore riders: Mari and Seung-gil to the left, Viktor and Yuuri on the right. Makkachin flew at a slight distance, still wary and wild, and from time to time Viktor looked at her with quiet concern.

You think she’ll be okay?

Beka says it’s us the revenants hate so much, Yuri replied back, half-asleep in the circle of Otabek’s arms and therefore lacking the typical biting reply. They won’t come after her.

Yuuri felt Viktor hum a quiet assent to this idea, and sink further into his shoulders. They rode onwards in steady, miserable silence, as the environment grew increasingly hostile for Viktor. The last fresh water Yuuri’d seen had been at the oasis. Every time he woke and looked down it was to glance at an increasingly foreign landscape, shifting from the red rocks of the steppes into a different kind of stone, bleaker, where little grass was stubborn enough to grow and the trees even fewer. Otabek and Rafael moved through this dangerous place with ease and familiarity; it was their home, wild and dangerous, and it made sense now, Otabek’s story about traveling early with the Rangers, how he’d gotten particularly adept at surviving, at stealth.

From time to time, usually on Rafael’s signal from the ground, Mari’s magic flickered around them, conjuring enough illusions to ensure they didn’t draw any unwanted attention. At the end of the first day’s ride — which had been overlong, lasting well past sunset — both Rafael and Christophe turned suddenly on their mounts below, directing the large cats up a steep and barely passable trail that led up to a circle of stone rocks. This promised high ground, and high ground meant a place to camp.

Otabek directed the wyvern to the ground, with the eagles following, and Yuri watched, idly curious, as he, Seung-gil, Rafael, and Christophe all made the same gesture as they dismounted, touching the press of their thumb and first finger to their foreheads and then to their lips as they entered the stone circle. It was curiously reminiscent of blowing a kiss, except more serious, strangely poignant. “… This was a sacred place once,” he explained quietly, glancing back to Yuri. “A long time ago.”

Yuri stretched and tried to shake weariness from his limbs, taking the time to walk around the circle of rocks. Indeed, they were no accident: once, these had been the foundations of something. Lilia’s words came back to haunt him: the ruins of a place that had burned, centuries before his time, because the cauldron had blown and help had not come soon enough. Christophe and Rafa broke out the rations, dried fruit and bread, apologetic. Now was not the time to chance a fire. They drew straws for watches, and it should’ve been strange to watch the way Christophe and Rafael curled up together, or the way Yuuri and Viktor did, like interloping on something private, but somehow here it wasn’t, and when it was Yuri’s turn to sleep he did so with his head against Otabek’s shoulder and an arm thrown over the ban side’s stomach, like maybe this time he’d be the one doing the shielding, the saving.

The second day was no different than the first except now Yuuri’s eyes were more focused; he’d been the first one to smell smoke. The sky grew ominous, a kind of sickly green that refused them rain, the clouds too high and too far off to be meaningful.

Guang Hong and Jean-Jacques’ parties should be beginning their forays now, Viktor reminded him, and, careful of their surroundings, Yuri leaned back to whisper for Otabek’s benefit:

“… are you sure this is the right thing to do?”

“If it wasn’t, I would not ride with you.”

Satisfied with that answer, Yuri offered a prayer to the old gods on behalf of their distant friends, even though Guang Hong was one of the strange Southrons, representing everything his father disliked, and Jean-Jacques was a proper idiot.

Vitya, how are you feeling? Yuuri’s voice intervened, now that the smell of smoke was a little more obvious, more than a passing trace. It was getting stronger, too, sharp and sulphuric. The family’s connection had been oddly quiet, except for periodic check-ins with Lilia and Yakov, who were using the Wayseeing stones to receive updates from lookouts in the other Kingdoms: from Minako and Kenjirou, who’d set up watches along the canyon; from Guang Hong’s parents, who sent messenger birds back and forth from Shen-Osheth to the mages in the desert.

Viktor was still Viktor enough to flash a momentary smirk and make a joke at his own expense: I hate camping, he reminded them both, which meant well enough, I’m okay. Still his blue eyes had lost some of their sparkle and around their edges he looked a little bit grim.

That in and of itself meant nothing. He’d looked grim at the Council of the Princes, too. The cauldron loomed high and big on the horizon now, promising nothing good on the morrow: in the sickly light of the ugliest sunset he’d ever seen, all Yuuri saw was the little trail of smoke, and the cone of the mountain outlined in streaks of dying red and bronze from the falling sun. It made it all-too-easy to imagine the alternative: streaks of red-hot lava and a cloud of smoke that would last for months.

A vision of what could be. But not yet, Lilia reminded him, giving Yuuri a bit of a start. That she’d checked on his thoughts at all was strange, a new thing he wasn’t accustomed to, and yet, motherly, too. What did you expect?

When they made camp on the second night, Otabek and Rafael insisted on watches in threes, and nobody objected. They drew straws for a second time, unluckily, and this left Yuri sitting up with Viktor and Seung-gil while four others slept. Everyone except Yuuri had agreed he’d be getting a full night of rest, and, so outnumbered, the halfling had finally given in, reaching a compromise of sorts only because he’d gone to sleep cradled in Viktor’s arms while the prince stayed up, awake, protective.

Hey, Yura? Viktor’s gaze was distant, set off in the direction of the horizon where they both knew the cauldron was, even though at this hour of night it was little more than a cone of darker black at the edge of the earth.

What.

… I am glad you’re here, Viktor admitted finally, and Yuri turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow. His brother looked tired, and perhaps the dehydration was beginning to get to him. It feels right, he added, to do this together.

In the morning, Christophe gathered everyone close. “Rafa and I debated this,” he said, quietly, as the python slithered into being over his shoulders, “and decided in favor of its merits. With your permission?”

“Permission for what?” Viktor asked, his voice low.

Christophe turned to look at him, hands brimming with shimmering violet. “Courage,” he said, resolutely.

Look at him, he doesn’t need to be any braver, Yuri nearly snapped, but to his great surprise his brother bowed his head, closed his eyes, and reached for his husband’s hand, a quiet reassurance against the one thing he’d not wanted to ever feel again. “We will need all the help we can get today.”

It was such a strange feeling, the first tendrils of Christophe’s magic. At first Yuri flinched, hostile, and then he found his thoughts settling, as though prompted to think of the things that made him feel brave. Lilia made him feel that way, sometimes, when she praised his work for its beauty or its intricacy. Viktor was worth being brave for, particularly when he spoke the truth, even when it hurt:

Not your fault, Yura.

Otabek, who’d grown up here, among this scarred landscape and emerged from it steadfast and noble; Otabek was worth being brave for.

When he looked up again the glow of empathy magic was gone but he felt more sure, more ready, and when he glanced around at the rest of their assembly everyone looked more resolute: Rafael even flashed a brief, crooked grin. “We’ll have to fight our way up from here,” he murmured lowly, holding his arm out until a great owl materialized there, blinking wide yellow eyes at them all. “Best to make our way up on foot.”

“Let’s hope the others have done their part,” Seung-gil murmured, as the three-headed dog emerged at his feet.

“I like our chances,” quipped Viktor, though he did not summon the stag; would wait, like Yuri, until it was absolutely necessary. He understood the legacy they bore now. Mari’s tanuki wandered directly through his legs in retaliation for the joke while Yuuri tried and failed to stifle a brief, choked laugh.

“Vitya, that was a terrible pun.”

“Can’t let the circumstances change who we are,” Viktor replied mildly, and then he nodded towards the mountain that they needed to climb, now steadily simmering smoke. “Let’s go.”

- - -

Rafael and Otabek led the way up the volcano’s slope, stopping every so often to send their guardians darting after revenants who threatened the climb: waves of black magic followed after Otabek’s wyvern, and something olive-toned shimmered with every pass of the great horned owl. Soon Mari and Christophe joined them, adding something purple and something smoke colored to the mix, and not a moment after that did Viktor finally draw his bow and begin to fire arrows.

It was going to be a very, very long climb.

Try and save your magic, Yuuri. You’re going to need it.

This was like the sunset road but so much worse, Yuri decided, lighting up his shield as a spectre leapt down on them. It hissed and retreated from the white glow and from then on the secret was out: Viktor’s stag leapt ahead of them, followed swiftly by the white unicorn, and an answering roar told everyone that chaos was, in fact, home. Yuuri tensed, only to feel Seung-gil’s hand on his shoulder, the gesture brief. “They’re doing well,” said the reaper, whose dog turned to give chase to one of the creeping wraiths, though no magic flew through it. “Let’s continue.”

“Keep climbing,” Rafael insisted, and so they did: up black, sharp pieces of rock that bit into Yuuri’s hands as he scrambled up the slope. The ban side moved across the surface with more readiness, more familiarity, and more than once he accepted Seung-gil’s hand, or Rafael’s, or Otabek’s, as they darted up the volcano’s slope.

“Still with us, darling?” He heard Rafael call out for Christophe, who flashed a wry smile in return as he sent out another burst of violet magic, and forcibly sent a wraith flying backwards in freshly inspired terror. Magic was sentient, Lilia had said. Christophe could make these things feel.

“Can’t be rid of me yet, I’m afraid.”

In the distance three other revenants were chasing an illusion of the stag, helpfully supplied by Mari, who kept making extra copies of the familiars of the two princes appear all over the mountain to draw off attackers. Otabek’s hand fell on Yuri’s back for a moment and a moment only, reassuring himself, perhaps, or Yuri, or them bot. Then they were swept back into the fight, leaning against each other’s backs as shadow and light danced across the rock, burst across a collection of spectres. “We’re almost there.”

“I know.” Yuri paused just long enough to wipe a bead of sweat off his forehead, which reminded him of how terribly hot it was, made him remember something else, too: where was Viktor?

Ahead, of course, an arm thrown over Yuuri’s shoulders. A faint orange glow settled around them both, and Yuri realized with a start that the halfling had begun redirecting heat away from Viktor, which must’ve meant he’d felt some wavering, some danger —

We’re going to be okay, Yuuri promised him suddenly, as he and Viktor and Seung-gil began to press on.  Take care of the others. Seung-gil’s dog chased the revenants but never fully closed in on them, wouldn’t go so far as to deliver cold death. Still: he fought cleanly and quickly and as a guide he was almost as adept as either of the Rangers, had a good sense for where they were headed.

Then the roar sounded again, closer this time, and this time the shadow that flew overhead wasn’t any of Otabek’s, or even, the welcome power of the wyvern.

It was chaos. Chaos was here.

- - -

The center of the fight was surprisingly still, something Viktor might’ve compared to the eye of a violent storm if he’d had the time or the energy to process it properly, to analyze. He did not. Around them in all directions broke bursts of magic like fireworks: the violet and sage that meant Christophe and Rafael were still on their feet; the bursts of black, grey, and white that assured him that the rest of his family had not yet given up, either.  These dazzled and shifted but what mattered was Yuuri, who’d finally let his phoenix go. It flew around the dragon, dwarfed by comparison, an impossibility.

For how could something so small, no matter how bright it was, stand a chance against something so big and so broken?

But this was Yuuri, too, in a way; he defied the odds himself: improbable, easily discounted, underestimated. Yet Viktor knew firsthand that to watch him move was to watch poetry set into life, and the phoenix was a part of him: vermillion grace, darting in tight, golden spirals between the furious snap of jaws and the dangerous whip of the dragon’s tail. That it sometimes caught a few lucky breaks was no accident. Viktor had given up on any hope of influencing the radius of the fight, had left it wholly to their companions, reaching instead for his husband to wrap his arms around his chest and do what Yuuri had once done: offer up the remaining reserves of his magic, all of his good fortune.

Vitya, whatever he’s going to do he needs to hurry up and do it. We can’t hold out too much longer.

“It’s so big,” Yuuri mumbled, fighting to keep his concentration up as silvery threads of magic wound around his torso, sank into him. “… I’m not sure —“

Oi. Mari’s voice crackled across the bond. Quit pretending like you’re ordinary, already.

Viktor, fighting off his exhaustion and the terrible, hot pull of this place, held on a little more firmly. May these hands be blessed this day, he thought, pointedly. May they always hold each other. May they have the strength to hang on during the storms of stress and the dark of disillusionment. May they remain tender and gentle as they nurture each other in their wondrous love. May they build a relationship founded in love, and rich in caring. May these hands be healer, protector, shelter, and guide for each other.

“You’re not alone,” he murmured, dizzy, willing to reach for one last wave of magic. Everything that’s mine is yours. We’re all still here —

Dimly, he heard his husband shout for Seung-gil, for Christophe; hardly recognized the sudden leap of the three-headed dog, surrounded by a darkness that was deeper than any of Otabek’s shadows, or the coiling of Christophe’s python, the final summoning of his own white stag.

Together silver and gold, black and purple came together like a radiant, incandescent wave:

Your time here is finished; insisted the reaper's magic, which Seung-gil would never have used on his own, without Yuuri's promises of rebirth. 
 
Be at peace as you depart, Christophe thought, swiftly changing the emotional waves he cast from terror to serenity, long overdue in a place like this. 

Viktor felt strangely apologetic as his stag raced forward. The crimes of the first age had not been his, and yet ... Fortune was not kind to you in this life, he thought. May the tides be kinder in the next. 

“You’ve had too much of winter,” he barely heard Yuuri say, “it’s time for Spring.”

The brilliance of it all burst everywhere, broke out in a great circle among all of them; waves that radiated in all directions; a luminous glow that spread out over the cauldron as far as he could see, though the edge of his vision was quickly growing dim. The last thing Viktor saw before he passed out was another shadow overhead: smaller, coming through the high and sickly clouds which had begun to part in a streak of tangible sunlight. The last thing he heard was an eagle’s caw overhead; something strong and fierce, lifting him upwards.

... Makka...?

Darkness came, and with it, sweet, sweet relief.