One versus a thousand, if not more. Most would panic, vastly outnumbered, even if most of those numbers could be called cannon fodder. Aelius was not amused or even fazed. Right now, he was more annoyed than anything else. The ringing in his ears had slowed in its rise, but it was already screeching. He couldn't even hear the noise of battle anymore. Behind his mask, his eyes were dull, neutral, like he was more bored than anything else.
He glanced down. There was nothing but an open field below them. Had they really come so far out from the city? It didn't feel like it. The army was still approaching, most of it spread across the fields, but a few of those in the back were above the edge of the city. If there were casualties, he couldn't care less since they weren't his. Even if someone back in Magnolia found out, he'd love for them to try and lecture him while he was fighting an entire kingdom's army by himself. Even if it wasn't really an issue for him.
"Plague god's first plague: blood," he muttered quietly as the ringing intensified with the spell. It was louder somehow, but he brushed it aside, even as the headache started to dig in.
Blood began to tear itself free from the soldiers and beasts closest to him. Knightwalker's beast, and the men on her back, were painfully absent from the spell. The blood pooled above them, a massive cloud of ichor, as those which it drained fell from the sky, dead long before they hit the ground.
Rain of Blood had two parts to it. The first stole the blood of its victims. The second caused it to rain down elsewhere. The blood could also be stored for quicker use later. It wasn't a spell he used often. The last time he could remember was the first time he fought Nameless. He tended not to use spells like that again. They brought back bad memories.
The blood cloud flattened out above the remaining army and began to pour. The blood sizzled wherever it struck. He imagined the screams ringing out as men's armor became nothing more than a pot, trapping the acidic ichor inside with them.
The rain didn't stop. It thickened, turning from droplets into sheets, the kind that soaked through everything and left nothing untouched. The blood splashed against shields, pooled in the grooves of armor, seeped through joints and seams men never thought to protect. Those who tried to rip their gear off only made it worse, skin already blistering where the ichor touched, hands slipping, panic turning coordinated ranks into screaming clusters of bodies crashing into one another. Discipline dissolved fast when pain set in. Orders didn't carry. Nothing carried. The ringing in Aelius's ears swallowed it all.
He stood there and watched, like this was a story resolving itself exactly the way he expected. This was what happened when armies believed numbers mattered more than understanding what they were marching toward. This was what happened when a kingdom decided one man was expendable.
The cloud thinned as it emptied, the last of it falling in heavy, uneven clumps before finally dispersing into nothing. What remained below was ruin. Bodies littered the field in broken piles, some still twitching, most very much not. The advance had stopped entirely. What was left of it hesitated, the back lines frozen, staring at what used to be the front.
Aelius exhaled slowly. The headache pulsed once, then dulled into something manageable. He lifted his head and finally looked toward the survivors. "Well?" he muttered to no one. "You coming. Or do we call it here?"
No answer, of course. Just fear, rippling through the remaining ranks like a living thing. Some stepped back. Some dropped weapons without realizing it. A few tried to run, boots slipping in the backs of the beast, and more than a couple fell off.
He turned his gaze back toward the distant city, toward stone walls and towers that thought themselves untouchable. Knightwalker and what was left of the army had begun to descend, shapes breaking from the sky one by one, cautious now, slower. He followed them down, step by step, lowering until his boots touched the field he had just turned into a grave. The ground was slick beneath him, dark and uneven, bodies scattered in every direction. He didn't look at them. There was no point.
They faced each other across the field of crimson. The remaining soldiers kept their distance, forming a loose, shaken line behind her. None of them stepped forward. None of them met his eyes for long.
Knightwalker did.
She moved ahead alone, spear planted into the ground with a solid thud, posture rigid, controlled. There was blood on her armor, splashed and dried, but none of it was hers. Her expression was hard, but not fearless. Calculating. Measuring.
Aelius let out a slow breath, shoulders dropping a fraction. "Can you just surrender already?" he sighed, the words heavy with equal parts exhaustion and irritation. "You just watched me kill a thousand men. You lost to my Erza earlier, I assume. And she is considerably weaker than me." He tilted his head slightly, eyes dull behind the mask, voice flat. "So just make this easy so I can go home."
For a moment, Knightwalker said nothing. The wind dragged itself across the field, carrying the copper stench of blood with it. Somewhere behind her, a soldier shifted his weight and quickly stopped when she raised a hand without looking back.
"You speak as if this ends with me," she said at last, her grip tightening on the spear. "As if this is only about leaving."
"It is," Aelius replied. "For me. For the others from my world. So I repeat, just surrender. Don't throw your life away for a soon-to-be-dead king."
The words hung there between them, heavy and unadorned. He wasn't taunting her. There was no heat in it. Just a fact, as far as he was concerned.
Knightwalker's jaw flexed. Her eyes flicked, then again, to the field behind him, to the bodies surrounding them. In the aftermath, she hadn't been able to stop. Whatever she saw there hardened something in her, not fear, not quite resolve either, but a brittle sort of certainty. The kind people reached for when the alternative was admitting they were already beaten.
"You don't understand," she said. "If I step aside, this world collapses. Our magic, our cities, and everyone who depends on them. You leave, and we die."
Aelius let out a slow breath through his nose. "You were dying long before I showed up. You just decided it was acceptable as long as it wasn't you paying the price."
She bristled at that, spear lifting a fraction higher. "You call what you did mercy?"
"No," he said flatly. "I call it consequence."
For a moment, neither moved. The remaining soldiers stayed frozen where they were, caught between orders they no longer believed in and a man they were too afraid to face. The wind shifted again, dragging the smell of iron and rot across the field. Aelius barely noticed it anymore.
"I gave you an out," he continued, voice steady. "I don't want this to drag on. I don't want to kill you. I want to go home. That's it."
Knightwalker's shoulders rose with a breath, then settled. Her stance widened, spear angling forward, pointed directly at him. "You'll have to go through me," she said.
Aelius's head dipped slightly, "Yeah," he said quietly. "That's what I was afraid you'd choose." Without another thought, he lifted his hand and said, "Plague god's curse: Carrion Gale."
A wave of warm air rolled past him, heavy and thick, the same suffocating pressure he had felt deep in the dungeon. He expected her to fall. Expected lungs to rot, skin to slough, the spell to take what it was owed. Nothing happened.
The gale struck Knightwalker head-on and vanished, dispersing like mist against stone. No recoil. No backlash. Just absence.
Aelius blinked once behind the mask, "and here I was hoping it was the beast that resisted my magic up in the air."
The ringing in his ears faltered, stuttering instead of screaming. He lowered his hand slowly, eyes fixing on her with something sharper than boredom now, something alert.
"The old man gave you something for me, didn't he?" Aelius sighed. The sound carried a deep rumble this time, not fear, not surprise, just irritation settling in his chest. "Figures."
Knightwalker didn't answer right away. She straightened fully, spear planting into the blood-soaked earth with a solid, deliberate sound. Whatever she wore beneath her armor glimmered faintly, etched lines catching what little light remained.
"I lost my parents to the same beast whose hide I wear now," she said, voice low and tight. "The general filled that gap when I was younger. Despite our differences, I respect that man above all else." Her teeth bared as she leaned forward a fraction. "You, Aelius of Earthland… your magic is fouler than even the terror that was wrought upon us." A snarl crept into her words by the end, raw and unpolished.
"….okay?" Aelius replied.
It slipped out flat, honest confusion bleeding through the boredom. He had heard this kind of speech before. Many times. Different faces, same cadence. Some sort of ritual, maybe. A way people justified swinging first.
He tilted his head slightly. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to feel bad. Or impressed. Or morally conflicted."
Knightwalker's eyes burned. "You butchered my people."
"I killed soldiers," Aelius corrected. "Who were actively trying to kill me. And my guild. Context matters."
She took a step forward, boots crunching through drying blood. "You revel in it. Don't lie."
"No," he said calmly. "I tolerate it. Big difference."
The ringing in his ears spiked again, but he ignored it. His eyes stayed dull, fixed on her like she was a problem he'd already half solved.
"You tell me your story as it gives you leverage," he continued. "Like tragedy makes you right. It doesn't. It just makes you understandable."
Her grip tightened on the spear.
"And for the record," Aelius added, "I don't care what you wear, who raised you, or which beast ruined your childhood. I didn't come here to corrupt your world. I came to take back what was stolen and leave." He glanced past her, at the distant city walls. "You're the one standing in the way."
Knightwalker exhaled through clenched teeth. "You really don't feel anything."
"I feel annoyed," Aelius said. "And tired. And mildly inconvenienced."
That finally did it. She moved. The spear came up in a blur, cutting through the air toward his chest with enough force to shatter stone. Aelius stepped aside just enough for it to miss, the metal edge scraping past his arm. The ground where it struck split open, mud splashing anew.
"See," he said, voice steady even as he pivoted, "this is why I skip the speeches."
Knightwalker wrenched the spear free and spun, already coming back in. "You think words matter more than action."
"No," Aelius replied, eyes narrowing a fraction. "I think action without thought is why your kingdom is about to collapse."
The distance between them closed again, blood-soaked ground churning underfoot. One stood fueled by conviction and loss. The other by spite, endurance, and a refusal to die where someone else decided he should.
And for the first time since the fight began, Aelius stopped sounding bored.
"Come on then," he muttered. "Show me what all that suffering bought you."
And she tried. He would give her that.
Slash after slash. Thrust after thrust. No hesitation, no fear. Knightwalker fought like someone who had already decided this was where she would either win or die, and nothing in between mattered. The spear screamed through the air again and again, angles changing, footwork tight, every motion meant to skewer him where he stood.
Once. Twice. A third time, she nearly caught him.
But with his magic back in his body, even partially, Aelius was faster. He slipped past blows at the last possible moment, coat tearing, boots sliding through blood-soaked soil, the spear missing him by inches that mattered more than skill ever did. Each dodge felt lazy, almost disrespectful, but his breathing stayed even.
He flicked his wrist and sent a spell back at her. It should have bloomed into sickness, flesh rotting mid-stride. It fizzled. Warm air washed over her armor. Harmless. Another spell followed, spores drifting toward her face, meant to choke lungs and eat from the inside out. They dispersed. Nothing. Aelius clicked his tongue softly.
"Yep," he muttered. "Same trick."
Knightwalker pressed the attack harder, clearly aware now that something was wrong. She didn't slow. Didn't pull back. If anything, she drove herself faster, spear a blur of metal and intent. She caught his shoulder this time, the edge biting through cloth and skin. Blood ran, dark against the crimson-soaked ground, and just as quickly sealed itself up, flesh knitting together as it had never been torn.
"Not like our first meeting, is it, Knightwalker?" Aelius said calmly, glancing at the mended skin like it mildly offended him. "A few holes won't stop me."
He flexed his hand once, fingers curling, then muttered under his breath, low enough that it barely carried. "Pox make. Wretched talons."
Something tore its way out of the air around his knuckles. Ghostly claws, black-green and half-transparent, shaped like the forelimbs of some diseased beast. They dragged faint trails through the air as they formed, leaving behind a stench of rot and sickness.
Knightwalker reacted instantly. She brought her spear up across her body, bracing just as Aelius swung.
The impact wasn't solid. The claws scraped along the spearhead, shrieking as rusted iron dragged across stone. Green black residue splattered across the metal and hissed, eating at it slowly. Knightwalker slid back several feet from the force alone, boots carving lines through the crimson-streaked mud.
Knightwalker shook her spear once, trying to fling off the residue. It didn't fully come away. The metal smoked faintly where it lingered.
Her eyes narrowed, meeting his green ones. "You're enjoying this."
"No," Aelius replied. "I'm really not."
He took a step forward. The talons flexed with him, moving like they were part of his arms, joints bending wrong, too smooth. The ringing in his ears spiked again, sharp enough to make his vision blur at the edges, but he ignored it. Knightwalker was attacking again.
He shifted just enough for it to glance off, the impact still carrying him a step back. She followed immediately, not giving him space, spear flashing in a tight, brutal pattern meant to herd him. Thrust, sweep, thrust again. The ground beneath them was slick, every step threatening to send either of them sprawling.
Aelius ducked under one strike, the next passing close enough to shear fabric. He retaliated with a wide backhand slash. The talons raked across Knightwalker's armor, leaving gouges that smoked and hissed, but didn't fully bite through. She answered by driving her knee into his midsection, the blow knocking the breath from him and forcing him back another step.
She pressed. Harder.
The spear came down in an overhead arc. He caught it between both talons, the impact shuddering up his arms. She shoved forward, boots digging in, trying to overpower him through sheer force. The ground cracked under the strain, mud pooling into the fractures.
Aelius shifted his weight and let himself fall back, yanking the spear with him. Knightwalker stumbled forward for half a heartbeat, and he took it, slashing upward. The talons tore across her side, armor splitting. Dark blood splashed free before she wrenched herself back, spinning away and striking again in the same motion.
The spear clipped his thigh. Muscle parted. Blood spilled. It sealed almost instantly.
They circled, then clashed again.
Metal rang. Claws shrieked. Each impact sent sprays of blood into the air, their battlefield growing thicker, heavier, like the ground itself was trying to swallow them. Knightwalker fought like she had nothing left to lose, every movement precise, relentless like a beast. Aelius fought like he didn't care how long it took, only that she stayed in front of him.
She feinted high and swept low. He jumped, boots barely clearing the spear as it scythed beneath him. He came down hard, driving both talons into the earth, the impact throwing up a wave of soil and gore that staggered her for a split second.
"If I asked how the hell it makes sense for you to resist plague by wearing it," Aelius asked flatly, already moving again, "you wouldn't answer me, would you?"
Knightwalker didn't.
She surged through the stagger, spear snapping forward with brutal speed. The tip scraped across his ribs, sparks and blood flying together. Aelius twisted away, the talons carving a wide arc that she barely blocked, the force shoving her back a full step.
She planted, pivoted, and struck again.
They crashed together in a blur of motion. Her spear hammered at him from every angle, thrusts aimed to cripple rather than kill. His claws answered in wide, tearing sweeps, each one meant to maim, to corrode, to rot. The air between them grew heavy, thick with spores and heat that did nothing to her and everything to the ground beneath their feet.
Aelius slid under a thrust, rolled, came up behind her, and slashed. She spun with him, half catching his wrist mid strike, the impact jarring his arm. She followed with a knee to his chest that sent him skidding through the mud and bodies.
He stopped himself with one hand, gouging trenches in the earth. Up again instantly.
He rushed her this time. Talons and spear met again and again, each collision cracking the ground further, blood splashing with every missed guard. One talon finally slipped past, raking across her shoulder. The armor split. Flesh burned. She hissed but didn't slow, driving the spear straight through his side in answer.
Aelius used it.
Instead of backing away, he stepped into the wound. Let it bury deeper. The pain barely registered, dulled beneath the ringing and the pressure behind his eyes. With her spear lodged through him, her leverage vanished. She couldn't pull free. Couldn't guard.
He curled his claws tight, drew back what little space he had, and drove his fist forward.
It was pure force.
His knuckles met her helm with a dull, crushing impact. Metal buckled. The shock snapped her head sideways, and her body went slack instantly, consciousness gone before she hit the ground.
Aelius wrenched himself off the spear with a wet sound and shoved her away. She collapsed into the blood-soaked earth, unmoving.
He stood there for a moment longer, breathing heavy, blood running freely down his side before sealing over in uneven lines. The ringing in his ears finally dipped, not gone, just quieter.
"You can't hear me," Aelius said, voice carrying across the ruined field, eyes on the soldiers frozen in place, "but your men can." He turned slightly, making sure they were looking. Making sure they understood. "Tell her when she wakes up. The only reason she's alive isn't mercy."
He paused, then added flatly, almost annoyed at himself for saying it at all. "I like her more than my Erza. Honestly, I wish she was my Erza instead of this place's. She's tolerable."
With that, Aelius turned his back on the unconscious commander and started walking.
Ahead, the battlefield shifted. Heat distorted the air. Roars echoed, heavy and wrong, metal scraping against scale. The dragon slayers were locked into their own mess, a dragon knight monstrosity tearing through the ground as if it weighed nothing. Fire, wind, and lightning clashed against armor and flesh far too stubborn to fall.
Aelius sat and watched the slayers fight. He had said he would help earlier. He remembered saying it. Right now, he didn't feel like moving.
His body felt wrong, not tired. Just… off. Like he wasn't fully inside himself. Like he was sitting a step behind his own eyes, watching someone else wear his skin and swing his magic around. It had been there since he, faint at first, easy to ignore. It got worse the moment he started casting; every spell felt delayed, like the feedback reached him a second late.
So he stayed where he was.
The field shook as the dragon knight slammed into the ground again. Fire roared. Wind howled. Metal cracked. The slayers were loud about it, all motion and shouting and reckless coordination. Exactly how they always fought. Exactly how they always survived.
Aelius rested his forearms on his knees and let his gaze drift. The ringing was still there, low, like an insect trapped inside his skull; it had also started dying down since he stopped using his magic.
Aelius flexed his fingers again. They moved when he told them to. He could feel the blood under his skin, the steady pressure of it, the way it shifted when he clenched his hand. He could feel the ground beneath him, too, solid, unmoving, stained with everything he'd spilled across it. All the pieces were there. They just didn't feel aligned. Like something had been nudged out of place and never quite settled back in. Probably something to worry about. Also, something he wouldn't worry about, because right now, he couldn't care enough to spare the energy.
Below him, the fight dragged on. The dragon knight slammed into the earth again, tearing up soil and stone. The slayers were still standing, still moving, but it was sloppy now. They were burning stamina, burning magic, forcing momentum where there wasn't much left to give.
"I should get a restraining order for you," Aelius said at last, tilting his head to the side without looking away from the battlefield. His gaze slid just enough to catch the general in his peripheral vision, standing a short distance away, hands folded behind his back, as if this was all just a calm midday stroll. "Just so we're clear, if you're thinking about helping your king, don't. Even if I have to fight past my own people to get to him, I'll kill him."
The general didn't bristle. He simply moved and sat down beside Aelius as though the threat hadn't been leveled at all. "I don't know what you mean," he replied calmly. "I was clearly preoccupied earlier. Busy fighting the man who dismantled most of our military forces by himself." The implication hung there, heavy and obvious. If he had wanted to intervene, he would have already.
"So you'd let your king die? Not much of a general are you?" Aelius said, the words dry, tossed out more to fill the quiet than to cut. There was no real heat behind it. Just observation.
"Unfortunately," the general replied, his voice steady but worn around the edges, "he's not the same man I once swore to serve. Our plight drove him to madness, it would seem. He would damn innocents for power, justify it as necessity, as survival. At first, it was small things. Compromises. Decisions made in the dark that were easier to live with because no one else had to see them. Then the scale grew. Villages became numbers. Lives became resources." He stared out at the battlefield, not really seeing it. "At some point, I realized I was no longer defending a kingdom. I was protecting a man's fear."
Aelius hummed quietly, resting his forearms on his knees. "Fear usually does that. Makes monsters out of people who swear they're still human." His gaze flicked briefly toward the distant walls of the city, then back to the mess of bodies and broken ground. "Still funny, though. All this power, all these soldiers, and it still comes down to one scared old man making bad calls."
The general didn't argue. He nodded once, slowly. "I stayed longer than I should have. Told myself that if I left, things would only get worse. That someone had to remain to temper him. But you can't temper an infection. You either cut it out, or it spreads." He glanced sideways at Aelius then. "It seems the choice has been made regardless."
Aelius leaned back slightly, exhaling through his nose. "Yeah. I tend to do that. Make choices people keep putting off." His eyes stayed on the fight below for a moment longer, watching bodies move, clash, fall, and get back up again out of sheer refusal to quit. Then he turned his head and looked directly at the man beside him. "You never told me your name. I know it. I've known it since you opened your mouth. But I want to hear it from you."
There was a pause. Not a dramatic one. Just the kind where someone decides whether lying is worth the effort. "Merlin," the general said at last. "Merlin Corvin."
Aelius stopped moving entirely. For half a second, he just stared, then a short, sharp snort escaped him before he could stop it. It wasn't amused. It wasn't angry either. Just… wrong. "You aren't him."
Merlin lifted an eyebrow, turning his head slightly. He didn't speak, but the question was obvious.
"You aren't the alter version of my grandfather," Aelius continued, voice flat, stripped down. "Everyone else here lines up. Same first names. Same faces with different wear. My Erza. My guild. Even me." He shook his head once. "His name wasn't Merlin."
The words came out heavier than he expected. His tone dipped, hollowed out, and there was an edge under it that had nothing to do with Merlin and everything to do with himself. "Which means either this world broke that rule… or he didn't exist here at all."
Aelius let the silence sit. He didn't rush it. Then he laughed. It wasn't loud at first, just a rough sound dragged out of his chest, dry and cracked like something breaking. "Of course," he said, the laugh picking up, slipping into something ugly. "Of course." He laughed harder, breath hitching between words. "Every other world, I'm happy. Or at least functional. I get everything people like to pretend matters. Love. Wealth. Respect. A future that doesn't feel like a countdown."
The grass beneath him blackened where his fingers brushed it, veins of rot spreading out in a lazy pattern before the green forced its way back through, stubborn and alive despite him. He didn't look down. "He gets to be some big-shot scientist," Aelius went on, voice pitching unevenly now. "Important. Needed. Clean. And what do I get?" Another laugh, sharper this time. "People flinch when I'm near. People praying I don't touch them. The gift of being a walking disease. A blight that keeps pretending it's a person."
He leaned back, then fully laid himself flat against the ground, arms spread like he was letting the earth decide what to do with him. The laughter kept coming, but it had no warmth in it, no relief. It was thin, brittle, the kind that scraped on the way out. Not anger. Not joy. Just noise filling the space where something else used to be.
The laughter tapered off on its own. Not because anything got better, just because his lungs finally demanded it stop. Aelius lay there staring up at a sky that didn't belong to him, chest rising and falling unevenly, fingers twitching against the dirt like they weren't quite synced up with the rest of him yet. The grass beneath his shoulders had died completely this time, a dark patch spreading outward before hesitating, as if unsure whether it was allowed to grow back. He didn't move to fix it. He didn't care enough to.
Below them, the fight dragged on. Metal rang against scale. Shouts echoed, frantic and strained. Someone got thrown hard enough to crater the ground. Aelius registered it all distantly, like it was happening through a thick wall. He could step in. He knew that. End it in seconds if he really wanted to. The thought barely stirred anything. He stayed where he was, mask tilted toward the sky, eyes dull and unfocused behind it.
Merlin didn't speak right away. He sat there beside him, hands resting on his knees, watching the battlefield with the same calm he'd carried all day. When he finally spoke, his voice was steady, grounded, not trying to fix anything. "You sound like a man who's been told what he is for so long he stopped checking whether it was true," he said.
Aelius snorted, a weak, humorless sound. "Don't start," he muttered. "I'm not in the mood for speeches. Or comfort. Or whatever this is."
"Good," Merlin replied. "Because I'm not offering any." He glanced sideways at Aelius, really looking at him this time. "But I will say this. Worlds don't hand out fairness. They hand out circumstances. And you're right about one thing. You didn't get a kind draw."
Aelius rolled his head just enough to look at him, eyes narrowing slightly. "That's supposed to make me feel better."
"No," Merlin said plainly. "It's supposed to make it clear I'm not lying to you."
The sounds of battle dipped suddenly, followed by a roar that shook the air. Dust rolled over the field in a low wave. Aelius closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again. The ringing in his ears flared, then settled, like something testing its grip on him and deciding to wait.
"I'm still going to kill your king," Aelius said quietly, not looking at Merlin. "When I get up. When this stops feeling like I'm piloting myself from the outside."
Merlin nodded once. "I know."
"And if I break something important doing it," Aelius continued, "that's on you for letting me sit here instead of trying to stop me."
Merlin's mouth twitched, just barely. "If I thought I could stop you," he said, "we wouldn't be having this conversation."
Aelius let out a harsh breath, turning his head away. "Then why do you even care?" he said, bitterness bleeding through every word. "You've got even less reason than most. You don't know me. You don't owe me anything. So don't stand there acting as you do."
Merlin didn't bristle. Didn't rise to it. He stayed seated, hands folded loosely, eyes steady on the field ahead. "You may not be my blood like my grandson," he said after a moment, "but you still wear his face. And even setting that aside, you're still a child." He glanced at Aelius then, voice lower. "A child who needed help long before today."
Aelius laughed under his breath, sharp and humorless. "That's not a reason," he shot back. "That's sentiment. You gain nothing from this. You lose nothing if I walk away. So why bother?"
That finally made Merlin pause. He turned fully toward him, and the look on his face wasn't anger or disappointment, but something heavier. Older. The kind of sorrow that came from watching too many people learn the wrong lessons and never unlearn them.
"You really believe that," Merlin said quietly. "That care has to be earned. That it's some kind of transaction. Give the right thing, suffer the right amount, and then you're allowed to matter."
He shook his head once. "No wonder you're so tired."
Aelius's jaw tightened. He didn't look away, but something in his posture stiffened, as the words had hit closer than he wanted them to.
Merlin continued anyway. "You're right. I don't owe you anything. And you don't owe me anything either. That's the point." He finally turned his head and looked at Aelius fully, not studying him like a problem, not measuring him like a weapon. Just looking. "I care because I'm watching a boy sit in the middle of a battlefield laughing like he's already decided the ending. And I've seen how that story goes."
Aelius let out a sharp breath through his nose. "Don't," he muttered. "Don't do that thing where you pretend you know me."
"I don't," Merlin said immediately. "I know what loss looks like when it hasn't had time to scar over yet. I know what it looks like when someone keeps moving because stopping would mean feeling everything at once." His voice dropped, rougher now. "And I know what it looks like when someone convinces themselves they're a blight because it's easier than admitting they were hurt."
The words sat there, heavy and unwelcome. The grass near Aelius's hand darkened again, curling inward, then stilled.
Aelius swallowed. His voice came out lower. "You still haven't answered why."
Merlin exhaled slowly. "Because if I don't," he said, "then I become the kind of man who looks at a broken kid and decides it's not his problem. And I already live in a world that's dying because too many people made that choice." He shook his head once. "I won't add you to that list."
Aelius was quiet for a moment. Too quiet. Then the words came, uneven, like they were being dragged out of him instead of spoken.
"The only people whose opinions I care about," he said, staring at nothing, "I want them to look at me and call me a monster. Tell me to leave. Tell me I've gone too far." His jaw tightened. "But the only people I ever let that close are the ones who won't."
He swallowed, fingers curling into the dirt. "I don't know what's wrong in my head. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm annoyed. And sometimes I'm fine, actually fine, for a little while. Then something happens, and I end up right back here." His voice dropped, rougher now. "I don't understand why I can't stop. Why can't I just do what I used to do and not care?"
He let out a shaky breath. "Not care about the screaming. Whether it's mine or someone else's."
"I'm not a therapist, son," Merlin said, steady and plain. "But I am a warrior. I've seen despair wear a thousand different faces, and yours isn't subtle."
Aelius didn't look at him. His gaze stayed fixed on the sky, unfocused. "I deserve it," he said quietly. "That's the worst part. The almost funny part." His fingers dug into the dirt again. "A lot of people are dead because of me."
"Deserve is a dangerous word," he said. "Men use it to justify all kinds of things. Kings use it. Gods, too, from what you've told me." He glanced sideways at Aelius, not forcing eye contact. "You're not wrong that people died because of you. I won't insult you by pretending otherwise. But death following you doesn't automatically make you its author."
Aelius let out a quiet breath, almost a laugh, but it cracked halfway through. "Feels like splitting hairs," he muttered. "I walk into places, and things rot. People panic. Someone always pays for it. Eventually, it stops feeling like a coincidence."
Merlin nodded once. "It would," he said. "Anyone who lived what you've lived would start drawing the same line. Cause and effect. You're not broken for thinking that way." He paused, then added, firmer, "But you are wrong if you think suffering is proof of guilt."
Aelius's fingers dug into the earth again, grass beneath them wilting, then stubbornly pushing back through. "Easy to say when you're not the constant," he replied. "When you don't wake up wondering what you'll ruin next. When you don't look at people and see how far away you should stand so they don't flinch."
Merlin watched the grass recover, eyes narrowing slightly. "You're tired," he said. "Not just exhausted. Worn thin. That's what happens when someone keeps surviving things they were never meant to." He leaned back, hands resting on his knees. "You don't think you deserve peace because you don't think you're allowed to stop paying."
Aelius finally looked at him then. Not angry. Not hostile. Just empty. "And if I stop?" he asked. "If I let myself believe I don't deserve it?"
Merlin met his gaze without hesitation. "Then you live," he said. "And that terrifies you more than any punishment ever could."
The sounds of battle below had faded to distant noise by then. Aelius barely noticed. His shoulders slumped a fraction, like something had finally been named out loud, and he hated how accurate it felt.
"Why don't you tell me about those in your world?" Merlin said, voice low, steady, patient.
Aelius didn't move at first. His eyes traced the distant horizon where the battle still raged, though it barely touched him anymore. The silence stretched, heavy and full, like the pause before something breaks. Then, almost reluctantly, he let out a breath, sharp and bitter.
"I… fine," he muttered, the words more of a surrender than an answer. "Fine."