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Elias smiles, but there’s no strength behind it. Only defiance. “You think I’d let anyone else touch you?” His voice cracks at the end, rasping like it’s been scraped raw from the inside. “Nah. I had to be the lucky bastard.”

Orin steps closer. Another inch of earth dies beneath him. His hands are bare, fingers flexing once like he’s shaking off guilt he’s already decided he’ll carry later. “I’m not your enemy, Elias.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Elias breathes, and the effort of holding the spell begins to show. His knees buckle slightly. He steadies himself with one hand on the ground, veins raised beneath his skin like vines pulled taut. “We’re on opposite sides today. That’s enough.”

His magic pulses, visible now in the shimmer of air that bends around him. The time field fractures for a second, a ripple of too-fast motion flickering across Orin’s shoulder before it settles again. Elias is unraveling. The strain is unbearable—and he’s stillsmiling. Still cracking jokes at the edge of collapse like the world can’t touch him if he pretends he doesn’t feel it.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Orin says quietly.

“I know,” Elias whispers, lifting his head. His smile softens into something wrecked. “That’s what makes it worse.”

Then Elias moves—not to attack, not to strike, but toclose the distance. One reckless, staggering step forward. His fingers reach—not for a weapon, but for Orin’s chest, like he might touch him and make this stop. Like he mightremindhim. Of who they are. Of what this isn't supposed to be.

Orin reacts instinctively. He doesn’t lash out. He doesn’t defend. Heabsorbs. It’s what he was made for. Elias’s magic, raw and chaotic and spiked with emotion, bleeds into him on contact. And for a moment, the two of them are locked together—not in combat, but in communion.

Time stutters again.

The ground beneath them blackens.

And Elias folds.

Not because he’s defeated.

Because he’s empty.

He collapses to one knee, breath rasping shallow, skin slick with sweat and magic and whatever fragile part of his soul he offered up to slow the world down. His body trembles with exhaustion. His power flickers. The spell dissolves around him like fog peeled away by sunlight—and suddenly, the battlefield jolts back to life.

Lucien’s sword collides with Riven’s shield in a burst of sparks.

Silas’s laughter echoes from somewhere far too close to danger.

The Hollow screams in forgotten tongues.

And still, Elias kneels.

Orin doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. He stares down at the boy who once tried to prank him with an enchanted eel and spent a week vomiting frogs as punishment. The boy who calls him “Dad” when he wants to piss him off, who jokes through pain and flirts through heartbreak. The boy who just tried to stop time itself because he couldn’t bear to fight someone he loved.

Orin crouches beside him, hand hovering just above Elias’s shoulder—afraid to touch. Afraid he’ll takemoreby accident.

“You always did pick the worst moments to play hero,” he murmurs.

Elias coughs a laugh. “Yeah, well. Someone’s gotta balance out your drama.”

“I’m not the one who slowed the universe down and almost passed out trying to impress a girl.”

Elias tilts his head back toward me, eyes glazed but sharp with mischief. “You think it worked?”

“Absolutely not,” I call out, but my voice cracks, and the lie doesn’t land.

Orin’s mouth twitches. He should finish what Branwen demanded. But instead, he lifts Elias’s arm carefully, letting it drape over his shoulders. He doesn’t help him stand. Doesn’t carry him. He justwaits. Quiet. Immovable. Present.

Not as an opponent.

But as someone whoremembers.

And maybe—for just this heartbeat—as someone who still loves him.

Elias's breath is shallow. Shallow and ragged, like every inhale is a betrayal. He kneels beside Orin, drained and wrecked, his lashes fluttering like he can’t decide whether to pass out or fake being fine long enough to make a joke.