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“They don’t have to.” It took a few seconds for Nikos to realize the voice that spoke was his.

“Sir. I…” Evander couldn’t help. He was too close to his father—to these young men, who clearly believed in the laws of Arktos more than Nikos ever could.

He’d have to do it alone. “When you’re Strategos. Consider...”

Evander crossed his arms. “Consider what, interrogator?”

“Whether you need us anymore,” Nikos said. “Sir.”

One of Evander’s friends spoke up. “What’s your name?”

Nikos took a step back. Evander was looking at him oddly, his mouth pressed together, brows lowered. Haris would have said that he was on the verge of breaking—one more push would be enough. But he couldn’t manage it, not with Evander flanked by proper soldiers.

He fled before one of them could order him to stay.

He’d already spent too long on a pointless search.

Haris would be back to work soon, and he was, as the other interrogators put it, not a soft touch.

He had a tendency to hurry along an execution if he was irritated, especially at the end of the day—no.

He didn’t hurry it along. He killed them.

Haris liked killing. He didn’t treat it clinically like some of the others did.

He always pushed people too hard, made their hearts burst, their bodies fail, the pain tipping over into just too much.

It was pleasurable for Haris, like putting a submissive on their knees, even if Haris wasn’t a dominant.

It had tangled up in his sense of desire and come out as something bloody and terrible, signed off by the Strategos.

And Aster was probably in a room alone with him. For someone his instructors kept saying was so perceptive and bright, Nikos was a fool.

Perhaps he should have done something when he’d opened the door to Haris’ interrogation room.

Perhaps, in another world, he’d found Evander sooner.

He’d run faster. He’d cared for Aster’s wounds better.

He’d paid better attention. Perhaps another Nikos would have taken the knife that Haris liked to cut corpses open with and would have slit him nose to navel.

But he hadn’t. He looked at the body on the slab. He heard Haris calling him to examine the poison the body had taken while Nikos was gone, the inherent judgment that Nikos hadn’t found it when ministering to the body when it was alive. Then he turned and shut the door.

Nikos left Axon without a plan. No food, no water. He simply walked out. It wasn’t until pain started to throb through his feet that he realized what he was doing.

Find the mountains, Aster had said.

“Find the mountains.” Nikos put as much dominance into his voice as possible, making his own head swim as he trudged through the sand. “Find the springs first. Then the white trees, they always grow near the water.”

“You aren’t hungry,” he told himself as he used his uniform sash to cover his head from the sun. “You aren’t tired. You can manage worse.”

He kept going. When he faltered, or when his shoes fell apart and he had to string them together with strips of his uniform, he gave himself orders.

He was a dominant, but a body was a body, and even dominants could bend before someone with a stronger pull in their voice.

Nikos had never heard of someone domming themselves before, but he’d never heard of many things.

Not the birds that saw carrying flaming sticks over the mountains, or the way the wind sounded like someone wailing in the brush at the edge of Arktos.

Not the boom of thunder as he snuck past the last patrols and into the hills, the foreign touch of rain on his skin, or the lush greenery that pushed out of the red clay of the hillside.

“Your name is Charon,” he told himself, as he approached a small Starian village at the base of a mountain.

By then, his dominance was nearly overwhelming.

It had shaped him. Nikos belonged to Arktos.

Charon was here—a man who could walk for miles and never tire, who didn’t need to weep, who was calm and confident in the strength of his hands and the emptiness of his heart.

He was Charon. He was free. He was going to be all right.

A lifetime later, Charon stared at his door as Yves strode out of it, slammed it shut, waited five seconds, and then slammed it open again. His face was pink with embarrassment, and he held up a finger like an orator on the losing end of a debate.

“When I called you a liar…” Yves’ cheeks went pinker still.

“I meant you’re…you have a habit of…You’re sure I didn’t push you into leaving?

I didn’t come over too much, or talk too much, or…

Not that I talk too much,” he added, some of his usual charm slipping into his voice before cracking miserably.

“Most people would say they’re blessed to have a minute of my conversation.

But if the second minute pushed you over the edge… ”

Charon examined Yves’ face. He’d learned so much since he left Arktos, but he was still a novice in love.

He rose, and he could sense Yves’ submission, almost as strong as his own dominance.

It made Charon want to touch him, care for him—it made nobles fight duels for him, Raul upend his life for him.

But Yves’ draw was more than carnal need.

Charon touched Yves’ chin with his knuckle, urging him to look up.

Yves’ eyes were a brilliant green, bright as the forest that had opened up before Charon when he crossed the mountains into Staria.

Yves’ lips parted involuntarily, and his cheeks flushed pink.

“I’m leaving because of me,” Charon said. It was as honest as he could be, standing there before the man who’d become such a fixture in his life. “Do you want me to stay?”

Yves lay a hand on Charon’s arm, and Charon only just suppressed a shudder of desire. Yves was not the polished, glittering brat of a courtesan that his clients admired, but red-faced and vulnerable under his touch.

“I’d like you to stay.” Yves’ breath hitched, and Charon realized they’d both moved closer together. Charon’s shadow fell over Yves’ face. “Just for the wedding. I want you to be there.”

Charon went quiet. He couldn’t trust himself to speak.

“Because we’re still friends, aren’t we?

” Yves looked up at him again, and Charon understood why most doms insisted on their submissives looking at the ground during a scene.

If Yves asked something of him now, Charon didn’t think he’d have the strength to refuse.

“I miss coming here. Reading with you. It won’t be the same when you’re gone. ”

“When you’re married,” Charon said. To someone good, if not a little hapless, like Raul. Or to someone who could amuse him for a time.

“Right.” Yves ran his thumb over a tattoo of a storm cloud on Charon’s bicep, over and over. “But us…we’re all right. Even if things are changing.”

If Charon had any sense, he’d send Yves out of his room now. It was the right thing to do, the unselfish thing. In time, Yves would have plenty to distract him from the loss of an old friendship.

“Yes,” Charon said. “We’re all right.”

Yves took a slow breath and stepped back. “Good. Because I know you’re going to take a diversion to Lukos, and if you die on an icy rock without sending me a letter, I will find you and drag you back myself.”

Charon looked at Yves’ skinny arms and nodded sagely. “Of course.”

Yves squinted at him. “I know that look. I’ll find some Lukoi to help me drag you, trust me.”

Knowing Yves, he probably would. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You’d better.” Yves ran both hands through his curls, seemed to realize what he was doing, and started smoothing them down again. “Just so you know. So, yes.” He cleared his throat. “Still friends.”

Charon nodded again.

Yves cast him one last look before hanging his robe back up on Charon’s closet and walking out the door. Charon touched the robe, feeling the warmth on his fingers, and cursed himself for a fool.