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It had been two months of silence. Two months without a letter. Eight weeks without a word, when Luciel had been so consistent in sending messages back to the guild it had become a joke within the group. Two months of Brod at first pretending all was well, and then becoming more and more agitated as the days passed and there was nothing from the merchants and travelers coming in from Yenice and further abroad. When eight weeks turned into nine, Brod informed them that he was considering going to Yenice himself.
He was vetoed, of course: they needed him at the guild, and Luciel would be fine. Luciel had probably just forgotten to hand the letters over to someone, or they’d been waylaid in transit, or he was too busy doing his cleric work for the church. Luciel had become an important man, after all.
Brod wanted to believe them. More than anything, he wanted things to be fine, and to hope that Luciel was simply busy. Luciel was an important healer and a good one, someone Brod was gods damned proud to know and have trained. Luciel was important and capable and had gone with a full contingent from the church: he had to be well.
The problem was that Brod also knew just how upset Luciel had been when he’d realized his letters hadn’t made it to Merritoni, when he’d been in the capital. He knew how many letters Luciel had written the girls, and had written to Brod himself. And he knew just how many letters Luciel had written to him on the road, and once in Yenice. They wouldn’t just stop without a reason.
Luciel’s last letter had mentioned a dungeon, and monsters, and taking a team down to investigate. A team including a slave who knew of Brod. A slave who, by all descriptions, sounded like the War Demon, a General of the Illumasia Empire. He knew that Luciel was probably trying to reassure him, describing the man’s strength and skill with a blade, but something didn’t sit right about the whole thing. How had that man ended up in Yenice? What was he doing serving Luciel? They were sparring, Luciel had written, and Brod ought to be happy for Luciel to have another trainer to help him get stronger but…
It didn’t comfort him as much as he wished it would. He worried instead about a strike sliding past Luciel’s guard, despite his healing skills. He worried about the other man teaching Luciel bad habits. He worried, Galba and Gulgar said, too much about a healer who had spent two years with him and withstood all the training Brod could throw at him and then some. Who had never complained, and who had come back, day after day, with a smile on his face.
Brod probably did spend too much time worrying about Luciel, but there was something about the young man than made it impossible not too. He was too good, too kind, too different from so many other healers. He’d changed the guild. He’d changed Brod. He’d changed the whole damned city, all for the better.
When eight weeks stretched to nine, and nine to ten, Brod gave up on any pretense of patience. “I’m going to Yenice,” he told Gulgar and Nanaella first, because they’d be the ones dealing with the fallout of the Guild Master being absent for a month or more. “I’m going to check in on Luciel.”
“No you’re not,” Gulgar replied, expression serious for once. He leaned against the wall of the office, arms crossed over his chest. “You have work to do here, Brod, and Luciel has his work. Yenice is nearly two weeks away.”
“I know.” Brod felt like he was the only person who understood the situation might be dire. “And it’s been ten weeks since we’ve heard from Luciel.”
“Maybe someone just isn’t delivering his mail again?” Nanaella suggested, ears twitching and making it clear she wasn’t comfortable with the suggestion herself. She sat in a chair in front of Brod’s ill-used desk, hands in her lap and twisting together. “He could be busy…”
“He’s always been busy. He’s always written to at least one of us.” That was the sticking point: Luciel made time for his friends, and they were all his friends. “None of us have heard from him, and Galba’s last report said that no one had heard anything about him in Yenice.”
“Doesn’t that mean he’s fine?” Gulgar’s hands smoothed down his apron in a nervous tic. “No news is good news.”
“When has Luciel gone anywhere and not made people notice him?” Brod pointed out, and with some relief it seemed like the pair actually thought about that, because Gulgar frowned.
“Luciel does have a habit of making waves…”
“Exactly! And of making enemies. He said he was going to investigate a dungeon and that he was having some issues with the apothecary guild in Yenice. Now it’s been nothing for ten weeks.”
Galba took that moment to walk in to Brod’s office and their little meeting. “Has it been that long?” he asked, making it clear he'd overheard the conversation. He walked to where his brother was standing and leaned on his shoulder. “It can’t have been that long.”
“It has. I’ve counted. And that means I’m going to Yenice.” Brod crossed his arms. “I’m going. Everything is under control here, we’re not due for a monster flare up for a month at minimum, and it will be good for all of you to prove you can handle yourselves without me. Better to do it now and see where something might go wrong than wait for the day I die of boredom.”
“But if you leave,” Nanaella pressed her palms together, concern clear across her face. “What happens if the head guild wants to talk to you?”
“Tell them I’m on a mission. Tell them I’ve taken a job.” Brod was rather proud of that - he could make it a job. He’d hire himself if he had to.
“We’ve taken a job,” Galba added, voice low. “You’re not going off alone. And if Luciel needs help, you’ll need help.”
Brod scoffed at the suggestion, pulling himself up to his full height. “I can handle myself, and if Luciel’s in trouble—
“If he’s in trouble in Yenice, it will involve my people,” Galba said, voice still low and firm. “And you’re not dealing with them alone. I told them to look after Luciel. If something has happened, I’m going to be there when we find out what. And who. And I’ll let them know I’m disappointed.” Galba’s voice held a darkness they rarely heard, and Brod was for a moment gratified that someone else was finally taking this seriously.
“Then it’s settled,” he nodded his thanks to Galba. “We’ll be on the road as soon as we’re ready. The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll have answers.”
“And what will you do if you get to Yenice and find out that everything’s fine and Luciel’s just been too distracted to write?” Gulgar asked, though there was at least a hint of uncertainty to his voice now.
“Take him out back and beat him to a pulp, obviously,” Brod replied. After all, that was what he’d deserve for worrying them all.
—-
The road to Yenice was surprisingly clear to travel, even as they moved further from Merratoni. Usually that would be where they'd have to deal with the occasional bandit attempt or aggressive wild animal or monster. Brod pointed it out to Galba as they walked: a full week from home and not a single delay along their route.
“I would say it’s the group we have with us,” Galba said, nodding to the handful of adventurers who had heard that Brod was traveling to check in on Luciel and decided that they would join as well. “But monsters don’t usually make rational decisions. Perhaps we have luck on our side.”
“I hate luck,” Brod admitted. “I’d rather rely on skill. Luck runs out on people like us.” He knew Galba would understand: they were the bottom rungs of society, in many ways, and luck was rarely on their side. Luck was fickle, but the power you took into your own hands was something you could rely on. It was something he’d worked hard to teach Luciel, who seemed to think Luck was a creature that could specifically bestow blessings or curses on someone.
“We’re not going to stop keeping watches or sending scouts ahead,” Galba told him. “So we’ll be ready. Here or in Yenice.” Galba looked at Brod sidelong for a moment, then lowered his voice. “I’ve never seen you this worried about someone. Not in all our years.”
“Luciel’s a good kid,” Brod answered quickly, glancing around to make sure none of the others would overhear them. He didn’t want anyone to suggest he’d gone soft.
“Luciel’s not a kid,” Galba looked away and down the road they were following. “Luciel’s a young man who survived your training and more.” They walked in silence for a moment before he added: “You changed, because of him. For the better.”
Brod scoffed at the suggestion. “I’m exactly the same as I’ve always been, Galba. That’s why the other adventurers keep running away from me.”
“But now you’re offering to train them,” Galba pressed on. “Now you are training them. And getting others to train them. You never used to ask me to teach anyone about monster preparation, or how to recognize traps. I never thought about teaching anyone else about poisons and antidotes, but now we don’t lose the young kids starting out to misidentifying mushrooms or plants when they’re out of supplies. Luciel did that.”
Brod looked away. “Yeah, don’t rub it in. Not like I don’t already feel like we failed how many kids who might be alive now if we’d trained them better.”
“None of us thought of it.” Galba’s voice was thoughtful. “None of us looked at the way things had always been and thought about how we’d change them. We just tried to get stronger in the system. We’d all had to learn the hard way, that was how we survived: of course the lower ranks had to struggle. That was how we’d learn how dangerous it was. The survivors would survive. The strong would survive.” Galba shrugged. “The law of the fittest, isn’t it?”
That was how the world worked, Brod knew. Or at least it was how he’d always understood it to work. And then Luciel had arrived and in his own quiet, earnest, weird way, he’d changed them.
“Luciel doesn’t think like that,” Galba continued, unaware of Brod’s own thoughts. “Luciel knew he wasn’t strong when he arrived and he still protected Monica, still stood up against Bottaculli, still spent every drop of magic he had healing our people and never considered saving something for himself, or demanding more. He came to you to learn to get stronger, and he always says it’s so that he won’t be a burden, so that he’ll survive an attack, but that’s not how he uses it.”
“No,” Brod agreed, thinking about Luciel’s letters and the way the last village they'd passed had described him and his men as they’d made their own way through. “He uses it to protect people.”
“He makes me want to be a better person just by being in the room with him,” Galba admitted. “I think we all feel a bit like that.”
“That’s why we’re here. Why we’re going to Yenice. Why I’m going to make him do a million chin ups if it turns out he’s just forgotten us.” Brod cleared his throat, because it felt a little thick with an emotion he didn’t want to name. “He’s earned that much from us.”
“Like I said,” Galba picked up his speed slightly so he could turn and face Brod, walking backwards down the path, “it’s the first time I’ve seen you this worried. It looks good on you.”
He turned and walked off into the treeline, calling out that he was scouting ahead, before Brod could muster an argument in turn.
—-
Yenice was a city Brod had been in only once as a young man, and he was surprised at how much it had changed. He was glad for Galba’s familiarity with the streets and his presence when the beastfolk looked at them with caution as they made their way to the Healer’s Guild.
Jord was standing at the door when they arrived, and stumbled as he recognized Brod. “What are you doing here?” he asked, looking from Brod to Galba to the other adventurers. “No - wait - come inside.”
“Where’s Luciel?” Brod asked, knowing something was very wrong from the look of surprise and then relief in Jord’s eyes. “What's happened?”
“Not here,” Jord said, voice firm. He led them inside, up the stairs and down a hallway to a room well protected by magic. Inside on a bed was Luciel. Brod could almost believe he was asleep, and that this was all some comedic misunderstanding on his part, but Luciel was too still, the rise and fall of his chest too slow, his skin too pale.
“What happened?” Galba asked, because Brod’s tongue was stuck to the top of his mouth. “We were worried when we hadn’t heard anything…”
They filtered into the room. Brod moved to the side of the bed where there was a chair: he didn’t ask, he just sat down and reached for Luciel’s hand. “It’s a curse, isn’t it? From the dungeon?”
“We think so,” Jord answered, voice tight with tension. “We’ve sent for help, but it will still be a week before it arrives, and we don’t even know for sure if it will be the right help. The Valkyrie knights are escorting someone but for something to take out Luciel in the first place…”
“Would have to be a very strong curse,” Galba finished the thought, coming around to the other side of the bed and looking down at Luciel and Brod. “Luciel wouldn’t have been caught by something mundane.”
Luciel was breathing: Brod could see his chest rise and fall. His fingertips were cold, which was wrong: Luciel was always warm. Luciel was never supposed to be still, unmoving, cursed. Brod couldn’t fight a curse. Brod couldn’t strike it down with a sword or intimidate it. What the hell was he supposed to do? He’d come to help, with the image of bursting down the door of the dungeon and dragging Luciel into the light, if that was what it took. He hadn’t considered something like this.
“Brod?” Galba cut through his self-pity and Brod realized he’d been ignoring the rest of the room, holding Luciel’s hand in silence. “I’m going to take the men downstairs to eat something.”
It was an offer of space that Brod shouldn’t need, shouldn’t want, shouldn’t accept - he didn’t want anyone thinking him brought low by this. He was Brod the Whirlwind, and he wasn’t some lovesick fool, he was Luciel’s teacher, his trainer, his friend —
“Yeah,” he managed, clearing his throat to attempt to sound more like himself. “Do that. I’ll come down later.”
“But—” Jord was cut off by Galba’s hand on his shoulder and a slight tilt to the wolfman’s ears. “I’ll… fill everyone in on what we’ve been doing,” he finished. “We could use the help while you’re here.”
“And I’ll ask around, talk to some old friends,” Galba said as he gently ushered everyone out of the room. Brod knew that old friends would mean Galba’s former contacts who worked in the darker areas of the world. “I’ll see if they have any ideas.”
“Yeah,” Brod repeated. “Do that.”
The door clicked shut and left him in a room of silence. Luciel’s breathing was impossible to hear unless he hovered over his chest. It at least sounded clear, though Brod was no healer. That was Luciel’s job, but even Luciel couldn’t fight something like this. Curses were tricky, and evil. He’d never heard of someone escaping one, unless you were talking about bardic tales of adventure. This, at least, seemed a less terrible curse than some he’d seen: dead party members digging their way out of shallow graves to attack the survivors after raiding a tomb, or a chest of gold in a noble house cursed to give any thief never ending burns. Enchanted sleep was a slow death, though the healers were doing an admirable job of keeping Luciel comfortable, but it was a death nonetheless.
Brod shook, clutching Luciel’s hand as he fought against the hopelessness and fear of losing someone he could admit, in this space, he cared about more than he probably should. Luciel was too good for this, too good for him, too good for this world to use up like this.
He was going to cry, he realized, if he stayed here, and that would help no one, certainly not Luciel himself. It took more than he would ever admit to let go of Luciel’s hand. He set it back on top of the blankets and gently rested his own hand on the young man’s forehead for a moment, before pushing his hair back and pressing his lips to cool skin. “You had best break through this,” he said, hoping Luciel could hear him. “You made me a promise to come back to Merratoni and help with the guild. We have more young adventurers because of your changes, more people I have to train because of you. You can’t stay here and lie on your ass all day like a princess.”
If Luciel could hear him, hopefully that would give him hope. If he heard Brod fall apart over him now, he’d know things were truly dire. Brod pulled back, straightening himself out and gathering his thoughts. If he could investigate where Luciel was cursed, maybe he could figure out something the others missed.
Luciel sighed.
Brod stared, and a moment later Luciel’s eyes fluttered open. “Hi.”
“Hi?” Brod collapsed into the chair, overwhelmed. “Hi? You disappear and get cursed and spend — I don’t even know how long you’ve been here but you’ve been asleep since you were cursed and your first word is hi?”
“Sorry?” Luciel whispered, wincing but smiling as he tried and failed to sit up. “Could I have a drink?”
“What? Oh - yes.” Brod fumbled for a moment but there was a pitcher and a cup on the table. He had to help Luciel sit up, and then help him hold it - his arms were that weak. “There. I should call Jord and the others, tell them you’re awake. How are you awake?” Brod thought curses would require a pretty significant magic to break them, but there’d been nothing he could see from Luciel. “You’ve had everyone worried sick!”
“It’s the dragon’s fault,” Luciel let his arm fall and his hand rest on Brod’s knee. “He said it was for my own good.”
“A dragon did it?”
Luciel hummed in agreement, clearly still exhausted from the curse. “He said I was missing the obvious and I’d end up alone like him, if I didn’t start thinking straight.” He squeezed Brod’s knee. “But he also didn’t think about how far it is from here to Merratoni, on foot.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Brod set the cup down, but wasn’t sure where to put his hands now that Luciel was awake. “What did he want?”
“Technically he wanted freedom. All the dragons do. They gave me a quest, sort of,” Luciel yawned, and smiled at Brod. He smiled a lot, all the time; it was something that was just part of Luciel — but this was different. It felt more personal, somehow. Private. “I’ll explain that later, it’s a bit complicated. But the curse wasn’t supposed to hurt me, I don’t think, or he didn’t mean it to. He just forgot that humans can’t stay still without losing muscle.” He lifted his other hand and made a fist. “I’m going to be so out of shape. I’ll need your help with training.”
“Of course,” Brod knew that his answer had come too too quickly, too earnestly, but he couldn’t help it. He’d come this far for Luciel, he couldn’t pretend he wouldn’t do anything else for him. “But why the curse? How did you wake up?”
Luciel laughed. It was quiet, and kind, and he let himself tilt to the side and leaned towards Brod, until Brod had no choice but to wrap his arms around Luciel - it was that, or have Luciel end up on the floor. “Luciel…”
“It’s been lonely,” Luciel admitted, head tucked under Brod’s chin. “I’ve had friends, I have companions, I have the people I help. I should be grateful I have so many good people who care about me. But when we were in the dungeon, when I found the dragon, he asked me about the future and I realized…” Luciel shrugged slightly. “I kept imagining it with you.”
“With me?” Brod inhaled sharply, surprise and hope flaring in his chest.
“And I told myself – well, I guess I told the dragon, because he was in my head at the time – that I thought that was silly. You wouldn’t want a future with me. I’m hardly strong enough, and I’d be traveling for the church all the time, and you probably have a girl you like that you hide so no one knows you have a soft side, but I know you do, because I’ve seen it.”
“Luciel,” Brod’s voice cracked on his name. He tightened his arms around the healer, glad for the privacy the room afforded. “You…”
“I know,” Luciel turned in Brod’s arms and carefully reached up to set a hand on his cheek. “That was the curse. Something out of a fairy tale. I’d sleep, until True Love’s Kiss. I think the dragon thought he was very clever.” He made a face, nose turned up for a moment and Brod was suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to kiss him properly. “I think he got lucky. Or, well. I’m lucky.” Luciel’s blue eyes looked up at Brod, expressive and open and with a hint of mischief. “But you should probably do it again. Just to make sure.”
“I can do that,” Brod swallowed around the lump in his throat. He was, he knew, going to have to rework his reputation. There was no way he could hide this, going forward. There was no way he would want to hide this, when Luciel was as precious as spun gold. “Just to make sure.”
The second kiss was quite improved. Luciel’s lips parted beneath his, Luciel’s hands tangled in his hair, Luciel’s body tucked warm against his chest. It was perfect, and Luciel’s eyes were bright when they parted, his lips bruised and cheeks properly flushed. “You’re perfect,” Brod said, and then felt himself blush at the admission.
“Not quite,” Luciel countered, carefully leaning himself back against the bedframe. “But if you’re here, you can help me with the stop-thrust Lionel is trying to teach me. I don’t have enough power behind it and he’s a good teacher, but not as good as you, and I can’t quite get it right.” He reached out and took Brod’s hand in his, squeezing gently. “We should tell everyone I’m awake. I guess I’ll tell them I broke the curse myself? Or do I admit that Brod the Whirlwind cut through it like a knife. You just shouted me awake and I’m so well trained that it worked.”
“Let them have a bit of mystery,” Brod decided after a moment. Galba might guess. Galba probably would guess, but he wouldn’t say anything. He’d tell his brother, but Gulgar would only make fun in private. That was good enough.
“I’m sorry I worried you,” Luciel sighed, looking around the room and seeming to see it for the first time. “But I’m glad you came.”
Brod leaned in and gave Luciel another kiss, which was just as welcomed as the last. “For you,” he said, leaning their foreheads together for a moment, “I’d go a lot further than Yenice.”
“I’m going to be a lot further than Yenice when we’re done here,” Luciel warned. “The Pope wants me to continue through to Panagua next.”
“I’ll still come,” Brod promised. “But next time, no curses. You can just write.”
“I’ll make no promises,” Luciel warned, but he smiled as he did so. “Dragons don’t always listen, but I can’t believe I’ll need help with true love twice, so…”
“Right, and about those dragons, plural?”
Luciel flushed again, and opened his mouth to start explaining when his stomach rumbled so loudly Brod could feel it vibrate through the bed. “Ah,” Luciel looked down the bed for a moment, surprised. “I think I haven’t eaten in… a while.”
“I’ll get the others,” Brod finally let himself stand and pull away from Luciel. “They’ll stuff you full soon enough.”
“Thanks, Sensei.”
“Brod,” Brod shoved his hands into his pockets. If nothing else that would tell everyone that something had changed, but still. “You shouldn’t call someone you love Sensei, even if I’m still going to teach you.”
“All right, Brod.” Luciel smiled once more. “Now go get me something to eat before I chew off my foot. I’m not joking: I’m starving.”
“Enough to eat Gulgur’s new experiments?”
“Yes,” Luciel answered with such conviction Brod shuddered. “With seconds.”
That was enough to make Brod run. If there was a smile on his face and a lightness to his step, no one commented on it: they were all too happy to have Luciel back themselves.