Archive of Our Own

The graduation celebration fills the Grove’s main hall with warmth and noise. Laughter rolls upward into the high branches, bright and buoyant, striking the stone walls and returning softened, multiplied. Glassware sings in small, crystalline collisions. Formal robes whisper as bodies shift and turn and lean into embraces. Lanterns hang overhead like captive suns, their golden light pooling across polished floors, turning the austere space into something almost forgiving.

Anaxa stands near the back with a glass of wine he does not drink, watching.

Phainon occupies the center of the room without effort. His white hair catches the lantern glow and scatters it, a pale halo that draws the eye again and again no matter how deliberately Anaxa tries to look elsewhere. Hyacine has her arm looped through his, saying something that makes him throw his head back and laugh.

From there he moves through the crowd like he belongs there, touching shoulders and squeezing arms. The subtle lean of his body as he listens, as though each voice offered is worthy of full attention, his smile bright and uncomplicated. When one of the younger students approaches nervously with a flower crown she'd woven, Phainon accepts it with such genuine delight that she blushes crimson. He lowers himself without hesitation, bending so she may settle the crown upon his head, patient and still beneath her fumbling adjustments.

Anaxa watches the scene and finally takes a sip of wine.

The Phainon who first arrived at the Grove years ago carried grief like an ill-fitted garment, his young shoulders weighed heavily by a responsibility placed upon him by the illustrious leader of the Chrysos Heirs. He had clung to Anaxa like a lifeline, following him through the halls with desperate devotion. That first year had been difficult. The crush had been obvious — painfully so — in every lingering glance, every excuse to stay late in Anaxa's office, every question that could have been answered by anyone but was brought specifically to him.

Anaxa had handled it the way he handled all student infatuations: with patience, clear boundaries, and the certainty that time would resolve it naturally.

And it had.

Time has done exactly what Anaxa had expected it to do.

The sharp edges of that early infatuation have long since softened. Phainon no longer trails after him or fixes him with that disconcerting, singular focus.

Instead, Phainon belongs to the room.

The boy who once hovered anxiously at the threshold of Anaxa’s office — blushing, stammering, incapable of sustaining eye contact — seems impossibly distant from the self-assured young man now laughing in a circle of fellow graduates.

Phainon has not looked in Anaxa’s direction once tonight.

The celebration continues around him — toasts and speeches, the presentation of certificates, embraces and tears and promises to write. Anaxa remains at his post near the wall, observing as irritation crawls under his skin. Several other faculty members pass by and give him a wide berth. A few graduating students thank him for his instruction, which he acknowledges with the appropriate platitudes.

Yet his attention drifts, traitorous and persistent.

The flower crown sits crooked on his head now, petals beginning to wilt in the warm air, but he wears it like the gesture of receiving it meant something.

Anaxa’s throat feels tight. He drinks his wine again.

The evening is finally winding down — families beginning to depart, students drifting toward the doors in small groups, the noise level dropping to a comfortable murmur — when Phainon finally separates from his friends. Anaxa watches him whisper something to Hyacine, who glances toward Anaxa and then back at Phainon with an expression he can’t read from this distance. She squeezes Phainon's arm, and then she’s gone.

Phainon stands alone for a moment, his back to Anaxa, shoulders rising and falling with a deep breath.

Then he turns and crosses the hall.

His approach is measured with none of the eager energy he'd shown with his friends. The flower crown is gone now — discarded somewhere, or given away. His formal robes are slightly rumpled, his hair mussed from all the embraces, but his expression is calm and composed.

“Professor,” Phainon says, stopping at a respectful distance. “I wanted to thank you before I left.”

“I’m not sure thanks is the right word.” Anaxa sets his wine glass aside, giving him full attention. “Your record for longest attendance before graduation may never be broken.”

“Alas, all good things must come to an end eventually.” The smile that follows is faint, carefully shaped. “You were patient with me. More patient than I probably deserved, especially in those early years.“

Something tightens beneath Anaxa’s ribs, an involuntary constriction he refuses to acknowledge. “You were never a bother.”

“That’s kind of you to say.” Phainon’s hands remain clasped behind his back, his posture almost military in its correctness. “I know I was… intense. Gods, remember when I used to follow you everywhere like a lost puppy? I must have been absolutely unbearable.”

He laughs — a bright, brittle sound that doesn't quite reach his eyes. Like recounting an embarrassing childhood story looked back on with the wisdom of distance, except the performance is just a fraction too polished, the detachment just a shade too deliberate. 

“I never thought anything of the sort,” Anaxa replies, and means it. “You’re a dedicated and exceptional student.”

“Was,” Phainon corrects gently. “I've graduated now. No longer your student. It's strange, looking back on how —” He stops abruptly, jaw working as though biting down on whatever he'd been about to say. After a beat, he exhales softly. “How uncertain I was of so many things.” 

The words settle oddly, though Anaxa could not have said why.

“You’ll do well in Okhema,” Anaxa said instead.

“Thank you.” Phainon's voice softens. “For everything. For teaching me, for putting up with me, for…” His gaze flickers away, then back. “For being exactly what I needed, even when I didn't know what that was.” 

He extends his hand — formal, professional. A gesture of closure rendered in its most appropriate form.

Anaxa takes it. Phainon’s grip is firm, warm, and fleeting.

“I should let you go,” Phainon says, already stepping back. “I know you don’t enjoy these events. Thank you again, Anaxa. I hope… I hope you know how much you’ve meant to me.”

He hesitates briefly, shifting his feet slightly, before adding, “As my mentor, I mean.” 

The distinction, gently spoken, draws a boundary so clean it might as well be carved in stone.

“It’s Anaxagoras,” Anaxa says futilely. “Safe travels tomorrow.”

Phainon nods once, then turns away. His stride is steady, unhurried, and he does not look back.

Anaxa watches him go, something hollow opening beneath his sternum. The hall feels suddenly cavernous, the remaining voices too loud, the lanterns too bright and too warm.

It's done, Anaxa thinks. He's moved on. He's made peace with it.

The relief he expects to feel does not come. Instead, it settles into his chest like a lead weight, cold and heavy and immovable. A curious reaction, to be sure, but one he feels no need to examine. He pushes the feeling down, retrieves his wine glass, and finishes it in one long drag.

It’s time to leave. The celebration will continue without him — it always does. He has research to return to, samples to catalog, reports to write.

Behind him, the Grove's halls echo with fading laughter and the last goodbyes of the evening. Ahead, his laboratory waits in darkness, familiar and solitary.

He pulls his robes tighter against the chill and walks home alone, clearing his throat against a sudden, inexplicable irritation.

—

The scratch in his throat persists, even the day after Phainon leaves the Grove.

It's subtle at first — just a tickle, the kind that makes him want to clear it constantly. He ignores it, attributing it to the dust kicked up during the graduation ceremony preparations, or perhaps the pollen from the bouquets that had been standing throughout the halls.

The explanation presents itself neatly, requiring no further thought.

He's in his laboratory, cataloging samples from the recent expedition to the ruins of Aidonia, when the tickle intensifies into a persistent itch. Anaxa pauses, setting down his notes, and reaches for his tea. The liquid soothes it temporarily, but within minutes the sensation returns.

Just a cold, he tells himself, returning to his work. It will pass.

But even as he thinks it, his gaze drifts to the window overlooking the training grounds — empty now, without the shock of distinctive white hair catching the light as Phainon practices his forms.

Anaxa clears his throat in an attempt to dislodge whatever appears to be stuck there.

He takes another measured sip of tea and forces his attention back to the specimens before him, though the itch lingers, faint and persistent, like something newly rooted.

—

The cough begins two weeks later.

It's dry and persistent, catching him at the most inconvenient moments — during lectures, while examining specimens, in the middle of the night while he's trying to sleep. Anaxa finds himself reaching for water constantly, his throat raw and aching, and mixing honey into his tea, as unappetizing as he finds it.

He's collecting materials in the library to take back to his office when another coughing fit seizes him. He turns away from the delicate tomes on the shelves, elbow pressed to his mouth, trying to suppress it. The fit lasts nearly a minute, leaving him breathless and his throat burning.

When he turns back, Hyacine is watching him with concern. He hadn't even realized she was there.

“Professor,” she says, and he braces himself for an unnecessary lecture. “That cough has been getting worse. You should let me examine you.”

“It’s nothing.” The response is automatic, edged with impatience sharpened by the lingering discomfort. He stacks the books with perhaps more force than required. “Just a persistent cold. It will resolve on its own.”

“It’s been three weeks.”

“I'm aware of the timeline, thank you.” He hefts the tomes into shaking arms. “I don't need a check-up for a common illness.”

Hyacine's expression suggests she wants to argue, but she knows better than to push when Anaxa uses that tone. “If it gets worse…”

“It won't. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have research to attend to.”

He leaves before she can respond, ignoring the way his throat itches with the urge to cough again.

—

Blood makes its first appearance only a few days later.

Anaxa has taken to carrying a handkerchief — a practical necessity given the frequency of his coughing fits. He tells himself it's simply best to be prepared, to avoid the embarrassment of coughing openly during important meetings or lectures.

The first time he sees the golden flecks scattered across the white fabric, Anaxa stares at them for a long moment. He holds the handkerchief up to the light, studying the pattern of blood with the same clinical detachment he applies to any of his research specimens. The sight is oddly abstract at first — an observation rather than an experience.

Hemoptysis, his mind supplies automatically. Could indicate tuberculosis, among several other possibilities.

He folds the handkerchief carefully and sets it aside.

That evening, he pulls every medical text he owns from his shelves, spreading them across his desk alongside his personal research notes. He works through the night, cross-referencing symptoms, ruling out possibilities, searching for an explanation that makes sense.

Nothing fits. Or rather — there are too many possibilities, and not enough data to narrow it down.

By the following Entry Hour, exhaustion presses heavily behind his eyes. His throat aches with a dull, unyielding soreness, each swallow a muted reminder of tissue repeatedly strained. The handkerchief in his pocket bears three fresh stains.

He makes a fresh pot of tea and returns to his research.

—

Phainon's first visit back to the Grove is announced with typical fanfare — a hero returning from a spate of successful missions, bringing news of the spread of the black tide and a crate of titankin specimens. Anaxa remains in his laboratory. Phainon will surely seek him out eventually; there’s no need to interrupt his work.

Sure enough, it isn’t long before Phainon finds him, though he doesn't hear the door open over the sound of his own thoughts. One moment he's alone, studying a sample under his microscope, and the next —

“Professor Anaxa!“

The words come too quickly, bright with something that sounds almost like relief. Anaxa looks up to find Phainon in the doorway, his armor bearing the marks of recent combat. Phainon doesn't move for a moment. Just stands there, taking him in — a beat that stretches slightly too long. Then he inhales, sharp and quick, and steps forward. 

“Phainon.“ Anaxa's voice comes out with a crackle. He clears his throat. “I heard you'd returned. Did your most recent endeavor bring you to the area?“

“It did… so to speak.”  Phainon steps into the room, and Anaxa catches the scent of wind and distance, of places beyond the Grove. “I wanted to tell you about it. Well, the part you’d care about, at least. There are patterns we observed — anomalies in the black tide's spread.”

The cough hits without warning.

One moment Anaxa is standing, preparing to respond, and the next he is doubled over, one hand braced against his workbench as his body convulses. The fit is worse than usual — deeper, more violent, tearing at his throat with claws of fire.

“Professor!“ Phainon is beside him suddenly, one broad, warm hand on his shoulder, concern radiating from every line of his body. “Are you alright?“

He fumbles for his handkerchief, pressing it to his mouth, trying desperately to suppress the coughs. But they keep coming, wave after wave, until his vision blurs and his chest aches and —

Something solid lands in the handkerchief.

Not just blood. Something else.

The coughing finally subsides, leaving Anaxa gasping, his throat raw and his hands shaking. He keeps the handkerchief pressed to his mouth, not daring to look yet.

“I'm fine.“ Anaxa's voice is barely a rasp. He pulls away from Phainon's touch, turning slightly to hide the handkerchief. “Just a cough. It's been persistent, but it's nothing serious.”

“That didn't sound like nothing.” Phainon's brow is furrowed, his eyes searching Anaxa's face. “How long has this been going on?”

Anaxa carefully folds the handkerchief, keeping whatever was inside hidden from view. His heart is pounding, his throat still burning. “It's just a lingering illness. I've been researching it.”

Before Phainon can respond, the door opens again.

Hyacine steps inside, a stack of reports balanced in her arms. She stops short at the scene, gaze flicking from Phainon to Anaxa's pale face and the handkerchief clutched in his hand.

“Another fit?” she asks, her tone carefully neutral but her eyes sharp. Anaxa silently curses her timing. “Professor, that's the third time today.”

“I'm aware.” Anaxa moves toward his desk, putting distance between himself and both of them. “I'm managing it.”

“It's been going on for weeks,” Hyacine says, speaking directly to Phainon now as if Anaxa weren’t in the room. There's an edge to her voice now. “He won't let me examine him or see any of the other healers. He won't listen to me.” 

Something about the emphasis in her words strikes Anaxa as odd. He looks between them as Hyacine and Phainon appear to have some sort of silent conversation before Phainon turns to him.

“Anaxa,” Phainon starts, consternation clear in his voice, but Anaxa cuts him off. 

“It’s Anaxagoras, and I don’t need a healer for a common cough.” The words land colder than intended, authority snapping reflexively into place. He sits down at his desk, setting the handkerchief aside with deliberate care, keeping it folded. “I have work to do. Hyacine, those reports — set them there. Phainon, if you want to discuss your findings, we can schedule a proper meeting tomorrow. Right now, I need to finish this analysis.”

His tone brooks no argument, the same voice he used when dismissing overeager students or ending unproductive debates. Both Phainon and Hyacine hesitate, clearly wanting to push, but Anaxa has already turned back to his microscope, his posture radiating dismissal.

“Tomorrow, then,“ Phainon says quietly. “But... please take care of yourself, Professor.“

Anaxa doesn't respond, keeping his eye fixed on the microscope's eyepiece, watching blurred shapes that he isn't really seeing. He hears the door close over their hushed whispers, and only then does he allow himself to breathe.

His hands shake as he unfolds the handkerchief.

What lies within is grotesquely incongruous.

There, among the blood and mucus, lies a cluster of matter. He uses an unstained corner of the handkerchief to gently wipe away the golden ichor.

The petals beneath are deep red, almost black at the edges, with a distinctive elongated shape and recurved tips. Anaxa picks one up with trembling fingers, holding it up to the light.

He knows this flower. Lycoris radiata, or its common name, the spider lily.

A flower long extinct in this land, preserved only in illustrations and botanical records. A symbol burdened with tedious layers of cultural superstition — death, final goodbyes, and lovers eternally parted.

Anaxa stares at the absurd scene before him for a long moment.

This would require more research.

He works through the night once again.

He places the petal under his microscope, adjusting the lens with meticulous care. The cellular structure is intact, perfectly formed, as if plucked from a living plant rather than expelled from human lungs. Cross-referencing against botanical illustrations yields immediate, devastating consistency — a flawless match to Lycoris radiata.

Which, if the evidence weren’t right before his eye, he would call impossible. The species is extinct. The lungs are not a viable host for plant life; they provide no soil, no light, no mechanism for photosynthesis. He consults medical texts on respiratory diseases, parasitic infections, toxicological compounds. He searches for any rational explanation that fits the evidence before him and finds nothing.

By the time the bells chime to announce Entry Hour, Anaxa has exhausted conventional medicine. He sits back in his chair, staring at the books scattered across his desk. His throat aches, his chest feels tight, and somewhere deep in his lungs he swears he can feel something growing, spreading, taking root.

There's only one place left to look. 

—

The restricted section of the Venerationists’ library occupies a separate wing, sealed behind layered permissions and ceremonial locks. Access is granted only to senior researchers and those with explicit authority.

Anaxa, naturally, requires neither petition nor escort.

As one of the Seven Sages, he possesses unrestricted clearance, though he rarely finds cause to exercise it. The texts housed here are classified as dangerous — not for any inherent physical threat, but for the nature of their contents. Knowledge of the titans, their domains, their curses. Records steeped in superstition, theology, and the kind of mythologized fatalism that, these days, serves neither his research nor his temperament.

He unlocks the heavy door with his personal key and steps inside.

The air is different here — heavier, charged with something that makes his skin prickle. The shelves stretched up into darkness, filled with volumes bound in suspicious materials. Some of the books whisper. Others seem to watch him as he passes.

He ignores them all as he passes, trying not to consider what, exactly, is driving the hunch that leads him to one particular section.

The volumes on Mnestia, the Romance Titan, are kept in the far corner, bound in red leather that look disturbingly like skin. Anaxa pulls the largest tome from the shelf, its weight substantial in his hands, and carries it to one of the reading tables.

The book falls open with a sound like a sigh.

Anaxa begins to read.

Mnestia is a well-known name to him, as her story is so closely entwined with that of the Grove, distasteful as he finds both her and her successor. While she is less overtly destructive than some, she is no less dangerous. Mnestia's domain is emotion itself. Love, desire, passion — all the feelings that make humans vulnerable.

And her curses are legendary.

Anaxa carefully turns the pages, scanning through accounts of Mnestia's various afflictions. Love potions that drive people to madness. Obsessions that consume entire cities. Bonds that can't be broken even in death.

His heart stutters when he sees it.

Flower-Blight.

The words are written in red ink that seem to shimmer in the lamplight. Anaxa leans closer, his heart pounding.

A curse bestowed upon those who spurn the gift of love. The afflicted find flowers growing within their lungs, blooming from an affection denied. The flowers will continue to grow until they consume the sufferer entirely, unless the specific condition is met.

First: The afflicted acknowledges their feelings.

Second: The afflicted confesses their love to the object of their affection.

Third: Their love is reciprocated in full, with equal depth and sincerity.

If the afflicted fails to confess in time, or the feelings of the afflicted are not returned, the growth will burst from their chest, becoming a sacred tree.

Without intervention, death is inevitable. The flowers show no mercy.

Anaxa reads the passage three times, his hands gripping the edges of the book hard enough to leave impressions in the leather.

A curse.

Of course it would be this — not a physiological anomaly, not an alchemical complication, but something absurdly sentimental. A diagnosis rooted in the most irrational of human emotions.

Anaxa sits back slowly. The denial arrives with reflexive certainty. No — that is merely the most simple conclusion available, and therefore the most likely to be wrong. A misattribution of symptoms. Religious texts are notorious for metaphorical excess, for conflating emotional states with physical manifestations. Correlation mistaken for causation. Folklore masquerading as mechanism.

He has never been in love. Romantic attachment requires sustained emotional investment, desire, the kind of inclination he has never historically exhibited. Interest, yes. Curiosity, certainly. But love —

His throat tightens, and he stills, the dry persistent itch rising again. He suppresses it automatically, jaw clenching, eyes drifting back to the page despite himself.

An affection denied.

The phrasing needles at him, not for its sentimentality but for its specificity. A titan's curses are rarely indiscriminate. They do not arise from abstraction. They attach themselves to something humiliatingly concrete.

Any attempt to deny what is cleanly written in front of him would be nothing but self-indulgent and counterproductive. 

The first question, to his immense irritation, should not be what is the true cause misattributed to unrequited love but who, exactly, does he refuse to admit that he loves?

He searches his own mind with detached efficiency, cataloguing colleagues, associates, fellow Sages — individuals he has respected, debated, tolerated. None provoke the necessary resonance. None occupy the kind of mental space this curse implies.

The itch sharpens. He coughs once, controlled, a muted sound swallowed by the vastness of the room, and the memory surfaces unbidden.

The day his throat first began to bother him.

The graduation ceremony.

Phainon standing before him, bright with that impossible, unguarded warmth. Gratitude expressed with earnest sincerity. A faint, inexplicable tension coiled low in Anaxa’s chest that he had attributed to the inanity of being forced to attend yet another interminable graduation ceremony.

Except he remembers the peculiar heaviness that followed. The quiet disorientation. The sharp, uncharacteristic awareness of Phainon's absence in the hours afterward, as though the Grove itself had shifted fractionally out of alignment.

He remembers, too, the subtler sensation layered beneath the loss, the one he is loath to name.

Jealousy.

He had coveted the ease with which Phainon had always given himself to others, his smiles and touches and effortless affection scattered freely among peers who had not earned it through years of patience and care.

The truth is unbearably, mortifyingly undeniable: that day, he had not merely lost an exceptional student. He had lost something infinitely less easily defined.

The cough tears from him this time, harsher, petals scattering across the polished wood in a soft, damning spill of color.

Anaxa stares at them. Absurd. Entirely, catastrophically absurd.

He had never been in love — except, apparently, he has been. Quietly, for years, with the one variable he had most rigorously excluded from consideration.

Phainon.

The name reverberates through him like a structural collapse.

Recognition arrives not as revelation but as reclassification, every past observation rearranging itself into a pattern he cannot now fail to see: the tolerance of Phainon's constant presence, the inexplicable allowances, the persistent awareness that has followed him like background noise he never bothered to identify. Love, slow-grown and unnoticed, flowering only when there is nothing left to salvage.

Phainon has long overcome his childish crush.

There’s a petal stuck somewhere behind his teeth, the taste of it bitter on his tongue.

Anaxa exhales shakily and closes the book with more force than necessary, the sound echoing through the empty library. He can feel the flowers inside him, can imagine their roots spreading through his lungs like corruption through black tide-touched flesh.

Fine, he thinks viciously. If Mnestia wants to play games with my life, then let's play.

After all, he would not be Anaxagoras the Blasphemer if he did not devote his intellect to finding any and every way for humanity to triumph over the will of the gods.

—

Anaxa attempts to maintain the scaffolding of his life with stubborn discipline.

Weeks slide past. The cough remains. He manages it when others are around with the iron will of his rigorous self-discipline, but alone, he surrenders to it—paroxysms that leave him trembling, petals staining handkerchiefs already stiff with blood.

At last, he finds a promising tome about curse-breaking. He smooths out the page, eager, even desperate —

His teleslate buzzes. Again. Again.

Anaxa glances at it with irritation but doesn't reach for it. He's close to something. The tome lies open before him, promising answers.

The buzzing continues, insistent.

With a sigh, he finally picks up the teleslate to silence it. He can’t help but notice whose name has been lighting up his screen this whole time, and it isn’t a surprise to see it’s Phainon.

I haven’t heard from you in a while so I wanted to check in

That cough you had when I visited, have you gotten it looked at?

I know you're probably busy with research, but I'm worried

Please message me back when you have time

A pause. Then another message arrives: a sad chimera sticker, its expression drooping with concern.

Anaxa stares at the screen for a moment, feeling the familiar pang of guilt settle somewhere beneath his ribs. The same pressure that's been building there for weeks now, though for different reasons.

He should respond. But the passage about flower-blight is still waiting. And every moment he spends on pleasantries is a moment he's not searching for a way out of this.

He turns his teleslate off, forcing his attention back to the words before him.

It’s a chapter devoted solely to flower-blight, full of accounts of failed treatments, experimental procedures — desperate attempts to circumvent divine will.

Most ended in death.

But not all.

There's one account written by a purported survivor.

Most sufferers cling to hope that their feelings might be returned. But for those who accept the reality of their situation, removal of the flowers' source is possible.

The procedure requires a skilled surgeon familiar with both conventional medicine and titan corruption. The flowers' roots must be excised completely. Any fragment left behind will regenerate. The surgery is delicate, dangerous, and irreversible.

But the gods will not allow the children of men to escape their wrath so easily. The afflicted can be cured of the infestation, at the cost of their metaphorical heart.

Upon completion, I found myself unable to experience love. Not merely resistant to it, but fundamentally incapable. The part of me that could feel such things is gone, removed along with the flowers. I have not only forgotten why I felt the way I did, but even who I felt so strongly for.

For me, this is an acceptable trade. Better to live without love than to die consumed by it.

Anaxa stares at the words, something cold and sharp settling in his chest.

Unable to experience romantic love.

He tests the concept, turning it over in his mind. No more of this aching want. No more lying awake at night, imagining the press of Phainon's body against his own. No more of this constant, gnawing need for something he could never have.

It sounds like relief.

It sounds like freedom.

And, a bitter voice in his mind adds, it's not as if I'm losing anything real. This curse is killing me over feelings that can never be returned.

The choice is obvious.

He briefly entertains the idea of performing it himself, but shakes his head. Surgery is not the same as transmutation, and he does still need a working pair of lungs.

Doubtlessly the Courtyard of Twilight would have a surgeon with the requisite skills. He would send a message and arrange for the procedure to be done quietly and discreetly.

He stands to return the books to their shelves when the coughing starts again.

The fit strikes without warning, violent enough to drive him forward against the table. He barely manages to raise the handkerchief before the convulsions seize him, his lungs spasming with a force that steals both breath and coherence. Pain lances through his chest, sharp and tearing, as though something within is shifting, forcing its way upward.

He coughs, and coughs, and coughs, each spasm tearing at his throat — or maybe that is the feeling of his own nails digging into the skin. Blood spattered the handkerchief, then the floor, the fabric fluttering from his innervated hands.

Then something shifts in his chest — a sensation like a knife between the ribs, of roots being pulled free — and he gags as the first full bloom emerges from his throat.

Horror floods him only briefly before another fit follows, harsher than the last. More flowers spill from his lungs in rapid succession — three, four, five — each emergence accompanied by a tearing sensation that fractures thought into noise. The pain is excruciating, white-hot and all-consuming.

He can't breathe, can't think, can't do anything but retch and cough as his body tries to expel what's growing inside him.

The world tilts.

He's aware of falling, of his body hitting the floor, of the scattering of red petals and golden ichor across the stone. His vision is darkening at the edges, his lungs burning, and somewhere in the back of his mind he thinks: This is it. This is how I die. The Titans have had their revenge.

Then there is nothing.

—

Anaxa wakes to the smell of medicinal herbs and clean linen.

He opens his eye slowly, his vision blurry, and finds himself in an unfamiliar bed. The room is small and austere — he's been taken to the healers, he realizes with a sinking feeling. Soft light filters through a narrow window, and beside the bed sits Hyacine, her face pale and her expression a mixture of concern and something that looks like anger.

“You're awake,” she says, her voice tight. “Good. That means I can yell at you properly.”

Anaxa tries to speak, but his throat is scraped raw, and no sound comes out. Hyacine's lips thin, but she pours a glass of water from a nearby pitcher and helps him to take a few soothing sips. “Nobody had seen you since last night. And what do I find when I come looking for you? There you were, collapsed on the floor, barely breathing, surrounded by blood and —“ She gestures sharply to the bedside table.

The spider lily rests there like an accusation, its red petals dulled by dried flakes of golden blood. The books he had been consulting are stacked neatly beside it, their presence damning.

“You told me it was just a persistent cough,” Hyacine says, her voice shaking, and he honestly cannot tell if it's with fury or sorrow. “A minor irritation. Nothing to worry about. And I find you like that.” She points at the flower again. “There were at least a dozen of them scattered around you. How long have you known it wasn't just a cold?”

The word scrapes painfully on its way out. “Months.”

“Months,” Hyacine repeats with a disbelieving laugh. “You've been coughing up flowers for months and you didn't think to tell me? I could have helped!”

“There's nothing you can do,” Anaxa says. “Surgery isn't your specialty.”

The words hang in the air between them. Hyacine goes very still, her expression shifting from confusion to dawning horror.

“Surgery,“ she repeats slowly. Her gaze flicks to the books stacked by the spider lily. “Surgery. You mean —”

“Ah, so you read them already.” Anaxa keeps his voice carefully neutral. “Good, I can save my breath.”

“You can't be considering this. Tell me you aren't actually considering this.” Hyacine shakes her head sharply, as if trying to physically dislodge the thought.

“It's the logical choice,” he says wearily. His throat burns, and his entire body aches, but he forces himself to sit up. It feels silly to have such an impassioned debate while laid out on his back.

“Logical?” She slaps a hand on the book, making them both wince. “What part of removing your ability to feel is logical? Even for you, this is extreme. You can't be serious. You can't.”

“Better than dying, surely.”

“There are other options!” The volume of her voice makes him flinch, and she collects herself for a moment before speaking again more quietly. “We should talk to Lady Aglaea. She has to know something.”

“Do not tell that woman about this,” he hisses. “She will doubtlessly have no new information for us that isn't in those books, besides.”

Hyacine huffs. “I'm surprised you haven't just told him. Now that would be the most logical choice.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Don't insult my intelligence, Professor.”

The silence stretches between them, heavy and damning.

“Tell me I'm wrong,” Hyacine presses. “Tell me it's someone else, and I'll drop this right now.”

Anaxa turns away, his jaw tight. “It doesn't matter who it is.”

“It does. Surgery is not your only option.” Hyacine reaches out and rests a hand on his arm, drawing his gaze back to her. “It is Phainon, isn’t it?”

“What happened to all the rhetoric I taught you? Here you are, demanding answers instead of earning them.” The words come out harsh, bitter. But he doesn’t have the strength or interest in arguing. “Fine, yes. Are you satisfied now? Does knowing change anything?”

“It changes everything!“ Hyacine's voice rises again. “You can’t possibly believe that he doesn’t —“

“I don’t believe. I know.” Anaxa's voice was flat, final. “And I refuse to dance to Mnestia’s whim, or let myself become some grotesque display power when…”

Hyacine's expression softens as he trails off. “Professor, please reconsider.”

“No.” He stands, swaying slightly, batting away her attempts to help stabilize him. “I've made my decision. I need you to send a message to the Courtyard of Twilight. Request a surgeon experienced in thoracic surgery. Tell them it's urgent.”

Hyacine stares at him, her expression stricken. “I can't do that. I won't help you destroy yourself.”

“I'll do it myself, then, if you find the idea of helping me so distasteful.” Anaxa meets her gaze, his eye cold and hard. “And under no circumstances are you to inform Phainon.”

“You're serious,” Hyacine whispers.

“Completely.” Anaxa turns away, straightening his robes. “Either send for a surgeon or stay out of my way. Those are your options.”

He walks past her, his steps measured despite the weakness in his legs, and leaves the sickbay without looking back.

—

The days following pass in a blur. Anaxa is sitting in his office, struggling to focus on — what was he meant to be doing? — when his door slams open. The sound cracks through his ears like a slap to the face, sharp and jarring, and he looks up already irritated — only for the reprimand to die unspoken.

Phainon stands in the doorway, chest heaving like he'd run the entire distance from Okhema on foot. His hair is disheveled, his eyes wild. “Tell me it's not true.“

Anaxa lowers his gaze back to the parchment.

“You’ll need to be more specific,” he says evenly. “Many things are true, and just as many are not.“

Phainon crosses the room in three long strides, urgency overriding whatever restraint he might normally exercise. His hands land flat against Anaxa’s desk with a force that nearly shakes several beakers over the edge.

“Your illness. Hyacine told me,” he continues, breath still uneven. “She said you’ve scheduled the surgery. Tell me she’s wrong.”

Something cold settles low in Anaxa’s chest. He can’t say he’s surprised, but he can say he is angry — furious in a way he hasn’t been in a long time.

He sets down his pen with deliberate care, aligning it precisely beside the inkpot before finally lifting his gaze.

“I will be having a word with her,” he says, voice edged with frost, “about patient confidentiality.”

Phainon’s expression falters.

“So it’s true.” His voice cracks, the sound thin and disbelieving. “You’re actually going through with it.”

“It is none of your concern.” Anaxa keeps his tone controlled, even as the familiar sensation begins to stir at the back of his throat. The itch has become so constant he barely notices its arrival anymore — only its escalation. He needs Phainon to leave before it worsens; if he ends up in the medical bay again so soon, Hyacine might just tie him to the bed. “Aren’t you meant to be in Okhema? Does Aglaea know you’ve abandoned your duties to pester me?”

“None of my —” Phainon looks like he'd been struck. “How can you say that? You're choosing to remove your ability to love. How is that not my concern?”

Phainon's voice is so raw, so wounded. On his face, Anaxa catches something he rarely sees — a tangle of hurt and something else, something Phainon seems to be wrestling with even as it crosses his features.

“I fail to see how it involves you at all, actually.” Anaxa stands, moving away from the desk, putting distance between them. “Besides, would you see me become another sob story like Cerces? Please. This is by far the preferable option.”

Phainon goes very still. Anaxa watches the moment something settles in him — a decision made, a line crossed internally. When he speaks again, his voice is steadier, but there's an edge beneath it now, sharp as broken glass. “But the surgery — Anaxa, you’ll lose more than just the flowers. You’ll forget —”

“I'm aware of the consequences.” The itch was getting worse. Anaxa turned away, focusing on the bottles on his shelf, anything to avoid looking at Phainon's devastated expression. “I've weighed them carefully.”

“Whoever it is, they're not worth this. They're not worth losing your ability to love.”

Anaxa’s fingers tighten against the shelf.

Of course Phainon would say that. He has always believed in these sorts of things with stubborn naivety — that love is worthwhile, that it matters enough to fight for.

Easy to believe, when it costs him nothing.

Whatever youthful infatuation he once harbored has long since settled into appropriate professional regard. There is no risk for him here, no suffocating weight lodged behind his ribs, no slow, choking consequence for his convictions. Of course he can insist that love is worth preserving. From a distance, it always is.

It renders his argument — this bright, unwavering insistence — idealistic nonsense at its core.

And it makes Anaxa’s own feelings all the more contemptible, the irony almost laughable.

Here stands Phainon, ready to fight the object of Anaxa’s affections, utterly unaware that he himself is the cause of his professor’s decline. That Anaxa has been fool enough to fall for his own student, to let those emotions calcify quietly over years, festering beneath layers of discipline and self-deception.

“That is not your judgment to make,” Anaxa says quietly.

“Then let me speak to them.” Phainon moves closer, and Anaxa could feel the warmth of him at his back. “Let me talk sense into whoever is stupid enough not to see what they have. Anyone who doesn't return your feelings is a fool, Anaxa. Let me —”

The cough hits him like a fist to the chest.

Anaxa doubles over, one hand bracing against the shelf as his body convulses. He feels the familiar crawl up his throat, the taste of copper and earth. Petals spill from his lips — deep crimson, almost black at the edges. Spider lily petals, delicate and deadly.

“Anaxa!” Phainon is beside him instantly, one hand gripping his shoulder, the other splayed on his back. Anaxa feels a sudden, disorienting wave of deja vu. “Are you —”

“Get… out…” Anaxa forced the words between coughs, more petals falling. They scattered across the floor like drops of blood.

“I'm not leaving you like this!”

“Get out!“ Anaxa shoves away from him, stumbling back toward his desk. His vision blurs at the edges, the room swimming unpleasantly as another fit wracks through him.

This time, a full bloom forces its way upward.

A perfect spider lily slips from his mouth, long stamens trembling as it falls onto the polished wood.

Phainon stares at it, his face draining of color.

“Leave.” Anaxa’s voice is wretched, barely recognizable even to himself. He cannot look at Phainon, cannot endure the pity he knows he will find there. “Please. Just… leave.”

For a long moment, Phainon doesn't move. Then, slowly, he steps back. “This isn't over,“ he says quietly. “I'm going to find out who did this to you, and I'm going to make them understand what they're throwing away.”

Anaxa laughs, the sound bitter and broken. Another petal falls from his lips. “You do that.”

The door closes behind Phainon with a soft click.

Only then does Anaxa allow himself to collapse back into his chair.

His hands are quivering as he stares at the spider lilies scattered across his desk, their crimson petals stark against the pale wood. Flowers of death. Of parting. Of love that ends before it is ever properly spoken.

How fitting.

He picks up one of the blooms, turning it slowly between unsteady fingers.

The surgery is scheduled for three days from now.

He only needs to endure three more days of this — of coughing up his feelings in physical form, of watching Phainon's concern and knowing it will never be anything close to what he needs.

–

His condition worsens rapidly after that.

The next day, he struggles to even leave his bed. His throat burns with each breath, and when he coughs, flecks of blood stain the handkerchief he keeps pressed to his mouth. Spider lilies scatter across the sheets like accusations.

Hyacine barges into his quarters at — some point in the day; he isn’t sure how long he’s spent curled up in agony on his couch. Her face is set with the grim determination of someone who has finally accepted that her professor will not cooperate with basic self-preservation. She moves him to the medical wing herself, setting up a cot in his small private room.

“You don’t need… to stay….” he says between shallow breaths.

“If you could see yourself, you would understand why I can’t leave,” she replies.

By the same evening, the bleeding worsens. A basin becomes his constant companion, emptied regularly by Hyacine and replaced hastily, before his next fit.

 He thinks he understands, now, why Hyacine refuses to leave his side.

These last days before the surgery pass in a haze of fever. But they’re now only one day away. The surgeon will arrive, and this will finally be over.

Spider lily petals litter the sheets and even more lay crushed beneath his body. Each coughing fit brings more, along with enough blood that Hyacine has stopped trying to hide her concern behind professional detachment. 

“— and you are,” Hyacine is saying, her arms crossed as she stands vigil at the foot of his bed, “the most brilliant, observant man I know in every area except this one. It's honestly baffling.”

Anaxa turns his face into the pillow, too exhausted to argue. He'd apparently said something to her earlier — he can't quite remember what, the fever makes everything hazy — but it had been enough to earn this lecture.

“Everyone can see it, Professor. Everyone. The way he looks at you, the way he finds excuses to be near you…” Hyacine throws up her hands. “The only person who doesn't believe Phainon is in love with you is you.”

“He respects me,” Anaxa manages, his voice hoarse. “As a mentor. Nothing more.”

“Oh, for —” Hyacine pinches the bridge of her nose. “No man looks at his mentor the way Phainon looks at you. That is not respect in his eyes, that's —”

“Enough.” Anaxa forces himself up on one elbow, immediately regretting it as his vision swims. 

The cough tears through him, violent and wet. More petals, more blood. Hyacine is there immediately with a basin, her lecture forgotten as she supports his shoulders.

When it finally subsides, Anaxa pushes weakly at her hands. “Leave.”

Hyacine's jaw tightens, but she sets the basin aside and stands. “You're a fool,” she says quietly. “And I say that with all the love in my heart.”

She heads toward the door as it opens, nearly colliding with the tall figure in the doorway.

Phainon.

Hyacine looks up at him, then back at Anaxa, then grabs Phainon's arm and pulls him into the hallway. They exchange words, their conversation a muted hum. Anaxa can only hear her last hissed whisper: “Do something.”

Then her footsteps retreat, and Phainon steps into the room.

Anaxa closes his eye, frustrated but unsurprised. Only one more day of this charade.

“Anaxa.” Phainon's voice is strained with a poor attempt at normalcy. The bed dips as he sits on the edge, and Anaxa can feel the warmth of him even through the sheets. “Look at you. You can barely breathe.”

“The surgery is tomorrow.“ Anaxa kept his eye closed. “It will be over soon.”

“It doesn't have to be.” Phainon's hand finds his, carefully avoiding the scattered petals. He rubs warmth into the stiff, cold digits. “If you would just tell me —”

“No.”

“Anaxa, please. Let me help.”

“You ask me to perform for the gods… What do you think my answer will be?”

Silence stretches between them, heavy and suffocating as the flowers in Anaxa's lungs. The only sound is Anaxa's labored breathing and the rustle of petals against fabric. Then, carefully, with the measured tone of someone approaching a wounded animal, Phainon asks, “When did it start?”

“What does it matter,” Anaxa replies flatly.

“You first noticed symptoms the week I graduated,” Phainon says. His voice steadies, taking on that tone he always used when he was gearing up for a debate he knew he would win. Never did Anaxa expect to hear that tone pointed at him. “Is that correct?”

“Just how much of my private medical information did she share with you?” Anaxa grumbles.

“Answer me. Yes or no.”

“If you already know so much, why are you bothering to ask?”

“Because Hyacine didn't actually tell me everything.“ Phainon's thumb traces circles on the back of Anaxa's hand. “She told me what it is and when it started, and I put the rest together myself. The cough developed over weeks, becoming only slightly worse over time. But the first petals — that was the day I came back to visit. Wasn't it?”

Anaxa says nothing.

“And then you were, again, stable until the next time I came by. To summarize… the flowers bloom more when I'm here. You remain stable when I’m away.”

“Stop.” Anaxa finally opens his eye, meeting Phainon's gaze. “Hyacinthia lectures me enough, I don’t need it from you, too.”

But Phainon doesn't stop. His gaze is earnest and unwavering, not the kicked puppy look Anaxa had expected. It catches Anaxa off-guard, that openness, stripped of his usual boyish charm.

“I read more about flower-blight,” Phainon continues quietly. “About how proximity can make it worse. That’s when I noticed that the timeline matches perfectly. It started when I left. It worsened when I returned. Every visit makes you sicker.” He pauses, letting the weight of it settle, giving Anaxa space to deny it or confirm it. When Anaxa remains silent, he continues on. “There's only one possible explanation. It's me. I'm the one who —”

“Don't flatter yourself.” Anaxa tries to pull his hand away, but Phainon holds firm.

“You didn't teach me to be a fool, Professor.”

A long silence. Anaxa's eye slides shut, and when it opens again, there’s something almost wry in his expression — a bitter acknowledgment. “I created a monster, then.”

He exhales, shoulders sagging in surrender. “I knew you had a crush on me when you were younger. But I'm equally aware that you've grown out of it by now.” He opens his eye, meeting Phainon's gaze with resignation. “Stop pushing this. If you read the books, then you know what happens if the flower-blight is made to reach full maturity.”

Phainon’s confidence begins to waver, an interesting parade of emotions passing over his face: first surprise, then something closer to stunned embarrassment, then finally a faint, almost painful regret.

“You really did know?”

“Of course I knew. You were beyond obvious.” Despite everything, despite the rawness in his chest and the flowers clawing at his lungs, Anaxa huffs a weak, humorless laugh. “But it would have been wildly inappropriate for me to acknowledge it. You were my student.”

“I thought I was being subtle,” Phainon mutters.

“You weren't.” The words came automatically, but they carried none of their usual acerbic bite. Anaxa studies him with a weary, distant sort of fondness — the kind he’s tried to deny the existence of, even to himself, all this time. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“No.” The interruption is immediate, cutting through Anaxa's rationalizations with surgical precision. Phainon straightens in his chair, and something shifts in his posture — shoulders squared, chin lifted slightly. “That constitutes your first incorrect premise.”

Anaxa blinks. The transformation is startling: gone is the quiet, grief-stricken young man who'd walked into the medical wing moments ago. In his place sits the ten-time debate champion, every line of his body arranged with deliberate composure.

“Premise one,” Phainon begins, his voice taking on the measured cadence of formal argumentation, “assumes that my feelings have diminished with time and distance. I submit that the evidence contradicts this assumption.“ He ticks off points on his fingers with practiced ease. “A crush, by definition, is characterized by its transient nature. It diminishes when deprived of regular contact. What I experienced — what I continue to experience — has survived geographic distance, limited communication, and your consistent rejection of any romantic overtures.”

Despite himself, despite the flowers in his lungs and the exhaustion weighing on every bone, Anaxa feels his mind engage automatically with the structure of the argument. “Persistence doesn't validate —”

“Objection noted but overruled.” Phainon waves one hand with exaggerated formality, as though presiding over an invisible tribunal. His tone has shifted into the kind of exaggerated performance that won him both championships and the hearts of the crowd. “When I was a student, yes, you could call it a crush — but what I feel now is deeper than that.” He counts off on his fingers again, each point delivered with the cadence of a closing argument. “I know your flaws. I know your cruelty. And I choose to remain, knowing all of it.”

There's something almost absurd about the whole performance — Phainon's posture too straight, his gestures too deliberate, like he's playing a caricature of himself at a debate podium.

“Even if that were true, you were my student,” Anaxa manages, though his voice sounds thinner than he'd like. “And I will not let the gods dictate how and when I prove my feelings.”

“Oh?” Phainon asks, putting a hand on his chin with the kind of theatrical flourish that belongs on a stage. “When did I ask you to prove anything to the gods?” He tilts his head slightly, something sharper settling beneath the performance. “Or is that just the excuse you’ve decided sounds nobler than the truth?”

Anaxa scoffs at the display, and at his own lack of a rebuttal.

“As for your other point… I’m afraid that’s mere distraction.” He leans forward slightly, one eyebrow raised in mock challenge. “You're attempting to divert attention from the matter at hand by invoking a framework that no longer applies to the current situation. I acknowledge the validity of this concern during the period in which it applied.” He pauses, letting the emphasis hang in the air. “However, the power dynamic you reference no longer exists.”

He spreads his hands as if presenting evidence to an invisible jury. “You are clinging to an outdated framework not because it constitutes a genuine ethical barrier, but because —”

And then, quite suddenly, something shifts.

A smile tugs at the corner of Phainon's mouth — small, warm, entirely deliberate. The debate champion posture dissolves in an instant, his shoulders dropping, his hands unfolding from their formal presentation. But there's nothing uncertain about the movement. It's smooth, practiced, a pivot executed with the same precision as everything that came before.

“— because it's safer than being honest,” he finishes, and the theatrical edge has vanished from his voice, replaced by something softer, but no less calculated.

Anaxa feels the shift like a change in atmospheric pressure. Phainon hasn't lost control of the argument. He's simply changed tactics. From intellectual dismantling to emotional appeal, executed with the same strategic confidence that won him ten debate championships.

He’s just never had to be on this side of it before.

“I see the time away hasn’t dulled your tongue,” Anaxa says quietly, and he can't quite keep the bitter admiration out of his voice.

“Perhaps.” Phainon doesn't deny it. His hands reach for Anaxa's, the gesture achingly gentle. “But I’m not debating you because I want to win an argument. I’m doing this because I'm terrified of what happens if I can't make you see —”

He stops to take a breath. When he speaks again, the mask has dissolved entirely.

“Anaxa, you're either going to die, or undergo risky surgery. And the only reason you're in this situation is because you won't let yourself believe that this,” he gestures between them, helpless, “could be real. That I could actually love you. That you could be allowed to love me back.”

The words settle between them, stripped of rhetoric, naked and vulnerable.

“Besides,” Phainon continues softly, “the real reason you’re being so stubborn isn’t any of that. There’s nothing logical about your decision. You’re just afraid.”

“I am not afraid,” Anaxa snaps back, the denial reflexive, arriving well before conscious thought.

Phainon’s gaze holds his, unyielding, patient, and entirely unconvinced. His hand tightens around Anaxa's. “Then prove otherwise.”

The gentleness in his voice is worse than any formal argument could have been. It slides past every intellectual defense Anaxa has constructed, settling directly against the raw, terrified thing he's been trying so desperately to protect.

“The flower-blight has a real cure,” Phainon says, and his voice trembles despite his best attempts to remain steady. “You know what it is.”

Something fragile and desperate twists violently in Anaxa’s chest. His jaw tightens, every defense he has ever constructed flaring to life in frantic protest. To speak the words would be to convert a contained, abstract terror into something real, external, vulnerable to rejection. It would mean relinquishing the final refuge of uncertainty.

“You can't ask this of me,” Anaxa says, though even to his own ears the words sound strained, precarious. His hand trembles in Phainon’s grasp.

“I know.” Phainon's voice breaks slightly on the words. “I know it's terrifying. I know you've spent years convincing yourself it was impossible. But…” His other hand comes up to cup Anaxa's face, achingly careful. “You're not wrong. You were never wrong. The only question left is whether you're brave enough to say it out loud.”

Anaxa's eye slides shut. His thoughts, always so reliably ordered, so ruthlessly disciplined, refuse to align. Memory intrudes in relentless succession: Phainon’s absence, Phainon’s return, the unbearable lightness of his laughter with others, the quiet devastation of that impersonal handshake at graduation. The jealousy Anaxa had dismissed. The loss he had refused to name.

Every piece of evidence, every carefully ignored datum, now stands arranged with merciless clarity.

His throat works uselessly. The words amass behind his ribs like pressure behind a failing seal, vast and unwieldy and impossibly heavy. He can feel them there, immense and terrible.

Just say it.

But he can’t. He's spent so long building walls around this feeling, so long pretending it didn't exist, that the thought of tearing them down feels like dismantling his own bones.

Phainon's hand is warm around his own.

Anaxa exhales, the breath shuddering violently on its way out.

Perhaps the gods have forced his tongue, but at the very least, they will not dictate his words. He trusts Phainon will be able to hear what he truly means, after all. 

“… I concede.”

Relief breaks across Phainon's face with almost painful softness, tension bleeding from his shoulders in a slow, visible collapse. A breath escapes him, unsteady, disbelieving, threaded through with something that might have been laughter had it not carried so much exhausted tenderness.

“Well,” Phainon murmurs, his thumb brushing lightly across Anaxa’s shaking hand. “It's about time. I love you, too.”

For a moment, Anaxa’s mind refuses the words as the pretty lies of a devoted student wishing to save his mentor. Phainon’s earlier reasoning had been convincing, yes, but that does not guarantee correctness, and emotional variables are notoriously unreliable —

Something shifts in his chest.

Not metaphorically speaking, but real — a physical sensation of movement within the cavity behind his ribs.

The breath he draws catches halfway, sharp and wrong, as though his lungs have forgotten the simple mechanics of expansion, and the next moment the sensation turns to pressure that builds with sudden, violent intent.

Anaxa barely has time to register the change before pain tears through him.

His lungs seize, the flowers reacting with savage enthusiasm, and he doubles over with a ragged, choking gasp. The coughing fit rips free without warning, harsh and brutal, his entire body convulsing as the familiar burning sensation surges through his chest like wildfire.

For one splintered instant, dread eclipses everything else.

The pain does not feel like retreat. It feels like rupture — something tearing loose inside him with a vicious, blooming violence that steals what little air he had left. His lungs spasm uselessly, each attempted breath collapsing into another convulsion, another wrenching cough. Panic claws up his throat, sharp and animal, a terror far less dignified than anything Anaxa would have believed himself capable of.

Beneath the agony runs a cold, creeping certainty.

They had failed.

They had been too late.

They had been wrong.

He can feel something shifting inside his chest, a terrible internal rearrangement that his exhausted mind immediately interprets as catastrophe.

Would he sprout into some grotesque monument to titanic cruelty right here in the medical bay?

Strong arms catch him before he can fold entirely into himself, drawing him upright with a careful grip. Heat presses against his back, solid and unyielding, Phainon’s body bracing his own as the coughing wracks through him. A hand spreads across his chest, warm and firm, rubbing slow circles that cut through the chaos like a metronome.

Through the roaring in Anaxa’s ears, through the suffocating violence of his lungs, Phainon’s presence remains a singular point of orientation — warmth, pressure, the steady rhythm of touch anchoring him to reality.

“Easy,” Phainon whispers, his voice low and frayed but unwaveringly gentle. “I’ve got you. Just try to breathe.”

Breathe.

The word rings bitterly ironic as Anaxa’s lungs convulse again, another brutal, gagging cough ripping free. Something gives deep in his chest — not the sharp, proliferating agony of petals forcing their way upward, but a heavier, stranger sensation. A dragging looseness or a structural collapse.

The pain spikes viciously one last time before fading away.

When Anaxa finally forces his eye open, vision blurred and swimming, his gaze drops instinctively to the basin Phainon had pressed into his lap.

The breath catches in his throat — not from obstruction this time, but from sheer, visceral shock.

The basin overflows with a grotesque tangle of pale spider lilies, their delicate petals matted and clinging together in clumps, slick with golden blood. Stems twist through the mass like skeletal fingers, and beneath it all — roots. A dense, writhing network of roots, thick as cord in places, branching into hair-fine tendrils in others, all of it coated in that same luminous gold. The sheer volume of it defies comprehension — this entire structure had been living inside him, coiled through his lungs, feeding on his breath.

Phainon makes a choked sound, his hand tightening reflexively on Anaxa's shoulder. “Gods,“ he breathes, staring at the basin with undisguised horror. “That was — all of that was —”

For several stunned seconds, Anaxa's mind refuses to assemble the implications. The absence itself feels disorienting, almost impossible to parse. His lungs, still aching, still raw, draw in a thin, tentative breath.

He lets it out and inhales again, shallow and disbelieving. He’d forgotten what breathing without pain felt like.

There’s no more resistance, no strangling pressure, no suffocating bloom of foreign growth tightening around his ribs. Only the dull, battered soreness of lungs that had endured something catastrophic and survived it.

“The flowers are gone,” he whispers hoarsely, his voice scraped raw.

“Because you believe me now. Don’t you?” Phainon’s voice trembles, fragile with something dangerously close to awe.

Anaxa tears his eyes away from the carnage to look at Phainon. At the desperate hope burning in his eyes, the way his hands still shake where they hold Anaxa’s shoulders, the naked, unguarded terror that has not yet fully receded. Phainon is staring at him as though nothing could be believed unless Anaxa spoke it.

“I love you,” Anaxa breathes. “And I believe you.”

The admission sits between them, no longer dressed in rhetoric, no longer deniable.

Phainon kisses him then — hard and desperate, a kiss that tastes of relief and fear and love all at once. His hands come up to frame Anaxa's face, holding him like he might disappear, and he kisses him with the intensity of someone who has watched him die a thousand times and refused to let it happen again. 

Anaxa makes a small sound of protest, pulling back when Phainon finally relaxes his relentless grip. “I'm absolutely disgusting right now,” he says, his voice rough and defensive. Blood still stains his lips, his chin, the taste of copper heavy on his tongue. “You can't possibly —”

Phainon kisses him again — fiercer this time, cutting off the words entirely. When he finally pulls back, his own lips are smeared with gold, and his eyes burn with fierce, possessive intensity.

“No surgery,” he says, his voice low and fierce. “Not tomorrow, not ever.”

“No surgery,” Anaxa agrees, his voice barely above a whisper.

They stay like that for a long moment, breathing together, Phainon's hand still cupping Anaxa's face. The scattered petals on the bed seem less ominous now — just flowers, nothing more. Not symbols of death or abandonment or never meeting again.

Just flowers.

“You love me,” Anaxa says quietly, as if confirming a theorem he already knows the proof of.

“I do,” Phainon says, smiling. “I've known for a long time. I just had to make you believe it too.”

“Ten-time debate champion,” Anaxa murmurs.

“Undefeated,” Phainon agrees, and kisses him again.