Then Erebus leaned back slightly, resting on his hands like they were catching a breeze instead of tension.
"I didn't think you'd survive," he said.
"You said that the first time too."
He nodded once. "And the second."
"And after the third, you stopped checking."
"I stopped caring."
That wasn't news. It just sounded different now. Older. Heavier.
Lindarion remembered every moment.
First meeting he was beaten the shit out of.
After that his first kill. No speech. No warning. Just the look Erebus gave him when he hesitated, and the fist that followed until he stopped hesitating.
He remembered coughing up blood in the cold.
And walking back with the bounty alone.
"I was a smaller," he said.
"You were old enough."
Lindarion stared at him. "You used me."
Erebus tilted his head. "I trained you."
"You abandoned me."
"You survived."
That silence came again.
It was the worst one.
Because Erebus believed it.
Every word.
Every lesson.
Every broken bone.
