IVAstra

  Her pillow wouldn’t stay still.

  She shifted, hoping that the movement would satisfy the pillow, but after a moment of stillness it moved again, a slow rise terminating at an apex, descending again. Astra’s face shifted into a spot wetted with her own drool.

  Realization, she sits up, red faced. Over the weeks she’d found herself on some occasions using Rubi as a pillow. The two started their evenings back to back, to beat the cold, only for her to sometimes wake, head pillowed on his chest or hugging his arm to her torso. Rubi seemed indifferent, though once she had woken with her back pressed to his chest and his arm around her. He hadn’t been so indifferent about that.

  Astra murmured an apology as she wiped her mouth.

  “It’s fine,” he murmured back. He usually woke before Astra did, in those moments she made a pillow of him he would y quiet until she roused. She hoped he never had to wait long that way.

  This morning seemed more frigid than the previous. Together, they rubbed the sleep from their eyes and looked out at the city ruins. The winds were high today, whipping the scrubby pnt life frantically. Walking today would be unpleasant, but of greater concern; the roiling sky, ominously dark, low on the horizon. A storm.

  Her gaze slid from the clouds to Rubi, who looked more worried than he ever had.

  “Dark… too dark?” She asked quietly.

  Rubi tore his gaze from the menacing sky and smoothed her hair from her face. “Yes, it's too dark. We must find the tallest building we can,” Rubi replied, cadence slow, accommodating. Astra’s understanding was much improved, but her mouth was still clumsy, and her grammar sporadic.

  Rubi did not conjure them a breakfast, instead they hurried on the overgrown roads between the buildings to face a day of angry headwinds, squalls, and chilly rain that soaked them both through. Rubi tugged her along, but eventually he was forced to carry Astra for long stretches as the cold left her shivering so hard that she couldn’t keep upright. Her inability forced them to rest here and there in the entryway of a building or on the leeward side of broken stone, but these moments were brief and pgued with the tension of Rubi’s anxiety.

  Each time they set out she resolved to shiver less and walk longer without the need to be carried, each time her body failed her earlier than it had before. Astra spent much of the day holding tight to Rubi's back, face buried in his hair, chest knotted, aware that he could likely move with speed if not for her. Mood darkened with each passing moment, roiling, pent with guilt-ridden frustration that she may cost Rubi his life. Perhaps today.

  Eager to help, Astra would point at any building that she thought might be tall enough, but Rubi would only stare, squinting against the winds, before shaking his head no and pressing them onward.

  The sky darkened as the storm rolled over the city. A treacherous tickle in Astra’s chest gave way to stifled coughing, she retreated into herself, all of her energy devoted to walking, fighting the wheeze in her chest, being as little burden as possible for Rubi.

  Worry that she could sicken and die despite his efforts loomed. Astra squeezed Rubi’s hand, tight as she could manage. The boy stopped his march to face her, headwind spying his hair into an explosive halo of white. He studied her forlorn expression as she wiped at her snotty nose, coughed into the sleeve of her dress.

  “Tired, cold,” she said. Astra didn’t think herself audible over the storm, but he nodded and pointed at a building with a rger footprint than any she’d seen. It bore an impressive archway entrance, but was only as tall as the others he’d refused

  Rubi gathered her into his arms, he shouted over the wind, “It will have to do.” Astra spent the st stretch of their misery hugging Rubi tight, face buried in his chest, the patchwork satchel that bore all their worldly possessions snug between them.

  Relief, immediate once they made it inside. The air didn’t feel so heavy here. Astra let herself rex, even as the darkness pressed in around them. Massive windows stretched from floor to ceiling, but the room was still cavernous and shadowed, the ceiling lost to the bck.

  Rubi set her down with a gentleness that made her chest tighten. She didn’t cough, though—kept her mouth covered to stifle it. The st thing she wanted was to worry him more.

  A bright light fred from Rubi’s hand, brighter than anything she had seen him conjure before. It lit up the space, long rows of wooden shelves stretching into the distance. Some were overturned, others broken, their purpose clear, even without a single book left to show for it. A library, or what had once been one. The floor was grimy, a paste-like residue clinging to the corners and sticking in patches beneath their feet.

  Rubi broke apart a decrepit wooden shelf with his bare hands. As of te she hadn’t seen him put such obscene strength to use, she found it frightening, yet comforting, that he held strength so close and could deploy it so readily. She watched him reduce a shelf to manageable splinters, face warm.

  A sufficient amount of stone floor was cleared and arranged with the choicest pieces of wood. A moment spent in silence conjuring, eyes glowing, then the pile erupted with fmes. He adjusted the edge of it, paying no mind to the smoke that gathered in the vault of the ceiling, then dismissed the light he’d conjured.

  “Come, sit,” he said, dragging the remains of a shelf closer to the fire. He stripped off his robe and hung it to dry. Beneath he wore the same small clothes as Astra, though both were in terrible need of soap. The slight outline of ribs broke the pne of Rubi’s back.

  She averted her gaze and moved to sit before the fire, close as she could. There she shivered, fighting her cough. Rubi sat beside her.

  “We must dry your clothing, you are not well,” he started carefully.

  Astra watched him sidelong as she curled tighter, her breath raspy, wheezing, arming. “Don’t look,” she murmured.

  Rubi showed his back to her, “I will not,” he assured.

  Astra mustered the courage to peel her off her dress and hang it on the ruin of a shelf next to Rubi’s robe. True to his word he didn’t look at her, dipping his chin and closing his eyes. Though he did start a bit when she returned and sat, shivering, with her bare back against his.

  The crackle of the fire, the odd but pleasant smell of the wood-smoke, eased. Rubi’s arm moved carefully, loath to disturb her as always, to stoke the fire. Eventually he conjured for them the mealy gruel-bricks she’d come to hate and a cup of water to share. They ate in companionable misery

  Astra couldn’t help but wonder: that tomorrow might be worse, darker? That the Umbra might reach them at the top? Could they survive that? And what if Rubi, in taking care of her, gets hurt—gets killed? Wouldn’t he be better off without her, move faster, find somepce safe, somepce with people? What if next time he can’t carry her, if running with her drags him down? What if trying to save her is the thing that costs him his life? The what-ifs hang heavy, questions with only one answer that could put her mind at ease.

  She didn’t know how much time had passed before she found the words. An hour? “Rubi?” she whispered, leaning just enough to catch his face from the crook of his arm.

  “Yes?”

  “Umbra will come?”

  He stared off into the distance, as if seeing something she couldn’t, before finally answering, “yes.”

  “Tonight… dark… tomorrow… more dark,” she fumbled, hoping she was saying it right. “They will come.”

  Rubi just nodded this time. She stared at him—his profile so perfect, but the wear was showing. The dark circles under his eyes deepened every day, more and more. This was breaking him, wearing him down.

  He would break faster because of her.

  She fretted with the ends of her hair. Longer now than when she’d wakened in the sepia maze, tangled, rough with oil and rain. An hour with the comb would do little good. Rubi’s wasn’t doing much better, despite being tied back.

  A long silence stretched between them. She leaned just enough to peer around the cover of his elbow, but Rubi didn’t move. His gaze remained locked in that distant thousand-yard stare, fixed on something far away, something she couldn’t see.

  “Rubi,” Astra whispered, hesitant, stumbling. “I am slow… you are fast,” the sentence felt clumsy, wrong, and she hated how she had to piece it together. “I go with you… you die… I die… you go… I stay… I die… you live.”

  She felt the tension ripple through him, the subtle tremor of his arm against her back, he didn’t speak, didn’t turn. But she knew he was listening. She pressed on, the weight of what she needed to say crushing, “please, Rubi… don’t die… for me.”

  Suddenly, before Astra could blink, Rubi turned. It was so fast, so fluid, she barely registered it. He was on his knees, gripping her shoulders with a force that startled her. His face was inches from hers, and there was fury burning in his eyes—hot, fierce, desperate. She covered her chest with her arms, trembling beneath his grasp as the words burst from him.

  “How could I possibly leave you!?” he shouted, his voice cutting. “You and I may be the only two left in this entire world! If I left you here, I wouldn’t be worthy of my name! How could you even suggest that!?”

  His words hit like a storm, growing louder, faster, spilling over as his anger escated. Paraffin fingers dug into her shoulders, gripping tight, but it was his face that froze her—his eyes wide, filled with disbelief, desperation twisting the edges of his expression. She barely caught the rest of what he said as his fury overtook him, as his voice cracked under the weight.

  She couldn’t look away, though she wanted to—his pain, his frustration, it was all there, raw and undeniable on his wan face. And though her own body shook beneath the force of his grip, beneath the tremble in his voice, she understood the truth he couldn’t say: that he couldn’t bear to lose her, no matter what it might cost him.

  Rubi saw her tears, at once all anger fled him, the shadow of shame darkened his visage. His grip rexed, but he didn’t release her as he hung his head, eyes closed, taking deep, calming breaths.

  “Sorry Rubi… sorry… I am sorry,” Astra sobbed. That he wouldn’t leave her even if she begged him to do it! That even suggesting it would make him this angry? All she could do was cry and apologize.

  Rubi released her to stand at the edge of the firelight, arms crossed. Seething. He only shook his head and scoffed when she tried to apologize again.

  Rubi

  By the time he’d calmed down Astra had already dozed off by the fire, her small form curled into itself. Rubi worked quietly, fashioning a pillow from his dried robe, draping her dress over her like a bnket. She didn’t stir—not even once. He kept his eyes averted, even though after everything they’d been through, it felt absurd to keep doing so. But it was what she wanted.

  He had pushed her too hard today.

  Sitting beside her, he stoked the fire, its warmth dancing shadows across her face. Gently, he pced his hand on her forehead, her skin too warm, feverish from the day’s strain. He sighed and moved aside the tangled mess of pale hair, checking the scars where he had bitten her. Two tiny circles, healed over now, glowing faintly in the firelight.

  Blood binds pneuma to flesh. Pneuma draws from the soul. To take another’s blood is to take what gives them life, what keeps them grounded in the world. He had no idea what it might have done to a child, only that it had done damage. His mother, his tutors—they had never spoken much about it. He didn’t know if it was a wound Astra could recover from, or if he’d condemned her to a shorter, harder life.

  That thought lodged itself in his chest, sharp and relentless.

  Rubi let her hair fall back over the scars and studied her face, the delicate upturn of her nose, those almond-shaped eyes, too rge for her face. Her lips parted slightly, breath coming in a worrying rasp. Her ears, round, years away from growing pointed like his own. Her cheeks were sunken now, the healthy softness she once had when she’d woken him in the sanctuar, long gone. Her eyes, though hollow, still lit up when she saw him—or when something caught her insatiable curiosity. What worried him most, though, were her arms. They had once been full, strong. Now, they were just sticks.

  He shook his head, rubbing his face hard, the way he only allowed himself to when she couldn’t see. She needed him to be strong, and yet he had failed her. Failed her when she’d asked to be left behind, her voice breaking as she begged him. He shouted at her. The look on her face, frightened, fragile, haunted him.

  This couldn’t go on. She would die if they stayed like this—if they kept living like this. Rubi didn’t have the power or the skill to save her. They had to leave. Odrysae was dead, and had been for a long time. He didn’t know how long he’d slept in the sanctuar, but for the city to be this desote, this overgrown, with nothing left to scavenge? It had been a long, long time.

  The pn had failed. They must all be gone now. It was possible—no, likely—that he and Astra were the only ones left.

  Rubi made up his mind. As soon as the storm passed, they would leave. That is, if she didn’t fall ill and die.

  Rubi pressed his palms against his eyes, trying to wrench away tears. But they came anyway, soft and slow, despite everything.

  Astra

  Astra jolted awake, the lingering edges of a nightmare still clinging to her. Her heart raced, her chest tight with the effort to breathe quietly. Rubi’s eyes were wide, his hand halfway outstretched as though he had been about to wake her. She realized her dress—stained and worn—had been pulled over her like a makeshift bnket, pooling around her hips. She was still topless, and so was he. Rubi turned away quickly as she pulled the fabric up to cover herself, moving with such haste that she fumbled with it.

  Rubi retrieved his robe from where it had been drying by the fire and stood on the far side of the fmes, keeping his back to her. His form was stiff, every gesture deliberate, as though he was trying too hard to respect her space. She dressed quickly, hands shaking. A dull tickle in her chest warned her of the cough waiting to break free. She swallowed hard, knowing any exertion would push her further toward illness.

  What if she grew more ill? What if they had to stop and let her rest? And if they did, would she even recover? Or would she die?

  Rubi extinguished the fire with a carefully pced burst of magic, the water sizzling as it smothered the fmes. Astra looked past the windows, trying to gauge whether it was day or night, but the storm-dark sky gave her no answers.

  "Day?" she asked, her voice small.

  "Day," Rubi confirmed, his tone ft. "We must move."

  He approached and took her hand, his grip firm but not unkind. The sky outside was pitch bck, not the kind of darkness caused by nightfall but something deeper, more oppressive, like the weight of the storm had swallowed the sun whole. As they ascended the stairs, the howling wind grew louder, reverberating through the building, and she couldn't shake the feeling that the storm wasn’t just nature but something more.

  They passed what looked like a lift, its pictographs worn but still legible. One symbol—clearly meant for "up"—had been smashed. Whether by time or something worse, she couldn’t say. Astra slowed to look, but Rubi tugged her forward, already knowing the lift was useless, just like the others they’d seen in Odrysae.

  The floors above felt like the remnants of a grand archive, though any shelves they encountered were long empty, broken, or colpsed. Rubi stopped frequently, watching her with that same worried look. She really wished he would stop.

  The building itself was falling apart, stairwells clogged with rubble they had to climb over or squeeze through. More than once, Astra scraped her knees and palms, by the time they reached the midpoint she’d torn a new hole in her dress.

  She could feel Rubi’s gaze on her back as she paused by one of the windows to stare out at the storm-dark sky. The gss, thankfully, was still intact, shielding her from the rain, but the howl of the wind was merciless, louder with every floor they climbed.

  Rubi sighed and pulled her away, leading them further up. They began exploring each floor, though the darkness outside had thickened to a point where nothing could be seen beyond the windows. It was just them and the faint orb of light Rubi kept floating by his shoulder, the only thing illuminating the decaying hallways. Each time they entered a new room, Astra imagined an Umbra lurking in the shadows, waiting for the moment to strike. The dread gnawed at her until her pulse hammered in her ears. Would Rubi react fast enough if one attacked? He had before, back in that strange underground mall. But that was then. What about now?

  "Rubi?" she whispered, her voice trembling from the growing panic. She slowed, pulling her hand from his to make him stop.

  He turned, ruby-red eyes meeting hers in the dim light, his expression softening as he realized how tense she had become. They stood together in the hallway, having just left what must have been a lecture room, empty like all the rest.

  "Not.. find anything," she said, then corrected herself, "We will not find anything."

  Rubi’s brow furrowed, his shoulders sagging with the weight of her words. He looked down the hallway, the darkness stretching out before them like a void. "I know," he said quietly. "But I had hoped it would be different."

  She stepped closer, squeezing his hand, hoping it was enough to comfort him. She didn’t know if it helped him, but it certainly helped her. Together, they made their way back to the stairwell.

  The storm’s howl grew fiercer, now accompanied by the violent crash of lightning. They were met with devastation at the next nding. Half the floor was exposed to the storm, walls and windows bsted apart. Whatever had happened here had been cataclysmic, an explosion or some powerful force that tore through the building, leaving rubble in its wake.

  Rubi’s hand tightened around hers as he kept them far from the open air, but even so, the wind and rain whipped through the broken walls, threatening to soak them once more. Nature had cimed the floor—trees and bushes had taken root in the shallow earth that accumuted, windblown even this high. One tree was so tall that it climbed higher than the building itself. It was beautiful, in its own way, but Astra had no time to admire it. The storm was too dangerous, the winds too wild. She spotted berries growing on one of the bushes and wondered if birds came here to feed, but there was no time to explore.

  Ahead, the entrance to the other stairwell yawned open, dark and foreboding. Rubi halted suddenly, his gaze snapping to the dark outside.

  Astra followed his gaze, seeing nothing.

  Before she could ask, Rubi grabbed her—so forceful that the wind was knocked out of her. She was over his shoulder, carried with such speed that she didn’t even have time to react before something smmed into them both.

  Astra was flung from Rubi’s grasp, her body crashing into a patch of mossy dirt. She rolled, pain fring from her elbow to her wrist, hot and sharp. Blood flowed freely, and she gasped for breath, cradling her injured arm.

  Lightning fshed, and for a brief moment, Astra saw the scene before her: Rubi, fighting an Umbra.