Inability to sleep was a mixed blessing. On one hand, Irwyn remained perfectly sharp the whole time, never afflicted by exhaustion, which meant he could maintain the restraints without any errors. On the other, it denied Elizabeth the release of unconsciousness. And it was inability, not just a removed need. They had asked the golem after several unsuccessful attempts at knocking Elizabeth out. Yes, the golem, who sometimes answered questions. Not very often, infuriatingly. But it was definitely listening. Unfortunately, it refused to even acknowledge whenever either of them tried to quiz out how much longer Elizabeth’s state would last. It likely considered the addictive trap as part of the Trial and thus excluded from any assistance.

  Eventually, reading was simply just no longer cutting it. Even with his best attempts to coax her, Elizabeth could not focus on the words. She had disabled all magic speeding her perception hours before, yet the pain still eventually became worse than it had been then. So Irwyn tried to hold conversation the best he could. Which was not going the best. Since Elizabeth struggled to respond from time to time, he somehow had to fill the silence, lest they both had to listen to just her ragged breaths. Not to mention the dwindling number of possible topics Irwyn could think of.

  “I want to ask you something,” Elizabeth spoke at one point when Irwyn was being particularly babbly.

  “Of course,” he immediately agreed.

  “Do you… dislike this?” she vaguely said.

  “I take no pleasure in your suffering, no.”

  “Not what I meant. I am talking about this… being basically used as a cushion.”

  “No need to worry. You are as light as a feather,” he assured.

  “Sometimes I wonder if you do this on purpose, but then remember you are not,” she rolled her eyes, a hint of amusement piercing through the agony.

  “Do what?” Irwyn was glad for it, even if he didn’t know what had been so funny.

  “Damn it. Feels wrong to even ask when I am like this. But all the pain is making the awkwardness and fear feel just so… distant. Also, just about everything feels wrong right now, so maybe it’s just that. Now I am just babbling.”

  “As long as you keep talking.”

  “Am I warm?”

  “Uh,” Irwyn paused, unsure where that had come from. But he had to keep talking. “Yes.”

  “Is it pleasant?”

  “...” another gap as Irwyn processed her words. Warm indeed, the heat of soft flesh pressing against his own. It didn’t seem worth noting just a few sentences prior. Suddenly, it took up a large chunk of his focus.

  Irwyn had never been one for physical contact. People around him knew as much, and thus it had become scarce. And what rarely occurred eventually left the subconscious. People hugged, Irwyn knew that intellectually, but when was the last time he had partaken? Older than memory. In his return to lifelong friends in Ebon Respite, had he so much as shaken someone’s hand? It simply did not come to him as something that should be done by him, thus it had always remained out of mind.

  It very quickly occurred to him that he had basically dragged Elizabeth into a particularly intimate embrace. Which might have been a faux pas at best, yet she was also holding onto his torso tightly enough that any attempt at changing that seemed ill-advised. As would be not answering. So he thought, trying to equate again words what he wasn’t himself sure about. ‘Pleasant’?

  “Yes,” he eventually admitted. He wasn’t exactly sure on the why, but it was, well, nice.

  “Likewise,” she smiled through the pain, caressing his skin where she still clung to Irwyn’s torso. “Perfectly scorching to the touch, just so that it feels warm to me. This close, even the smell is soothing.”

  “Do I… smell particularly strong?” he asked. He had not washed in… a long while, given how the trial worked. It hadn’t seemed like an issue.

  “That is the thing, you don’t,” she shook her head. “You rarely ever sweat, unlike most people, usually only from great exertion. And even then, yours doesn’t have the associated stench. Purer, less mortal, I suppose. I started noticing it when Johnson pointed it out in his examination of you, and it has only gotten more distinct. But here in the Trial? We are perfectly pristine at all times. No accumulated grime that can cling to your form. Even bloodstains fade. That leaves only the truth apparent.”

  “I have not noticed that,” Irwyn admitted. She was suddenly talking a lot more, clearly distracted from the suffering, which was good… the topic notwithstanding.

  “So now, you smell like sheer magic. Pure, almost prickling lungfuls of raw power. It does actually help with distracting me.”

  “I can take that as a positive,” Irwyn nodded, not sure how else to respond.

  “Do you think this just might not… stop?” she suddenly turned towards the grim.

  “It will.”

  “What if it’s supposed to be solved with Light based healing?”

  “Of course not. Our guide has been remarkably understanding of my inability to fulfil that role.”

  “And yet it didn’t answer me when I asked earlier. There is always a chance it is less intelligent than we think. Or that whatever inhuman thought structure guides it will result in some catastrophic exception to seemingly obvious logic.”

  “Just feeding into doubts that make the suffering all the worse. Testing resolve further. You will overcome it.”

  “Or through something obscure that can be only found in the library. A specific method to dispel this torture.”

  “What if we had both indulged? Then said research would be wholly impossible, especially if we took too long to realize the danger. That would be too cruel of a trap in a so called ‘save zone’.”

  “No, it was always going to be just me taking this on,” she shook her head, growing agitated. “Gluttony. Only the Temzda could possibly indulge it with my haste. A perfect trap with no warning, guaranteeing that I would fall into its clutches.”

  “It will get better.”

  “We should at least look in the… no, damn it! Fuck! It was just an honest suggestion, yet now my head has twisted it into a plan to get away from you. I hate this. I hate this so much, Irwyn. And yet a part of me relishes what this has brought on and it’s only making me confused. I am so terrified that I want to shiver, yet every second I feel all my other fears and anxieties wither and die, like saplings in the shade of an ancient oak.”

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  “Elizabeth,” he grabbed her face with his free hand and leaned closer, not willing to let her spiral further down that line of thought. It was a bit awkward to maneuver because of their relative positions, but in a moment he managed to get them face to face. Eye to eye. Close enough he could feel her breath. In her gaze there was pain and dread, but also a glimmer. Irwyn fanned the flames of the latter the best he could. “It is going get better! You will make it through this trial, just like you have through every other. Every obstacle is just a stepping stone, a proof that you are just as worthy as you believe.”

  “I love you.”

  Irwyn froze and recoiled in the same instant he registered the words. He really shouldn’t have. But even with his enhanced processing power, the shock was too strong. Too piercing. How could he have possibly steeled himself enough?

  “Ah, not a great reaction,” she smiled ruefully.

  “No, wait, that is… I… I don’t… know what to say.” Very eloquent. Almost matching a stuttering child. Exactly the kind of reaction that was needed and called for.

  “Yes, that is quite apparent.”

  “What… brought that on?” Irwyn asked and already cringed while the words were leaving his mouth.

  “The fact that you would definitely never notice if I didn’t outright tell you, combined with the sheer dread and agony making me rather apathetic to anything outside my line of sight and about the last minute of memory.”

  “I…”

  “Truth, please, whatever you will say,” she pleaded before he could gather any thoughts. “I think a lie would hurt worse than the withdrawal.”

  “Yes, of course. But I am not sure what that is yet. Give me a moment?”

  “As long as you need,” she nodded with that same pained smile.

  A million thoughts exploded in Irwyn’s head, along with sudden calm. Yes, honesty. Not a hollow reaction or fluster. It was unbecoming from both of them. He watched her eyes, twinkling with both ever greater dread and hope, then wondered since when? She said herself that he would never have realized, which meant he had been not noticing for long enough to give her that certainty.

  Or perhaps that was the wrong question entirely. Did it even matter? Most likely not. The only thing of relevance was the moment. Focusing on the past was mere evasion. His thoughts were a mess of a thousand things he wasn’t sure how to describe or convey. But he had to. The silence was suffocating, however brief.

  “I don’t know what love is,” so he spoke his out what lay at their very forefront.

  “Me as well,” Elizabeth immediately agreed.

  “But you said…”

  “What I feel cannot be anything else, I have decided on that a… while back,” she explained. “Must it be defined? Something that needs to fit into a neat box, so that you can excruciatingly compare against it? I prefer the certainty I feel over any impersonal words of a dictionary. I don’t care about words, Irwyn, I only care about you and what you feel.”

  “You know that I do not feel…”

  “Physical attraction, yes,” she pre-empted him. “And I have decided that it changes very little. A small nick in the pillar of my desire. I seek companionship. Trust and affection, relentless mutual support. You have already provided me that to various degrees, without ever needing to be asked. This state I am in and what you have been striving to do for me is just more proof. Even when we had our differences, you never spurred me. Followed me through peril and mistakes. Nowadays, when I dream of immortality and Names, I see you there too. Standing beside me like the equal I never had before you strode into my life. I just desperately need to know if that is something you would welcome as well.”

  “What do I want?” Irwyn asked out loud, mostly to himself. “The power you dream of certainly hold an attraction for me as well. I do not hunger for it as much as you do, but it is a driving force. Goals and desires? Just about a year ago my ambition had been to survive with some comfort, keep my friends save. Since I met you, my life has certainly changed beyond recognition. But even then, to come all the way here because of my vision? I have been thinking about it a bit during this Trial. You know my greatest secret, and understand that the how befuddles me. Lately, I have become worried about the why. What if there is more to my hunger for power than myself? A motivation that is not fully mine, and with it a destination that I might not necessarily get to choose. Perhaps I should act, yet I have no idea how, while passivity and reactiveness come so easily. For all I know, I will be driven to fight the War against undead, never to return. Is that something you want to be dragged into?”

  “Two Named, pushing back the Rot across eternity,” Elizabeth smiled despite the continuous pain. “Is that a future you think could make me hesitate?”

  “Yes. Maybe. I hope it’s not insulting, I am just speaking as the thoughts come.”

  “From anyone else, it might have been,” she managed a weary chuckle. “What a silly question, Irwyn. Of course, we will be fighting them. I don’t plan on relinquishing that immortality once I have it, not until Time dies a-twice. That means fighting those who would seek to smother even what little is left of Chronos and his corpse. You speak of it as something I would fear, when it is in fact a future I have always presumed would be mine. Even if I have to spend millennia battling each and every day, it will have been worth it if you are there besides me, Irwyn.”

  “I am really terrible with words.”

  “Not always. You can be quite glib at times. It’s just with some things you truly struggle.”

  “What do I desperately want deep down in my core?” Irwyn reiterated, quickly changing topic from his embarrassment. “I truly do not know. Perhaps that is a sign that I already possess that which I desire, even if I could not realize it. Love? I do not understand if that is what I feel. And yet, I have come to trust you more than anyone. More than the best friend I have known for years. We have faced death side by side and I cannot imagine anyone else I would have rather faced it with. Or would in the future. If nothing else, when I think of the future, it will always involve you. Also, there by my side… I don’t know if that is what you hoped for.”

  “I can settle for that. At least for the moment,” she said, then began to laugh. First slowly, then uproariously. It lasted for quite a while, and by the end she looked better than before.

  “Are you feeling better?”

  “Who knows? Just so incredibly giddy that the pain doesn’t properly register. The receptors in my brain so overwhelmed with the positive it forgets to note most of the pain.”

  “I am glad that you are.”

  “You should ask Desir for some romantic gestures and phrases once we get out of here, though,” she kept smiling. “Honestly, you somehow managed to bring up fighting undead until the end of days before getting to a meek ‘me too, maybe’. We should bring it up while he is halfway through a cup of water - the fountain will probably be quite something.”

  “I heard he is quite prolific, yes.”

  “In the same way an ocean has some water,” Elizabeth snorted. “You are the only person he hasn’t been constantly flirting with.”

  “What?” Irwyn paused. Really?

  “Well, towards me, it had been mostly mocking, Desir probably thought it would be funny. He realized what had been brewing between the two of us in about five seconds and took any opportunity to make every possible implication that would fly over your head but not mine. At least until I gave him enough death stares that he decided keeping it up would be unhealthy.”

  “What about Waylan and Alice then? Surely I would have noticed something. I have seen people flirting before.”

  “Which people?” Elizabeth said with a knowing grin.

  “Well, mostly Rainer and Kalista,” Irwyn admitted.

  “The two lovers practically attached at the hip, and so incredibly open about it, they might very well be the most obvious couple in the whole of Ebon Respite? You are basically saying that you couldn’t possibly miss any rocks and pebbles on the ground, because you have seen a mountain before. The only question between Desir and our remaining two companions is which he will bed… if not both, possibly simultaneously. Some reports about him have been begrudgingly enlightening.”

  “Uh, what?” Irwyn’s head was still stuck about two sentences behind by the time she finished speaking.

  “But don’t mind that. My poor form to bring up such an extreme example. On a different note, from everything I have been led to believe, now is the perfect time for new lovers…”

  “Lovers?” that was enough to knock his thoughts elsewhere, making him interrupt.

  “Do you mind the word then?”

  “No, I suppose,” Irwyn admitted after a moment of thinking.

  “Lovers then. And as I was saying, we should establish what you like.”

  “You know that…” Irwyn began awkwardly.

  “Yes, yes, anything carnal is clearly too far. I have not forgotten, don’t worry. But a hug is pleasant, yes?”

  “Right,” Irwyn nodded.

  “So what about everything in-between.”

  She seemed very exited. There was still an undertone of the previous pain, still present. Throughout the conversation, he had never once released the restraining magic, nor did either of them feel the need to mention it. Elizabeth was still hurting… but this may well have been the most potent distraction imaginable. And for all he felt bad about her continued suffering, his emotions had grown so much more complex. Almost stifling, too hard to fully untangle. But as a part of that web, Irwyn was quite sure that at the very core he was happy.

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