Lamps bounced across the black-tile rooftops, reflecting the veil of stars dancing around the cyan moon. Moonlit beams pierced through the overcast clouds as Reyes stood in Senko's room, one shoulder against the window as Prince Senko set himself in bed. Reyes tucked his hands closer to his sides and listened to the howl of the mountain winds nearby. He tapped the phial full of Senko's tonic with his thumb. Bubbly shimmers folded over each other when he left the open window and headed to his side before checking on the other phials, once full of a mixture meant for soothing particularly bad cases of cave fever. "I will be honest, Your Grace—"

"Senko."

Reyes folded his lips. "Senko — you didn't have them taste-tested, right?" He set the smaller bottle among the others. "Have some other poor sod take the fall for it in case it was poisoned?"

"Nope." Senko smoothed out his blankets. "Poison doesn't seem like it's your style, Reyes."

"Really? I know multiple poisons, and it's very easy to turn medicine into a lethal dose," Reyes mumbled and sat on the chair near the foot of his bed. "If anything, it would be quite within my minute capabilities to poison a royal."

Senko raised an eyebrow and fluffed his own pillows — incredible. "You didn't shoo my guard just to talk about a hypothetical poisoning? I'll have you know, I have taken small doses of the most common poisons in Tervale. There's this expectation when it comes to the intrigue of the court dance. Always prepare yourself, mind and body." He rolled his shoulders and got comfortable against his bedspread. "Well, Mage Reyes, you have something on your mind. You have not shown such hesitation before. I thought you were the Candid Starborn Reyes who'd rather have his tongue cut out than restrain himself from a cutting jab."

"Now who's talking with an oddly threatening word choice?" Reyes prodded.

"You started it, I am just dancing to the tune." Senko took the phial from the rest and uncorked it. "Besides, do not take this as too forward, Reyes, but I've already grown to like that candid tongue of yours. It is a breath of fresh air among those who spout pretty little words, but when I bite into it, it's poisoned. At least with you, you approach as you are. I can appreciate that in a person." Senko gulped down the tonic, and Reyes took the opportunity to examine the rest of his physical state. Heavy shadows drew circles around his eyes when he tipped forward and waved the empty bottle at him. "Quite a distinct taste, all the same."

"Yes, it tastes like cowpie, I am aware. I have had many complaints about it from students. Alas, it does the job well."

"You were a teacher before you were spirited here against your will?"

"Gods, no." Reyes tucked his cheek into his knuckle. "I was helping out an alchemist. Saw a lot of students who took their studies more seriously than their health." He set his hands in his lap. "Which is what brings me to the actual topic before I lose my train of thought." He traced the scratched lines on his bedpost. Two full winters until Senko ran out of room on the circumference. "I am being paid to take care of nobles that will get pinched and cry like they've lost a limb. Meanwhile..." His gaze drifted to the open window, and Senko followed him. "I've gone through life, powerless except for one factor, and it's not being Starborn."

"You did not enjoy your romp through the city?" Senko asked, and though he braced himself for arrogance, he frowned at the quiet of humility when he trained his attention on the Crown Prince of Tervale, the one high above two children who suffered on the streets in the middle of a plague. Senko swayed on his own shoulders, then settled deeper into the pillow with a heavy, damn near ancient exhale through his nose. "Two winters I was stuck in here, counting the days waiting for the truth to come to me when I could not go out there to find it myself." The pale blues caught the moonlight, and Reyes sank deeper into his chair when Senko frowned at him. "What did you see out there? You may tell me, I wish to hear."

Reyes studied him. "Since when do royals give mind outside their walls? You have everything here."

"Since the royal has been stuck in it," Senko said with a lower whisper. "I will not deny that once, I was arrogant, yes. But Kevalin made me see, and then it was ripped away from me, so I do not have everything that matters to me the most. My title means nothing if I cannot do that one thing to serve my people and hold the ideals my brother pushed. Tell me, Reyes."

"Some would say that's weakness," Reyes tested the boundary of his luck.

Senko's curious fire stilled into a lethal cold. "That is not a weakness."

"Here I thought you liked my candid tongue." Reyes sighed. "Very well. I gathered the herbs to resupply the stores, and I stumbled across a couple of children. One of them was sick, I did not get a chance to examine them further due to my imposed time-limit because the knights still think I have this capacity to escape, or even the desire to. I could do nothing for them but give them a dead coal to last them through the night." He unfurled his palms, and the dying embers bounced across them. "It is all the same everywhere. Even with this gift, if you can even call it that, I am helpless."

Weak, even.

Senko's silence dragged on, until he broke it, "When I am well enough, I shall assist you."

"What?" Reyes straightened himself out.

"You are the one who said I needed to leave this room more, the mutual benefit we could both get from each-other is thus; once I am well enough to stand outside for more than a couple minutes, you will not need to deal with Ser Joyen," he said. "I will act as a guard for you, while you would have to do the same for me. My father, in no uncertain terms, does not trust me to not go out there and spout the truth that my brother still lives. They will all think I am mad. Unfit to lead. Unfit for the throne. So, although I detest the notion, I shall pretend." Senko gazed at him, a sharp cleverness crossed the pale eyes of a raven. "You could show me what it is that I have become ignorant of for the past two winters. In return, I may be able to get you some more freedom. I do not think you have no desires, Reyes. Everyone has a desire."

"Is it yours to find Prince Kevalin?" Reyes questioned.

"Yes."

The Crown Prince made it sound so simple to find a corpse, but he dared not voice the obvious, having not observed the scene for himself. "I'll be preparing the growth formulae for staves in the next coming days, then I'm going to get to work on this plague," Reyes said and left the chair. "Besides, we'll need to find a tree that is receptive to you."

"Surely we can find a tree that will enjoy my charms?"

Reyes blinked at him. "Tree's don't quite grasp charm's, though I suppose a cherry tree might be more amused."

Senko stared at him. "Are you saying you commune with the tree?"

"One does have to ask permission for a cutting to create a stave," Reyes explained. "I don't take what I am not owed. That's not how it works. Nature is constant, and it will be here long after us. It is the fury of the world and its love. So yes, Your Grace." Reyes grinned at his refusal to obey. "You will have to commune with a tree, though I cannot say how one will react to said charms of yours."

"I think I've won you over."

Reyes rolled his eyes. "You can tell yourself that. Try charming an old ebony — they're more like to drop a branch on your head."

"What an oddly specific situation."

Reyes' head still pounded from his first attempt at communion, and he brushed his hand through the spot in his hair. Senko's eyes went as wide as the moons. "Do not tell me Reyes Drazir tried to charm a tree."

"I was young and quite stupid, Your Grace." I still am stupid. "Ebony trees do not have a sense of humour. They are quite serious, and it was my fault for not doing my due diligence."

"Senko, Reyes."

He gazed at the belligerent, stubborn royal in his care along with the rest of Tervale. "Senko," he said his name once more, letting it fall past his lips. "I ended up getting that cutting." By way of a promise, and I ended up failing that one like all the rest. Reyes dug his fingers into his palm. "It is quite the strenuous process. You will need to be at physical and mental peak to undertake the communion, and I will warn you ahead of time, it is mentally straining."

"What do you mean?"

Reyes gathered the empty phials into his pack and shook his head. "You'll understand when we get to that point. Until then, I advise... as your reluctant Court Physician to rest. Your body is adjusting to what it has grown used to," he explained and rounded the chair to leave the Crown Prince to his sleep. "I am certain that a stave will help you regain your abilities as a Shadowblood."

"Did a stave help you, Reyes?"

Reyes stopped at the threshold of the door. "It's bold to assume anything could help me," he mumbled, not allowing his voice to scream out against the desert dragon which cast his home to the pyre with its roar of nature's rage, with him underneath its shadow with a single plea for his magick to stop the smouldering of life. Sand blasted into his lungs. It burned into his throat and scorched his heart as he rested a hand on the doorframe. Hesitation stopped him from crossing the straits out of the infernal hell, and he twisted back to Senko, who lifted his head. "It is hard to desire something when it is not yours to desire."

Senko tipped his head. "Then what is it that you cannot desire? Will you not tell me?"

Reyes turned away from the too clever Prince of Tervale. "To kill a dragon."

He left the room with the weight of his words of death upon the pyre the shadowed figures stole him away from. Knights stood on either side of the corridor, but not too close to eavesdrop on him and the prince's conversation. Flames chewed on his veins when he walked past them. As he descended through the palace, braziers choked and sputtered with their old embers, breathing against wet kindle. Reyes entered the physician's office and closed the blinds for sleep without disruptive light. His nightmares gave him enough company. Out of his work clothes, he slipped himself into his evening wear and slumped into the bed, sore from his excursions and every little reminder of his true powerlessness underneath the claws of the mighty desert dragon, born of the fallen stars.

Head sat upon his two crossed arms, he snuggled into the tough pillow of his lackluster bedspread.

I can wish to kill a dragon all I want, but that does not amount to much when my magic can't even burn kindling with ease. Reyes gazed at the candlewick on the end table. Outstretched to the light, he tried to draw forth upon his own soul, but the raging flames of draconic fury slammed a feverish wave over his brow, and his arm flopped over the edge when the wick curdled, and turned to ash before it ever became a powerful flame.

The remains of a pyre made of bones and marble.