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Perhaps it is a punishment for his own weakness of character, Alatus muses, that his naivete has chained him to a contract he is helpless to escape.

If he had been sharper, less trusting, he wouldn’t have taken his Mistress’s hand all those years ago, wouldn’t have offered his true name so readily – but instead, he had not only allowed himself to be bound, but welcomed it freely. When the bindings of his contract sealed around him, they felt like an embrace, and he had fallen into his Mistress’s arms weeping at the joy of belonging to someone.

He is a weapon, first and foremost, and he is meant to be wielded. Before chaining himself to his Mistress, his greatest fear had been using his strength unjustly – killing those who did not deserve to be killed, sowing fear instead of hope. If he bound himself to a just master, then, he need not fear becoming an instrument of evil.

His Mistress had held his face between her hands, and she had smiled, and she had promised that Alatus would be her golden-winged angel, that she would only ever wield Alatus as a weapon of righteousness.

Alatus’s spear slides out from between the ribs of the mortal woman at his feet. His golden wings are stained rusty red with mud and blood.

In her arms, the woman clutches a squirming, wailing infant. The mother’s dead face is a rictus of fury and terror, and even though Alatus knows human spirits don’t linger the same way gods’ do, it feels as though her empty gaze is cursing him – staring up at him with hatred that will sink into the stone here, staining the very earth with the crime Alatus has committed.

The baby squalls. Alatus watches it, detached from himself. Humans start so small. How is it that a creature so resilient can start so small?

“I told you no survivors,” Mistress’s voice stabs into the back of his skull, sharp, unyielding, when Alatus turns to walk away. “Perhaps you did not hear me clearly the first time, my Alatus.”

Alatus can barely remember why Mistress wanted this settlement removed. Perhaps they left one too many offerings to the wrong god. Perhaps they made no offerings at all – as Mistress grows more unhinged, neutrality is as good as hostility. Either way, an infant has no concept of gods. Whatever crimes Mistress perceives here, there’s no way this child is guilty of any of them.

“Mistress,” he whispers. The baby cries, and Alatus’s hand trembles around his spear. “Surely… surely this is not…”

“Alatus,” Mistress coos, sickly sweet in a way that makes Alatus flinch, wings curling inward. “If I didn’t know any better, I would say you were about to question my orders.”

Alatus swallows. The baby wails. For just a moment, Alatus allows himself to dream of dropping his weapon and taking the infant into his arms instead, soothing its cries and hiding its face in his neck. I’m sorry, he would tell it, I’m so sorry, but I promise, I’ll take care of you now.

The blade of his spear descends. Everything is silent.

“There’s my Alatus,” Mistress says, stroking a gentle hand through Alatus’s hair. “The people of this valley will be much less eager to bend a knee to Morax now, I suspect. I am proud of you.” She swoops down to press a kiss to Alatus’s head, and Alatus allows the touch, numb.

Morax. Mistress has been repeating that name more often, lately. From what little Alatus understands, Morax is a warrior god whose command over the element of stone rivals even that of Mistress’s over dreams.

If this village had chosen to leave their offerings to Mistress instead of Morax, would Morax have massacred them all so violently? Would he have made an example of them, just as Mistress has? As Alatus has?

It’s not often Mistress resorts to slaughter instead of dream trawling. She prefers the hollowed-out shells of humans without any dreams left in their bodies; those, at least, can be used as soldiers. A corpse is just a corpse. How powerful is Morax, then, that Mistress fears not even consuming people’s dreams will keep them from his side?

The baby is still and quiet, tucked against its mother’s breast as if sleeping. Alatus wonders what sort of dreams it would have grown into, had Alatus permitted it.

“Come, Alatus,” Mistress says, pressing a proprietary hand onto the back of Alatus’s neck.

Alatus goes.

The slaughter in the valley does not go unnoticed, nor unavenged. More and more of Mistress’s soldiers do not return from routine patrols. Alatus does not know where or in what state Morax leaves their bodies, but whatever he’s done, it drives Mistress into shrieking fits of rage that she carves in blood into Alatus’s back.

“Useless! They’re all useless!” she cries as her whip descends upon Alatus’s shoulders. She has none of her usual precision, the whip lashing brutally against the sensitive base of his wings. She’s always been so careful to leave his wings intact, no matter how much she makes the rest of him bleed. She preens him when she’s in her gentler moods, cooing at the rich shade of his feathers, only causing him pain when she plucks his pinions to display on her throne.

She shreds them so carelessly now. He doesn’t understand. The whip curls in a wicked arc around the topmost curve of his wing, sending him tumbling helplessly to the ground with a wail.

“Will you fly away too?” she demands as she digs the heel of her boot into his trembling back. “Will you spread those pretty wings and leave me?”

“Never,” he gasps out. “I’m yours, Mistress, please—”

She lifts her boot and begins to pace. The restless clicks of her heels dig into Alatus’s eardrums, but he doesn’t dare cover his ears lest he reignite her fury.

“Yes. You’re mine. You’re mine.” She repeats it as if trying to reassure herself, as if Alatus’s reality is something she can choose to believe or disbelieve. “I’ll keep you. He won’t take you as well. He won’t.”

Alatus trembles against the icy marble. He doesn’t dare speak.

Her boots click closer again. She grips one of his wings in a rough, indelicate hand. He can’t stifle the whine that squeezes from his throat at the sudden burst of pain, but she doesn’t seem to notice as she wrenches the wing out to its full span, fingers brushing down his flight feathers like they’re the strings of a harp.

“He won’t take you,” she repeats. “I’ll make sure of it.”

The strength of a god is a weapon all its own. When she sinks her nails into the base of Alatus’s wings, they sink deep.

Skin and muscle, bone and sinew. All rend the same in her furious grip as she gouges her fingers in and pulls.

When Alatus wakes, he is on the floor of the throne room, the marble beneath him sticky with old blood.

He isn’t sure how long he’s been asleep. He hopes Mistress won’t be too angry with him. His eyes are tacky with dried tears when he tries to pry them open, and he gasps at the hot lashes of pain that cut up and down his back when he moves to look upon his Mistress’s throne.

Mistress has grown wings. Atop her throne she sits, golden-feathered wings arched out behind her in a graceful display, though the feathers are torn and dripping red. They look like Alatus’s did, like she plucked them from his back to graft them to her own.

No, Alatus realizes, dizzy with agony. The wings aren’t on Mistress’s back. They’re mounted on the throne itself.

My precious golden angel, she’d called him. And now she has stolen the thing that made him beautiful.

“Alatus,” she says. She doesn’t even spare him a glance, eyes fixed on the door. “Come.”

And Alatus, bleeding and shivering, entire body a wound, crawls on his belly up the dais to her side. Where else will he go? What else will he do? He curls up beneath the arm of her throne, in the shadow of his own wings. There is no comfort here. No protection. But it is familiar, and familiarity is all he has.

A golden angel, stripped of his wings. Maybe it was inevitable. There is nothing beautiful about Alatus – nothing but those wings. Mistress is a shrewd goddess; there’s little point in keeping the rest of Alatus, if what is beautiful can simply be taken and the rest discarded.

Where else can he go? What else can he do? He leans heavily against the throne’s gilded side, trembling, and he prays that his Mistress will keep him.

“I will kill him,” she mumbles. Her hand rakes through Alatus’s hair, rough, restless. “He will come, and I will kill him.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Alatus whispers. He tries to find comfort in her touch. He fails.

Morax is surprised when the Goddess of Dreams agrees to his challenge of single combat.

It had been an act of pity for her soldiers more than anything else. Many of her number flock readily to his side when he offers them shelter from their goddess instead of death under her service; the few who don’t are either too terrified of their mistress to disobey, or they’ve been hollowed out by her dream-eating. The tales the refugees tell are even more harrowing than the readiness of their betrayal.

Strategically speaking, a duel for the throne is the fastest and simplest way to end a conflict; it’s difficult to dispute the victory of one’s enemy when one’s leader lies dead on the ground, and it reduces overall damage to both sides. Practically speaking, there’s no reason to agree to it unless one knows for certain that they can best their opponent, and very few people could confidently say that when their opponent is Morax. The Goddess is either delusional, or she is planning something.

Either way, Morax has enough faith in his own abilities to handle whatever comes. There is a reason his followers and enemies alike hail him as the Warrior God.

The Goddess’s palace is opulent. It is a stark contrast to the surrounding town, where rotting houses shelter wary residents whose suspicious eyes gleam from their shadowed doorways. The gilded gates of the palace do not creak like the village gates did. The gardens lining the path are neat and tended, unlike the houses’ overgrown yards. The only thing identical to the rest of the village is the fearful gaze of the attendant who greets him at the doors.

“Follow me,” the attendant murmurs.

The path to the throne room is straightforward, but Morax keeps careful track of it anyway. The palace feels like a tomb. Ghostlike servants flit from the hallway to clear the way for Morax, but they are the only sign of life Morax sees or senses.

“My lord,” one of his Millelith mutters. “I don’t like this.”

“Peace,” Morax replies, just as quiet. “I suspect a trap, but I also suspect that I can handle it.”

The gilded doors to the throne room part as they approach, hauled open by silent, armored guards. The attendant steps aside and gestures Morax inside. Offering them a shallow nod, Morax steps into the heart of the dream-goddess’s palace.

“Welcome, Morax,” she says as he takes his first step into the throne room. He lifts his chin to look at her upon her throne, which she has not yet deigned to rise from.

The first thing he notices is not the goddess herself, but the creature chained at her feet. A small and shivering form kneels beside her throne with her hand in his hair, golden eyes hazy with pain. There is no way this is anything but her so-called bloodhound, but the sight of him is so much more pitiable than Morax ever expected.

A chain leashes the metal collar around the boy’s thin neck to the goddess’s throne. He is bloodied, clearly wounded, and Morax wonders for only half a heartbeat why the sight of him doesn’t look quite complete before his eyes land on the back of the goddess’s throne.

Golden wings, mounted like a war trophy.

Blood still oozes in lazy drips down the throne from the wings’ roots. Morax glances again at the boy and manages to catch a glimpse at the raw flesh of his back, despite the angle. How recently had the goddess mutilated her servant? How unhinged must she be, to cripple what is undoubtedly her strongest weapon?

Her sanity has left her, her soldiers had told him. The power has driven her mad.

Morax supposes that is part of it, but the truth of it is likely more related to what her power is. The dreams of mortals reflect reality in a warped mirror – the beautiful parts, yes, but more often the ugly ones. He can only imagine that the dream-goddess’s reality has become similarly warped.

He does not respond to the dream-goddess’s greeting with words. He simply summons his spear and taps it on the marble floor.

“No time for pleasantries? How sad,” the goddess says with a sigh. She unfurls herself from her throne, lazy and sinuous like a smug jungle cat, and lays a hand atop her bloodhound’s head. “A duel need not be fought by the one challenged,” she continues. “I request the aid of a champion.”

The realization of what the goddess intends to do settles coldly in Morax’s stomach just as she wrenches a handful of the boy’s hair, forcing the chained creature to lift his head. Does she honestly believe her servant can best Morax in the state she has put him in? Does she expect Morax to pity the boy enough to stay his blade? Morax’s stone heart is not without feeling, but he’s long since learned the danger of misplaced mercy.

“Alatus,” the dream-goddess coos as she unlinks the chain from his collar. “You will be my champion. You will fight in my stead.”

Alatus shudders to life, though clearly not without pain. The dream-goddess presses a polearm into his trembling hands, and Alatus leans on it heavily as he eases himself to his feet.

“Yes, Mistress,” Alatus whispers, heartbreakingly obedient.

He is nothing like the warrior Morax has seen whirling through the battlefield, but at the same time, he is the same – there is an undeniable strength in his body and soul, and he dedicates all of it to the one he serves, undeserving though she may be.

“A duel with your champion, then,” Morax says, outwardly unaffected. “If he yields or dies, your life is forfeit, along with all that is yours.”

“And if you die, all that is yours will be mine, Morax,” the dream-goddess says. She presses her lips to one of Alatus’s pointed ears; Morax catches her whispering something, but whatever it is, Alatus does not react beyond a dip of his head.

“Single combat,” Morax says. He waves his soldiers away and steps forward into the clear space before the throne. “Let us begin.”

“Go, my love,” the dream goddess bids her servant. “Make me proud.”

Those words above all seem to energize Alatus’s shaking body. He descends the steps of the dais to stand before Morax.

Morax almost opens his mouth to tell the boy that he needn’t do this, not for a master as undeserving as the dream-goddess, but Alatus is bound in every way that matters – by contract, by body, by soul. Even if he fears his mistress, his loyalty will not allow him to abandon her.

If he were Morax’s, that kind of loyalty would be rewarded with praise and affection, not the violence the dream-goddess has inflicted. Alatus’s eyes would be full of reverence and respect, lifted to look upon his master instead of cast to the ground in fear.

But there is little point in dwelling on it. If he can avoid killing Alatus, he will, but the end of this conflict with the dream-goddess is more important than her bloodhound’s life.

The duel begins at the signal of one of the dream-goddess’s attendants. Alatus is upon Morax in a flash, devastatingly fast even with his injuries, but Morax’s instincts are honed through centuries of combat; he blocks the incoming blow and tips Alatus off balance with a nudge of his spear.

He cannot press the advantage, though, as Alatus beats a swift retreat to the side. The boy’s balance is compromised by the loss of his wings, but he adapts remarkably well to the change in his center of gravity. Such an impressive warrior would be exhilarating to fight at his best. Morax feels a pang of regret that they must duel under these circumstances.

It becomes clear within two or three traded blows that this is not a fight Alatus can win. Morax is confident enough in his own victory that he avoids landing a killing blow, hoping that the boy will yield, but all that leaves Alatus’s lips are grunts of pain and exertion.

“Now,” the dream-goddess says suddenly from the dais. A fine mist fills the room, and Morax jerks his head up to look at her, unsurprised but still furious at the betrayal of their contract.

It seems to be some kind of dream magic – as Morax darts his gaze around the room, he watches as the mist slips into his soldiers’ noses and ears, their eyes drifting shut and their bodies going slack as they stand, like limp puppets on a marionette’s strings. He tenses as they begin to shuffle towards him as if sleepwalking.

They’re too numerous and Morax too focused on keeping an eye on Alatus for him to escape their grip entirely. Morax’s own soldiers, locked in their nightmares, fumble for Morax’s arms. To struggle too much would mean harming those most loyal to him; to stand still would mean allowing his opponent to skewer him.

It is a cruel trap. It is also an insultingly simple one.

The jade shield that shimmers to life around him effortlessly deflects Alatus’s spear. Perhaps if Alatus was at his full strength, he would be more of a threat, but the creature before Morax is battered in both body and spirit. Morax’s soldiers, though human, have more strength in their half-conscious arms than Alatus does in his entire body right now.

“Cowardly,” he says, eyes flickering to the goddess’s face, “and foolish.”

The fierce triumph in her expression crumbles into fear.

“Alatus, you useless boy!” she howls. “Kill him!”

Useless boy, as if Alatus’s wings weren’t rent from his body by her hands. As if the warrior trembling to pieces before Morax hasn’t already crossed every single one of his limits attempting to please an unpleasable mistress. The disrespect of this goddess. The gall.

Alatus’s attempts to break through Morax’s shields redouble, desperate and vicious. One stab of his spear manages to crack the jade, and Morax’s lips part in surprise.

The distraction is momentary, but it is enough; it is only Alatus’s small gasp and the way his eyes shift from Morax to the door that alerts Morax to the goddess’s intentions. She runs across the throne room, dream-bound soldiers moving to cover her flight to the exit.

She intends to flee.

Morax’s face tightens with controlled fury. Not only does she send her weakened devotee to die in her stead, not only does she interfere in a duel, but she is also too cowardly to carry out the contract she formed with Morax to its end.

She was not going to leave this throne room alive to begin with, but there is no reason to abide by the rules she refuses to follow. His shield expands and shatters, sending both the soldiers and Alatus tumbling.

A jade bow manifests in Morax’s hand as he turns around. In a single smooth motion, he levels the bow, draws back the string, and looses the arrow with deadly precision.

The goddess cannot even cry out before she is dead on the ground. The arrow strikes true, piercing her black heart through her cowardly back. It is a dishonorable death, but there is no honor in what she has done.

“Mistress,” the warrior on the ground gasps. Morax turns to face his opponent once again. Around him, his and the goddess’s soldiers alike fall to their knees in reverence and submission, but little Alatus cannot tear his eyes from his dead mistress.

Such loyalty. Such devotion. It hurts even Morax’s stone heart to see it directed at a being so thoroughly undeserving of it.

Alatus is his by right, now. Everything that belonged to the Goddess of Dreams is. There’s something heady about it – about imagining that reverent gaze directed up at him as Alatus kneels before a god who deserves his loyalty.

Morax breathes in through his nose, slowly, steadily, before exhaling through his mouth. Alatus is a caged bird set free, and if he wishes to fly away, Morax will let him. But if he wishes to stay, wishes to offer Morax his service, well—

Morax has never been the type to refuse a gift earnestly given, and he’s always so loved to collect beautiful things. It will not be a hardship to have Alatus at his side.

It’s surreal, that Alatus’s nightmare of five hundred years could end with a single arrow.

Five centuries at Mistress’s feet, five centuries soaked to the elbow in blood so her hands could remain clean. Five centuries choking on the sickly-sweet dreams she pushed down his throat, shivering in both disgust and euphoria. And here five centuries end, no glory in her short and simple death, no grace in the way she sprawls lifeless on the marble.

Her death has released Morax’s soldiers from their thralls, and Mistress’s soldiers know better than to attack the god that just slaughtered theirs. All kneel in silent submission. All but Alatus, who lies undignified and trembling on his back, eyes fixed on his Mistress’s dead face.

“Stand,” Morax says.

He is more honorable than Mistress ever was, to refuse to kill an enemy on the ground. He is allowing Alatus the final dignity of dying on his feet instead of on his back.

It is a gift Alatus must show gratitude for. His body shakes with the pain and exertion of attempting to stand, and the phantom weight of his wingless back almost sends him toppling when he tries to correct his balance for limbs he doesn’t have anymore.

He manages to sit up on his knees before Morax frowns, shaking his head and laying a hand on his shoulder to still him. Alatus despairs. Worthless, useless – he squanders even this last act of compassion.

“Be still. I underestimated your injuries,” Morax says quietly. He eases Alatus back into a sitting position, feet tucked under thighs.

“I—what?”

Alatus only realizes that he’s spoken out of turn when the lines of Morax’s face deepen with unhappiness. He bows his head and begins to prostrate himself, but Morax’s hand catches his jaw before he can lower his body any further.

“There is no need for that,” Morax says. His grip is gentle but immovable as he crouches before Alatus, and Alatus is helpless to do anything but meet those golden eyes that so coldly regarded his Mistress’s corpse.

They’re… warm, now. Kind, almost, if a god is capable of such a thing.

“I have spoken to many who served the Goddess of Dreams,” Morax continues. His hand moves to cup Alatus’s cheek, a softer grip with no less firmness behind it. Alatus dares not move. “Their accounts differed, but at their hearts, they all told the same story.”

Alatus shivers as Morax’s thumb brushes beneath his eye. It’s almost as if he means to comfort Alatus.

“They told the story of a tyrant whose followers either obeyed or perished.” Morax tilts his head. His gaze is piercing. Studying. “And of her loyal bloodhound, chained to her through a contract only breakable by one party’s death. Many of them feared you, but I believe even more pitied you.” His eyes flicker to the wings atop the throne, then to the two bloody valleys in Alatus’s back.

“Their pity was misplaced,” Alatus whispers. He thinks of a human woman. A baby. A valley of corpses, and his mistress’s gentle lips in his hair. He had loved Mistress, hadn’t he? All he’s ever known is serving her, protecting her, trying to make her happy – and now she is dead, all her crimes lain at Alatus’s feet.

“Hmm.” Morax’s face and voice are inscrutable, but his hand remains gentle on Alatus’s face. “Either way, your chains are broken, Alatus.”

The name makes Alatus flinch. Though it’s the only name he’s ever borne, he’s only ever heard it from his Mistress’s lips. Alatus. My golden-winged angel. Even this, she takes from him – even stolen the meaning of it. Alatus, swift-winged, now wingless.

Morax frowns. “I suppose this name carries nothing but pain for you now. You, and the people she used you to harm.”

His face is thoughtful now. Considering. Alatus waits, breathless and silent, for whatever conclusion this confusing god will come to.

“In the fables of another world,” Morax murmurs, “the name Xiao is that of a spirit who encountered great hardship. He endured much suffering, as you have.” His hand is impossibly warm against Xiao’s bloody cheek. “Use this name from now on.”

To name a thing is to know it. To own it. Alatus – Xiao – wonders if this means that Morax intends to keep him. His heart flutters at the thought.

“I will, my lord,” Xiao says. The words are more than agreement – they’re a contract.

Something in Morax’s face softens at that, gentle, almost sad. “Your Mistress is dead, Xiao,” he says. “There is no need to bind yourself to me, or to anyone.”

Xiao blinks at him, startled. The only reason a warrior takes a weapon from their enemy’s corpse is to wield it themselves. With his Mistress dead at Morax’s hand, all that was hers is now Morax’s by right. “I am already bound to you,” he says, slow and careful, suspicious that this is somehow a trap.

“Xiao…” Morax doesn’t seem disappointed, not the way Mistress always did, but there’s something complicated in his expression.

Morax’s face swims in Xiao’s vision. Between the loss of his wings and the desperate battle against Morax, his body has finally begun to give out on him. He opens his mouth to apologize, but all that comes out is a soft sigh before he slumps forward towards Morax.

The last thought he has before unconsciousness takes him is that Morax’s arms are surprisingly warm for a god of stone.

For a creature with such a terrifying reputation, Xiao is… small.

It’s all Morax could think when he retrieved the unconscious Xiao from the shadow of his goddess’s throne, and it’s all he can think now. He’s small. Delicate and pretty, even with his skin awash with blood. Morax has seen Alatus fight, of course, and he knows that Xiao’s fragile appearance belies a swift and deadly warrior, but the Xiao trembling in his grasp feels anything but strong.

If you wish to be mine, I will be a better master than she was, he vows to the boy in his arms. Though not spoken aloud, the words are a contact – one Morax does not intend to break. If you must be a weapon, then you will be wielded with care in my hands. If you must belong to someone, then you will belong only to me. I will care for you, Xiao.

Xiao – the adeptus’s new name. It’s true that Morax offered the name because Alatus seemed to cause the boy pain, but there’s a possessive satisfaction in it, too – in stripping Xiao of the things that tie him to his old life. He belongs to Morax now, and Morax is fiercely protective of what is his.

Xiao twitches uncomfortably in Morax’s arms as the pair of them descend the steps of the goddess’s palace, but he does not make a noise despite the severity of his wounds. Adepti heal quickly, but losing entire limbs—

Morax shifts his grip on Xiao, trying to hold him more gently. He understands the urge to keep that which is beautiful, but he cannot fathom the destructive, possessive desire that led the goddess to rip this bird’s wings from his back.

“My lord Morax,” one of the Millelith greets at the bottom of the stairs. Her eyes flicker nervously to the bloody bundle in Morax’s arms, and he can tell from the uncertain twist of her lips that she is seeing Alatus, swift-winged and deadly, not Xiao, who crumbled beneath Morax’s gentle touch like it was the first he’d received in centuries.

“If something troubles you,” Morax says, “you may speak.” If only to eliminate any misunderstandings before they have a chance to fester.

“I… far be it from me to question my lord’s judgment,” she says. “But… is that not the Goddess’s bloodhound? He has killed countless of our number. He tried to kill you.” Shouldn’t you have killed him? is the unspoken question, and Morax exhales slowly through his nose as he finds the words for his answer.

“Would you lay the blame for the people you have killed on your spear?” he asks.

Startled, the Millelith glances between her weapon and her god. “My lord?”

“A weapon has no say in what it is used for,” Morax continues. “And likewise, this adeptus was bound through blood and contract to serve as the goddess’s weapon. I cannot blame him for his actions any more than I could blame your spear for yours.”

“The goddess’s weapon… and you believe he will be of similar use to you?”

“I certainly hope I never become a god whose soldiers are mere weapons,” Morax says mildly. “But if he chooses to follow, I will accept his service with gratitude.”

And he will choose to follow, Morax knows. This is a creature that has known nothing but servitude. Trying to free him now would only lead to further ruin; Xiao believes himself a weapon, and he will try to protect the world from himself by finding someone to wield him. If not Morax, it will be someone else, and there are many, many gods who would see only opportunity in Xiao’s beauty and obedience.

Perhaps someday Xiao will learn to want more than a life at a master’s feet, but until then, Morax will keep him safe. Keep him happy. Keep him, in every way that matters.

Xiao’s new master is confusing.

The respect he commands is absolute and unwavering, but his followers do not fear looking him in the eye. He allows his servants to question, and he offers explanations in return instead of punishment. Most baffling of all, he insists that Xiao take time to rest and recover from his injuries.

“I can fight, Master,” Xiao tries to explain. “I will heal just as well on the battlefield as anywhere else.”

He doesn’t understand the pinched expression on his new master’s face when he says, “You will heal by resting in a bed, as you should have always been allowed to.”

So Xiao spends the first few weeks of his service to his new god laid up uselessly in a bed, a gentle doctor tending to the wounds on his back several times a day. He cannot remember the last time he was allowed the luxury of a bed. The mattress is too soft and the blankets too warm, but he drifts in and out of sleep regardless, time passing languidly like molasses poured from a jar. His master checks on him personally from time to time, which is an honor Xiao does not feel he has earned.

“We should take time to discuss the terms of your contract,” Master says about two weeks into Xiao’s convalescence, “if you are interested in remaining at my side.”

It’s such a confusing statement that Xiao is rendered speechless. By killing his mistress, Master has assumed ownership of all that was hers, including Xiao; he’s even given Xiao a new name. What is there to discuss? Is it even a question that Xiao will remain with Master?

“I… am afraid I do not understand, Master,” Xiao says, ashamed of his ignorance. “Do you not intend to keep me?”

Master blinks, seeming a bit confused himself. “I would be glad to have you in my service,” he says. “But as of right now, no contract exists between us. You are no more bound to me than you are to your dead mistress. If you choose to leave, I will do nothing to stop you.”

Baffling. Absolutely baffling. Xiao almost suspects a trap, but Master doesn’t seem the type to enjoy the same sorts of games Mistress did.

“I will not leave,” Xiao assures Master, in case Master fears such. “I belong to you.”

“Not until we have formed a contract stating such,” Master says mildly. “If it is your desire to be mine, then I will make it so, but I will not keep you if you do not wish to be kept.”

The idea of being unbound is both foreign and terrifying. Xiao dismisses it immediately. It’s strange enough that Master is discussing this as if Xiao’s desires have any meaning, but it would be absurd for Master to free Xiao from unimaginable suffering and receive nothing in return.

“I…” The word want sticks in Xiao’s throat. He hasn’t been allowed to want for a very long time. He exists to serve, not to think or want or feel.

“Take your time,” Master says, laying his warm, gentle hand on the back of Xiao’s. “It is not a decision to make lightly.”

“No,” Xiao manages to say before Master can get up to leave. “No, I—I want this. I want to be yours.”

He holds his breath, because Mistress played these games sometimes – tricking Xiao into misbehavior and then punishing him for his mistakes. Though Master seems kinder than she was, gods are not meant to be understood, only followed.

But Master only smiles at him. “Thank you, Xiao,” he says. “I will not take your service for granted. Shall we discuss the terms now or later?”

All these questions about what Xiao wants, like it matters any in the face of Master’s own desires. Simply baffling. Still a little mystified, Xiao says, “If it pleases you, we may discuss them now.”

Master settles more comfortably in the chair beside Xiao’s bed and begins to talk at length about the nature of his contracts with his other adepti – what their duties are to him and to Liyue, what his duty is to them in return, exit clauses and exceptions and many, many other words that Xiao struggles to understand. He tries to nod along and agree to whatever Master thinks is best, but Master has a way of wiggling an opinion out of Xiao despite Xiao’s best attempts to avoid giving one.

The contract is many complicated words for one simple concept – Xiao will fight to defend Liyue and his Master, and in return, his Master will give him a home. A safe place to stay, with food and a bed. Protection and care, whenever Xiao is injured. Xiao tried to insist that he is owed none of these things, but Master insisted on having it etched into the stone of the contract itself that Xiao will be cared for – that if he is ever mistreated the way his Mistress mistreated him, the contract will be null and void.

Xiao can’t be sure that the contract means anything, really. Mistress promised Xiao would never harm innocents, but by the end of his service to her, his hands were soaked with mortal blood. The thought gives him pause, and Master seems to sense his hesitation.

“Xiao?” he asks, open and encouraging.

“I…” Xiao wets his lips with a nervous tongue. “I do not wish to kill the innocent in your service, Master.”

Master studies him. His gaze is piercing and inscrutable, making Xiao shrink back against the pillows.

“Innocence and guilt are not immutable concepts,” Master finally says. “Neither you nor I can ultimately decide if someone is innocent or guilty.”

Xiao squeezes his eyes shut. “Forgive me for my impudence, Master—”

“Perhaps a clause that disallows the killing of civilians?” Master interrupts gently. “Only soldiers will be felled by your blade, if any mortals at all. I dislike wanton bloodshed myself, Xiao. If mortal lives can be spared, they will be.”

The terror filling Xiao’s chest is replaced with wonder in an instant. He stares up at Master, mouth opening and closing around words that will not come. Eventually, he manages to whisper, “Thank you.”

This new master is confusing. Xiao has seen him slay his opponents with vicious precision, but here, those same hands that wield all manner of weapons are gentle and kind. His voice on the battlefield is a commanding timbre, but here, it is soft and encouraging. Xiao decides as their contract is finalized in blood and stone that he will never leave his new master’s side.

Love is a fragile thing. A fickle thing. This, his Mistress taught him well. Devotion and obedience are the truest forms of love – devotion, obedience, and fear. To this new master who is so kind and so good, Xiao will offer all three.

Slowly, though, the fear seeps away, leaving only a warm core of affection pulsing in Xiao’s chest with every heartbeat.

Xiao’s old mistress would be ashamed, he knows, but he finds that he cares less and less what his mistress used to think.

Xiao becomes Morax’s shadow.

It seems to be what Xiao is used to – staying by his master’s side as a silent, obedient sentinel, always awaiting a command. He takes care to walk at least a step behind Morax and remain quiet and unobtrusive. Everything he does is carefully measured against whatever set of rules he’d been forced to live by.

These are not things Morax’s contract demands of him, and so Morax tries to ease the boy out of his more egregious habits as best he can. You may rest when you are tired. You need not ask my permission to speak. You need not kneel when you approach me.

To some extent, this is successful. Xiao stops waiting for a command to rest, instead asking his lord if he may retire for the night. He accepts a nod as permission to speak instead of the clear verbal approval he used to require. These are small steps, but Morax knows well that things learned in the name of survival are not so easily unlearned.

Even so, sometimes Xiao will… withdraw, after even a gentle rebuke. At first, Morax thinks Xiao’s dismay is because he feels he has disappointed his master – that his behavior is displeasing, and it will result in punishment. And perhaps that is part of it at first.

But the years pass. Xiao does not flinch anymore when Morax raises a hand. Xiao does not hesitate to lay his head on Morax’s thigh when he kneels beside his throne. He regards Morax with reverence and respect, not fear, but still the sadness remains when Morax rebuffs his attempts to submit. Morax eventually comes to a much more important conclusion: Xiao’s subservience, after these years by Morax’s side, is no longer rooted in fear.

It is rooted in affection.

Xiao is… inexperienced, in many respects. He looks at simple things with shuttered wonder like it’s the first he’s ever seen of them. He jumps under even the friendliest touch as if it’s the first he’s ever felt. Most importantly, he has only ever known one kind of love: one way to be loved, and one way to love in return. Morax can teach him – has been teaching him – a different way to be loved, but Xiao still only knows one way to respond in kind.

Devotion. Subservience. Loyalty and respect.

No wonder he looks so crestfallen when Morax eases him to his feet when he kneels. No wonder he frowns when Morax tells him once again that he need not look to Morax before he speaks. To Xiao, this is Morax refusing every attempt Xiao is making to show that he appreciates and returns his master’s feelings.

It is not as though Morax is unused to reverence. The people of Liyue worship him, as do a fair number of the adepti in his service. He simply does not want to be a god that demands such behavior from his followers without earning it first.

The knowledge that Xiao is not performing his acts of obeisance out of a fear of retribution is a comfort, though. If the habit does not harm Xiao, Morax stops pushing him to end it, hoping that allowing Xiao to demonstrate his affection unhindered will help bring them closer.

When Xiao kneels to greet him, Morax touches the top of his head and tells him when he may rise, rather than insist he need not kneel at all. He stops chastising Xiao when Xiao won’t speak without Morax’s tacit permission. When Xiao kneels beside the throne to rest his head on Morax’s thigh, tentative and submissive, Morax runs a hand through his hair and whispers good boy.

It has a profound effect on Xiao’s confidence and comfort around his god, of course, but Morax is surprised at how much it enriches his own life as well. The uncomplicated nature of Xiao’s adoring devotion makes something warm curl up in Morax’s chest. He’s mine, the dragon in him seems to purr whenever Xiao bows his head with a small smile curving his pretty lips. He’s mine, and he loves me.

Morax cannot allow their relationship to go beyond god and servant, both because he refuses to take advantage of Xiao and because all of his focus needs to be on Liyue in these turbulent, violent times. But sometimes Xiao peers up at him through his lashes as he kneels, or takes care to stand between Morax and a potential threat, or nuzzles his cheek against the hard muscle of Morax’s thigh, and Morax wants.

It’s enough that some of his other adepti notice, Cloud Retainer in particular. She scoffs and calls him “a robber of the cradle,” though not without affection. She looks upon Xiao with the same gentleness with which she looks upon Ganyu, and it warms Morax’s heart more than anything else that she is protective of him.

“One has not seen loyalty quite so pure and unconditional in many millennia,” Cloud Retainer tells him during one of their meals on Mount Aocang. Her voice trails into something more serious and thoughtful than her crude jokes about Xiao’s age and experience. “One dearly hopes you do not squander it, Zhongli.”

The use of his first and dearest name almost makes Morax flinch. Delicately, he sets his teacup down on the stone table.

“I will never take his loyalty for granted,” he says. “But his duties are dangerous. Even if I wished it, I…”

Cloud Retainer sniffs and fluffs out her feathers. “As long as you are aware of what a gem you have in your possession.”

“I am,” Morax says. He stares at his reflection in the still surface of the tea in his cup. “I am,” he says again, more quietly.

All things are impermanent. Even Morax. Even Xiao.

Morax wishes, not for the first time, that this world was a kinder one. A gentler one. Morax is built for war, but gentle souls like Xiao… they deserve more than what their god can offer them. Xiao deserves more.

Maybe someday, things will be different. Maybe someday, Morax will tend flowers instead of graves, and build houses instead of fortresses. Maybe someday, he will have a life worthy of sharing with Xiao, and they can both reforge themselves from weapons of war into something new.

It is a sweet dream.

Xiao collects many more names than the one his god has gifted him.

His fellow yaksha tend to use Alatus still, though the name sounds inexplicably different from their mouths than from his late mistress’s. Marchosius cheerfully addresses him as birdie. Azhdaha calls him the little yaksha, not to be confused with the big yaksha or the pretty yaksha, who are Menogias and Indarias respectively. Other names come and go like fleeting thoughts – boy-warrior, demonbane, the lord’s shadow.

Some names are whispered behind the fearful hands of their human soldiers. Killer. Child-slayer. Demon. To many of these people, Xiao is a dog – Morax’s dog, specifically. Morax’s lapdog, Morax’s attack dog, Morax’s bloodhound. Though Xiao is unbothered, Morax’s face twists up when he hears those comments.

“I do not take your service for granted, Xiao,” Morax had told him after chastising a group of Millelith for speaking of Xiao in such a manner. “You are more than just my weapon. Do you understand?”

Xiao had nodded, if only to ease the lines around his master’s eyes. But out of all the names people give him, the ones that refer to him that way – call him Morax’s loyal companion, trained to kill on command and not a moment before – those he minds the least. He’s good at killing, and less good at knowing when to stop. It’s nice to think that there is a hand on his leash.

Of all these names, though, Xiao is the one most precious to him. It’s the name that marked his release from his mistress’s cruel service. It’s the name his master calls him, soft and fond. It’s the name he uses for himself, the one he shapes his soul around, the one he clings to when the battlefield is so chaotic and bloody that he can barely remember who he is.

Xiao is what his master shouts when Osial’s waters drag Xiao under. Xiao is what he remembers when he struggles in the space between unconsciousness and death. Xiao, his master’s dog, his master’s weapon—

His master’s precious Xiao.

The ancient grudge between Osial and Morax lies forgotten beneath the waves – instead, Morax crouches on the shoreline by Xiao’s side, cradling him in arms still splattered with godly blood from the fight.

“Xiao,” Morax breathes when Xiao’s eyes blink open.

It is the most precious gift Xiao has ever been given, this name. He hopes the loyalty he’s given in return is a gift Morax treasures just as much.

Even the most powerful gods cannot prevent erosion, and when Azhdaha’s mind crumbles, it is Morax who must bury him.

Azhdaha is – was – a being much older than even Morax can fathom. There is nothing alive now that is capable of saving him. Morax barely had enough strength to seal him, even with the help of three of his most powerful adepti. There is little point in regret. The most Morax can do for his friend is remember him.

Even so, beneath the tree at Nantianmen, Morax grieves.

Mountain Shaper and Moon Carver have left him, likely to give him his privacy as he mourns. But Xiao, darling Xiao, will not leave unless dismissed, and Morax is unsure even his own stone heart can endure solitude right now. So at his side Xiao remains, silent and steady, bloodied but blessedly alive.

Morax has not shed tears since his life as Zhongli, and he does not shed tears now. He almost wishes he could.

“My lord,” Xiao says tentatively.

The shock of Xiao addressing him without prompting nearly renders Morax speechless, but he manages to ask, “What is it, Xiao?”

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Xiao asks. He grips his spear nervously, flexing his hands around the shaft. “I… I am not capable of much beyond killing, but if there is any comfort I can provide… it would please me to do so, master.”

Morax thinks of the kind of comfort he’s taken from his other adepti – carnal comfort, bodies against bodies, mutual pleasure with no expectations otherwise. Briefly, he imagines taking the same from Xiao. Thinks of how good Xiao would be for him, how obedient and pliant. Imagines showing Xiao the kind of pleasure his body is capable of, if he just allows himself to feel it.

But he cannot take such a thing from Xiao. Not like this. Not when Xiao is incapable of understanding what it means, and not when Morax is grieving too much to make it as pleasurable as Xiao deserves.

“Will you stand closer to me?” he says instead. He lifts an arm in invitation to make it clear what he means.

Without hesitation, Xiao comes closer, tucking himself beneath Morax’s arm and against his side. Xiao clearly doesn’t know what to do with his body when he’s this close to another person, but the stiffness of his limbs is from awkwardness, not fear. It’s always a relief beyond measure when Morax is reminded that this little bird he’s coaxed to perch on his finger is no longer afraid of him.

“Relax,” Morax murmurs. He loops his arm around Xiao and tucks his smaller body more firmly against his side. “Just… let me feel your warmth for a moment. Let me remember that there are things I have managed to protect.”

“You’ve protected all of us for centuries,” Xiao says. It’s not quite a protest – Xiao wouldn’t dare – but it’s close to one. “You’ve protected me.”

Morax closes his eyes and does not reply. He doesn’t have the strength to argue, especially not with Xiao.

With his eyes closed, he doesn’t see what Xiao is doing when the little form beside him begins to shift. All he can do is feel it when Xiao slips out from under his arm and latches onto his front instead.

His eyes snap open in surprise, staring down at Xiao.

“Forgive my impudence, master,” Xiao says against Morax’s chest. His cheek is pressed so closely to the fabric that Morax can feel the warmth of his breath as he speaks. His arms aren’t long enough to wrap all the way around Morax’s torso, but they’re a firm and comforting weight regardless. “But I… I thought that perhaps my lord would like to be held.”

Morax’s heart shudders. “Yes,” he whispers, voice breaking just slightly. It’s the closest he’s been to tears in centuries. “Yes, I… I believe I would like that.” He slips his arms around Xiao’s narrow shoulders to return the embrace, pressing his cheek to Xiao’s hair.

With Xiao’s arms around him, with Xiao protecting him, Morax does not feel the weight of the great tree’s shadow quite so heavily.

When the heavens are quiet and the seven thrones filled, Morax stands on the mountain overlooking Liyue Harbor with Xiao at his side.

It is the first Xiao has ever seen of a Liyue completely at peace. Their battles are not over, but the war itself is, and the atmosphere over the city feels significantly lighter.

“I believe,” Morax says, “that the name Rex Lapis suits the god of this nation more than Morax does.”

Xiao tilts his head to peer up at his lord, accepting of this decree but still confused. “I shall call you Rex Lapis if you wish it,” he says instead of questioning.

“I do.” Rex Lapis meets Xiao’s gaze with a small smile on his face. “I care little what the people of other nations call me, but I should like my own people to use this name from now on.”

“I see.” Xiao nods. The question sits at the tip of his tongue, but though he does not necessarily fear his god, it is… unpleasant to feel as though he has inconvenienced or upset him in some way.

“You are curious, are you not?” Rex Lapis is still smiling. “It is alright, my little bird. You may ask.”

Permission given by his smiling god, Xiao speaks. “Morax is the name of a protector god. A fierce warrior beloved by his people. Why do you wish to change your name?”

Instead of answering right away, Rex Lapis lets out a thoughtful hum. “In some ways, you are still Alatus,” Rex Lapis says. “But it is a name you are glad to leave behind, is it not?”

Even now, even after centuries, Xiao still flinches at the name. It’s a phantom pain, wrenching on his psyche where his old mistress’s chains used to be. There’s some sense to what Rex Lapis is saying, but he can’t imagine it’s quite the same, because Morax was strong, was respected, was—

—feared.

Alatus was an instrument of warfare and fear, and in his way, so was Morax. Perhaps they’re more similar than Xiao initially assumed.

“Morax was a warrior god,” Xiao says, slowly. He still hasn’t quite broken the habit of feeling out his words as he speaks them, prepared to stop at the slightest hint of anger. “And Rex Lapis is not.”

Rex Lapis’s face relaxes into a smile that Xiao is tempted to call proud, even fond. “Correct. Where Morax destroyed cities, Rex Lapis will build them. I cannot shed my past entirely, but a name is an important thing.” He turns to face the distant expanse of Liyue Harbor. “Xiao, I… I am so very tired of violence.”

A god, tired of killing. Xiao can scarcely fathom it. But he’s seen it for himself – the mournful shadow that passes Rex Lapis’s face when he casts his gaze north towards Nantianmen or the Guili Plains. Xiao’s lord has lost so much.

Even with the war’s end, there are still countless battles to be fought. They lost Marchosius to the encroaching darkness of the dead gods who refuse to stay buried; they will likely lose many more. But they will not lose Rex Lapis.

Xiao will be his weapon. Xiao will destroy those long-dead grudges in his stead, stain his own hands so his lord’s can remain clean.

(His mistress demanded this of him, once. She would place the karmic burden of countless dead souls on Alatus’s shoulders until he was sure he would break. But Rex Lapis never demands it. Xiao would give him anything, and this gift – it’s a small thing. Every part of Xiao that his mistress stole, he will offer to his lord freely.)

“Rex Lapis,” Xiao says, just to see how the name feels. It’s strange, foreign, but the genuine joy crinkling the corners of his master’s eyes at the sound of his new name on Xiao’s lips – that’s enough. His master’s joy will always be enough.

The war is over, and the seven thrones are filled. Rex Lapis, lord of stone and contracts, god of building instead of destroying, tends to his glittering harbor. And Xiao, foremost of the yaksha with his companions beside him, shoulders the silent burden of keeping the grudges of the dead in the ground.

(His master’s joy is enough. It is enough. It has to be enough, when Indarias descends into gibbering madness as the hatred of gods long dead poisons her soul. It has to be enough, when Bosacius vanishes. It has to be enough, when Xiao watches Bonanus skewer Menogias in a fit of terrified insanity.)

(It is enough.)

Xiao doubts that Rex Lapis, even in his impressive wisdom, knew the scope of the consequences when he allowed his yaksha to bear this burden alone. Xiao had an inkling, but the pain he bore in his mistress’s service is nothing compared to the agony of the karmic binds trapping him now.

But this gift is a small thing. He will endure. In his darkest moments, he remembers his master’s smile. He remembers the soft tune of a flute in a cradle of stone. He remembers the shape of his soul.

He remembers his name, and he returns to his duty. The statues of the yaksha crumble, lost to time as much as the yaksha themselves are. He becomes a lone figure instead of a face among many – the Vigilant Yaksha, the Conqueror of Demons, the last remnant of a bygone era.

The remedium tertorium isn’t particularly easy to acquire or make, but it seems to be the only thing capable of alleviating even some of Xiao’s pain.

Remedium tertorium is a tea, for the most part. Rex Lapis finds that it works best when brewed with flowers grown in areas with high adeptal energy. Xiao is most partial to qingxin, so Rex Lapis tends to use that as a base even though glaze lilies tend to absorb adeptal energy more readily. It’s the other part of the medicine that becomes more complicated.

He is… wary of using arts from Khaenri’ah, to say the least, even if this particular one was developed by adepti alongside the dead nation’s alchemists. The brew takes both its name and the bulk of its curse-dispelling properties from old Khaenri’ahn khemia, drawing from the ley lines to dispel corruption.

Still, nothing else has eased the dark, tight energy around Xiao the way the remedium tertorium has, and so Rex Lapis continues to make it. Xiao spends most of his time in and around Wangshu Inn now, so Rex Lapis brings it to him personally whenever possible.

Wangshu Inn is as close to a home as Rex Lapis can provide Xiao. With the strength of Xiao’s karmic corruption, he couldn’t live among the people of the harbor even if he wanted to. Still, Xiao doesn’t make as much use of it as Rex Lapis would like – he seems to see it more as a watchtower, perching on the roof like a vigilant bird instead of sleeping in the room Rex Lapis has specifically ordered to be set aside for him. There is little in that room but spare bandages and a tidy, lovingly tended shrine to Rex Lapis.

Liyue should be at peace by now.

It aches, even in the unmoved stone of Rex Lapis’s heart. How is that a nation he has so carefully guided for so many millennia is still so reliant on the beings that protected it as it grew? The adepti have withdrawn, become near mythological in the minds of Liyue’s inhabitants, but still Xiao fights these ancient grudges day after day. He shoulders a burden meant for five, and he does it without complaint.

(Rex Lapis, too, shoulders an ancient burden, and he also shoulders it alone. The last he saw of Barbatos was many, many years ago. Baal fell along with countless others in the calamity five hundred years ago. In the other seats of the seven sit unfamiliar faces, unfamiliar gods, concerned more with power than guiding their people.)

You’ve finished your duties, Rex Lapis had heard the man at the harbor say to his tired worker. Go ahead and call it a day.

The remedium tertorium bubbles, the resulting ripples shining ley-line blue.

Liyue should belong to humanity. Not gods. Not adepti. Rex Lapis has built a nation for his people, a home for them to defend, and it is time he built a home for himself. For Xiao.

Perhaps he can tend flowers. Build a house. Perhaps he will have a life worthy of sharing with Xiao, and they can both reforge themselves from weapons of war into something new.

He will watch over Liyue as he always has. He will remember those who died to build it. But Liyue no longer needs her god, and he will not cling to his seat of power until his mind erodes to nothing. He will not allow Xiao’s millennia of loyalty to be rewarded with the same painful end his fellow yaksha met.

It is a sweet dream, and it is one Rex Lapis intends to make a reality. He lifts his pen and begins to write his final contract.

A battle in the marsh goes poorly, and Xiao is both humiliated and covered in blood by the time he forces the demon back into the ground.

Just a brief moment of rest, Xiao tells himself when his legs almost give out on the way back to the inn. His wounds throb with every stumbling step. He will return to his duties after just a few heartbeats of respite. The Statue of the Seven towers above him, Rex Lapis’s shrouded gaze inscrutable and silent. Monsters don’t like to approach these statues. Xiao will be safe even if he closes his eyes for just a moment.

With a trembling hand, he rests his polearm against the damp stone and sinks down into a sitting position. The weight of his weapon is more than just a physical one. Putting it down is a relief Xiao doesn’t have the words for.

He pulls his knees up to his chest, delicately so as not to strain the open gashes on his ribs. He doesn’t get cold as easily as a human, but the icy rain has soaked into his clothes and his hair, and he can’t seem to stop shivering.

Just a moment of rest. Just a moment in the shadow of this statue, with his lord’s presence wrapped around him like a blanket, and Xiao will return to his duties.

His eyes flutter shut.

Xiao startles awake what feels like only moments later, unsure of when he dozed off, at the sound of Rex Lapis’s voice.

“Oh, my Xiao…”

“My lord,” Xiao mumbles, instinctively trying to regain his feet to greet his god properly. He winces as his body reminds him in no uncertain terms of his injuries.

“No, do not… do not strain yourself.” Rex Lapis kneels down to his level instead. The hesitance in his speech is uncharacteristic, and Xiao wishes dearly that he was more awake and aware to discern what ails his lord.

“I am fine,” Xiao tries to assure him. “I merely needed a moment’s rest.”

“Please,” Rex Lapis says, voice shockingly raw. “Allow me to return you to the inn, at least. It will ease my mind to know you are resting somewhere safe.”

Normally, Xiao would protest. He has suffered worse injuries than these; Rex Lapis has seen him in much worse states than this. There is no need for his lord to trouble himself personally with Xiao’s well-being. But something in Rex Lapis’s face and voice stays Xiao’s tongue, and he offers his lord a shallow nod in response.

It always surprises Xiao, even now, how warm Rex Lapis’s arms are for a god of stone. He cradles Xiao carefully against his broad chest, like he’s carrying something delicate that could break at the slightest mishandling. It’s thoroughly unnecessary, but Xiao enjoys his lord’s touch too much to protest; he even allows himself the indulgence of resting his head against Rex Lapis’s shoulder.

All things considered, Xiao had not strayed far from the inn, so the walk back doesn’t take very long. Rex Lapis opts for the wooden elevator instead of the stairs, and upon entering the inn itself, he is ushered quickly to Xiao’s oft-neglected bedroom by a knowing Verr Goldet.

Rex Lapis seats Xiao on the edge of the pristine bed and moves to fetch Xiao’s sparse medical supplies. With bandages in hand, he kneels before Xiao to start examining his injuries.

“My lord, you need not—” Xiao starts to say, mortified at Rex Lapis lowering himself to his knees for Xiao.

“Shh,” Rex Lapis says as he lifts Xiao’s shirt. “Please allow your god this indulgence, my Xiao.”

Indulgence. As if cleaning up after Xiao’s carelessness is a gift Xiao is giving him, not an inconvenience and a waste of his time. Still, Xiao stills, allowing Rex Lapis to clean and bandage the gouges in his chest. They’re deeper than Xiao is used to, but they’re nothing he wouldn’t heal from in time; it puzzles Xiao that Rex Lapis is showing so much concern now.

It is also… flustering him. Xiao has had many irreverent thoughts involving Rex Lapis’s hands on his bare body, though he’d never utter a word of such things to his god.

Rex Lapis works in thoughtful silence. He ties the last bandage off on Xiao’s torso and moves to his arms, which endured significantly less damage. Something about the wounds on Xiao’s knuckles seems to give Rex Lapis pause, though, and Xiao peers down at him curiously when Rex Lapis doesn’t release his hand when he’s finished tending it.

“I sometimes think,” Rex Lapis says, soft and sad, “that I have treated you poorly, Xiao.”

Xiao startles, nearly jerking his hand out of Rex Lapis’s grip. “That’s nonsense.”

Rex Lapis’s hands still on Xiao’s skin entirely, and when he tips his face up to look at Xiao, his expression is a mournful one. “Not even for a moment do you consider the possibility,” he whispers. “And that, I believe, is where I have wronged you.”

“What are you talking about?” Xiao asks desperately. He’s seen Rex Lapis’s grief many times before, but never has he been the cause of it. It leaves him floundering, unsure how to soothe the pain on his lord’s face.

“Forgive me,” Rex Lapis says. He gathers both of Xiao’s hands into his own and just holds them, warm and steady in a way that is both comforting and overwhelming. “I did not mean to burden you with these thoughts.”

“You are never a burden,” Xiao says, still completely lost.

“You’ve always been so gentle, Xiao,” Rex Lapis continues. He cradles Xiao’s hands carefully, like they’re something precious. A creature that has killed as much as Xiao has can’t be anything but a weapon, but the way Rex Lapis holds him – he thinks maybe, maybe, he could learn to be whatever else it is Rex Lapis sees in him. “You deserve a better world than this one.”

The world Xiao lives in is the world Rex Lapis built. He can’t conceive of a better one. But Rex Lapis’s face is so impossibly sad, the weight of all his years obvious in the slope of his shoulders. All Xiao can do is nod, even if he doesn’t understand.

The silent graveyard of the Guili Plains. The shadow of the tree at Nantianmen. Xiao’s lord has lost so much.

Rex Lapis’s grip is gentle but firm around Xiao’s hands, and it nearly makes Xiao’s heart drop out to realize that Rex Lapis is afraid of losing him, too.

And then Rex Lapis falls.

The concept of a world without Rex Lapis being at all better is a concept Xiao could not and still cannot even begin to fathom, but the inscrutable sadness on his master’s face, the weariness etched into every part of his hunched body – Xiao should have known. He should have known. He should have said something. Done something. There must have been something.

Something as ancient as Rex Lapis cannot be killed unless it was allowed.

Xiao clings with both hands to his polearm, uncertain he can remain standing if he releases it. He does not cry, but the violent tremors that rack his body are as close to sobs as he will permit.

He continues to perform his duties as if in a dream. He will not abandon his contract with Rex Lapis, even if Rex Lapis is—

Even in his thoughts, he cannot fathom it. Never once in his life as Xiao has he been without his god. He is lost, untethered, left only with the knowledge that he could not protect Rex Lapis the way Rex Lapis always protected him.

In the face of crisis, Liyue remains standing, as Xiao always knew she would. Osial rises and falls, the people of Liyue as strong as the bedrock beneath them. The traveler comes and goes. The city rebuilds, and it mourns for its god.

Xiao does not know how to mourn. He never has.

He has attended countless Rites of Parting, many for people he considered friends, but he’s never been able to process the grief in any meaningful way. It just blends into the constant thrum of pain in his body and heart from his karmic binds.

This… this is different. It is not the slice of grief he felt when putting any of his fellow yaksha to rest. It is a crushing blow, what feels like the physical removal of his heart from his chest to leave nothing behind but a bloody, gaping hole. He is grieving and he is empty with it.

He sleeps rarely, and when he does, his dreams are haunted by images of his god that are cruel in their kindness. I am not dead, Rex Lapis says to him in an endless field of qingxin and glaze lilies. Please, my Xiao. Hear me. I have not left you. When Xiao wakes, he is alone wherever his exhaustion dropped his body, and he continues his duties in numb silence.

His new routine is disrupted by a visitor to the inn.

Normally, people know better than to bother him on the roof; even if they are oblivious to his desire for solitude, the unpleasantness of his karma tends to drive them away unconsciously. It is during one of his rests on the roof that the visitor comes up to see him.

“Hello,” the stranger says pleasantly.

Xiao turns to look at the intruder incredulously and is met with – well, for a moment, he thinks it must be Rex Lapis. The eyes, the hair – but many people in the harbor style themselves in the likeness of their god, now more than ever that Rex Lapis is dead, and Xiao cannot allow himself to indulge in these fanciful, grief-addled thoughts.

“What do you want?” he asks, not unkind but definitely not friendly.

This seems to take the stranger off-guard, but it doesn’t remove the smile from his face. “I only meant to spend some time with the boy on the roof,” he says, settling himself on the wooden floor of the roof deck. “I am of quite the curious mind, and the tale intrigued me.”

He even speaks like Rex Lapis did. Xiao cannot allow this to continue, not when it is causing him so much pain.

“Leave, mortal.” Xiao glares down at the stranger. “I am not a curiosity, and it is dangerous for humans to remain in my company.”

“My name is Zhongli,” the stranger offers. “Not ‘mortal.’”

“Fine. Zhongli.” Xiao breathes deeply, in through his nose, out through his mouth. He is so very tired. “Leave then, Zhongli. Do not trouble yourself with me.”

Before Zhongli can reply, Xiao vanishes. His body and mind ache, and his heart stings. Nothing is permanent. To exist is to suffer. He knew these things so well, and yet— and yet— in the face of this kind of grief, he is helpless.

But Zhongli does not stay away.

He returns almost every day. Xiao is not always at the inn when he visits, but Verr Goldet informs him that Zhongli asks after him and waits on the roof for him, often for hours at a time. He rejects offers of food and sleep, instead preferring to sit on the roof deck and gaze at the sky, sometimes late into the night.

The visits aren’t altogether unpleasant. Xiao never stays very long, wary of harming the human with his presence, but the way Zhongli talks to him is… pleasantly casual. Like Xiao is not a millennia-old slayer of demons, but an old friend.

It is during one of these longer visits that Zhongli begins to talk about glaze lilies. Xiao grunts at appropriate moments and is only half-listening, but then Zhongli mentions singing to them.

“It was Guizhong who first sang to the glaze lily,” Zhongli says wistfully. “I doubt it remains anywhere in Liyue’s memory now.”

Xiao doesn’t think anyone in current history remembers Guizhong’s name, let alone her fondness for glaze lilies. Zhongli doesn’t just resemble Rex Lapis. He is—he must be—

His lord. Weakened, perhaps, by the sudden loss of his gnosis, but there is no mistaking it – Zhongli is Rex Lapis.

It is his first impulse to grovel and apologize for his impudence. He had spoken so casually to Zhongli, even rudely, and had not once paid proper obeisance in his master’s presence. But something stops him—

Zhongli had been smiling.

Every time Xiao scowled, snapped, looked Zhongli directly in the eye – it was all met with a smile, cor lapis eyes bright and glittering. The weary lines of Rex Lapis’s face are softer on Zhongli’s, and the weight of Rex Lapis’s burdens do not weigh down Zhongli’s proud shoulders. Zhongli’s frequent visits demonstrate that Xiao still has a place in this new life Zhongli is building, but the nature of that place—

Rex Lapis told Xiao all those centuries ago that he had tired of violence. Perhaps he has tired of ruling, also – of being the bedrock of an entire nation, of being an object of worship instead of a mere person. He always was happiest wandering the streets in the guise of a mortal.

Xiao belongs to Rex Lapis, now and always. If this is how best to serve his lord, he can manage, even if it makes his skin crawl to pretend he is unaware.

Traitorous questions still roil in Xiao’s chest like a squirming handful of eels – why did he leave me, why didn’t he tell me, why is my service no longer required – but like always, he pushes them down. It is not his place to question, only to follow.

(But Zhongli asks his opinion on everything, from flowers to birds to the strange antiques he brings to the inn. Rex Lapis had asked as well, even if he rarely received an answer.)

Rex Lapis is alive. It is enough for Xiao. His master’s joy will always be enough.

Zhongli notices it, the moment Xiao realizes that the person he has been speaking to is his god.

Xiao can be surprisingly stubborn, sometimes about the worst things. Zhongli tried for a week to reach Xiao through his dreams as he had the other adepti, but Xiao, darling Xiao who will never trust the world to treat him kindly, clearly assumed these were products of his grief and not Rex Lapis trying to speak to him. Even visiting Xiao physically did not seem to get through to him.

Zhongli should have told him right away. But to have Xiao speaking to him so frankly, as he might a stranger… to see for himself the way Xiao lives and interacts with others without the presence of his god…

One week, he promised himself. If Xiao did not realize in one week, Zhongli would tell him.

Xiao figures it out on the sixth day. It shows on his face – in his wide eyes, in the sudden change in his posture. Zhongli tilts his head at him, a little saddened despite himself, waiting for Xiao to drop to his knees and grovel for his impudence.

Ah, Xiao, he thinks. Perhaps you and the mortal Zhongli could have had a good life together.

But Xiao does not grovel. He is noticeably stiffer for the rest of their conversation, but never once does he slip up and call Zhongli Rex Lapis. It is… endearing. Baffling, but endearing.

“I need to go,” Xiao says suddenly, interrupting Zhongli in the middle of discussing their dinner plans. He is gone before Zhongli can respond.

A little concerned, Zhongli waits a moment before following the traces of adeptal energy back into the inn. It loops around the stairs and down into the kitchen. Curious, Zhongli stops at the top step of the kitchen stairs and peers in, trying to catch a glimpse of Xiao.

“You need to make sure his meal is perfect,” Xiao is hissing at the chef.

“This isn’t like you,” Smiley Yanxiao’s low voice says in return, sounding confused. “What do you care about the guests’ food?”

“Just—” Xiao makes a small noise of frustration. “Just make sure you take care with his, alright?”

“Xiao?” Zhongli takes the opportunity to make himself known, walking down the stairs as if he has just arrived. As endearing as this is, he doesn’t want this realization to remain unspoken as Xiao seems to have determined it should.

Xiao bolts upright from where he’s leaning over Yanxiao’s cutting board. “Zhongli,” he says breathlessly.

“You left so abruptly,” Zhongli says. “It worried me. May we talk about whatever it is that upset you so?”

Xiao looks like he wants to refuse, but he’s never been able to deny Zhongli anything. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he’s never been able to deny Rex Lapis anything. Either way, he nods at Yanxiao and follows Zhongli obediently back up the stairs.

“I believe,” Zhongli says quietly as he opens the door to Xiao’s room, “that we have many things to discuss, Xiao."

The room has become more lived-in these past few days, though not by much. The shrine to Rex Lapis is as tidy as ever, with fresh glaze lilies laid as an offering. A few of the trinkets Zhongli has brought for Xiao to look at lay scattered on the windowsill. The bed’s comforter is rumpled, like someone has slept in it recently.

“I apologize for deceiving you,” Zhongli murmurs as he shuts the door behind them. “It was never my intention to do so.”

“Zhongli…?” Xiao asks tentatively.

“That is the name I prefer now, yes.” Zhongli lights the lantern by the door, if only to have something to do with his hands. The sun is still high enough in the sky that the room is plenty bright. “But you have realized my identity by now, I am certain.”

He turns to face Xiao, whose face has gone still and pale. “Yes,” Xiao whispers.

Zhongli sighs, letting his shoulders drop. “You must know that this is not how I wanted this to happen, Xiao,” he says. “I… am sure you have questions.”

Xiao shakes his head. “It is not my place to ask them.”

“You know as well as I do that it is.” Zhongli reaches out to lay a gentle hand on Xiao’s shoulder, guiding him to the bed to sit. “So please… speak.”

The silence that follows is long and fraught. Zhongli settles beside Xiao on the mattress, ready to wait for as long as it takes for Xiao to gather his thoughts.

“You left me,” Xiao says finally, broken and small, and Zhongli feels his heart crack in two.

“Xiao,” Zhongli murmurs. “Oh, my Xiao…”

“You… you left,” Xiao continues in a voice so wrecked it barely sounds like it belongs to him. “I believed you dead. That it—it was my fault, somehow. That I could have done something. And when you came back, I—”

He stops himself, but Zhongli refuses to let him hide all of this away again, to fester and bleed in a place Zhongli can’t see it. “You what, my darling?” he encourages gently, careful to keep his own emotions from showing in his voice.

“I wondered what I had done wrong,” Xiao whispers, “that my service was no longer required. That I could not be trusted with the knowledge of your departure.”

Grief settles heavy over Zhongli’s heart. He had never intended to keep his survival a secret from his adepti forever, so he had never considered the impact it could have on their hearts – on Xiao’s heart. The length of his deception was so laughably small in comparison to their lifespans. It would be a wound easily healed.

But Xiao has always been closer to Zhongli than the other adepti. Dearer. His aloof exterior hides a gentle, sensitive heart, and Zhongli is the one person who doesn’t need to try to break through those defenses.

Usually, it is a blessing. Now, it means that Zhongli’s thoughtlessness has injured Xiao deeply, with no way for Xiao to protect himself.

“I never intended to cause you pain,” Zhongli says, voice tight with anguish.

Xiao jerks his head up at the audible pain in Zhongli’s voice. “My lord, I—”

“Please.” Zhongli doesn’t like to interrupt Xiao, but he cannot let Xiao assume any more of Rex Lapis’s burdens. “My little dove. Please let me speak.”

Xiao nods shallowly.

“It was careless of me,” Zhongli continues. He reaches out a tentative hand, laying it atop one of Xiao’s clenched fists. “I had hoped the dreams I sent you were enough – that you would know I had not perished.”

“I thought them cruel figments of my imagination,” Xiao whispers.

“That is why I came to you physically. I… I should have done so sooner. I should not have allowed you to grieve a moment longer than you had to.” Zhongli squeezes Xiao’s hand when it becomes evident that Xiao will not pull away. “When you did not realize it was me, I… perhaps I had hoped that you would be able to find a life outside of Rex Lapis, with the human Zhongli or otherwise.”

Xiao shakes his head. “That isn’t a life I want.”

“I am realizing that now.” Zhongli closes his eyes, grieved by how deeply he has failed Xiao. He has told Xiao time and again that his desires matter, that he may choose the life he wants, but Zhongli decided for him that he should live in a world without his god. “You never wanted a life without Rex Lapis, but I decided in your stead that it would be best. I promised I would never ignore your desires, and yet I…”

“I never wanted a life without you,” Xiao corrects, gentle but insistent. It is a small distinction, but a distinction that squeezes Zhongli’s heart in a warm fist. “Morax, Rex Lapis, Zhongli. It does not matter, as long as it is a life with you.”

“Xiao…” Zhongli opens his eyes and is shocked when Xiao’s face is blurry in his vision. It has been millennia since last he cried, and here he sits, Xiao’s devoted adoration reducing him to tears.

“You… wanted an end to my suffering,” Xiao says, seeming to realize it as he speaks. “You thought that ending my contract with Rex Lapis would end my battles with the dead.”

“I did.” Zhongli laughs wetly. “It was a simple, foolish notion, in retrospect. You are far too loyal to leave your duties behind.”

“I am.” Xiao smiles slightly, seeming a little proud. “Rex Lapis… Zhongli…”

“I am sorry,” Zhongli says before Xiao feels compelled to comfort him. “I truly am. You have suffered needlessly for my actions.”

Xiao reaches up with one tentative hand, brushing the tears from Zhongli’s cheeks. “I forgive you,” Xiao whispers. “Zhongli, I forgive you.”

“Thank you.” Zhongli presses his hand over Xiao’s on his face. “All these millennia, you have been by my side, defending Liyue.” He leans into Xiao’s palm, nuzzling it. “Defending me.”

“There is nowhere I would rather be.” Xiao’s voice is quiet, but it is confident, and Zhongli finally knows what that could mean for their future.

“Will you come with me, Xiao?” Zhongli asks, lacing their fingers together.

“Come… with you?”

“To start a new life.” Zhongli tilts his head and smiles through his tears. “Not as god and servant. Not as Rex Lapis and the Conqueror of Demons. Just Zhongli.” He moves their linked hands and presses a kiss to the back of Xiao’s. “And just Xiao.”

Xiao stares at him, face slowly coloring as Zhongli lets his lips linger. “I… my duties,” he says weakly.

“Your god has died, and the end of his life means the end of your contract.” Zhongli’s smile widens. “And your god also ensured that the people of Liyue are capable of defending their home without adepti.”

“You… really want me?” Xiao asks, quiet and vulnerable. “Out of everyone you could have, you would ask me to remain at your side?”

Zhongli lowers their linked hands and instead leans forward to press his forehead to Xiao’s. “Always,” he says into the scant space between their faces, their breaths mingling. “I will always ask, and as long as the answer is yes, I will never let you go.”

“Yes,” Xiao whispers. “Yes, I will go with you. I want to go with you.”

Unable to bear the distance between them any longer, Zhongli leans in to press a kiss against Xiao’s parted lips. It’s gentle and chaste, barely a touch, but the strength of feeling it evokes in Zhongli’s chest is more powerful than he’s felt in thousands of years.

Xiao makes a desperate noise into his mouth and returns the kiss, unlinking their hands to fling his arms around Zhongli’s neck. Xiao is the one who deepens the kiss, shy but determined, tongue poking at the seam of Zhongli’s lips and slipping in the moment it’s clear his advances are welcome.

“Xiao,” Zhongli breathes between frantic, messy kisses. “Oh, my Xiao. Thousands of years I’ve wanted you—”

“Me, too,” Xiao says, voice wrecked. “I never wanted anyone like I’ve wanted you—master, my lord, please—”

Thousands of years of tension shatters in an instant. Zhongli tips Xiao back onto the bed, reveling in having his dearest companion beside him like this at last. And Xiao, darling Xiao who has loved him so fiercely for so long and never dared to hope for more, blooms beneath his affections like a glaze lily sung a song.

It becomes clear very quickly that Zhongli is a much more experienced retiree than Xiao is.

He has a house in the countryside. It’s not even a day’s walk from the harbor, but it’s far enough away from the roads and the city bustle to be a quiet retreat. “I acquired it before my… demonstration at the Rite of Descension,” Zhongli explains the first time he brings Xiao to see it. “I have been planning this for some time.”

It still stings that Zhongli had planned his fall for so long without telling Xiao, but it’s an old pain easily forgotten, especially with the memory of laying with his lord so fresh in his mind. It had been as though Xiao was the god and Zhongli the worshiper, with the way he made love to Xiao.

“Your mind is wandering,” Zhongli teases him when Xiao spends too long staring at the line of Zhongli’s jaw.

Xiao feels his face flush. “Perhaps,” he says noncommittally, and looks away when Zhongli chuckles.

The house is small but cozy. There are two bedrooms and two washrooms, one of which is connected to the larger bedroom. A larger-than-average kitchen overlooks the verdant backyard. A sitting area with many chairs makes Xiao wonder how many visitors Zhongli entertains. Countless curiosities fill the shelves in every room – jade sculptures, mismatched tea sets, bizarre objects that have to be from neighboring nations.

“I have taken up gardening,” Zhongli says conversationally as Xiao finishes wandering the halls. “Would you like to see?”

It’s not a question, even if it’s phrased like one. Zhongli has already laid a hand on the small of Xiao’s back and is ushering him, gently but unmistakably, out the door. It is not a difficult request to indulge. Xiao murmurs a token assent and lets himself be led.

Xiao isn’t sure what he’s expecting. In his travels, he’s seen countless flowers, both wild and tamed, from colorful rivers streaming down mountainsides to neat rows lining windowsills. He’d caught a glimpse of Zhongli’s garden from the kitchen window, but the brief glance through the glass did not do it justice.

It’s less of a garden and more of a growing botanical masterpiece. Bushes line the inner sanctum of it in careful rows. Flowers of countless colors and stages of growth poke up through the soil. Xiao is hesitant to walk into the garden at all, lest he harm Zhongli’s precious blooms with his feet or with his karma.

“Come,” Zhongli urges gently. His hand on the small of Xiao’s back nudges him to lead him into the garden itself.

Birds flit happily from bush to bush in the garden, and Xiao freezes, not wanting to startle them away.

Zhongli chuckles. “You needn’t worry. They’re quite bold.” He takes Xiao’s hand and leads him closer, gentle but firm, and Xiao is helpless to do anything but follow.

Surprisingly, the birds pay them very little mind. One or two eye them suspiciously as they venture farther into the garden, but for the most part, they continue whatever avian business has them so busy.

“They were shy at first,” Zhongli continues. He eases Xiao into a sitting position below one of the taller lacquerleaf plants. “But with time and patience, they learned that I meant them no harm, and they grew less fearful.” He smiles at a particularly bold finch perching on a branch above him, cocking its tiny head. “Of course, it helps that I feed them.”

Zhongli fishes a pouch from his pocket. It seems that this is a familiar movement – the sight of it has several more birds fluttering closer to watch, though none of them dare venture down from the branches just yet.

“Here,” Zhongli says. He takes Xiao’s hand and pours some of the seeds from the pouch into Xiao’s palm.

“Master,” Xiao protests faintly. He knows what Zhongli expects of him, and he also knows that it isn’t a good idea.

Zhongli shakes his head. “Just Zhongli here, my darling. Now hold out your hand,” he encourages him softly.

I can’t, Xiao wants to tell him. Any animal with an ounce of sense can discern his nature the moment he gets close. No matter how much their fear makes him ache, no matter how gentle his intentions, his hands are those of not just a killer, but an aberration – a twisted relic, irreparably damaged by eons of slaughter.

But Zhongli has made a request of him. Xiao swallows and holds out his hand, stretching out his palmful of seeds like a tentative offering to a temperamental god. He squeezes his eyes shut. He can’t bear to watch all of Zhongli’s birds flutter away.

What follows isn’t the sound of frantic chirping or beating wings. It isn’t even the stillness of an animal that has detected a threat. Xiao cracks open one eye, then the other. His lips part in amazement.

Perched on his fingers, delicately plucking the seeds from his palm, is one of the birds.

It’s… round. Colorful. Lighter for its size than Xiao expected. It eyes him curiously when he makes a small noise in the back of his throat, but otherwise does not concern itself with him, content to peck at the offerings he has provided.

“See?” Zhongli says, very quietly, so as not to startle the little feathered thing.

“It… is not afraid of me,” Xiao says in a bare whisper.

Zhongli presses a kiss to the side of Xiao’s head. “There is nothing to be afraid of,” he says against Xiao’s hair.

For Zhongli, perhaps, who is a god of immeasurable age and power. But to the average beings of this world, fragile mortal lives like this bird, there is much to fear from Xiao.

But Zhongli sees something in Xiao – something gentle, something worth loving. With this bird on his fingers and Zhongli’s hand steady on his waist, Xiao is beginning to see it too.

Zhongli delights in teaching Xiao how to live a more leisurely existence.

Xiao has been a warrior for thousands of years, and it’s not a surprise that he struggles to relax, even with his lord’s blessing. There is some part of Xiao that still doesn’t trust the humanity of modern Liyue to take care of themselves properly. For this reason, Zhongli tries to keep him at the countryside house instead of staying with him at Wangshu Inn; the inn is far too good of a vantage point for Xiao to locate trouble and decide it’s best taken care of by his hand.

(If Zhongli had whispered to the Tianquan that patrols should be increased on the roads to and from Wangshu Inn, then that is no one’s business but his own.)

Watching Xiao adjust to a world at peace is… healing. There is much Zhongli regrets about the years that led them here, but it’s never too late for a weapon of war to be reforged, and he plans to forge himself and Xiao into beings that can exist peacefully and happily for the first time in their lives.

Zhongli finds that what he enjoys most about this new life is travel, and so he takes Xiao to Mondstadt. He doesn’t think Xiao has ever physically been outside of Liyue’s borders. He’s heard Mondstadt’s music before, though perhaps not under the happiest of circumstances—

Zhongli shakes his head. Slowly, Xiao’s burdens have been easing the longer he goes without fighting those ancient grudges. Zhongli need not dwell on how close he was to losing Xiao.

They spend most of their visit wandering the flat, rolling hills, which Xiao finds adorably fascinating. There are some stretches of flatter land in Liyue, but an entire country without mountains seems to baffle Xiao; Zhongli catches him staring across the long, flat line of the horizon more than once.

“Will these grow in your garden?” Xiao asks as he crouches to observe a small, swaying cecilia bloom.

“Hmm,” Zhongli says. “I doubt the wind is strong enough in Liyue to nurture them. Perhaps we could press one in a book, if you’d like to take one home.”

Xiao blanches and stands up, taking a step away from the flower. “We don’t need to pick it,” he says, sounding a little scandalized.

Despite himself, Zhongli laughs, looping an affectionate arm around Xiao’s waist as they continue up Starsnatch Cliff. So gentle, his Xiao, even after thousands of years of violence. He soaked himself in bloody karma for millennia, but he will not pick a single flower.

Zhongli doesn’t know what he’d do without him.

They end up in the city eventually, though Xiao is hesitant to linger there. He’s still wary of harming mortals with his karmic burden, even if it’s easing bit by bit.

“One drink at Angel’s Share,” Zhongli says with a kiss to Xiao’s temple. “Just so you can say you’ve truly visited Mondstadt, my darling.”

“One drink,” Xiao agrees.

This is how they end up at the same bar as Barbatos. Zhongli had not known that this was an establishment Barbatos (“it’s Venti, you blockheaded old man”) frequented, though he supposes he should have guessed. Where alcohol is, Venti is likely to follow.

Xiao keeps glancing between Zhongli and Venti, seeming unwilling to be the one to broach the conversation. Zhongli refuses to acknowledge Venti’s presence, as he is on vacation and talking to Venti is always work. But Venti has never been good at leaving well enough alone, and he leans over to Zhongli’s stool with a mischievous smirk.

“Morax,” Venti whispers into Zhongli’s ear, making Zhongli twitch.

“Have you no shame?” Zhongli replies, just as quiet but much more strained. “We are in public.”

“Aw, the bartender knows me,” Venti says dismissively. The bartender’s face pinches, which perhaps implies that the bartender knows Venti unwillingly. “But if you insist, old man.”

“That’s hardly an improvement,” Zhongli says, but he knows well that arguing with Venti is fruitless.

“Are you harassing my patrons, bard?” the redheaded bartender asks as he slides a glass of baijiu across the bar.

“I would never!” Venti says at the same time Zhongli says, “Yes.”

“Out,” the bartender says flatly to Venti, though he doesn’t seem to mean it.

“You’re so cruel, Diluc,” Venti whines, sprawling across the wooden surface of the bar. “And seriously, Zhongli? Baijiu? You can get that in Liyue for half the price.”

“I know my own tastes,” Zhongli says primly, taking a sip of the smooth alcohol. “Mm. It does not have the same depth of flavor as it does back home, but it is acceptable.”

“Acceptable,” Diluc the bartender says with a sigh. “I suppose I’ll take it.”

“Unpleasant as ever, grandpa,” Venti says without bite.

“Hopefully your dandelion wine is acceptable as well,” Diluc continues as he places a glass in front of Xiao.

Xiao has never been much for alcohol, only drinking it sparingly for ritual purposes. Still, Zhongli wants to offer him all of the experiences he never could when he was Rex Lapis and Xiao the Conqueror of Demons, and that means trying the local specialties of their neighboring countries.

As expected, Xiao wrinkles his nose the moment he takes a sip. “It is…” he starts, smacking his tongue like an unhappy cat. “Unpleasant.”

“More for me,” Venti says with a shrug, snatching the glass and knocking back a gulp himself.

“Acceptable and unpleasant,” Diluc says with a sigh. “Wonderful reviews.”

“It is not your bartending skills,” Zhongli reassures him as he swirls his baijiu. “I have simply had many years to refine my palate, and Xiao is rarely fond of alcohol.”

Diluc waves it off, clearly not taking it personally as he moves down the bar to tend to another patron – a dark-haired, one-eyed man who leans over the bar with a delighted grin as soon as Diluc approaches him.

“So how are the two of you doing?” Venti asks once Diluc is engaged in conversation with the smiling man. “Last I heard, you died.”

“A greatly exaggerated rumor, I’m sure,” Zhongli says mildly.

“And Xiao…” Venti’s face falls into something uncharacteristically serious. “Your… situation hasn’t…”

“Your pity is not necessary,” Xiao says, stiff and uncomfortable. He clenches his hands around the glass of water he’d ordered before his wine.

Venti scoffs into his wine. “It’s not pity. I care about you two, you know! And I’m not bringing it up just to upset you.”

“Then why are you bringing it up?” Zhongli asks. Venti has a way of talking around his point that exhausts Zhongli after mere minutes.

“Look, you got your bad karma from killing godly life, right? Or godly un-life.”

It’s a grossly oversimplified explanation for Xiao’s unique condition, but before Zhongl can launch into a more thorough explanation, Xiao offers Venti a shallow nod and invites him to continue.

“So it stands to reason that creating godly life would turn it around, right?” Venti gestures at Xiao’s belly with his wine glass. “Bearing a divine child would balance out a lot of it, I think.”

Zhongli chokes on the sip of baijiu. Xiao goes stiff with surprise on his stool, catlike eyes wide, but he doesn’t react much otherwise.

Venti laughs at what must be matching blank expressions on their faces, waving his wine dismissively. “Don’t mind me if it’s not something you want to do,” he says cheerfully. “Just thought I’d float the idea out there, from one friend to another.”

“Right,” Zhongli says faintly.

The thought lingers with him the entire trip back to Liyue, and from Xiao’s thoughtful silence, it seems it isn’t just Zhongli’s mind it weighs on.

“Have you given thought to it?”

Xiao looks up from the tea he’s trying to brew. “Given thought to what?”

At the table, Zhongli flips through whatever book he’s reading this week, though he doesn’t seem overly focused on the words. “To what Barbatos said.”

The lid of the teapot clatters to the counter from Xiao’s suddenly fumbling fingers. “You don’t often put much stock into the things Barbatos says,” he manages to say, though it’s not quite an answer.

Zhongli hums, closing his book. “That is because he rarely says anything worth putting stock into,” he says. “But in this case, I believe he is correct. Much of your karmic burden would likely be reversed, were you to bear my child.”

Distantly, Xiao notes that Zhongli is being very, very careful not to make this a command, or even a suggestion. He is merely providing the information and asking Xiao for his thoughts – gentle, always so gentle with Xiao.

He’d be gentle with a child, too.

Now that Xiao is thinking about it, he can’t stop picturing it – Zhongli cradling their child in his arms, Zhongli singing them softly to sleep, Zhongli watching their child grow with the same joy with which he regarded Liyue’s growth. It’s somewhat foreign to imagine, but that doesn’t mean it’s unpleasant.

“I… am considering it,” Xiao says softly. His distraction means that the tea has likely steeped for too long now, and he hurries to remove the leaves.

“That is all I ask,” Zhongli says. Though Xiao isn’t looking at him, he can hear the fond smile in Zhongli’s voice. “It would bring me joy to raise a child with you, but it would bring me just as much to spend my life with you just like this. Please take your time and think carefully, my love.”

And think Xiao does. The idea of having a child solely to ease his own karmic pain feels wrong, but when he sets that aside entirely – when he imagines that bearing the child would have no effect on his karma at all – he finds that he still wants it. Still wants a family with Zhongli. Still wants to hold the small, fluttering light of a new adeptus against his heart and see Zhongli do the same.

The last adeptal child to be born was Yanfei, many years ago. She is bright and cheerful, the only world she’s ever known a peaceful one; even as a baby, she’d been bubbly and smiley, as if she knew even then that her forefathers had fought and bled to build a happy world for her to live in.

“Zhongli,” Xiao says before bed one night.

“Hm?” Zhongli asks, glancing up from his bedtime reading. His eyes widen at the sight of Xiao emerging from the washroom wearing nothing but one of Zhongli’s robes, open at the front.

Toying with the loose tie of the robe, Xiao says quietly, “I have given it thought.”

Slowly, Zhongli places his book on the bedside table, never once removing his dark eyes from Xiao’s exposed body. “Have you, now?” he asks, tongue flicking out to wet his lips.

“I want your child,” Xiao says, face flushing as he ducks his head down. He knows Zhongli will not oblige until he hears Xiao say it aloud and knows without a doubt that it’s what Xiao wants.

A hint of draconic fang peeks out when Zhongli grins in response. “Then why are you standing over there, my love?” Zhongli reaches out a hand. “Come to bed.”

Happily, Xiao goes.

Xiao only carries the egg for about a week before its shell is sturdy enough to survive outside his body, but despite the brevity of it, Zhongli seems to revel in the way his body changes to accommodate the new life.

“You look so good carrying our child, my love,” Zhongli says fondly, palming the small swell of Xiao’s belly where the egg is developing. “Creating life suits you much better than ending it.”

Xiao’s body agrees with Zhongli, frankly. The tightness of his karmic bonds has been easing from the moment the child was conceived, and they’ve grown looser and less painful with every day that’s passed since. It makes sense, he supposes – his burden is the result of ending divine life; in nurturing a divine life instead, he is balancing those old karmic debts.

It’s somehow more anxiety-inducing when the egg is physically out, sitting in a nest Xiao carefully constructed beside their bed. When Xiao was carrying it in his body, it was always with him; it was easy to protect. Now, he wakes frequently with a hand on his flat belly, the brief panic of not knowing where it is sending him scrambling over to the makeshift nest to look.

“Like a mother hen with her chick,” Zhongli teases him, which makes Xiao flush and narrow his eyes. Still, Xiao finds Zhongli by the nest almost as often as Xiao is. Sometimes he simply stares at the brown and teal egg with a thoughtful expression. More often, he speaks to it. The unborn adeptus is regaled with the history of Liyue, the folktales and the real stories behind them, the countless people both mortal and immortal whose hands shaped the country this child will inherit.

“I don’t think they understand you,” Xiao says one evening during an amused retelling of Rex Incognito.

Zhongli chuckles. He laughs so much more often now, and it always makes Xiao’s heart flutter to witness his master’s happiness and to know that he is part of it.

“It cannot hurt to introduce them to language early,” Zhongli says. “In any case, I would like them to get used to the sound of my voice.”

That gives Xiao pause. The unborn infant has heard Xiao’s voice before, likely more than they wanted to when Xiao was carrying them, but he hasn’t talked much to the egg since. He casts a worried look down at the smooth, undisturbed shell.

“Don’t look so fretful, my darling,” Zhongli says warmly. “I doubt they’d ever mistake the voice of the one who formed and carried them.”

Still, Xiao finds himself speaking to the egg much more often after that. He doesn’t have the same tendency to ramble that Zhongli does, but it doesn’t hurt to narrate his chores or haltingly recount his day. Sometimes he thinks he sees the egg wiggle in response.

Zhongli cannot seem to locate his jacket.

He’s quite sure he left it hanging by the front door, and his memory rarely fails him, even in small matters like these. He had been planning to go for a walk in the garden, and the weather today is a bit too brisk for just his undershirt.

“Where in the world…” he murmurs as he checks the other places he may have left it. It is not draped across the back of the sofa or any of the kitchen chairs. It hasn’t fallen to the floor. Bemused, he returns to the bedroom to check there, wondering if he’d brought it in to get dressed before he decided to spend the morning reading instead of outdoors.

It’s obvious right away what became of his jacket during his hours spent reading.

The bedding has been thoroughly rearranged in Zhongli’s absence. The blankets, yanked out from where they were tucked beneath the mattress, form a sort of circle in the center of the bed. The pillows rest neatly atop the loop of fabric.

And in the center of it all is Xiao, tucked beneath Zhongli’s jacket, curled protectively around the egg. The blankets and pillows form a soft, cozy cradle for Xiao and his unborn child, and Zhongli’s jacket keeps them both warm.

“My darling bird,” Zhongli says, terribly amused and helplessly fond. “Have you created a nest?”

Xiao’s head jerks up from the warm pile. He’s drowsy and rumpled, hair sticking every which way like a downy bird with bedhead.

“Master,” Xiao greets sleepily.

“Just Zhongli, dear,” Zhongli reminds him, more out of habit than anything else as he approaches Xiao’s bed-nest. “Are you quite comfortable?”

Xiao’s eyes narrow to sleepy, contented slits. “Mhm.”

“Am I welcome in this nest, then?” Zhongli asks, mostly to tease.

To his delight, Xiao indulges in the game as well, pretending to consider it. “Not dressed like that,” Xiao decides after an exaggerated moment of thought. He curls up around the egg more securely. “Not comfortable enough.”

Zhongli is plenty comfortable, but he suspects Xiao means that Zhongli is less pleasant to cuddle with when he’s done up in all his layers. Huffing out an indulgent laugh, he begins to strip out of his outermost layers. “Whatever my thieving little bird demands of me, he shall receive.”

The nest is a bit small for someone of Zhongli’s stature, but he folds himself up to fit behind Xiao. He tucks Xiao against his chest and lays one protective hand on the egg resting in the curve of Xiao’s body. The jacket stays mostly tucked around Xiao, to Zhongli’s amusement.

The garden can wait a few more hours.

Xiao cannot break the habit of rising with the sun. Even Zhongli, who for so long had the same habit, has begun to indulge in the occasional lie-in. But Xiao can never fall back asleep when he’s woken, and when he wakes is at the first peek of sunlight through their window.

So the sun peeks around their curtains, and Xiao wakes, and he leans over to press a kiss above Zhongli’s eye. Sometimes this wakes Zhongli, and sometimes it doesn’t; either way, Zhongli remains in bed for at least another hour.

This morning, it wakes Zhongli. “Hello, my love,” he mumbles sleepily, catching Xiao around the back of the neck before Xiao can pull away. He tugs Xiao in for a lazy kiss on the lips.

“Go back to sleep,” Xiao whispers against Zhongli’s mouth. “I’ll start the laundry.”

He still isn’t comfortable enough in the kitchen to make Zhongli breakfast, but he usually takes care of other chores in the pale light of early morning. He hopes they have a sunny day so the laundry has time to dry on the line after he washes it. Like every morning since they’ve had their child, though, before he starts any of his chores, he pads over to the egg’s little nest beside their bed to check on it.

There is a crack in the shell.

It’s so small that Xiao almost thinks he’s imagining it. He leans in closer to examine it, and— there. A tiny hole where the baby has pipped.

“Zhongli,” he says, far louder than he ever talks this early in the morning. “The baby—”

“Is everything alright?” Zhongli is out of bed and by his side in an instant, one arm wrapped around Xiao’s waist as he leans down to examine the egg. His concern shifts to excitement in an instant. “Oh, they’ve decided it’s time to say hello, have they?”

“Zhongli,” Xiao says helplessly. There’s a storm of emotions whirling around in his chest – excitement, fear, impatience, love. He doesn’t know what to do with it all. Doesn’t know what to do with the knowledge that in mere hours, he will be holding his child.

Zhongli kisses the side of Xiao’s head. “It will likely be a few hours yet, love. We can check on them in a little while.”

Hours pass. Zhongli insists on making breakfast and doing at least some of their more important chores, but Xiao cannot tear himself from the nest’s side. The cracks grow slowly, and Xiao wonders more than once if he should reach down and break the shell open himself.

“They need to do this on their own, Xiao,” Zhongli reminds him gently every time he sees Xiao’s fists clenching on his knees. “You are their father. They are more than strong enough.”

“What if they’re not?” Xiao says. “What if they can’t?”

“They can.” Zhongli’s voice is confident, unwavering. “Just like you could, every time you struggled.”

Though it’s not as much of a comfort as Zhongli might wish it to be, it does warm Xiao a little to be reminded of the unwavering faith his master has in him, and by extension their child. And regardless of Xiao’s strength, this child is Rex Lapis’s heir – half of their blood belongs to the strongest, most ancient god still walking Teyvat.

It takes nine hours for the baby to finally emerge. The little draconic creature wiggles out of the shell, small and damp and new, halting in bafflement the moment they’re entirely free of the egg that kept them warm and safe all this time.

Almost immediately, the child begins to cry out. For a vertiginous heartbeat, Xiao is back in the valley from two thousand years ago, staring down at a sobbing infant clutched in its dead mother’s arms, his weapon in his hand and a command heavy around his neck.

But this time, there is no command. This time, he takes the infant into his arms. He presses the little squirming thing against his chest, hiding their face in his neck. It soothes some old, damaged part of his soul that tore open and bled the day he killed that child in the valley. Like this, with his child in his arms, he feels like he can finally lay that old wound to rest.

I’ll take care of you, he thinks as he tucks his child closer. For a moment, he is holding the infant in the valley, too. I’ll protect you.

The child’s cries quiet into happy coos as they nuzzle against Xiao’s chest, kneading their little draconic claws against his shirt. They look like Rex Lapis, somewhat. A smaller, rounder version of the Exuvia. They also…

They also look like Alatus did.

Smaller, softer versions of Alatus’s golden wings twitch on the child’s back as they purr against Xiao. Teal scales glint among the brown and gold.

“Fatherhood suits you,” Zhongli murmurs at Xiao’s side. He reaches over to touch the child’s velvety snout with a gentle finger, smiling when the child mouths at it blindly. “They’re beautiful, Xiao.”

The wings on the child’s back flutter and flex. Like phantom limbs, Xiao can almost feel his own do the same. The most beautiful parts of long-dead Alatus live on in this child.

No, Xiao corrects himself as he smooths the downy feathers with his thumb. The things that were taken from Alatus, unjustly and cruelly, live on in this child. The things that both Xiao and Zhongli lost, that were stolen, that died and were buried – all of these things nourished the soil from which this child will bloom.

They will live in a kinder world than either of their parents did, and Xiao will rest easy knowing that it was a world he and Zhongli helped build.