The Glass Craters

The Glass Craters were a labyrinth of razor-sharp obsidian and fused silica, birthed by centuries of orbital bombardments. The terrain was treacherous, demanding every ounce of Silas’s attention as he carried Valen through the jagged valleys.

Valen drifted in and out of consciousness. The royal nanites were at war with the irradiated gravity of the surface, leaving him in a state of perpetual, agonizing fever. His body felt like it was made of lead, his muscles completely unaccustomed to the crushing weight of the earth. Every step Silas took sent a jolt of pain through Valen’s frail frame, but he bit his lip to keep from crying out. He was already a burden; he refused to be a nuisance.

Silas found shelter as the bruised purple sky darkened into a pitch-black, starless night. He carried Valen into a shallow cave carved into the side of a massive glass dune, setting him down gently on a spread of heavy canvas tarps.

"Don't take the mask off," Silas instructed, pulling a glowing thermal-flare from his pack and striking it. A warm, crimson light bathed the small cave.

Valen nodded weakly, pulling his legs up to his chest. He shivered violently. The temperature was plummeting, the air turning to ice.

Silas noted the shivering immediately. He shrugged off his heavy, fur-lined duster jacket and draped it over Valen’s trembling shoulders. The jacket swallowed the prince entirely, smelling of leather, ozone, and the masculine, earthy scent of Silas himself. Valen buried his face in the collar, inhaling deeply despite the mask, letting the scent ground him.

"You are giving me your warmth," Valen said, his voice muffled. "You will freeze."

"I've survived thirty winters in the dirt. A little chill won't kill me," Silas said gruffly, though his amber eyes were soft as he looked at the prince. He unspooled a canteen of purified water and held it to the edge of Valen’s mask. "Drink."

Valen complied, the cool water soothing his raw throat. He looked at Silas, truly studying him in the red light. Silas was harsh lines and battle scars, a man carved from the unforgiving world he inhabited. Yet, the way he looked at Valen—with an intensity that bordered on reverence—made Valen’s heart hammer a frantic rhythm against his ribs.

"Why did you save me?" Valen asked softly. "I am weak. I am of no use to you in this place. I will only slow you down."

Silas paused, capping the canteen. He looked down at his hands, calloused and scarred from years of violence and scavenging. "Out here, things are either dead, or they're trying to kill you," Silas said, his voice low. He looked back up, meeting Valen’s eyes with that same, world-shifting intensity. "Then the pod opened. And I looked at you. It was like... like seeing the sun for the first time. I don't know how to explain it, Valen. I just know that if you stopped breathing, I wouldn't have a reason to take another breath either."

Valen’s breath hitched. The confession was raw, stripped of any pretense. The prince reached out from beneath the heavy jacket, his pale, slender fingers lightly tracing the knuckles of Silas’s hand.

"I felt it too," Valen whispered, the vulnerability in his voice absolute. "A tether. The moment I saw you."

Silas turned his hand over, intertwining his fingers with Valen’s. The contrast was stark—the rough, dirt-stained hand of a survivor holding the pristine, fragile hand of a fallen royal.

"There's a place," Silas said, his thumb gently stroking the back of Valen’s hand. "The Obsidian Bunker. It's a pre-collapse medical facility three days' trek across the Ash Dunes. They have clean rooms. Atmospheric scrubbers. If we can get you there, your nanites can stabilize. You won't have to suffer like this."

"Three days," Valen murmured, the despair creeping into his voice. "Silas, I cannot walk. I can barely hold my own head up. I am a broken thing."

"You aren't broken," Silas said fiercely, moving closer, his presence a solid, unyielding wall against the cold and the dark. "You're just in the wrong atmosphere. I'll carry you every step of the way if I have to. Do you trust me?"

Valen looked into the amber eyes of the man he had known for less than a day, a man he loved with a totality that terrified him.

"With my life," Valen answered.