Chapter Text
They finish before the first snow falls, barely. The intricate chalk markings they make swirl and wind around the temple in patterns that Abram finds oddly nostalgic. He knows it’s his hand that is helping make the complex sigil, but he doesn’t understand how he knows what to draw. The magic flows through him, and he’s able to envision how the delicate lines he’s drawing interweave into something greater, something powerful. It startles Abram, how easy he finds it.
It feels like writing in a language he doesn’t remember learning, but can also never forget.
And Abram doesn’t understand, but then again, maybe he does.
Somewhere along the line he recognizes that he’s not just drawing random patterns of magic, that there is meaning within the shapes he creates. They tell stories of the stars, and battles won, of legends long lost, and people long gone. Abram discovers he knows these stories, or at least his soul does.
It’s a disorienting realization, one Abram finds himself lingering on as he spends his nights helping magic carve its way into stone.
The markings Andrew makes are similar, yet different. The magic within them sings strongly of the moon, and Abram really shouldn’t have expected anything else. It is part of Andrew’s essence, separating Andrew from the moon’s magic is impossible, so of course his part of the sigil weeps of it.
They don’t see much of each other in the time they spend constructing the sigil. Their main form of communication is through Wane and Wax, who travel back and forth between the two boys as they see fit. Andrew might be the only one of them that can understand lion, but Abram thinks he’s starting to, in a roundabout way. He doesn't know exactly what they say to him, but he gets most of it.
As Andrew had said, they meet in the middle of the temple, which happens to be an amphitheater overgrown with vines and the dying remnants of wildflowers. Their respective halves of the sigil come together with ease, linking to create a whole greater than its parts could ever be on their own.
Andrew and Abram face each other with heads bowed, staring down at their completed sigil. Abram can feel himself trembling, but he doesn’t understand why. A wave of exhaustion washes over him, and the chalk falls from his hand, shattering on the ground.
“Oh.” He blinks down at it.
“We’re done,” Andrew says a little breathlessly.
Abram looks up at him to find the other boy gazing back. Tonight, his eyes are completely void of the moon, an unknowable blackness that seems to go on for eternity taking place of the usual light. “What now?”
“We have to activate the sigil, and open its channels so magic can begin flowing freely through it,” Andrew explains simply.
“How?”
Andrew reaches into a pocket, and pulls out the carved stone blade from before.
Abram sighs. “Why do these things always require blood?”
“It’s something powerful, something sacred, but not all of it holds magic. Only some people’s.” Andrew says bluntly. “Others aren’t so unfortunate.”
“Ouch.” Abram tilts his head. “How did you know I’d be able to do magic, then?”
“Because I know you, Abram.”
Abram’s sure there’s more to those words than Andrew will ever admit. It’s not just about the two years they’ve spent together, it’s something more deep set than that. It’s like something’s there at the edge of Abram’s recollection, but when he tries to reach for it it slips through his fingers. He thinks it’s a memory. Or, perhaps it’s the memory of a memory that should be there but isn’t.
Abram’s certain of one thing though, he knows Andrew too.
Overhead the clouds move with the wind, covering the moon. Suddenly it is very dark, and a chill winds its way up Abram’s spine. He’s not sure where Wane and Wax have run off to.
“You do,” Abram whispers, he feels like if he speaks louder something will break, and he wants to prevent that for as long as he can. “So, I just need to give a little blood for the sigil again?”
“No,” Andrew says, just as quietly. “This time it doesn’t need your blood.”
Abram frowns. “Whose else…” He catches Andrew’s eyes. “Can spirits even bleed?”
There is a long second of silence. “No.”
Abram isn’t surprised.
Andrew presses the dull end of the blade into the palm of Abram’s hand. “I want you to do this.”
“Are you sure?” Abram double checks as his hand wraps around the blade.
Andrew’s face is blank as he regards Abram, it’s almost like he’s seeing through Abram. “Yes.”
He lets go of the blade and holds out his hand. Palm facing the sky Andrew yanks one of his long sleeves up with force. The moon chooses that moment to make a reappearance, and Abram gapes. Thin white scars carve their way over Andrew’s wrists and up his forearms. Abram knows the marks a knife leaves when he sees them. “Andrew…”
“It’s nothing.”
Anger wells up from the pit of Abram’s soul. “No, it’s not.”
Andrew’s jaw clenches for a second, and he takes a step forward. “If you won't do it then I will.”
“Tell me what happened.” Abram tucks the blade into a pocket and takes a step back.
“You’re impossible,” Andrew huffs.
“Tell me.”
“My blood is more powerful than most.” Andrew takes another step forward. “Sometimes that power needs to be used. Give me the blade.”
“No.”
“Abram.”
“Andrew.”
They glare at each other. Andrew is the first to break their stand still, closing his eyes and looking away. “If we stop now the seal will stay.”
Abram knows this, that doesn’t mean he has to like it, though. “Fine, but I’m doing it with you.”
A crease appears between Andrew’s brows. “The sigil doesn't require your blood.”
Abram folds his arms over his chest. “Too bad, it’s getting it anyway.”
Andrew looks like he’s about to protest, but Abram pulls the blade out again. “Do you want to crack the seal or not?” Andrew silently stares at him, and Abram doesn’t know what he’s thinking, but whatever it is Andrew’s shoulders fall. “You’re not alone anymore, we can do this together.”
“Impossible,” Andrew mutters a second time. Once again, he holds out his hand, palm up. “Fine but draw mine first.”
Abram narrows his eyes. “If you try to do this without me you won’t like the outcome.”
Andrew sighs. “Sure, Abram.”
Raising the blade, Abram presses it into the center of Andrew’s palm. Practicality wise, it’s not the best place to draw blood from, Abram knows, but he supposes there might be some sort of symbolism in it he’s missing. Magic has a lot to do with rituals and symbols, he’s learned.
The boy’s palm slices open under Abram’s hand, and blood begins to pool at its center. Abram’s unable to look away, instead of a sickly crimson Andrew’s blood shines a bright silver in the moonlit night.
“Give me the blade.” Andrew reaches for the dark stone crescent with his other hand, and Abram gives it over easily, turning his hand over so his palm is facing upward.
Andrew’s eyes are locked on his as he cuts into Abram’s skin, his warm blood trickling out, and beginning to cool in the night air. “What next?”
Andrew then kneels carefully, making sure none of his blood spills on the ground, and Abram follows suit. The center of the sigil is between them, and at this angle Abram can’t tell were his half ends and Andrew’s begins.
Andrew gestures to his hand. “Give me that.”
Abram raises an eyebrow, but moves his hand so it’s over the sigil trying not to let his blood spill. In a swift move Andrew twines their finders and presses their bloodied palms together. Silver and crimson mix, and a rivulet of blood escapes from their grasp, a single drop landing in the middle of the sigil.
Abram gasps as a strong wave of magic manifests, pushing itself outward with an inaudible pop. Its song flows loudly between the two boys in the next second. Abram looks up at Andrew’s face, and studies it as Andrew keeps his eyes trained downward. It’s barely noticeable, but Abram can tell the boy in front of him has aged over the years along with Abram. He wonders if Andrew has realized.
Andrew moves their hands, so their palms are pressing into the ground, fingers still linked. “Do you feel that?”
And Abram does, there’s a thump under his fingers, like a far-off heartbeat. “What is it?”
“The temple, it’s waking up.”
“Like you did.”
Andrew looks up at him, eyes a bright silver once again. “Like I did, because of you.”
They sit together in silence for a few minutes before Andrew finally untwines their hands. Abram sighs, missing the contact. Andrew’s magic leaves with the absence of his touch, and Abram is left feeling oddly hollow, like he’d found something after a long time searching, only to have it taken away again in the next second. The heartbeat of the temple still sounds distantly in the back of his mind now, but it’s different without Andrew there.
A warm nose presses into the back of his head a moment later, and Abram flinches, swinging around to find Wax standing over him. The lion leans down, licking the crown of Abram’s head.
Wane appears at Andrew’s side, and flops over next to him. He looks down at the cat. “Lazy.”
“You two left us to do all the hard work,” Abram says, trying to smooth his hair out of the tangle Wax has made it with his uninjured hand. Wax simply yawns at him. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Let me heal that,” Andrew gestures at Abram’s hand.
It takes only a touch to heal it. “What about you?”
“Watch.” Andrew shows him his palm, and Abram watches as the skin knits itself back together.
“Huh.”
Andrew flops back next to Wane, and says to the stars. “We’ll let the magic settle into the new channels we made, but after it does, we can try cracking the seal.”
Abram follows his eyes to the sky and watches the moon. “And then we can leave.”
“Yes,” Andrew responds.
____________
Of course, everything decides to fall apart soon after that. Fate has never been kind to Abram, and it certainly doesn’t make an exception now, even with Andrew around. Abram’s mother decides to run a week after he turns fourteen, and she doesn’t take Abram with her.
She leaves in the middle of the night, breaking into their treasury, and steals a large sum of gold. Then she vanishes without a trace, almost as if she had never been there at all.
His father is furious, and he takes out that rage on Abram. The first night she’s gone he brings Abram to the basement room where they usually have their lessons, but this time it’s Abram he straps to the table and tests his blades on, carving deep lines that overlap to the point that Abram doesn’t think he’ll have any skin left by the end of it. When he isn’t using knives, his father takes heated staves of metal, and presses them into Abram’s flesh until it sizzles and pops.
Luckily Abram blacks out for the worst of it, but what he can remember isn’t pleasant.
His father lets him go a few agonizingly long days later, dragging him back to his room and throwing him carelessly to the floor. Abram blinks up at him through the tears that involuntarily drip from his eyes. The cold fury that is on his father’s face as he looks down at Abram is leagues better than the smile he wore while cutting Abram open.
“If you run off before the Moriyamas come to get you I’ll know exactly where you are,” his father says, then slams the door to his room shut. There is a click as his father locks it, trapping Abram in his small room.
The words the man said slowly seep into Abram’s consciousness, settling there like snow. They send a jolt of fear up his spine when Abram finally register's their meaning.
His father is sending him away.
His father knows about the temple.
He has to tell Andrew.
With that thought Abram hauls himself painstakingly off the ground, and limps his way towards the window. Somehow Abram’s father still hasn’t realized he can get out this way, which Abram is grateful for. The drop from his window to the ground is long, if he fell, he’d probably die, but he still begins the climb downwards. It’s much harder than normal, the combination of pain and continued blood loss from open wounds making it so Abram feels light and fuzzy. It’s like he’s controlling his body with puppet strings, but eventually he reaches the ground.
He doesn’t remember the walk to the temple, one moment he’s starting off into the woods and the next he’s stumbling amongst the ruins. The decaying white stone comforting in a way Abram has never experienced before.
His legs collapse under him the next second, and his vision blacks out.
When he opens his eyes again there’s Andrew leaning over him, pressing a cold hand into his chest. The pain is gone, replaced by a sluggish numbness. Something soft and warm lies against his right side, and Abram looks over to find Wane curled up against him, golden eyes glowing brightly. Wax sits not too far behind her, eyes directed to the forest around them, there are quiet growls coming from her throat whenever the wind makes a noise.
“What happened?” Andrew asks, voice a steady monotone, but his shoulders are trembling.
“Do you think we can try cracking the seal now?” Abram doesn’t know how to put it all into words, is afraid if he does what happened will become real.
Andrew begins shaking his head. “You’re too weak.”
And Abram is disappointed, but not surprised, he can’t even feel the magic that usually sings so loudly. He wonders if something might have been permanently broken within him.
Andrew raises his hands and traces gentle fingers under Abram’s eyes. “My rune didn’t work.”
“It has worked more times than you know,” Abram admits. Wane makes something close to a whine next to his ear. Abram moves his arm and gently pats her on the nose.
“Not when it mattered.”
“You don’t get to decide when it matters, Andrew.”
Andrew stares at him for a long moment, eyes swimming in silver light. “What happened, Abram?”
“My mom left,” Abram tells him.
“She left you there alone with him,” Andrew says roughly.
“Yes.”
Andrew takes a shaky breath then says something in a lilting language Abram doesn’t understand. “Andrew, I don’t...
Andrew bends down and presses his forehead against Abram’s, and Abrams eyes flutter shut at the comforting pressure. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything. “Abram wouldn’t have Andrew blaming himself for this.
“I know,” Andrew says vehemently. “I couldn’t.”
“Andrew…” Abram open’s his eyes, and Andrew is so close. “This wasn’t you.”
“When I get out of here…”
“You’ll help me kill my father.” The thought makes Abram smile.
“Yes, “Andrew breathes, and then drops to Abram’s unoccupied side.
Abram turns his head, not wanting to look away from Andrew. Andrew gazes back. They stay like that for a while. One moon wanders the sky high above Abram, while the other one rests protectively to Abram’s left. Their lions patrol around them, and Abram knows he is safe for what feels like the first time in too long.
It can’t last, though.
“It’s getting late.”
Andrew looks at him, frowning. “You’re not leaving.”
“I have to.”
“Says who?”
“My father knows I come here,” Abram says, pulling himself reluctantly from Andrew. “If he finds out I’m here he’ll raze this forest till there’s nothing left but ash.”
Andrew doesn’t say anything to that, but he doesn’t stop Abram when he gets to his feet either. Abram’s skin is still painful and tight in places, but there are no open cuts and the burns are now just angry red splotches. “We need to crack the seal soon.”
“Tomorrow,” Andrew says, and stands as well. “Come back tomorrow and we’ll try then, make sure to get some rest.”
Abram nods. “Tomorrow, then.”
Andrew grabs his hand before he can leave. “Promise me you’ll come back.”
“I promise, Andrew,” and Abram means it.