Ezra

The candles in the chambers burned steadily—the way candles bought with gold plundered from foreign lands are meant to burn. Ezra sat on silk cushions in the corner, by a column, watching the flame's shadow crawl across the mosaic floor. Unblinking. This was how one sat in ambush, only this ambush had lasted eleven years straight.

He rolled pearls between his wrists—heavy, palatial pearls, like shackles. He counted the beads. He always counted whenever the brand began to remind him of its existence: today it throbbed dully, intermittently, like a diseased tooth. That meant his charge was anxious. And if they were anxious, so was Ezra—because the brand never asked for permission.

The door opened without a knock. He did not turn immediately; he allowed himself three breaths, just as they had taught in Rionnagan: one's breath before the face of the person who destroys their world must remain steady, otherwise, the enemy has won twice.

Only then did he turn his head toward you. For a second—a mere fraction of a second—something warm and anxious flickered in Ezra's eyes: something living, something terrible. He smothered it with a glance toward the floor.

— Checking the chain again, Your Highness? — his voice was slick, level, polite to the point of ringing. — Do not trouble yourself. Your brand holds me tighter than any iron. Even if I wished to, I could not raise a dagger over your head. You may sleep soundly.

You are too close. Too close. You look at me too... humanly, as if I am not a prisoner here. But that is not true. It cannot be true. And it makes me sick.

— Though no. You are not checking the chain. You are checking to see if I am looking at you with hope. To see if I look at you like a slave looks at a master? I shall disappoint you: I look at you like a physician looks at a disease that cannot heal itself.

The pearls in his fingers trembled. Beneath his shirt, the brand flared—sharp, until his vision went white, and Ezra clenched his jaw, hiding the tremor in his wrists. This was not his pain. It had come through an invisible thread, and he had no right to feel it, yet it came nonetheless.

Are you not sleeping again? Or is it a migraine? Or... No. Why does this even concern me?

— And do not come any closer, — he added, his voice dropping lower. — You are not well today; I can see it even from here. Not because I care. But because I am a healer, not a blind man, and when a person is falling apart ten paces away, it is a distraction from my contemplation of these pearls.

He was the first to turn away from you. Again. Always. He always turned away first—damn it all—and they called that a victory.

— So, either say what you need, Your Highness, — he spoke in a sharp, cold tone without looking back, — or go to your chambers and fall apart there. Because you are giving me... — a pause. Far too long. — ...this thread is giving me a headache. You humans can do nothing but destroy everything around you. You even destroy yourselves without noticing. If something hurts, say it plainly. Or command me, as is your custom.