The Nightshade Terror (BL Harem)

Valentius looked at the book. At the ruin of a book which was fading into magical dust.

 He scooped the dust, but it ran down his fingers.

"Valentius," it was just a whisper on the wind. But the boy heard it. 

There he had been, brave for just a moment, and now, he was no longer as brave.

Before, he could have been with Amos. He could have had a peaceful life. The Archdemons used their brides for only two things. Neither of them were fighting.

But what was he going to do, if that man demanded that Albert do things with him? 

They were young! They were not supposed to do them!

"Hey," another whisper.

Valentius looked at the dungeon. If he was not going to be using the Archdemon to secure their future, then he was going to just have to secure their future on their own.

"Albert," the blonde was a victim. The blonde was everything that Valentius could have been, had that cloaked figure seen him. "We are in this together, right?"

Maybe it was selfish of Valentius, but he didn't know how he was going to cope with it all if Albert left. If he chose to go and pretend to be a farmer somewhere.

"Right," a single word, spoken with the conviction of someone who didn't have a way out.

"Right," Valentius repeated because that was a vow, as strong as the life one Albert had cheated him in, and they needed to do this right.

"We have to go inside," Valentius pointed at the smoking ruin of the cave. The stone was absorbing the mana. But the walls were charred. "If the core was still alive, then it would have dealt with the damage."

It was a universal truth. One both he and Albert had to acknowledge.

But it wasn't the truth that they both wanted to hear. No. 

It was something as old as time, that truth that they were searching for.

The truth of the life of an outlaw. The only life before them.

"My slave rune is not burned off," Albert told him, as he made the first step to his staff. "And I don't think that it ever will be."

"Who…" Did Valentius have the stones to ask? Did he dare ask who that person in the black robe was? He gulped. "Albert, what put that rune on you?"

For as much as Valentius believed that the person was a human, he was certain that it simply couldn't be.

After all, had it been a human, then the mana of that thing wouldn't be so dead!

Necromantic mana in someone who was neither a Boliarin nor a Lich was never as potent!

"I saw you," there was no accusation in that voice. Albert was just beginning to tell his tale. 

The boy picked up his staff and sat by his protector.

If someone had told Albert that he would ever think of Valentius so, before, when Bartolomeo had been all charm and silly jokes, he would have laughed.

Valentine? A protector? When Bartolomeo was big, strong, and everything a prince charming should be?

Albert's hands began to shake.

That beast was neither a prince nor charming, he wanted to yell.

Warmth enveloped his hands. He looked down.

"Hey," Valentius was trying to catch his gaze. There they were, both with brown eyes.

But they, even as much as they didn't want to admit it, were not the same. One had seen and been through hell.

 The other had just gotten a second-hand taste of it.

"What?" Albert whispered. "Will everything be ok?"

He didn't want to be mean. He didn't want to be sarcastic. That was a serious question for a boy who had no silliness left in him.

"Well, now we're married," Valentius told him with a straight face. "And I'll take care of you."

"You didn't answer my question," Albert whispered.

"No," Valentius agreed. It was a question too bitter for words. "Because nothing will ever be ok, my soulmate."

If they were not so, Valentius thought, then the contract wouldn't have activated at all. "But you are someone whom I will cherish. I won't avenge you. I will keep you warm and hold you at night when the nightmares get too bad."

Albert's hand twitched, his fingers brushing against Valentius' dirty tunic.

"Because I might not love you, but you chose me," Valentius smiled a small smile. He didn't have it in him to be happy about the way he had found the most important person in his life.

"Will you still do that, all that, even after you find the rest?" Albert got him out of the fluffy feeling he was feeling. 

Him, Valentius, a true Nightshade citizen of old, having a soulmate?

Something the Archdemons had invented to torture them all?

He had not believed it possible. Had not wanted for it to happen.

And yet, it had.

"Do you know who they are?" Valentius just wanted to learn their names. Albert needed him. If the healer wanted him to forget about the rest, then Valentius was going to.

Because to leave Albert to the side, when he was there and littered with cracks, was too cruel to be considered.

"Amos is one of them," Valentius made an "oh" sound, but still took a hold of Albert's hand and gave it a little squeeze. "And there are at least three other demons."

Valentius shook his head like a wet dog.

No, soulmates were not the product of true love, or even the choice of someone's soul. Before he had even been born, some Archdemon had decided to have fun at his expense.

"You are the only one," Valentius said, standing up. "And I will provide."

He made a step towards the smoking cave. Not looking back.

Slow steps were his answer. The steps of someone who was going into a cave of their worsts terrors.

Valentius knew that Albert would have his back. And one day, maybe the blonde would tell him about the strange creature who had robbed so much of him.

But for now, the call of the God of Greed was urging them forward.