I was hiding under your porch because I love you.

Every battle-mage needs a Center, someone who can see the whole battlefield, who can direct a mage's spell strike to the most effective point, who can balance that ferocious, destructive power with calm and patience and vision.

The Capitol picked Nicklas to be Alex's Center, but it was Alex who spoke his Name when he was chosen.

*

Nicke has a headache. It's not bad, not yet. He can ignore it as his magic sweeps out over the distant battlefield. He and Alex are standing at the top of the Monument. Just beyond the Beltway, the tide of the Corruption crests, pressing against the shields that protect the city.

It is not entirely magical, not entirely physical. To Nicke's magic, it looks like a vast, bruise-black cloud, shifting and roiling. The power, the virulence of the Corruption waxes and wanes according to some arcane conjunction of the stars and the tides and the seasons. It gathers itself, stretching upward like a wave about to break.

There, Nicke says, or thinks, but Alex is with him and he sees what Nicke sees.

Alex's power leaps outwards like a bolt of lightning, striking at the nexus of power that forms the wave, and the Corruption there dissipates, ebbs back into the larger flow. He can feel the rush of Alex's savage exultation as the Corruption recoils, and he knows Alex feels the echo of his own satisfaction.

There's a shout from the heavy infantry, and their offensive line advances to fall on the things that travel with the Corruption, now revealed as the Corruption seeps back -- twisted, monstrous creatures that once were animals and plants and people.

In the distance, on the bare ridge of the Shenandoah Mountains, Nicke is aware of the Ones Who Wait. Every time the tide of the Corruption rises to attack the city, the Ones Who Wait are there. To Nicke's magic, they give the impression of skeletal giants, of vast winter-bare branches, veiled in the same fog of poisonous magic that beats against the city's shields. They never join the attack, never do anything but stand atop the distant mountains and wait, but they are always there.

Alex's power lashes out again and again, driving the Corruption back in inches. Nicke scans the edge of the front, making sure the Corruption doesn't flow around to flank the infantry. But it is only this wave pressing up from the southwest.

"Enough," Trotz says. "Second line, you're up."

It's an effort to pull his mind back from the front, to close his magic back into his own head. The vision of the Beltway and the Corruption recedes, and he's back in the plain stone room at the top of the Monument.

Kuznetsov and Williams have taken over, Kuzy's quick, flashing magic directing Justin's deep, steady power.

Nicke's headache flares up, hot and blinding, and he stumbles back a step. Alex catches his elbow, holds him up. Part of the pain is from Alex, too, and Nicke makes an effort to breathe slowly and bleed the pain down into the stone instead of into his bond with Alex.

Then the trainers are there with bottles of water and cold towels, herding them both towards the door and down the flight of stairs to the ready room where the third and fourth lines are waiting to be called up.

Nicke sits down and leans his head back against the wall. Alex is a steady presence next to him and in the back of his head. Alex thumps his fist gently against Nicke's thigh, a sense of good job, we did it coming through without words. Nicke reflects the thought back, yes, you, too.

The third line gets called up after a while, and Kuzy and Justin come back looking tired and nauseous.

Eventually, Nicke can feel the slow shift of power as the conjunction that powered the attack begins to move out of alignment and the Corruption begins to dissipate like mist at sunrise. It leaves behind a scoured, poisoned wasteland.

It's over, for now anyway. The shields have held and the city is untouched.

Nicke understands there was a time when the world wasn't like this, but this is all he's ever known, humanity pressed into cities, hiding behind shields and battle-mages from the Corruption that spread like a plague across the globe.

In all the time that Nicke has been in Washington, they have reclaimed maybe a kilometer of land from the Corruption. Some days that feels like an incredible victory, and some days it feels like the most futile use of life and power imaginable. Today is somewhere in between.

Alex grips the back of his neck, gives him a tiny shake. "Sleep now," he says.

Nicke yawns and nods, and follows Alex back to the barracks.

*

Nicke dreams about the Ones Who Wait, but in his dream they are not waiting.

He stands in the Monument like he always does, and they stand on their mountain. The Corruption rolls and seethes just beyond the shields, but from the mountain, the Ones Who Wait send a surge of power, a snake-quick bolt of magic that slides through Nicke's defenses and burrows into his body. It feels like ice and sickness, and it leaves a terrible numbness in its wake.

Nicky!

He tries to push it back, but it slips around the patterns of his magic, creeping closer to his heart.

NICKY!

Alex, he thinks, and then Alex is there, bright and hot and furious.

Alex's power flows through him, burning out the cold, poisonous magic of the Corruption. One the mountain, the Ones Who Wait take a step back, a strange murmuring rush of power eddying around them.

Wake up, Alex says, and Nicke jerks awake, his heart beating like crazy.

Alex is leaning over him, gripping his shoulders. "Nicky! You okay?"

"It was just a dream," Nicke says. There is a faint, lingering taste of rot in the back of his throat and he swallows it down. "They can't get through the shields, it was just a dream."

Alex looks at him like's crazy. He can feel Alex's fear, what it was like for Alex to feel Nicke fading into that coldness.

"It was just a dream," Nicke says again, like he can make it be true. He pushes calm he doesn't feel at Alex.

Alex huffs. "Fine," he says. "But I sleep here tonight."

He pokes Nicke in the ribs until Nicke rolls over, then climbs into bed beside him. They're not rookies, the bond is stable enough now that they don't have to share a room anymore. Nicke misses it sometimes.

Alex half-spoons him, half-lies on him, and Nicke's heartbeat finally starts to even out.

He's afraid to close his eyes, though.

"Nicky," Alex says softly, and then, even softer, his Name. He traces a rune of shielding on Nicke's bare shoulder, and even though he's not Holtby, doesn't have the right kind of magic for it, it makes that hard, cold knot in his chest ease up. Nicke exhales, and lets his eyes sink shut.

The Capitol picked Nicke to be Alex's Center, but it was Alex who spoke his Name when he was chosen, and sometimes Nicke wonders if they understood what they were doing when they made Alex do that. If they understood that they were hooking Alex into his soul so deep he would follow him anywhere, burn anything for him. If they know it now.

Sleep, Alex says, a soft brush of his mind, and Nicke does.