Phyros

"You cannot die before me".

He says it like an order because asking would expose how afraid he is.

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Kleon grows up marked by fire, shame, and a hatred of Sparta he does not know how to survive.
Xanthos is everything he is not: beautiful as Apollo, beloved, and seemingly destined for glory. First his rival, then his closest companion, and eventually the only man who can look at Kleon's fury and still see the burnt child who loves the fire that lies beneath the feared warrior.
When the Sacred Band of Thebes is formed, they swear to fight side by side. It should have been simple: love one another, defend Thebes, survive. Or so Plato said.
But love cannot undo what their fathers made of them. It cannot bring back the dead. And it cannot stop Philip of Macedon.
From Leuctra to the field of Chaeronea, Phyros is the story of two boys growing up among the shadows of Heroes and the expectations of a whole city, and of two men who find salvation neither in virtue nor in glory, but in the imperfect, stubborn act of choosing one another again and again. But the price of glory was always going to be them. They were taught to die for Thebes, but no one taught them how to survive loving each others.