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We hurried through the empty halls of the Iudex tower. Strovi moved quite quickly in spite of the ceremonial plate armor he wore, and I barely managed to keep pace with him, blaming the day’s ride out and back from the Plains. By the time we reached the door to my chamber I was breathless; whether from the investigation or the rush of sotwine clouding my senses, I couldn’t quite tell. I closed the door and leaned back against the stonewood, catching my breath.
I glanced at Strovi standing beside me, our shoulders nearly touching, and suddenly felt the weight of the past few moments bearing down on me. He looked the very picture of grace and chivalry even then, with his ritual garments in disarray and a bemused look clouding over the mirth in his face. Yet I was once again convinced I’d made a mistake to invite him in. The mortifying shame of so clumsy an offer— and how sotted I must’ve been to think it appropriate— still lingered fresh in my memory. But he smiled warmly at me, and, feeling my pulse quicken at my temples, I pressed onwards.
“The bathing basin is back this way,” I said, suddenly finding it difficult to meet his eyes. I indicated the far corner of the room, just beyond the mossbed, where a fernpaper screen stood half-folded before the small copper tub. “I’ll start heating the water.”
I returned a time later to find Strovi standing at attention in the center of the room. I hadn’t seen the need to draw a full bath until now, and spent a considerable time tinkering with the plumbing apparatus until the water began to rise in a fitful trickle. The Iyalets’ pipework, it seemed, could not compete with that of the Hazas’ estate.
I stepped closer to him. His face was unreadable beneath the layers of blood and paint. “Here, let me…” I murmured as I fiddled with the ties of his ritual cloak. The words died on my lips when I realized I didn’t know what, exactly, I was asking of him. He nodded at me, a soft look in his eyes, and I turned away, hoping, perhaps, that by doing so he would not see me blush.
I stepped behind him to get a better grasp of his ritual garments, unfastening them from his decorative pauldrons as best I could. The dry paint flaked off the metal of his armor at my touch. My fingers worked through the ribbons, which had grown tangled at his shoulders like a rapid growth of fretvine tangles through trelliswork. Distantly, I grasped that they were each inscribed with text, in the language of Old Khanum— a long series of prayers, surely— but as my gaze lingered on the words, their letters shivered and seemed to flee from my sight.
As the ceremonial ribbons drifted to the floor, I asked, “Was that the first Banquet of Blessings you’ve been part of, sir?”
“The first,” he affirmed. His demeanor grew solemn as he contemplated his next words. “The first time our circumstances are dire enough to warrant one, in all my years of service. It’s a rather difficult thing to grasp.” He went quiet. I wondered whether I’d misspoken to have asked about the matter. Then he attempted a smile, his eyes cast down at his feet. “Though perhaps I shouldn’t trouble you with such thoughts, at least for the moment.”
I felt I recognized the desperation in his face and felt suddenly guilty, wishing I could take from him those troubles as simply as I had his ceremonial cloak. “You have much courage, then, to be firing the cannon. All my troubles in the Iudex must pale in the face of such peril.”
He tilted his head to one side, considering my words. The light shifted in his curls at the motion. “Perhaps. Though I’ve never much concerned myself over my own courage or cowardice. It is what must be done for the Empire and for all our sakes, nothing more.” Then he turned to gaze at me over his shoulder, a sad, earnest look casting his face in shadow. “And you shouldn’t diminish yourself so, Din. From what I’ve seen, you understand this better than I do.”
I did not know what to say to such a thing, so I bowed— a quarter of a full bow or perhaps even less, given my position. He smiled tightly and turned forward again. His bearing seemed decidedly softer, I noted, a certain tension gone from his posture.
I finished attending to the ceremonial cloths and ribbons of his ritual attire, and, abruptly realizing I should handle such holy articles accordingly, placed them gingerly on the end table behind us. Strovi shifted on his feet as I worked. I wondered whether I should’ve brought him a chair.
Next I unfastened the plates of his armor, its gleaming black surface dulled by the smoke of the ceremonial thuribles. My movements were careful, yet my hands trembled terribly, and as I reached for the armor I felt the warmth of his body through the thin cloth of his shirt. I barely processed the sensation, so great was the effort I needed to stay focused on the task at hand. I took to imagining the captain as a great and noble knight, which I supposed was close enough to the truth, and I as his dutiful squire. It seemed like the only context in which my behavior could still be considered unquestionably proper.
“There,” I said, a time later. “Not sure I followed all the steps of the ritual, if it’s got anything to say about the sacred ways to doff one’s armor. But that should be everything.”
At this, he grinned at me, easy and reassuring. “Oh, you needn’t worry about that. It felt sacred enough to me.”
Strovi was leaning back against the far edge of the bathing basin when I pushed past the fernpaper screen once again. Water rose up to his sternum, its surface coated with bubbles of frothflower soap and the occasional flecks of paint and animal blood. He grinned carelessly at me as I walked in, his skin flushed slightly from the heat. I caught a glimpse of the broad muscle of his chest and quickly looked away, reminding myself to stay controlled and contained.
“Thank you for this. It’s certainly preferable to the bathing quarters in the barracks,” he said, still smiling the easy smile one tends to give to a friend. “Don’t think they’d be particularly pleased to have me leaving this paint everywhere.”
I laughed, faintly. My face suddenly felt quite warm. “Just wanted to repay the favor, sir,” I said. I fumbled through the cabinets for a towel. “Seems like the least I can do, given, ah, everything that’s happened recently.”
He chuckled at this, shifting his weight in the basin as I knelt down beside him.“The least you can do… Well. I appreciate it, Din.”
I leaned in closer, scrutinizing the blood and paint and everything else now dried and crackling over his skin. He met my eyes, his expression kept carefully blank. Absently, I brushed a stray lock of hair from his temple and tucked it behind his ear, hearing a quiet hiss of breath, quickly cut off. Then I swabbed the damp fabric over the pigment at his cheek in what I hoped was a gentle manner.
He went very still at my touch. My hands were still shaking terribly, for I had no idea how I should be conducting myself in such a situation, and the sotwine was no help either. Yet then my memories drifted towards the quiet gleam of desperation in his eyes as he spoke of the titan-killer, and of the leviathan’s impending landfall. It didn’t feel right, leaving him to fend for himself in the time between the ritual and the battle. My presence may have seemed like cold comfort in the face of such a danger, but some comfort nonetheless. Or so I hoped, in any case.
I finished cleansing the blood and paint from his face and leaned back, examining my work. With the ritual pigments wiped clean he looked as still and stern and warm as the visage of the emperor he’d been standing before at the banquet, his noble features arranged in an expression both grave and hopeful, as if in prayer. I nearly stopped short at the sight. Then I noticed a small smudge of blood along the line of his jaw and frowned, scrubbing at it again. Yet still it remained when I drew back my hand. Cautiously, I reached out with one hand to hold his face steady, and immediately found this to be a mistake as he startled away from my touch.
I flinched back. The fear that I’d overstepped turned from a flutter of dread to a cold certainty. “Ah— sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to disturb you so—”
Strovi finally turned to me, his gaze unreadable. I attempted once more to wipe away the blood, but he suddenly reached out and stopped me mid-motion, his fingers strong and unyielding around my palm.
I glanced at him, baffled. He didn’t seem upset, yet still held tightly to my hand, where it hovered some five smallspan from his face. “I… Is everything alright, sir?”
He blinked, looking startled. “Oh. Of course. My apologies.” He examined our clasped hands with the bewildered manner of one startled awake from a dream. “I just— I didn’t want to see you so troubled, especially not just for my sake,” he said.
Upon hearing his words, I could now place the emotion in his eyes: a bemused sort of compassion, as though comforting a comrade whose affliction one does not fully understand. I did not know how to respond to such a sentiment, and held my tongue.
He studied me closely, a slight frown obscuring his graceful features. “Tell me— Do you still feel alone?”
I considered my words for a time. “I don’t think so,” I said eventually.
At this, he nodded, his face sad. “But you’re not sure.”
He still held my hand in his, I noticed, suddenly startled by the warmth of his skin. I stared down at it as though I was just seeing one for the first time.
After a few moments, Strovi said, “For whatever it’s worth, Din, I’m glad you invited me here. I hope I’ve not given you cause to regret that decision.”
“Of course not, sir.”
He looked at me sidelong, evaluating whether to push the issue further, perhaps. Then he squeezed my hand gently, let go, and smiled another smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. “And how many times will I have to tell you just to call me Kepheus, for it to actually stick?”
“Probably at least a few times more, sir,” I replied.
He smirked and said nothing, leaving me to reflect upon the insolence of my words. Perhaps I had gotten too used to speaking with Ana in such a manner. Abruptly, I remembered I was supposed to be helping him clean up from the rite, and retrieved the towel from where it had been forgotten at the edge of the basin. Yet as I wiped clean the last of the paint on his face, his words ate away at my conscience. I hadn’t intended to make him feel unwelcome, and it troubled me that, somehow, I still did. I supposed my discomfort must’ve shone through more readily than I thought.
“It’s really no trouble at all. I didn’t mean to make it seem such a burden,” I said as I moved to rinse out his hair. Even with all the dried bits of paint from the ritual it was still surprisingly soft, I noted. I’d thought as much when I first saw him remove his helm that night in Daretana.
He didn’t respond, and I continued my work in silence. Our eyes met briefly as I guided his head back into the waters. He was looking out across the room with a sad sort of smile, as if he could hear the truth of the matter in the precarious rhythm of my heart. Not particularly moved by my words, it seemed.
I realized then that I’d misspoken, on some level, in my attempt to comfort him; for after all, it had been he who noticed I felt this a burden in the first place. But the burden was not with the simple fact of his presence, or even the repayment of the favor, and I wanted to at least reassure him of that.
I completed the initial rinse and began to work the soap through the tangles of dried paint in his curls. “Well, I suppose I have been nervous, yes,” I said. “But only because I don’t want to mess this up. It’s not— I never wanted to make you feel unwelcome.”
He looked back at me over his shoulder, sympathetic. I was becoming quite familiar with this expression of his. Then a flash of recognition across his face, and a crease of his brow as he frowned. “Mess this up?” he said. “What do you mean?”
I thought for a moment, biting my lip. I wasn’t sure what I’d meant, either, and cursed the sotwine for tricking me into saying it anyway.
“I mean…” I gestured vaguely, feeling that same, mortifying dread from the banquet as my thoughts remained resolutely muddled. “What we have. I was certain I’d, ah— I don’t even know. Maybe I meant— I didn’t want to embarrass myself. To make you think less of me.” Another brief, uncomfortable silence. “Like I’m surely doing now, I suppose,” I said.
“I think it would be very difficult to make me think less of you, Din,” he said softly.
“Oh,” I said, taken aback. I examined his words for any sign of insincerity and found none. “That’s, um, rather kind of you to say, sir. Very much so.”
He moved as if to respond, but seemed to think better of it, offering me a small, gentle smile instead. I smiled back, grateful for the silence and for his kind words.
As the silence stretched on I hurried to scrub the soap through the rest of his hair, intent on avoiding another such incident, sotted words tumbling from my lips before my mind had even thought of them. And if I was quick about it, I’d be able to leave the place before he reconsidered my words and wondered what, exactly, I thought we had.
I finished cleansing his hair, then stood. “Let me find you a clean set of clothes. Seeing as your other pair is, ah, covered in ritual blood.”
He laughed almost in spite of himself as I walked out.
Strovi emerged from behind the panel-screen, my spare tunic draped loosely over his shoulders. His eyes caught mine, where I sat along the side of the mossbed, and he grinned at me good-naturedly. “I must thank you, immensely, for… for your help, and for your company,” he said, bowing. “Seeing how late it is, though, I really should be returning to the barracks.”
I took in the sight of him, the light of the mai-lantern reflecting softly in his damp curls, and suddenly could not stand the thought of him leaving. “Stay the night,” I said, entirely unaware which impulse could have brought out the words.
He blinked at me, bemused, and so I hurried to explain: “I just mean, if this is your last night before the battle, it wouldn’t do for you to spend it alone.” A brief pause. “Sir.”
I heard myself forming the words, the sounds blurred by the haze of sotwine. I wondered why my mind had not stopped my lips from saying them.
He stopped with one hand on the door to my chamber. Then he smiled fondly at me, yet I sensed an undercurrent of something sadder there, too.
“You speak the truth as always, Signum,” he murmured. He crossed the small space of my quarters with slow and deliberate strides until he stood just before me at the edge of the bed. “If this is to be my last night on this earth, I must live it to the fullest. It wouldn’t do if I met my end tomorrow wishing I’d taken certain risks while I still had the chance.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but the words caught in my throat when I saw how he looked at me, half-lidded eyes dark with longing. I stared up at him, at the resigned quirk of his lips, as if he was falling from the sea walls and laughing darkly at his own misfortune. My heart hammered against my ribs. I reminded myself to stay controlled and contained.
Then he leaned down and kissed me.
I froze, lightning arcing through my body where our mouths met. His lips tasted of the blood and wine of the banquet. I was still frozen when he reached out and cradled my face in his hands, and my skin, already flushed a deep red, seemed to smolder and catch fire under his fingertips.
Strovi pulled away a moment later, drawing back his hands as though he’d burnt them. His eyes searched mine, panicked. “I— I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I must’ve thought— Din, are you alright?”
I blinked, slowly emerging from the stupor I found myself in, and finally noticed the worried crook of his brow. It was only then, meeting his eyes and recognizing the emotions hidden within— tenderness, shame, desolation, desire— that I could confront the true magnitude of my yearning. It all felt so obvious to me, now. I wanted to tell him he’d never be lonely again, to cradle his heart in my hands and protect it from all that might harm it, to feel the weight and warmth of his body on mine. I must’ve harbored such desires the entire time I’d known him.
Not trusting myself to speak, I instead leaned forward and kissed him again. His lips were soft and warm against mine, and he kissed me with the utmost sweetness and the utmost desperation. Gasping, I pulled him closer. I breathed in the scent of him— of leather, and incense, and the frothflower soap from the bath, and felt the memory of his touch engrave itself into my mind. A small and distant part of me understood that I would recall this moment, these sensations, every time I encountered such a scent.
Finally, I drew back from the kiss, breathless, and abruptly remembered his panicked look just before. “You don’t have to. Be sorry, I mean,” I said. I struggled to read his expression and quickly turned away, feeling my face redden terribly. “I— I enjoyed that very much.”
He laughed. “I should hope so!” he said, smirking— at my expense, perhaps, but not unkindly. I felt rather silly, then, to be second-guessing my every move since leaving the banquet when he took even my most fumbling words in stride. At this I could only laugh with him, and we sat there for a time, grinning like fools, as a new sort of understanding passed between us.
Eventually, I said, rather breathily, “So this is what you meant, then? Taking certain risks while you still have the chance?”
He gave me a self-effacing smile. “Is that really how I said it? I suppose the circumstances made it rather, ah, difficult to think of something more eloquent…” Chuckling quietly, he affixed his gaze towards the floor. His ears were turning a pale shade of pink. “But. To answer your question: Yes. This is what I wanted.” He paused, finally meeting my eyes once more. “This is what I wanted ever since the day we met.”
“Oh,” I said, surprised. My face burned bright red. The tower pitched and swayed in the night breeze, the creaking of fretvine deafening in the silence between us. Then, when I’d begun to find my words: “Well— That’s what I wanted, too. Ever since we met.”
He looked at me then, reverent and impassioned and hungry, one thumb tracing idle circles over the plane of my cheek. I leaned forward into his touch, close enough now to hear the uneven rhythm of his breath, and pressed a kiss into the soft edge of his palm. “Gods, Din…” he murmured, his voice nearly breaking with desire. His fingers wrapped around the back of my neck and threaded through my hair, his mouth once again finding mine.
This time, he kissed me roughly, ardently, tongue and teeth clashing against my lips. He kissed me with a desperation and an intensity like that of the darkened storm-clouds above, the air between us humid and charged like lightning. I moaned, the sound muffled against his lips. Then I found myself swept up into his embrace, his chest pressed so close to mine I could feel the frantic drum of his heart through the thin fabric of my coat. My own pulse thrummed in wild, whirlwind time with his. I fought vainly to keep myself controlled and contained.
At last I finally collected my wits about me enough to respond in kind, with the sort of fervor only borne of long-stifled desires finally breaching the surface. His lips parted beneath my tongue, and I drew him closer, until my lips blossomed with the tingling pleasure-pain of bruises, until I’d memorized every curve and contour of his mouth. He sighed into the kiss, a low, broken sound. The warmth of him was intoxicating.
Eventually he pulled back, breathing heavily. One hand lingered on my cheek before moving to cradle my chin, tilting my head up to meet his eyes.
I studied him closely. He did not look nearly as polished as he had when he’d escorted me to Suberek’s mill, or even as he did at the Banquet of Blessings— face flushed, lips red and slightly swollen where mine had been, his mop of dark curls disheveled in a manner that only made him even more handsome to me. I felt a stab of something hot and urgent at the thought that it was my touch that had undone him so, and another at the thought of how much more debauched he’d look by the time we were done.
“You look quite the sight, sir,” I whispered. My voice was hardly recognizable as my own, low and ragged and immediately betraying the true depth of my desire. “As always,” I added, perhaps against my better judgment.
He blushed rather intensely at that. I could not keep the smile from my lips as I leaned in to kiss him again.
Despite the shock in his expression he returned the kiss easily, just as impassioned as before. “Caught me off guard ’s all,” he whispered, almost apologetically, when I paused to take a breath. “Seems you’ve a tendency to do so.” He grinned, sharp and bright like the edges of an Imperial longsword. Then his lips were pressed to mine before I could even begin to stammer out a response.
I slowly became aware of his hands drifting down to my chest, stopping at the lapels of my Iudex coat. My heart raced. I was certain he could feel it through the worn-down fabric. “May I?” he asked. He ran his fingers over the topmost buckle as if to complete the question.
I nodded tightly. My tongue felt like lead in my mouth. As he began to unfasten my coat, I pulled him towards me to leave a kiss on the delicate skin at the crook of his neck, open-mouthed and desperate. He gasped and bit his lip, hands trembling slightly as he worked. His fingers felt warm through the thin fabric of my shirt. Then he was kissing me again and it was all I knew: the heat of his mouth on mine, the thundering of my pulse at my temples.
Only moments later— or so it felt to me— he slid his hands under the heavy fabric and slipped the coat from my shoulders. Dazed, I hadn’t even felt him move past the first buckle. I shivered, a flare of warmth igniting in the pit of my stomach, and as he helped me out of my coat I pulled up the hem of the shirt I’d lent him.
He smirked against my mouth. “At this rate it would’ve been simpler if you just joined me in the basin,” he said. His fingers trailed lazily up my thighs, a whisper of a touch, yet the second flare of heat it provoked in me burned even brighter. I barely managed to comprehend his words as a result.
“W-Would’ve been improper conduct on my part, sir,” I bit out.
He dragged his hips along mine, sending yet another flare of heat through my stomach and down further. As hot blood coursed through me I felt a telltale hardness pressing back into him. “Even if I was hoping you would?” he asked.
I stared at him, my mouth working uselessly as warmth flooded my face. “Well, not if I knew— I mean, I had my suspicions, but…” I managed, haltingly. The pressure of his body on my arousal was making it rather difficult to think. I shifted my hips, another wave of pleasure coursing through me at the motion as I finally managed to collect my thoughts. “I wanted to hear you say it. Just to be sure.”
An embarrassed laugh. “I— I see. And here I thought I was being too forward,” he said, almost just to himself. He looked at me earnestly, his eyes then darkening with desire once more. “Then, if I could clarify things somewhat—”
He paused expectantly. I slowly realized he’d intended it as a question.
I nodded, with some difficulty. “I— Please do,” I said, a shiver running through the whole of my body. My voice was barely a whisper.
He hummed in assent and leaned into me. His lips grazed the curve of my earlobe as he spoke.
“I want you, Din,” he breathed. “I want to feel your bare skin on mine.”
I felt some part of my body go stiff with shock the instant the words left his lips.
“Help me take this off?” he said, running his hands gently over mine. I eventually realized they were still clutching at the hem of his shirt. My breath caught in my throat. I had very deliberately excused myself from the basin by the time he’d needed to disrobe fully, and wasn’t sure I’d be able to maintain my composure. Yet I did as he’d asked, slipping the borrowed tunic back over his shoulders with unsteady hands and depositing it unceremoniously at the edge of the bed.
I took in the sight of him, of broad shoulders and sculpted arms, of the rise and fall of his chest at each unsteady breath. The rush of blood at my temples grew to a dull roar. He reached for the edge of my own shirt and I obliged, around me the scratchy friction of moving fabric, and then the bite of cold air on bare skin. I shivered, suddenly quite aware of his eyes on my frame.
He had that reverent look on his face again as he looked me up and down. “Quite the sight, yourself,” he murmured, the ghost of a smile evident in his voice. Then a hand at the small of my back, drawing me into another desperate kiss, and the static shock of lighting at the warmth of his bare skin.
I wrapped an arm around his shoulders, steadying myself as the skin-to-skin contact sparked something hot and urgent and uncontrolled in the pit of my stomach. Yet though I tried to contain it I still found myself stifling a groan against his mouth, my hips lingering on his as I let myself fall even deeper into his embrace. “Yeah?” I said. “What else?”
He looked at me, shy, almost hesitant, lips parted as if to speak. Then, confidence returning, maybe, he took my hand and guided it between his legs to the growing hardness, there. “I— I want your touch, here,” he whispered.
His voice wavered and nearly broke with need. I reminded myself, futilely, to stay at least somewhat controlled and contained.
I did as he asked, curling my fingers around his length and moving, slow and deliberate, mapping out exactly how he wanted me. As my fingers tightened around him I heard a sharp intake of breath and hazarded a glance at his expression, tearing my eyes away from where they’d been so resolutely fixed.
A touch of pink colored his cheeks. His mouth hung slack and open in a long, low sigh. Arousal coursed through me, wild and uncontrollable, at the sight of him, at the shiver that ran through him at my touch. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to coax that noise from his lips once more.
I pressed my lips to his neck, a hungry, searing kiss, one hand still wrapped around his erection as the other hurried to remove the barrier of fabric between us. “Sanctum, you’re good—” he said, in a strangled voice. My fingers trembled at the praise, fumbling with the ties, but once I managed to loose one knot he reached down and freed himself from his trousers. Then his hands were at my waist, fingers digging into the hem of my leggings. “Can I…?”
“Please,” I whispered, surprising myself once again with how different, how ragged and wrung out with need my voice sounded now.
He made quick work of the laces and slipped a trembling hand beneath my underlinens. I bit back a moan at the warmth of his hands, there.
He smiled, still effortless and graceful and noble even amidst the madness of this day and this evening. “Like that?” he murmured, running a hand along the length of my arousal before pulling it free from the fabric. I nodded, suppressing another moan, knuckles white as I clung to the edge of the mattress.
His lips slowly parted from that gracious smile into an expression of good-natured surprise. “Fuck, Din, you’re so hard already,” he murmured.
He was still speaking as he took us both in hand, as I instinctually bucked my hips forward in response, his words now punctuated with sharp breaths and involuntary little sounds of pleasure. Each noise and each word sent a stab of need through me, a sharp, electric crackle straight to my core, and when I bit down hard on my lip I almost expected to taste blood on my tongue.
I struggled to keep my wits about me as the heat mounting in my stomach and in my blood rose to unbearable heights. Every muscle in my body felt as taut as the strings of a situr. I collapsed into his chest, teeth clamped down on his shoulder to keep from crying out as I rutted against his palm.
“I— oh hells, Din, please—” His fingers tightened, dragging luxuriantly over the sensitive skin. It was all I could do to keep moving like this, to keep drawing those beautiful sounds from his mouth, as I quickly found myself adrift in wave after wave of pleasure.
A broad, calloused hand on my cheek as he pulled me into another kiss, languid and devouring, only to cut it off in another desperate gasp. He was fucking me in earnest, now, whispering barely-coherent praise in my ear as he did so. I realized, dimly, that my voice had joined his for some time now.
My body burned with need. With each passing second it grew brighter. Distantly, I heard myself pleading with him, begging him for more, his response a strangled groan and a blaze of pressure at my core as he obliged. Then a rush of euphoric relief as all the aching coiled tension within me went quiet, until all I could feel was the weight and warmth of his body as he held me, and all I could hear was his voice crying out my name, again and again and again.
Kepheus and I lay face-to-face in the mossbed, our foreheads nearly touching, our hands and our legs entwined together. I’d simply collapsed there, exhausted and still drunk with pleasure, only aware of the heave of his chest as he gasped for air beside me. He’d returned a time later and offered me a fresh towel, the sweat wiped clean from his brow and his clothes laced up neatly once again. I’d felt a stab of panic at the sight of him, thinking he meant to leave right then, but he simply pressed his lips to my temple and lay down at my side.
As his brow furrowed in sleep, I suddenly remembered his expression of worry immediately before we left the Banquet of Blessings, and the trials he was certain to face the next day. “I will see you again, after the battle,” I said. It didn’t sound like a question, the way I said it. I supposed I didn’t intend it to be one.
He sighed and pressed a kiss into the back of my hand. “Din, I… If I could promise you such a thing, I would. Without a second thought.”
My eyelids fluttered, memories stirred awake by the solemn note in his voice. Moments from the past evening unfurled in my mind, each of the many times I’d made reference to the dangers he’d surely face at the breach, and the grim fate we all might share if he and the Legion were to fail.
I averted my gaze, ashamed to have reminded him of such hardships yet again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t keep troubling you with such morbid possibilities. I just… Come back safe. Please.”
“Oh, Din…” he whispered, cradling my face in one hand until I met his eyes once more. He gave me a gentle smile, yet the gravity and sorrow of the moment eclipsed the kindness in his face. “This is Talagray. Nothing is certain here. But rest assured that I do intend to see you again.”
I held him close, unsure if or when I would next have the opportunity to do so. His body was warm and comforting next to mine. I felt myself begin to engrave this moment within my memory, and tried to take some solace in that.
“I meant it, you know, about this being sacred enough, at least to me,” he said softly. “So I think that has to count for something tomorrow, too.” He kissed me again. He smelled of leather, and oil, and the frail curls of fretvine leaves.
I smiled and kissed him back. As I drifted to sleep beside him, I reflected on our conversation at the banquet; that he was right to tell me I didn’t have to feel alone, and how silly I’d been that it took so much for me to believe him. Then the tower shifted and swayed below us, and I fell into a deep slumber.