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The return to Tir Asleen is such an exhausted blur, Jade does not have time to think about the way Kit guides them to her bedchamber. It’s only when she wakes after far too little sleep, blinking up at a velvet canopy which she has never seen before at this angle, that she is forced to take in her surroundings.
Kit’s bedchamber is nearly double the size of the officers’ quarters in the Pacalcade barracks. Watery light filters through latticed windows, illuminating Kit’s travel clothes which lie scattered over a padded chair, spilling onto the floor. Jade’s own clothes are folded on the wooden chair by the dressing table, her boots tucked neatly below the seat.
Beside her, Kit groans, one arm flopping across Jade’s torso. Kit is spread across the mattress on her stomach, her limbs splayed in a manner which should not be comfortable, but Kit does not move. Her hair is a mess, shielding her face from Jade’s gaze. The blanket has slid below her shoulders, and Jade gives in to the urge to draw it up and tuck the blanket back around Kit’s neck. Autumn has taken hold of Tir Asleen in their absence.
“Mmm.” Kit reaches up to brush her hair out of her face. “Tell me we don’t have to get up.”
Jade tucks a loose strand behind Kit’s ear and kisses her temple, just as she has dozens of times since their first night together on the Shattered Sea. “Not yet.”
“Great.” Kit tightens her arm around Jade’s torso and snuggles in close. For a moment, Jade lies with Kit in a happy bubble, losing herself in Kit’s warmth and the steady rhythm of her breathing, until a muffled crash and a shout echo through the window.
Jade is halfway out of bed, already reaching for her sword, when reality reasserts itself and she recognises the familiar sounds of the servants and labourers going about their business in the courtyard. It’s barely dawn and the castle is already humming with activity. At any moment a maid will knock on the door with firewood and water for the bath, and she will see Jade in the Princess’s bed and everyone will know.
Suddenly, the mattress is too soft, the blankets too heavy and hot against her skin, and she needs to get out of this room now.
She surges up from the bed, dragging the blanket with her. Over her shoulder, Kit makes a small noise of surprise.
“Sorry,” Jade mumbles, tucking the blankets back around Kit. “I’m going to check on my things in the barracks. I’ll see you later, okay?”
Kit blinks sleepily, half sitting up. “Want me to go with you?”
“No, it’s fine.” Jade gives her a quick kiss, hoping Kit won’t notice her quickening pulse. “Get some more sleep before your first council meeting.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.” She falls back onto the pillows with a groan. Jade watches Kit as she shoves her legs into her pants, almost stumbling in her haste.
The corridor is mercifully empty when she pushes open the heavy door to Kit’s room, and Jade cannot move out of the castle fast enough.
A few stablehands look up as she approaches the main barn, their hands pausing on rakes and barrows as though they are unsure whether to acknowledge her presence. Jade walks past them with her eyes on the ground, trying to act as though she has not just returned from a dangerous quest with a rescued prince and the Empress of the Nine Realms in tow. Inside, Midnight raises his head out of his feed trough in the first stall, hay dangling from his mouth as he flicks a fly off his ear with blessed indifference.
Jade leans against the door of the stall and reaches out to stroke his nose. Midnight wickers when he recognises the scent of his mistress, and Jade lets herself into his stall and leans against his flank. His coat is warm and silky against her cheek. This, at least, has not changed.
She grooms Midnight and mucks out his stall out of habit rather than necessity, then walks out to the officers’ barracks. Thankfully, the knights are all out on the training grounds by now. Jade hesitates before the door to Ballantine’s dwelling, heart pounding, then turns the knob. The door swings open, unlocked.
One step over the threshold and she is standing inside the spartan kitchen. The table, chairs and cooking pots are coated with an oily layer of dust. Her own room in the attic is similarly untouched, her bed clothes folded back where she left them, her practice sword sheathed and hanging from the rack on the wall. Mechanically, Jade strips the musty sheets from the straw-stuffed mattress and carries them outside to the laundry lines, then sets about cleaning the small house. She rinses the pots and wipes the tables, tosses out the remnants of cheese and mouldy bread, fills bucket after bucket of water from the well to scrub the floors.
She avoids Ballantine’s room altogether.
The sun is hanging low on the horizon by the time she finishes, so Jade meets Kit in the dining hall only to tell her that she will be sleeping in her own room tonight. She needs to get Ballantine’s affairs in order, she says. Kit looks confused and opens her mouth to respond, but then Elora appears at her elbow, requesting Kit’s help with yet another visit from a royal ambassador. Kit gives her an apologetic shrug, but leaves.
Jade does not return to the castle the following morning. Instead, she goes to a lesser-used training yard and dons a weighted training vest. She works through the same sword drills she has practised each day since she was twelve years old, adding weights to the vest throughout and losing herself in pushing her body beyond the limits of her endurance.
Eventually, her screaming muscles force her to stop. She’s hanging up the vest and taking a drink from her waterskin when she hears soft, familiar footsteps cross the flagstones behind her.
“Thought I’d find you here,” Kit says. She is dressed in a deep green silken shirt and her customary black studded vest, Madmartigan’s sword at her belt. It’s the same way she used to announce herself in the past, except now her slouchy swagger has given way to an upright posture, the muscles of her shoulders and back straining against the fabric.
Jade rubs a cloth over her sweating face. “I’m surprised they let you out.” Kit, Airk and Elora have been in one meeting after another since their return. Jade, on the other hand, has been mostly ignored since she gave her report to the new leader of the Pacalcade. No need for the Princess’s bodyguard in the Council chambers when the entire Royal Guard is stationed outside.
Kit smirks. “We got time off for good behaviour.” Her blues eyes spark with her usual playful wit. Normally, this would be the cue for Jade to provide some sort of joking retort, something along the lines of Kit being incapable of behaving herself, but Jade is too weary for their regular banter. Kit’s grin falters, her stance shifting. “How are things at Ballantine’s place?”
Jade clenches her jaw, tightening her grip on her practice sword. “Empty. You know, since no one lives there anymore.”
Kit winces. “Sorry, that was…”
“Forget it.” Jade hangs the practice sword on the armoury rack with a little more force than is necessary. “It’s fine.”
She finds herself automatically following Kit back towards the great hall and the royal apartments. She stays silent, hoping, almost, that Kit will push her to speak about Ballantine. About everything.
Kit doesn’t push.
Instead, the silence drags out between them as they walk across the courtyard and threatens to become awkward. Kit stops before the entrance to the great hall. “Want to spar later? Before dinner?”
Jade shrugs. “If you want. Not like I’ve got anything else to do.”
A frown passes over Kit’s face, but it disappears just as quickly. “I have to head back to the Council. I’ll see you later, yeah?”
She puts one hand on Jade’s shoulder and leans in for a kiss, but Jade steps back, head bowed. “Kit, someone will see.”
Kit moves in, undeterred, a smile playing on her lips. “So let them. I don’t care what anyone thinks of us.”
It’s such a Kit thing to say. So, so typically Kit. Jade snorts. “Of course you don’t.”
Kit stops, hurt flickering in her eyes. Her shoulders slouch forward as she fiddles with her sleeve. “Jade, what’s going on?”
Jade’s temper flares. “You honestly haven’t heard what people say about us? About me? That I only got accepted as a knight because I’m the princess’s plaything?”
“Wait,” Kit snaps, “is that why you wanted to leave to join the Shining Legion? You’re ashamed of being friends with me?”
Even after everything that has happened, after Jade has proven her loyalty and devotion time and time again, Kit still has not let that one go. “I wanted to join the Legion because I wanted to be a knight. You know that. It might come as a shock, but not everything is about you, princess.”
Kit steps back, arms folded, and Jade can practically see her walls descending. “Yeah, you made that pretty damn clear when you accepted without telling me.”
Fuck. This. Jade’s teeth grind in her jaw and the words burst from her without restraint. “What did you expect to happen, Kit? That I would just be there in the stables my whole life? Ready for you whenever you’d like a distraction from the marriage you never wanted?”
It’s a barb meant to hurt, and it does. Kit’s face crumples, her lip quivering as though she is about to cry and desperately trying to hold it back. A chill runs down Jade’s back as instinct screams at her to apologise, to let Kit win as she always has, to let Kit go on the attack because she knows Kit would rather fight than show weakness.
But Jade’s other instincts, the ones which have simmered beneath a carefully trained surface, the instincts she has strived to control above all else, are boiling forth now and there is no amount of training which can stop them. “Do you know how much I envied you, when we were kids? You had a mother and a father who loved you. Even when Madmartigan disappeared, there was some part of me that was jealous you had a father you were able to miss. Ballantine was the closest thing I had to family, and now I don’t even have him anymore.”
She’s yelling, and people are staring, and Kit is white as bone, and worst of all, there are tears running down Jade’s cheeks.
So she turns and walks away, ignoring the sound of Kit calling her name.
Ballantine’s name is inscribed into the castle wall beside those of Kase, Merrick, Keene and generations of Pacalcade knights who died in service to their country. The tradition dates back to the foundation of Tir Asleen.
Once, Jade had found the concept beautiful. The names of Tir Asleen’s protectors forever defending their castle and their queen. Now, as she stares at the glaringly new letters carved into the rock, all she can think about is Ballantine’s body rotting in a shallow grave, eaten by carrion after she murdered him.
Her nails dig into the meat of her palms as her heart slams against her chest. She clenches her fists even harder, tries to ground herself in the ache. Breathe in. Two, three, four. Breathe out.
Even now, his lessons echo in her mind.
Did you know, she wants to say. Did you see the brand on the neck of an orphaned child? Would you still have taken me in, if my father was really the anonymous man you claimed him to be?
And then, the hardest question of all.
Did you know who killed my mother?
Ballantine gave her a sense of worth and purpose. He also taught her to deny her emotions, to devote herself to defending the very people who captured her, to consider duty and honour a greater service than love.
She doesn’t know how long she’s been standing there when a shadow joins hers in the dirt. Boorman.
“Hey, kid,” he rumbles. “Thought I might find you here.”
Jade takes a long, shuddering breath without taking her eyes off the plaque. “They held a memorial for him and I wasn’t even there.”
Perhaps, it was only right.
Boorman gives a non-committal grunt. “Tir Asleen isn’t in the habit of waiting. I can guarantee every soldier here missed their friends’ funerals. Their kids being born. Weddings. Maybe even their own weddings.” He takes a silver flask from his belt and offers it to Jade. She ignores the gesture and Boorman takes a swig from the flask with a shrug. “Ballantine would’ve understood that, too.”
“Did you come here to lecture me?” she snaps.
Boorman scoffs. “C’mon, Jade, you know me better than that.” He gestures wildly with the flask, and Jade wonders if he is already drunk. Old Jade would have been appalled. New Jade, the one who has looked into the dark and seen only more nightmares, the one who crossed an endless sea and slashed her own commander’s throat, has a better understanding. She snatches the flask from Boorman’s outstretched hand and takes a long drink. Whiskey. It burns on the way down.
Boorman waits for Jade to pass the flask back to him, studying her with a look which is uncomfortably astute. “Truth is, Scorpia asked me to look out for you before we broke into Skellin. She always hoped she’d find you one day. I’m glad she finally did.”
The name should be a comfort. Instead, Jade experiences a fond kind of detachment, the kind you feel at the mention of a casual acquaintance. Scorpia is her blood, but as yet too much a stranger to truly be called a sister. Tir Asleen is a prison which still feels like it should be home.
“I want to know more about her,” she says.
“I could tell you some things,” Boorman replies, watching her closely. “If you like.”
Jade nods, biting her lip. Fights against the tears stinging her eyes, clenching her throat. “When I spar,” she manages, “I think of him teaching me how to hold my first sword. Then I think of how he trained me to fight, knowing that one day I’d be fighting my own kin, and then I feel angry all over again and I hate myself for being angry and I hate that I can’t ask him why.”
Boorman’s voice is so kind, it hurts to hear it. “In my experience, grief and rage feel much the same.”
He squeezes her shoulder instead of hugging, and Jade is pathetically grateful. At this moment, a hug would break her. “There, now,” he says gruffly. “I do believe there’s a certain mop-headed princess who’s been worried sick about you.”
The guards to the royal wing let her pass without question, and Jade wonders if the order came from Kit or from Sorsha. She almost expected to be barred from entry, but Kit is more likely to climb out her own window to avoid Jade than use her own royal powers for pettiness. Sorsha has taught her that much, at least.
Even with the lack of hindrance from the guards, the distance to Kit’s bedroom seems torturously long. Jade concentrates on keeping one foot in front of the other, every step feeling heavy as lead. At last, she makes it to the heavy oak door to Kit’s room.
There is nothing for it now. Holding her breath, Jade knocks on the door. “Kit, it’s me. Can I come in? I just want to talk. Please, Kit.”
For a moment, there is silence. Jade is about to knock again when there is a scuffling sound and the metal screech of a key in a lock. The door swings open to reveal Kit holding onto the frame, and Jade’s heart sinks. She looks terrible, her shirt stained and barely buttoned, her eyes hollow as though she hasn’t slept in days. Kit steps aside wordlessly.
Jade can smell the wine on Kit’s breath as she walks into the room, but it isn’t strong enough to pose a threat to Kit’s almost preternatural tolerance for alcohol. The room beyond the door is a mess of scattered clothes and rumpled sheets, but the empty plates are an indication that Kit has, at least, been eating regularly. Jade feels an absurd flash of pride for her princess.
If the princess could still be called hers.
Kit sits down heavily on the unmade bed, arms folded. “So. What did you want to talk about?”
Jade stays in the centre of the room, back stiff and straight as though delivering a military report. Eyes front, soldier.
The voice in her head sounds like Ballantine. Maybe it always will.
“I’ve come to apologise,” she says brusquely, and sees Kit’s baby blues widen even as she stays fixed in her position on the bed. “I was rude and disrespectful.”
Something flickers across Kit’s face, but it’s gone too quickly for Jade to read. Instead, Kit regards her with a cool detachment which is too studied to be genuine. “Okay,” she replies, and Jade is left with the uncomfortable feeling that she has been found wanting in some way.
“Is that all you wanted to say?” Kit asks dully, already looking away. She is shutting herself in again, the way she always does when Queen Sorsha is being particularly harsh or Kit has yet another reminder of her absent father. As though she is preparing herself to be alone.
Rules of propriety would dictate that Jade leave now. After all, being in the princess’s bedchamber is already a violation of those rules. She has admitted to her poor behaviour and presented herself for castigation, even if Kit has been unwilling to give it. Retreat, soldier.
Kit slumps in on herself, picking at her fingernails, and Jade is reminded of that broken girl collapsed in a chair in the fisherman’s hut, deathly pale and shivering until a blanket is wrapped around her shoulders. Until Jade wraps that blanket around her girl.
Kit doesn’t need a soldier or a bodyguard or a knight, she needs a friend, someone who loves her.
And maybe, Jade wants that, too.
She steps forward, crossing the breadth of that massive, cavernous room, and sinks to her knees before her girl. Kit lets out a soft, sharp gasp, but Jade keeps her eyes lowered to her lap. “I miss Ballantine,” she starts, “but I’m confused about him, too.” A sob rips from her throat, and for once, she does not try to hold it back. “I’m confused about everything. But I shouldn’t have taken that out on you, and I’m so sorry.”
She kneels there, breath ragged, and then finally, Kit’s hands come into her line of vision, uncurling Jade’s fists and lifting them. Kit’s fingers tilt Jade’s chin up so Jade has to look at her face. “I’m sorry, too,” Kit whispers, a rueful smile playing on her lips. “I just assumed things would work themselves out once we got back. Guess that was pretty naive of me, huh.”
Jade leans into Kit’s palm. She never could resist being pulled into Kit’s orbit. “Nothing makes sense anymore. I thought once the quest was over I’d have time to figure out what I want, but instead there are only more questions.” She rests her head against Kit’s knee and sighs with relief when Kit starts combing her fingers through the baby curls at Jade’s temples. “Maybe it was easier on the Shattered Sea.”
Kit hums, continuing to thread her fingers through Jade’s hair. “Maybe. Everything seemed so… possible.”
Jade takes hold of her hand and forces herself to look up at Kit again. “You’re the one thing I’m still sure of.”
Kit stretches out her arms. “Come here.” She bends down to kiss her, and it feels like coming up for air.
The kiss deepens as Jade rises up on her knees to be level with Kit. She tears her lips away just enough for a desperate plea. “Can—“
Kit groans into her mouth. “Gods, yes.”
Jade gathers Kit into her arms and lowers her down onto the bed with all the reverence that her princess deserves.
They make love in Kit’s bed for the first time, a long, languid exploration. Jade revels in the body of the woman beneath her, kissing and stroking each warm curve and hard line, taking each of Kit’s moans and cries as her personal victories. Kit wraps her arms around Jade’s back, lets her grind out her pleasure against Kit’s raised thigh, until Jade buries her head in the crook of Kit’s neck, shuddering as she falls.
After, Jade rolls onto her back and pulls Kit across her lap, determined to make her come again. The sunlight falls in golden dapples across Kit’s skin as she rides Jade’s fingers, one hand gripping Jade’s shoulder to steady herself. Naked except for the necklace resting between her breasts, she has never looked more beautiful.
“I’m yours,” Kit gasps, collapsing onto her forearms. “Say it.”
Jade crooks her fingers, her lips caressing the line of Kit’s jaw. “You’re mine, love. All mine.”
“Fuck.” Kit’s teeth sink into Jade’s neck as she comes and the pain is almost enough to send Jade over the edge again with her.
It takes a few minutes before Jade is capable of enough coherent thought to pull the velvet blanket over their cooling bodies. Kit drapes herself over Jade’s chest, bonelessly relaxed. Kit Tanthalos, Jade has come to realise, lives for cuddles. Jade kisses her damp forehead and holds her close as they drift in the golden afterglow, unmoored from concern or care.
Eventually, though, the room shifts back into focus. The same sunlight which painted Kit’s skin is now glinting on the gilded branches of the Tir Asleen crest stitched to a red banner on the wall. A lifetime ago, Jade used to dream of wearing that crest embossed onto her armour as she knelt to take her oaths before the Queen.
She tears her eyes away from the crest, gazing up at the beams of the ceiling instead. “I want to visit Scorpia in the Wildwood,” she says, testing the words. Now that she has voiced the desire outloud, she is surprised by the true strength of her need.
Kit rolls over onto her side, propping herself up on her elbow. She does not appear shocked, or angry. It’s almost as though she has been expecting it. “Do you want to stay there?”
“No. I don’t know.” Jade scrubs her hand over face. “Tir Asleen is all I’ve known. The Bone Reavers are my people, but they’re strangers, too. I want to know them, I want to learn about their history, about my history. Maybe it will make a difference.”
“I could come with you.”
Kit’s voice is so small, Jade has to kiss her. She tries to pour all her devotion into the kiss, all her loyalty, all her love. It does not change the truth. “I think this is something I have to do for myself. Besides,” she says, to soften the blow, “Elora will need someone to keep her out of trouble.”
Kit nods resignedly, her eyes suspiciously bright. “She does have a talent for wandering off.”
Jade tightens her arms around Kit’s body, because Kit has lived her life in fear of being abandoned by those she loves. She will not take Kit’s trust in her for granted.
They hold each other as their hearts beat in time. Suddenly, Kit sits up, her hands flying to the back of her neck.
“Kit–”
“Shh.” Kit fiddles with the clasp holding her necklace until it comes undone, then bends to fix the thin chain around Jade’s neck. The green stone comes to rest against her heart, still warm from the heat of Kit’s body. “I’ll be wanting that back,” Kit smiles, eyes now glistening. “So you’d better come home to me.”
Jade covers the stone with her hand, holding Kit’s gaze. “My oath is to you,” she swears, and it’s as holy a prayer as she could ever hope to make. “I think it always was.”
They lie in the bed together, Kit’s cheek wet against Jade’s own, their hands entwined in a promise.