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The first time Jade meets Kit, she’s stealing a horse.
Jade is twelve and resigned to a life of mucking out the stables. Her days are monotonous: wake up in a freezing attic just before dawn, walk to the stables in time to receive the morning patrol’s horses, and spend the daylight hours shoveling shit and scrubbing floors. It’s hard work, mind-numbing work, brightened only by the knights who come in flocks for their horses. They ignore her, generally, but Jade hears their conversations. She’s raised on their heightened tales of romantic valor: stories of slaying fanged beasts and rescuing fair maidens capture her starving imagination and raise her aspirations much higher than a stablehand might ever truly achieve. She imagines herself, armor-clad and wielding a gleaming sword, as she rides atop a swift horse. She imagines a life of adventure, of dragon-slaying and princess-rescuing and banquets with the Queen.
She does not picture this adventure including horse thieves. The Gods, however, are mysterious in their ways.
The sun’s just gone down and Jade is preparing for a cold walk home when she hears something strange. The horses are stomping their feet, whinnying softly, and there’s a light scraping sound coming from the other side of the stables. Jade turns around. The stables are swathed in darkness; dim moonlight illuminates strips of muddy ground through the missing slats in the roof. Jade has spent the day thinking about what it would be like to fight a dire wolf, but the possibility seems much scarier now.
As quiet as she can, Jade picks up the object closest to her: a heavy pitchfork, much too large for her size. She hefts it in both hands like a spear, pointing outward towards the dark. She squares her stance like she’s seen the knights do as they spar. She creeps forward.
The scraping sound is coming from the far stall on the left. A pair of shutters — I swear I’d closed those — flutter lightly in the night breeze. She approaches the stall, one slow step at a time. In as deep a voice she can muster — which, frankly, is not very deep — Jade calls out. “Who’s there?!”
A yelp. A metallic clatter. Then, crash! Jade jumps, fumbling with her pitchfork. Before she can react, a hooded figure leaps from the shadows, tackles her to the ground, and clamps a gloved hand over her mouth.
“Shhh! Quiet! Are you trying to get me caught?!”
“Um, yes?” Jade retorts, but it comes out more like Mm, mmph? She doesn’t have time to think about how childlike their voice sounds. Jade is a knight, and they are a monster, and so she will rise to the occasion. Jade twists furiously, grabbing at her assailant’s arms and face and catching hold of their slight shoulder. With a grunt, she shoves them backward, and clearly the months of manual labor must’ve been good for something because they go flying. Jade springs to her feet, sweeps up her too-heavy pitchfork, and points it at the intruder. When they start to stand, Jade jabs the weapon forward, driving them back into the dirt. Her palms are slick and her heart is racing wildly, but this is her place, and Gods be damned if she won’t defend it. She steadies her shaking voice and commands them: “Come into the light!”
The figure raises a hand slowly to their cowl. They push back the hood, lean forward into a shaft of moonlight, and— A girl?
Jade lowers her pitchfork, her brow twisting in confusion. The other girl is scrawny, but she’s got this fire in her that seems to burn right through her ragged exterior. Her gaze is so intense that Jade flinches even as she puts her hands up, spreading her fingers to show no harm.
“My name is Princess Kit Tanthalos,” she says, brown eyes hard as diamonds. “And you’re going to help me escape.”
Jade will look back on this moment as one of many firsts. The first time she met Kit, yes, but also the first time Kit’s led her into some type of trouble she’ll regret later. The first time Kit made her question her loyalty — to the Princess or to the Queen? And the first time, of many, that she’s chosen Kit.
———
It goes like this: Kit and Jade are caught, inevitably, but the final look Kit gives her as she’s dragged back to the castle makes Ballantine’s lecture later that night all the more worth it. Jade holds onto this look for two more years; she sears the ferocity and the determination and the trust into her memory until it takes on a blurry, dreamlike quality upon recollection. She spends these two years learning the art of swordsmanship from Ballantine, drilling respect and honor and duty into her bones just as intensely as stances and parries and fluid motion, and she channels the spirit of that single look in every lesson.
Then the Queen asks her — indirectly, of course, because the Queen would never speak directly to a stablehand — to train with the Princess. To see those eyes again, and also because she’s tired of consistently beating every apprentice in her age group, Jade accepts.
It goes like this: Jade is fourteen, and Kit is wild and rash and scruffy. She’s everything Jade should be bothered by: distracted easily, quick to anger, always skipping training to catch frogs in the river and steal pastries from the kitchens and pet the knight’s horses without even asking first for permission.
And yet.
Beneath all that scrappy defiance, Jade finds fire — bright and hot and untamed. Kit’s a storm, but she’s also a hearth, and she doesn’t show it often but Jade knows it’s there. It comes out when Jade takes a particularly hard hit while sparring; it comes out when Jade gets into an argument with Ballantine; it comes out when Jade has a bad day for no reason at all. Kit is there when Jade needs her, sturdy and protective and so, so warm.
It goes like this: Her feelings deepen, but she’s not sure when. Maybe it’s when Kit starts slipping into her room at night, just to enjoy a few more hours of togetherness. Maybe it’s when Kit starts touching her more, casual affection feeling like lightning with an elbow leaning on her shoulder or a hand resting on her arm. Maybe it’s when Kit starts holding her own when they spar. But most likely, Jade thinks, it’s the moments where Kit looks out to the mountains and the rolling sky, and tells Jade that someday, someday, they’ll be the ones to cross the horizon, to travel beyond the Barrier, where the whole world awaits them with open arms. Kit dreams of swords and horses and adventures, and in every one of them she’s taking Jade’s hand and pulling her forward through fire and rain. This, she says, is what we’ll be, this is what we’ll do, when we’re knights and we’re together and nothing in this realm can stop us. Then she’ll look to Jade, and in her eyes is all that burning intensity from the night they met.
It goes like this: Jade falls for Kit, and she falls hard.
———
Jade is sixteen, and she is okay with dresses. Mostly, they feel inefficient to her — all she can ever think about is how awkward it would be to spar in a dress. When Kit drags her to parties, receptions, and other places Jade feels deeply out of place, it’s all she can do to hide her wistful gaze towards the knights in their practical armor, swords hanging ready at the hip.
Kit, meanwhile, fights formalwear like a wildcat. “I feel like a show pig,” she complains to Jade once while sulking in the corner of some Duke’s birthday party. “I feel like I’m being offered up on a platter. Jade, if someone asks me to dance, I need you to kill them for me.”
I could dance with you, Jade thinks dimly, before catching that stray thought and cramming it in the far back of her mind. “I don’t think murder is a very choice look for us, Your Highness,” she says instead with a wry smile. Kit’s eyes flick to Jade for a moment as she grins, before returning to the crowd of royals. “And besides,” Jade starts. She swallows, staring down at the fringe of her gown before glancing back up. “I, um. Think you look quite beautiful.”
The compliment sails over Kit’s head like an arrow. “But I don’t want to look beautiful,” she insists. Kit’s gaze then hones in on a particular figure. Airk, her brother, leans nonchalantly against the opposite wall with a drink in hand as he sweet-talks a serving girl. He’s dressed in a fine tunic and sturdy riding boots, and his hair is just unkempt enough that he clearly spent time preening by a mirror to make it look so. By all measures, Airk is handsome, in a distinctly noble fashion.
“I want,” Kit says, her expression pained, “to look like him.”
This is not the first time that Kit has been vocally jealous of her twin, and it will also not be the last. When they were younger, Kit whined constantly over what her brother could get away with: stealing from the kitchens, spooking the horses, burping at dinnertime. He never gets told off, Kit would tell Jade, waving her hands like a madman. But whenever I do anything, it’s always, ‘Princesses should be ladylike, Kit! Why are you embarrassing me, Kit!’ And Kit would do an absolutely terrible impression of her mother’s stern voice, and Jade would double over laughing, and Kit would laugh too and the resentment would eventually wash away.
As the years went by, though, Kit’s focus shifted. Jade often caught Kit’s gaze lingering on Airk’s most recent paramour, some flurry of emotions in her eyes. If Kit ever saw Jade watching her she’d pivot in an instant — Let’s see how long this one’ll last, she’d say with a smirk. But this didn’t always happen, and instead Jade would see Kit’s feelings for what they really were: longing. Jade would watch Kit watch these girls, and couldn’t ever quite push away her own pang of jealousy.
“Hey.” Jade bumps Kit’s shoulder lightly, jarring her out of her own head. “Wanna get out of here?”
“Huh?” Kit’s trace breaks. She raises an eyebrow at Jade quizzically. “I mean, obviously. My mom said I absolutely had to be here, though, no exceptions.”
“And when has that ever stopped you?”
Kit blinks. Slowly, a mischievous smirk creeps across her lips. “Jade Claymore,” she says, her voice low and tantalizing. She turns to face Jade fully, tossing her hair as she looks up at her. “Am I rubbing off on you? How scandalous.”
Jade is familiar with this game, one which Kit simply loves to play. It’s a little like sparring: all sharp back-and-forth and parry-ripostes and feints to catch one’s partner off guard. And a myriad of information found in the eyes, of course. Jade will always remember Ballantine’s first lesson of swordplay: Don’t look at your opponent’s blade. Look at their eyes. Their eyes will always reveal their next move. When Kit gets like this, Jade has found this advice to be more valuable than ever. Jade meets Kit’s eyes and finds a challenge.
“Clearly,” Jade replies, “I’m the one rubbing off on you. What, unless you like parties and fancy dresses now?”
Kit grins like a wolf, amused. She says nothing, so Jade forges onward.
“And plus” — Jade nods in Airk’s direction — “you seem like you could use a distraction. So are you in or not?”
Kit narrows her eyes. She steps purposefully into Jade’s personal space, poised like a lion about to pounce. But Jade’s spent years acclimating to her near-constant proximity; she keeps cool and holds her gaze. Even when Kit leans in just a little too close to be friendly, even when she tilts her head just so, even when the tip of her tongue flicks out to wet her lips.
Don’t think about it. Don’t.
Kit takes Jade’s right hand in her left, never once breaking eye contact. “Okay,” she says with that clever smile of hers, tugging Jade forward as she steps back. “Yeah. Let’s bail. We’re too cool for these nerds anyway.”
If Kit notices Jade’s eyes flicking to her lips, she doesn’t show it.
It’s surprisingly easy to leave, with Kit spinning a story of sudden illness and fainting spells to the courtier at the door. Why do we ever stay for these things? Jade wonders, but is distracted from the thought when Kit clutches at her bicep for feigned support — to really sell the narrative, Jade can only assume. The courtier waves them past with disinterest, but Kit’s hand lingers on her arm for longer. She has yet to let go of Jade’s hand; in fact, she’s laced their fingers together with casual ease. Jade notices that Kit’s hands are quite cold. And despite the confident grin she flashes at Jade when they slip away from the party scot-free, there’s the faintest of blushes creeping up her neck.
But the mood cools along with the air as they step out of the castle’s warm embrace and into the evening breeze. The sun hasn’t quite yet sunk below the earth; it hangs just above the horizon like the yolk of an egg waiting to spill from its shell. Kit is suddenly quiet as they traverse the cobbled main road of the city, passing members of the city watch as they light the braziers that line the path to the castle. The two draw a few stares, dressed as gaudy as they are, and Jade can feel Kit bristling under the unwanted attention. Jade glances in her direction every so often, and although it flickers in and out, that pained expression is haunting her again. Kit wears her heart on her sleeve; Jade’s learned not to pry. Kit will find the words eventually, and until then, Jade will keep rubbing her thumb soothingly against her skin.
Their wandering feet lead them off the main road and onto a little stone bridge, once the cobble underfoot has shifted to clay and the stray dogs turn into chickens and goats and the houses become more appropriately named cottages. The bridge, arched with chest-high walls, crosses a tranquil river that lazily drifts onward on a contented voyage west. It’s here that Kit ends their little journey.
“Thanks,” she says, looking at Jade with a half-hearted smile that tugs at the corner of her mouth. “For ditching with me. Sorry if my mom yells at you later.”
“I’ll take my chances with your mother,” Jade replies, resting her elbows on the crumbling wall. Kit copies her pose; their laced hands sit naturally on the stone between them. “It’s you I’d be more worried about.”
“Fair enough.”
Kit taps her thumb against Jade’s forefinger absently, eyes drifting to the gold-painted horizon. Jade lets the silence rest. She gives Kit the space to fill it.
“I just feel so—” Kit cuts herself off with a frustrated sigh. “Ugh. This is stupid. Nevermind.”
Jade nudges her shoulder lightly. “You can always be stupid with me,” she says, a fondness in her voice. “It’s never stopped you before.”
“Oh, ha, ha, Jade, very funny. What a charmer you are.” Despite her tone, the edge of her mouth pricks up. “Yeah, okay. Promise not to laugh?”
“Of course not.”
Kit nods, still staring off. “I guess I— I just feel so weird sometimes, seeing Airk. He gets all spruced up, or whatever, with his fancy clothes and hair and stuff, and obviously he looks like a total dork, but— I dunno. He gets all this attention. Like, everywhere he goes, girls are falling over each other for him.” She glances at Jade for a moment, panicked, her cheeks flushing with red. “Not that I want that! He acts like an ass over them. But he gets that attention because he’s like, the prince to end all princes, right? He’s handsome.” Kit swallows, unconsciously kneading Jade’s hands with her fingers. “And I’m— I mean, come on. Look at this ridiculous dress. I feel like a doll.” She waves her free hand in exasperation, as if she were tossing the offending garment away. “I guess it would be nice on like, literally anyone else, but—”
“You don’t want to look pretty,” Jade finishes. “You want to look like him.”
“Yeah,” Kit sighs, dropping her free hand. “Yeah.”
“Just for the record,” Jade says, turning to fully face her and resting her elbow on the wall, “I understand what you’re feeling. But I go to those parties because, well…” She shrugs, feeling sheepish. “At least you’re there with me, right? It’s worth it. For you.”
This sparks a surprised laugh out of Kit, and Jade swears she turns as red as a tomato. “Wow, um,” Kit says, fumbling with a smile. Jade decides then that she likes seeing Kit flustered, just a little. “Okay. Maybe you are a charmer after all.”
“I try.”
“You know, Jade,” Kit says suddenly, pushing off the stone wall and tugging Jade gently along with her. “We’ve been to about a thousand of these parties, and I have never once seen you dance with anyone. Why is that?”
Kit’s narrowing her eyes again, smiling that clever smile again, just like she always does when she’s up to something. Jade frowns, suspicious, though she lets Kit pull her to the center of the bridge. “Um. I could ask the same of you.”
“Well, sure, but my excuse is that I’m mean and unapproachable. What’s yours?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I have no one to dance with?”
Then without so much of a hint of a warning, Kit takes Jade’s hands and sets them both comfortably around her shoulders.
“Well,” she replies, placing her hands on Jade’s waist. “What about me?”
Oh, that’s just not fair.
Kit looks up at her, playing innocent in her eyes despite her wolfish grin. Jade can’t find the breath in her to respond, not with Kit pressed flush against her. So when Kit takes one half-step back, Jade follows.
It’s clumsy at first. Jade’s slightly taller than Kit; one would expect their positions to be reversed; but Jade is too distracted by the feeling of Kit’s fingers ghosting just below her ribs to care at all. Unhelpfully, neither Kit nor Jade knows anything about dancing. Jade keeps stepping in the wrong direction and Kit has no idea how to lead and neither of them can ever quite look at the other before darting away in a flush, but none of that matters, because Kit is right there in Jade’s arms and her breath is just close enough to tickle her earlobe. They settle into a swaying rhythm against the music that’s only playing for them.
“I kind of thought I’d be better at this,” Kit breathes into her ear finally. “They make it look so easy.”
Jade giggles. It feels good to let some of the tension dissipate, to give her hammering heart a moment to relax. “It’s a little like sparring, if you think about it,” Jade muses. “You know, it’s footwork, balance, partnersh—”
“Shit!”
Suddenly Kit slips from her grasp. With a scrape of a loosened rock against a shoe, Kit trips, nearly pulling Jade down with her in a tangle of legs and fabric. It’s only a moment before she’s springing back to her feet, swearing and dusting herself off, but that’s exactly enough time for Jade to burst out in a fit of unyielding laughter.
“Okay, come on,” Kit groans. “Jade, be nice. Don’t look at me; this is so embarrassing. I’m embarrassed.”
“Definitely,” Jade gasps between bursts of giggling, “definitely just like sparring.”
They stay just like that: tripping and dancing and laughing in the comfort of each other’s presence, until long after the sun’s swallowed up by the distant earth. Dresses and brothers and lovers be damned, Jade carries with her the modest feeling that everything will simply be okay.
———
Jade is late. So very late.
Her boots clap hard against the cobble underfoot. The sun, already lounging in a palace of fluffy white clouds, seems to mock her with its cheerful late-morning warmth. With her helmet in one hand and a dull training sword in another, Jade runs like the wind.
She skids to a stop in front of a high stone arch. The stone lion’s head carved into the rock, the sigil of Tir Asleen’s military force, glares down at her. She’d take the time to glare back, too, but Jade knows how to pick her battles. And just past the gate, across the open-air gymnasium where soldiers laugh and argue and spar on the sandy earth, Jade has a building fear that her next battle is rapidly approaching.
Hand resting on the pommel of her sheathed sword, Jade sets her shoulders back and strides into the area. She will accept beratement with grace. She will promise to do better next time. And she will not, if at all possible, mention Kit. She’s only heard that lecture about a thousand times before.
Ballantine is correcting a young man’s stance just outside the mouth of the barracks when he spots Jade. He nudges the man’s feet a few inches apart, adjusts his sword arm, and then waves him off. Jade can never quite read Ballantine’s expression, nor the way he walks — not like Kit, who’s emotions can be read clearer from the way that she holds herself than any word she utters — so Jade steels herself for the worst.
“I’m sorry that I’m—”
“Don’t care,” he grunts.
“—late?”
In the seconds that Jade takes to process this, Ballantine’s already drawing his sword. He performs a quick salute, then falls into an easy stance. “Well? Standard forms?”
“I— Okay.” Jade copies his salute and stance. “You’re not angry?”
“I trust you have a good reason,” he says simply. Jade doesn’t push it. She’ll take her wins where she can find them.
They fall into an easy, silent routine: Ballantine performs one of four basic attacks, and Jade responds with the corresponding parry. She may choose to riposte, continue the exchange, but they always end without delay. Jade finds comfort in the routine. It’s a simple exercise, meant to drill movement into a soldier’s head until a parry is as natural as a breath. Jade’s already far beyond its necessity, but the exercise is grounding, and right now that’s exactly what she needs.
“I saw you sneak out with the Princess last night,” Ballantine huffs noncommittally, and Jade fumbles her next parry. Ballantine’s sword crashes her own aside with a metallic ring, sending a sharp bolt of pain down her wrist as the force twists her arm. “Don’t block with the tip,” he grunts. “You’ve got a crossguard for a reason.”
He sends another sturdy strike, this one aimed at her left temple, and this time Jade takes the force on the crossguard. She drives his blade to the earth before switching direction to lunge in a simple arcing strike. He spins his blade clockwise with surprising speed, batting her weapon away. “In the time it takes for you to redirect your strength,” he says, “I carry the motion and I’m already in to block your attack. When you waste energy, you waste your offensive. Try again.”
He repeats the horizontal swing. Jade catches his blade on the guard, forces it downward, and repeats the lunge. When Ballantine again spins his blade to knock hers wide, she follows the motion. The tip of her blade darts around his weapon in a tight circle and soars forward. The blade taps lightly against his armor. He smiles.
“Tricky. Where’d you pick that up?” Ballantine steps back, offering a quick salute, and Jade copies. She sheathes her sword and pulls the helmet off, wincing at the sudden sun in her eyes.
“Kit,” she admits. “She started doing it about a month ago. It’s… Effective.”
“You’ve kept up her training,” he states. Jade simply nods. She’s not sure whether to be defensive or not, but she braces for something. “Well? Is she any good?”
Jade breathes a little. “Getting better,” she says truthfully. “Not where I’m at, but” — Jade glances to the soldiers training around them — “I think she’d hold her own against any one of ours.”
“Hm.” He looks at her as he sheathes his own blade. “Is that where you went out last night? Sparring?”
Jade reddens, and Ballantine’s expression abruptly seems like he already knows the answer.
“Did she get you into any more trouble?” His voice isn’t unkind, but that gentleness triggers a sudden burning shame in her chest.
“She doesn’t get me into trouble,” Jade protests, crossing her arms. “She might not be… The most responsible, but I—”
“You were late,” he finishes. There’s no judgment in his rough voice. “Again. Because of her.”
She can’t argue, so she doesn’t, but it takes a hard grit of her teeth to keep her mouth shut. She stares him down, unwavering despite the color in her cheeks. He holds her gaze for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, he sighs.
“Sit.”
Jade frowns, holding eye contact as she sets herself down on the sand with one leg flat on the ground and the other bent at the knee. It’s awkward, watching Ballantine — enormous by all measures — shift and grunt as he sets himself on the ground beside her, armor clinking as he settles into a cross-legged pose. Suddenly, sitting on the sand like a schoolboy, he seems all the less intimidating.
“I understand you care for the Princess,” he begins, and Jade’s eyes fly wide open.
Oh. Oh, no.
“You share a… A connection, and—”
“Whatever you’re implying,” she says, rushing to cut him off. “It’s not what you think. Kit and I are friends, that’s all, really.”
To his credit, Ballantine looks about as uncomfortable as Jade feels. To her dismay, however, the end seems to be nowhere in sight.
“As you get older,” he starts, “you’ll start having feelings—”
“Oh, Gods,” she groans, head falling into her hands, “can we please do this at any other time—”
“—and that’s perfectly natural,” he finishes. When Jade refuses to respond — or even look up — he sighs. “Jade,” he tries again. “What do you want?”
Jade, timid, lifts her head from her hands. This is an interesting question, jarring enough to let her fluster dissipate without much more thought. What does she want?
She looks to the soldiers, with their swords and their cloaks, dancing like clockwork around her. She looks to the sky, and the distant westward mountains that skip across its edge. She looks to her own hands, calloused and leather-wrapped. She considers this interesting question, and two things come to mind: the first, of course, being knighthood; the second, of course, being Kit.
“I want to be brave,” is what she finally says. “I want to serve the Crown. I want to repay what I owe to the Kingdom.”
“And what do you think that takes?”
Chivalry. Jade thinks to herself, picturing the knights of her youth. Idealism. Loyalty. Love. But before she has the chance to speak, Ballantine answers his own question.
“Everything,” he says. “It will cost you everything.”
He pulls his sword from his scabbard. It’s lovely, to a soldier’s eye: worn and scratched and faded, yet the blade has a fine sharpness earned from countless careful hours spent on the grindstone. Well-loved would be the wrong term. The blade, instead, is well-used.
“Service is not about kindness,” he says, turning the blade in his grip. “Nor generosity. We do not do these things because we are good. We do them because they must be done.” His hand runs againsts the edge of the blade; the metal presses just enough into the pads of his fingers that Jade expects blood. “You will see terrible things,” he continues, “and you will lose many people you love. You know that part already. I wish you didn’t.”
Jade stares into her hands, letting his voice seep through her. She thinks of her parents. She thinks of her siblings. Every one of them, in her mind, is a story without an illustration.
“We take on this duty, Jade; we make this sacrifice so that the good folk of the world will never have to live through what we have. It is a difficult path, but it is the one we’ve chosen to walk, and there is honor in that.”
When Jade looks at him again, she sees him for his true self — perhaps for the first time in her life. Not as a wise mentor, or a loving father, but simply old. An old, tired man with a trail of blood left in his wake.
“I want,” she says, “to make that sacrifice. For the good folk of the world.” And in that moment, she means it more than anything.
A sad smile just barely twinges his lips. He pats the sword in his lap. “You have your path in life, Jade. As does the Princess. The day will come when they split apart.”
Jade nods. She thinks she understands. Yes, she does, she must. This is a sacrifice; one of many. She wants this more than anything. Right?
“I don’t say this to hurt you,” he offers, placing the sword back in its sheath, “but to spare you from greater pain. Truly. But you have to be ready to let her go.”
In this moment, Jade does not think of Kit. She doesn’t think of her smile, her voice, her touch. She thinks instead of its absence. It sinks into her like a rock. A sacrifice. For the good folk of the world.
“Of course,” she says, hoping her voice sounds steady and strong. “I understand. Ballantine” — she looks at him with what she hopes is a meaningful expression, a wise one, something that makes her seem noble and true — “thank you. Really. For everything.”
He lays a hand on her shoulder. It’s a weight, but it feels good. It feels like a burden to bear, and if she’s bearing it then she must be doing something right. Burdens mean sacrifice. Sacrifices mean honor. Honor means purpose.
Ballantine clears his throat and rises to his feet. “Wait here,” he instructs, blunt like he always is. Jade watches him disappear into the mouth of the barracks, through the arched entrance carved into the style of a lion’s maw to match the outer gate. He returns with a curious thing in his hands; a heavy cloth wrapping that sits comfortably across the palms of his hands.
“I was planning to save this for your birthday,” he says simply as he kneels, “but I think it’s time it was yours.”
Her eyes widen a little as he offers the object to her. She places it across her lap, fingers ghosting over the wrapping hesitantly. Jade looks up, asking for silent permission, and Ballantine nods.
She pushes the cloth back and her heart stops beating.
The sword is beautifully made. Sharpened to a handsome edge, the naked blade glints bright and silver in the afternoon sun. It’s slotted into a sturdy crosspiece engraved with an intricate knot pattern, while the pommel resembles the head of a lion, maw open as it roars. Lying beside the sword is a scabbard, engraved with a similar knot pattern along its length, stunning yet sturdy. Jade’s fingers ghost the metal, first along the fine grooves of the scabbard, then down the length of the sword itself. She’s almost afraid to touch it, as if the moment she reaches for the blade it’ll disappear into thin air. She steels herself and places her hand experimentally over the hilt, which is wrapped tightly in fine leather. The sword fits perfectly in her grip.
Jade looks back to Ballantine, mouth agape. The skin around his eyes crinkles as he smiles. “Well, don’t just sit there,” he scoffs, humor dusting his voice. He gestures out to the training grounds. “See how she feels.”
Jade looks back down at the sword in her hands. She rises carefully, taking the scabbard in her left hand, and spins the blade slowly in a clockwise rotation. Sunlight catches on the metal and dances in her vision. It feels perfectly balanced in her grip, light, and easy to wield as if it were an extension of her own arm. She tries a few experimental cuts, slicing the space in front of her twice diagonally in an X with a whiff; the blade cuts through the air like butter.
She looks back at Ballantine, who now stands with his arms crossed, his eyes shining with pride.
“Ballantine, I…” She falters, still swept up in the shock of it all. “Is this really for me?”
Ballantine just nods. Jade looks down once again at the finely crafted items in her hands. She breaks into a dazed smile, laughing with disbelief. Before she knows it she’s wrapping her arms around him in a tight embrace, laughing all the while.
“Thank you thank you thank you! I love it! Oh, thank you, Ballantine!”
Ballantine freezes up like he always does when Jade hugs him. “Put that thing in its sheath before you kill someone, Jade,” he mutters, “and show some respect! We’re in public, Gods forsake us.”
“Right, right, right.” She stumbles off him and sets the blade carefully into its scabbard, savoring the sound of the metal as it rings. She clips the scabbard to her belt — not too heavy at all — and as she looks back to the captain, she gives him her best salute, setting her face into one of solemn determination.
He eyes her for a moment, before shaking his head. “All right, enough with that. Come here.”
And then he’s wrapping Jade in a strong hug, patting the top of her head as she grins into his dented armor. “Thank you,” she repeats. “I won’t let you down, I promise.”
He chuckles. “You’re a good kid, Jade. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
———
Jade keeps her window locked that night. Guilt seeps through her like the tide when she hears Kit’s quiet taps against the glass, but she stays in bed with her eyes shut until Kit gives it up. When she asks about it the next day, Jade feigns ignorance: she mumbles something about sore muscles and training fatigue. Kit doesn’t push it, though she does a terrible job of hiding the flash of hurt in her eyes.
Instead, Kit simply draws her blade, and they fall into that comfortable rhythm of swordplay and footwork. Some things, Jade thinks, will never have to change. She can keep some of this, some parts of Kit, all for herself.
Jade never shows Kit the sword Ballantine gifted her. It feels too much like a betrayal — although whether it’s to Kit, Ballantine, or herself, Jade couldn’t say. Instead, the sword remains safeguarded under her bed, polished lovingly and sharpened to a clean edge each night. She keeps it close to her heart, as does she with Ballantine’s words to her on that fateful morning.
There are some moments where Jade slips. Kit will look at her just a little too long, lips slightly parted, running her fingers back through her cropped hair after yet another sparring match. In moments like this, it takes all the willpower in the world for Jade to quell the ache in her chest. It always subsides eventually, after hours of controlled breath and gritted teeth, fading quietly to a dull pain.
The pain feels good. Pain means sacrifice, means honor, means purpose. And Jade is nothing without purpose.
———
Jade is eighteen and her best friend is getting married.
She finds out on a day when the sky is heavy with gray clouds that threaten to burst into a downpour at any moment. Ballantine’s been sending Jade on the afternoon patrols along with the city watch — nothing too dangerous, but the other knights have taken to giving her a few pointers and even sparring with her in the quiet hours. Just today, in fact, Ballantine’s asked her to arrive extra early to the barracks the following morning for a bit of news on the Shining Legion. Don’t get your hopes up, he’d said in that gruff voice of his, but there was a twinkle in his eye so Jade got her hopes up anyway.
Protecting the kingdom by day, and gallivanting with Kit by night: it’s exactly the life she’s been dreaming of.
Airk catches her in the barracks just as she’s unbuckling the last of her armor. She hears him out in the open-air gymnasium, calling her name, his voice deeper since the last time she’d heard it. She turns to the open door and lifts the helmet off of her head just as he arrives.
“Jade— Hey— Wow, running is hard—” Airk skids to a stop in front of her, pressing a hand to his chest as he gasps against the doorframe. He’s gotten taller, too. Jade’s only seen him in passing, hasn’t ever really spoken to him, but the striking similarity of his noble features to Kit’s never fails to startle her. “You guys really do this all day? With armor on? Whew. Give me a sec.”
Jade wills herself to not roll her eyes in the prince’s face, or snap off an innuendo concerning his endurance. Kit really is rubbing off on me. “What can I help you with, my lord?” She offers instead, wiping the sweat from her brow with her free hand.
He grimaces. “Oh, don’t say that, it’s weird. It’s Airk. Please. Kit talks about you so much that I feel like I know you already. Um. Sorry.”
How much does Kit talk about me? Jade thinks before shaking the thought out of her head. Instead, she smiles politely, raising her eyebrows. Get on with it, please.
“Yes! Right. Speaking of Kit. You haven’t, um—” Airk scratches the back of his neck, letting a nervous laugh escape from his lips. “You haven’t seen her around, have you?”
Jade frowns. Kit’s prone to running off, but something about the way Airk is shifting his weight, the way his eyes dart to just avoid her gaze, makes her brow furrow. When he flashes a pained smile her way, a little jolt of fear runs straight through her. Something is definitely wrong.
“Why? What happened, my lo— Airk?”
“I mean, Kit’s pretty freaked out. I’m sure you can imagine. No one thought it would happen this early, but especially not her.” Jade just stares at him, confused, and Airk’s apprehension melts into alarm. “Wait, you haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?” Jade’s fingers worry the edge of the helmet in her hands. “Airk, what are you talking about?”
Airk pales. His fidgeting stills.
“Oh, man,” he breathes. “You haven’t heard.” He looks at her, then to the door, like a stag about to bolt. Jade tosses her helmet carelessly aside and takes him by the shoulders.
“Airk,” she demands, “tell me what you’re on about.”
“I, um,” he says weakly. “I really don’t want to be the one to tell you. Man is it, um— Is it hot in here, or—”
She shakes him once, hard — are you allowed to shake a prince? — and he shuts up. “Airk!”
The two stare each other down for a moment. Jade can’t fight down the claws digging into her belly, the feeling that something’swrongsomething’swrongsomething’swrong. Then she sighs, her voice softening. “My lord. Please.”
He nods. Taking a deep breath, he raises both palms in surrender before resting them on Jade’s forearms. “Okay. Um. Yeah. So…”
He taps his fingers against her for a moment, worrying his lip. When he looks at her, his gaze is almost apologetic. “Kit’s engaged.”
Oh.
Her grip goes slack.
“...Yeah. Galladoorn. To unite the kingdoms, or whatever.”
Engaged.
All her childhood fantasies seem to disappear at that moment. Never, Jade realizes, would she and Kit ever pack up their swords and their cloaks and ride past the Barrier, off to discover a trove of adventures simply waiting to happen. Never would they escape the lives given to them since birth, not in the face of solemn words like fealty and responsibility. And she’d never again look upon Kit’s bright smile and know it belonged to her.
Maybe, a voice echoes in her head, it was never yours to keep.
“Kit,” she breathes, her hands falling to her sides. “Oh, Gods, Kit. I have to find her.”
“Yeah, that’s what I— Nevermind. Listen, Jade” — he catches her by the shoulder just as she steps past him — “just be careful with what you say, alright? I’m trying to smooth things over with our mom, but she’s not backing down on this one. Kit’s going to need time to cool off before she’ll accept that.”
Jade sighs. “...That sounds like her.”
“Yeah,” he says, offering her a little smile. “Hey, listen. I love her, too, you know.”
And then Jade is out the door, plucking a training sword from the rack as she goes. There’s only one place Kit would be at a time like this. So as the sky finally breaks, crying fat raindrops that form a steady drizzle around her, Jade knows just where to find her.
She hears the Princess before she sees her: boots scraping in the gravel, grunts of exertion, and the quick whiff of a sword cutting through the air. Jade crests the rocky ridge just as the rain begins to come down in buckets, and there she is. Kit spars invisible enemies atop the cliffs of the Canyon Maze, where no one would know to look for her. No one besides Jade.
Jade notices something different in the way Kit’s moving. Normally, when they spar, her greatest downfall is her focus. Kit’s got a one-track mind like no other — she’ll forget footwork during a particularly tricky parry-riposte, or she’ll let her guard down during a brash offensive. As Jade watches Kit drill in the rain, she sees none of that now. She fights instead with deadly, methodical precision. Just like I’ve taught you.
When Kit finishes, she slips her sword back into its sheath with a quiet metallic ring, staring out across the valley. Jade takes a cautious step forward. Kit is an arrow, Jade knows, nocked in a taut bowstring and ready to fly with a single snap. She clears her throat.
“Kit—”
“Graydon Hastur.” Kit spits the name out like it’s bad wine. “The prince from Galladoorn.”
“I… I heard.”
Kit turns to face her. There’s a bitter, humorless smile twisting her lips. Jade knows Kit, knows she’s absolutely terrible at hiding her emotions, knows that just below her surface of sarcasm lies gunpowder waiting to blow.
“It’s kind of funny,” she says, stomping her boots in puddles of water as she hops down the stone steps to Jade’s level. “How your entire life can just be plucked out of your own hands. Like what you wanted never even mattered in the first place.”
Jade keeps her face composed. She needs to be strong. She needs to be rational. She thinks of honor and duty and every other value Ballantine’s drilled into her since the day she first picked up a sword. She fights down every part of her screaming to simply take Kit’s hand and run.
“We always knew this would come,” she says, feeling Ballantine’s words echo in her voice. “You’re a princess, Kit. You’re the future of Tir Asleen. This is just… It’s what has to happen.”
“Oh, what are you, my mother?” Kit scoffs, striding up to her like a challenge. “I’ve heard that from a lot of people, Jade, but I didn’t expect it from you. You’ve surprised me! I’ll give you that.”
“Kit.” There’s a warning in Jade’s voice. “You’re frustrated. I understand. But I think you should just calm d—”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!”
Jade sees it in her eyes, inches away from her own. The match is lit.
“This is my future being stolen from me. My mother’s trading me like livestock — and for what? So Airk can spend the rest of his life romancing serving girls? So the Queen can feel like she hasn’t failed her kingdom?!”
“Kit, please just listen—” Jade reaches out to touch her and Kit slaps the hand away, eyes blazing.
“No, I won’t just listen! You, of all people, should understand this! Why don’t you understand?”
The rain is coming down hard now. Their clothes are soaked. Jade feels like she’s boiling, bubbling over, fighting to keep everything clamped down just like she’s always done. Kit’s the reckless one. Kit’s the one running away. Kit’s eyes dart across her face, desperate, searching for an answer that doesn’t exist.
“And what does it mean for us, Jade?”
There it is. That unspoken thing. Kit looks so open, a pleading look in her eyes, lips parted ever so slightly. Jade opens her mouth, then closes it.
“Come on,” Kit begs. “Please don’t act like you don’t know what I mean.”
“You’re…”
Jade is torn between two worlds. Standing in front of her is Kit, fragile like a glass marble and yet placing herself in Jade’s hands and saying please, Jade, please, be brave, for me. Jade’s heart nearly tugs her forward, nearly has her toss her sword away and pull Kit into a kiss hard enough to make up for the years she’s spent avoiding it.
But there’s this weight holding her back — Ballantine’s heavy gauntlet, clapping down on her shoulder. An anchor and a chain. Don’t let this distract you, his gruff voice echoes in her ear. You have something to work towards. So does she. His figure looms behind her. His boots are a big pair to fill.
For all her ambition, Jade’s never been all that good at being brave.
“...My best friend,” she finishes, and darkness flashes across Kit’s face. “And… That doesn’t have to change because of this!”
Immediately, though, Jade knows she’s misstepped. The walls come back up; the drawbridge is raised. She feels as though a door’s just been slammed in her face.
“Well, then.” Kit steps back. It’s dark enough now that Jade can barely see her expression through the thick rain. Then, with a metallic ring, Kit draws her training sword. “I wouldn’t have you come all the way up here without some practice, friend.”
Jade draws her sword instinctively. “Don’t do this, Kit,” she pleads, even as she drops into an easy stance. “You’re angry. Let’s just go back.”
“Fuck you.” Kit spits the words with such venom that Jade winces. She begins to circle her and Jade raises her blade warily. She’s fought Kit countless times and beaten her at every turn — in every way that mattered, at least. Still, she’s never fought this Kit. This wild, reckless Kit, fighting like she’s got nothing left to lose. Likely because she doesn’t.
She copies Kit’s slow circle, never once breaking eye contact. She doesn’t stop to think about what she’s fighting for. All Jade’s ever known is swordplay. That, of course, and Kit.
With a sudden battle cry, Kit lunges forward with the ferocity of a cornered animal. Jade bats her blade high with just a fraction of a second to spare, then spins her sword clockwise as Kit swings at her left. The blades crash against each other and Kit lunges forward again, darting past Jade’s swift parries with a series of rapid thrusts that send Jade stumbling backward. Kit is fast, and she’s never truly beaten Jade before but something’s unlocked in her now. There’s this fire in her eyes, this animal desperation that Jade has never seen before. As Jade somersaults out of the path of a wicked downward chop, delivered with a rough shout, she realizes that what she’s seeing is desperation — sharpened to a fine point and wielded as a blade.
Gods alive, Jade thinks. She’s actually going to beat me.
Jade stands in time to block another heavy swipe. The sheer force of the blow sends her slipping backward on the muddy ground. Kit rushes her like the wind. Jade’s sword is flicked aside and she can feel herself falling when—
Kit yanks her forward by the collar. Jade feels cold metal against her neck, just below the jaw. It’s been less than thirty seconds.
Kit’s breath is hot against her skin, turning to mist in the freezing night air. Her face is doused with rain, inches away from Jade’s, deep brown eyes boring into her own. In that still moment, their heavy breaths blending in with the downpour, Kit’s expression shifts into something so vulnerable that Jade wonders if she’s about to cry. Jade has never seen Kit cry.
Then her gaze hardens and she shoves herself back. Her sword falls away from Jade’s neck.
“Again.”
The two trade blows, the metal ringing out with each parry as they step in and out of each others’ defenses. Kit slashes across her body, then, leaving her left flank open for a fraction of a second, and Jade takes the bait. She thrusts her blade forward. Kit pivots, spinning on her right foot. Jade’s sword slips past her flank. The momentum carries her forward into a run and the flat of Kit’s blade slaps painfully against her side.
“Ow!” Jade winces, clutching at her ribs. Kit is breathing hard now. She wipes the rain from her brow, pointless in the deluge. She lets the tip of her sword fall to the ground.
“Kit,” Jade pleads, “I don’t want to fight you. Just talk to me, please.”
Kit looks like she’s going to say something, like something inside her is finally going to give in to her raw emotions. But she shakes her head, grimacing, and lifts her sword.
“Again,” she orders. Jade doesn’t move, only frowns.
“Kit—”
“Come on!” Kit’s voice is rough and desperate. “Again!”
Jade tightens her grip and swallows hard. Fine, then, she thinks, dropping into a stance and raising her blade grimly. If you want a fight, I’ll give you one.
She’s ready this time. Jade counters Kit’s overhead slash — Predictable, that’s your go-to opener — with a smooth high parry. Kit’s blade slides down to the crossguard, harmless, and Jade flicks it wide. Finally.
She presses the offensive, staying light on her feet despite the slick earth underfoot. Kit’s a fierce fighter, but her spirit doesn’t last forever, and Jade knows to play patient. Soon, Kit’s heavy parries are more sloppy than jarring. Jade sidesteps a wild riposte; Kit growls in frustration. Jade deflects a reckless strike; Kit swears as she slips in the mud.
Jade seizes her moment during another one of Kit’s predictable overhead slashes. But she doesn’t dodge the blow, doesn’t deflect or parry-riposte or do any number of her more sensible options. Jade raises her blade and takes the hit head-on. Their blades crash together, sending painful shockwaves reverberating down Jade’s arm. Kit forces her blade down with two hands on the grip and Jade nearly buckles from the pressure. She grasps the tip of her own sword with her free hand, the blade biting deep into her leather gloves, and matches Kit’s strength. The force is almost too great to bear.
Almost.
Jade lifts her leg and delivers a kick squarely into Kit’s stomach.
Kit lands down hard in the mud, her sword falling just out of reach as she slides. Jade gasps from the exertion, stepping forward as she wipes rain from her brow. When she brings the point of her blade just above the hollow of Kit’s throat, it breaks her heart.
“Yield,” she says, her voice shaking. “Please.”
Kit roars into the night. She swears. She beats her fists into the mud. It’s just like the night they met: Kit, lying defenseless in the dirt, tearing herself apart to escape her life; Jade, standing above her with a blade in hand, duty-bound to protect her from an inevitable fate.
“Kit.”
That fire in her heart, endlessly bright against the darkness, begins to dim. Jade doesn’t move her sword. In a defeated, cracked voice, Kit finally says it.
“I yield.”
Jade tosses her blade aside and sweeps Kit into an enveloping hug.
Kit sobs shamelessly into the crook of her neck; they’re heavy, wracking sobs that shake the very foundation of everything that defines her. Jade holds her like an anchor against a wild storm. It’s just the two of them, out in the rain. It’s always been just the two of them.
“I don’t want to marry him,” Kit gasps out. “Jade, please, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to lose you.” She repeats that last sentence until it dissolves in the rain, until her words are incoherent and Jade’s tangling her fingers into Kit’s wet hair to pull her closer. Kit, fiery Kit, with her roguish charm and her cynical wit and her endless wanderlust, blown out like a candle in the wind. She sobs and her tears wash away in the storm.
I love you is what Jade thinks. I’d give my life to shield you from this. You deserve all the freedom in the world, and I’d die to get you there.
“I’m sorry,” however, is all she says, and knows it’ll never be enough.
Jade walks Kit back to her room in the downpour. Kit clutches Jade’s cloak around her shoulders, shivering lightly even as Jade drapes a protective arm around her. Not once do their eyes meet, although Jade steals a look or two at her companion. She looks hollow. She looks small. Kit’s harrowed gaze stays fixed on her boots, and Jade holds her a little closer.
They receive no trouble entering the castle proper, with Jade casting a vicious glare at any guard that seems like he might question the pair. They trudge through the castle halls, leaving muddy bootprints on the cobblestone below that lighten with each weary step. When they reach Kit’s bed-chamber, Jade starts to protest — she’s never actually seen Kit’s room, despite the countless times Kit’s snuck into her own through the window, and she’s not sure whether she’s even allowed — but Kit tugs her inside as if there’s no question about it.
Kit’s room is so unlike what Jade expected that it’s almost uncomfortable to look at. Solemn portraits of lords and ladies adorn the wall, staring down at the pair with grim expressions. A prim cherrywood bookcase rests by a large window overlooking the castle square; the books themselves are coated in a thin layer of dust. Kit’s bed is all pillows and frills and Jade, endlessly familiar with Kit’s affinity for sleeping outside on the hard ground or even the floor, nearly squirms at the sight of it. Jade thinks back to all the times Kit’s slipped into her window to spend the night and wonders if she feels the same.
Kit, to her credit, simply strides forward and crashes facedown on the bed. Jade smiles despite herself — there you are, Kit — and sits beside her, hands folded in her lap. She watches Kit unclip her scabbard from her belt before rolling over and staring at the ceiling. With her sword above her heart and her eyes sunken, Kit looks lifeless. A husk. An extinguished flame.
“Training is the only thing I’ve ever really had for myself,” she whispers, so quiet Jade nearly doesn’t catch it. “Training and you.”
Jade doesn’t argue. She’s always been Kit’s, and Kit has always been her’s, and there’s never been anything else that mattered.
“Now I’m losing both,” she continues, “and I’m the only one who seems to think that’s a big deal. I feel like I’m going crazy.”
Jade takes a deep breath, letting the air fill her lungs until it hurts. As she exhales, she flops down beside Kit. “You’re not going crazy. The whole world’s going crazy around us.”
Kit grins weakly. “Feels like everything’s changing,” she breathes, still staring at the ceiling. “For me, at least. You’ll still be out in the world, defending the kingdom or whate—”
“Ballantine’s heard back from the Shining Legion.”
Kit’s eyes go wide.
“What? Jade, that’s… That’s…”
“He’s telling me their answer in the morning,” Jade continues, diffidence tremoring her voice ever so slightly. “But I think… I think they’re taking me.”
Kit whistles slowly. Jade has a terrible, sinking feeling, then; a realization sitting heavy on her chest that she might never see Kit again. It hangs over her hawkishly and plucks at her insides like a carrion crow. Jade glances over to Kit, and oh, Gods, this is how she’s been feeling, isn’t it?
“Feels like everything’s changing,” she repeats.
The silence hangs in the air between them, brimming with the energy of a teetering glass the moment before it tips over. They lie in the dark on Kit’s ridiculous four-poster bed as their futures loom over them.
“Jade.” Kit cracks the quiet like an eggshell in her hand. She turns on her side, and Jade follows suit, Kit’s gaze burning into her. “Please don’t go.”
Her brown eyes shine with moisture and Jade doesn’t know if she can take seeing Kit, wildfire Kit, breaking down in front of her for the second time ever. Her face is close enough to reach out and touch. Her lips are close enough to kiss. It’s almost too much to bear. When Jade’s eyes flick downwards, just for a moment, the corner of Kit’s mouth twitches. She reaches out to take Jade’s hand and Jade stops breathing.
“Please.”
Kit is so rarely vulnerable that the act simply terrifies Jade. She’s offering her heart up on a platter, she’s begging for a response. And Kit has slept in Jade’s room before, sure, but this is something entirely new. This is dangerous. Kit is speaking that unspoken thing, and it frightens Jade to her core.
So instead she simply shakes her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Kit doesn’t press it. Her hand slips from Jade’s. She sits up, looking away, and the absence of her eyes feels like Jade’s being burned.
“Okay, then.”
Jade rises quietly, her leather boots light on the hardwood floor. “...I should get back.”
“Yeah. You should.”
Just before she slips out of the room, Jade steals a final look. Kit stares out of her enormous window, out at the sweeping hills beyond the castle walls, knee tucked under her chin, hand fingering the hilt of her blade absently. Jade swallows the knot in her throat. She shuts the door.
———
The next morning, Ballantine hands her a crisp envelope bearing the sigil of the Shining Legion. It’s an acceptance — the first of its kind. But as her fellow knights congratulate her, and as Ballantine clasps her shoulder with pride, all Jade can think is Kit, Kit, Kit.
———
Weeks pass. Jade patrols, she spars with the city watch, she stares at the letter and its broken wax seal. She does not see Kit.
Instead, she trains harder than ever. Every morning she chooses a new weapon or sidearm to practice, and every opponent she faces is sent flying into the dirt. Sword and buckler, sword and dagger, twin daggers, longsword, halberd, rapier, warhammer — she even picks up the sword and cloak one day, just for the hell of it, just to see if she can master the sweep of a cape in her offhand while facing off opponents with sharper, deadlier sidearms. She begins the day tangling the cloak in her blade. She ends the day using it to disarm two opponents in one match. Her muscles burn, her armor chips, and her companions cheer her on, but none of it ever quite fills the hole in her chest. All the excitement, the spirit, the gnawing hunger Jade’s felt for years for everything the Shining Legion has to offer her — it’s simply gone. Her sword no longer feels like a promise, heavy in her grip. It simply feels like a tool.
At sunset, after her patrols, Jade visits the stables. The smell of hay and horse dung brings her back to her stable-mucking youth, back when knighthood was simply a fairy tale instead of a future only a step or two in front of her. It’s not a time she’d ever return to willingly, but she finds herself nostalgic nonetheless. She strolls between the stables, hand-feeding the horses treats from her pocket, patting their noses when they push their faces into her palm. They’re gentle animals, uncomplicated. Easy to please.
One evening, as she’s making her nightly visit to the stables, she catches a tiny pair of eyes peeking out at her from behind the broad wooden doors. When she calls out in a gentle voice — “Who’s there?” — a boy no older than ten or eleven cautiously approaches her. He’s dressed in simple linens, lovingly hand-sewn from the looks of them, with a sturdy wool shawl around his shoulders and a good pair of boots on his feet. Peasant clothing.
“Are you a knight?” He asks, a glimmer of hope in his voice, and Jade can’t help but give a small smile. She kneels, meeting him at eye level.
“Yes, I am. My name’s Jade. What’s yours?”
His dark eyes are wide with the kind of wonder that only small children are capable of; wonder that recounts hundreds of bedtime stories and fairy tales in just a glimpse. Jade takes a moment to look at herself — greaves, braces, and chestplate emblazoned with the symbol of Tir Asleen; a decorated scabbard hanging loosely at her hip; fiery hair put up into practical braids; a thick green cloak showing wear enough for more than a few stories.
For the first time, Jade sees herself through the eyes of a child. She’s a hero of legend.
The boy — Rohan — asks her more than a few questions — Have you ever crossed the Barrier? Have you ever fought a troll? Have you ever seen a dragon? — and Jade is more than happy to oblige. She tells him story after story, some pulled from the knights of her childhood, others from her own adventures as of recent, each one dosed with a healthy amount of embellishment. The boy is awestruck. Jade tells him stories and the ice that’s been sitting in her chest begins to melt, bit by bit.
When the sun finally slips below the distant mountains, Jade offers to walk him home — “to protect you from monsters,” she explains with a mischievous smile, and he grins. His hand slips into her own, tiny fingers engulfed in her iron gauntlet, and she leads him down the empty main road.
“If you’re a knight,” Rohan asks, swinging his arms as he walks, “does that mean you get to go to the Princess’s wedding tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” Jade falters. How haven’t I heard? “I… I suppose I do.”
“Have you ever met her?” He looks up, eyes wide. “I’ve heard she’s… Um.” He looks away suddenly, flushed. “My mom says she’s not like a regular princess.”
“Ha.” Jade feels a smile quirk the corner of her mouth. “No, she isn’t. But she’s nice, once you get to know her. Most people tend to be.”
“Have you ever rescued the princess? All my favorite stories have knights who rescue princesses,” he explains matter-of-factly.
“Hm.” Jade tilts her head up to the sky, watching her breath turn to mist as she exhales. She thinks of weddings, and sparring matches, and almost-but-not-quite romances. She thinks of fealty.
“No,” she finally says. “Never.” She’s never needed rescuing, has she, Jade thinks, but catches the thought and crumples it up. It’s not quite true anymore.
“That’s lame.” He sniffs. “You should.”
“Thank you for the feedback, Rohan.”
The pair stops at a modest shack in the Merchant’s Quarter, squeezed between a bakery, closed, and a tavern, open. Rohan raps his hand against the door — three sturdy knocks. A woman his spitting image appears in the doorway, a cheery lantern in hand, and immediately he embraces her despite coming up just to her waist. She greets Jade, surprised, though not without kindness.
“You walked my son home?” She asks, and Jade automatically straightens up.
“Yes, ma’am,” she nods. “It’s late out. I didn’t think he should go by himself.”
“How thoughtful,” she says; the crow’s feet by her eyes crinkle as she smiles. “Thank you for your kindness. You must be a member of the city watch, right? My husband served Tir Asleen, too, before he passed.”
Jade instinctively opens her mouth to apologize, and the woman shakes her head. “Don’t,” she says warmly. “He lived well.” She hands the lantern to Rohan, then clasps Jade’s hand in both of her own. “You’re good people, you know. It’s knights like yourself that allow us to live safely. To have families.” She nods to her son. “It’s a debt we can never repay. So thank you. Truly.”
“I…” Emotion wells in her throat and she swallows it down hard. “Thank you, ma’am,” she says, fighting tremble in her voice. “We do our best.”
And then the woman is wishing her goodnight and ushering her son inside and closing the door. Jade feels the weight of her armor, suddenly, and it's heavy across her shoulders. She thinks of the sword under her bed, the letter sitting on her desk, each carrying a weight of its own.
It’s a burden, she decides, that she will bear with pride.
Jade walks home feeling lighter than she has in weeks.
———
Jade wakes to the feeling of a warm hand clamped over her mouth. Adrenaline shoots through her body like a lightning — she jerks up against the attacker, scrabbling at their hands, forcing their weight off even as they settle over her hips—
“Hey, hey, hey! Stop! Stop.”
Kit?
She pushes the attacker’s hood back from their face, and the familiarity washes her panic away into a mild annoyance. “You scared the blummins out of me!”
Kit puts her hands up in mock surrender, giving Jade space to prop herself up on her elbows. Even so, there’s an urgency in her motion. She looks antsy, eyes flicking from Jade to the open window and then back again. Before Jade can ask her what she’s doing in her room, in the middle of the night, in her bed—
“I’m leaving,” Kit breathes. “I came to say goodbye.”
Leaving.
Jade’s eyes go wide; her hands still. A thousand things run through her mind, but that word echoes loud like a prayer in a chapel. She swallows. She boxes up her feelings. She needs to be reasonable.
“Kit,” she starts, cautious. “I know you’re upset.”
“I’m not!” Kit insists. She pushes her cropped hair out of her face, somewhat in vain, and Jade starts to argue but then Kit’s hands fall naturally to her shoulders and she feels sparks of lightning jolt forth from where her fingertips land. She’s so close, closer than ever before, leaning into Jade with a reassuring smile that plays on her lips. “I’m not. Jade,” she continues, “I’m thinking clearly for the first time in my entire life.”
“If you were, you would know that running away isn’t—”
“This isn’t about marrying Graydon.” Her mouth shifts to a grim line of determination. Jade holds her gaze, matching her expression, and a heartbeat later Kit breaks back into that roguish smile of hers which never fails to pluck at Jade’s heartstrings. “I mean, it is. But…”
Kit licks her lips, glancing away as she searches for the right words. When she looks back, there’s a fire in her eyes, a burning intensity that Jade’s all too familiar with. It strikes any argument off her tongue. It’s all she can do to stare, even as her heart begins to break in two.
“I’m looking for something,” Kit says, brow furrowed ever so subtly. “And it’s not here.” She nods to the window, never once breaking eye contact. “It’s out there.”
Don’t say it, Jade begs silently. The corner of Kit’s mouth quirks, as if she can read her mind.
“It’s beyond the Barrier.”
Oh, you absolute idiot.
Jade means to argue. She really does. But when has she ever been able to talk Kit out of anything? Certainly not in the past, and certainly not now. Not when Kit’s staring down at her, boyish locks framing her face like a halo, eyes glancing down to Jade’s mouth and then back up again, a question brimming in her gaze. Jade knows when Kit is asking for permission.
Then Kit leans in and — Gods alive — presses a sweet kiss to her lips.
It’s over so fast, leaving Jade breathless and chasing after Kit as she pulls away. It’s over and immediately she’s replaying the moment, reliving that gentle touch again and again, savoring the sensation as if to bind it to her memory forever. Jade doesn’t even realize her eyes have drifted closed until she’s blinking them open and all she can see is that roguish smile, full of mischief, full of teasing victory.
“You’re gonna be a great knight,” Kit murmurs, and Jade barely hears her over the sound of her heart hammering in her chest. She’s frozen, stuck in place — no, stuck in time — even as Kit slips from her bed, leaving a stark absence where her weight had just rested on Jade. Kit places a supporting hand on the open window, but just before she disappears into the night, she looks back. Kit looks at Jade with the most brilliant smile she’s ever seen, brighter than the sun itself, bright enough to blind her — and then she’s gone.
Jade spends anywhere from a minute to a lifetime stock still, fingers ghosting over her lips as she stares into the space that Kit had left behind. The memory is already slipping through her fingers. She glances at her open window, fluttering in the night breeze.
If she does nothing, Jade realizes, it’ll be the last time she ever sees Kit.
You bastard.
No. Absolutely not. No way in hell was Jade going to be left on that note. Of course, Jade thinks as she tosses the covers aside, of course you’d try and get away with it. You bastard!
Jade hisses when her feet touch the ice-cold floor, but she ignores the pain. She’s wide awake now, throwing on a set of clothes as her mind races with all the things she’s going to say to Kit as soon as she catches up to her. Probably things like what are you thinking and six years and now’s the time you pick and you’re a fool if you think I’m not going to return the favor, Kit Tanthalos.
The Shining Legion’s letter sits forgotten on her desk as she tugs on her boots. Ballantine’s sword remains similarly abandoned beneath her bed. Jade steps onto the windowsill, feeling the old wood creak under her heel, and looks out into the world. It’s a foggy night, and with the moon bleeding pale light through the clouds, Jade can just barely make out a cloaked figure crossing the cobbled road to the stables. Her heart races with some mixture of anger and excitement and desperate love. She takes a deep breath to steady herself, then vaults onto the roof. It’s a familiar path, skidding down the thatching under her boots. It’s certainly one Kit’s taken many times.
Kit.
She hops down from the roof to the stones below, bracing her knees as the impact rolls through her. She sets her shoulders, gripping her cloak tightly. She breaks into a jog.
As if I’d ever let you go without me.
She’s spent her whole life chasing after Kit’s reckless footsteps.
In the grand scheme of things, Jade thinks, what’s one more adventure?