Chapter Text
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While Jade did not particularly loathe the official regalia of her rank of Champion of the Realm, it was cumbersome enough that she had little desire to wear it often. Its heavy ornamentation and endless number of straps and strings made it strictly an important-event-only ensemble in her mind. The unification day of Tir Asleen and Galladoorn into a republic under the leadership of an elected council unfortunately did seem to call for it.
Even if Jade was still slightly fuzzy on the role of an appointed champion in such a system. When she had mentioned it to Brunhilde, future head of said elected council, all she had gotten was a “Not everything has to change all at once.”
Though she hadn’t said it aloud, Jade had an inkling she knew of someone who would agree, if Kit’s opinion on the outfit was anything to go by.
“You can’t wear that uniform and not expect me to want to jump your bones,” Kit protested.
“I can’t wear a burlap sack without expecting you to want to jump my bones,” Jade pointed out.
Kit scraped her teeth down along Jade’s neck, a delicious line of wet heat. “Are you complaining?” she challenged, leaving little nips as she descended that lit answering sparks in Jade’s belly.
Jade’s head fell back against the wall to allow better access. “Not in as much. It does make it difficult to dress, though,” she breathed, trying to maintain her place in the conversation as she felt Kit’s hands wander down over the intricate etchings splayed across her breastplate to the smooth silk of the tabard covering the fine chain protecting her abdomen.
“Hmm, there are all these buckles. Hard to get them all done up by yourself,” Kit remarked, slyly.
“You’re not doing them up.”
“How can you tell? You’re not even looking.”
It was true; Jade’s current view was of the heavy wooden beams of the crossing the ceiling. But even through layers of cloth and metal the movements of Kit’s clever fingers were unmistakable, especially as they wrenched and pried at the leather straps near her waist.
“I swear, if you get me riled before Brunhilde’s ceremony—” Her rebuke ended the moment Kit jerked on her belt, dragging her hips forward roughly.
“—you’ll what?”
When Jade pulled her head up, Kit’s mouth was there, barely a breath away, curling up in a devasting grin. If Jade had a single thought in her brain, it fell away the instant she looked into dancing, bright blue eyes. Kit’s lips curved even more.
“You’ll what?” she murmured, transferring the words to Jade’s lips with the faintest brush.
Jade felt her knees shake. “I’ll be very cross with you.”
“Oh. Can’t have that.” Kit let their mouths meet, press warm against each other for a long, sweet moment. Then she parted Jade’s lips with her own and slid her tongue deep inside where it set off an echoing pulse between her legs, aching and familiar.
More than ever, Jade deeply resented the layers of livery keeping her from feeling the shape of Kit’s body as she urged it against hers. She heard herself make a low growl of discontent when Kit pulled back far enough for their lips to separate.
There was another brief tug as Kit tried to lift the bottom of the mail shirt. “This is heavy,” she criticized.
Jade could not think of anything she cared about less at the moment as she chased Kit’s mouth, eager for it to be beneath hers again. “It’s chain, of course it’s heavy.”
Kit made a dismissive sound then leaned in to bite at Jade’s bottom lip. Tugged the soft tissue between her teeth before trading another series of firm strokes. “You know you’re not actually going into battle or anything right? It’s a celebration.”
“You know I didn’t design the uniform, right?”
Twisting her head, Kit looked critically around the bedroom they shared, so much smaller and simpler than the one Kit had spent decades in. When she had more of her wits about her it sometimes amazed Jade how easily Kit had adapted to it, though maybe it shouldn’t, considering how many nights Kit had spent in Jade’s sparse quarters when they had been decades younger. “I feel like if we lay you down, we won’t be able to get you back up.”
The top of Jade’s head spun as she caught the tail of Kit’s thinking, let it pull her along. “Don’t think it would be quite that dire, though I wouldn’t fancy the weight on my chest,” she objected, breathless.
Not that it meant she wouldn’t try.
Kit had a different idea. She turned her attention to the small desk Jade often sat at when reviewing scouting reports or news from the four gates. With a very casual sweep of one arm, Kit sent the scrolls and papers covering it scattering to the floor.
Jade watched order tumble into disorder and couldn’t bring herself to be annoyed by it. Not when Kit was maneuvering her over to lean back against the sturdy top. When Kit gathered the bulky hem of the chain again, silently biding Jade to hold it back, she did so, helpless to refuse any request from her Queen.
Even if she was a former Queen.
“Half expected you to be wearing mail trousers,” Kit noted idly, as her hands found the ties holding Jade’s leather breeches closed.
“There’s no such thing,” Jade replied, amazed she was even able to form the words since everything in her was completely focused on watching Kit’s fingers deftly picking the knots of the laces apart. “Kit—”
“Should I stop?”
“No. Don’t. Just.” Jade breathed in forcefully, tried to settle. Failed spectacularly. “We don’t have much time.”
Kit grinned again as the ties came loose and she sank to her knees. “Don’t think it’ll take much time.”
Jade had never been much for politics, but it appeared to her that celebrating the election of leaders in a democratic union very much resembled the coronation of a ruler in a monarchy. Lengthy speeches followed by feasting, dancing, and a lot of alcohol.
But apparently, there was at least one major difference.
“So, wait. You don’t have to wear a crown?” Kit demanded, sounding taken aback. Brunhilde, pale cheeks rouged in a way that suggested it was not her first cup, sipped so gingerly from her goblet it was hard to believe even a drop of wine reached her lips.
“Nope. I think there was some talk about maybe a sash or something. But I don’t think anyone could agree on the colors,” she replied.
Amusement sparkled inside of Jade when Kit turned her answering scowl in her direction. “I had to wear a fucking crown,” she groused.
Snatching two tankards from a passing tray, Jade handed one off to Kit in hopes of securing peace, even though she had come to realize hot-headed outbursts were long since a thing of the past.
“I think doing away with the trappings of the traditional symbols of royalty is probably the point,” Jade noted, dryly. The way Kit’s scowl morphed, lips flexing and eyebrows arching imperiously, sent Jade straight back to their room hours before, and she felt a wave of heat course through her. She hoped there were still a dark corner or two they could make use of as the night progressed.
“Oh sure. When I try and do away with the trappings of royalty, it’s ‘abandoning tradition’. When everyone else in the realm decides to do it, it’s ‘democracy’.”
“Are you actually upset about not being Queen anymore?” Brunhilde questioned, eyeing Kit over the rim of her goblet. Even uncrowned there was something in the steely, faintly haughty expression that reminded Jade of the way Sorsha had once commanded a room.
It had an eerily similar effect to one of Sorsha’s looks on Kit as well, as she waved one hand dismissively and took a long swallow of ale. “Not in the least. I just think you should have to wear something heavy on your head. For like, at least an hour. For duty or something.”
“I’ll see if one of the council members has any suggestions.”
“Your Majes—I mean, Miss Tantha—I mean, ma’am—”
“Oh, mothers, Prue, please. It’s Kit. Kit is fine,” Kit assured the older woman who had appeared beside them, rising and lowering like a buoy in turbulent water. “Where’s Dermot?”
Prue froze in the middle of a courtesy, leaving her half standing, half hunched, and winced. “That is, your Majes—I mean, Miss, I mean, Kit um—I was watching him, and he was helping me in the kitchens, so nice like, and so when he asked, a little while ago it didn’t seem such a terrible idea, to um—”
“—play hide and seek?” Kit guessed, her voice full fond resignation.
“Yes. He’s quite good at hiding—”
“—yeah, he’s a fucking sorcerer all right.”
“I’ve already gone and checked all his usual spaces but one of the guards did mention he saw him near the lower levels not long ago. I thought I should mention it before I go, in case you were looking—”
“—what? No, Prue, there’s no reason for you to have to go into the cellars. There must be a hundred steps. Jade and I will go look for him. Sit down, enjoy the celebration. Or, you know, help Brunhilde find something heavy to put on her head.”
The look Prue sent Brunhilde was pure bafflement. “Miss?”
Brunhilde nabbed another goblet from a tray and, wrapping one arm gently around the older woman, handed it over. “Come on Prue. I think I see butter muffins.”
Jade allowed Kit to pull her along for a few feet before she gave any resistance. And then it was only really for form. “This doesn’t happen to be a handy excuse for you to get out of any further socializing and try and have your way with me in some dark corner of the cellar, is it?” she asked, mostly in jest, having seen firsthand how serious Kit took her parental duties.
“Dermot has been looking forward to spending a few days with Graydon and Brunhilde and Airk actually. So, the sooner we find him, the sooner I can have my way with you after,” was her pointed reply.
Jade thought that sounded like a great plan. The mention of Graydon et al prodded the little shelf in her brain where she had set it the first time she had learned of the trio.
“Are they all—how does that work, exactly?” she wondered. Similar arrangements she had witnessed while in the ranks had often not gone well. But perhaps that had more to do with the pressures of service and continual violence. The triumvirate of Graydon, Brunhilde, and Airk seemed pretty content whenever Jade saw them together.
“I am not thinking about my brother’s sex life,” Kit huffed, definitively. Then, not three seconds later, she added, “But I think it’s one of those ‘they all have two hands’ situations.”
Jade silently counted beats out into the air with one finger, feeling like the numbers didn’t quite line up, and then figured it wasn’t really her business anyway. Happy was happy.
Which reminded her.
“He was a bit upset earlier,” Jade noted, as the time appeared as good as any.
“Hmm? Who? Airk?”
“No. Dermot.”
Kit’s eyes narrowed as she looked over. “He was? About what?”
“Nobody likes me.”
The voice was so soft, so quiet, that only years of being on watch, straining to hear the faintest whispers of ambush, allowed Jade to catch it. She was startled to realize she had not noticed the small shape huddled in the corner of the armory; some Champion of the Realm she was. A year out of the field and here she was, bested in stealth by a child.
Not just any child. Dermot Tanthalos sat with his arms wrapped tightly around his knees, chin resting atop them. His dark wavy hair fell forward into his bright blue eyes in a nearly perfect imitation of his mother’s.
Jade set the sword she had been inspecting back into the long row stand. In the year since she had returned to Tir Asleen, soon to be Tir Galla she reminded herself, since she had presented herself before the Queen and court, since she and Kit had… had…
There were days when she had such trouble believing it had happened. That all the things that had once been irresolvable impediments had been cast aside; Kit’s marriage to Graydon, the boundaries of royalty, the centuries old division of the realm.
Now there was Kit and Jade, as they had always been and in ways they had never been. Well, she conceded, almost never. There had been, all those years ago, that one time after riding—
Anyway.
But there was more, as well.
There was Airk, somehow still boyish despite the ensuing years. Sadder though, than he had once been, as if the bright sheen of him had been dulled by dust. Perhaps it was a maturity, a seriousness that Jade didn’t remember permeating him.
There was Brunhilde, palace cook soon-to-be risen-to—what was the term they were using? President? Grand Speaker? Freely chosen by all those of both Tir Asleen and Galladoorn. Or, at least, by the majority. Jade might have been surprised such an unknown could come to prominence so quickly but there was something about the golden-haired woman, a presence on first meeting that Jade could see drawing others to her.
There was Graydon Hastur, former King and husband of Kit’s, one Jade could not have imagined in any lifetime befriending. And yet, in the past year she had shared a table with him on many occasions, had listened to him speak, had laughed as he recounted moments of the marriage, had shaken his hand as he passed through the door of the house she and Kit had recently begun to share, as recent as the simple bands they had exchanged.
And there was Dermot.
When Jade had first laid eyes on him, on the physical union of Kit and Graydon, it had felt as if a cudgel had struck her sternum, sending a shockwave of pain reverberating along the bones of her rib cage while her heart collapsed beneath it. She had seen, in the sweet face peering up at her from behind his mother’s leg, the death of the flower she had carried within for all those years, that she had borne so gently in her memory each time she had thought of Kit, no matter how far away she had been in time and distance and protocol.
It had taken every scrap of strength she had had to remain standing when all she had wanted had been to throw herself forward, to kneel at Kit’s feet and plead to never be made to leave. She had thought being away from Kit had been the hardest task she had ever faced.
But she had been wrong.
And then. To find out she had been wrong again. That Dermot was not a barrier or a wall that would forever prevent she and Kit from joining. The relationship Kit had grown with Graydon and their son in the years Jade had been away was warm and beautiful, a family cocoon that included Airk and Brunhilde.
And somehow, wonderfully, had stretched to Jade herself.
She crossed the distance between them, waited until he looked up before she slowly sank down beside him. “Is someone giving you trouble? Saying mean things to you?” she asked gently. It had been a long time since she had been a child new to the city, but some things were never forgotten.
Dermot shook his head and sighed, a loud sound for a small body. “No. Not really.”
“Then why do you say no one likes you?”
He exhaled again, the tips of his boots wiggling against the floor. “Because. Even if they’re not mean, they won’t talk with me or play or anything. They just… ignore me. Like I’m not really there.”
Jade stretched her legs out in front of her as she tried to think back. She seemed to recall a stretch of time where she wished very hard to be ignored, made seemingly impossible by her bright red curls, abundance of freckles, and the odd swirls on the back of her neck.
“So, if you talk to them, they won’t talk to you?” she supposed, wondering if it was a subject better handled by Kit, one of those hidden drawbacks to elevated rank.
His legs flopped out in a mimicry of hers, though the heels of his boots only reached to her knees. “No, they’ll talk to me a little bit. But then they’ll go off with everyone else. Like they’re all friends and I’m the only one who’s not.” When he turned his head to peer up at her again, there was such a forlorn expression on his face that it broke her heart a little. “How do I make them like me?”
More than a little. “Oh.” With her own sigh, Jade clasped her hands in her lap and hoped she could find the right words. “I’m afraid you can’t make someone like you, Dermot.”
His bottom lip quavered. “But I want someone to be my friend. I would be a good friend.”
“I know you would. And you will be. You’ll find someone who will be so happy to be your friend.”
“But how?! If no one will talk to me or play with me, how am I supposed to make a friend?” he contested, his dark brows drawing together in another one of Kit’s distinctive looks. She swallowed down the laugh that wanted to burble up, figuring he would probably appreciate it about as much as his mother would have at his age. Telling him to spend long hours mucking out the stables until a slightly bratty princess stumbled over him didn’t seem like it would be particularly useful. There had really only been one person in her life who had ever offered her advice; she tried to think of what Ballantine might say, if he were there.
“You have to be patient. People are like horses, a bit. They can scare off easily. Or be distracted by apples or sugar cubes. But if you’re kind, and treat others how you wish to be treated, they’ll see that. And it will draw the people who matter to you.”
“I guess,” he said, glumly and Jade allowed herself a tiny smile over his head. She bumped his shoulder lightly with one arm.
“Well. If these kids don’t want to play with you, maybe they’re not the kind of people you want as friends?” she offered. She could definitely recall hearing that one before.
Dermot bounced his legs in an off-beat rhythm only he could hear. “Everyone likes Ashler. It’s always ‘Ashler’s so good at this’ and ‘what do you want to play, Ashler’ and ‘you’re the best, Ashler’.” His mouth pinched in further as he crossed his arms sullenly over his chest.
Jade’s heart felt another sympathetic ping even if her mind thought maybe there was a little Tanthalos competitiveness going on as well. “Sounds like this Ashler might be a bit of a sugar cube.” She leaned down, as if preparing to share a secret. “Do you know the thing about sugar cubes?” she asked.
The melancholy on his face brightened into curiosity. “What?”
“They melt.” She widened her eyes and stuck out her tongue for good measure.
He giggled, a sunny cheerful sound. “Nuh uh,” he protested, pushing back playfully. Wishing every bad mood and sour trouble could be solved by a funny face and a well-timed quip, Jade rose to her feet feeling accomplished, nonetheless.
“Come on. It’s probably time to get ready for the ceremony. It’s an important day, after all.”
Dermot shot to standing with an ease she could only half remember. “It’s Aunt Brunny’s big boss day!” he declared, and Jade could imagine who had come up with that term. “Are you going to wear your fancy armor?” he asked, dancing around her.
She smiled, placing a hand on his shoulder to guide him out from under her feet. “I am.”
“With your sword?” he persisted.
“Yes.”
“Can I see it?”
Chuckling, she directed him toward the door, feeling his excitement radiating outwards. “Let’s find your mother first. She’ll be mad if we look at swords without her.”
She wasn’t quite sure how to describe the look that came across Kit’s features as she finished relaying her encounter with Dermot. A mix of frustration and concern with a strong dose of what might have been indignation.
“He has been spending a lot of time with Graydon in the library, which, isn’t not usual for him, he just…” Kit’s lips thinned as she pressed them together. “I thought maybe it was all the excitement over the past few weeks that was bothering him.” They had reached the stairs leading down into the palace cellars and Jade took a nearby torch from the wall before leading the descent.
After several steps, Kit added, “Thank you for talking with him.”
“Of course.” Jade shrugged and it made the torchlight jump a few feet ahead. “Dunno how much I helped. Did you have trouble making friends as a child?” she asked, wondering at the other years of Kit’s life she was unfamiliar with, those that had come before their introduction.
Kit also gave a quick bounce of her shoulders. “Not really. I went to the stables and bothered the girl working there until she wanted to hang out with me.”
Jade laughed, shaking her head when Kit flashed her grin. Mothers, it felt like it had been eons since Kit had wandered in while she had been mucking stalls and imperiously demanded attention. “I thought that might be a bit too specific of advice to offer.”
“Probably.” Kit blew out a breath strong enough to push back the strands of hair perpetually falling across her forehead. “Maybe… maybe we should spend some time in Galladoorn,” she mused. “We’ve only been the once, after old Shitbag died. Graydon doesn’t talk about it much, but I have to imagine there’s some place there he enjoyed or thinks fondly of. It might help Dermot to meet some other kids.”
Jade could feel a smile spreading wide the muscles of her face. When Kit glanced over, her eyebrows raised in question.
“What?” Kit asked.
“Nothing. I—” Jade paused. Even after a year, it seemed strange to speak aloud. “I love you. Very much.”
“I love you, too,” Kit replied, instantly. She cocked her head. “That can’t be it, though. What else are you thinking?”
Jade hesitated again, so accustomed to pressing her thoughts down and away that it was difficult to bring them back to the surface. “There’s so much about you that’s the same and so much that’s different,” she began, chewing idly on her bottom lip. “When I think of all the time we were apart, I…”
Kit’s hand pressed gently against her arm, even through the mail sleeve Jade could feel the reassuring grip of her fingers.
Inhaling, Jade continued, “I’m very grateful for the life you were able to build. I worried for you, so much. I know it was hard.”
The sigh that escaped from Kit was less harsh than Jade expected. Less resigned as well. “It could have been so much harder,” she stated, with a pragmatism more attributed to her mother. “I thought it would be, in the beginning. I was so angry and frustrated and, fucking scared, frankly. I thought my life was over.”
She scrubbed a hand across the back of her neck, gave another sigh as she continued. “Nothing has been like I imagined, like I hoped for back when I thought about going beyond the barrier. Having all those grand adventures. When I wanted it to be just me and you and the open road. I still have dreams about it, sometimes.”
“Really?” Jade had thought it had been only her.
“Yeah. But when I wake up, it’s easier to let them go. I have so much here now. It’s hard to conceive of something out there being better. Fuck. Does that mean I’m old?”
Chuckling at the genuine worry in Kit’s tone, Jade angled the torch in her direction. “Hmm, dunno. Are those grey hairs I spy?” she teased.
Rolling her eyes, Kit pushed against her arm before raking her fingers through her chin length locks as if confirming their continued luster. “Fuck off. Anyway. As far as friends, I think it helped that I had Airk. Even when we were fighting, he was always there.”
“Considering giving Dermot a brother or sister?”
“Absolutely not. For a multitude of reasons but the biggest being, giving birth sucks. No idea how people do it more than once.”
“I’d always heard there’s a sort of fog that comes over you, that you forget?”
“Bullshit. Plus, you know, there’s the whole having to get with child in the first place. Fun, sure, but not really what I want. It’s like, I could walk to the Mother’s Gate, enjoy the scenery, but I’d rather ride.”
There was a warm, liquid tug low in Jade’s belly at the word want combined with the way Kit slid her gaze over her. It was impossible not to recall their rendezvous earlier in the day, the hot twist of Kit’s tongue against her. “I see,” she managed. “Am I the horse, then?”
A flush came into Kit’s cheeks. “Sorry. Is it weird to talk about this? I mean, I don’t want to make you upset or uncomfortable or anything.”
Jade thought it stranger that they hadn’t yet spoken of it. An entire year of conversations and somehow, they’d managed to skirt around it. “No, of course not. I could never—it’s… hard to relate, I suppose.” Jade wrinkled her nose. “Can’t really imagine wanting to be with a man,” she admitted.
Kit scratched at the back of her neck. “Yeah, it was really only… Graydon. And just the few times. He was very sweet about it, actually. Even offered to we—” she stopped abruptly, eyes widening in the way that usually meant she had been about to say something she realized she should not.
“Offered to?” Jade prompted.
“I bet Graydon knows who this Ashler is,” Kit declared, in an abrupt change of subject. Jade might have protested, her interest peaked, but there was an aggressive undertone to Kit’s proclamation that tugged an answering exasperation out of Jade.
“You’re not going to get into a fight with a child.”
“Who said anything about getting into a fight? I can just… have a conversation with his parents.”
“Kit.”
“What? How hard is to be inclusive?”
“They’re children.”
“Children can be inclusive.”
“You know that’s not what I—”
“Ugh, what is that smell?” Kit interrupted, one hand flying up to her face as they reached the bottom step and the staircase transitioned to a short hall. At the end of it, angled stones fitted tightly together formed an open archway leading straight into darkness. A second later the ripe, rancid stench reached Jade’s nose as well. Her eyes began to water, followed by a brief burning itch, like countless numbers of times she’d caught a face full of smoke billowing up from a campfire.
“Did some of the wine casks bust open again? Prue is going to be pissed, it took forever to clean up the last spill,” Kit stated as she started to duck through the doorway. In one smooth motion, Jade stepped neatly in front of her, sliding her sword from its sheath with a hiss.
“Spilled wine doesn’t smell like that,” she asserted, apprehension coiling in her stomach because the copper taste at the back of her throat was terrifyingly familiar. She felt Kit bump into her back, heard her curse, and then hands gripped her shoulders.
“I hate when you do that,” Kit complained, shifting to rebalance herself.
“Should have worn your sword to the party. Hold this,” Jade retorted, handing over the torch and blocking the way with her body in case Kit developed any ideas. The face Kit made as she reluctantly accepted the light indicated ideas had certainly been considered.
“Airk said it would look too threatening.”
“Since when have you listened to Airk?”
“In my defense, I didn’t think we were going to be skulking around the lower levels,” Kit retorted as she fell back a few steps, holding the torch higher to chase away the shadows hiding the walls and floor from them. Row upon row of pale grey stone were revealed with every foot they traversed. Jade’s eyes remained glued to the black edge of the light as it flickered back and forth like a serpent’s tongue, the heavy thrum of anticipation pressing against the back of her skull. She knew what they were going to find, the shape of it, at least.
Kit knew as well. Jade could tell from the way her voice shook even though she tried to mask it. “If we find one dead wererat I am banning all future games of hide and seek.”
The humor was feeble, but Jade knew it was to deflect from the far greater worry on their minds, too black to even speak.
“Better a dead wererat than a live one,” she volleyed back, in her own weak attempt. One of Kit’s hands reached out and briefly clutched her shoulder, a hundred words condensed into a single grasp.
The smell grew denser, the air strangely humid where it should have been cool and dry. Jade gripped the handle of her sword, her palm sweaty against the smooth leather wrap, the skin of her knuckles tight. She was no stranger to the dark; she had done hundreds of patrols at night, sometimes when both moons were absent from the sky and the blackness was so heavy no amount of flame could lift it. There were times she had stood for hours, blind as a bat, in total silence, hoping for the dawn to break before the attack did.
This darkness felt wrong. There was no sunrise that could possibly burn it away.
“What was that?” Kit called out suddenly. Jade glanced back over her shoulder and saw Kit staring off to the left, shifting the torch. Solid rock wall encased them on either side.
“What was what?”
“I thought… I thought I heard my…” Kit trailed off, peering closely at the wall closet to her even though it was as smooth and bare as the day it had been laid. There were no cracks or crevices, not a scratch or chisel mark, and yet Kit’s gaze read it from left to right like a scroll.
“Kit?” Jade murmured, when the woman gave no indication that she intended to move on.
“Yeah?” was the absent reply.
“We were looking for Dermot?”
Kit blinked and shook her head; it did little to clear up the vagueness cluttering her face. “Right. Let’s keep going.” She cleared her throat and brought the torch back up so its light fell in front of them once again. “Dermot? Buddy, it’s time to come out. Game’s over,” she called out and oddly, her voice did not echo like Jade expected it to.
Instead, silence stretched long and thick, as if they were inside a bubble dropped into the depths of the deepest ocean. And then, a slight rustle, followed by the faintest rush of air; Jade felt it pass over her cheeks, like a quiet exhale. In the deepest parts of the blackness before them, little pinpoints of light sparkled, tiny mirrors on the floor and the walls. They halted at the same moment, breathed in the same breath.
“Do you see that?” Jade whispered, blade at the ready. She heard Kit swallow and watched the light from the torch stretch out further until it finally touched the edge of something other than stone.
Blood. A wide puddle of dark crimson seeping towards them, inch by inch, like the crawl of a worm. As the torchlight flickered over it, it was impossible to mistake it for anything else. It spread further and further back, further and further out, into a perfect circle. And in the center of the pool, a lone kneeling figure, head bowed, face obscured by dark locks matted with red.
“What is that? Is that someone?” Kit asked, her voice strained with pity and concern. Stuck in the horror of the scene, Jade failed to stop Kit’s movements, let her push right past without protest, the flames licking at the darkness. At the sound of Kit’s boots scuffling, the figure’s head jerked up and suddenly there were wide blue eyes staring back at them.
“Mom?” Dermot’s voice was as soft, as quiet, as it had been earlier in the day. The swiftness with which Kit bolted forward snapped Jade from her stupor, in time to see Kit slide through the viscous liquid to her son’s side.
“Dermot? Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Thrusting the torch high overhead, Kit alternated between dragging him close and pushing him back far enough to run her free hand over every inch she could. Even from several feet away Jade could see him begin to shake as he tried to burrow against his mother, a trembling that was mirrored in Kit’s own fingers.
“Mom. What? Why am I here? I don’t like it here,” he protested, tucking his face against Kit’s chest. Kit ducked her head down, her chin against his hair, as she wrapped her arm around him.
“What happened? Dermot? What happened to you? Are you hurt?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m not hurt. I don’t… I don’t know. I… I don’t remember anything.”
“Get Graydon.” The words snapped out of Kit in the sharpest command Jade had ever heard her give, so sharp it nearly brought Jade’s heels together unconsciously. Kneeling beside her son, smeared with blood and torchlight, Kit offered no quarter for refusal as she held Dermot to her, a hand pressed to the back of his head. “Bring him here.”
And still, Jade shook her head. “I’m not leaving you alone. Not like this,” she insisted, eyes sweeping blindly while her mind populated the darkness with all manner of monsters. They should leave together. It couldn’t be safe. There was no reason to remain in that scene of carnage.
“Jade.” Kit’s eyes were fierce and pleading, asking for a trust Jade was not certain she could give. They had no idea what had happened. Who had done it. If they would come back. Or if they were still there. “I need you to bring Graydon. Only Graydon.” Then finally, “Please.”
Swearing, Jade stalked forward and grabbed the torch from Kit’s grasp, swapping it for her blade. She swung the flame about, scattering shadows to reveal glimpses of wet red slashes in a litany of symbols covering the walls.
Finally, she spied the cloudy glint of brass and, holding the torch above it, lit the wall brazier. Not far away she saw another, lit it the same way. Finally, she jammed the torch she held into an empty sconce, creating three points of flame. A dim glow filled the room, enough to chase back the total blackness and fully illuminate the message that had been smeared for someone to find. Jade saw only nonsense, unfamiliar jagged characters and signs. With her breath a block of ice in her throat, Jade ignored them and the way the sight of them made something burn in the center of her brain.
When she turned back, she saw Kit had already adjusted the sword in her grip, was braced to defend Dermot from any attack. Jade wanted, more than anything, to rush to them, envelop them both in her arms as if that could be enough to shield them from anything. It was the abject fear in Kit’s eyes that had her stepping in the opposite direction.
“I’ll be as fast as I can,” she swore before she took off running back the way they had come.
She ran faster than she ever had before, faster than any maneuver on the battlefield, faster than any foray through the woods in search of foes. Faster even than the cloudy memory in the very farthest reaches of her mind, when there were hands at her back pushing her forward while shouts and screams of Jade, run filled the air.
Ripping blindly through the shadows of the lower levels, Jade pounded up the steps, legs burning with the effort of forcing them beyond their usual steady gait. She raced through the long hallways of what had once been the palace, a place she was only recently becoming familiar with again, a place she had sometimes thought she would never see again. There were guards about, same as always but she paid them none of the heed she normally would have. She flew past them, ignoring their hails and questions, focused only on where she might find the man she was searching for. Some small voice inside asked what she intended to do, if she planned on bursting into the Grand Hall in her current state of panic.
If that was where Graydon was, then it was where she would go. Kit had asked her one thing and there was nothing that would prevent Jade from doing it.
It was fortunate then, as Jade careened around another corner and rapidly approached the entrance to the Hall, that Graydon, accompanied on either side by Airk and Brunhilde, chose that moment to step out, looking very much relieved to be doing so.
The moment he saw her a welcoming smile rose to his face, where the faint hint of a beard and mustache could be seen growing in. “Jade! There you are. Where’s Kit? Are you enjoying the—”
He broke off, clearly noticing what she was certain was the wildness of her demeanor. She skidded to a halt in front of him, breath short, and reached for his arm, any sense of propriety abandoned in favor of haste.
“You have to come, now,” she instructed. She glanced at Airk and Brunhilde, gave it half a second’s consideration, and decided blunt was best. “Only you.”
Graydon’s face fell instantly. “Is something wrong? Is it Dermot? Or Kit?” he implored, his voice pitching high in concern. She barely had to pull to get him to fall into step.
“What’s going on?” Brunhilde asked with no small measure of alarm.
“Yeah, we can come with you,” Airk asserted, moving as if he meant to follow.
Jade shook her head, already turning to run again. “No. Only Graydon,” she repeated, shortly, not wanting to lose any more breath to talking.
“Stay here. Make sure no one leaves the party,” Graydon ordered in a way that reminded Jade the gentle man had once been a king. To her continued shock, as she began to run, he followed suit, not a half jog like she might have expected but a full-on sprint.
“Are they hurt? What happened?” he demanded, over the clatter of their urgent footfalls.
Jade couldn’t bear to keep him in the dark in that regard, even if it burned her lungs to speak. “Neither are hurt. We’re not… we don’t know… it’ll be better to see for yourself.”
“You’re scaring me, Jade.”
She kept her eyes focused on the way ahead. “I know.”
It took far less time to return to the cellar than it had the first time with no memories or charged conversation to slow their pace. Instead, it was the hounds of fear and worry snapping at their feet, driving them into that dark place Jade was already afraid she wouldn’t be able to forget.
An even greater fear gnawed at Jade’s belly as they thundered down the steps into the cellar itself, as they hurried through the blackness toward the patch of light ahead. A fear that she had left Kit to one horror and would return to find even worse.
But when they approached, faster than perhaps wise in darkness, Jade could see Kit and Dermot had not moved from where Kit hunched protectively over her son, sword raised. A sharp cry tore from Graydon as he stumbled to them, his hands immediately going to Dermot in the same way that Kit’s had. After a moment, Graydon began pawing at his fitted jacket while he gently stroked sticky locks back from Dermot’s face.
Jade had a feeling she knew what he was looking for. She twisted the grommets at her shoulders that held her short, green cape in place. Once it was free, she offered it up and Graydon accepted immediately, wiping the fabric softly over his son’s cheeks. Tears streamed as Dermot bore the tender ministrations without a word.
Jade wondered, her chest constricting painfully, if he had spoken anything else to Kit in the time she had been away.
Kit rose to her feet, sword still in hand, and while she remained within reach of Graydon and Dermot, her attention shifted to the walls. Jade watched her eyes bounce from line to line, symbol to symbol, until they froze in one particular spot.
“Graydon. You need to look at this.”
“It can wait,” he fired back, sharper than Jade had ever heard him speak to Kit.
“It really can’t,” Kit contended, with a weight that left no room for argument.
Graydon turned his head, his gaze searching. His eyes went suddenly wide, and he rose so swiftly to join Kit at the wall that the cloak fell from his grip. Jade caught it before it could land in the pool of blood, stepped closer so she could wrap it around Dermot’s frame. His face might have been clean, but she could tell his clothes were saturated by the way he began holding his arms away from himself.
“Come here Dermot,” she murmured quietly, thinking it would be good to get him onto dry land so to speak. When he only stared at her from within the crimson boundary, her heart ached. “Can you walk? Do you want… should I carry you?” Years of command had not prepared her for this.
He continued to watch her for a long moment, his eyes seeking her face—for what, she couldn’t fathom. His gaze dropped lower and then, after another few seconds, he shuffled forward tentatively. “I can walk. I can do it,” he said. There was a sickening slurp as they stepped and with each sound his body shook more and more.
Until finally the ground beneath them was no longer wet and he slipped. Jade caught him with her free hand, gave him another look over as she considered how best to proceed. It was not the first person she had even seen covered in blood not their own, but never a child.
Never a living child.
Jade looked to Kit and Graydon, saw they were absorbed in the markings on the wall, though both had, perhaps instinctively, shifted so one arm appeared to be tracking wherever Dermot was. She shifted back, caught the full breadth of misery on Dermot’s face. He reached out with bloodstained little fingers, stopping just before reaching her. When she peered down, she saw he was pointing to the old crest of Tir Asleen embroidered on her tabard, the embellished emblem that marked her as Champion of the Realm.
“Here,” she said, reaching up first to unbuckle the straps of her breastplate and then down to loosen her belt so she could tug the short garment over her head. She set it aside, making certain the floor was clean underneath it. He wore a simple tunic, not unlike the kind Graydon favored, and the thin fabric was unsettlingly thick in the dim light. She held her cape up in front of him like a shield and tried to offer a reassuring smile.
After a moment, he began pinching open the togs of the tunic, tugging to separate the stiff material. There was the slap of wet fabric hitting the ground and she folded the cape over him again, hoping to remove as much of the sticky discomfort she knew would cling long after the gore had been cleared.
“Hold this,” she instructed, pressing the cloth to him until one of his hands snuck out from underneath to take the place of hers. She picked up her tabard and slipped it over his head. Short as it was, it completely engulfed him and after a few wriggles, they managed to pull the cape free.
“Is that any better?” Jade asked, tossing the soiled wrap aside. He nodded, eyes glued down at the emblem as he traced the gold thread stitched into the green silk with one finger.
“Jade?” he asked in barely a whisper.
“Yes?”
“Am I in trouble?”
Jade darted her gaze back to Kit and Graydon, found Kit staring back with undisguised concern. “No, of course not,” she answered and wished it felt like the truth. She rose up, held out a hand to him. He took it without hesitation, and they walked together to join his parents. As soon as they drew close enough, Kit returned Jade’s sword to her without a word. Then reached down and picked him up, arms closing tightly around him.
“Are you sure you don’t hurt anywhere?” she repeated, gently stroking the side of his temple. He nodded, then scrunched his nose slightly.
“My chest feels a little funny,” he confessed.
“Funny how?”
“Feels kinda hot. Like when you get too close to the fire.”
Frowning, Kit shifted the wide, open collar of the tabard aside while leaning closer to the nearest oil lamp. A few feet away, Graydon reached out and pressed a hand against the wall.
“Graydon.”
“Kit.”
They spoke at the same time, in nearly the same tone of dread. Beneath Graydon’s fingers was a large symbol, a wheel with many spokes and lines flaring out like a compass.
On Dermot’s chest, beneath the silken screen and glowing faintly in thin lines, the same mark.
Graydon lowered his head and stared at the front of his tunic for a long moment. Then he grabbed either side, tore open the front to reveal a patchwork of thick, roping scars, a mass of damage Jade could only begin to guess at what had caused it. But it took her only a second to see it.
The same mark. The same glow.
“It’s starting again,” he uttered in stark, ringing despair.