Chapter VI.

A Beginning.

XVI.

"Jane?"

There was no reply. Gunther blew out a sigh. Jane had crumpled herself into some contorted shape to stay on the narrow bed, her mouth completely agape — though that was hardly a surprise, as she slept with her mouth open almost always. And she snored.

Gunther could have woken her up, told her to return to her room. It was close to dawn. They had meant to leave soon anyways, and though he couldn't really care less if someone saw Jane slink out of his room after sunrise, rumpled and still half asleep, he imagined that was more than she particularly wanted to deal with.

But instead he propped himself up on an elbow and watched her face. Her twitching brows, her eyes dancing beneath her eyelids. Until she woke up, he could pretend she didn't know any more than she had yesterday morning. Until she woke up, he was as innocent as she'd thought he'd been before.

Glad you stayed. Glad you stayed.

In the trace light of almost-day, he had no clue what that even meant. He was sure she was glad she'd finally learned all of it, and beyond that, he wasn't sure of anything.

He thought of that same nightmare, the sword eternally resting beside his neck. Him kneeling, afraid, breathless, eager and terrified, Jane above him. Maybe this was the only way it could have gone. Maybe he'd made the choice to tell her the first time he'd had the dream. That was an easier thought than admitting what he'd done to himself last night, and so swiftly, without a single dulled edge to keep his own future safe.

Still Jane slept on. As if she didn't cradle in those loosely curled hands the power to end his squirehood forever.

"Jane," he said again eventually, when the sun had begun to rise.

"Huh." She lifted her head and squinted at him. Sure enough there was drool left behind on the pillow. He grimaced.

"Huh?" she repeated, this time back on his plane of existence. "Where—" she blinked and squinted some more, and then let her head flop back to the pillow. "Ugh. Hm." There was a wet spot on her chin. She made a face and thumbed at it.

"Feeling a bit damp, are we?"

Her voice was dry. "No chance you dripped water on the pillow to embarrass me?"

He nearly rolled his eyes. "As if you needed the help."

She flopped her arm over her face. "Right."

For another minute he watched her. She didn't do anything unusual, just the few small stirrings of someone awoken before they'd wished, the half-retreat into blankets for a couple stolen moments before submitting to daylight.

We fell asleep holding hands, he wanted to throw at her. Anything to say about that? Much less about everything else. Because surely she hadn't meant to sleep here — they weren't friends, not really, and just because she had a gift for pity didn't mean he had any great talent for accepting it. He wasn't so far gone he'd beg for scraps of her regard.

Until he'd awoken, he hadn't even realized this had happened. Their hands must have separated at some point, because he'd ended up squeezed against the wall, her back against his, their legs tangled, too many limbs for the small mattress and yet somehow notched together in a way that was almost comfortable. Of course they'd shared close quarters before, had been crammed together in the smallest of carts, squished behind each other on the same horse — but this was so obviously different.

(And yes, maybe once in a while, when he let himself slip, he'd pictured something sort of like this happening, because Jane was beautiful and even if she weren't she was still Jane — but the circumstances had always been wildly different.

…Usually they'd had less clothes on, for instance. Usually he hadn't spent the night before spilling truth from every damn pore.)

But then Jane tossed aside the blanket, stretched and gave a sort of embarrassed sort of amused smile as she unraveled her feet from his, and said "Shall we get ready?" in a way that sounded as if she very much didn't want to be doing that at all — and that was exactly how he'd imagined it would have been, if he'd been stupid enough to imagine something like Jane waking up in his bed.

So he said yes, and shooed her out, because he was that stupid, and because her cheeks were rosy warm, and because his father was dead and now she knew why.

And then he stared down at his boots for minutes without putting them on. He wasn't sure if he should feel glad or mortified, frantic or defensive, and wished instead for the familiar ease of feeling almost nothing at all.

…

Delivering the trade agreement was incredibly uneventful. A carrier bird could have done the same with an equal amount of fanfare. The antechamber was hardly guarded, and when they were waved through to the throne room, the fireplace was not nearly so big as Gunther had remembered it, and the steward was a distracted fellow, taking messages for an absent king who probably couldn't be bothered to hold audience for a kingdom with a third of Kippernium's already meager population. The whole way there Jane said nothing of last night. Gunther felt as if he were sitting atop a tar cask with an oiled wick moments from the flint, a burning potential taking up all the unspoken space between them, impossibly big to work around. Yet Jane appeared not to even notice.

The stables after were more eventful than the actual delivery, and Jane's presence as the first female squire seemed to hold more sway there than it had with the steward. The few young men raking stalls and currying horses all straightened at their return, barely seeming to notice when Gunther ducked into the stall with his mare, their eyes fixed on Jane.

Gunther listened in with a wary ear as he started to saddle his horse. Eavesdropping again, because he was good at it, because he'd had to be, he'd always had to be, and because even now that the most dangerous thing had already happened, now that he'd already handed Jane the sword to rest beside his neck, still he couldn't help any innate precaution.

But as much as he'd eavesdropped on Jane herself over the years, really the people who said the most were those around her. He'd heard plenty of awful things traveling with her before. Some of them were all the more idiotic because he'd said similar things straight to her face when they were younger, eager for any reaction, however negative.

He couldn't hear most of what the stablehands said to each other, or to Jane, though the gist of it seemed to be she was asking for trouble, traipsing around the countryside pretending to be a knight with only a single useless manservant in tow. Her response, on the other hand, was painfully clear. She was barely capable of a quiet voice to start with, and especially not when she was irritated.

"Is that so? You are lucky then, that I am too chivalrous to show you how well my pretend sword cuts—" the boy said something else and she snorted. "He can defend himself just fine, he is a squire as well and more than my equal in some regards. Now kindly get out. I prefer to saddle her myself."

Gunther blinked at his horse. She gave a perturbed blink right back at him.

More than Jane's equal? After everything? The stall over, he could hear her muttering to her mare, starting to get ready, but for a few moments more he could only stand there. Was last night some dream only he had traversed?

He thought of it abruptly.

Beyond caring about you as a person, which of course I do, very much so—

Usually she was a horrible actor about anything important, honesty shining out through whatever charade she threw over it. He would have done any number of embarrassing and ill-advised things to hear her admit any care or consideration for him at all when they were younger. Now he had no idea what to think.

Despite his distraction, Gunther finished with his horse the same time as Jane, and when they rode out through the front gates, she turned an eye to him.

"And what is that face for?" she accused. Other than the crossness still lingering in her voice, she sounded normal. No disgust, no careful tiptoeing. Just Jane.

He raised an eyebrow, looking away. "More than your equal?"

"See how many compliments I give you, if just one turns your head as big as Dragon's," she said with a haughty sniff.

He scoffed. "It would take at least three hundred years of compliments for my head to get so big. May as well get started now."

She smiled at him, as if he had said something right instead of ridiculous, and he could only stare back. "Then do something to deserve them first, dunderhead."

It took him a moment to gather a single thought. "Excuse me? Dunderhead?"

She grinned back and sped ahead, leaving him to chase the merry peals of her laughter all the way down the road.

…

They rode quicker on their return, and made it back to the cave they'd stayed in before by nightfall. It was a wettish warmish sort of evening. They didn't need a fire, and cut bread and hard cheese for supper as the sun sunk low.

"Do you know what the trade agreement was for?" Jane asked when they finished eating.

Gunther shrugged a shoulder. Eyed her. She still hadn't said one damn thing about last night. That tar cask between them was growing more uncomfortable by the minute. "Fish, right?"

"Yes, kippers. Last year a barrel we traded to their king was spoiled, so this year we are sending three extra to make up for it."

"Three? Seems excessive."

"Apparently their king grew quite ill from them." Jane grinned. "A spot of trouble in the privy, I believe."

Gunther snorted. "We should have sent him new breeches then, instead of extra fish."

Jane laughed, sudden and loud. The horses shifted, one of them giving a mildly concerned whinny, but she didn't seem to notice. For a moment Gunther watched her, how her eyes gathered up at the corners, the way she leaned back on her hands as if laughing too hard would make her lose balance. There was almost something brighter about her out here, unconfined by the castle and the shape of her friendships there and the shadow of Dragon always beside her. Or maybe she was incandescent with all the truth she now held. With the potential of an inferno that wouldn't singe a single hair on her own head.

"What?" she asked, when she quieted.

"Nothing," he said. Then he laid back in the grass, because looking at Jane was already too much of habit. Because he'd be damned if he'd light that wick himself to send his own head up in flames. Instead he stared up at the sky. The sunset was slowly streaming out, leaving behind building clusters of dark lavender clouds.

She tossed herself down next to him. Even not being able to see her, he could feel her arm almost against his, could smell the soap from her bath yesterday and the sunlight and salt from their swift afternoon ride.

"Ah, first star," she said, pointing.

They used to compete for who could find one first years ago, yet another thing they'd found to fight about as young squires tossed together on evening missions. He was surprised to find his mouth twitching into the barest hint of a smile. "I saw that one already."

"Pff, you never said." She was quiet for a moment. "Did you know the stars are different in the south? Where I went with Dragon, they were all flip-flopped around."

"Truly? That sounds impossible."

"I know, Dragon said he used to get lost a lot before he realized. If I had been navigating, it would have taken us ages longer to get anywhere." Her voice dulled, gathered half a sigh. "Not that that would have made much of a difference."

It had already felt like ages they'd been gone in the first place. He fixed his gaze on Jane's star. "I am sorry you found nothing."

"Me too." She paused. The grass rippled with a breeze around the two of them. He felt goosebumps raise along his bare forearms, and heard her shiver before she spoke again. "Perhaps next time you could come with us."

He stiffened. This was beyond a charade. "What?"

She bumped his shoulder with hers. "Assuming Dragon does not mind, of course."

"Why?" he asked frankly, turning his head to look at her. She was many things, but not cruel. Not enough to lie about this.

She shrugged. "You know more about the continent than I do, and we are trying there next. Perhaps you could be useful." She closed her eyes. "Could be fun."

"Could be fun," he echoed. It would be something, definitely. It always was, with Jane. "Well," he started, then paused, giving her the chance to yank back the offer. To come to her senses, but she said nothing. His eyes narrowed at the darkening sky. "If you could ever convince your lizard, perhaps I would consider it."

Jane blew away a moth straying too close. Her eyes were still closed. She was smiling a little.

He looked back up. His next words were accidentally honest, almost brutally so. "It would be better than staying."

He heard her breathe in. "Right. I am sorry, I wish I had been — that I… I would have wanted to be here. If I had known."

His mouth tilted. He knew that somehow. He had never considered it, but he knew even without consideration that she would have flown home the instant she found out, if only the smoke and grief had blown her way. "I know."

Something warm touched him, and he realized it was Jane's hand, the edge of her pinky lifting to rest against his.

"Gunther," she said. "Can I—" she paused. "You, I mean. Can you pass the water?"

He felt around for her water skin and passed it to her. She reached across with her other hand, and their fingers stayed next to each other.

"Jane," he said.

She sat up. Her hand slipped away as she uncorked the skin. "Yes?"

He sat up as well. She had let her hair down after they delivered the scroll, and it had only grown more rampant with the ride, buoyed by the humidity. His eyes traced the small curls springing away from her face, and the soft clean green of her eyes, clear still in the falling light. "…When would you go?" he asked, which was not really what he'd meant to say.

She shrugged. "After we are both knighted, I should think."

She said it as if it was still going to happen.

She placed the skin down, and her hand set down beside his again, closer this time, her last finger settling into the hollow beneath his knuckles, nestling into the softer underside of his fingers as if it were the most natural place for it to be. As if this were simple. As if last night, instead of some escalated mistake, had rather been a final puzzle piece in something most of the way complete.

She blinked at the gathering clouds. "They wanted to knight you already, you know. But Sir Theodore said that you were not ready. That it would be an unkindness."

He felt his face twist. In a larger kingdom it would be time-based — you completed your training, you weren't a complete ass, they knighted you. Somewhere as small as Kippernium, they wanted a person to be ready. They wanted someone who could walk up the wooden stairs to the knights' quarters without trembling.

"They asked me," she continued, her finger curling up into his. "If I thought you were."

Why should they care what you think, he wanted to ask, but was suddenly uncomfortable with what the answer might be.

"Is that what this was about? This trip?" he asked instead. The words came out sharp. He couldn't find an ounce of dishonesty in the way her skin rested against his, and didn't want to try.

She shook her head, then shrugged. "Sort of, I suppose. Not that anyone sent me to report back on anything." She paused again. "I do think you could be ready, if you wanted. If you felt like you deserved it."

"Felt like I—" he looked away.

What did it even mean, to deserve it.

The silence continued. Gunther still wasn't knighted and his father was dead and now Jane knew why — and yet here she was. He thought of yesterday, of lying next to her, and already it seemed unreal. Some slippery ale dream, as untenable as oil suspended over water. If he mentioned it, the spell would be broken. He'd see it was only ever a muddy puddle.

Between their hips, their fingers remained entwined. He thought of children making promises, pinkies squeezing tight together. Of still-unlit casks of tar. Hay bales sweltering in the dark.

"What about yesterday?" he asked finally.

"What about it?"

He jerked his hand from hers. "Jane, enough."

Her brows knit as she glanced down at where her hand remained buried in the thick grass. "What do you mean?"

How could he possibly say it all? Sober today, and cried dry, and far enough removed from the moment to feel the embarrassment and dread settled firmly at the base of his stomach, he wanted to lean into her face and say simply that — all of it. I mean all of it. That he'd been waiting for some blade of judgment to close upon him now that the truth had been spilled, and it was one thing not to do so when they were crying in each others' arms, but now she had no excuse. He wasn't going to wait the rest of his life for that blade to fall at his first misstep.

But instead of any of that, he inanely said, "For all you know, I kicked my father down the warehouse stairs myself."

"Actually I know very well that you did nothing of the sort," Jane shot back irritably, without a single shred of delicacy.

He watched her and said nothing.

"What exactly do you want me to say?" she asked. "That you were wrong? That you deserved this, or your father did — that I could have done better?"

At the last, he stiffened, and her eyes traced the motion, watching, watching, the way she had since he'd come home.

Then her gaze dropped down to the grass, and he saw the motion of her taking in a breath, though it came completely silently through her bitterly tilted lips. "Is that how little you think of me?"

His mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

"Jane—" he began finally, but she interrupted before he could think of a single word, her voice gone quiet.

"Do you remember that day on the cliff when we were younger? When I almost went over and you pulled me back?"

After a moment, his chin jerked in a nod.

"Some things are automatic. You move one way or the other without deciding. And I…" She swallowed. Shook her head. "I cannot tell you which is right. When I have no clue what I would do myself."

She stared down at her knees.

The memory came and went, dreamlike and concrete, Jane saying I do not like choosing in almost as many words.

"Oh," he said eventually, very softly.

"Besides," she continued, after a long silence, "surely it matters more what you have done since."

"As in what?"

He sounded surprised, and almost a little petulant, both of which were a surprise in themselves.

"Hm. Why did you give the farms back to their tenants again?" she asked.

His eyes flicked to her face, then away just as quickly.

Because perhaps if the townsfolk had had a single extra coin to spare, they might've taken the boy in after his family died. And what was paper and coin and toil to something like fire anyways? It all went up as easily as straw, and was nothing more than ashes in the end.

He gave no reply.

"Hm," she said anyways, as if he'd said plenty.

The silence grew between them, but it was no longer uncomfortable. Just a quiet waiting as the light continued to sink and the clouds crowded up against the sky.

After another few minutes she tapped his middle finger. "I forgot you had a scar here," she murmured.

To forget, she must have known it was there to start with. He wondered why she'd ever noticed his hands in the first place, but strangled the thought to a stuttering stop before it could swell into anything meaningful. Because Jane was beautiful and Jane was Jane, but still, there were thoughts he had to keep unthought for his own sake, no matter the number of dreams he had. No matter last night and everything since.

"These are new," she said quietly, running a finger over some patchy red marks on the backs of his knuckles. They'd gotten burned during the fire. He couldn't recall exactly how. But before he could say anything, she lifted his hand to her mouth and pressed her lips gently against the scars.

He froze.

For a moment longer she held his hand, and then she quickly returned it to his side and rose to her knees, brushing grass and dirt from her breeches. "Well!" she started, voice strained and bright, "I should start setting up my bedroll before it rains—"

He caught her wrist. "Jane—"

She paused, halfway between sitting and standing. Her hair was a loose fiery riot over her shoulders. She was staring, staring.

He dropped her wrist. But she didn't move, still bent down towards him. And again he was watching her, was thinking and feeling things he shouldn't for his own self-preservation — and Jane, Jane who knew everything now, was watching him right back.

But neither of them said a thing. Around them the wind picked up, a brisk gust swirling by, ruffling at her back and sending her wobbling, curls rushing forward into her face. She caught herself with a palm on his knee. Before she could pull away or brush her hair back, he reached up and gathered it to one side, sweeping it from the warm curve of her neck, the edge of her collarbones. His heart was pounding. The only reason he could tell he was leaning closer was because Jane was mirroring the motion, and when his hand lifted to her face, he saw a heavy swallow trace the line of her throat.

His thumb swiped over her temple. "You have had dirt there since yesterday."

Her eyes widened, hand leaving his knee to jump up to her temple. "All day? You might have thought to tell me, we were there as knight envoys, you ass — oh, that was a joke, was it?" A scowl blossomed over her face and she gave him a little shove back into the lush grass. "Haha very funny—"

"I wiped it off this morning," he informed her, catching himself on one hand. "While you were drooling angelically."

"You should have wiped your mouth too," she said back tartly, pressing her thumb to his lips, "since you have had dirt there your whole life, honestly, why do I listen when half of what you say is rubbish anyways—"

He was laughing. It felt like he hadn't done that for years, and Jane's expression changed again, half wondering, half exasperation, still leaning over him, finger set against his mouth, until he leaned up into the space left between them and kissed her.

She let out a soft sound against his lips. He tried to pull back, sure it was a protest, but she was already shifting forward, her weight falling and catching against his, her hands coming to his hair, her mouth crashing back into his. They tumbled back in the grass, pulling in towards each other — and though they'd worked too closely for him not to know the feeling and shape of her, it had never been like this, this sudden heat as she pressed against him, her arms shifting to bracket his shoulders, her mouth fierce and impatient against his, curls pouring in a curtain around their faces.

And this at least was simple. There was nothing to think about. Nothing to doubt. There was only Jane, and his back flat against the grass, the wild breeze catching at them both.

Until a raindrop landed on his forehead. She laughed, lifting back on an elbow and bumping his nose with hers, her smile soaringly beautiful.

"That was stupid," she said. A few droplets had settled in her hair. She was still smiling.

He couldn't catch his breath. Couldn't even hold up his head. He let it flop back to the ground. "It was," he answered. For a lot of reasons, it was.

She shook out her hair and shifted onto her palms, leaning back over him. "Shall we try it again, to see how bad of an idea it was?"

The air was singing now, laden with energy as the summer clouds above continued to darken. Another drop landed right on his eyebrow. His hands came to her hips, positioned in some middle ground where there was still a choice, where he could still either yank her off or pull her closer.

The notion of a choice was absurd. Pushing her away was unthinkable. "Only way to be sure, right?"

She kissed him once more, deep and lingering and gentle, her chest laying against his, and he felt it like the electric thrum gathering in the sky, like the low thrill of thunder off in the distance. His hands buried deep in the hair at the nape of her neck, pressed into her back. Her lips were soft. He could feel her breath flutter on his nose, the brief brush of her eyelashes, her heart beating against him.

"I think not too bad of an idea," he said against her cheek, when they both paused for breath. He almost wanted to laugh again. Foolish, yes — but right. Wasn't that always her way? Maybe there really was no impossible thing she couldn't do. Maybe he'd lit that tar cask himself the first time he'd imagined waking up beside her.

"Right," she agreed. "Only somewhat bad."

She pushed back to her elbows above him, and this time he followed her up to sitting. He was thinking of the rain, but not as much as he was thinking of how he wasn't ready for the moment to end.

Maybe she wasn't ready for it either. Her head settled against his shoulder, her fingers scrunching into the ruff of his tunic. His hand found her waist again. It felt like if he could only hold her a little closer, the whole world around them would fracture to a background, and last night wouldn't be real anymore, the last year wouldn't; he'd be able to keep that opal oil sheen suspended over the dirty puddle forever.

"I missed you," she said softly, as if it were as much of a confession as he had given the night before. The tip of one ear was peeking out from beneath her curls. It had gone scorchingly pink.

"When you were gone?" he managed to ask.

"Then too," she admitted. Then, before he could stretch that statement out into its full meaning, she tacked on hurriedly, "Only a little, of course."

"Of course," he echoed. "What about me did you miss?"

"Do not push your luck," she huffed.

He tipped her cheek up from his shoulder and kissed her again, hoping he could push his luck at least that far. She caught her breath, leaning into him before he drew back, her eyelashes a pale flutter, head tilting back to meet his eyes.

A single quivering drop ran down his cheek to hers. The sky gave another low rumble, this one closer. "I missed you only a little too," he said before he could convince himself not to, and then, far too quickly for her to respond to the first part: "Also we ought to set up our bed rolls, because I believe we are about to get soaked."

"Oh!" Jane jumped up. "Yes, those clouds are really rolling in."

They moved everything into the cave, where Gunther tossed his bedroll down randomly and Jane pushed hers in next to his. When he raised an eyebrow she only grinned, turning away to tend to the horses.

By the time she finished, the storm had begun to buffet at the mouth of the cave in earnest, the summer weather working itself up to a crescendo. He sat in his bedroll, staring out at the dark shapes of the drops falling against the blackening sky, feeling there and not there at the same time, and for once wanting to be nowhere else. After a minute he heard her pick her way carefully back over to him, her voice bouncing against the stone walls. "Good thing this cave is angled up; we would sleep in puddles otherwise."

She settled in next to him with a shiver. The light was barely enough for him to see her face peering out at the sheets of water pouring from the overhanging cave lip. A few moments passed and then her hands crept into his. He shot her a look, but she was still staring outside.

He hadn't realized how cold his hands were. He curled them around hers automatically, sealing heat into the bundle of their fingers. His heart kept its steady low simmer in the breadth of his chest. Jane was Jane, and she was beautiful, and the moment was stretching beyond a moment now, was growing too long to be a dream or a lie.

"We should sleep," he murmured after a while, breaking the quiet.

She nodded and set to fixing up her bedroll. By the time she laid down, her smile had finally faded. She turned her face to his, heavy with shadow. "What I said before," she started. "About not reporting back to anyone?"

He went very still.

"I never would."

A second passed, then another.

He hadn't known that.

Or at least he hadn't last night, when he'd still had the chance to lie, to say nothing — and he'd said it all anyways. For a second longer he lay frozen, heartbeat and all. He knew her just as well as she knew him; if she had thought he was in the wrong, he was sure she would be making no such promise.

"Thanks," he murmured, quiet and rough. And didn't say more than that. Didn't say what a solid, unfamiliar comfort it was, to have her promise him anything, because the feeling was beyond words.

She nodded.

Lightning cracked beyond the cave, brightening the sky for an instant, showing for the briefest moment Jane's face in black and white. Then it was dark again. For a few seconds there was silence, before thunder followed with a hollow, far-off boom.

He listened to the last of the rumbles fade. The rain was still steady. Jane had arranged her bedroll just so and then wriggled so precisely into it, but now she yawned and shifted even closer to him, immediately wrecking its tidiness. "You know," she began, still facing him in the dark, "I am not sure you spoke in your sleep at all last night. At least not that I heard."

Her voice was warm, not careful, and no spell was broken. Instead she only sounded sort of sleepy and sort of happy, as if him making it through the night without a nightmare was some small victory for both of them.

Something still wound tight in him eased a little. Somehow he'd shifted the oil atop the muddy puddle to find it was iridescent all the way through.

The reply that escaped him was little more than a grunt, and Jane just yawned again instead of continuing. For a few minutes he traced the faint shapes and drips of the cave ceiling, almost indiscernible in the dark, before finally speaking, voice hoarse. "Jane… I — I never really meant to tell you. But—"

She was silent for a moment, then gave a muted snore.

After he let a shocked and slightly annoyed moment pass by, he swallowed a laugh. She didn't need to know everything, after all. That some mistakes were good ones. Some of them had to be.

Above him, the stone ceiling loomed, cragged and lit occasionally by lightning. Beside him Jane's exhales grew deep and even. Eventually the rain slowed. The wind shifted, gentled. The air he breathed in was smooth and clean, drenched with the flourish and bloom of a summer night.

Maybe he really wasn't alright. He did still feel laid out, too present, too fresh in a moment that had already happened, and too caught up in it to move on. He couldn't parse out deserving, or guilt, or death. He couldn't imagine a time when the ashes wouldn't blow through his mind, when the spaces there would ever fill, shapes deep as if carved, of his father and the boy, of the silhouette of the world burning.

But all he could smell on the breeze was crisp water and the green of growing things. All he could hear was Jane's breathing.

So maybe he wasn't alright — but maybe someday he could be.

He could be.

XVII.

It's the same nightmare he's had before.

Should I, Jane is whispering. The sword rests on his shoulder. Her voice is running all together like water worrying between many little stones, trying to find a clear path out.

There's another sort of water sound. Steady drips on stone. He can only remember this room, this kneeling, without beginning and without end, only sensations but senseless ones. Only cold stone and cold metal and Jane. The sound cuts through it all.

Gunther, she is saying softly. Gunther. Stop.

He can never speak in this space. He's never even been able to raise his head. The dripping sound is deafening. He almost can't hear her anymore.

Stop, she says, louder now.

He looks up. Finally he looks up. Her hair isn't the only red in the room. There's spots on the floor in front of her, a steadily growing puddle. He traces it back up to his sword arm, where blood seeps from his palm, his fingers folded tight around her blade.

Let go. She sounds like she's going to cry. Gunther, you must let go.

He's only inches from being knighted, inches only from death. Still he can hear the rush of water, the words tangled in the freezing room, the should I should I threading through the air, passing over his aching lungs.

Then Jane's voice, groggy and thick with sleep: "Should you what?"

He gasped in a breath, slit palm falling from the blade — and woke up.

.

.

.

Notes: Ahh it's finally done! This is the longest thing I've ever finished (all the multiple times I've finished it! like six! but at least now it's the longest thing I've ever finished posting!) so it feels really weird to be wrapping this up once and for all. Thank you so so much to everyone who has ever reviewed, and to anyone who's managed to read this all the way through over a bunch of stops and starts; it has genuinely made all the difference in this getting finished. I'd cover this end portion in hearts if this site allowed them bc you are so appreciated :)

(also this site doesn't allow the same chapter title to be used twice which is very annoying because I had a whole thing here with the first and last title matching so please pretend the title for this last chapter is what it shows in the chapter body and not what the dropdown menu has. we make do with the challenges around here lol)