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they’re seventeen when they meet again, alm and celica— seventeen with the burdens of adults on their shoulders. celica’s tanned in the ocean sunlight and her hair smells of salt, but she’s replaced her yellow ribbon with a crown and alm looks at her and thinks beautiful, but not in the sense that he wants to kiss her.
but husbands and wives don’t kiss all the time, alm reasons. it’s fine with him so long as they don’t kiss too much.
alm’s grown, too— all shining blue-toned armor and a sword that looks too heavy to lift. he’s grown gracefully into his rigelian features, with his dark eyes and short nose and soft chin. celica musses his hair but laments the fact that she’s no longer taller than he is. alm can live with that.
when they’re eighteen they usher in the age of men, or something fancy-sounding for history textbooks, and swear to join the thrones of rigel and zofia for the benefit of all valentia. they’re told a marriage between the heirs would be the traditional way of doing so, but marriage means love and they don’t know much about love. they’re only eighteen, they’re allowed.
so it’s when they’re eighteen that celica pins a name to the feelings stirring in her chest when she thinks of her best friend mae, and a name to what it means about her that she can think of all the beautiful women she’s met (silque, like a sister to her but cool and beautiful enough that celica even now can’t tell if she wants to be her or date her; sonya, obviously off-limits romantically and she knows that’s best but her imagination often runs away from her; palla and catria with their pretty features and kind voices and tender hands that make celica feel something that’s softer than envy but that she couldn’t name until now) but if she tries to think about loving, kissing, marrying a man then her tongue turns sour and she can’t think of what she’d even do.
celica knows it’s odd. she wonders if the way she feels for mae is because she knew mae when they were children, when mae wore short hair and boy’s clothes and had another name. but she would never think of mae like she’d think of any boy, because mae is no boy and celica’s heart knows that. she’s sure it must be a sin; she confesses to the statue of the mother in the dead of night with her voice a cracking whisper and she gets no answer.
she confesses to alm one night when neither of them can sleep so they’re wrapped in quilts on the floor of one of their chambers; she spills about the way she feels, about the way she’s felt for a while but couldn’t tell, about how she’s sure there must be something wrong with her.
it’s not a sin to love anyone, alm says firmly. i didn’t learn all that much about the mother, but i’m sure she wouldn’t shun you for loving women and not men, would she? isn’t love kind of her thing?
celica rubs her eyes, puffy and red despite her best efforts not to break down. i don’t know, she says hoarsely. she doesn’t say that often.
alm quiets. they spend the rest of the night in silence and celica ruins three more handkerchiefs.
it’s not a sin, celica learns, but few speak of it. she asks around, though— she learns sonya’s like her, and so is silque. she learns of palla’s wife back in archanea and how she longs to return, of est being like mae, of catria liking anyone who catches her eye, regardless of gender, and she learns that faye and genny aren't sure yet (though genny's books beg to differ, that celica can see) and she thinks that it makes her feel a little less alone, a little less like there’s something wrong with her.
and mae likes her, too. that much was obvious.
alm does some questions of his own— now that he knows it’s an option, what else was he unaware of? could he like men and not women? is that why romance has always felt foreign, why he’s always felt so strange when tobin and gray talk about getting girlfriends and leaving town, why they tease him about being oblivious when they say clair was flirting with him? is it why he didn’t notice?
but i like men doesn’t feel right either. for the first time, he feels odd. and while celica’s finding community and love with mae, alm finds loneliness.
perhaps he does like women, but hasn’t met the right one, he thinks, while celica’s with mae being young and silly like eighteen-year-olds are supposed to. or was celica supposed to be the woman he loved, but because she doesn’t feel the same, he stopped feeling it for her? is that how it works? alm doesn’t know, and he doesn’t know why, and it feels strange. a strange kind of hurt, twisting in his gut. perhaps he’s the one who’s odd.
they grow from teenagers into newly-minted adults, studying law and diplomacy and history and religion. alm keeps up his swordplay and he feels most at home when he’s sparring with tobin or gray or even celica, and when they’re done and they’re sweating and laughing by the water trough at tobin when he dunks his entire head in and comes up looking like a swamp monster. he feels young. why does there need to be romance in his life when he can be perfectly happy with his friends?
they’re crowned. their friends are knighted, other allies go on their merry ways. tobin and gray and kliff stay as knights, mae and boey as celica’s honor guard. sonya leaves with genny, refusing to leave her to be abandoned again. silque takes her leave quietly, as she always did, and faye leaves without an aim after a set of tearful goodbyes. the three sisters return to archanea. celica and alm watch their gathered armies trickle out, moving on to the next adventure. the castle feels emptier without them.
they announce their engagement when they’re twenty-two. the wedding is an affair that calls for a week of festivities and then another just because. celica and mae split the night before the wedding ceremony and alm knows that they talked about it on the throne by the way mae can’t quite look at it. her eyes are red and puffy and he knows why. celica’s are, too.
i don’t think i love anyone, alm realizes, when he and celica are in bed together as married couples are supposed to do and celica’s asleep thinking about mae’s hands on her waist and lips on her neck. he loves celica and he loves his friends in the same way— they’re his friends, but he doesn’t love them the way everyone always talks about love.
perhaps it’s a him problem. perhaps he got hit on the head too hard and now he can’t love.
it’s a thought that bothers him more than most things do; alm tends not to let things get under his skin, but this thought started there and refuses to leave. he confesses it to celica like she confessed her fearful love for women those years ago and celica hesitates.
if it isn’t a sin to love, she says. why would it be a sin to not love, if it’s what makes you happy?
the words strike a chord somewhere, but alm can’t say where.
as they near twenty-two, twenty-five, thirty, alm makes his peace with it. he finds happiness in his friends, in faye’s occasional letters gushing about silque and about their cat, in the child celica bears that has her flaming ginger hair and lighting that sparks at the tips of his fingers (that he knows is not his flesh and blood but that’s alright, because he sees the way celica looks at him and sees her once-lover and longtime friend), in the children that he adopts as his heirs. celica abdicates the throne when they’re twenty-seven and by that point alm’s adopted three daughters and a son and is waiting on his fifth.
she bids him a short goodbye in the dead of night, her and her little boy (he’s six, bright and enthusiastic and smart as a whip) bundled in their warmest clothes, and with her honor guard ever-present, hanging back a few steps behind, having already said their goodbyes. she and alm hug, tight and close and warm, and then they clasp forearms and alm wishes her good luck and safe travels. the seas are rough— she’d best be careful.
she smiles; alm knows the longing with which she speaks of the sea and knows that any storm that rises, she’ll match it. if anyone can do it, it’s celica— his wife, his best friend.
i’ll miss you, he says. so will the kids.
i’ll bring them back presents, celica promises. how about a necrodragon skull? one of those would look wonderful in your study.
alm laughs. (celica’s not joking. she brings him one when he turns thirty.)
be safe, alm tells her. and thank you.
thank you, celica replies. did you ever figure out about… your romance thing?
alm thinks. no, he says. but i don’t think i need to. i’m just fine the way i am.
and he is.