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“I fought your brother,” she says, helm held under one arm.
Gabranth looks up, and though surprise flickers across his face for only a moment, the fact that he has looked at all is more than enough of a reaction. They have been busy since the fall of Nabudis; with Zecht disappearing and taking the city, with plans for Dalmasca and Rabanastre, they have had little time to spend together.
“My brother in blood only,” he replies, looking back to the maps and charts he is pouring through. “We have taken different paths, and should I be the one to raise my sword against him, I will not hesitate to strike him down.”
Drace doesn’t quite laugh, nor does she snort, but there is a slight exhale of air that could be a bit of both. “A feat which I was unable to achieve, even without the ties of blood.”
Gabranth makes a noncommittal noise, setting his maps aside. He’ll be leaving soon. The populace has heard of a treaty. The Judge Magisters know otherwise.
“There is a difference between killing him and the dungeon, Gabranth.”
He just looks at her again, and Drace bows her head. “Forgive me, Your Honor.”
He stands and moves to walk past, pausing when they are side-to-side. “… There is nothing to forgive, Drace.”
With a smooth, practiced motion, he pulls on his helm and leaves.
--
Drace is with Lord Larsa when news of a Kingslayer reaches her ears. Larsa is summoned by his father, and Drace is dismissed, told to get some rest; they will have much more work to do now.
About halfway to her rooms, she halts. But she doesn’t turn, doesn’t head for the rooms of a man she trusts, a man she cares about (when she’s honest with herself, when it’s late at night and she can’t sleep, when she can cast aside the Judge long enough to be a woman – she daren’t do such a thing at any other time); she just stops, hands clenching for a moment before she continues on her way.
Kingslayer. Kinslayer. She isn’t sure which one is more damning. She only knows which one is true.
--
In the end, it is Gabranth who comes to her. He is waiting when she returns from a visit to the kennels, hovering in her room like he isn’t quite sure what he is allowed to do there, dressed in only a simple tunic and breeches. She doesn’t ask how he got in, just offers him a drink (politely declined) and begins to remove her armor.
She almost misses it when he looks in her mirror, tracing his fingertips over his forehead to outline a scar he doesn’t have. “Would he have done the same, should his King have commanded it?”
Drace doesn’t have an answer. She isn’t sure Gabranth is really looking for one, and she isn’t sure any answer she could give would help him. She wants to help him. But it is not in her to lie, and any answer that begins to form would be both the truth and as painful as a wound to the gut, so she says nothing.
He kisses her for the first time that night, uncertain at the beginning, but then as desperately as the Dalmascan plants drink in water. He is the wasteland, that night, and she is the water. Not enough, never enough, to fill his thirst – but enough to keep him going a little while longer. And if he leaves her there, naked and sated in the middle of the night, and if they do not talk about it later (they cannot, because “later” is when they are Judges, not who they really are – or perhaps a Judge is what they really are, and their coupling is just a shadow of what they could have been), then it is so. And if Drace is the one who sits in his room without armor next time, then so be it.
It is not in her to hurt him. It is not in her to lie. But it is in her to want, just as it is in him to need.