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Fedyor shut his book and leaned back into the arm of the divan.
“Ivan?”
At the writing desk, Ivan was reviewing some finished report or other. It was strange to see him looking so domestic, reading glasses perched on his nose. Strange, but quite pleasant. They had shared this apartment for years but rarely were given the chance to stay in it together. There was a thrill in finally getting to watch each other perform the menial tasks that took place between retiring for the night and going to sleep.
“Yes, dear?”
They had both been absorbed in their own activities for the past half hour. Or, Ivan had been. Fedyor not as much. Even as he tried settling into his novel, his focus kept circling back to the scared mapmaker from the front. The girl who was Grisha but did not know, whose skin had bled light that saved the skiff.
“Can she do it?”
Ivan’s head tilted back, his eyes closed in a gesture of impatience he usually reserved for everyone but Fedyor. He muttered something to himself before setting his papers down on the desk and standing up.
They hadn’t really had a chance to discuss what happened as just the two of them. After the Fjerdian attack on the carriage, Ivan followed the General to the Little Palace while Fedyor escorted the wounded back to the First Army camp. In their weeks of separation, the Sun Summoner dominated any and all conversations. It became impossible to talk about anything that wasn’t theory or rumor about her abilities. Still, it was more gossip than conversation.
Ivan tapped Fedyor’s legs, and he lifted his feet from the sofa to let the other man sit down. Hand on Fedyor’s ankles, Ivan pulled his legs across his lap.
“The Sun Summoner. Can she do it?” he repeated now that they were settled.
“I don’t know.” Ivan picked at the hem of his husband’s silk robe. Like the rest of their clothing, it was dark red and detailed in black. “She’s young.”
“And that makes her less powerful how?”
“You haven't been here.” Ivan looked across at him, a frown darkening his long face. “She is unfocused, untrained. Thoughtless."
“But we all start off that way, no?” Even Ivan hadn’t been immune to teenage impulses all those years ago. Fedyor remembered the long line of tardies the other heartrender racked up when he discovered that he preferred Fedyor’s bed to Botkin’s early morning sparring sessions.
“Maybe. But we are not all Sun Summoners.” Ivan dropped the hem of the robe and put his hands back on Fedyor’s calves. With his thumb, he gently massaged the tendons above his heel. “With time, maybe she’ll be ready. But we don’t have time.”
No, time was not on their side. It never had been. He had lost count of how many funerals he had gone to over the past few years. Of how many friends had become names on memorials. There was no telling how many more Grisha and Ravkans would die while the Sun Summoner waited to face the Fold.
“Don’t let me turn you cynical.” Ivan planted a chaste kiss below Fedyor’s knee. “What would you do? If she does tear it down.”
The appeal to his imagination was Ivan’s way of coaxing Fedyor out of his somber thoughts. As transparent as the method was, it never failed. “If we’re speaking in hypotheticals, can I also assume the war has ended?” he asked slowly.
“Of course. Whatever you want.”
“Then first, I think the two of us should take a sail.”
“Where would we sail?”
“I don’t know,” he laughed. “Anywhere. I’ve always imagined you would make a handsome sailor.” Years of separation pushed Fedyor construct some fairly intricate erotic fantasies. Ivan as a greasy, muscled sailor was one of his favorites.
“Be serious,” Ivan teased, aware of what Fedyor’s little smile meant.
“I’m being serious. I think it’d be fun to sail around for a bit. See some whales. A seadragon, maybe. Get sunburned. After we get our fill of adventure, we’ll settle down in a little town. Somewhere quiet.”
“Somewhere near Udova maybe?”
“Yes, somewhere near Udova. We'll grow squash and tomatoes, and we’ll have a cat. He’ll like you more than me though.”
“You’ll start to resent me if that’s true.”
He touched his hand to Ivan’s cheek. “Not even a cat with poor taste could make me do that.”
This earned him a scoff.
“Maybe we can run a little shop. A bakery, perhaps?”
“You’ve never baked a single thing in your life, soloynchko.”
“So? I'm a fast learner, and I'll have you to test my creations on. How hard can it be?”
“I’d be very worried about the citizens of Udova if you were to open a bakery. Maybe it’s a good thing our young Summoner will not take down the Fold.”
With that one slip of the tongue, the fantasy rising up around them collapsed. Cold air returned to the room, harsh and terrible. Ivan leaned back into the sofa and pulled his hands away from Fedyor’s legs.
“What about you?” Fedyor asked quietly. “What would you do, if there wasn’t the Fold, the war? If you could do anything.”
Ivan didn’t move. He just opened his eyes and gave Fedyor one long, sad look. “I’d grow old. I'd grow old with you.”
“Oh.” His heart tightened like someone put their grip on it, but there was no magic being performed. No more than the usual kind. He sat up and clasped one of Ivan’s hands between his own two. “We can. We will.”
This was a lie. A comfortable lie, one they depended on, but a lie nonetheless.
“No. We won’t.” When the truth came out, it often sounded too close to treason. “We won’t make it to being old. Look at us, burying a friend every day. How much longer until it is one of us in the ground?” Ivan paused to take a breath. He could look so young sometimes. If the others looked, they would see it too. “Sometimes I wake up surprised that we’re both still alive,” he admitted gently.
“We’re still here,” Fedyor whispered, moving his fingers to the pulsepoint on Ivan’s wrist. “I’m still here.”
“For how much longer?”
“I don’t know.”
They stayed this way for a while, hands clasped and heads bowed. Solemn. Eternal. This conversation would have to be locked away. Forgotten. This anger would have to be silenced.
“Let’s go to bed,” Ivan kissed into the top of Fedyor’s hand. “Let’s go to bed, my love.”