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Jade’s fairytale begins at age four, when Kit and Airk stumble through a pair of wooden doors near the stables, muddied and giggling.
Jade sees the princess and prince of Tir Asleen
Kit sees red hair and hazel eyes, wet with tears.
“Why are you crying?”
“Why are you muddy?”
Airk grins, cheeky and dimpled. “We were playing with the horses.”
Kit steps towards the sniffling girl, extends a hand. “Will you play with us?”
Kit’s blue eyes are wide and pleading. Jade wipes at her cheeks and takes her hand, hesitant. “Okay.”
So, they play.
They play between the cows and the horses, among the chickens and the pigs. They play until Jade is also muddied and giggling. They play until the Queen sends for her children, until Kit and Airk are scooped up for afternoon baths- squealing in protest.
“What’s this?” Queen Sorsha demands “Last I checked, I have two children, not three.”
“Jade is our friend,” Kit huffs, a foot stomp to punctuate her sentence.
Sorsha’s ears perk at the name and she squats down to observe the little girl, who’s cheeks turn red to match her hair under the Queen’s scrutiny.
“Jade Claymore?”
Jade nods. The Queen softens. She stands and waves on the flustered maids.
Kit smiles in triumph.
Later, after the trio is bathed and clothed and fed and Airk has slipped off to sneak a pastry from the kitchen, Kit asks Jade again, “Why were you crying?”
Jade swings her feet, avoids Kit’s eyes. “I was missing my family.”
Kit nods, reaches for Jade’s hand. Their tiny fingers interlock. “I miss my dad too sometimes.”
Jade looks up to meet her eyes and Kit decides, “We could be family.”
“How?” And Jade says what she’s been thinking all day. “You’re a princess. I’m an orphan.”
Kit frowns. “Well, you could be a princess too then.”
“That’s not how it works,” Jade protests. She knows this because princesses wear crowns and gowns and live in the castle and Jade does none of those things.
“Jade,” Kit is stubborn and determined, “you can be my princess. And I’ll be yours. We’ll be a family.”
Jade shakes her head. “I won’t be a princess.” Kit frowns. She’s not used to not having her way. Before Kit can counter, Jade continues. “I’ll be a knight. The strongest in the kingdom.”
“My knight?”
Jade nods. “Okay.”
“Then I’ll be your princess. The strongest in the kingdom.”
Jade smiles. “Okay.”
Jade’s fairytale begins with a princess and a promise.
Over the years, Kit forms a habit of barging through Jade’s doors. As much as she groans of peace and privacy, Jade doesn’t mind. In fact, she leaves her door ajar some nights, in case Kit sneaks in with a late night snack and stories from her day.
Tonight, Kit graduates to the window and Jade reaches for her dagger.
“It’s me,” Kit confirms.
Jade relaxes her grip and sits upright.
“Kit, it’s late-”
Kit, with a cake in one hand and a candle in the other, huffs. “Well that’s too bad because it’s your birthday.”
It’s exactly midnight. Jade smiles and pulls her knees in, gestures for Kit to join her on her bed.
It’s not technically her birthday. When they were little, Jade admitted to Kit that she didn’t know which day of which month she was born. The very next day, Kit and Airk awoke Jade with a cake and a song and a day of mischief.
It’s been ten years since then. 120 moons since they met. Tonight, Jade celebrates her fourteenth birthday.
Usually, Kit and Airk wake Jade together in the morning, but this year is different. This year is the beginning of different.
“Happy birthday,” Kit whispers.
In the candle light, her blue eyes glow like an ocean at sunset and Jade wonders why she notices this, why she notices the curve of Kit’s lips and the pink of her cheeks.
Jade clears her throat and diverts her eyes. It’s easier not to wonder.
“Thank you, my princess.”
Kit rolls her eyes, flicks Jade’s knee, and urges her to make a wish.
Jade wishes for peace for the kingdom, for strength to avenge her family, and, most of all, for more of this. She wishes for many, many more moons with Kit Tanthalos.
“What’d you wish for?” Kit asks between spoonfuls of cake.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Jade drawls.
“I could just order you to tell me,” Kit teases.
Jade rolls her eyes. “I wish to see the stars,” she decides.
Kit stands, extends a hand, and tugs Jade along. “Then your wish is my command.”
They scramble up, up, up to the roof. They take the steps two at a time, mouths stuffed with cake and secrets.
Kit and Jade race to their corner of the roof. The one with a view of Kit’s room. They sit up on the stone railing, dangling their feet over the edge, over the kingdom.
“Where’s Airk?” Jade wonders. Mostly, the twins are a package deal. Lately, things have changed. Kit tenses and Jade thinks she shouldn’t have asked.
“Am I not enough?” Kit asks, quietly, into the night sky.
Jade turns to her. Kit is frowning and Jade is sure this is about more than she knows.
“You’re enough,” she promises Kit. Princess of Tir Asleen. Her best friend. “You’re more than enough.”
Kit scoots down and over to lay her head on Jade’s lap.
They look up at the stars.
They count in silence, in a ritual.
Kit points up at the sky, mouthing numbers to herself while Jade runs her hands through Kit’s hair.
“38,” Jade remarks.
Kit hums in agreement.
This is peace, Jade thinks.
“Your hair is soft,” she tells Kit.
“I think I’d like to cut it short. I bet my mother would throw a fit.”
Jade chuckles. “I’ll help you.”
“Will you?”
“Of course.”
Under the moonlight, Jade cuts Kit’s golden brown locks with a pair of scissors borrowed from the sleeping seamstress. Jade snips until Kit’s hair is short and shaggy.
She hands Kit a mirror and suddenly, Jade is nervous. “Did I do alright?”
Kit runs a hand through her hair. Her shoulders relax and she breathes out a sigh.
“Yes. Thank you.” Then, softly, “I feel lighter. I feel free.”
Between Kit and the stars, Jade thinks:
So do I.
As Jade and Kit grow older, something shifts.
Despite herself, Jade’s eyes begin to linger and her thoughts begin to travel. Her heart beats faster and faster for the Princess of Tir Asleen.
But of course, between Kit’s royal duties and Jade’s training with Ballantine, time is scarce, sacred.
Today marks a week since Jade last saw Kit, since they shared a quick meal between trees and obligations. Today marks possibly the longest time they’ve been apart.
Today, in the armory following an afternoon spar, Jade spies the twin she sees even less often.
“Jade,” Airk calls out. “Just where I suspected you’d be.”
Jade finds Airk equal parts annoying and endearing. Endearing wins in this moment and she reaches out to tousle his hair in greeting, “Finally my height, huh?”
He groans and swats at her hand. “I’m here for advice, not to be bullied.”
“Sit,” Jade gestures towards the bench. She grabs a sword to sharpen during Airk’s undoubtedly lengthy tale about a latest love interest.
“I met a girl,” he begins- as he always does.
Airk recounts his current affair with the herbalist’s daughter. Jade nods intently and offers her two cents during his pauses.
Eventually, Airk’s story winds to an end and Jade sets down her fifth blade.
“Thanks, Jade,” Airk sighs. “You always know what to say. Unlike Kit.”
Jade reaches over and swats his arm.
“Ow!”
“Leave my princess alone.”
Airk smirks, wordlessly and knowingly. Jade quirks a brow, and she can’t help the thought that’s been bubbling up between Airk’s tales of love and romance.
“So, where is Kit these days? Is she-” Jade can’t decide how to phrase her question.
She’s wondering if Kit has found someone in the way Airk finds a new girl every moon. Jade wants to know if Kit is too busy with a lover to make time for her. She doesn’t know how to ask this without the jealousy bubbling at the base of her throat.
Finally, she manages, impassively, “Has Kit found a lover too, then?”
It wouldn’t be hard, Jade knows. Since the twins’ eighteenth birthday, their royal looks have been whispered about far and wide in the kingdom of Tir Asleen. The girls swoon for Airk and the boys for Kit. And then there’s Jade- caught between tradition and reality.
Airk guffaws at her question. “Has Kit found a lover,” he repeats slowly. His eyebrows thread together and his gaze is heavy. “Do you mean has Kit found someone to sneak out to at dusk, spend every spare minute of her time with? Has Kit found someone she admires, cares for, would defend with her life?”
Jade is flustered at what the Prince is implying.
Airk reaches over and grabs the hilt of the sword that Jade just sharpened. He sits the hilt on the bench, upright, so that Jade is staring at her own reflection.
“Kit found someone. And moons before I did.” Airk taps the side of the blade facing Jade. Once, twice. Jade’s cheeks redden. Then he stands, sheaths the sword, and grabs the door handle. “Thanks for the talk, Jade!”
Jade, who is flustered and dumbstruck, can only manage a wave in return.
“Oh,” Airk pauses at the gate. “Almost forgot. My mother wants to speak to you!”
And then, he’s off. And Jade is left to calm her beating heart and seek out the Queen of Tir Asleen.
As it turns out, Kit has spent the week in intensive sword training. When she learns this, Jade blushes at just how far astray her intrusive thoughts led her.
“She’s doing well,” Queen Sorsha tells Jade. “As are you. I watched your spar this afternoon. You are quite impressive, Jade.”
Jade’s cheeks stay heated. Apparently all of the royals know how to make her blush.
She thanks the Queen.
“I want you to train Kit. Without compromising your time with Ballantine, of course. Just a daily spar or so. What do you think?”
Jade knows the question is empty. Orders from the Queen are orders nevertheless. But this order comes as a breath of relief.
“Yes,” Jade all but sighs. “When do we start?”
Before Jade departs to find Kit, the Queen suggests she take it easy on her and Jade is once again reminded that Kit is a princess- one who cannot afford to blemish her porcelein skin with scars and bruises.
Jade bites her tongue, quells the images of the fit that Kit would throw should she ever find out the odds were thrown. Jade agrees, despite the fact that she has never taken it easy and has never known restraint in combat.
But here, now, breathless and on her back, a sword to her armed chest, staring up at Kit Tanthalos’ sky blue eyes, Jade decides that taking it easy isn’t so bad.
Kit’s eyes shift and Jade’s breath catches because she swears Kit is eyeing her lips and- okay.
Jade could get used to this.
And, so, she does. For two seasons and some moons, Jade and Kit find a rhythm. Sparring serves as a saving grace, as guaranteed time together.
Jade is impressed at how quickly Kit picks up on her combat style. At first, Jade would fight lazily, allow Kit easy jabs at her. Then, sometime between winter and spring, Jade finds herself breathless and on guard. It’s exhilarating (to have a reason to be this close to the Princess.)
By nature of the sport, they often end up in compromising positions. Jade is especially breathless in those moments.
Like now, with her knees on either side of Kit. Sword hovering at a safe distance from her throat. Jade forgets to breathe and Kit takes this opportunity to disarm her, flip them around.
Kit announces her victory. Kit, with her toussled hair and baby blues, her cherry blossom cheeks and breathy voice.
“Congratulations, your highness,” Jade manages.
They stay there, eyes lingering and breath shallowing, for just a beat too long. Pauses like this are what make Jade wonder whether it really is in her head or not.
She remembers that conversation with Airk, in the armory all those moons ago, who certainly suggested it wasn’t a figment of her imagination.
That this wasn’t a figment of her imagination. The spark that’s born when their hands connect and Kit pulls Jade up, up, up.
“Hey,” Kit breathes when they’re toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose.
“Hi,” Jade takes a reluctant step back, dusts herself off.
“I need to tell you something,” Kit continues.
“Yeah?”
Wishful thinking lets Jade’s mind wander- a confession? Something more?
Instead, Kit’s lips purse and her eyes harden and “I’m getting married.”
“Oh.”
“In a week.”
Jade draws a blank. She refuses to process these words but somehow, she offers an empty “Congratulations.”
Kit swivells around abruptly. Back to Jade. “That’s it?”
Her words are an angry whisper and Jade isn’t sure she heard her correctly. “Sorry?”
Kit turns back to face Jade. She’s red in the face and not in the same way she was two minutes ago. “That’s all you have to say?”
Jade bites her tongue. Per usual, she leaves many words unsaid- that neither Jade nor Kit have ever dared to speak. Don’t , Jade wants to tell her, don’t marry him. Jade wants to drop her sword, reach for Kit’s hands, pull her close, and give her a reason not to. But it’s not her place, is it?
“To whom?” she settles for.
Kit looks angry. Disappointed. Jade realizes she’s picking all the wrong words, but her curiosity bests her.
Softer, “To whom?”
“A prince.” Of course. “Of Galladoorn. Prince Graydon.” Kit’s voice is distraught and full of spite.
It finally occurs to Jade that this is not Kit’s will. She didn’t find a secret lover. This is another one of her royal duties.
“I’m sorry,” Jade drops her sword, reaches for Kit’s hands, pulls her close. Kit’s arms snake around Jade’s waist and she mourns there- in the place between Jade’s neck and her collarbone. “I’ll be here,” Jade reminds her. “Always.”
They haven’t held each other like this in years. Haven’t clung to each other like it’s them against the world.
This is the problem, Jade realizes. It is them against the world. And if Jade were to take Kit’s face in her hands and- if she were wrong - about what they are to each other- then-
What then?
Kit pulls back, her arms still hooked around Jade. (As if they belong there.) And Jade could find out, here and now, whether she’s right or wrong. And the way Kit is looking at her, Jade thinks she’s almost pleading for her to find out.
And Jade would do anything for Kit.
But not this.
Not now.
So, instead, Jade cups Kit’s face and wipes the tears from her eyes.
“Why are you crying?”
“I’ll miss you. I don’t want this.”
“I’ll still be here. Family, remember?”
Kit remembers. Her eyes shine with something other than tears.
“My princess,” Jade reminds her.
“My knight,” Kit sighs.
Jade’s heart drops because- well, that’s right.
She is going to be a knight. Jade just received word that she’s been accepted to train with the Shining Legion.
And, actually, she won’t be here for Kit. Not for a while at least. Not when she needs her most.
“Thank you,” Kit whispers to Jade.
“I’m sorry,” Jade replies. For more reasons than Kit knows.
She doesn’t mean for it to come out like this, here, during this dance at Kit and Prince Graydon’s dinner, the night before the wedding.
Jade spent all week, all day, trying to bring up the Shining Legion. Once in the morning over breakfast, and then again at the Canyon Maze, and- of course- she only manages to spit it out here, on the dance floor. With one Kit Tanthalos swaying to music in her arms.
It comes out, choppy and hasty, like this: “Ballantine submitted a petition on my behalf. I’ve been accepted to train with the Shining Legion, Kit. To become a Knight of Galladoorn.”
“But they don’t take…”
“They’ve made an exception. It’s their first ever, actually.” Jade can’t look Kit in the eyes when she explains the rest. “I have to go south with King Hastur after the wedding.”
Kate guffaws at this. “My wedding? Tomorrow?”
“I wanted to tell you before but I didn’t know how to-”
Jade watches Kit’s face fall, watches her walk away. She watches her speak her mind in a way that the Queen will certainly disapprove of. Jade steps forward to collect Kit, apologize on her behalf.
She knows what Kit says next is out of spite, but it stings nevertheless. “I am getting acquainted with my betrothed here, but you can go wherever you want, as you’ve made abundantly clear.”
As Kit recounts the story of Taramis- one they discovered together at age 12 in a book, between shelves and whispers- Jade finds it in herself not to react when Kit faces her during the bit about a cocky young knight of Galladoorn.
She’s hurt, Jade reminds herself. And rightfully so.
Airk mimics Jade’s attempt to calm Kit down, and Jade pities his naivety. When Kit starts speaking her mind, she solemn stops.
Except, of course, when Queen Sorsha intervenes.
The dagger clatters to the floor and Jade sighs.
So maybe her timing wasn’t the best.
Jade dwells on the dinner’s events through the evening and well into the night. She feels guilt and sorrow and- of course- pride. She’s surprised it took Kit so long to make her opinion about the marriage known. She’s proud of Kit’s rebellion. It’s what draws her back to the Princess, time and time again.
She’s unsure of when sleep comes, but Jade is sure that someone’s out to kill her when she’s awoken by a hand to her mouth, a warm body on hers.
It’s Kit, of course. She knows this just by the way her palm smells. The way they fit together.
“You scared the blummins out of me,” Jade sputters.
“I’m leaving,” Kit is straight to the point. “I came to say goodbye.”
Jade sighs, shifts to sit up right. “Kit, I know you’re upset-”
“I’m not. I’m not. I’m thinking clearly for the first time in my entire life.”
Kit’s hands rest on Jade’s shoulders and the intimacy of this moment isn’t lost on her. Kit, in her quarters. On her bed. On her. Jade can barely manage a thought, much less a sentence.
“If you were, you would understand that running away-”
“This isn’t about marrying Graydon. I mean, it is, but I’m looking for something. And it’s not here. It’s out there. Beyond the Barrier.”
Jade is reminded of the night of her fourteenth birthday. The night she cut Kit’s hair short for the first time. She wants to return the question to Kit, ask Am I not enough?
But the way Kit is looking at Jade in this moment, the way she’s looked at her so many times before, Jade knows this isn’t about her.
And then, it happens.
For the first time in all the moons, under all the suns, that Jade has yearned for this moment- it happens like this:
Four eyes meet, flutter shut, and then- finally - two pairs of lips measure their fit.
(Perfect, Jade thinks. They fit perfectly.)
Even when Kit pulls away, their breath becomes one.
Jade is too dumbstruck to speak. She blinks up at Kit, who is grinning- ear to ear.
“You’re gonna be a great knight.” Kit is up and away as swiftly as she came. “But I’ll still kick your ass.”
In a breath, Kit is out the window, and Jade is left, lips tingling and heart racing.
Jade’s recollection of the remainder of the night is muddled.
She remembers searching for and finding Kit. She remembers a fog. A sentry falling from the sky. Then another. She recalls Death Dogs and a scourge, Ballantine intervening, Boorman and his blade, and then, of course, Prince Airk’s disappearance.
For this reason, it’s understandable that Jade dismisses the first half of her night for what it most probably was: a dream.
Jade is convinced that her kiss with Kit was disappointingly, but undoubtedly, a dream. And, anyway, it doesn’t matter much whether it is or isn’t. Prince Airk is gone and Jade knows that, until he is found, her place is next to Kit.
Where the Princess goes, I go.
And, so, they go.
Jade parts with the sword that Ballantine has gifted her and the words that the Queen offers her.
“The fate of Tir Asleen may well rest on whether you succeed or fail.”
“I won’t fail,” Jade promises.
“Kit’s like her father, she’ll never stop looking for Airk.”
“I won’t let anything happen to her,” Jade swears. To Queen Sorsha.
To herself.
So, Jade has established that the first half of that night was a dream. But up until this very moment, Jade was entertaining the sneaking suspicion that it might all, very well, be a dream.
Willow Ufgood and Elora Danan and waking up to Kit Tanthalos in the land beyond the Barrier.
She believes this because it wouldn’t be a first. To dream of an epic quest, one that begins with a princess and a kiss.
But here, with her sword burrowed to the hilt inside the only father she’s ever know, Jade realizes that she is very much awake and this is, in fact, not a dream.
She wipes Ballantine’s blood from the blade and the tears from her face and decides that this is her chilling reality.
Except for that midnight kiss she shared with Kit Thanthalos before their world turned to hell, turned to this. That was still most certainly and undeniably a dream.
Jade believes it too.
She believes it more and more as Kit looks to her less and less.
Jade believes it until she is pressed up between Kit and a shoddy wooden door in a candle-lit, haunted castle.
She believes it until Kit says, “Tell us something only the real Boorman would know.”
And, in turn, Boorman cackles, “Okay, you two have totally got the hots for each other.”
They share a glance in the split second that lightning brightens the room and- oh.
They’ve been here before, haven’t they? Eyes locked and lips within reach.
Kit pulls away in resignation and Jade follows suit, thoughts muddled with questions. So when Boorman pins Kit against the wall with a threat, all Jade can think to proclaim is, “Please remove your grubby hands from my princess.”
My princess.
Jade calls Kit this often, has since they were young, but she wonders if her words have always elicited the faint blush that colors Kit’s cheeks in the moments that follow.
Surely, it was just a trick of the candle light.
These days, they share fewer words than they do glances and it drives Jade absolutely mad.
Kit Tanthalos drives her absolutely mad.
She knows Kit well enough to know that she’s still hung up on Jade’s admission to throwing their fights. Jade also knows what she needs to do to make things right between them.
That night, after they set up camp and Kit predictably offers to stay up for first watch, Jade waits for the others to fall asleep before joining her.
Kit is already watching Jade when she sits up. The princess’ cheeks light up as she realizes she’s been caught in her staring.
Jade makes her way to the log Kit occupies on the outskirts of their camp.
“Hey.”
“Couldn’t sleep?”
Jade shrugs and settles down next to Kit. “Figured I’d keep you company.”
The moonlight renders Kit’s disheveled face soft and angelic. Her cheekbones high and her lips plump. A princess.
Jade fights the urge to run her hands through Kit’s hair, lean forward, and remember what it’s like to dream again.
Kit blinks and looks down.
Jade sighs. “Why have you been ignoring me?”
“You know why.”
“So, I was being dramatic. I didn’t throw our spars every time,” Jade explains. “And if you want a rematch-”
Kit scoffs and she looks more hurt now than she did before and Jade realizes that maybe she doesn’t know why Kit is upset.
“Jade, that’s not why I’m upset. Or, okay, not the only reason.”
“So, then-?”
Kit makes a face- eyebrows scrunched and nostrils flared. “Did my mother ask you to issue this apology too? Were you only following her orders when you joined me on this quest? I just can’t believe I ever let myself think that you- that we-”
Kit gestures between them and falters and Jade wants so badly to fill in her blanks. That we were friends. That we were lovers?
“That’s not fair,” Jade whispers. “You know that’s not true, Kit.”
Kit shakes her head. “I thought you were real. I thought you were the only person in my life who could be honest with me.”
She knows that Kit is upset, that she’s hurting. Jade knows she should give Kit space when she ups and walks away, but Jade is tired too. She’s tired of this wall that’s settled between them.
Kit rounds a tree and Jade follows, reaching out for a hand. “Please stay. Let me explain.”
Her soft yearning is met with a swift nod, a ducked head. Kit leans against the tree trunk and Jade plants her feet in the ground, breathes until her mind clears.
“Before I met you, I always saw you from a distance. You and Airk, with your goofy twin grins, causing mischief in your wake. I saw a princess. Someone who grew up with an entire kingdom at her feet, a silver spoon in her mouth. I remember the first time we met. You were gentle and stubborn all at once. You dragged me to the stables and promised we’d be family in the same breath. You kept that promise, too. And then, I don’t know if you remember, but there was this week- the longest we went without seeing each other-”
“Oh, I remember.”
Jade laughs at Kit’s interruption. “Well, that’s when the Queen asked me to train with you. Sure, it was an order, but Kit, it was my saving grace. I missed you. That order meant seeing you everyday. I’m sorry if it was selfish of me to oblige. You’re right to resent me for not telling you right away, and especially for letting you think that you’re stronger than me-” Kit bites back a smile at her teasing and Jade relaxes. “But your mother did not order my four year old self to be your friend. The way I feel for you is not an order. The way I care for you is not an order. I’m literally following your ass to the ends of the earth, you know that?”
Kit’s head tilts back and her face softens and she lets out a laugh. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed this. I’m sorry for my whining. I didn’t mean to push you away. It’s funny to think that only a few days ago I thought we would never see each other again. Not for months or years anyway. And now, here we are, spending every moment in each other’s company and I can’t even bring myself to-”
Again, Kit falters.
Jade’s heart quickens and she finds their eyes locked and lips close, like-
“That night. Kit, did I dream it?”
“Dream what?” Kit whispers. They stand so close that her words tickle the tip of Jade’s freckled nose.
“Did I dream that you were running away?”
Kit shakes her head no.
“Did I dream that you came to tell me so?”
Again, Kit shakes her head no.
Jade’s breath hitches and she steps forwards. They’ve been this close before, with blades at each other’s throats. Somehow, it’s more unnerving without the blades.
“Did I dream that you-?”
“That I what?” Kit challenges, hushed and pointed. Her blue eyes pierce Jade’s hazel.
Jade rests her palms on either side of Kit, up against the cool tree bark. She leans forward, the way she’s so sure that Kit did that night.
“Did I dream,” she whispers “that you pressed your lips to mine?”
Kit is stunned and Jade knows the princess didn’t think she had it in her to ask so brazenly.
When Kit takes a deep breath and shakes her head no , their noses touch from the movement.
Kit’s eyeing her lips and now that Jade knows that it wasn’t a dream, she thinks it’s her turn to tease Kit.
“Well,” she drops her hand and pulls back, “I ask because it wouldn’t have been a first.” To which, Kit can only blink- dumbfounded. Her lips part and Jade wants so badly to lean forward and fill the gaps with her own. To remember how they fit.
Instead, she takes one step back and then another.
Kit watches her, mouth agape.
“Goodnight, your highness.”
A beat.
“Sweet dreams,” Kit calls after her.
Jade laughs. The sound echoes through the forest. She returns to camp, settles onto the forest floor, and her dreams are, in fact, sweet.
When Scorpia, leader of the Bone Reavers, asks Jade about the mark on the back of her neck, she thinks back to the first time she learned of it. The first time Kit pointed it out.
They were sixteen and Airk fancied the herbalist’s daughter, who apprenticed her father. As Airk described their affair, the two either rolled around in the grass or rolled grass. Jade remembers, specifically, a time they brought the herb to her quarters. The grass in question was chunky and foul-smelling and Kit insisted on fetching rose oil-infused candles to air out the scent.
“What is it?” Jade remembers asking.
Airk’s lover explained how her father grew the plant in secret, how she discovered him smoking it and even slipping some to a baker in town.
“It’ll make you giggle,” Airk had promised, before cursing for forgetting his dagger.
“Will this do?” Jade had offered her sword.
Airk and the herbalist’s daughter shared a laugh before Kit smacked her brother upside the head. “Only if you do the honors.”
With only candles lighting the room and her forearms kissing brick floor, Jade grated the herb- along with lavender and rosemary- on a small marble slab as Airk directed.
The herbalist’s daughter, who’s name often escaped Airk and- in turn- now escapes Jade, scooped the finely chopped herb into a wooden pipe. I carved it, Airk had announced, chest puffed. Jade remembers the incredulous look that she had shared with Kit.
Finally, the four of them had crowded Jade’s window as Airk used the flame of a match to light the herbs.
Jade remembers silently nudging Kit, gauging her confidence in this. They ended up here on Airk’s insistence and Jade’s curiosity and Kit’s rebellion, but Jade wanted to assure Kit that she still had the option to back out.
In response to Jade’s caution, Kit pressed her smirk to the pipe, inhaled deeply, and blew out smoke. It was the first time Jade had a reason to stare at Kit’s lips and Jade remembers savoring every second of it. (Remembers wondering what it would feel to be the pipe, pressed to the Princess’s lips.)
The smoke traveled out of Jade’s window, through the kingdom of Tir Asleen, the nearby forests, and maybe even beyond. Past the Barrier. To the moon.
The moon that highlighted the craters of Kit Tanthalos’s royal face. Jade can still picture the way Kit stood there, gentle and proud.
Jade remembers Kit’s arrogant demeanor was tainted only by the cough that followed her second hit, the cough that was quelled by the water Jade all but forced Kit to drink.
Then, when Jade mimicked Airk’s example- inhaling, resting, and exhaling- she watched Kit watch her. She watched the princess’s brow-scrunched, nose-wrinkled distaste give way to a wide-eyed, glazed-over look. Kit was dumbstruck and zoned out on Jade’s lips and so help Jade if her cheeks had flamed up in response. (In hindsight, that would explain Airk’s hushed giggling as the girls took turns watching the other smoke.)
Later, after a feast of pastries the twins had snuck from the kitchen, Airk and his lover demonstrated a way to share the smoke that Jade remembers thinking was a lazy ploy to sneak a kiss. And, then, she remembers Kit suggesting the two of them try and Jade’s thoughts ended there.
Her sluggish, unfiltered self was unabashedly eager to indulge Kit’s innocent request. She remembers taking a puff from the pipe, Kit’s hands brushing her own as Jade fumbled to cup her palms tightly around Kit’s, around their mouths. Jade’s heart just about beat out her chest as she exhaled and Kit inhaled.
She remembers Kit’s eyes boring into hers and Jade swears their lips maybe even brushed. Until, that is, Kit pulled away to cough and Jade settled for rubbing the Princess’s back with a laugh. (As if they didn’t just share possibly the most intimate moment of Jade’s life.)
Jade remembers pulling apart to find Airk mustering a half-assed excuse and dragging his lover out the door. Jade had rolled her eyes and commented on Airk’s subtlety and Kit had just shrugged in response.
“I don’t mind.”
“What?”
“That it’s just the two of us.”
And Jade remembers turning away from Kit before she could flush crimson.
Even if their lips hadn’t brushed that night, their hands certainly did. Knees, shoulders, arms. And, somehow, the night led to Kit’s fingers brushing Jade’s hair away from the back of her neck.
“What’s this?” Kit had whispered. Jade remembers the shiver that trickled down from the small of her neck to the base of her spine.
“What’s what?”
Kit had traced the symbol with her feather-tipped pointer finger and Jade will never forget the eye-rolling, toe-curling chill that followed.
“Could you draw it?”
Kit had obliged and, here, now, all these moons later, Jade stares at the very symbol that the princess drew that dreamy summer night.
And once again, Jade’s version of reality falters and the world she knows is tugged out from beneath her feet.
What better way to prevent an uprising than to steal their future, raise children to believe their captors are their saviors?
Jade loses something, when she learns of her heritage. That she’s a Bone Reaver. She loses the innocence of blind faith, she loses her trust in a kingdom that raised her on lies.
She gains something too: a sister. A family.
Scorpia is strong, unyielding, and outspoken. She’s everything Jade aspires towards. Jade feels seen. She feels heard. She feels less alone, knowing that Scorpia’s fiery hair, freckled face, and toothy grin resemble her own.
And then- there’s the revelation that Kit’s father killed her father. General Kael: the first Bone Reaver, who she grew up fearing, considering a harbinger of chaos. All to learn that he fought for the freedom of his people. Of Jade’s people. From Kit’s people.
It’s almost too much to process and Jade wonders why the Queen lied. Wonders if Kit and Airk knew all along. A part of Jade thinks she should spite the people of Tir Asleen, and especially the royals. But then, Jade spots Kit next to Boorman and they link eyes from across the crowd. And Jade is flooded with relief. Jade feels everything but spite for the princess of a people who hunted her own.
And she understands the history of oppression that pits the Bone Reavers against the people of Tir Asleen. But Jade dares to imagines a world where one generation’s war doesn’t convulate another generation’s peace. Jade imagines an alliance, she imagines justice for her ancestors.
And who other than Jade to bridge these worlds? Jade, who exists at the crux of two peoples.
She pictures it: a world united. And Jade wonders if she could do. With Kit. Unite their people, their kingdoms.
Scorpia’s question halts Jade’s train of thought.
“What’s on your mind, sister?”
Jade tries to calm her heated cheeks, calm her mind from entertaining fantasies. “No one.”
Scorpia laughs, toying with Jade’s hair. “I said what, not who.” Jade is stealing glances at Kit from across the clearing. Scorpia follows her gaze. “I see.”
“See what?”
“What even a sightless man could see.”
Kit meets Jade’s eyes and her breath catches and Scorpia speaks. Bold as always. “Your lust.”
Jade must look a fool- her mouth agape.
“Compose yourself, sister,” Scorpia teases, “your cheeks are red as your hair.”
Jade suddenly understands Airk’s complaints about Kit and she makes a mental note to tell him so.
Jade groans. “Well, don’t act like I didn’t kick your ass when we met and I wouldn’t do it again.”
“Oh, and I believe that ass kicking ended with you as my captive?”
Scorpia is smug and Jade can’t help but give. She laughs, leans into her sister. Scorpia softens.
“That’s why I suspected you were one of us, you know? It’s why I checked for the mark.”
“Really?”
“The way you fight, Jade. It’s in our blood. The way you love, too.”
“How’s that?”
“You would die for her.” It’s a statement. Matter of fact.
“She’s my princess,” Jade sputters. “It’s my duty.”
Except, “You are a princess too, Jade. She’s no longer your duty. She is a choice you’ll have to make.”
Oh. Right.
Jade holds her breath and Scorpia continues. “You are a Bone Reaver. We are a strong and boisterous and joyful people. We die for those we love and we avenge those who were killed. Liberation and solidarity is our way.”
Jade feels foolish for ever believing the stories about her people. She realizes now that the Bone Reavers did not incite violence, but rather, responded to it. The stories she heard were incomplete: tales of reaction, action ommitted.
Her chest swells with pride, with the knowledge that she comes from a lineage of warriors and survivors.
“I am so glad you kidnapped us,” Jade admits.
Scorpia laughs. A belly laugh accompanied by a wide, cheeky smile. Jade mirrors it, let’s herself relax. For the first time in a long time.
Scorpia swings an arm around her shoulder.
“Take this,” her sister tells her. “A truth plum. May all your confessions bear fruit.”
Scorpia plops a plum into her mouth and Jade follows suit because, well, she’ll take all the courage she can get.
As it turns out, Jade’s confessions bear light, fruit, and a troll.
When Kit stole Jade away, she prepared to give in to the plum, speak her thoughts. But Jade doesn’t realize how she truly feels until the words spill from her lips.
Well you’re certainly the expert on breaking my heart.
It was a thought that Jade didn’t acknowledge until it was too late- up and out for Kit to hear.
Jade turns and, for once, it’s her walking away from Kit instead of the other way around.
She finds herself on a tree stump, far enough away from Kit and their friends and the Bone Reavers- her family - to process. It’s not long before Scorpia and Boorman come to check on her, drag her back to the celebration, and Jade’s eyes sting at the fact that she now has people in her life who notice her absence. People who look for her.
When Kit demands Jade’s audience for a second time that evening, Jade is hesitant to oblige. She’s hesitant to find out what truths will slip out this time.
And, then, Jade leads Kit back to a clearing in the woods and Kit, with solemn eyes and a clear voice, says all the right things (for once).
Kit sees Jade. As a Bone Reaver. As an equal. As a partner. In life.
And Jade decides that this is what matters most to her. Her present and her future- both of which she can’t picture without one Kit Tanthalos.
“I am,” Jade accepts the words as they slip off her tongue, “and have been for some time, just totally, ridiculously, desperately in love with you.”
Jade watches Kit’s breath quicken and her own heart skips and leaps and trots towards Kit’s.
And it’s just plain rotten luck that their confession, that’s been brewing for a decade and some, is interrupted by a kiss-blocking, kit-napping troll.
You have a family now, and when this is all over, you’re gonna have to decide whether you’re with her, or with us.
Jade winces because before Scorpia, Kit was her family. After all these revelations, Jade is left to ponder which is thicker: blood or bond?
Jade decides she doesn’t have to choose, for now. So she hugs her sister goodbye, for now.
They part ways and soon after, Jade is reunited with Kit. Kit, who’s hair is darker, skin paler. Kit wastes no time in tugging Jade in for a hug, grasps for her wildly, squeezes tightly. As if she’ll never let go.
She lets go and pulls back and Jade almost wonders if they’ll pick back up where they left off but time is their enemy and she settles for Kit’s hands in her own.
Settles for the Princess at her side once again.
If being at Kit’s side means pulling her out of a room that’s crumbling in on itself and fighting a small army of trolls, Jade would- and does - do so in a heartbeat.
And here, now, as Kit is taken from her once again, Jade’s instinct is to slash her sword at the molten floor that patches over a drowning Kit. To jump in after her.
Where the Princess goes, she goes.
But the floor is thick and Jade is forced to put her faith in Elora and she swears to herself to never again assume that Kit is right behind her.
“You scared the blummins out of me,” Jade whispers to Kit, when she finally quits sputtering up water.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” Kit manages, weakly. She shifts to sit up and Jade frowns until Kit backs down so her head is once again in Jade’s lap.
Jade runs a hand through Kit’s hair, leans down, and presses her lips to Kit’s clammy forehead.
Kit isn’t pale for much longer and Jade almost makes a joke about true love’s kiss, but she catches herself, bites her tongue.
True love.
They haven’t spoken of Jade’s confession since reuniting and Jade wonders whether her words were lost in the chaos. She thinks she should reapproach the subject, at some point or another. Before Kit is snatched by another troll or falls into another lake.
Jade parts her lips, grasps for the right words.
“Kit, I-”
“I saw him.”
“Who?”
Kit explains her moment of twin-telepathy and her visions of Airk and, ok, Jade can wait.
Maybe now? To distract Kit from the metal star impaled deep into her forearm.
“Help,” Kit flashes a pair of puppy dog eyes at Jade. She kneels in front of Kit, winces at the wound. Jade has seen worse, but the thought of Kit’s porcelain skin battered and bruised kicks her brain into overdrive.
Jade rambles, leans in. She considers telling Kit with a kiss.
Instead, Jade panics and slaps the Princess and tugs the weapon out in the same breath.
She may need to reconsider her strategy.
Time is infinite in the Shattered Sea.
Jade knows she should question this feeling of calm before the storm, but she can’t bring herself to pick at the seams of a good thing. She can’t find it in herself to complain about being trapped in an endless, secluded land with Kit Tanthalos.
They spend their days sparring, their nights intertwined. When their blades aren’t locked, their lips are.
At some point, Jade loses track of day and night and it’s all a blur of sword-to-sword and hands-in-hair and lips-on-neck.
Jade makes a home in the crook of Kit’s neck.
“We could have had this, all these years,” Kit whispers one day, when they’re lounging under a palm tree, under a sap green sky.
“I’m grateful,” Jade murmurs, “to have this now. Thankful for what we had then.”
She pulls away and she needs Kit to know- if she doesn’t already.
“Kit, I-”
“Jade,-”
“Sorry, you first.”
“No, you,” Kit is stern.
“No, you,” Jade retaliates.
“No, you, ” Boorman taunts, bursting their bubble of isolation.
“Oh my god,” Jade blushes burnt sienna and scrambles off Kit.
Graydon snickers to Boorman’s right and Kit stands, reaches for her sword.
“Kit,” Jade stands.
“Yeah, Kit,” Boorman puts his hands out in warning, “listen to your girl. Stand down.”
“Oh, no, you didn’t let me finish,” Jade quirks a brow at Boorman, “Kit, hand me my sword.”
The boys exchange looks before scrambling away, calling for Willow, and Kit and Jade exchange smirks and- once again- it’ll have to wait.
Kit beats her to it. Of course she does. The Princess has always been eager to be first and Jade would be irked if she weren’t so flustered, so relieved.
The sky is lilac and violet and Kit says it in spar, of course. As strategy, of course. Minetta’s Ploy.
“I love you,” like a fact.
Kit sweeps Jade off her feet- literally and metaphorically. Pins her hands on either side of her head.
“You fight dirty.” Their breath becomes one. “About time.”
“I really do,” softer like a secret, “love you.”
Jade’s heart swells and her toes curl and her lips twitch. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Then shut up and do something about it.”
Kit bends forward and does exactly that, the way she did all those moons ago. Only, this time, Jade doesn’t question the moment, doesn’t question her sanity. This time, Kit doesn’t flee out of a window, doesn’t run away.
This time, they kiss in the sunlight, under hues of pink and gold.
They kiss like a promise, a prayer, a confession
rather than a farewell, a secret, a question.
The sun sets and the night offers a sanctum that Jade and Kit accept in a tangle of limbs and lips and lust.
“Jade,” Elora’s voice is shrill with alarm, “Are you okay?”
Elora is staring bug-eyed at Jade’s neck, voicing her concern over breakfast the next morning. A particularly groggy morning following a sleepless night with one Kit Tanthalos.
Jade frowns and she looks to Boorman for explanation. “Lovely. What appears to be-?”
“Oh,” Boorman’s eyebrows shoot up exaggeratedly. He nudges Graydon who follows Elora’s gaze and squeaks.
“What? ” Jade demands.
“What happened to your neck?” Elora manages.
Jade freezes, blood rushing to her face. “Oh god.”
“Not what,” Boorman cackles, “who.”
Elora quirks her head and Jade buries her face in her hands in an attempt to preserve the remainder of her dignity.
“Her,” Graydon points at Kit, who emerges from her slumber, all messy-haired and sleepy-eyed.
“Good morning,” she whispers to Jade, soft and sweet.
Jade can only groan in response. “Kit- ”
Elora gasps dramatically when she manages to piece together Graydon’s comment and Boorman’s cackling and Jade’s embarrassment.
“You,” Elora points at Kit, “did that?”
Kit looks to Jade, who’s desperately attempting to untie her hair to cover up her purpled neck. Kit shamelessly brushes a hand over Jade’s bruised skin and, with a shit-eating smirk, shrugs.
“Guilty.”
“Kit! ”
The foursome is a fit of giggles and Jade, despite herself, realizes that this is what she’ll remember of their days in the Shattered Sea. Laughter and joy in the most unlikely of places.
Kit hooks an arm around Jade’s waist, pulls her close. Jade relaxes into Kit.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, “looks like I got carried away last night.”
“Don’t worry, Princess,” Jade murmurs, “I’ll just have to exact my revenge. Even the odds.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“God, you two, get a room!’
The princess rolls her eyes dramatically, stands with a huff. “Come on, then, we’re clearly not wanted here.”
Kit laughs, clear as day, and Jade follows her away- as she always has. Always will.
Jade knows what comes next when Kit looks at her in hope and despair, grief and acceptance.
Kit’s eyes shine a stark blue against the dull grey fog enveloping them.
Kit is brave for Elora, for all of them. She takes a leap of faith, jumps over the edge of the earth.
“It’s possible,” Willow attempts to reason, “they were supposed to go alone, that we are not meant to follow. For Mad Martigan, protecting the world meant protecting Elora. When he chose to fight the Wyrm from within, he told Allagash that his child would shoulder that responsibility for him. Kit is Elora’s protector.”
Kit whose skin is made of porcelain, of diamonds. Kit, who has always been brave. For Elora and Airk and Sorsha and Willow and Boorman and Graydon and all of Tir Asleen. But never for Jade.
Kit leaves her armor, her pride, her ego, and her crown at the door for Jade.
“And who protects Kit? I do. For Tir Asleen and Sorsha and-”
“Because you love her.”
Jade feels seen, understood. She stands taller.
“Yeah, and when you love someone and they need you, yes, you jump off the edge of the world to go and get to them.”
So, she jumps.
Jade follows her paramour beyond the Shattered Sea, to a land unknown.
Where the Princess goes, she goes.
Jade had no doubt that Kit’s pure heart was worthy of the Kymerian Cuirass, but to bear wittness to the armor as it retracts around Kit’s precious skin is a magic of its own.
Jade watches Kit become who she’s always meant to be in flashes of silver and gold.
When Airk wakes and Kit laughs from relief, Jade is taken back to Before. To Tir Asleen. She feels grass beneath her feet, sun on her skin, and a pair of twins playing hide and seek. Peace is restored.
Until Boorman emerges from the battleground with Graydon’s flute and Jade mourns, “No one’s gonna know how brave he really was.”
“They will. I’ll have to tell them.”
As the sun kisses the horizon on the Immemorial City, Jade drifts to Kit’s side, a place she finds herself time and time again. Kit extends a hand, wiggles her fingers impatiently. Jade takes Kit’s hand in hers.
“So…”
“So?”
“We did it,” Jade realizes. “We found Airk.”
She gestures to the Prince, with his newly cropped hair, who’s busy acquainting himself with Boorman and Willow.
“We did,” Kit realizes, squeezing Jade’s hand. “A lot to fill him in on, huh?”
“Oh, something tells me Airk will be more surprised to learn I’m a princess than to learn about us.”
Kit squeezes her hand again and this one is more question than comfort. “About that-”
Jade nods, understand what Kit’s wondering.
“What now? Where now?”
“Scorpia warned me this day would come,” Jade admits. “She told me I’d have a choice to make.”
Kit frowns, pauses. The others continue trekking across the deserted land and Kit waits for them to pass before speaking.
“No.”
“Sorry?”
Kit takes Jade’s hands in her own.
“Jade, I’m not going to make you choose. You’ve sacrificed your entire life for me, for the people of Tir Asleen. For a people who lied to you. I would never ask you to return.”
Jade lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.
“I wish it was that simple,” she admits. “I wish I could hate Tir Asleen for all the lies they fed me about myself and the Bone Reavers, but it’s not that simple, is it? If my youth was any different, I don’t know if I ever would have met you. Definitely not the way we did, you and Airk stumbling through my door.”
Kit leans into Jade, “I have a confession.”
“Oh?”
“I was looking for you that day.”
Jade’s eyebrows shoot up. “When we were kids?”
“I had seen you around. I remember thinking your hair was the reddest red I’d ever seen. I told Airk I wanted to find you, so we spent all morning knocking on doors. It wasn’t a coincidence.”
Jade is giddy and flustered, she can’t help the grin that tugs at her lips. “The reddest red, huh?”
“Oh but that was before I saw you blush.”
Kit yelps when Jade shoves her.
“I would have found you,” Kit decides, “in another world. I’m sorry we had to meet this way. Through violence and bloodshed.”
Jade frowns. “I’m not. Knowing the truth, the history of our people, it makes me want to do everything I can to prevent it from happening again.”
Kit nods, solemn. “I want that too. I meant it, you know? When I said I’d tag along to the Wildwood if you’d have me. It’s my turn to follow you, Princess.”
Princess.
It’s what Jade has called Kit all this time, it’s who Kit has been to her. And it occurs to Jade for the first time that theirs isn’t the story of a Princess and her Knight.
It’s a story of two royals, two warriors, two equals.
So, this is what she chooses- her princess and her people, too.
Jade tugs Kit close, presses their lips together, and reminds herself of a dream that turned out to be her reality all along.