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Kit felt like she’d slept on a rock. Which was weird, as she’d fallen asleep with Jade - facing each other on the bedroll, with Kit using Jade’s arm as a pillow. When Kit opened her eyes, expecting to see Jade’s beautiful dark skin and red hair, she was shocked to be faced with yellow and black stone in Jade’s likeness. Kit tried to back off, but was trapped by Jade’s solid embrace. Apparently, Kit had screamed, as everyone in the camp came rushing over. So Jade was the only one like this. The last time anyone was cast was refusing the Crone. Neither Jade or Boorman had faced a choice.
“Why isn’t Boorman a statue?” Kit protested.
“She needs a victory against the Crone,” Willow stated, ignoring Kit’s query.
“The witch is dead?” Boorman questioned. “I mean, I’m pretty sure Elora took care of that, after I killed all The Gales.”
“She’ll need to defeat the Crone in her mind,” Elora realised, for the battles she’d faced on the Shattered Sea.
“Splinter your stick and do your love mojo,” Airk breezed, like this shit was easy. It had worked for him.
“That only worked because you’re twins,” Willow chided one sibling, before addressing the other. “Kit, do you have anything of Jade’s that binds you?”
“My pendant,” Kit managed around tears.
Elora undid the clasp and managed to fit it between Jade and Kit’s joined hands between their chests. Elora bent down to whisper into Kit’s ear, “Love is the most powerful force in the universe.”
Kit closed her eyes again, and dully heard Willow say incantations to put her into Jade’s dream world.
***
“Just do what you want. You always do,” Jade spat at Kit, biting her lip at the memory of the kiss.
The kiss.
Jade found herself pulled from the Nelwyn village and back into her loft room in Tir Asleen. She knew what would happen, like she was in control of her dream. Yet at the same time, she felt stuck; like she was seized up. Jade could have turned over in her bed to face the window, so Kit didn’t have chance to straddle her; didn’t have chance to stir up the fantasy feelings that Jade had certainly dreamed of before it became a brief reality.
“She’s like Airk,” an unfamiliar voice echoed in her head.
No. Jade refused the voice. Kit didn’t fool around like Airk. But as Kit straddled her, put her hands on Jade’s shoulders, and leaned in for a kiss with enough insistence to push her backwards onto the mattress – Jade doubted. Her chest pounded with the idea of knighthood, about no longer being a low born but having a title, about being a suitor for Kit. But the heart beat lower down didn’t care. It said Kit would be lost to a prince in the morning, so Jade should take what was offered, in the dark.
So Jade chased after Kit’s lips, like she had when it was real. But Kit still backed off to press their foreheads together. The smile was still brilliant, but the eyes were wrong somehow – like they were clouded over for a brief moment. Even stranger was the feeling that they were both being watched. Jade tried to look around her loft room, but she was fixed to the bed and the unfolding scene. Kit produced a small metal goblet from her heavy black tunic, and drank from it. She held the liquid in her mouth after she brought the cup down. When she swallowed, Jade watched Kit’s throat intently.
“Do you want me?” Kit asked in a low, seductive tone. She lifted the cup towards Jade’s lips, inviting her to drink her affirmation. The liquid didn’t smell like alcohol, so Kit was sober.
Jade swallowed against her parched throat. That wasn’t an easy answer. What Jade wanted was a lifetime of kisses with Kit, exclusively; openly. Not as a secret in the dark, not sharing her with a prince, and not if she was running away.
“What are you offering?” Jade croaked, lifting her head away from the rim.
Kit only chased her lips with the cup. But Jade needed more assurances than that, so she shook her head. Kit tilted her head, regarding her. As she withdrew the cup, it clanked against the pendant around Kit’s neck. Abruptly, the scene changed. Kit was now standing by the window, but she was different. That Kit was smiling in relief, like Jade had passed some test. There were tears in her clear eyes. Maybe Jade could wake up now.
Her loft clouded over with fog. When it cleared, she was standing in the Wildwood, with some errant steam from the cooking pot preparing the feast being thrown in Jade’s honour. It was still weird, being the centre of attention, and being celebrated for existing by a whole community. Until that point, Jade had bridged a strange world. Being in the royal court but low born, so Kit and Airk celebrated her birthday without it being a gala. That was until Airk discovered girls and forgot about everything, unless Jade needed help calming Kit with her current recklessness.
“You’re certainly the expert at breaking my heart,” Scopria parroted the words Jade had said to Kit earlier in the evening. “Hmm. Not the flirting technique I’d choose.”
“What?” Jade said in a thicker version of her beyond-the-Barrier accent. Most of her memories of the Wildwood were an emotional impression rather than detailed recollection of conversation. She trusted the truth plums to keep her honest so she wouldn’t have to recall specifics to justify later. Jade was pretty sure she hadn’t told Scorpia those words.
“If you want her, you’ll have to lead with better than that,” Scorpia pressed, with some amusement. “Although I think she’s found other people in the crowd to soothe that wound.”
“Kit wouldn’t –,“ Jade stopped her protest at her sister’s quirked eyebrow and knowing smile.
“That girl’s been trapped in an ivory tower all her life. You think she’s out there, in a forest full of free women, keeping her hands to herself?”
“She’s like Airk,” that voice persisted.
With the same persistence, Jade felt like she was being watched by someone, but couldn’t find anyone in the crowd of dancing bodies that was focused on her. She did however see Kit, with a drink in one hand, and the other arm wrapped around the neck of a red-haired woman. Jade felt sick, and lurched over. Scorpia easily reached out and steadied her. When Jade lifted her head up, Scorpia offered her a drink. She recognised it from Kit propositioning in her Tir Asleen loft room. Only this time, the shimmery gold liquid was presented in a wooden cup hollowed from a tree knot.
“Drink up. It will help you forget about her.”
Jade didn’t want to forget. How often she’d replayed things in her mind, to treasure them, or make sense of them, or reiterate her place in case she was banished for treason.
“Royalty are only interested in one thing: Themselves. All those high borns, with their arranged marriages to keep their bloodlines pure. In the public eye at least. You were going to swear oaths to keep things that way. Kill your own family for wanting an equal share of their hoarded wealth. And for what?” Scorpia’s words dripped with venom.
Her sister had never said any of these things. The brutal honesty, yes. But not in relation to Kit. Jade’s eyes dared to seek Kit out in the crowd again. It was easy enough, as she was in silks and tailored attire; a sharp contrast to the piece meal of everyone who called the forest home. Most people here had skin on show, from either a single layer or ill-fitting combinations, and no-one had a spare ounce of fat. The woman that Kit was dancing with had a string top on, and Kit had slid her arm from her neck to place her palm on her breastbone.
Scorpia leaned in to whisper into Jade’s ear. “Had you even shown a little cleavage, to let her know you were interested?”
Jade swallowed against the lump in her throat. Maybe she’d kept covered because she thought Kit was like Airk. That she’d use Jade’s body and move on to more boobs the next week. Kit had given her a taste of her lips once, and Jade had chased after it, beyond the Barrier and the dangers that lay here. Sure, she could tell everyone (and herself) that she was doing it to protect Kit. What she needed to tell said person was that the protection was necessary as she’d been throwing sparring sessions. She hadn’t been honest about a lot of things, the way Kit hadn’t been about her suspected heritage. The truth plums were helping them with that. If only they could talk some more.
“If she came over right now,” Scorpia goaded, “luring you away from your people, telling you that she’ll never leave you – would you fall for it? She may be drunk, but she knows you’ll do anything, because you love her.”
That stung Jade’s heart. Because Kit had lured her to privacy, to apologise for their fathers’ actions rather than the specifics of their own lives. It had seemed like a better option than bearing bad news in a crowd again. Jade had been so thrilled that Kit wanted to be in her life, to keep having adventures; that the Wildwood enabled them to do that beyond the confines of Tir Asleen. But as she had stepped closer to Kit, intending to finish a kiss started in her bed and in a different life – she had hesitated. She had smelled the alcohol on Kit’s breath, and she had doubted the sincerity, as much as she had doubted Kit would remember the way Jade wanted her to.
Scorpia pressed the wooden cup against Jade’s chest, impressing the moon pendant Scorpia had given her into her ribs. “Forget about her. Come and be with your real family, where you belong.”
Jade’s throat felt as dry as tinder. Was this the choice Scorpia expected her to make – blood or friendship? Luxury food and clothes or eking out rations? Running through a forest or hiding in castle walls? Structure or freedom? Jade had experienced all of the harsher things on the quest, but she had Kit to experience them with. The wild adventures they talked about as kids, before their fears got the better of them.
Jade took the cup. Scorpia smiled smugly, and mist passed over her eyes. It was a short victory though, as Jade poured the liquid in the space between them and dropped the cup onto the forest floor.
“I don’t protect Kit because she’s a princess,” Jade stated, with assured conviction. “I protect her because she’s my best friend. And I’ll wait as long as I have to until she feels safe enough to be loved.”
Scorpia’s eyes went dead. Her body dropped to the ground. An arrow with a Tir Asleen fletch protruded from her back. Another arrow landed at Jade’s feet, igniting the golden liquid. Jade needed to find Kit and get her to water before the whole forest burned. When Jade looked to where Kit had been before, she was the only person left. This Kit was sober, and had her hands clasped in front of her. Jade ran to her and grabbed them, pulling her to the clearing and the river. They plunged into the safety of the water, but the current pulled them apart. It was dark from turbulence, the way it had been in the plunge pool at the Shattered Sea waterfall. But Jade could see the pendant glisten. She swam for it. But Kit was pulled upwards and Jade screamed; bubbles obscured her vision as she surfaced.
Jade found herself on gravel. It wasn’t the riverbank. She lifted her head to see the Queen’s feet, and the dry pebbles of a Tir Asleen courtyard. Kit was being hugged by her mother, who had been wrapped in a velvet blanket to dry her off.
Sorsha bent down to put her index finger under Jade’s chin. “Thank you, for bringing my daughter home.”
Jade stood as well as she could. She still felt stiff, and thirsty from panting in gravel dust. But the Queen was in public view, and there was protocol. Jade had done her duty of the quest. A Pacalcade knight draped a regal cloak over Jade’s shoulders, covering her Bone Reaver armour.
“I appoint you,” Sorsha announced to those present, “Jade Claymore, as a royal knight of Tir Asleen. In recognition of your service to the Crown.”
Everyone cheered. From the kitchen staff to the stable masters, from the Pacalcade to Airk and Elora, and the rest of the quest party in Willow and Boorman. But they were in fineries. Why hadn’t Kit and Jade come back the same time as them? Had they gone on an adventure alone?
“Walk with me,” the Queen instructed, with fondness.
Jade dutifully followed, even though she wanted to make sure Kit was okay. Once again, in the privacy of corridors, Jade felt like she was being watched.
“I want to apologise,” Sorsha began. “For concealing the truth of your heritage. And for the arranged marriage.”
“What?” Jade said, a little too loudly in her shock.
Sorsha smiled at Jade’s lack of composure, but the Queen’s bearing held its own uneasiness.
“The Galladoorn knights only spared you as they thought you were Elora Danan. I knew you weren’t. I recognised Kael’s mark from when he served Bavmorda. The mark is one of freedom from slavery, so King Hastur didn’t know who you were. I insisted that you be returned to my care, and raised with my children. But that insistence came with a price. Protecting you meant sacrificing Kit to marriage.”
Jade’s knees buckled. The idea that Kit was being married off because of her floored her. Every generous meal she’d ever eaten, every shining sword she’d been handed, the layers of non-tattered garments, all came at the cost of Kit’s freedom. But there the Queen was again, offering her hand to help her up. Jade took it, and they continued walking.
“I thought you’d protest at the engagement announcement, or elope,” Sorsha mused. “But you are loyal. I couldn’t ask for a better suitor for Kit. You have my blessing to marry her. Take your seat at the high table.”
They had reached the banqueting hall. Elora and Airk sat in the middle on the highest backed chairs, as the true rulers of Tir Asleen. Kit sat on Elora’s right hand side, and there was an empty chair next to her. Jade walked up onto the stone plinth and sat down. Sorsha came to face them from across the table, and offered Jade the goblet reserved for very fancy occasions. Jade held it, knowing it had the same shimmering liquid in it as before.
Hadn’t this always been Jade’s dream? Being a knight and able to court Kit? That Elora Danan would return and unite everyone? That Airk would be the one in an arranged marriage instead to curb his straying tendencies? That Jade wouldn’t be banished for treason for all the ways she loved Kit? It was just a dream, right? She could quench her thirst and indulge a little, and wake up.
Jade looked at Kit, who hadn’t said a word since they got here. She was dry, presentable to the court, and held an impassive smile. Like a lady. Like a princess.
Jade stood and turned to Sorsha, and mustered up the courage of a rebellious slave. “With all due respect, Your Majesty. You don’t decide who Kit marries, if she wants to get married at all.” And with that declaration, she splashed the goblet’s contents into the Queen’s face.
Sorsha crumbled, like acid eating a rock. The walls of the banqueting hall were shaking, moving towards Jade and both Kits. Both Kits? Neither had a mug of shimmering liquid, so it wasn’t an easy choice. Time was running out as the walls were becoming a tomb. A gap appeared in the wall behind each Kit. One looked like the Wildwood, the other pitch black.
“Choose me,” the Kit by the forest implored.
Jade knew that Kit, the princess that was desperate to be loved and to get out of royal life.
“Be free.” The other Kit quietly said, taking off the pendant and holding it outstretched to Jade.
Jade knew that Kit, too. The one that had given Jade her blessing to go to the Shining Legion. The one that had been okay with Jade staying in the Wildwood and hoped that she could tag along.
Jade had said no to the three most important women in her life. Maybe it was time to choose herself. Jade swallowed, and took the pendant. She walked into the unknown.
***
The darkness of Jade’s dream turned into starlight of a night sky, and the flickering of a campfire. Kit was in her arms, with a brilliant smile of relief on her face.
“I need a drink,” Jade croaked.
“I gotta pee,” Kit insisted, as she gently extracted herself from Jade’s embrace. She patted Jade’s hand like she was afraid of breaking her, and then scrambled off the bedroll to the nearest concealing bush.
It was Boorman who handed Jade a mug of clear water. Jade reached up for it and drank greedily. She handed it back to him, and he fetched another. She necked that, too. She nodded that she was good, so he took it and left. Jade clenched both her fists, trying to get some life back into them. It was then that she felt the pendant still in her hand. It didn’t feel like a dream though. She rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes to remove the sand. But much more grit fell from her face. She looked down to see the bedroll absolutely covered in fine powder. It was exactly like the dust storm in Immemorial City.
“Well done on fighting off the Crone,” Willow said, as if that explained everything.
Elora offered her a bowl of food, but she had no appetite. Airk said something about water being ready, and he and Boorman carried it behind a makeshift screen made of blankets and long sticks. Kit came back, looking additionally relieved. Kit offered her hand to Jade to help her up, and she was led to this shelter. Kit pushed on her shoulders to encourage her to kneel on a towel, before she picked up a cloth and dipped it in the steaming water, and pressed it against Jade’s face.
Jade let the heat and moisture sink into her skin. Kit was being delicate with her presses, intending to lift the grit off without dragging it across Jade’s face and neck. She turned to drop the cloth into the water, before turning back to curl her fingers on the hem of Jade’s shirt. Jade put her hand over Kit’s to stop her, as she wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
“I’m not like Airk,” Kit reassured.
Jade realised that it had been Kit watching her in her dream, with the pendant acting as a bridge for Jade to come back in the same way Kit had saved Airk. She released Kit’s hand, and Kit uncurled Jade’s fingers to retrieve the pendant. Instead of returning it to her own chest, Kit unfastened the clasp and leaned forward to put it on Jade’s neck. It sat lower than the one Scorpia had given her.
“I feel protected when I wear this,” Kit explained.
Jade laughed a little. Sure, it could bring her back from being a statue. But it wouldn’t keep away prying eyes or a cold wind, let alone a weapon swing. It did have the effect of relaxing Jade, and Kit took the opportunity to grab the shirt hem with both hands and slide it off. She shook the dust off the fabric, before offering it with averted eyes in case Jade wanted modesty. Jade would rather a dry top to put back on than conceal parts of her for the sake of it. Part of her was curious, as they had bathed together but never bathed each other. Would it feel different, the way Kit straddling her in her bed had briefly felt different to grappling practice? Or were they too close to the others, despite the cloth barrier? So Jade took the top, only to place it by Kit’s shins on the floor.
Kit picked up the cloth and started at Jade’s hand, and continued the line across her upper chest and to her other hand. Always with delicate touches, still unsure of how much pressure Jade could take. Jade was noticing a sticky residue as her skin dried, likely a salve to help heal her skin from being fossilised. Jade was intently looking at Kit’s face. Kit was looking through her torso rather than at it as she bathed.
“My choice looked like yours,” Kit started. “My mother told me she was wrong to deny me my freedom. She said I could go off on whatever adventure I liked, with whoever I liked. I saw you, with a travel pack ready to go. But in there, you were just some Tir Asleen soldier I could command into never leaving. You didn’t have the sword from Ballantine to go to the Shining Legion, or your Bone Reaver armour. You weren’t you.”
Kit scooted on her knees to come parallel to Jade, and started cleansing her back from the neck down.
“I don’t think I would have lasted three temptations,” Kit confessed. “I heard my dad’s voice again. Different to Scorpia. He was telling me that I was like him and to protect Elora. But that’s not my dad. My actual dad sat me and Airk down, gave us black root to chew on, and said we could play rough as long as we were there for each other when it mattered. But that voice didn’t tell me to save Airk. He’s really gone.”
Jade heard the splash of the cloth being dropped into the water, and then Kit hiccoughing tears. Jade wrapped her arms around Kit’s waist and pulled her over into a hug. Kit enveloped Jade’s shoulders in her arms. The nudity didn’t matter. Kit was being brave.
“We’ll ask Airk if your dad spoke to him for his choice,” Jade suggested.
It seemed to soften the hiccups.
“We’ll see Scorpia soon,” Kit assured. Jade felt Kit messing with her hands, until she brought a ring into view between them. “I want you to have this.”
“Kit, that won’t fit any of my fingers” she laughed softly. Jade wasn’t in a hurry to let Kit go to demonstrate the difference in their hand sizes.
Kit shook her head. “I’ve been meaning to make it into a pendant for years, but I’ve never found the right stone.”
“You could ask Willow,” Jade reminded her about how loaded the Nelwyn was. But as she studied the ring, she noticed it had been fixed at some point from being dented and cut. Jade looked up at Kit for confirmation that this was the ring that nearly cost Kit her finger from swelling damage after she’d fallen hard during grappling practice.
Kit nodded and smiled. “It’s not about it being the last time we really grappled. It’s because of how it felt when you bandaged it before taking me back to the castle. You wanted me to be better for my sake. Everyone else’s touch wanted to remove the signs that I had hobbies that weren’t very princess-like.”
Jade squeezed Kit’s waist before encouraging her to sit upright, so she could take off the pendant from Scorpia. She undid one of the sliding knots and secured the ring onto the cord so it sat flush, before fixing the necklace. Kit insisted on putting it on her, and Jade insisted on putting Kit’s pendant back on her.
“Shirt on,” Kit asserted. “Trousers are coming off.”
“As you command, Your Highness,” Jade teased, but yielded as she’d been doing for years. She couldn’t really stand up for this as the screen wasn’t high enough, so Jade opted for lying on her side.
“Oh. The ring,” Kit softly gasped. “It lines up perfectly in the middle of your mark.”
It was a nice mental image to tide Jade over while Kit tended to her skin. Until there was a pebble under her knee that hadn’t dissolved that made Jade hiss in pain as it lifted off. Kit put an apologetic hand on her thigh as she rinsed the cloth. Kit was right, about different intention behind touch. Jade didn’t feel like a soldier being patched up to go back out to serve. She felt like she should be looked after for simply existing. It was a nice feeling. Nicer than the ticklish sensation of Kit wiping Jade’s feet. The cleansing was done, and Kit had a mischievous glint in her eye.
“If we’re gonna grapple, can I put my trousers back on first?”
***