Ash had been watching her sleep. She had not meant to. She had woken early and there was nothing else to look at. That was the excuse she gave herself. She knew it was a poor one. Lysanthia lay on her side, facing the wall. Her dark hair had fanned across the pillow and one horn caught the faint light from the dying fire. Her breathing was slow. In sleep, the sharpness left her entirely. In sleep, she just looked like a woman.
Ash had thought this before. In Hamel, when she had spent a night pressing wet cloth to her burns. Lysanthia looked little like the Demon Queen then. She looked even less like her now.
It was getting impossible to reconcile them both. The woman on this bed, who had helped Ash abandon her sword, and the woman in the throne room, who had split Ronan in half with a single swing of an obsidian blade.
Sol stirred by the hearth. The small phoenix lifted her head from the pillow, all four wings ruffling. She let out a chirp, and it was certainly not a quiet chirp. Ash moved before the chirp could become a screech. She knelt beside the hearth and cupped Sol in both hands. The bird was warm. Sol chirped again, this time aimed squarely at the bed.
"Alright," Ash murmured. "Alright. I think it’s about time anyway."
She carried Sol to the bed and held her out. The phoenix leaned forward, stretched her tiny neck, and pecked at Lysanthia's temple.
Lysanthia let out a groan. Her crimson eyes opened, and they were already furious. They found Ash first, then Sol. "You," she said to the bird, "have exactly one more chance to reconsider that approach."
Sol pecked her again. Lysanthia's hand came up to shield her face. She muttered something and pushed herself upright. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and put her feet on the stone floor. Then she stood, and her legs gave out.
Ash caught her. One arm went around Lysanthia's waist and the other braced against her shoulder. She felt light to Ash, despite her being taller. The woman who had once tried to burn the world. The woman who had swatted Ozriel from the sky. The woman who had killed Calith and Calithra. To Ash, she was light.
"What is this?" Lysanthia's voice was sharp. Her legs were trembling beneath her. She tried to take a step and her knees buckled again. Ash tightened her grip. "My legs are betraying me."
"I did warn you," Ash said. "This is what happens when you push that hard without any kind of reinforcement. Your body isn't used to the strain, and so, this happens. It takes a little while though."
"My body," Lysanthia said, "has endured things that would break this Academy in half."
"With magic, yes. You couldn’t use Essence, remember? It was all muscle. Well…this is what happens to muscle."
Lysanthia glared at her. The glare was somewhat diminished by the fact that she was currently being held upright. She raised her left hand. White fire trailed from her fingers. She was going to heal herself, as Ash knew she would.
Ash caught her wrist. "Don't."
The red eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"The soreness comes from the muscles tearing. It's the mending of those tears that builds them back stronger." She had explained this to recruits before, almost a thousand years ago. How strange that she explain the same to the Demon Queen herself. "If you heal them now, the Cradle will put everything back the way it was. Your forty minutes will have been pointless."
Lysanthia stared at her. The white fire died. "You must be joking."
"Afraid not, Lys. Don’t worry, it’ll never be as bad as the first time."
"Then what," Lysanthia said, very slowly, "am I supposed to do?"
"Nothing, for now." Ash guided her back to the edge of the bed and lowered her down, gently. "First, you eat. Then I'll show you some things that will help. You should be able to walk by tomorrow. Well…mostly walk."
Lysanthia sat on the bed. Ash could see the faintest tremor still running through her legs. Sol, who had been displaced a few seconds ago, hopped across the mattress and settled on Lysanthia's thigh. The bird looked up at her and chirped once. "Traitor," Lysanthia said to her. She did not remove the bird from her leg.
Ash crossed the room to the table. She had been up for some time. Long enough to go to the mess hall, collect two bowls of porridge, and return before the first bell. The cooks had not liked her request, but Ash had always been persuasive. She brought them over. Lysanthia looked at the bowls. Then at Ash.
"It seems," she said, "that you have prepared for this."
"Yep."
"Why?"
How was she supposed to answer that? So many answers came, until they crowded her throat. Ash said none of them, in the end. "It's what a retainer is supposed to do," Ash said.
Something flickered across Lysanthia's face. Her face colored. Ash knew hers had too. Lysanthia took the bowl without further comment.
They ate. Sol ate too, once Lysanthia had bathed a strip of meat in the Cradle's white fire. Lysanthia did not use the bundles of meat they’d brought just yesterday. Apparently, they were too old now. Sol chirped, and Lysanthia fussed. It was a small mercy, the noise. Without it, the room would have been quiet enough for Ash to hear the grinding.
She could always hear it now. The Core that sat beneath Lysanthia's ribs. It was there when they sat close. It was there when they slept.
Ash watched Lysanthia eat. Her face gave nothing away. She did not wince or shift or show any sign of discomfort at all. The thing under her ribs ground on, and she said nothing about it.
Lysanthia would carry this for the rest of her life. Ash could not fathom the silence around that much pain. All she could do was press closer, at night, and hope that did something.
"Stop staring at me," Lysanthia said, without looking up from her bowl.
Ash looked away. "I wasn't staring."
"You were. Your gaze has been fixed on me for the better part of two minutes. I can feel it." She took another spoonful. "A Queen always knows when she is being watched."
"Then a Queen should be used to it by now."
Lysanthia glanced at her. The glare was weak. "Perhaps I am. That does not mean it goes unnoticed."
Ash said nothing. She finished her porridge and set the bowl aside and waited for Lysanthia and Sol to finish theirs.
When the bowls were empty, Ash knelt at the edge of the bed. "Lie back on the bed. I need to work on your legs."
Lysanthia looked at her. Ash expected her to say something. Lysanthia’s mouth certainly opened to voice one objection or other. It closed. She lay back, and her long legs extended before her. Ash had not expected her to agree so easily.
Sol hopped down the bed in a tangle of feathers, before making her way to the pillow near the hearth and settled there. The bird was surprisingly intelligent.
"This will help," Ash said. She kept her voice even. Or tried to, at any rate. "The first time I ran like you did yesterday, I couldn't move for a week. My instructor at the time showed me how to work through it."
"An entire week." Lysanthia said it the way someone might say an entire eternity.
"You won't need a week if we do this right."
She placed her hands on Lysanthia's left calf. The skin was warm beneath her palms. The muscle beneath it was a knot of iron. Ash pressed her thumbs into the muscle and pushed outward. The muscle resisted, at first. She had done this dozens of times. Hundreds of times. There was just one difference now: she was doing it to Lysanthia. The difference should not have mattered, but it did.
Lysanthia's breath caught, just a little. Ash heard it. She was listening, and the room was very quiet.
She pressed her fingers deeper into the muscle. Lysanthia's calf was soft. Ash could feel the line of it under her palms. What else had she expected, but for it to be soft and smooth? Ash pressed harder. She concentrated on the knot and did not concentrate on anything else. She tried not to, anyway.
"This is rather undignified," Lysanthia said.
“Sorry. It really is good for you though." Ash said.
She worked the calf for a long time before she moved upward, past the calf, past the knee. The knots were deeper here. That’s what Ash concentrated on as hard as she could. She dare not let her mind wander now.
Ash worked her thumbs into the taut muscle of Lysanthia's thigh. The skin here was softer than it had been along the shin. It was so smooth. That was a fact. It was not wrong to recognize facts, right?
Lysanthia made a sound that was somewhere between a breath and a hiss. She covered it immediately. "That…that is a particularly aggressive technique."
"It's supposed to be. If it hurts too much, let me know." Ash's hands were steady. That was a true miracle, given everything else. Her voice had been less steady, and she preyed Lysanthia didn’t notice. Ash’s eyes had moved up along the length of Lysanthia's thigh to where the tunic had ridden up, exposing a strip of pale skin.
Ash looked at the ceiling. She forced her head up so sharply she was sure Lysanthia must have noticed.
She's hurt. You're helping her. Stop. What are you doing?
It was a familiar thought. Ash had been having these kinds of thoughts for weeks now. Since the first time she had caught herself watching the way Lysanthia's hair moved when she turned her head. They never did a damn thing.
She moved to the other leg. Ash was watching Lysanthia’s hands. Her hands gripped the edge of the mattress. Her knuckles were pale. Ash had to do this quickly, for Lys’s sake.
Even as the thought came, she was also aware that her thumbs were pressing into the inside of Lysanthia's thigh. The skin here was warmer, and that the tension she was working out made Lysanthia shift on the mattress in a way that moved the tunic higher, and that the curve of her hip was now visible, and that the hip curved into the dip of her waist, and the waist was narrow and-
Ash pulled her hands back and took a very deep breath. If Lysanthia hadn’t been watching, Ash would have slapped herself. A Hero was supposed to be better than this. She was supposed to be selfless and clean.
Right now, she was neither. Her hands were on another woman's legs and her gaze kept slipping its leash. Ash had not realized how heavy her own breathing sounded, until now. Ash took a deep breath as the last knot finally gave.
"We are going to do some stretches next," she cleared her throat. "I need to move your legs. It’s uh…it will be its own kind of uncomfortable. Don’t fight it."
"I do not fight things that are beneath me," Lysanthia said. There was colour in her cheeks. That made Ash feel better, just a little.
Ash took Lysanthia's left leg and lifted it. The stretch was simple. All Ash did was bend the knee and press it toward Lysanthia’s chest. Ash shook herself again. She had done this a thousand times on herself. On Lysanthia, It required her to brace one hand behind Lysanthia's thigh and lean forward, bringing their faces closer. She didn’t think it would bring them as close as it did.
It brought them within six inches. Close enough that Ash could see the thin ring of deeper red at the edges of Lysanthia's irises. She had noticed them before, when Lysanthia had cupped her cheek after Ash had made a request. The two of them were now close enough that Ash could see the slight parting of Lysanthia's lips as the stretch deepened.
Her lips were full. The upper one was slightly fuller than the lower one. Ash had noticed that before too. Ash pressed Lysanthia’s knee toward her chest. Lysanthia’s lips were slightly open, and the breath that passed through them was warm. Stop. She's in pain. She's trusting you and you need to stop. What are you, a pig?
"Breathe," Ash said. "Take it nice and slow."
Lysanthia breathed. Ash counted to ten, and chose to stare at the bedsheets instead this time. She lowered the leg and moved to the other one.
This time, Lysanthia's hand found her shoulder. There were five fingers, spread across the ridge of Ash's shoulder. The weight of each one burned through the grey tunic like five small fires. Ash held the stretch.
She pressed the knee higher and the motion drew her gaze down the length of Lysanthia. It stopped where it really shouldn’t have. With the knee folded up toward her chest, it was impossible not to notice. It was so full and soft beneath the fabric, rising and falling with each breath. Ash’s excuse for looking at the legs was that they were sore, and needed tending. There was nothing sore about where she was looking at now. She wished there were-
She fixed her eyes downwards. Her face was burning. You have no reason to be looking at that.
Lysanthia's tunic had ridden up further on this side. The line of her hip was fully visible now, curving down into the dip of her waist where the fabric bunched up. She looked away, this time at the far wall. Was there anywhere safe to look?
"How much longer?" Lysanthia's voice was tighter now.
"Almost done." She lowered the leg. The next stretch was safer. No more than rotating the ankle and pressing the foot back to lengthen the calf. She could breathe here.
Ash was holding Lysanthia's foot. She had small feet, for someone her height. They were pale, and very soft. Ash found her thumb tracing one of Lysanthia’s toes before she stopped herself.
Sol let out a loud chirp from somewhere next to them. Ash looked back at the pillow, but the phoenix wasn’t there. She turned and looked at Lysanthia again. Sol had hopped directly on Lysanthia's stomach.
Lysanthia flinched in surprise. The flinch jerked her leg from Ash's hands, and the sudden motion pulled Ash forward. Her palm struck the mattress beside Lysanthia's hip. Their faces were very close. Closer than the stretches had brought them. Close enough that Ash could see her own reflection in the crimson of Lysanthia's eyes. Sol was between them chirping at the ceiling as if none of this was her fault.
Something in Ash's chest went tight and bright. She pulled back fast. She sat on the stone floor and pressed her palms flat against it.
"She has," Ash said, very carefully, "She has remarkable timing."
"She is a creature of instinct." Lysanthia was stroking Sol with one hand. The baby phoenix was letting out a small trill.
Ash did not look at her for a long time. Lysanthia did not look back at her either. When the silence had settled into something closer to normal, Ash rose and tended the fire. The guttering flame caught and spread. "Lys, lie down in front of this," Ash said. "The warmth will help a bit."
Lysanthia lowered herself from the bed to the floor, moving with her hands and knees. She settled in front of the hearth, on her side. Sol hopped down after her, landed with a soft tap, and waddled to her pillow. "And now what?" Lysanthia asked. "Am I simply to lie here?"
Ash smiled. "More or less. Just rest here and you'll feel better tomorrow."
Lysanthia's gaze was sharp, even from the floor. "You know too much about this. Why?"
"Exercises like this were part of my own training. When I was a candidate, before the Hero class. I've had my share of painful...experiences." Ash sat against the wall. "Like I said, I once couldn’t move for a week."
"I cannot afford to lie here for a week. There are things I wish to-"
"You won't need a week." Ash said quickly. "Because I know how to care for this."
Lysanthia looked at the fire. Sol chirped softly and settled against her side. The room was quiet except for the crackling. And the grinding. Always the grinding.