"What does that word mean to you?"
I had braced for her to ask for a difficult boon. She had circled the question long enough for one, and her pulse in my hand had the hurried rhythm of someone about to request a thing she feared herself unworthy to receive. Sara had taken half an afternoon to ask me to make Marin bloom again. Whatever it was, I had already decided the answer before the question came.
If Ash asked for a thing, I would give it. If it required gold, I would acquire gold. If the thing did not exist, I would make it exist. If it existed and belonged to another, that was a matter easily solved. Instead, she had asked me what a word meant.
I looked at her. The stream moved past our feet and carried the stars along with it, and Ash was waiting for my answer. "In this world, a retainer is someone who has my trust," I said. "Someone I keep in confidence."
I felt her receive my answer. Ash did not receive my answer as I had intended it. The faint crease between her brows deepened, and her thumb went still against the side of my hand. “Is that all a retainer is to you?”
“Those are not petty things, as you seem to be thinking,” I said. "Trust in my time was difficult. Many have served me for centuries without earning it. In my long life, I have trusted only one other. Do you understand what I am giving you?"
Her frown stayed. When she spoke, her voice was very soft. "I know," she said. "That's the hard part."
I did not understand that. Ash was not ignorant. She seemed to understand what I was offering her, and yet she found it lacking all the same. Why had her voice gone soft? “If you have some complaint, then you should voice it, Ash. No Queen can read the mind of her subjects. Not even I.”
Ash looked away from me and up at the stars. “Her subject,” she murmured. Her hand left mine. The warmth went with it. I felt the precise instant her fingers slipped from between my own. The night air was no colder than it had been a moment before. The stream remained cool against my legs. Therefore, the absence should have been a small thing. It was not a small thing. Something inside me hurt.
My hand closed against the grass. The blades bent between my fingers and remained there, trapped in my fist. They felt made of fire.
“You have many retainers now, you know,” she said, looking at the sky. “Though I suppose you haven’t realized it yet.”
“I have three, at present. You, Sara, and Solara. Three does not many make.” My voice was smooth, which surprised me.
I understood some of what the Hero was reaching for now. "I am not rebuilding my kingdom," I said. "If there are presently a few strays who have attached themselves to me, that is a temporary affliction. Before long they will think better of it. I am certain."
"I don't think they will, Lys."
"And how can you say that?"
"Experience." She shrugged with one shoulder. "You can always tell. And I wouldn't be surprised if you get more, as time goes on."
I said nothing. A breeze came off the water and moved across my face. Even if the Hero was right, that did not explain why she should sound so. I considered the matter from this new angle. Perhaps Ash wanted followers of her own, though she would never want for admirers. If she wanted a court, she had only to hold out her palm and wait. Perhaps she was blind to it. Heroes so often were.
"Ash," I said, "if you wish, you can simply-"
"I'm your retainer, Lys." I stopped. "You say you have three. But you have more than three, and you'll have more still." She was still looking at the sky. "I watched you pull Edda to her feet in that ring. Corin calls you Your Grace, when he thinks you aren’t listening because you told him not to say it to your face. Ren skipped all of her classes for three days just to help you practice. Alisa gave you two Essence Hearts, which we have now learned are quite valuable." Ash’s faint smile dipped until it was only a frown. "That's how it starts."
"That proves nothing except that this Academy is full of fools."
"So how long?" Ash said.
"How long until what?"
"Until there are dozens of them. Until I'm one of the dozens." she asked. "How long until the word retainer doesn't mean anything at all?"
I opened my mouth to speak. There would not be dozens. The title of retainer was not one so cheap to be handed out freely. The word retainer would always mean what I had told her. I could force none of those answers past my throat, for I knew none of those would soothe whatever afflicted Ash now.
"Everyone always wanted the Hero," Ash eventually said. "The Champion of the People. That's what they called me. It belonged to everyone. It belonged to no one." She turned her wrist over in the grass. "My mother's eyes sparkled for a song about a stranger. You're the first person who's ever-" She stopped.
She stopped, but I thought I understood her meaning now. She was talking about her Veil. A woman who had spent one life learning to be less was asking whether time would make less of her in this life too. It was simple arithmetic. More prestigious to be one in three than to be one in three hundred.
"Heroes are fools," I said.
Ash turned to look at me. "What?"
I raised one hand toward the air, toward the stars. "There are retainers, and there are retainers. A Queen may possess a hundred thousand, but a hundred thousand do not serve at her side. Only the lucky few have that right. In my old life, all of my Generals watched from a distance not of our making. You have read that journal, and so you know this as well as I."
Ash opened her mouth, then closed it. She had read the same journal.
I took a deep, steadying breath and looked at her. "The same word can mean different things, Ash. For almost all, there is always a distance." I paused. The words that followed were simple. They did not leave simply. “You are the one who is not at a distance.”
Ash went very still. "So you're saying I'm... a special retainer."
"If that is how you wish to understand it. Yes." I said.
Ash was quiet. She was quiet for so long that I thought I might need to repeat myself. "And how can you be sure it will stay that way?" she asked. Her voice was very soft.
"Because I have said it. And if I say a thing, it will be so, or I will bend the world until it is."
Ash laughed, and it was not like how she usually laughed. This was a small, choked thing. "Right," she said. "I suppose you would answer like that, wouldn't you." Her voice was warm, but something pained lived beneath it.
"If you find the word retainer ill suits you," I said slowly, "then I will grant you a different one. You may choose it yourself, if you wish. If that is what you require, then so be it."
"A different word," Ash said. Color came up in her face.
"Oh?" I turned toward her. "Do you have one in mind, then?"
"No- yes." Ash looked at her hands. "I don't know. I didn't think this conversation would go the way it has."
"How did you think it would go, Hero?"
She opened her mouth but nothing came out. I waited. A Queen could be patient when patience served her. Ash stared at the water as though the correct answer might drift past our feet. Her lips formed the beginning of something, then closed around it. So I did the generous thing and helped.
"Very well. If you cannot produce one, I shall." I straightened. "You shall be styled the Queen's Own Blade."
"Lys."
"It is as accurate as it is fitting. You are a deft with a blade, you are mine, and I am a Queen."
"It's-" Ash pressed a hand over her eyes. "It's…it’s a bit too literal for my taste."
"Then how about I style you as: First Sword of the Dark Tower."
"That's a lot of words, Lys. And we don't live in a dark tower."
"I have not ruled out reacquiring one." I said. “Surely this new world will have something resembling one.”
Ash pressed a hand over her face. Her shoulders moved once. I suspected she was laughing at me. I chose not to punish the offense. I was nothing if not generous. "If these names do not please you, then I will wait," I said.
Ash lowered her hand. "What?"
"You are foremost among my retainers. That much I grant now, and it is not a small grant." I looked at the stream. "If you need time to voice the other word, then you may have all the time you wish." A Queen's court does not carry vacancies. Mine now carried one.
Ash did not answer for a long moment. "It went differently in the book," Ash murmured. "Though I guess there she actually-" Ash stopped and her mouth closed so fast I heard her teeth meet.
My entire head turned. Ash’s face went scarlet. "You are referring to that book," I said.
"It's nothing. I didn’t say anything about a book." Ash said.
She refused to meet my eyes. Did she think I would mistrust my own ears? "You spoke of the book you would not show me just now, I am certain of it.” I leaned toward her. "You consulted this book…for this?"
"Oh god, don't say it like that, Lys."
"Then I would like to see it for myself."
"Lys, I would rather the earth open up and swallow me whole."
I sat back. This was, I recalled, only the second time I had ever seen Ash look genuinely stricken. The first had been at the inn, when that strange man had approached me. I rose to my knees and pointed. "Was this a book on human mating rituals?"
"WHAT?" Ash shot upright. "No- no, oh god, not this one, this one was nothing like that, I assure you Ren didn’t-"
"This one?"
A small chirp came from the grass. We both turned to see that Solara had lifted her head. She blinked at us, and her enormous golden eyes opened and closed once, and she yawned wide enough to show the faint glow at the back of her throat.
"...Sorry, Sol," Ash said. Sol let out another chirp, tucked her four wings, and went back to sleep.
We looked at her for a moment. Then I looked at Ash again. "Well?"
"It's not that kind of book," Ash said. Her voice was lower now, but I could see it strained her. She was not meeting my eyes. "But it's... I guess it's not too far off."
"I see." I nodded, slowly. "Very well. I shall believe you. Though it would be no bad thing if it were. Human customs are strange, and I would like to research more."
"Lys. Please don't say it like that."
"I said nothing improperly."
Ash groaned into both hands. Then she laughed, and there was finally no pain behind it at all. "Honestly. What am I going to do with you?"
"That should be my question, Hero."
She dropped her hands. She was still smiling, but the smile had gone thin at the edges. "The book made this sound a lot easier," she said, mostly to herself. “Ronan was right after all.”
"Right about what?" I asked.
"Nothing." She shook her head. "Something about songs."
I did not understand. I let it pass, because there was a thing that mattered more. "Ash," I said. "This concern of yours. Is it still there?"
She looked away from me. "Yeah," she said finally. "I guess it is."
"I do not like this." Something inside me hurt as I said it, and I said it anyway. "If you have a concern, I would like to address it."
Ash looked at me, and she smiled. There was sadness in this one too, though it did not seem directed at me. "I just don't know if you can," she said. Then her hands raised quickly. "Not that it's your fault! I guess it makes sense that you wouldn't know. And it wouldn't be fair of me to ask anyway, not right now."
"If this is a problem of understanding," I said, "then I wish it corrected. Your vagueness serves only to vex me, Hero."
Ash laughed. "Sorry. I guess I'm used to this too, when it comes to-" She trailed off and took a breath. "I guess I want to be more than just a retainer, Lys."
I turned the request over. It made little sense. It was a boon I thought I had already granted mere minutes ago. She did not have the name for what she wished for, so how could I grant it to her? All I could do was leave a space by my side, and let Ash style herself however she wished when she took it. I chose to reassure her again.
"Very well, I will say it again," I said. "Ash, you are foremost among-"
Ash smiled. "I figured you'd say that."
She leaned in. I froze. My heart skipped. One beat always led to another which led to another still, and yet the order was skipped. Ash's face came very close. Closer than it had been in the chamber, closer than it had been that day when she had shown me her stretches. Her lips parted. Her hair fell forward and brushed my cheek. Then her lips rose, and she kissed my forehead.
The world went still. Her lips were very warm. They were very soft. The Ember Core, for one breath, was not the loudest thing inside me. I knew what the gesture was. I am not a fool. I had seen it in Hamel, between mothers and children and the married by a bonfire. I had seen it traded between a few of my own generals and some of their followers, when they believed I could not see. Zera had tested that boundary often.
It was not a gesture anyone had ever tried with me. None had been fool enough to. No, that was not quite right. One had almost dared, and she had paid for it. Though perhaps not so much as I had once thought.
Ash pulled back. "What manner of attack is this?" I demanded. My face was very warm. I was aware that my face was very warm.
Ash paused. Then she smiled. "Lys," she said. "I want to be more than just a retainer. If you’ll have me, of course."
They were almost the same words she had said before. They were not the same words. "I have already granted you that honour." I said. My voice sounded like a small thing.
Ash sighed. "What will I do with you?" It was unclear whether she was actually asking.
We sat for another moment. The stream moved. The stars moved with it. The place on my forehead did not cool.
Ash’s shoulder rested against mine again. This time I noticed the moment it arrived. I also noticed that neither of us moved away. At last, Ash drew her legs from the water and reached for her shoes. “Come on. Let’s go back. It’s getting late.”
I rose. My legs were steadier than they had any right to be. I knelt in the grass and gathered Solara into my cupped hands and balanced her carefully between my horns, where she settled with a small sound that might have been a yawn.
Ash looked at me, and I looked at her. The distance between us was as it had always been, yet something about it was different.
I extended my hand toward her first. “We came here in this manner,” I said. “It is simply logical to depart in the same way.”
Ash looked at my hand. Her smile slowly returned, and she took it.
We climbed the bank together and the grass gave under our bare feet, and somewhere far ahead of us the festival was still going, strings, drums and voices lifted for a victory over a dragon that had never existed, in the name of a god I had never heard of. The lanterns burned in their long warm lines above the street.
We walked. The spot on my forehead stayed warm, which was impossible. Many things around my Hero were.