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the stables
Special occasion? asks one of the stablehands. We don’t see you around here often.
No particular reason, says Jisoo. Just wanted to help.
Jisoo gave up riding after the war—gave up white magic officially too. Now his duties at the monastery are almost entirely administrative. But as he takes the curry comb from the stablehand he’s surprised to find the muscle memory still there, like an old friend.
Jeonghan was the one who taught him how to groom a horse: Start with the neck. Firm, even circles. A gentle hand to calm them, pitch your voice low and your gaze soft. As boys assigned to stable duty together they’d caused more than their fair share of ruckus, but Jeonghan had a way with horses that exceeded most of the other noble children who had grown up riding. A way with people, too.
Now Jisoo grooms in silence, broken only by the horse’s soft nickers. She’s white with a beautiful curly mane, exhausted from the long ride north from the Choi estate. He lowers himself gingerly onto his knees to pick her hooves, and the feeling of dirt under his fingernails makes him wince too. It really has been a long time.
Angel, calls a voice from the entryway. A voice that limns the contours of Jisoo’s dreams.
To his credit Jisoo manages to keep his expression in place, but the speed with which his head snaps up gives him away. The stablehand takes it as confusion: Angel, he says, gesturing to the horse. Lord Choi’s steed. Thought you’d known her a long time the way she took to you.
And then there’s Seungcheol, backlit by the midday sun.
The spicy musk of his scent. The weight he’s put on, the fine cloth draping his figure. For a moment time wobbles and refracts, like they’re teenagers again and Seungcheol has come by after axe training to pick up the academy’s resident troublemakers. But then Angel noses at Jisoo’s hand and brings him back to this place, this moment, the muddy hay soaking his knees.
Jisoo-ah, says Seungcheol. Tremendously warm, though the lines around his eyes are at once smiling and severe. Aren’t you going to give me a hug?
the training grounds
Jisoo arrived at the Officers’ Academy in the midst of a downpour with only the clothes on his back, and the dampness of that night followed him around for weeks even after he had scrubbed himself raw in the baths and donned his strange new uniform.
Assassinated mother, bastard son, diplomatic hostage, ward of the church. As Jisoo stood outside the lecture hall: You can’t just ask him about his parents, Seungcheollie, do you even look at the briefs your advisors keep sending? And then: Lay off, Jeonghan-ah, it’s not like I’m going to inherit anyway.
Jeonghan had a bit of a reputation already, so when he cornered Jisoo after their faith seminar and invited him to go riding, Jisoo turned him down politely. Horses scared him with their monstrous strength and their pounding hooves. But then they had been assigned to stable duty together, and the rest was history.
This way we can stay out of the front lines together, explained Jeonghan with glee. One hand on Jisoo’s shoulder and the other on his hand, showing Jisoo the proper motions for brushing. You can get good range with magic or a bow. On horseback it makes you pretty much untouchable.
Jeonghan showed Jisoo all his favorite dishes in the dining hall and how to sneak out of the dorms after curfew. Taught him how to hold a lance. Always shared his care packages from home. Explained the history of the kingdom off the top of his head, though he was always cutting class, and then over the years all of his inside jokes with Seungcheol, so that they became Jisoo’s inside jokes too.
Here was where he and Jeonghan had gotten reprimanded by the archbishop after the incident with the cats. That was a close call, hehehe. Here was where the three of them had wolf-whistled as Soonyoung and Junhui practiced for the White Heron Cup. Here, where Jisoo had dozed on Jeonghan’s shoulder, watching a boy heave an axe twice his size over his head. Hey Joshuji, are you listening to me?
Perhaps the clearest memory of them all was when Seungcheol passed the fortress knight certification. He’d tossed the practice axe to the ground as if it weighed nothing at all. Run towards them grinning, and his arms had found Jisoo’s shoulders first. A whirlwind of boy, laughing and triumphant, and Jisoo hadn’t known what to do about the frantic beating of his heart.
the war room
Now they negotiate a fragile peace over a still broken continent, fifteen years out. Jisoo floats in and out of the proceedings like a ghost. Politics aren’t within his purview, but that’s not why he’s there. Most of the nobles don’t even notice when he’s in the room, because some things never change.
Take a day off, says Jisoo when they break, after Seungcheol dozes off in the afternoon session for the third time. We have a sauna now, isn’t that something? Jisoo digs his knuckles into Seungcheol’s broad shoulders, working a particularly thorny knot and trying to ignore the rush of heat the ensuing groan sends through his body: half arousal, half something approximating guilt.
His students whisper where they think he can’t hear: They’re old friends, don’t you know? I heard Jisoo seonsaengnim fought in the war too. You wouldn’t think…
It wasn’t like Seungcheol and Jisoo hadn’t seen each other in the past fifteen years. The rebuilding of the besieged monastery and kingdom had required all hands on deck. Seungcheol traveled regularly between the estate and the capital; Jisoo overlapped him occasionally on church business. But after the initial frenzy had died down there were fewer and fewer excuses, and soon none at all.
I couldn’t have come back here without you, admits Seungcheol on the fifth day of negotiations. I almost didn’t come.
It’s not so bad here, says Jisoo, but he knows what Seungcheol means. He had thought he’d walked these halls enough times on his daily rounds for the old wounds to become completely numb, but something about having Seungcheol here again presses on the scars until they sting.
I missed your smile, says Seungcheol on the seventh day, but Jisoo knows he’s thinking of someone else.
the dormitory
Fuck, Jeonghan whispered when he heard Jisoo sit up. Sorry. He sniffed, hard.
Jisoo rubbed his eyes, which were so dry they needled with pain with every blink. No, he said into the darkness, you can talk to me, Jeonghan-ah.
Jisoo had woken to Jeonghan’s quiet sobbing. It was the movement of the blankets that gave Jeonghan away more than the sound, the shaking of his shoulders in between his silent gasps. Seungcheol had cut a bloody swath down the battlefield in rage and despair before breaking down in Jeonghan’s arms. But Jeonghan had maintained a sad placid smile for the last three days straight, so steadfast that Jisoo had begun to wonder when he would break.
I don’t think I can go on like this, said Jeonghan to the wall. I don’t want to go on like this.
First it had been Wonwoo in the carnage, face peaceful and unbloodied like he was still sleeping. Then Junhui on the opposite side of the battlefield, his wyvern plummeting to Jisoo’s arrow. This time it was the wreck of Chan’s body wrapped in crumpled armor, a devastating present. And Jeonghan’s gentle hands, the steady flame of his presence, for the wounds that bled and all the wounds that didn’t.
It’s going to come to an end, said Jisoo, staring down the blur of Jeonghan’s body. One day we’ll look back at this and it will all feel like a terrible dream.
Jeonghan rolled over then and looked at him, but Jisoo couldn’t make out the expression on his face, not even in the half light of the moon.
You could defect, said Jisoo, the word he’d avoided saying out loud since the war had begun. Leave. Go back home. We’ll go together.
Tell me how to help you, he wanted to beg when Jeonghan scoffed, but he knew that was a pointless request. Instead Jisoo said, I’m not joking. I stopped praying years ago.
Because what good was a church that could only tell lies? A goddess who delighted in her own cruelty?
I know about that, said Jeonghan flippantly, which annoyed Jisoo but at least he wasn’t crying anymore. You can’t fool me though, Joshuji, I know the real reason you’re still here.
And, here Jeonghan’s tone hardened into resolve. That means you have to survive. All right? Whatever happens, out of the two of us it’s you who has to survive.
But Jisoo didn’t need Jeonghan to tell him that or to guarantee it for him. He knew already that life went on no matter how terrible. A new day broke like a wave over the shore. You could lay there in the spray forever feeling it beat against your bones, relentless and inevitable.
A dead body remained in the ground turning cold, a cycle of freeze and thaw ad infinitum. A face you loved and knew like your own became a face you couldn’t bear to imagine, one you assembled a bypass for in the staging ground of memory, until one day you woke up and saw only yourself in the mirror.
Love you, Joshuji, said Jeonghan. I’m going to sleep now.
the greenhouse
On day ten of negotiations Jisoo brings Seungcheol fish and turnip stew from the dining hall. No spice, as Jisoo had insisted, hovering awkwardly over the kitchen staff as they made a portion special.
What did I do to deserve you, says Seungcheol, like he does in Jisoo’s dreams. They’re eating in the greenhouse overlooking the fishing pond, where it’s temperate and beautiful, where Seungcheol’s easy charm blooms like one of so many flowers: You’ve really settled in here, Jisoo. Who could have predicted it, when you walked into the monastery looking like a bedraggled rat.
Seungcheol’s smile is wry. For a minute there’s a hint of his once-gummy grin, the boy he had been before his brother was killed and the entire continent went to shit.
I think it’s useless to try to predict the future, shrugs Jisoo. Everything happens as it’s meant to.
Spoken like a true man of the cloth, Seungcheol says without irony.
The greenhouse was Jeonghan’s second favorite spot in the monastery, because it was warm even in the dead of winter. The first was the fishing pond. Jeonghan loved fishing, though Jisoo rarely saw him catch anything—skipped class to lounge on the dock with the pole balanced in the crook of his elbow, and more often than not a book Jisoo could have sworn he’d last seen in the library’s restricted section.
Jisoo picks at his vegetable stir-fry. He doesn’t eat meat anymore.
It’s not a monk thing. He didn’t get much meat growing up, not until he came to the academy. There he’d quickly grown used to the taste of blood. The revulsion, that set in later.
the entrance hall
Jeonghan was in good spirits on the day it happened. Color in his cheeks, and his hair was getting long again, and that was the first moment in a long time that made Jisoo think that maybe the war was winnable.
Everything was right until it wasn’t. Seungcheol commanded their usual formation to deploy around the home turf of the monastery this time: armored infantry to the front and ranged cavalry to the back, where Jisoo and Jeonghan led their twinned battalions on horseback. They thinned the enemy ranks, pincered off the commander with a gambit. During a lull in the fighting Jeonghan pulled his horse up close to Jisoo’s, and by the smile in his eyes Jisoo knew he was about to make some terrible joke.
But then he saw it in slow motion—the beam of fire streaking through the sky towards the monastery, a terrifying javelin of pure light.
If Jisoo hadn’t stopped believing in the goddess years ago, hadn’t given up white magic for the bow, he might have wondered if this was her doing. By now he knew this was godless work. Humans had the ability to destroy all by themselves, was the last thing he remembered thinking, before time snapped back into its proper pace and he found himself thrown off his horse and into the ground.
A monstrous roaring in his ears. All his bones rattling from the impact.
But then the smoke cleared and air returned to his lungs, and Jisoo opened his eyes and saw Seungcheol’s face looming over his, saying something. He blinked once, twice. Seungcheol wasn’t looking at him at all. He was looking at Jeonghan’s prone figure—Jeonghan, who must have knocked Jisoo off of his horse to save him, who lay bleeding out next to him at the center of the crater.
Please, Seungcheol whispered over and over again. His hands were clammy, sticky with blood and potion, and his eyes never left Jeonghan’s face. Please, Jisoo.
We need a real healer, said Jisoo, casting about for someone, but all the healers had been in Jeonghan’s battalion and now they too lay broken on the scorched earth.
We don’t have healers. He doesn’t have time. Seungcheol pulled Jisoo down none too gently by his hands and arranged them on Jeonghan’s chest. I’ve given him all the vulneraries I have but there’s something wrong with him still. We need you.
I need you, was what it almost sounded like in that moment.
Please, please. Please!
So Jisoo squeezed his eyes shut and wrenched out what remained of his faith. The healing sigil formed and connected between his palms, but when he tried to channel the magic he found only a sick void in the pit of his stomach. He could feel the fragile rise and fall of Jeonghan’s lungs beneath his cracked ribs, the weak pulse of his heart as if it were his own, but Jisoo had nothing to believe in and nothing to give. For all of Jisoo’s wounds Jeonghan had managed to soothe over the years—loneliness, homesickness, grief, and injury after injury on the battlefield—Jisoo dug deep and found no antidote he could offer in return, even as Seungcheol pleaded and pleaded.
And then there were other wounds still. Jealousy, for one. Cruelty, for another.
For years afterwards Jisoo told himself variations on the same story: That the enemy’s magic was too strong, obscene, unlike anything they’d ever seen before; that he had done the best with the faith he still had. That if it was anyone’s failure it was Seungcheol’s, for a strategy that had left all their healers vulnerable at once. That Jeonghan had been dying already, day by day, since before that conversation in the dark. That Jeonghan would have understood (perhaps). That Jeonghan would have done the same in his position (this one he knew was a lie).
The truth, though, was that Jisoo had let Jeonghan’s heartbeat gutter out under his shaking hands, one last vicious and victorious burst of flame, before he snuffed out the candle himself—good night, dear friend.
the goddess tower
As they reach the top of the spiral staircase they’re both panting, and Jisoo is sweating into his robes.
It went like this: Jisoo brought out the tea set, so Seungcheol suggested a picnic. Jisoo led them down the scenic path along the side of the cathedral, so naturally Seungcheol saw the tower and lit up with nostalgia. His tells are just as easy to read, though grief has made them more subtle. But Jisoo had a good teacher.
The balcony hasn’t been swept in a while. They sit side by side in the dust and Jisoo pours tea and sets out pastries.
I was going to ask him to marry me after the war, says Seungcheol. He lets out a bitter, aborted laugh, yet Jisoo still longs to hold on to the sound.
I visit him every year on his birthday, but somehow he’s more present here than anywhere else—and then Seungcheol looks right at Jisoo: Because whenever he was with you he was home.
Another birthday rises up unbidden from many years back, in the very spot where they sit now. Jisoo’s seventeenth birthday, though he’d never mentioned the date to anyone, but Jeonghan knew somehow still. He wanted to show Jisoo the stars, had been the excuse. When better than during the darkest night of the year? Jeonghan had grabbed Jisoo’s hand to guide it as they shivered on their backs in the winter chill, framing something between their fingers as Jisoo squinted. Sure, Jisoo had said, I think I see them, even though the sky had remained an inscrutable inky black.
Later, much later, on a battlefield stained with blood, after one of the near misses before the real thing, Jeonghan had admitted—I just wanted to hold your hand.
Now it’s Jisoo who reaches for Seungcheol’s fingers, though he makes it look like an accident. Bumps their knuckles the next time he puts his teacup down, and keeps his hand there.
Seungcheol turns to face him then, and he’s smiling but his eyes are sad. He looks long and hard at Jisoo like he’s trying to see through him. Because Jeonghan is here and everywhere, all the Jeonghans that Jisoo knew and all the ones he didn’t: Baby Jeonghan tussling with Seungcheol in the Choi family gardens. Jeonghan currying his first horse. Practice lances and hunting trips, governesses and holiday tournaments.
Jisoo gave up faith a long time ago. In the goddess, in the kingdom, in the fundamental goodness of the world. But he still has to admire it, the kind of stupid faith Seungcheol has that could raise a ghost from the dead.
Seungcheol will never understand him, but Jisoo has never wanted to be understood.
Jisoo says: I hear the ginkgo trees on the Yoon estate are most beautiful in the fall.
Maybe next time we can go together.