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The dew of the morning sun wakes Ilya up with a start. A sheen of moisture cools on his skin, his tunic clinging to his chest like a wet bandage to a wound.
The ghost of his right hand flutters to his face, until he remembers it’s nothing but a gauze and leather-wrapped stump, still aching tender from the blade that had cut clean through the bone, so easily, like his arm was merely a carrot on a chopping board being prepared for a hearty stew.
Losing his sword hand had felt like losing a dear friend. Not that he had many of those. But, he was lucky to be left with anything, most of all his life, after breaking a sworn oath to protect his king by putting his own blade through his throat. Unfortunately, he still hadn’t learned his lesson, and is now being escorted across the realm to his own execution, once again found guilty of conspiracy against the monarchy. This time, mercy had escaped him. He hadn’t expected anything less, but he also hadn’t expected to be caught.
Ilya was the least noble nobleman of a high-ranking family, who had spent the better part of his short life driving him to his bitter end, one which winks at him ominously from beyond the stretch of land they still have yet to cover. The soft clank of metal tinkers in his ears as his travel companion approaches. Or, more aptly named, his captor.
“Get moving, Rozanov. I’d rather not lose any more of the daylight hours to your beauticious lounging.”
Light filters through Ilya’s squinted eyelids, a shadow cast across his flattened body where his armored chaperone stands above him, the reflected glare from his breastplate offending Ilya’s eyes. Reluctantly, he grips the offered hand and lets himself be pulled to his feet. He scans the horizon, exaggeratedly gauging the position of the sun where it peeks above the treeline.
“I do apologize, Ser Hollander, I did not realize you had been crowned king during the night. Have I already missed the coronation?”
Ser Shane Hollander mirrors his own height when he faces him with an expression of indignation, freckles smattered across his helmetless face like the stars of the northern sky. His eyes are framed by long, dark lashes, irises the color of the warm amber liquid Ilya used to drown himself with, when he could still show his face in public. Ilya thinks that, if the gods really wanted to punish him, they should have sent him to his death alongside someone a bit harsher on the eyes.
A little too late, Shane seems to realize their fingers are still clasped together. He drops Ilya’s hand like it had wounded him, but the flush that blooms on his cheeks suggests otherwise.
“If I’ve offended you, you’re welcome to continue the journey alone. But the wolves won’t take kindly to a man without a sword,” he says, his gaze dropping pointedly to Ilya’s pathetic stump, and his mouth turned upward, like he’s proud to have poured salt on the wound.
Ilya sees right through the threat, knowing a man who holds himself to such high honor would never break it on a whim. He plays along anyway, eyes widening in faux disbelief.
“You would have me taken by wolves, even if it meant breaking your precious oath, my liege?”
Ilya takes pride in the way Shane blushes at the formality, the same way he does when Ilya calls him Ser Hollander, or calls him anything at all, really. It has become Ilya’s greatest form of entertainment on this sordid excursion, to send the blood rushing to his cheeks at any given opportunity. It had taken only two days for him to discover that flattery had a stronger effect than insults.
“I would do almost anything if it meant a single moment of peace,” Shane mutters in response.
Ilya smirks, catching the satchel that Shane tosses at him in the crook of his arm. “Then it would appear you are the one offended, dear comrade.”
*
Nearly a hundred suns had passed since they had embarked on the treacherous journey across the realm. They had endured all types of weather, and Shane had stopped bothering to bind Ilya’s wrists after the time he threw himself into a frozen lake, just to spite him. Despite slaying countless men in countless battles, Ilya considers this small victory to be one of his greatest.
They’d lost their horse to a group of bandits in the riverlands, and now pass the days trudging through briarwood and prairie on foot. At times, Ilya considered attempting to flee, if only it meant that Shane would put him out of this sour misery. But, he’d grown somewhat fond of his captor, and did not want to see him dishonored by his own hand, even in death.
Which is somewhat puzzling, considering that the completion of his mission meant that Ilya’s life would come to its certain end. Perhaps it is for the best. The world had never wanted him there, anyway.
Shane, however, had a warmth beneath his iron shell that Ilya found himself drawn to, like a cat to the sunspot. Occasionally, he slipped, and addressed Ilya as my lord, a title that had long since been stripped away from him. He shared more of his food rations than he really needed to — he could starve him completely if he felt like it — and he even taught him how to spear a fish with a whittled stick. And, as resentful as Shane made himself seem, Ilya knew he appreciated his company, too. He’d noticed that, sometimes, his irritated scowl didn’t quite reach his eyes.
*
Shane told him things, if Ilya poked and prodded hard enough. Ilya wasn’t sure if he even realized he was doing it, but, usually in an effort to shut him up, he would walk right into the steel trap of Ilya’s manipulative jest.
He was especially uptight whenever Ilya mentioned certain activities only performed in a bedroom or a brothel. Or, in his case, many other places. He liked the flustered reaction he got, so naturally, he’d taken to mentioning it as much as possible. On this particular night — in front of the campfire, sharing a rabbit Shane had skinned and cooked while Ilya foraged for berries in the nearby wood — Shane had finally cracked under the weight of Ilya’s relentless innuendo.
Ilya’s mouth hangs open in disbelief.
“You, Ser Hollander? The esteemed right hand to her highness Rose Landry, whom many believe to choose her knights specifically by the degree to which she wishes to bed them — you have never laid with a woman?”
Shane’s lips fold into a hard line, and his cheeks tinge pink. “I have never laid with anyone.”
Ilya pretends not to notice the hidden confession revealed to him in that short phrase, handed to him like a neatly wrapped parcel that takes every bit of his resolve not to tear open. He considers this as good a moment as any to petition for something that had begged at him for weeks. He figures they both could use the distraction.
“Will you grant me a dying wish, my liege?”
To Ilya’s delight, Shane sprays ale from his mouth, and keels over with a sputtering cough. Ilya’s shoulders shake with silent laughter as he watches him struggle to catch his breath through the embers of the fire. Even in the dim orange glow, Ilya can see his cheeks burn darker than anything he’d ever managed to elicit before. As soon as Shane is coherent again, still avoiding his eyes like a deadly plague, Ilya finishes the request.
“Let me wield one of your swords. A friendly spar, if you’re willing. If not, the gods will have me die of boredom before the king’s blade ever reaches my neck.”
Maybe it’s the ale, or the welcome change of subject, but to his surprise, Shane agrees with only a brief hesitation. His smaller blade lands at Ilya’s feet with a dull thud, still cloaked in its sheath.
“I would have rather outsworded the great king slayer in his prime, if I’m completely honest,” he says. For once, it’s Ilya whose cheeks flush with warmth. “But for all your incessant bragging, it’s high time you raise your blade to your mouth, my lord.”
*
The sound of metal on metal could wake a sleeping giant, echoing off the tree trunks like a sea of voices in a stone chamber.
Ilya had never told anyone that he sometimes practiced with his left hand, too, just in case he had to use it. He was born a soldier, after all. With it, he’s unrefined, unpracticed, but not unskilled. After a tireless struggle, both of them drenched with the effort, neither one had yet submitted.
Shane looks younger without the bulk of his armor, which he had ironically removed as to not give Ilya the advantage of speed. This means that, when he loses his grip on his sword at the hand of Ilya’s final swing, hitting the grass with a noise of quiet surrender — Ilya is presented with a golden opportunity to take his freedom and run for the mighty hills. It would not be the first time he’d taken the life of a man who had chosen to trust him.
But Shane’s eyes twinkle, not with fear, but admiration. Ilya’s face is inches from his, the point of his blade a hair’s breadth from the beat of his heart. Ilya’s grip tightens, and his chest heaves, his shoulders shaking with indecision. He has no idea what his face must look like, but it must not be very threatening, because Shane’s eyes flutter closed, and his mouth surges forward, metal grazing skin.
The hilt of Ilya’s sword hits the dirt, blade following with a dull clatter. Rough hands tangle in his hair, the wet warmth of Shane’s mouth on his usurping every other thought in his brain. He makes a muffled sound against his lips, left hand flattening on the small of his back, and he realizes he felt his lips on his before he had ever once touched him. It hits him, then, how much he’s wanted this, ever since Shane first lifted him onto the saddle. Even as a dead man walking, he can hardly believe his luck.
Accompanied by the sweet press of Shane’s tongue, his wandering hands, and the soft, breathy noises that fall from his mouth when Ilya lays him down and takes him between his lips, Ilya could die in his sleep before the sun rose, and he’d still die a happy man.
*
While Shane sleeps beside him, Ilya dreams.
He considers how many battles of trust he’d managed to win so far along the journey. A fantastical part of him begins to wonder if the fraction that remained could be enough to convince Shane to leave his honor behind in return for freedom — not only for his sake, but for the sake of them both, to live without duty or consequence. In the face of doubt, he reminds himself that having his wrists unbound had once been a fantasy, too.
Having Shane beneath him, crying out under the spell of his mouth, was something even his most powerful delusions could never have entertained. Yet, it had happened, and they still had hundreds of miles to cover. Hundreds of miles to make him stay. He’d already laid the groundwork, like stepping stones across an ocean.
Perhaps the gods wanted him alive. Perhaps Shane wanted it, too. Maybe even enough to save him. Even if he didn’t, as Ilya watches his bare chest rise and fall beneath the light of the moon, he thinks to himself warmly:
If it had to be anyone, I am glad it is you.
fin.