The warriors were coming down.
Lapis heard them long before she actually witnessed their return: the heavy tread of armored feet in the upper tunnels, the creak of loaded carriages, and the low murmur of men who had come back weary.
Everyone could hear it.
The women had already gathered near the great entrance hall by the time the first lantern light appeared on the slope above.
Every other time, Lapis had waited among the children. She would perch on a rock with the little ones and crane her neck like them, playing guessing games about who would come down first.
This time, she stood among the wives.
No matter how fake the arrangement was between the two of them, to everyone else she was Ashen's wife-to-be. And a wife waited for her husband to come home. That was her duty, and she had to carry it properly.
'He's going to laugh at me if he finds out I practiced how to stand,' she thought, adjusting her veil for the fifth time.
Then the column came around the last bend, and the first thing that caught her attention wasn't her brother or father's face, but corpses.
They were laid on the front carriages, wrapped in cloaks.
Lapis's heart stopped.
She knew it did, because the world stopped with it. The murmuring around her vanished. The lantern light froze. She was vaguely aware of her mother beside her going rigid, and of every woman in the hall turning to stone at the same moment, all of them staring at those wrapped shapes and silently counting.
Lapis's eyes moved from carriage to carriage. From face to face among the men walking behind. She was searching, and the longer she searched, the colder her hands became.
Until she found him.
Ashen walked near the middle of the column, his face pale and worn, his armor caked in dried mud and darker things. His eyes were sunken. He looked older than he had when he left.
But none of that mattered. There was only one thing that did.
'He's walking.'
That was enough to convince her that he was, indeed, alive.
Life came rushing back to her all at once. Her heart lurched into motion, and with it, sound came rushing back into the world.
The first thing she heard was a wailing.
The wives of the fallen had found their husbands. Some had fallen to their knees beside the carriages. Some were clutching the cloaks and screaming names into them. And at the very front, Anastasia stood with tears running silently down her face, her lips trembling, staring at the row of bodies.
Lapis felt the grief too. It pressed into her chest and made it hard to breathe. These were brothers who had carried her on their shoulders, who had sneaked her extra sweets, who had laughed when she beat the boys in the training grounds.
But beneath the grief, overpowering it, was something shameful but equally strong.
Relief.
One would wonder whether the Twin Oddities had somehow affected her, if they could glimpse her current feelings now.
'It's not him. I'm not one of them. It's not him.'
She didn't remember moving. All around her, the women were drifting toward their husbands like leaves carried by a current, and her own legs carried her along with them until she stood in front of her brother.
She looked up at him silently. He looked down at her for a long moment.
Then he spoke softly.
"Why are you crying, my dear little sister? I came back alive."
"...Brother."
Her lips stretched into a smile, but it was bitter and smeared by her own tears.
"It seems that staying put and waiting for you to come back is much harder than I thought."
"It's only hard if you doubt me." Ashen shook his head gently. "Do you think I'd die and leave you alone?"
"No…"
"There you have it. Trust me, and you won't have to agonize over it a second more."
"I do trust you." Lapis wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "But you know how willful emotions can be. They're quite the hassle to tame."
Before he could answer, she took his hand and began pulling him away.
Around them, most of the women were doing the same, leading their husbands toward their rooms. A few stayed behind with the grieving wives, holding them and murmuring to them.
Lapis knew what most of those wives would be doing behind their closed doors tonight. After brushing against death more times than anyone could count, the men needed to be reminded that they were alive, and mankind had only ever found one cure for that which worked faster than sleep: Sex.
That kind of comfort wasn't hers to give.
But there were other kinds.
◉
When they reached their room, she slid the heavy lock into place and sat him down on a low stool.
Then she began removing his armor.
One piece at a time. The pauldrons first, then the vambraces, the breastplate, the greaves... She worked slowly and without hurry, setting each piece aside on the floor. The chainmail came off with a heavy rustle. Then the padded undershirt, stiff with sweat and old blood, until he sat in nothing but his underclothes.
She brought a basin of warm water and a towel.
And from the moment she wrung out the cloth, she allowed her skill to lead her.
'Tend to My Husband.'
His mood opened up to her like a door left ajar.
She had felt his moods before, many times. Annoyance when she pranked him, warmth when she hugged him, the contentment he wore while tending the tree. But she had never felt anything like what was coming off him now.
Grief, which she expected. Exhaustion, deep enough to sink into. And underneath both of them, coiled tight around his mind, was something she couldn't name. It felt like fear, but wrapped around an unhealthy amount of killing intent.
Her instincts whispered to her. Don't speak... don't ask… At least, not tonight. Instead… keep moving your hands.
And so, she listened and kept her mouth shut.
She wiped his hands first. They were cracked and stained, with the knuckles scraped raw. She wiped each finger slowly, then the palms, then his wrists. She moved to his feet, then his shins, then his knees. She rinsed the cloth when it grew dark, wrung it out, and started again on his arms.
His chest. His shoulders. His back, where a long bruise spread across his ribs in ugly purple. She lightened her touch there without thinking, because her instincts told her where it hurt before he could flinch.
The room was silent. The only sounds were the soft splash of water in the basin and the rustle of her movements.
Ashen didn't say a word the entire time. He simply sat there and let her.
When she was done, she dressed him in loose, light clothing and guided him to the bed. He went without resisting.
Only then did she realize that her own clothes were smeared with the dirt. Changing into her most comfortable clothes, Lapis didn't stand on ceremony and climbed in beside him, curled into his side the way she had done since they were small, and pulled the blanket over them both.
She was asleep within minutes.
◉
Ashen lay in the dark, listening to her slow, even breathing.
Only when he was certain she was asleep did he let out a quiet mutter.
"What's this? Am I getting tamed by my own sister?"
He stared up at the ceiling.
A year ago, if she had locked the door, stripped his armor off and washed him like a child, he would have thrown a fit. Tonight, he had sat there and let her do it as naturally as breathing.
And the worst part was that it had worked. Somewhere between the wiping of his hands and his back, the persistent irritation that kept bothering him since he was reminded of Secrets had loosened its grip. Just a little.
"...I don't know. I don't see. I don't care."
He repeated it under his breath like a man warding off a ghost.
"I don't know. I don't see. I don't care."
After the third round of self-brainwashing, he nodded in satisfaction, closed his eyes, and finally drifted off.
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[Ashen & Lapis (NSFW)]