Chapter: Embers
Night had fallen again.
The rain that had soaked the battlefield earlier that morning was gone now, leaving the world cold and damp and full of quiet.
Morgan sat by the fire in her usual place—back straight, legs folded beneath her, cloak drawn tight around her shoulders—and carefully worked a piece of silver wire between her fingers.
Across the small clearing, Jaune was sitting on a flat rock, stripped down to his tunic, trying (and failing) to properly bandage his own shoulder.
She watched him fumble with the linen for a full thirty seconds before sighing in disgust.
"Honestly. You'd think you'd have learned to wrap a simple bandage by now."
"I have learned," he muttered defensively. "Just… not on myself."
"Pathetic."
She rose with a swish of her skirts, gathered up her little satchel of herbs and ointments, and crossed to him.
He tilted his head back to look up at her, a wry little smile on his lips despite the faint sheen of sweat across his forehead.
"Your bedside manner is as charming as ever, Your Highness."
"If you wanted a nursemaid," she replied tartly, "you should have let that tavern wench in the last village tend to you."
"I offered her the flower to be polite," he protested, though there was laughter in his voice.
"Hmph."
She set her things down and knelt beside him, brushing his hands away and deftly peeling the sodden linen from his shoulder.
It was worse than she'd expected—a long, shallow cut along the muscle, but inflamed now from exertion and exposure.
"Idiot," she muttered under her breath.
"What was that?"
"Nothing. Hold still."
Jaune obeyed without further complaint, flinching only once when her fingers brushed the raw edge of the wound.
For a long while, the only sound was the crackle of the fire and the soft murmur of her spell as she coaxed the flesh to knit just enough to stop bleeding and prevent fever.
She tied off the fresh bandage neatly and sat back on her heels.
"There. Done. Try not to tear it open again tomorrow."
He flexed his arm experimentally and gave her a lopsided grin.
"You're getting better at this."
"And you're getting worse at dodging blows."
He laughed softly at that, and for a brief, strange moment she found herself just… looking at him.
Really looking.
His face was smudged with ash and dirt, hair damp and tangled, but his eyes still held that stubborn spark of warmth—bright and unyielding, even after everything.
And something in her chest twisted unpleasantly.
She rose abruptly and busied herself with packing away the herbs.
"You should rest. We leave at dawn."
"Aye, aye, Your Majesty," he said, saluting with two fingers before lying back on the rock.
She tried to ignore the way her ears burned at that.
Later, when she thought he was asleep, she stole a glance at him again.
His chest rose and fell evenly now, one arm thrown carelessly over his face.
The moonlight caught on his breastplate where it rested by his side—dented, scratched, but still gleaming faintly.
And she realized, with something between irritation and… something else… that it wasn't just the villagers who had started calling him her "golden knight."
She'd caught herself thinking of him that way too.
The next morning, as they passed through a narrow pass on the way to the next village, she overheard two shepherd boys gossiping at the roadside.
"…swear it's true! My cousin saw them himself—her hair like silver fire, calling the Wild Hunt down on the Saxons…"
"And the knight!" the other boy chimed in, eyes wide. "The one with the white armor who cut down twenty men by himself!"
"Thirty, my cousin said!"
Morgan kept walking, her chin held high, but she could feel Jaune's smirk at her back.
"Don't say it," she warned.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he said innocently.
But later, when she caught him polishing his breastplate at the fire, she couldn't help but snap:
"They exaggerated, you know. You hardly killed twenty."
"Twenty-five at least," he shot back without missing a beat.
And for some reason, that made her laugh.
In the next village, it was even worse.
A knot of girls gathered at the edge of the square as soon as they arrived, whispering behind their hands and giggling whenever Jaune so much as glanced their way.
One particularly bold one even pressed a sprig of rosemary into his hand with a simper before scurrying off.
Morgan snatched it from him and tossed it into the nearest ditch.
"They're grateful for the protection," he said, trying (and failing) to suppress a grin.
"They're insipid," she corrected coldly.
But that night, when she caught herself glaring at the fire instead of reading her spellbook, she grudgingly admitted—to herself, and herself alone—that perhaps her annoyance was not entirely professional.
Two nights later, when another band of Saxons came through the woods, Jaune woke her with a hand on her shoulder before she even felt the wards shiver.
"Company," he whispered.
She blinked up at him, bleary but already reaching for her staff.
"How many?"
"Not enough."
She caught the faint curve of his mouth in the dark and rolled her eyes.
"Always so confident."
"You taught me."
It was a smaller skirmish this time, but messier.
The Saxons had brought hunting dogs, and the howling alone set her teeth on edge.
At one point Jaune went down under two of the beasts and she felt a sharp, unthinking panic cut through her as she hurled a lightning bolt so strong it left the trees smoking long after the fight was done.
Afterward, she found herself crouched over him, hands pressed to his chest, murmuring healing spells before she even thought to check if he was actually badly hurt.
He opened one eye to look up at her, dazed but grinning faintly.
"Told you," he murmured hoarsely. "Not enough."
She very nearly hit him.
Instead she settled for shoving him back down when he tried to sit up.
"Stay down, idiot," she ordered, voice sharper than she intended.
"Yes, Your Highness," he murmured, eyes slipping shut again.
But his hand closed briefly around her wrist before he drifted off.
And she… didn't pull away.
By the time they reached the borderlands proper, word of them had already traveled ahead.
The innkeeper in the next town wouldn't even take their coin, pressing food and drink on them with wide eyes and breathless thanks.
"You're them, ain't you?" he whispered.
Morgan arched an eyebrow.
"Them?"
"The Witch and the Golden Knight," he said, almost reverently. "The ones who ride down the Saxons. My brother saw you at Hallows Field. Said the ground shook when you spoke, my lady. Said your knight glowed like the sun."
Morgan opened her mouth to correct him, but Jaune beat her to it, throwing an arm around her shoulders with a grin.
"That's us," he said cheerfully.
She shot him a scathing look, but couldn't quite hide the faint color rising in her cheeks.
That night, she found him sitting on the roof of the inn, staring up at the stars.
She climbed up without a word and sat beside him, the tiles cool beneath her skirts.
For a while they sat in silence, watching the constellations wheel slowly above.
At length, he spoke, voice quiet but steady.
"You could have done this without me, you know."
She turned her head to look at him, frowning.
"Don't be absurd. You're the one who convinced me to leave. You're the one who keeps me fed and bandages my wounds when my hands shake. You've fought beside me every step of the way."
"You'd have been fine on your own," he insisted.
She reached out, almost without thinking, and flicked him hard on the forehead.
"You truly are an idiot," she muttered.
He winced, then laughed softly.
"Maybe. But…" He trailed off, gaze dropping to his hands.
She studied him for a long moment, then sighed and rested her head against his shoulder.
"…You're more useful than I expected, at least," she admitted quietly.
He chuckled at that, a low, warm sound that seemed to settle something deep in her chest.
For the first time in a long while, she let herself close her eyes and simply breathe, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against her temple.
When they descended from the roof sometime before dawn, she found herself catching his sleeve halfway down the ladder.
He glanced back at her, eyebrows raised.
And before she could change her mind, she murmured:
"…Morgan. Not 'Your Highness.' Not when it's just us."
For a moment, he just stared at her.
Then he smiled—not his usual crooked grin, but something softer, something that made her stomach flip in a thoroughly infuriating way—and said simply:
"Alright. Morgan."
And for the first time in what felt like forever, she thought that maybe, just maybe, running away hadn't been such a foolish idea after all.
Below them, in the village square, a child was chalking something onto the stones.
A crude drawing: a tall woman with wild hair and a crown of stars, standing beside a knight in white armor.
And beneath it, in uneven letters:
The Witch and Her Golden Knight.
Morgan caught sight of it as they passed by.
And though she rolled her eyes…
…she didn't quite manage to hide the small smile that tugged at her lips as Jaune fell into step beside her.