“After I leave you here, will I ever see you again?”
“Probably not. It would not be wise.”
Then, looking at the Fool sitting hunched over the fire, I realized that, though we had been boys together, we were not boys together now, and we never would be boys together again. In many ways I longed to be a boy with him again, longed for the simplicity of Molly in my bed and the Fool outside my door with Ratsy. None of it had been simple, truly, but it had felt simple, to play the role of a strange boy near a beautiful girl and a loyal friend.
I pictured it again, that easy fondness of the Fool near the close affection of Molly that I had earlier imagined, both of them grown, and I found I could not fit any version of them into that frame unless I imagined them as Lady Redskirts and the court jester. We had simply all grown out of those lives, as all children must. He had been right. I would have to choose between them. And I would.
“Then no,” I said. “No, I will not leave you. Never again.”
“Fitz,” he pleaded, looking back up into my eyes. “Please. I have seen your happiness, and I fought with everything I’m me to give you the means to go to it. I could not bear you letting that work go to dust. You told me of your promise to Burrich, and I have seen you with Molly, returned to the life you have long been denied. You must return. We must both return to the things we left behind.”
For a moment, I imagined it, Molly and I in the field behind the cabin she had shared with Burrich, caring for her horses and learning her children. My heart strained, just for a moment.
“I do love her, Fool. I do,” I huffed, much like Nighteyes when he could not force a point through to a thought human enough for me to understand. “The love I feel for her… I feel it with more passion than I have in years. I feel it with the newness of a man much younger than I. It is a young man’s love that I gave away, and a young man’s love that you have returned to me. But I am not that man anymore. I have not been that man for a very long time.”
I paused, weighing my next words on my tongue, and in my heart, which the Fool had set to beating again, just as I had returned life to his. “I fear that I have not been able to let her go because I have never been able to acknowledge that I have never been that man. It is only now, because of you, because of what you’ve given me beyond your time, as you say, that can leave the past where it belongs.”
I rested my hand on the side of his neck and jaw, tipping his head back to face me, as it had been steadily tilting downwards as I had spoken.
In that brief moment I had inhabited his body, and he mine, and in the even briefer infinity in which we had held each others’ spirits in one breath, mingling, I had understood him as I had never before. I had understood that regardless of his physical body, he was only a man as much as I was a wolf, or, more accurately, as much as I was a serving man or a prince or a warrior, roles that suited me in many moments but that did not represent the whole of who I was. He was too expansive to be confined by our petty labels—our plumbing, as he had always said—and was so shifting and changeable, so prismatic, that his body had accepted a process of change as something natural that he must endure. Each time he emerged from this change, he emerged more beautiful—not because he was ever less strange or unnerving, but because each time he had come more into himself.
In that moment of understanding, I had also come to understand myself, though I feared it would take some days still to accept it. Just now, I had voiced objections to bedding him, but those objections no longer held the weight they once did in my heart, and were spoken more out of habit than anything. The regret of those words was striking even as I had said them. He had continued our well-worn discussion by stating that those objections were of no consequence, and I now believed him so fiercely that my thoughts would go beyond his imagining.
After you have shared another’s soul, and experienced their body as if it were your own, what is the sharing of bodies in a context more pleasurable? I had come to an understanding that bedding, for me, had always been a deepening of connection, whether that be friendship or romance. I had no way of knowing if this connection would not have extended to men if I had ever chanced to befriend one well enough. My thoughts were briefly soured by the reminder that I had never had the companionship of men my own age or stature to truly know them.
But, as he met and held my gaze, that ire dissipated, like water on the hot rocks of the steams back at buckkeep. His eyes were shifting as steadily as the rest of him, and right now, one still held the liquid gold that had been a flame to the many moths of royal court, a color I had as much trouble meeting as every other color his gaze had been. Had it ever been discomfort with his strangeness that had warded me off, or something else, within myself, the gaze of which i could not meet? Had it always been his beauty that I blanched at? His other eye was the pale brown of new tree bark, lit from within, a spring day shining with life, new life, straining against the sun and the still-cold wind of an ending harsh winter.
“I will fulfill my promise to Burrich, as Molly’s friend, if she will allow it, after so many years. My young man’s heart breaks to say it, but I cannot replace his role in her life, in their children’s lives. Molly will not be passed back and forth as though she has no heart of her own in the matter.” He opened his mouth to protest that that had not been what he meant, but I continued before he could gather the breath.
“And besides, you are wrong. You say that if we returned together, that I would have to choose between you. But, Beloved, the choice has been made. I made my choice, my change, when I gave my life to you. I accepted your death. you cannot take it back from me. I will not claim ownership over the time you have left, but I do claim the right to witness it. If, as you say, my ability to love Molly again is only due to your actions beyond death, how can you claim that your presence is not the thing keeping the world turning, afterwards?”
He had flinched when I said his name, and it grieved me deeply, but I could not retract it, and by the end of my speech he was gaping, brows furrowed in uncertainty. I tried something else.
“FitzChivalry,” I said. “Come home.”
He closed his eyes then, and I felt something flare through the Skill-bond, a hope so bone-deep that the weight and relief of it nearly frightened me.
“I wish it had not been her to tell you of that custom,” He sighed, closing his eyes. “Let that knowledge be the only thing we take from her beyond that cave.”
He stood, and, instead of coming closer, made the slow trek to his bed, where he lay down without another word. He was not happy, yet, but I made a promise to myself that he would be. I had won, and one day, he would be happy. We would return, and I would make him happy.
“May I join you?” I said, the words leaving my mouth without any consideration. I had spent days now sleeping apart from him, and I missed it. I missed him every moment we were apart. He was quiet, and I feared that he would continue to deny me, and himself. I could not fault him, after what he had been through.
He sighed once more, his shoulders rising and falling where he lay, his back turned to me and the dying firelight. After a moment, he turned onto his back, then twitched out of the position, having forgotten his still raw back. He settled into his other side, light flickering once more over his face. He nodded, just barely, and I leapt up to cross the room in quick strides, before he changed his mind. I sat gingerly on the edge of the pallet to remove my boots. He watched me with a befuddled and worried expression. I longed to smooth out his brow, and to honor that honesty of thought, I reached out and did so, setting my hand to the side of his face and dragging a thumb over his forehead.
He sighed. I was beginning to understand that I would be hearing this sound frequently until I could convince him fully of my intentions. He leaned into my hand all the same. “You aim to make my heartbreak as difficult as possible to withstand,” he said.
“No,” I stated, as resolutely as I could muster. “I aim to convince you heartbreak is unnecessary.”
At this, I land down to press a kiss to his forehead, then his cheek. I moved my hand to lay over his heart, and feeling it rattle against his ribcage as though it would burst out, holding the wonder of our mutual resurrection in my own, I leaned to press my mouth tenderly to his. He gasped, though it was chaste and had come with more warning than he had ever given me. I pulled back, but rested my forehead against his, where I felt it must belong, where I wished it could live, forever. Hope and fear flared again through our bond, and I lay down beside him, reaching for his hand and gripping it tightly in mine. He said nothing more, and neither did I. I do not know if either of us slept, but I do know that we made it to morning, the first morning of the rest of our lives, the first morning of many in which time was completely our own.
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