siavash! ‘A quiet sigh as they turn away.’
Thanks Spyri ❤️ Took a long time but I liked this one too much to throw it out there half baked.
The Queen was made of marble: straight-backed in her polished armor, face tilted up to reflect the pale gray light. “Your personal effects have been transferred to the inn. Be ready at dawn.”
Woljif saw Siavash bow his head and squeeze his eyes shut as the Queen turned sharply and left them standing in the Citadel courtyard like a bunch of spanked children.
Sidling up close, he muttered, “Fuck her.”
Siavash shrugged. “She’s right. She should never have given me the title in the first place.”
“Are you kiddin’ me? Everything you’ve done? You took back Drezen. And I wasn’t even around to give you advice.”
“I’ll tell you what it is. You’re not doin’ it her way. I seen it a hundred times. Somebody plays the smart alec and makes the boss look dumb and down they go. Long as you wear the leash they’ll throw you a bone, but the minute you start thinkin’ for yourself you’re in a bag full a’ rocks sinkin’ to the bottom a’ the Sellen.”
“That’s not what the Queen’s doing. She’s not a mob boss. She’s…”
Woljif gave a wan snort. “What’s the difference?”
Siavash almost laughed. Wasn’t that what the democratic philosophers said? What is a noble but an institutionalized thug? Though in Galfrey’s case that felt uncharitable.
“She’s been fighting the Abyss for three lifetimes. That’s the difference.”
“So what’re you gonna do? Say ‘fair enough’ and walk away?”
The amusement instantly left his face, drained along with all the blood—and all the hope. Siavash had to force the words out.
“I’m going to the Abyss.”
Woljif’s tail went still. “You’re really gonna do it.”
About a thousand emotions clamored in Siavash’s heart, but fear drowned the rest of them out. He started to reach for Woljif like a lifeline and thought better of it.
The act of dragging his eyes away and turning his back on him took every ounce of his remaining strength, which was scarce enough after the battle of the Fane and the Queen’s betrayal. It was not in his nature to be stoic, and yet for Woljif’s sake he had to be. His heart stung like it was tearing open as he turned.
The one thing he needed most right now, and the one thing he could not allow himself.
Wearily Siavash scooped up his bloody gear from the ground and slung it over his shoulder. By now the Free Crusaders had mostly wandered off; those who remained were bickering. The Merry Band stood about looking embarrassed and adrift. Even Iomedae’s Herald didn’t seem to know what to say.
What Woljif saw was a flash of terror as Siavash turned his back on him with a sigh like snuffing out the last candle.
Siavash set off toward the inn, not looking back.
“Hey, you’re not pullin’ one over on me.”
“I see what you’re doin’, you know.” And it did seem obvious: acting like a tough guy, turning his back because he was going to the Abyss without him. But… why would he do that?
There was only one possible answer.
They’d never said the words, but they hung in the air between them, binding like chains made of sweet sunlight, drawing him into a warm embrace, drawing him down to the Abyss.
Everything he’d secretly dreamed of. The best thing that had ever happened to him and also the worst.
He caught up but found he couldn’t speak as they went down the stairs side-by-side. In his head Woljif pictured the alternative: Well, g’bye chief, good luck. And then what? Back to business as usual? Fresh air in his lungs and cobbles under his boots, deals to make and strings to pull, but no heart for it. Alone and carved out hollow.
And on the heels of that thought came another, novel thought, the kind he usually classified as top secret, or a load of sentimental nonsense: that Siavash was a friend, the real deal—an idea he would have scoffed at not long ago—and much more now too, and to let him go off to the Abyss by himself would be an act so low not even Woljif Jefto would do it. He imagined Siavash standing there all alone in the Abyss, probably crying, knowing him, and it made his throat tighten painfully.
He stole a glance at him—his face, though drained of its usual joy, the one thing that had ever felt good and right in his life. How could his heart sink with fear and take wing at the same time? It was painful and confusing and… wonderful.
I’ll go the Abyss for you.
Because you don’t want me to.
How’s that for messed up?
He looked at him sidelong and confided, “You showed me your cards just now. You know that.”
Siavash frowned. “What are you—”
“If you really didn’t care, you’d pretend you did.” Woljif tapped his temple with a cunning smirk. “Gotcha figured out.”
“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Siavash wasn’t sure whether it was a laugh or a sob on its way out. He stopped mid-stride on the stairs and finally gave into the temptation to look at him: his clever yellow eyes and the conspiratorial smirk on his lips trembling with repressed emotion.
“We oughtta make a break for it, chief.”
The worst thing was that he seriously considered it for a moment, and with his whole heart: the two of them boarding a ship for Katapesh, sun on their shoulders and wind in their sails, that lighter-than-air feeling of freedom. So close, so real he could almost hear the gulls.
He didn’t mean to, but the wound had opened in the Fane and though the bleeding had stopped the pain had not, and his hand went to it reflexively, pressing as if to force the sundered flesh back together. Woljif’s eyes followed the movement.
“There’s nothing I want more,” he whispered.
Woljif sighed. “I know. Had to try.”
When the others came around the corner and started down the stairs toward the inn, what they saw was the ex-Knight Commander and Woljif caught in a desperate hug as if the world was breaking apart under their feet, holding each other in bloodstained arms and laughing or crying or maybe both.
