chasing daybreak

Pulling out a handful, she shoves the gil across the counter to the attendant giving her a dirty look and ducks through the heavy curtain to the change room beyond. Much to her relief it is not busy—if she had to come here, then Malathar picked her time well. Not many Ala Mhigans would consider bathing at this time of late morning—not when the markets have opened and there are daily tasks to be done. The chamber is empty save for a handful of wizened grandmothers lounging about in the nude, nattering on about the accomplishments of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren as if it were a competition.

They shut their mouths the moment she enters, fixing her with judgmental stares.

She shrugs and stalks across tiled floor, heading for the arched threshold that leads out to the baths.

One of them clears her throat with a loud, frog-like croak.

Fordola stiffens, her pace slowing to halt. She can feel their eyes boring into her. The sensation is familiar; it’s how everyone looks at her these days. “What do you want?” she grunts, glancing over her shoulder.

The crone crooks her finger and points it at her feet. “Sandals off, young lady,” she rasps. “Someone your age should know better.”

She swallows hard, bracing for the insult that must be coming. Does she not recognize her? Or are she and her friends simply playing the fool and pretending otherwise? “Is your eyesight dim, old woman?” she spits back.

The crone throws back her head and laughs. “Indeed, it is!” Grabbing her cane, she rises slowly from the bench and wobbles towards her, shriveled breasts flopping against her chest. “But what I’ve lost in eyesight I’ve gained with my ears, and my ears never lie. I hear those things flopping around on your feet, and I say take them off. No one wants dirt in their nice, clean bath.”

“I won’t be long. I’m here to see a… a friend.”

“Don’t care what you’re here for. Whether it be for one minute or one bell or one Rhalgr-blessed day, the sandals—” She raps the butt of her cane on the tiles ilms away from Fordola’s toes. “—go off.”

Fordola grits her teeth. Without a word, she stoops and yanks the ties free, then kicks them off and pushes them under a bench.

The old crone harumphs approvingly. “Good girl. And word for the wise—”

“I am not here for advice—”

The cane strikes the floor. She shuts her mouth.

“Do more than visit your friend. You stink.”

Fordola flushes, anger heating her cheeks. The old woman’s not wrong. The city is sweltering during the dry season, and she’s been pacing the length of the battlements every day for wont of something to do. Such regular activity leaves her sweating and sweltering, and there is only so much a bucket of water and a sponge can do. But the thought of visiting the public baths fills her with dread; she can easily imagine the stares that would follow her and the remarks whispered behind her back. She isn’t scared—of course she isn’t, she has faced worse in her life—but she is not going to suffer the indignity of stripping down to nothing only to be mocked and gawked at by her kin. It is only because Malathar came here that she bothered to cross the threshold in the first place.

She opens her mouth to reply and—to her surprise—finds she has nothing to say.

The old woman chuckles. Reaching out with a spotted, veined hand, she pats her on the wrist, then turns and totters back to her friends. Fordola pauses, brow furrowed with confusion, and averts her eyes so as not to stare straight at a wrinkled rear end. Her anger fades as quickly as it appeared, or perhaps it never truly sparked in the first place. The old crone does not know who she is.

She yelled at her the way she would yell at any young woman breaking bath house rules.

A lump forms in her throat.

Shaking it off, Fordola strides barefoot across the warm, damp tiles and exits the chamber.

The baths are in the courtyard beyond. A long, rectangular pool fills the centre, open to clear skies and bright sun above. Steam rolls off the surface like mist, filling the courtyard with dense, muggy air. The perimeter is lined with intricate mosaics, tiled in the same way as the walls and columns. Some show their age and wear more than others. There are those that are cracked down the middle or missing a piece here and there, but others—like the broken Ala Mhigan emblem on the wall—were surgically excised during Garlean occupation. This bath house never stopped being a bath house, but like the rest of the city it bears the scars of war even in the most mundane of places.

Aureia Malathar sits at the far end of the pool with her elbows out and resting on the tiles, half-submerged in the water. A tray of soaps, oils and towels lies nearby, all unused. Her head tips back, leaving her throat exposed and damp hair clinging to the skin—she must have put her head under recently. Her eyes are closed, her expression at peace. She has never seen her calm, even when she is asleep.

Water laps gently at her body, rising and falling against her breasts, pale beneath the surface.

The heat returns to her cheeks, and this time it has nothing to do with anger.

Fordola averts her gaze, forcing her eyes to move to the potted plant in the corner. It’s tempting to turn right around and head back out to the street. She has no business interrupting the Warrior of Light. She should leave her be.

But she did come here for reason.

She bites her tongue until it hurts.

“Didn’t expect you to be back so soon,” Fordola says at last, forcing the words out before she turns coward and runs.

Malathar does not move. She does not even open her eyes. “I go where I’m needed,” she replies softly. “And I’m needed here for now. Doma again soon.”

Fordola wets her lower lip. Crossing her arms over her chest, she inches away from the threshold and takes up position with her back to the wall. From here, she has a good view of both the entrance and the arched windows on the far side of the courtyard. If anyone approaches, she will know before they enter.

“Never in one place for long are you, huh?” she remarks.

Even she can hear how it sounds like an insult.

The pool sloshes as Malathar lowers her arms and sinks deeper below the surface, the water now coming up to her neck. “I have duties, Fordola. This is how it has always been.”

“Pfft.”

Fordola looks away, rolling out a crick in her neck. Before she knew her—properly knew her, not as an enemy but as a… companion, for lack of a better word—it didn’t occur to her how much time the Warrior of Light spent on the road. Of course she knew she traversed the continents, but even with the convenience of aetheryte travel bounding from one end of the star and back to the other on a weekly basis takes its toll. Dark circles beneath her eyes, creases in her brow, a pale, sickly cast to her face.

All signs she has recently had a close encounter with the Empire.

Fordola grimaces and pushes down her curiosity. If Malathar has been fighting Imperial remnants in Othard, it will be up to her surrender the details. Though perhaps she can ask Arenvald later. He will know.

She pauses, her thoughts still stuck on Doma. A familiar pinch of jealousy clenches in her stomach. She has scarcely been outside the borders of Gyr Abania; at most it has been a foray into Gridania or back up the coast towards Terncliff. She never thought much of it before. In truth, she is uncertain whether she has ever wanted to leave. She still maintains a flare of pride that she and her parents never fled like the cowards who went to Little Ala Mhigo. But after meeting Malathar and Arenvald—even Lyse Hext and the irritating Leveilleur girl—their stories from beyond the borders made her feel… small.

Like she is a single grain of salt on the shores of Loch Seld.

And now she is fortunate to even leave the city of her birth. She is trapped behind its walls until the Alliance decides what to do with her.

“You’re obsessed with duty,” Fordola says at last, gaze now drawn to the windows. The curtains flutter in the breeze, blocking out the view of the bath house’s walled gardens and the city beyond. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Yes.” Another splash. “You sound like Sid.”

Her brow furrows. Though the name sounds familiar, she has a feeling she doesn’t mean Cid Garlond. That man is as duty-bound as Malathar is. A common theme with those who fled the Garlean military—they all have some need to bow and grovel to prove that their actions now can absolve them of their actions in the past, even if it means working themselves to the bone.

She finds it distasteful.

“I don’t mean to,” Fordola replies, looking back. “I—”

Her throat tightens.

Malathar stands with her back to her, water lapping around her thighs. Her pale skin shines in the steam, droplets clinging to her back and ass. It only makes the scar on her back stand out more—the faint arcane lines that stretch from her shoulder blades to the small of her back, imprinted upon twisted red and white flesh where something burned her long ago. A horrific injury, one she is careful to keep covered when out in public.

Fordola has never dared to ask her what happened. Such things are not her business.

The Warrior scoops her hair back from her neck, twists it together and pulls it over her shoulder. She bends over and plucks a bar of soap from the tray, rubs it between her palms, then runs her lathered hands over her body. Quick, detached, perfunctory. Fordola watches her in silence, digging her forearms into her chest as she draws them tighter around her body. Dampness creeps across her skin; she can feel it gathering on the nape of her beck. Even though the bath house is open to the air, it is warm in here. Too warm.

She slips a finger beneath her collar and tugs at it, ignoring the trickle of sweat dripping between her breasts.

Malathar pauses, glancing over her shoulder. “You can get in, you know,” she says, still lathering herself. “I don’t mind.”

Fordola’s jaw clenches. “I never thought you did.”

“You’re fully clothed and hovering by the door like you’re a guard on duty.”

“Maybe I like it right here.”

“It’s a public bath.”

“Aye.”

“People come here to bathe.”

Clunk. 

Malathar tosses the bar back into the tray. She turns around, shrouded in steam. Soap clings to her body, the lather slipping across her breasts, down her stomach and over the slight curve of her hips. There’s a bruise on her side—a big ugly thing, mottled purple and green.

Fordola frowns. She looks thinner than before. Smaller. Drained. It is difficult to see beyond the bruise, but she could swear the shape of her ribs are visible.

Malathar smiles with that strange smile of hers, the one she can never figure out. “Fordola,” she says quietly. “Come on.”

Fordola shoots her a look. Grumbling under her breath, she stoops and rolls her trousers up to the knee, then plops down on the edge of the pool and puts her feet in the water. She sucks in a breath, a painful sting arcing across the back of heel and the bottom of her foot. Damn blisters. Damn sandals. She’d request ones that fit, but the Resistance isn’t keen to outfit her with good gear that should go to her betters. She gets the scraps—that’s the lot she has given herself.

“There,” she grunts. “Happy now, are you?”

Malathar’s smile only widens. She steps deeper into the pool, bends her knees and dunks herself. Repeating the motion several more times, she washes off the rest of the soap and emerges spluttering, a veil of wet hair dripping over her face. “That’s not what I meant,” she replies belatedly, sweeping hair out of her eyes. She makes a face and pushes off the bottom of the pool.

Fordola chews her lower lip, watching her float back to the tray. A pang of envy rises in her chest; how can she be so at ease in a public place like this when anyone could come through that door? How can she be so comfortable in the water? While the pool isn’t deep, it is deep enough. The thought of all that water closing over her head, pushing her down to the bottom while she flails helplessly beneath the surface…

Her throat tightens.

“I’m not getting in the pool with you.”

“Suit yourself.”

Malathar reaches for a bottle and flips it upside down, tipping a small amount of its contents into the palm of her hand. Fordola holds her tongue, watching in silence as the Warrior lifts her hands to her head and runs the lather through her hair. Her movements are slow; there’s something odd about the way she lifts her shoulder. Another injury, perhaps.

Inhaling a sharp breath, Fordola pulls her feet out of the water and shuffles around the perimeter of the pool, careful not to slip on the damp tiles. “C’mere,” she says, sitting back down and plunging her feet into the water. This time her sole doesn’t sting quite as much. “Hate to see you struggle.”

“I don’t—”

“Just let me do it, all right?” She proffers a hand. “Do you want your hair washed or not?”

Malathar looks away and passes over the bottle without comment. Fordola swipes it out of her hand and holds it aloft, waiting as Malathar wades over to her. The water laps around her as she sinks down and settles between Fordola’s legs with her back against the pool wall.

Fordola tsks under her breath and rakes her hands over her head, fingertips catching on tangles. It is far more matted than it appeared, and the shock of red at the tips bleeds dark while wet. There was no red in her hair when she first saw her that day on the battlefield, well over a year ago now. It is a recent acquisition, although something tells her it has always been there, just masked.

Her fingertips pass over a swollen lump hidden beneath her hair. Malathar sucks in a pained breath, her expression working to keep it contained. Fordola draws back, uncertain of what she touched. A scalp wound? A knock to the head? Something else? Rhalgr’s tits, what is she hiding now? Between this and the bruise and the tightness in her shoulder, she can’t imagine she would have picked up so many injuries in Doma—not while in the company of the Alliance.

Wounds heal like this in the care of ordinary chirugeons, not beneath the magicks of powerful white mages.

Pressing her lips into a fine line, Fordola continues without a word. Slathering more lather between her palms, she runs it through her hair and gives her scalp a good scrub, taking care to avoid the sensitive spots. Slowly, Malathar relaxes—her body presses against her legs and she tilts her head back, leaning into her touch. Her eyes flutter closed and her expression stills with a sense of calm.

The pool laps in silence. Slowly, gently, like the waters of Loch Seld rippling along the shoreline on a quiet day. Sunlight streams in through the opening above, bouncing off the greenish-blue surface to reflect upon the walls. Though the busiest quarter of the city is only a few malms away it might as well be on the other side of the star. There is no one here but them, and they have nothing but time.

That is how it feels, at least.

Fordola swishes her feet back and forth, enjoying the pull of the water around them. “Want to tell me what happened?” she murmurs, running her fingers through her dark hair again. The tangles have long since been combed out.

A faint crease appears between Malathar’s brows. “About what?”

Resistance. Short and sharp. Funny how easily she shares her deepest secrets and most intimate parts of her, but other topics are out of bounds. Ul’dah. The Lord Commander. Ishgard. The Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Her duty, which encompasses far more than what the Alliance asks of her. Her personal promises—and vendettas.

Fordola’s fingers slow. Perhaps it’s not funny at all. If she is honest with herself—which she is not wont to do, given honesty hurts like a bloody blister stinging in too hot water or feels the same as drowning in a pool—she doesn’t know what she wants from her. No matter how many times they seek each other out, there will always be a wall between them. She can only know her so far.

Perhaps she should be grateful she has been given the chance to know her at all.

Malathar cracks an eye open. “Are you all right?” she asks quietly.

Fordola pulls her hands back and crosses her arms. “Dunk your head already,” she mutters, averting her gaze.

Malathar pushes away from the wall. Sucking in a deep breath, she slips below the surface and floats there, becoming a cloud of dark hair blooming in the water. She emerges moments later in a spray of water.

Fordola flinches as cool droplets land on her arms. “You could have done this in your chambers, you know,” she says, finally voicing the thought that has been on her mind since she entered the damn place. “Don’t understand coming to a place like this when you have all the comforts of—”

The water sloshes. “I had no desire to go to the palace just yet. I…”

Fordola glances at her. Malathar stands in the pool with her arms folded over her breasts, droplets trickling down her limbs. Her eyes flick up, ruby eyes looking at her from beneath dark lashes—and Fordola’s heart clenches.

The palace.

She does not need to say more than that.

Heaving a breath, Fordola rises to her feet and quickly strips, tossing her clothing onto a nearby bench. Now naked, she turns back around and sits down on the ledge, then carefully slips off and into the pool. Steam curls pleasantly around her as she wades through the warm water, surprised that it is not as deep as she thought. Snaking an arm around her waist, she pulls the Warrior—Friend? Companion? Lover?—towards her. She goes easily, buoyed by the water, and when she is pressed tight against her Fordola bows her head and puts her lips on hers.

Her mouth is wet and warm, her body loose and relaxed in her arms. And so she kisses her again and slips a hand over her belly and between her thighs.

The pool is quiet save for the sound of rippling water and the murmur of satisfied breath.

It is just past daybreak and already it is too warm. Impressive, considering the nights in the arid mountains are usually quite cool—it is the reason she begins these endeavours so early in the morning. But a summer heatwave has hit Ala Mhigo and a bubble of heat domes over the city and its surroundings like the glass of a greenhouse, cocooning it in thick air that makes her lungs heavy and her stomach roll.

The strain is finally taking its toll. The streets are slower, the markets dull. There are more people slumped in alleys, hiding in whatever spots of shade they can find. More than one Resistance soldier has collapsed at their post. The wells run dry. The flowers in the Royal Menagerie have wilted, the sea of red blossoms turning to crisped and brown as if they have been burned. It will take months to revive them once the heat breaks. But the city forges on as it always does, life grinding on and on like a dull blade. Ala Mhigans are a stubborn people, after all—and there is a war coming.

There is always a war coming.

Fifteen. 

Sixteen. 

Seventeen. 

For once she is grateful for her accommodations. Her room is in windowless barracks deep in the earth. Remnants of the old mad king’s reign she is sure—tunnels and tunnels carved into the stone upon which the palace sits, where not even Rhalgr knows what atrocities were committed. When she was first escorted here, she spat at Arenvald and told him they might as well put her back in her cell if the best they could do was a room one step shy of a dungeon. Wiping her spit off his cheek, he shrugged, gave her that irritatingly pleasant smile of his, and told her she might change her mind.

To her extreme annoyance, she did change her mind.

Her rooms are spacious—far larger than anything a regular Resistance soldier would receive. She is far from anyone who might try to knife her in her sleep. It is cool and dry, and she will take the lack of light over whatever mess is happening in the city above. And they are private.

Very private.

A funny feeling twists in her stomach. She grits her teeth and runs on—up and up and up.

Twenty-five. 

Twenty-six. 

Twenty-seven. 

The numbers pass like rhythmic chanting in her head, an accompanying chorus to her footfalls. Already the pain has appeared, an ache in her calves that hurts even as it sates her craving for action. Movement is life, after all. And stillness—inaction, delay, immobility, all those things she felt trapped within her cell—is tantamount to death. If she has learned anything in the past moon, it is that she needs to move.

She needs to live.

If her preferences were respected—not that she has given them any reason to—she would be working it out with sword and shield in the arena or facing off against a training dummy. But her time to do so is limited and cannot be conducted without supervision. With great effort she worked out an agreement—approved by both Lyse Hext and General Aldynn—that she could have one bell in the early morning to engage in simple, unsupervised activity. Running the steps to the battlements will never be a replacement for proper training, but it is enough. It pushes blood through her veins and air in her lungs, and for the first time in a very long time she feels at peace.

Good enough.

She pushes onward.

By the fiftieth step, the ache has turned to a cramp. By the one hundredth, her pace has slowed and her breath has turned ragged. She wavers, slowing first to a jog and then to a walk, but never stops moving. The one hundred and fortieth step comes and she might as well be crawling on her hands and knees. With a curse, she finds herself several steps short of her goal: the wide landing that serves as the midpoint of the stone stairs, one hundred and sixty-one steps above the city.

She slows to a stop and buckles over, hands on her aching knees.

Her legs quiver. Her shoulders shudder. She bows her head, copper hair falling about her face. Spittle gathers in the front of her mouth; she parts her lips and spits it out, uncaring about the mess. She has seen men—Garlean and Resistance—do worse a dozen times over. She can spit on the stone of her home if she wants to. No one is here to see. It’s far too early for that.

She stays like this for a moment, her body bent and crooked into sharp angles as she sucks in breath after breath. Warmth beats down upon her, the early morning sun singing her bare shoulders. Sweat rolls down her back. A dry lump forms in her throat, craving water. If she had been smart she would have brought a flask, but in her desperation to have this time alone she forgot.

She sucks in another breath.

And another.

Someone’s footsteps scrape across the landing above her and a hand appears, stretching into her vision—a hand clothed in black fingerless gloves and a silver ring spanning its middle finger.

Shit.

“I saw you running,” the Warrior of Light says, her voice strangely muted in the early morning air. She must have run down the stairs. Rhalgr’s tits, how can she be so effortless? She’s not even breathing hard. “I thought I’d—”

“You thought what?” Fordola spits, hands still on her knees. She hawks another mouthful of spit. “Thought you’d come mock me? Oh, what’s the traitor doing today? So weak she can’t even make it up a handful of stairs?”

Her hand wavers, but she does not draw it back. “I think you’ve made it up more than a handful of stairs.”

Fordola chortles, a dark, crunched laugh as coarse as the pavement they’re standing on. She wets her lips, sensing the way more spit gathers at the front of her mouth. Damp hair falls into her eyes and she swipes it away with the back of her hand, then wipes her mouth. Gods, this damn urge to spit out everything… If the sun and the heat weren’t burning Ala Mhigo to a crisp, maybe it wouldn’t be so dry and she wouldn’t feel like she was inhaling dust with every breath.

“Yeah, well,” she mutters. “Won’t matter to some.”

“So? Why care what they think? They’re not the ones running hundreds of steps every day.”

At last, Fordola raises her head and squints into the morning light.

Aureia Malathar stands at the top of the landing, backlit by the rising sun. She’s dressed in her customary black gear—a tight-fitting tunic that leaves her shoulders bare, thin leggings, and thigh-high boots with the strange heels favoured by Ishgardians. Water flask at her hip, but no weapon. Yesterday’s makeup rings her eyes, the remnants of liner smudged into the creases so she looks like one of those bom bokos favoured in the Far East. Her cheeks have that raw red flush that comes from windburn or sunburn or both, and her hair falls in a tangled, windswept mess around her shoulders. Somehow, despite the rough edges—or perhaps because of them—she looks radiant.

Biting her tongue, Fordola pushes her way past Malathar’s stubbornly outstretched hand. Gods, she looks so stupid like that, leaning over to offer…

Never mind. 

“Bit rich of you to say that, don’t you think, Aureia?” she grouses, reaching the landing. “Considering you’re the first person to care what others think of you.”

Finally, Malathar withdraws her hand. “I am not.”

“You are in the ways that matter.” Rolling the ache out of her shoulders, she stalks to the far side of the landing. The battlements curve here, and for a time in the early morning the wall blocks out the sun. It won’t last long. The higher the sun climbs, the more exposed the landing becomes. Some days she has started too late and was forced to turn back here lest she burn. “You don’t care what strangers think of you, sure. They can say whatever the fuck they want about what you look like or how you dress or even who they think you’re fucking and you won’t bat an eye—”

Malathar fixes her with an unblinking stare.

“—but if there is so much as a whiff of doubt about the Warrior of Light’s intentions?” Fordola leans against the wall, a wicked smile curving her lips. “You certainly care what others think of that. You and your pristine reputation.”

“I don’t have a pristine reputation.”

“If you say so.” She blows out a leisurely sigh and stretches her arms high above her head. Malathar’s eyes do not leave her; they track every movement, observing her with the intense focus of an operative anticipating trouble. But sometimes they linger on places they should not, igniting a satisfied warmth deep within her belly. She can stand to be looked at for once—if this is the woman doing the looking. “I’ve heard the gossip from Ishgard, you know. Ser Aymeric’s knights enjoy being rowdy in the local taverns. Never realized the Lord Commander’s countrymen had such talent both for making up and falling for utter bullshit—”

Malathar makes a strange face as if holding back a laugh.

“—I’m half-convinced the country is full of idiots. Can’t believe these are our allies, couldn’t you have brought us someone better?”

Olive eyes flick back to Malathar, gauging her reaction. Her comments may have been said in jest, but her tongue has a habit of warping them into something sharper than she meant. Malathar is one of the few people she knows who doesn’t take it to heart; her rudeness simply passes her by. Still, Malathar is sensitive where the Lord Commander and Ishgard are concerned. The wound needs to scab over some day; unfortunately she has no inkling if that has happened.

She blows out a puff of air. “Pfft. Ridiculous. Makes me wonder what they’d say about us. If they knew, that is—”

“Don’t start.”

Fordola closes her eyes. Ah. There it is. The open wound.

When she opens them, she finds Malathar sitting across from her on the lowest step, scratching at something beneath the top of her boot. “I didn’t start anything,” Fordola counters. “I’m the one under lock and key. I’m the one being tailed everywhere I go in my own damn home. I don’t have the choice to start anything. But the blessed Warrior of Light can go wherever she damn pleases without question, can’t she? Must I remind you that you are my late night visitor, not the other way around?”

Malathar stiffens. “No one can know, Fordola,” she says quietly, raising her head. There’s a strange look in her eyes—a tightness, as if she regrets something. “No one. Can I trust you to hold your peace?”

A lump forms in Fordola’s throat.

Trust. It has been a long time since anyone has trusted her.

It has been an even longer time since she has given anyone a reason to.

Fordola slinks against the wall, pressing herself into its crevices as the sun rises higher and the shade slips away. Malathar returns to picking at her boot, her brow scrunched with determination. She watches her for a moment, her gaze passing from the woman on the steps to the top of the battlements. The morning is moving on. If she’s not back in the rooms on time, Rhalgr’s fury may very well be invoked to strike her down. Rules are rules, after all—and the rules are strict where she is concerned.

But… perhaps there are no rules where the Warrior of Light is concerned.

“Got a rock in there or something?” Fordola asks bluntly, still clinging to her patch of shade.

“No,” Malathar huffs. “There’s a lace that’s caught, if I can just—ugh!”

Her hand slips. She leans back on the step in defeat, cursing under her breath as she pulls her flask free and takes a long sip.

Fordola’s lips twitch with amusement. “Have you considered something else? You’re not married to Ishgardian fashion, you know—”

Behind the flask, Malathar’s expression darkens.

“—Rhalgr’s flaming arse, you lived in Ul’dah! You should know better! Can’t imagine electing to stick my legs into sweaty, hot leather every day. Your boots, Malathar, are stupid—”

She chokes on her water. It spills out of her flask and over her mouth in a rush. Coughing and snorting, she thrusts the flask aside and pounds her chest with a fist, fixing Fordola with a lethal glare. “You’re one to talk,” she says hoarsely, wiping her mouth. “I still don’t understand how you managed to fight in those things that barely count as reasonable footwear.”

Fordola blinks. “Huh?”

“You should know, you’re the one who wore them!”

“What are you on about? They were fine—” 

“They were the stupidest shoes I’ve ever seen!”

“No more stupid than your stupid boots!”

“Oh, shut up!”

“You shut up!”

Malathar takes an aggressive swig of her water flask and stands up, spilling more water on herself. Cursing, she shakes herself out and strides across the landing to join Fordola in the shade. “Sorry,” she mutters, pushing her back against the wall. She extends her hand, proffering the flask. “I didn’t intend to insult your… sense of fashion, I suppose.”

Fordola takes it. “Never had one to begin with. Uniforms and such. If you insist on taking issue with my footwear, take it up with the next legatus you see before you kill him.” She tilts her head back and puts the flask to her mouth; cool water flows past her lips and she drinks it in greedily. “You didn’t actually think I took that seriously now, did you? I thought you’d be better at not letting people get a rise out of you.”

“You didn’t get a rise out of me, you—” Malathar clamps her mouth shut, breathing heavily through her nose. Her cheeks flush, and this time it isn’t only from the sunburn. “Forget it.”

Fordola chuckles and passes the flask back, a pleasant shiver shuddering down her spine as their fingers briefly touch. Ignoring the sensation, she shifts her weight back and forth and shuffles closer to her. There is very little shade left. Their shoulders bump together as they stand with their backs to the wall, surveying the city below. Even halfway up to the battlements, Ala Mhigo’s sprawl is impressive—all red stone, coloured banners, and burnished rooftops. The purple flags flap, the city-state’s silver griffin waving proudly in the wind.

Something deep within her heart twists. Jaw clenched, she raises her chin and stares up the stairs to the battlements. Each step shimmers with the reflective surface of a pool of water, the mirage undulating in the summer heat. How many are left? She counts them in her head—a private count, just for her—and imagines each painful step as she ascends to the summit.

One hundred and sixty-two.   

One hundred and sixty-three.   

One hundred and sixty-four.  

“You never said what you’re doing out here,” Malathar murmurs.

Fordola drags her gaze away from the stairs. “Training,” she replies and scuffs her foot against the pavement, mindful not to kick her by accident. They’re standing so close together now they’re practically on top of one another, huddled in the remaining sliver of shade. “Unlawfully, of course. So let’s call it running and keep everyone happy. What did you think I was doing?”

“I don’t know. But if anyone was to be in competition with themself, it would be you.”

“Ha!”

She can’t help a grin. Perhaps it’s a trick of the light, but she is certain she saw Malathar smile, too.

The tips of their toes—one pair in weathered sandals, the other in fine leather—are in the sun now. Time is slipping away as surely as the shade, and once it is gone there is no reason to stay. The bitterness of disappointment grips her heart at the thought of parting ways, and she scuffs her foot again. Ridiculous. There is no reason for her to wish to stay, especially on the company of the Warrior of Light.

“Want to join?” Fordola blurts suddenly. “We could call it a race.”

Malathar raises an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t want to impose—”

“You’re the one who interrupted. It’s only fair.”

“It depends.” Her lips twitch. “Are you going to be sour when I beat you?”

“You won’t beat me. I don’t think those boots of yours can manage it.”

“We’ll see.”

Without warning, Malathar pushes off the wall and dives back into the sun. Startled, Fordola laughs, watching as she scrambles up the stairs, arms pumping at her sides, hair flying loose in the wind. Too late she realizes her competitor has given herself a head start. With a curse, she abandons the last bit of shade and gallops up the steps, using the advantage of her height and long legs to take them two at a time until she catches her.

They run freely side-by-side, laughing and cursing and sputtering from the effort as they race to the top of the battlements. The steps fly by so quickly Fordola loses count, and for the first time since she began these morning endeavours she cannot obsess over how far she has come or how much further she has to go. The warmth of the sun is pleasant rather than overpowering, the ache in her legs more satisfying than it is painful.

With a stark awareness, she realizes this is the most fun—if you can call it that—she has had in years.

“Fuck,” she curses, out of breath.

Malathar laughs. With a final burst of energy, she pulls ahead and bounds to the top, hitting the landing with a triumphant thud. Breathless, she spins around and pushes hair out of her face, watching as Fordola ascends the final steps on weary feet. Grinning, she leans over and extends a hand.