I woke to silence, broken only by her breathing. Thalina lay turned toward me, her hair spilled across the pillow, lips slightly parted as if still smiling in her dreams. Light filtered through the curtains, painting golden stripes across her skin. I reached out—not out of tenderness, but out of a battlefield habit, to touch and confirm that your companion still stands. My fingers traced her collarbone, and my chest tightened. Everything felt different. We didn't speak much; we didn't need to. She took my gaze, I took hers, and that was enough.
"I have to attend the council," I whispered, not even trying to hide that I'd rather stay.
"Come back tonight," she replied, a brief kiss seeing me to the door. That's how it began.
---
Weeks and Months – The Rhythm of Two
From that morning on, there was a rhythm. If I wasn't in the field, I ended my day with her. Sometimes over dinner and wine, sometimes with maps unrolled on the table and candles that cast more shadows than light. And sometimes with nothing at all—just the door closing behind me and her hand finding me before I could say a word.
In public, we kept it measured. No games, no theatrical displays. But the court's eyes see everything: how she would lower her head exactly when I looked her way; how a laugh would escape her when I tried to look too serious. Whispers spread through the palace faster than kitchen smoke. We let them. In this kingdom, there were worse things than a general and the court mage no longer bothering to pretend.
In private, habits became rituals. She read me fragments from old scrolls; I laid out the tactics of the last engagements. Once I told her of the smell of blood on snow at the Northern Fortress, and she silently moved her hand to my neck—not pity, but grounding. Another time she spoke of rune systems others had to etch into metal, and she looked at me as if I were an anomaly to solve and protect at once.
And yes—every meeting ended with us together. Sometimes slow, as if we had all the time in the world. Other times urgent, like a decision made in a heartbeat on the battlefield. I left in the morning, returned in the evening. And in between, I waged war—with maps, with men, with my own mind.
---
Jered – Laughter in Armor
"So, how long did it take you?" Jered asked the first time it was impossible to deny. We sat over beer, the training yard outside still damp with morning dew. That grin of his—proud, teasing, exactly the one I wanted to knock off his face with a glove and then embrace him so he'd know it was fine.
"Years," I replied.
"Hmm," he took a sip. "Then that's how it'll go in the stories: Aric, who brought down half the North, but fought his way into one pair of panties for half a decade."
"You should train more," I nodded toward the staff leaning on the wall.
"I am training—my liver," he patted his stomach. Then, more quietly, "I'm glad for you, brother." That last part was spoken without witnesses. It meant more than all his mockery.
Our mischief continued as if we were still sixteen-year-old recruits—just faster and a little more cautious. Once we raced horses past the half-empty marketplace at midnight; we toppled a fabric stall and bought the whole thing to avoid trouble. Another time we ended up on a tavern roof because Jered bet he could cross the inner courtyard without the guards spotting him. They did. We slept by the barrels, and in the morning recruits found us; from then on, there wasn't an hour without whispers about it.
They were stupid games, but they kept us grounded. Soldiers saw that commanders knew how to live, not just order. And between the two of us—that was the glue that wouldn't break, even in fire.
---
Royal Council – Allies from the Shadows
A few years later (still barely past our twenties; young enough to fight to the blood, old enough to know why), I laid a proposal before the king that half the hall didn't like.
"Dark Elves," I said simply. "Either we push them toward our enemies, or we bring them to our side. They have speed, night vision, and a talent we'd be fools not to use. Give me two. No more. Just as proof."
The king studied me for a long moment, then nodded. "Two. Give them discipline and loyalty. If you succeed, we'll expand it."
The next day, two figures in dark cloaks were led onto the training ground. Hoods down—long white hair, ash-gray skin, golden eyes. Twins. They looked at me, and their smiles kicked my memory into motion: a forest, a wagon with chains, four human bandits whose necks I broke before they even understood they were dead. Two girls—more children than women then—locked pride that refused to cry.
"I knew you'd come eventually," said the taller one, Lythara. The younger, Nyssira, tilted her head, the same smirk I remembered slipping from the shadows of her face.
"This time I'm not rescuing you," I said. "This time I'll strip you to the bone until you're warriors."
"And what if we'd prefer… a different kind of stripping?" Nyssira let her tunic slip just enough. Lythara elbowed her discreetly.
"Ten laps," I pointed to the far edge of the yard. "Run."
They ran. And I smiled. It had begun.
---
Training – The Two Blades of the Shadow
The first weeks were brutal. No magic, no flair. Run, fall, get up. Wooden weapons, bruised elbows, dust in the throat. When sparring, they put on a show. Lythara lunged close, her tunic slipping so I might "accidentally" see more. Nyssira exaggerated her hip turns so much she could have distracted half the guard.
"You think that works on me?" I asked after their first attempt at a double strike.
"Not on you," Nyssira panted, "but if we can't have you, we can at least throw you off balance."
"Then twenty more push-ups," I said flatly.
Phase two—tactics. I set them against each other, then together against me, then sent them to capture a flag at the far end of the yard while I blocked their way. They couldn't overpower anyone head-on; but with the rhythm of switching roles, they could. Lythara precise as a knife's edge, Nyssira improvising when things went sideways. They learned to read my breath, my steps—dangerously fast.
And when their hands no longer trembled from wooden grips, we switched to steel. That ended the joke. Every step counted; trust wasn't spoken, it was earned in sweat and near-cuts. More than once, our blades rested at each other's throats, separated by the width of a hair.
"Does Thalina know about us?" Lythara asked once, our breathing warming the air between crossed steel.
"She knows I'm training you," I pushed her a step back. "And she knows you like to provoke. That ends when you learn discipline saves lives."
Nyssira smirked—but nodded.
After three months, I brought in four of my guards. They were faster, heavier, had longer reach. The twins won. Not by miracle—by method. One blocked, the other stabbed a knee, switch, breathe, change angle. The fourth fell face-first into the dirt. Two of my guards laughed while binding their sprained wrists.
"Did we pass?" Lythara wiped sweat from her brow.
"You did," I said. "And when someone asks who taught you—"
"We'll say it was the man who resisted the two most beautiful dark elf women in the kingdom," Nyssira finished. I rolled my eyes. Jered, appearing with two mugs, laughed until tears ran down his face.
From then on, the unit called them the Two Blades of the Shadow. Not for beauty—for how quietly they finished a mission, vanished into darkness, and returned with results.
---
A Love That Wouldn't Break
Meanwhile, my world with Thalina became anchored. We were still young—I barely twenty-five, she the same—but our bond behaved as if it were older. I knew when her head ached from arcane charts and when her soul hurt from court politics. She knew when I wanted to break everything and when I needed silence by the window with her hand on my neck.
"Would you do anything for me?" she asked once, without play, without a smile.
"I already am," I answered. It wasn't a promise. It was a statement of fact.
In the yard, people whispered whatever they wanted. It didn't touch us. When you return from battle with the color of blood under your nails, you stop caring about what was said at dinner.
---
Jered—Still Jered
Jered hadn't changed. A few more gray hairs in his beard, a slightly deeper laugh. When he got drunk, the whole lower city knew; when I did, half the palace knew and the other half speculated. Our stories rivaled our war tales: barrels on rooftops, wagers with smugglers, guards we accidentally caught in our own traps during night runs.
"You know, Aric," he said after one particularly bad night, as we sat on the barracks' steps watching the stars, "I'm glad you went for it. For her. For all of it. Not everyone at your age has what you have—a love that doesn't consume you, but holds you."
"And you?" I turned it back on him.
"I have you," he grinned. "And wine."
That was enough.
---
The Elves – Beauty and Loyalty
Lythara and Nyssira grew into such beauty that even those who shouldn't dared to look. They laughed off suitors; their eyes were for their work—and, whether they admitted it or not, for me. Their provocations never stopped, only their timing matured. Sometimes after training, a head tilt just a bit too low; other times, a glance that would buckle another man's knees.
"If I didn't have someone," I admitted once with a grin, when Nyssira was swaying her hips more than necessary, "I might consider you."
"Then consider it," she smirked.
"I consider that you owe me five more laps," I pointed at the track.
They ran. And when they finished, they stood tall, eyes up, breathing steady. That too was a kind of confession.
---
Chapter's End – Solid Bonds, Sharp Blades
From a few wounds after one night, my life took shape. Thalina—my anchor and my fire. Jered—my laughter and my steel beside me. The Two Blades of the Shadow—discreet, deadly, mine.
We were still young. Young enough to make mistakes, wise enough not to repeat them twice. And when I returned from the yard at night, the sweat on my back cooled, I always knew where I would end up: at her chamber window, in candlelight's shadow, with her breath on my neck.
Between steel and silk, you can live longer than you'd think—if you know for whom you hold the sword, and for whom you lay down the armor.