Page 8 of Kingdom of Darkness and Dragons
The weight of her words settled on my shoulders. I thought about the man I'd been just months ago—so certain of Talfen inferiority, so convinced that their suffering was somehow justified by their "savage" nature. Meeting Tarshi had begun to crack those beliefs, but living here among his people had shattered them entirely.
These weren't the monsters of Imperial propaganda. They were farmers and crafters, parents and children, people who laughed and cried and loved with the same intensity as any human. Their pointed ears and unusual colouring were no more significant than the variations in hair and eye colour among humans. The only real difference was that they'd been born on the wrong side of an arbitrary political boundary.
"I should check on Tarshi," I said finally. "He'll be wondering where I've gotten to."
"Give him my regards. And tell him, patience is the highest virtue.”
I laughed. “I’ll tell him, but I’m not promising he’ll agree with the sentiment.”
I took my leave, waving goodbye to Kira and walking back through the village centre with new eyes. The stone houses with their peaked roofs and carved shutters spoke of generations of careful craftsmanship. The communal areas—the well, the meeting hall, the small shrine to Talfen ancestors—showed a society that valued cooperation over competition, community over individual achievement.
How had I ever believed these people were inferior?
The house where Tarshi and I were staying sat on the village's eastern edge, close enough to the main settlement to be safe but far enough away to provide privacy for two recuperating strangers. It belonged to an elderly couple named Daven and Lira, who'd lost their own son to an Imperial raid years earlier.They'd welcomed us with open arms, treating us like family despite having every reason to hate humans on sight.
I found Tarshi exactly where I'd left him—propped up in bed watching the comings and goings of the villagers out of the window.
"About time," he grumbled. "I was starting to think you'd been adopted by another family."
"Just delivering milk to Meren." I settled into the chair beside his bed, noting the way he moved carefully to avoid jostling his injured ribs. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I've been trampled by a herd of cattle and then set on fire, but better than yesterday. Vera thinks I might be able to try getting out of bed tomorrow.”
"That's good news."“It would be better news if she told me I could start training again like you.”
“You’re strangely eager to start fighting again so soon after nearly dying,” I commented, raising one eyebrow as I sat down on the bed next time.
“What else would I do?”
"You don't have to fight," I said. "Neither of us do. These people have been surviving Imperial aggression for generations. We could just… stay here.” As I spoke the words, I felt that strange pull in my chest, an overwhelming desire to lay down my sword, to take Tarshi and Livia and build us a home somewhere, away from all the death and bloodshed.
Tarshi turned from the window, his obsidian eyes searching mine. For a moment, a flicker of something that looked like longing crossed his face—a brief, unguarded glimpse of the man beneath the warrior. The idea of peace, of a life without bloodshed, was a powerful lure for both of us. But then his expression hardened, the familiar resolve settling back into his features.
"Stay here? And do what? Tend goats? Weave baskets? That's not who we are, Septimus. It’s not who I am." He gestured with the wooden wolf toward the window, toward the peaceful village scene. "This is what we fight for, yes. But you don't protect it by hiding in it."
"It wouldn't be hiding," I argued, my voice softer than I intended. "It would be living. We've done nothing but fight our whole lives. Don't you ever wonder what it would be like to just... be?"
“We almost died, Tarshi,” I said, my voice low. “Livia almost died. For what? So another emperor can take his place? So the fight can continue for another generation?” I reached out, my fingers brushing against the back of his hand. His skin was warm, the familiar ripple of scales just beneath the surface a comforting texture. “I’m tired of fighting. I want to live. With you. With Livia. I want to wake up in the morning and not wonder who will be dead by nightfall.”
He didn’t pull away. Instead, he slowly turned his hand over to lace his fingers with mine. His thumb traced the scars on my knuckles. “You think it’s that simple? That the war will just leave us be because we wish it?”
“No,” I admitted, my grip tightening on his. “But for once, I want to choose life over duty. I want to choose us.”
"I know what happens to people like us who 'just are'," he replied softly. "The Empire finds them. Burns their homes. Puts them in chains. And this isn’t just about them. It’s about Livia. It’s about Octavia, and every other person who died in that square. The Emperor started this. Kalen executed it. I will not rest until they have both paid for what they’ve done. Livia is still out there. Marcus, Antonius. They're still fighting. We can't just abandon them to build ourselves a quiet life while the world burns down around them."
He was right, of course. My desire for peace was a selfish one, born of exhaustion and a desperate, newfound love. It wasn't a real possibility, not while the Emperor lived. Livia would never stop fighting while that man lived and nowhere would be home without her.
I squeezed his hand, a silent acknowledgment of the bitter truth. “I know,” I said, the words tasting like ash. “But a man can dream.”
“We’ll have time for dreaming when the Emperor is dead and the Talfen are free,” Tarshi replied, though his voice had lost its hard edge. He squeezed my hand back, a flicker of that same desperate longing in his own eyes. “When we find Livia. When we’re all together again.”
The simple word—together—carried more weight than a thousand declarations of love. This was Tarshi's way of saying what we'd both been dancing around since the night we'd nearly died. That whatever came next, we'd face it as partners. As lovers. As whatever we needed to be for each other. The promise of it, however distant, was enough to bank the embers of hope in my chest. We would fight, not just for vengeance, but for the chance at that quiet life. For the possibility of a world where we could simply be.
"I'd like that," I said simply.
A smile tugged at the corners of Tarshi's mouth. "Good. Because I wasn't really asking. Now stop talking and kiss me.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I leaned across the narrow space between us, my hand sliding from his to cup the back of his neck, my fingers tangling in the soft, white hair at his nape. His skin was warm, alive beneath my touch. His lips were softer than I remembered, yielding under mine with a sigh that I felt more than heard. The tension I hadn't noticed he was holding bled out of him, and he sank back against the pillows, pulling me with him. His good arm came up to circle my neck, hisfingers tangling in the short hair at my nape. The kiss deepened, becoming a slow exploration, a mapping of shared grief and a desperate, fragile hope. It was a promise whispered without words—that we would survive this, that we would find our way back to Livia, that we would earn the peace I so desperately craved.
