Getting back to Solitude felt like reaching the end of a long, miserable joke…one where the punchline was that nothing happened.

 

I turned in the Jagged Crown at Castle Dour, still dusted with road grime, feet aching, and just so tired. General Tullius took it from my hands like it was a sack of grain. No fanfare. No crowd. No solemn ceremony or raised banners or anything that might suggest this object had once been fought over by armies and bled for by the dead.

 

“Good work,” he said. That was it.

 

Nothing followed – no discussion on what the crown might mean or even an immediate assignment. No new orders. No dramatic next step. Just a vague dismissal and the sense that I’d been filed away under useful, but currently inconvenient.

 

That’s how it always seems to go—you survive impossible things, you do exactly what you’re told, and then you’re left standing there wondering what you’re supposed to do with your hands.

 

With no new orders, of course, the army swallowed me into its routine. I spent the next few days doing exactly the kind of work no one sings about: hauling crates, scrubbing tables, carrying messages across the city, cleaning literal piles of clothes, peeling potatoes until my fingers wrinkled and split, and, of course, the endless hand jobs.

 

No one was cruel. No one was kind. I was just there in a sort of quasi-military purgatory, wondering if I should have just gone to Windhelm and assassinated Ulfric, thus ending the war in one quick blow.

 

On the fourth night of this shit, I’d finished a double cooking shift—chopping, stirring, serving, scraping burned porridge out of the bottom of a cauldron so big it could have drowned a child. My back was screaming, my hair smelled like grease, and my patience was already gone before I even made it to the benches.  I’d just sat down with my bowl when the voice rang out.

 

“There she is!”

 

The room went quiet in that way only military rooms do -- half a hundred people pausing at once, attention snapping toward the sound whether they meant to or not.

 

I looked up and found Lazhah standing on a bench. Actually standing -- boots planted wide, chest out, grinning like this was the proudest moment of his life. He was flanked by a few other men, all of them smiling like they were in on a joke I had definitely not agreed to.

 

He pointed at me like he’d found a prize hog at market. “There she is!” he said again, louder. “Sian!”

 

Every head turned my way and my stomach dropped.

 

I decided to come up with something witty, so I said, “What?”

 

He hopped down off the bench and crossed the floor, stopping right in front of me. Someone shoved a mug into his hand. Someone else started clapping. Gods help me, someone actually whistled.

 

“Sian,” he said, voice loud, steady, rehearsed. “We’ve fought beside each other, bled together, and bonded in ways I never thought possible. When I first got this assignment, I…I didn’t think…I just…”

 

He actually gulped at this point. Alarm bells clanged in my head so loud, I was sure everyone could hear them.

 

“When…when I saw the amulet, I… couldn’t believe you felt the same way I have come to.”

 

“No don’t…” I started to say, but he lurched forward, dropped to a knee, and lifted up a gaudy gold band with an array of mismatched stones in both hands.

 

“Will you marry me?”

 

The mess hall erupted.

 

Cheers. Laughter. Someone shouted, “About time!” Another yelled, “Say yes!”

 

In retrospect, there were better ways I could have handled my response. In my defense…I mean what the fuck?!

 

“What the fuck?!” I shouted. “Hell no! Absolutely not! Are you out of your goddamned mind?!”

 

The cheers died instantly; silence formed over the room like a bruise.

 

“I…” he started and I, afraid of doing something I would regret even more, shoved my untouched bowl away, pushed myself to my feet, and stormed out, boots echoing against stone, the sound of whispers following me like thrown pebbles.

 

I didn’t stop until I found Kellan.

 

He was in our room at the inn stitching his cloak and looked up as I entered, then frowned. “Is something wrong?”

 

I lifted the amulet of Mara. “I know what this fucking amulet is for.”

 

He blinked at it, looking befuddled. “Um…”

 

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

 

“Well,” he said carefully, “it’s not always meant so…literally.”

 

“So that’s a no?”

 

“No, I didn’t say that, I…”

 

“You didn’t say anything.”

 

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Sian, I care about you. But right now isn’t…”

 

“Understood.” I reached up, grabbed the chain, and yanked. The clasp snapped and the amulet hit the stone floor with a sharp, ringing clatter. I turned and walked away before my tears could burst out in front of him.

 

I walked blindly, for once heedless of the stares my outfit always engendered. I found stairs and climbed until my legs burned, until the sounds of the city faded into wind and gull cries. I found myself on an empty stretch of ramparts overlooking the bay, the water dark and endless below.

 

The city lights blurred. I leaned forward, gripping the cold stone, and then it all came out.

 

The tears hit hard and fast, ugly, gasping sobs that bent me double. I wept for the crown that earned nothing; for meaningless days spent scrubbing floors and washing clothes and yanking dicks; for being seen as something to claim, something to manage, something to use.

 

I cried for the love I had felt but that had been as one-sided as that of Lazhah's for me.

 

I cried because I was so goddammed tired of fighting and still being cornered.

 

The wind tore at my hair and carried my sobs out to sea and I wished, for a time, I could join them.

 

When the tears finally burned themselves out, I stayed and watched the water, breathing through the ache in my chest, and reminded myself that I was still standing, and no fucking asshole man was going to keep me from being myself.

 

I’m not gay but at that point, I was sorely tempted to give it the ol’ college try anyway.

 

 

 

Don’t feed the bastards. Or marry them.

 

 

 

Next chapter

 

Previous chapter

 

Start from the beginning