is this thing on?

It's freezing, and your not sure if anyone who sent you all out here to this white, bright hell, know that the sun reflects off the snow. You've been here for a couple of years now and it still hurts your eyes.

The new officer showed up, floating over the snow like he was too good to touch the ground - typical flashy city wizard. You've heard the whispers that he's the Shadowhand, so someone up here fucked up big time for them to send him, and you aren't sure if you'll get sucked into the vortex of blame.

But he's been here a couple of weeks when a shipment arrives, and it's got shaded visors and shawls and glasses. They go faster than the rations of sweet treats and fresh food.

And another week passes and he's still floating around, looking stressed, but he nods at you when he passes and you don't remember the last time a commanding officer made eye contact with you, and maybe he's not so bad.

Another week goes by and your troop is attacked by some fucking snow worm that ripped Vasor in half, and the fight is almost over - you're bleeding out and no one else seems much better - and then he shows up. His spell crushes the worm into a cube about the same size as a footlocker and then it's all over.

Later, he shows up in the infirmary and gives the healers some of his own components.

You all get some extra rations that week, and no one says anything but you know your unit better than you know your own Den and no one rolls their eyes when he floats by anymore.

Then they show up - the Heroes of the Dynasty and they've all got the Bright Queen seals and you've never seen one in person but it certainly gets them to your new commander and -

The blue one hugs him so tightly you're sure he'll feel that the next day.

Okay. Okay.

You get extra training from the dwarf in the snow chair and he's a jerk and you all hate him but his methods work and might actually help you survive whatever the hell is about to go down, because your commander is looking even more stressed and maybe the higher ups do know something, to send him here and get them extra training and it's not like they'd tell you, out here, if something big was about to go down.

So you and your unit, and the rest of the base become sharper and more aware and keep a keener eye on the horizon because something big is coming, and you all know it now.

Which is why you notice when the Heroes arrive again they look tired and worried and although they bring hot chocolate, which you've personally never tried before but it's nice and sweet and warm and for a moment you think, hey, this place isn't so bad. His friends are nice and loud and he always seems happy to see them. But it's not good news they bring him, you know it from the way he looks shaken as they walk and talk, and he sends his guard out of the room and they catch your eye as they drink their warm drink and you know it's about to go down.

He goes with them, to stop whatever is going on, and he's going into Aeor and you've never been but you've heard some shit and you're worried for him. Everyone is worried for him.

So when the letter arrives, from the Capitol, and a report is expected and he's not there to write it...

It takes three of you, practicing for hours, to fake his signature. So you write the report and Farin forges the signature and one of the guards uses the seal and... You all know you'd be executed for this, if anyone ever found out, and none of you are consecuted so there would be no coming back from this, but you do it anyway.

The report isn't glowing, because you don't think he'd write a glowing report, so you keep it brief and pray to the Luxon that whoever reads the reports he sends doesn't notice the difference.

He comes back, days later, and he's hurting, and they all look like hell, but they don't stop to rest. He must be hurting real bad, because his feet are on the ground and your not sure why but that drives it home for everyone - whatever they've done it's taken a lot out of them. They've got a new friend, with a fresh scar that looks like he was cut in half longways and you glance at Urda who works in the infirmary and you can see her eyes are wide under her shaded veil.

You write another report while he's gone.

He comes back the day after you finish writing the report, and you aren't sure what the guard tells him, but that night in the eating hall, he shows up with a fancy looking chalice encrusted with gems and the next thing the tables are groaning with the best looking food you've ever seen in your life. It's good home cooked meals and exotic fish and every kind of dessert.

He sits down at the table and motions you all to eat. "I'm not in the mood for rations," he says, offhand, like it's nothing. But you've spent months with him now and you know him better, and it only takes a few moments before the table is swamped with hungry soldiers and laughter.

It takes another couple of months before he goes 'missing' and another month for you to report it. He left with the red headed wizard and took most of his things, but you kept writing the reports.

Might as well give him some time to get a good head start.

The ring Essek brings him quietly one evening, when he arrives without ceremony in the kitchen, is flashier than all of Caleb’s wardrobe put together, and it is beautiful on his finger.

It tells of time spent combing through distant markets and shops, places Caleb has no interest in visiting except through the tales of his partner, and he is all the more glad to hear this tale as Essek’s fingers play along the band that sits lightly on his ring finger. It is not as heavy as it looks, the metal and stones delicate and reminiscent of stars in the sky.

“It is, ah, a representation of the Rosohna constellation,” Essek murmurs, his eyes still caught on the jewelry. The stones increase in size as they curl inward to the sapphire inside, a gradient of white to a deep, violet-toned blue, the silver beneath carved in swirling tides. It is similar to a cuff curled around the lobe of Essek’s ear.

He has told Caleb of this constellation, which is called other names on other continents, its importance to the Kryn as a representation of their rising to the surface, the time when they took root in the ruins of Ghor Dranas. But for the astrological sages of the dens, it is a symbol of a deep change, a transformation of heart and soul, and, from what Essek has told him, it was rising over the Lucid Bastion during the moment in which Caleb delivered a stolen beacon to the Bright Queen.

The Skysibil declared it a sign for the Dynasty, lending credence to the Nein’s actions there and encouraging the Bright Queen to give them leeway, but that is not why this ring has relevance to Essek, or to Caleb.

“Love at first sight, hmm?” Caleb teases, and Essek purses his lips to keep from laughing.

“Not quite,” he replies, his mouth tight. He still has not met Caleb’s eye since he put the ring gently upon his finger. “A… profound change. Or the start of one.”

Caleb takes his idle, nervous fingers and wraps his hands around them. Essek softly, without another word, brings his ringed finger to his lips.

It is not his style, and he can feel the eyes that catch on it when he begins to wear it to classes, and the reminder of it doesn’t leave him even as the weight of it becomes familiar and the wrinkled frowns trickle away.

—

The ring Caleb saves for Essek is plain, simple, and at first glance almost boring, a burnished gold band that does not gleam enough to properly stand out against his skin. It sits in a small box in the back of Caleb’s wardrobe for several months while Essek is away, and by the time he returns the next time, it has long been out of mind, and they spend several days reveling in breath on lips.

“Where have you been?” Caleb asks, with interest, exhaled against Essek’s mouth.

Essek tells him, tells him of the archives he has spent a long time undercover gaining access to, building up an extensive web of a lie in order to convince foreign researchers to admit him, tells him of mentions of something akin to dunamis in ancient Tal’dorei that he is still following the trail of, but for now he can come home.

He maps out the constellation of Caleb’s palms as he does, and only when his fingertips brush the band of the ring does Caleb sit up, interrupting an anecdote about a particularly snooty librarian who Beau would’ve kicked in the teeth, and his words falter before he is able to describe how he actually managed to circumvent the scribe.

“Caleb?” he calls, as Caleb leaves him lounging on the bed wordlessly and traipses to the wardrobe, ruffling through the back of it until he can pull out a dusty box.

He gives a half grin as he returns and rests sheepishly against the edge of the bed and sets the ring in Essek’s upturned palm as he rises to meet him. “I, ah, found this,” Caleb says, and then murmurs a word, and an arcane inscription glows around the band.

A small panel of the metal opens to reveal a minuscule pearl, very fine and only a bit lopsided, set within a tiny extradimensional space.

“You found this?” Essek asks, with only a hint of irony, and Caleb’s smile cracks across his face.

“I modified it a bit. I thought you would prefer not to advertise any hidden components, and this way…” he smiles, and cups Essek’s jaw in his hand. “You will always have a second chance, no matter where you are, ja?”

With great care, Essek presses the compartment closed, and holds it to his chest, where another pendant already hangs. He removes the necklace over his head and slides the ring onto it.

When he has replaced it, the ring settles directly over the bones of his ribcage and his armored heart.

He leans into Caleb’s hand and closes his eyes. “Thank you,” he says finally, “for giving it to me.”

“I only offer what I have already received,” Caleb whispers, and intertwines their fingers around the rings, one on his finger, and one over Essek’s heart.