There was an empty space at our table now. That was fine, I could just make fewer portions. There was an empty space in our formations now. That was fine. I could pick up the slack, arrange what was left back around to cover our weaknesses. There was an empty space in my bed now. That was fine. It had been empty before, I could… I could…

“Can’t sleep?” Somebody asked from my window.

My blood ran cold, and I half-sleeping called the sword to my hand.

One of the benefits of being in charge, Rede, our disgraced royal engineer had insisted, was big windows and big windowseats. The walls of our repurposed imperial encampment were thick and high enough, and the heart of it far enough from them, that I had been successfully tag-teamed into listening. He’d done some quite marvelous things with the bottoms of bottles that now meant that light came into my room slightly warped and diffracted into a number of pale greens, ambers, and blues. It was so big that the silhouette of a person, dark and glowing eyed, could stand at full height with space to spare as it clicked the latch shut behind it. I rushed to block its access to the door and by extension people behind me. This meant that I got close enough to see its face by the yellow light of my sword. The thing at my window looked like Clara, was the thing. Same blonde hair, same long, thin fingers, same wry smile. Same clothes, even! The only sign that anything was wrong was the flat purple of her eyes.

This was going to be a long night. “Get out.” I snapped.

The thing covered its chest, face twisting into mock hurt. “Manners! That’s no way to greet your wife, captain!”

I paced forward and pressed the edge of my sword to her throat. “Two options: Get out of her, or get away from me.”

Its eyes widened. “Oh! Is that what you think is happening?” The blade was calmly brushed away. “Mira, I’m me!”

I flinched. The sword vanished. I grabbed her by the shoulders instead. “How dare you? I’ve had to do everything! Every supply run, every dinner, every attack from you!” I howled.

“You must be so tired.” C- the thing wearing her corpse- murmured. “I’m sorry I took so long.”

What?

And then I was being pushed. Clara had always been small, dainty, even. I was walked, step by gentle and irresistible step, backwards till the backs of my shins brushed the edge of the bed.

I tried to call the sword back. The thing caught my hand in its fingers and pulled it to its chest, dissipating the light before it could even start to coalesce. Sh- it was warm, and somehow still breathing slowly. “You don’t need to fight, Mira.” It said.

No, nononono no! It wasn’t safe! The devil’s pet was in my bed and my party was just downstairs and-

Clara kissed me. The terror drained out of me like pus. I slumped backwards from the relief of it. Clara looked lovely from this angle, in this moonlight. Silver, and a bit unearthly. Her mouth quirked up at the corner. “Now, can you behave yourself for me, dear? There’s so much I need to tell you.”

I swallowed. The ghost of touch lingered on my lips. “I’ll scream. Don’t think I won’t. Some of the best warriors in the country are just a room away, waiting to come to my call.”

“No, they aren’t.” S- it said, “they’re all fast asleep, and can’t hear you. I put the soundproofing in these walls myself.”

My own idea, that. Neither of us had ever slept gently since journey’s start.

“That’s a lot of what I want to talk to you about, actually. Say, did you ever wonder why I ended up in that cave?”

We’d had an argument. I was going too slow for her, and then she’d slipped away herself to fix things. I’d let her out of my sight, out of where I could protect her, and then I was too slow finding her. Too late to save her, but right on time to watch her die. She’d called to me, she’d been so scared. Flat purple eyes stared down at me, patient.

I spat at them. “Fuck you.”

She kissed me again. Harder this time, holding me by the chin to stop me from pulling away. Something sweet and settling spread down my throat and untangled the knots in my gut.

The thought of stopping Cla- the creature in my bed from taking what she-it wanted hadn’t been particularly firm in the first place, anyways. My hands fisted in the back of its dress, earning me a mewl and teeth on my lower lip.

The warmth kept coming, and I soon felt as if my throat would simply melt through. The world was all fuzzy at the edges, soft. When was the last time I’d had something soft to myself? I wasn’t sure when my eyes had closed either, but that worried me a lot less. The light kissing my eyelids was pretty. Like a bit of marzipan I had split with Clara when we were ten.

It had been night then too. She’d climbed over the city wall, wild as anything and laughing like a jackal. I could still remember how the confectionary had sounded as he’d come bellowing after us, hot faced and fuming. It probably wouldn’t have actually taken the whole mile to our barn to lose him, but at the time I’d been so… insistent. Silly, really.

The bit of candy had practically glittered in the cheap candlelight. A sweet little jewel for thieves against the crown.

“Ok, that should do it.” Somebody said from somewhere very far away.

The candy had come from a crown, actually, I found out later.

“Now, as I was saying…”

A whole complicated art piece, jewels and continents peppered with strange beasts for…

“Mira, are you listening?”

For…

“Oh, did I overdo it? You should still be lucid, not…”

Oh, yes! There had been a queen! She had been too young for the throne, she didn’t know what she was doing, that’s why things fell apart so. No, no, that wasn’t it. She’d been too old! She’d known too much of what she was doing, she tore things apart herself! No, that wasn’t it either, she had been…

“Captain!” Sharp, warning. She’d only said anything in that tone when it was three in the morning and we had seconds before the barn got set on fire. I bolted upright and scanned the room. Empty, empty. The window was neatly shut. My map was right where I’d left it over the door. My wife was sitting next to me. I calmed a bit on seeing her, she always knew what to do.

I opened my mouth to ask what was going on, and nothing came out. My throat didn’t listen to me. I touched it wonderingly, and shivered as a(nother?) bolt of warmth bloomed under the faint touch. The concern faded.

My wife had her hands up in a conciliatory gesture.

“Oh, stars, I’m sorry! I came here to put you at ease, and instead I…”

I realized I still wasn’t entirely sure what she was on about, but she was starting to get worked up, and that wouldn’t do at all! I cut her rambling off with a tap to the back of her wrist and raised my arms meaningly.

She paused. “R- right. Yes.” She leaned into me and set her head into the crook of my shoulder. “Didn’t know you still remembered how to do that. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

I huffed. As if I’d ever forget!

Time passed. Clarity came like honey.

“This is nice,” Clara murmured, “I’m glad I came back for you.”

I squeezed her a little tighter.

“We can stay like this, you know.”

No, that wasn’t right. The outline of something sharp and glaring yellow appeared on the foot of my bed. Important.

Clara tensed, and flicked the thing off. It made no noise as it hit the ground. “Greedy little bastard.” She hissed, barely loud enough to hear, “Wielders are so cheap, why must you hold on so?”

I watched the place where the sword had just been dully.

Clara sighed. “Look.” She pulled us backwards onto the bed and arranged us till we were side by side and I could feel her breath on my lips. “The world keeps going. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but I swear on all the stars and on all the bones of my grandfathers that it does. You can stop! It’s ok!”

That wasn’t true! People were counting on me! The kid needed to get home, none of the people I’d ever tried to hire as guards had even the faintest idea how to ration out a siege, I couldn’t just up and abandon my life to go galavant off into the hands of the person I was supposed to be fighting!

Clara wiped something wet off my face. Her eyes were glistening too. “Oh, dove, I know it’s scary, but I mean it! It’s so easy once you get down to it!”

I noticed that the line of her jaw was a good deal less defined than I could ever remember having seen it before. If I had a tongue right now, I’d probably say something snide about service to evil empire being good eating. As it was, I could only reach out and trace the novel layer of fat wonderingly.

Clara just laughed, relieved at the slight change in topic. “Yeah, it surprised me too. Banquets really can exist outside of pictures, and they really do have consequences. Queen’s hall could probably fit an entire camp and still have spare plates!”

My stomach grumbled. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

“I could show you.”

I was pretty shocked to find myself genuinely curious. Whatever in the world she must’ve just pumped into me, it clearly must have been some potent stuff! “Hm?”

“Yeah, it’s a trick I picked up!” Clara said brightly. She dropped into some deeper register approximation of my diplomat voice, “Your hand, my lady?”

I snorted, and offered it. She took it with all the gravitas of a relic in the tiny space between us, and brought it ever so slowly to her lips.

The space between us vanished.

A hall, the size of a train station, ribbed with finest herringbone. They cleam in the candlelight and trail nicely under your fingers. Tables, long and cobbled from all the strangest things, are nearly impossible to see under all the food.

What food?

Cherries, plumbs, apples and softest peaches. Thick bean soups, pork, lamb, and stranger meats still. It all melts on the tongue.

They really would all fit, wouldn’t they.

Quite easily, really. You could probably set all the tents themselves up with room to spare, too.

They could eat, they could rest…

‘Evil’ is somebody else’s problem, far away from here. It’s safe, here in the gut of the world.

Something breaks in you, pings away into the dark, and you charge forward to eat.

My party rested easy below and besides me, all unknowing. In a corner of my mind I was fast losing in the sense-smell-taste of her, a plan was already starting to form. But for now, the taste lingered on my tongue as I took Clara by the lips and was, quite simply, lost.