I woke up in the night and reached instinctively for my sword, in case we were under attack. The dark knights and monsters around me faded, like all dreams do, and I realized the sound that woke me was coming from the tent. A loud whimper or a quiet scream, I couldn’t tell.
I looked inside the tent, past the peacefully sleeping Rydia and the lightly snoring Tellah, to where Edward lay. The bard-prince, playing to avoid his destiny until his destiny came for him.
“Anna,” he called, loudly enough that Rydia shifted in her sleep. Unwilling to let Rydia suffer cold or hunger or tiredness, I pulled him up by his collar and outside of the tent.
“What?” he asked me, still confused.
“You’re having a nightmare,” I told him as he woke. I could see in his eyes the moment he realized again that his Anna was dead. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. This happened every night since we left Damcyan. I’d always let him roll over and go back to sleep before.
Tonight he stared at me, looking lost. Awkwardly, I put an arm on his shoulder. In a moment, he was sobbing against my chest. I held him until he was finished, and longer, thinking about how delicate his face looked in the moonlight. I left him to fall asleep beside me. After that, we did so every night, making some excuse of toughening him up. He played his harp at night, and thought of Anna, and I thought of Rosa.
And maybe I touched him, with her name on my lips. Maybe I held him so he would not tremble in the dark, and let him knot his fists in my hair, and call me Anna in the half-light.
Maybe we took comfort in each other, where we had none other.
And if we did, what of it?
