In Memoriam

War takes everything.

That’s what the captain used to say, and he’s dead now, so he would know.

Today marks three years to the day since we lost him. A feast day.

This morning, we the living — Abhi and Seph, Helio and me, four of the prophesied quintet that defeated the Other-realm Terrors who nearly ended the world—we endured the annual commemoration. We’re always the guests of honor, appearing before a packed crowd. They lost people, too. Everyone did.

The ceremony was solemn and poignant. Speeches, songs, wreaths laid before stone memorials. Helio’s gaze found mine across the dais and held it, his head heavy beneath the crown. His quiet, crooked smile was a lifeline that hauled me from a rising tide of things I’d rather forget. His wife, the queen, focused elsewhere.

“When can we start drinking,” Abhi muttered at my side barely half an hour in, and Seph elbowed him, biting back a smirk.

“A few more hours,” I whispered. “Gods willing.”

The gods were willing. By sundown, my friends were here—gathered in my tavern, clustered at a corner of the bar to avoid the press of the crowd. People know who I am; I own the place and live above it. But no one recognizes King Helio, sitting in their midst in plain homespun. Nor do they recognize Abhi, since he’s got his greatcoat back on. Or Seph, in their travel gear.

It’s a thrill to gather our strange little family every year (save for the captain, of course). Abhi is a sailor; Seph is still rebuilding their home country. And Helio — he’s the king. I rarely see him alone, though he tries to amend that. He often slips from the palace and comes here for a drink at the end of my shift, his eyes aglow, his elbows on the bar as we lean in close to be heard.

He’s wearing that same glow tonight, that luminance. It makes me think of last year’s commemoration, when the queen pulled me aside to ask if I knew why the king had never taken a lover, the way it’s expected of royals. “It would do him good,” she said. “He’s so melancholy.”

That was news to me. The Helio I knew was relentlessly cheerful. His crooked smile, winks as punctuation — so much of our journey together, I’d found him infuriating. Until I didn’t.

“Hey,” slurs Seph, two ales in, all the tolerance of a student. “S’been hours. We still haven’t toasted the captain.”

“Don’t let Abhi start,” I say, smirking over my whiskey. “Last year was a disaster.”

“In my defense,” Abhi protests, “the captain would’ve been just as drunk.”

“If you hadn’t knocked back so many shots with that lad from East Reaver — ”

“Oh, I remember.” Abhi’s eyes sparkle. “Worth it.”

“Seph should start,” says Helio, definitive. “Your speech at the ceremony this morning — ”

They scoff. “The captain would’ve hated that.”

“If you could make that up to please the crowd,” I say, “you could do him justice now.”

“Exactly what I mean.” Helio’s little smile brings heat to my cheeks. “C’mon, Seph.”

“I’ll only end up doing bad impressions,” says Seph, “and then you’ll be sorry.”

“Pay to see that,” Abhi says. “Go on, start us off!”

Seph furrows their brow, which does make them look alarmingly like the captain. They lower their voice and bark, “War. Takes. Everything!”

Abhi and Helio burst into startled laughter; if I’d been drinking, I would’ve spat whiskey across the bar.

“You know,” Helio says, brushing at the corners of his eyes, “there was a second half to that platitude.”

“Unimportant!” Seph sweeps a dismissive hand, exactly like the captain. They lift their mug. “Never was there a grumpier sod. But no one could’ve kept us together like he did. Here’s to the captain.”

“To the captain!” we all echo, and drink. Abhi starts the next toast. Then me. Then Helio. And we circle around again.

By closing, with the hearth dying back and the other staff putting out the lanterns, it’s down to just Helio and me. He sits at the bar. I lean on the other side across from him. His eyes are hazel-gold. Soft and searching, with a faint hope that puts a thrum in my heart. He says, “I should probably get home.”

Don’t go, I want to say. Stay with me.

We talked about this, once.

It wasn’t long after we saved the world. Helio pulled me aside and said my name so softly. Asked me to do this with him. Marry him. Rule with him.

It was a terror more acute than that final battle. “I can’t be queen,” I told him. As if I had even half the status it required. “I can’t — I won’t — ”

“If I wasn’t king,” he’d said at last. “If I was free. Would you then?”

And I whispered, “Of course I would.”

He married a month later. A prudent political match.

I miss him. I miss those nights under the stars, all five of us scared witless but clinging to each other. Abhi making us laugh with tales of the crew he lost, Seph’s good-natured practicality, the captain trying to teach us a single damn thing about wilderness survival. And Helio, the royal desperate not to be. Who ran from our first skirmish but stood back-to-back with me for the last. Bleeding and broken, raw with loss, so certain we could never win. Until we did.

Now, tonight, I think of the captain. His irritating platitudes.

I tell Helio, “I don’t want you to go home.”

“Then I’ll stay.” The radiance in his crooked smile nearly puts me on my arse.

I add, “I want you to come upstairs with me.”

Helio slips his fingers beneath mine and brings my scarred knuckles to his mouth. “Then I’ll come upstairs with you.”

War takes everything, the captain would say. If you want anything left at the end, you have to build it yourself.