After the Story of Her Dead Husband, Helga Came to My Room
Top of the wall. Walking side by side with Helga. The whole picture was absurdly perfect.
The moonlight was brilliant. This world's moon was bigger than Earth's, and the plain below lay drowned in silver.
Helga had shed her armor, wearing a leather vest over a white shirt. Her figure was far better than what I'd managed to guess beneath the armor during the day. Broad shoulders, a taut chest, a slim waist, a firm backside.
Fucking gorgeous. Not that this was the time for thoughts like that. ...The way my cock reacted ahead of my brain even in a place like this — I guess I was going to be this exact shape no matter how far I went.
"...What are you looking at."
Busted.
"The moon's bright."
"The moon is over there."
Well, shit.
"...Men are all like that."
Helga sighed — a sigh closer to resignation than anything else.
"I'm sorry."
"Spare me the apology. Just don't try anything weird."
"I won't."
An awkward silence settled over us. Only the sound of our boots rang out. Tap, tap, tap.
"We'll check from the third post and work our way back."
Helga was not the kind of person who strolled to match my stride. As we circled the wall she opened the torch oil canisters to check their levels, and flicked the crossbow strings with a fingertip to test their tension. At the western stairs, she caught a rookie dozing on his feet.
"On your feet."
The rookie shot upright. Twenty, maybe. His face had gone white as chalk.
"I'm sorry, Instructor!"
"Second night post today?"
"Yes."
"The shift roster says it's your first."
Helga's voice was low, but she wasn't shouting. The rookie wavered for a long moment before confessing that he'd stood an extra shift in place of his senior, who'd been carried to the infirmary that day. Helga didn't leap straight to punishment. She called over the senior from the neighboring post to verify the story, sent the rookie down the stairs, and then wrote her own name at the bottom of the roster.
"I'll stand the missing hour myself. In exchange, from tomorrow on, if you want to swap a shift for family, you report it first. An exhausted sentry is more dangerous than an empty post."
"But it isn't your shift, Instructor."
"That's why I'm writing it on the roster. Fill in for someone in secret, and the next man will hide it too."
The rookie bit his lip and saluted. His steps wobbled as he went down the stairs. Helga pretended to study the view beyond the railing until he had fully disappeared.
"You're strict."
"If you're about to call that going easy on him, you're wrong. He's writing a disciplinary report tomorrow."
"I meant the kind of strictness that makes a man fix the cause of his mistake, not just the mistake itself."
Instead of answering, Helga checked the safety pin on the next crossbow. The woman standing in front of me didn't match the story of someone who had lived two years as an empty shell after losing Arnon. Even while falling apart, Helga had corrected someone's duty roster every day and filled the wall's torch oil. These were exactly the kinds of evidence people leave out when judging their own lives most harshly.
"...Do you patrol every night?"
"When sleep won't come. Walking helps. If I lie down, all I do is stare at the ceiling."
"Since when?"
"...Since two years ago."
Since Arnon died. I understood all too well what lying awake and staring at the ceiling meant. I'd done the same in Korea. ...So this woman had spent her nights glaring at that ceiling alone, over and over.
"Do you like the moon from up on these walls?"
"...What?"
"The moon. It's pretty, isn't it?"
Helga gave me a strange look.
"...You're the first person to ever ask a knight if the moon is pretty."
"I'm asking a person, not a knight."
"............It is pretty. Arnon and I came up here together, too."
Arnon's name had come out naturally. Yesterday I was the one who brought him up; today Helga did first. ...The water that had pooled was starting to seep, drop by drop. And I'm a bastard who never misses a crack like that.
"What kind of man was Arnon?"
"...A fool. Always laughing, that one. My complete opposite. He loved making me laugh. Used to say, 'When Helga smiles, it's like silver melting.'"
"Poetic."
"He swung a sword for a living. What poet."
Helga snorted. A crack ran through the face that had been frozen for two years.
"...Why are you looking at me like that."
"Because you smile beautifully."
"..."
Helga turned her head away. Her ears had gone red.
The sight of those red ears sent a tingling pull through my lower belly. Fuck. Getting hard even now. Hold it. Press it down, hard — if she catches this, it's truly over.
A jolt.
"Don't say stupid things."
Her pace quickened.
After we passed the fourth post, it was Helga who slowed first.
"Arnon never liked the moon much."
"Didn't you say the two of you came up here together?"
"He only came along because I liked it. The moment we got up high, he'd grumble nonstop about being hungry."
"So hunger always beat romance with him."
"He was the type to empty an entire cauldron after training, that man."
This time her laughter lasted a little longer. Helga didn't dress Arnon up as a saint. He always put salt in the soup twice; he could tend a sword flawlessly but threw his socks under the bed; and every time they fought, instead of apologizing he left behind a strange animal carved out of wood. By the end, there were twelve of them — figures you couldn't tell whether they were meant to be horses or dogs.
"Do you still have them?"
"They're in a box. I couldn't throw them away."
"You don't have to."
"You say that far too easily."
"Because I don't believe forgetting is the cure."
Helga's steps stopped. The wariness that had been hiding behind the laughter climbed back up.
"Everyone said that. Let it go now. Put the sword away, change the room, meet another man. As if remembering Arnon this long were proof that I wasn't healing."
"If you measure recovery by the amount of remembering, no one ever passes. And keeping his things is not the same as chaining your own life to them."
"How are those any different?"
"If today's Helga can choose whether or not to open the box, it's a memory. If the box takes away your ability to choose anything at all, it's closer to a prison."
Helga said nothing for a while. Then her hand went to the ring of keys at her hip. One small iron key knocked against the others and rang out, clear and bright.
"It's the key to the box."
"Do you want to open it today?"
"No. Today I just wanted to say that I'm carrying it."
"That, too, is a choice you made, Helga."
Helga started walking again. This time, not half a step ahead of me — beside me.
One full lap of the wall brought us to a stop at the eastern watchtower. Helga leaned on the railing and looked down over the plain.
"...Arnon was a fool. I told him it was dangerous, and he dove in ahead of me."
The wind blew. Helga's silver hair scattered in it.
"There were three demonkin warriors. I'm an instructor. I was stronger than Arnon. But that fool leapt out in front of me, shouting, 'Helga, get back!'"
Her fingers went white where they gripped the railing.
"A blade sank into his back. Three times. Right before my eyes. He turned to look at me and smiled. Said, 'You're safe.' That was the last."
I stood beside her and listened. This was the time for listening. Not the time for offering answers — just the time to stand next to this woman and stay there.
"I saw to his body myself. He was cold, Arnon's body. That's when the sleep stopped. The moment I close my eyes, I see it."
I opened my mouth.
"You're allowed to cry, Instructor."
"What?"
"You're allowed to cry."
"A knight mustn't cry."
"This isn't the training yard. It's the middle of the night, under moonlight, and nobody's watching."
"You're watching, aren't you."
"I'm a counselor. Watching people cry is my profession."
Helga's gray eyes wavered. Hard. The dam was cracking. But it did not break. She clenched her teeth and held.
"...I'm not going to cry."
"All right."
I didn't rush to offer comfort. I simply stood there beside her until Helga pulled off her glove and rested her bare hand on the railing.
"The day before Arnon marched out, we fought."
Helga said it while looking past the railing.
"He'd volunteered to support the vanguard of the scouting party. I told him it was dangerous; Arnon said someone had to go. Do you know what I said to him at the end?"
I shook my head.
"I told him to do as he pleased. I was planning to demand an apology when he came home. That became our last conversation."
It was a sentence worn smooth by two years of repetition. Inside Helga's memory, do as you please must have hardened into the command that shoved Arnon toward his death.
"If you had told him not to go, would Arnon have withdrawn?"
"...No."
"Then your last words weren't what produced the outcome."
"It isn't that simple."
"I never said it was simple. What I'm saying is that guilt and responsibility shouldn't be called by the same name. The one who set the scouting route, the one who approved the volunteers, whoever missed the demonkin detour, whoever was slow to relay the distress signal — the responsibilities to investigate were scattered across plenty of places. They can't all collapse onto one wife who happened to lose her temper at the very end."
Helga's hand was trembling. I didn't reach for it. What she needed now wasn't contact — it was the knowledge that she could close the distance herself, if she wanted to.
"I've read the battle report from that day. More than twenty times."
"Were there any changed records?"
"The first draft said the request for support came three times too late. In the final version, it had been cut to one. Lebran called it an administrative error. I didn't have the strength to fight it back then."
Lebran.
The name of the man who had let the fake supply line through surfaced in a dead knight's report as well. Even so, Helga's memory alone couldn't confirm tampering in the past.
"Did you keep that record somewhere safe?"
"There's a copy of the first draft in my drawer."
"Tomorrow, let's cross-check it against the original — the author, the delivery times. But don't build a conclusion tonight. Memory can point an investigation; it can't replace evidence."
"Strange thing for a counselor to say. When you can read what's inside people's heads."
"Even what I read is only the scene as that person remembers it. It can be wrong, it can be incomplete, and I can misinterpret it too."
For the first time, Helga regarded my ability as a dangerous tool rather than a convenient answer.
"Have you ever used it on me?"
"No."
"Not today either?"
"Not today either. And if you want, we can start right now by agreeing on a way to verify that my ability is fully closed."
Helga took a silver coin from her pocket. She turned both hands behind her back, then hid it inside one fist.
"Which hand?"
"I don't know."
"Guess — without reading me."
"Left."
Her right hand opened. The silver coin caught the moonlight.
"Wrong."
"You look relieved."
"Isn't that reading?"
"Reading your face. If even that much observation is off-limits, I'd have to walk around with my eyes closed."
Helga snorted. But her clenched fingers had loosened, a little. She hid the coin two more times, and I was wrong both times. Not wrong on purpose — I genuinely didn't know. When a man who can read hearts chooses not to read, that ignorance can give the other person a kind of safety all its own.
"I won't tell you to forget Arnon. But think about this: who was it that ordered you to be the only one who remembers him?"
Helga didn't answer — but she was the first to start down the watchtower stairs.
On the way down from the watchtower, Helga retold Arnon's final mission from the very beginning. He had stood at the head to block the demonkin's detour; the unit survived, but his body came home in pieces.
"I picked up every piece myself. Down to a single finger. I hated the thought of anyone else touching him."
"So for two years you haven't been able to hand anything over to anyone."
"The moment I hand it off, I'll miss something again. That's why I kept even a snake like Lebran close all this time — where I could watch him."
Her grief and the spy affair grew from the same root. The conviction that everything had to be guarded by her own two hands. That conviction was what kept Helga standing — and what blinded her to everyone around her.
"Where are the knights who came back alive that day now?"
"Of the twelve, five fell in that fight and three were discharged. The remaining four are still in this castle."
"Have you ever spoken to them about Arnon?"
"Reading his name at the memorial — that's all."
"You don't have to start tomorrow. Just keep the door open on this: keeping Arnon safe doesn't require you to be the only one who remembers him."
"Everything's an option with you, isn't it."
"Options outlast orders."
Halfway down the stairs, Helga turned back.
"Your ability is an order too."
It was a precise point.
"Which is exactly why I have to be careful. My ability is fast — but there's no guarantee that a fast change is that person's change. Whether the things you told me tonight were answers I pulled out of you or answers you chose on your own, we'll have to check again tomorrow."
"And if tomorrow you pretend you don't know?"
"Then I'll accept that tonight's story belonged to Helga, and I'll wait."
"Your profession sounds remarkably frustrating."
"A profession that handles human hearts has to be frustrating to be safe."
When we reached the first floor, Helga stopped by the guard room and redrew the rookie's shift schedule. She checked on the ailing senior at the infirmary and asked another knight to come on shift an hour early. The name she had written down — her own, offering to stand in his place — she never erased. Leaving a trace, she said, that the instructor hadn't shoved the responsibility onto someone else.
"If I don't drink tonight, do you think I'll be able to sleep?"
"I don't know."
"Then what about choosing someone to stay with me even if I can't?"
Helga didn't answer until we'd reached the end of the corridor. But there, in front of her own door, she took out her key — and put it back. That small motion was her answer for today.
The officers' quarters corridor. Our steps stopped in front of my room and hers.
"Tonight's story — forget it."
"I won't forget. But I won't bring it up carelessly, either."
Helga opened her door, then closed it again. A moment later she crossed over to my side.
"If I sleep alone, I'll just drink again. Stay with me — just for tonight."
Her room held one bed and one chair and nothing else. I gestured at the chair, but Helga shook her head.
"Beside me. But the moment I say I don't want it, it ends right there."
"Understood."
At first we simply lay down, still dressed. Helga kept her back to me and said nothing for a long while. Then her hand found mine and drew it up onto her waist.
"This is the first time since Arnon died. Closing my eyes with someone behind me."
"I won't move a muscle until you fall asleep."
"Don't be that gentle. It only makes me want more."
Helga turned over. Before our lips could meet, we asked each other the same question. Whether we truly wanted this. Whether, even if we regretted it tomorrow, we could refuse to disown today's choice.
I checked one more thing.
"You haven't had anything to drink, right?"
"Only water, before the patrol."
"And I won't use my ability. Even if you ask first — not tonight."
"Good."
"And if your heart changes, you can stop for no reason at all. You won't owe me an explanation afterward, either."
"That rule applies to you too."
"Yes."
Helga rose from the bed to check the door once more. After locking it, she set the key on the table on her side of the bed. A lock to keep anyone from coming in — not a lock to keep anyone from leaving. She left the window open by about the width of a hand, and the cold air slowly cooled the heat that had gathered in the room.
"When morning comes, don't write this down like a treatment result."
"If I record anything, it will say only that no ability was used, and that you chose of your own will where to sleep. Private matters stay out of the record entirely."
"I read that part first."
"Of course."
Only then did Helga take hold of my shirt collar. She tugged once, stopped, and searched my eyes. When I nodded, she closed the rest of the distance.
Helga's answer was short.
"I want this. I want to hold someone alive."
Our lips touched. At first it was a brief contact, each of us checking where to stop. Then Helga leaned in again, and this time it lasted long enough for our breaths to mingle.
Helga set the pace of undressing, too. Every time my hand found unfamiliar ground, she would stop it, tell me it was all right, or move it herself toward what she wanted. I never strayed outside those signals.
I didn't force my name down over the place where Arnon's had rested. I didn't promise not to compare, either. The present didn't need the past erased in order to begin.
Helga studied my face for a long time, then pressed her forehead against mine.
"You're not holding me out of pity right now, are you?"
"No."
"Or because I'm someone who needs fixing?"
"No."
"Then that's enough."
Helga called my name first.
Even without pushing the dead out of the way, the warmth of the living did not go cold.