“You fucking did. You rode into the fire.”

“Tahj’s horses were panicking.

His men would have burnt.”

Heat rose in Donal like flame.

“You could have died. And for what?

They’re the enemy, or as close

as makes no fucking difference.”

A matching heat in Xau’s voice.

“We would not abandon

even our enemies to burn.

As you should know.”

The ranked soldiers watched

from the side of the road.

Donal swallowed what he wanted to say:

that Xau was a fool,

had been a fool six years ago,

risking himself—“Were you injured?”

“No. We’re well. Just tired.”

Then both of them silent

for the last mile back to the fort.

HER

Tired,

a gray tiredness,

scarcely able to sit his horse,

to reach the fort, dismount,

the horse taken from him

as he mumbles instructions

for its care;

his generals assembling,

his advisors pressing for attention.

He thanks the four men

who accompanied him, bows deep,

dismisses them to wash and eat and sleep,

though Li, captain of his guards,

refuses to leave,

remains at his side, a bulwark, a shield.

The short walk to the meeting room

lengthened by weariness,

the gray, remorseless spool of duties

unwinding before him.

Within: table, maps, a tray with tea,

a woman standing,

her back to him,

staring out the window:

Hana.

His wife, his queen.

He is afraid to breathe.

She turns to him.

He is afraid to breathe,

afraid she is a figment

of his longing.

She cannot, should not be here;

he cannot, should not be glad

that she left the palace,

her duty, his children.

He is afraid to breathe,

wide awake,

nervous as a boy,

all else displaced

but her.

HIM

Hana hardly knows him,

this man, King Xau, her husband,

returned to her in glory,

another deed notched

in his legend.

(This sleeping man pressed against her

in the narrow soldier’s bed

in the mountain fort.)

She hardly knows him.

One day together before he left,

then the waiting, the rumors of war,

learning about him

by the shadows he cast:

Tian, his elderly cleaning woman,

rubbing oil into the wood

of his desk, the soft fierce sound

of the cloth wiping and wiping,

as if that act would hold Xau safe.

Donal, King of Innis,

red-haired and red-handed in war,

strong, brash, dauntless:

the deference in his voice

when he spoke of Xau.

Xau starts awake beside her.

Dark, not yet morning.

He strokes her hair, her arm,

dismisses the guard

stationed in their room.

She pushes him onto his back,

neither of them gentle.

Afterward, he maps her body by touch,

his hands scarred, a roughness.

He calls the guard back,

pulls on warm clothes.

She dresses as quickly,

follows Xau and two guards

to the stables.

That smell of horse, of hay, of leather

as Xau checks on his horses,

his guards’ horses,

her horses.

The horses turn

to inhale his breath,

nicker when he scratches their withers,

but there is nothing to sing about,