The End

Victory.

It was suddenly so very surreal. Right until this moment, Sirec hadn’t even realized that he had fully expected for this conflict to continue on and on until the end of his days. But it was done. It was won. They had won! They had taken back their kingdom, their home, and they were putting a king of their own making upon the throne. He was sure men and women of better minds than his would be working out the details for the rest of the ruling class. He was sure, with as many lectures as Helena had given him over the course of their rebellion over how “things aren’t that simple, you oaf!” that Helena would be among those who shaped the course of the new ruling class of Ishtar. Then a wave of elation broke through his dumb shock. His gaze darted about as a grin so wide it hurt cracked his face in two. This was a moment to be shared with friends and comrades and if Girik wasn’t already necking with or proposing to Helena, Sirec fully intended to take his dear friend up in the biggest bear hug he could manage, battered as he was. He was going to sweep her off her feet and bask in the sound of her complaining and grumbling and hollering that she be put down. He would probably guffaw when she tried to beat him with her slipper or whatever non-lethal object she could find at hand.

And then he saw her. She stood out on the field, mostly alone among the bodies of the fallen guard that had stood rank rather than join in freeing the people of Ishtar. The way the wind blew her merchant’s robe and the way the light hit her made Sirec pause for just a moment. She looked like hero from one of those portraits in those books she kept. He could not read them himself but she had read him many tales from those pages and he had looked at every image they kept between the scribbly words.

“Helena!” he called out at the top of his lungs with all his elated joy, then regretted it as he cradled his bruised ribs, “Oof,” he grumbled quietly before he was dashing across the distance. He called out to her again and again as he ran—well, perhaps “ran” was a bit of a stretch, “stumbling quickly with purpose” might have fit the flailing spectacle he made a bit better.

It took some time for the creeping worry to set in. For though he was making quite a scene complete with overly loud hollering, Helena did not turn to look at him. He was still perhaps a hundred feet from her when the winds changed and Helena’s red and gold merchant’s robe billowed back.

Sirec’s heart stopped, his foot caught on some abandoned piece of armory and he tumbled to his knees, jarring his ribs in a wave of throbbing, dizzying pain. A body among the fallen king’s men was not nearly as dead as the rest of his cruel brothers. The not so dead man had used what strength he had left to put a blade through Helena’s gut. The world came to a stop and turned on its head before Sirec let loose a horrible scream. He was on his feet again and scrambling across the impossible distance, over fallen weapons and rotting men. Without a bit of hesitation, he cut the sneering man’s throat with an animalistic sound. The king’s guard had been staring up into Helena’s face with some sort of sick victory and it was not until Sirec turned his attention to his childhood friend that he realized she had been staring right back with a look of only vague surprise.

Without the man to hold the blade steady, Helena began to fall. Sirec rose up to meet her half way and sloppily they fell together, Sirec trying to hold her in his lap rather than let her fall into the mud. He cried out as loud as he could, not minding the pain of his ribs this time, for help. They were so far off from the rest who were all shouting and celebrating inside the palace, he was terrified no one would hear him.

“Help!” He cried again and again as tears began to roll down his face, “Healer! Someone call a healer!” He only paused in his hollering when Helena’s voice cut in.

“Sirec–”

“You’re going to be fine, Hell.” He assured though it was more for himself than anything as he finally realized just how much blood she was covered in. It had blended in his mind with the red of her merchant’s robe but now that he looked at her he could see the quickly growing blotch of red around the hole in her middle where she had slid from the blade. It turned the blue of her dress a horrible color that he would never, in all his days, forget.

“It’s a bit cold out here.” She murmured. Her voice was not as it normally was. It was just a bit croaky and so very small now.

Sirec choked and cried out again, “Help!” he could feel sobs rising up in his throat but tried to reassure his friend anyway, “We’re just sitting in the shade. It’s a nice relief from the heat, yeah?” It was a bad lie considering they were very obviously in the middle of a very open, very sunny field. He tried to laugh for her but the sound was quickly dissolved into sobbing.

“Did we do it?” She asked. He looked up to cry out again but a few people were already running across the battlefield to them.

Sirec could only nod his head for a time as the sobs took away his breath, “Y-es. We won.” he labored out, “Now you’ve got to help sort out these nobles, you know. No one’s got as much brains as you.” he kept trying to smile down at her but the expression could not hold under the weight of his fear and sorrow.

“Where’s Girik? Is he alright?” She asked, brushing past his assurances. She could feel the life slipping from her body. It was frightening and it made her quite sad but Sirec was there and she would not have her dearest friend—a man that was practically her little brother—remember her as being terrified against something neither of them could fight.

Sirec did not know for sure that Girik was unharmed or even alive but he nodded quickly anyway and then yelled brokenly across to the few people rushing towards them, “Get Girik! Get Girik!” A small figure, further back then the rest, changed course and started rushing back to the main populous.

Helena reached up and took hold of Sirec’s arm. It was a weak grasp and it made the thief’s heart lurch as he looked down at her, “A year.”

“What?” he rasped in confusion. He had been trying to avoid looking into her face. Somehow looking into her eyes and seeing the light in them slowly fading away would make this whole thing truly real and he did not think he could bear that. Only now that he was looking into her large, beautiful eyes, he could see the gentle acceptance, the resignation, and the little tears quietly leaking out the corners of her eyes to run hide in her hair.

“You can all be sad for one year. After that, you must relegate your sorrow to only a little time a day if it tries to linger in your life. And you, you big oaf, will not drown your sorrow in pubs or taverns–”

“Stop!” he choked on the word, “Stop! I’ve got no reason to be sad! You’re going to be fine, Helena. You’re going to be fine and we won! We won and you’re going to be fine.” and then he was sobbing so much he could not continue denying it.

There were suddenly hands on Helena and Sirec nearly wrenched her from the healer that had come running to her aid before he even realized who the man was. He could only pick up bits and pieces of what the man was saying.

She’s losing a lot of blood.

Pressure.

Boy, focus! Hold that firm!

He could feel Helena’s blood slicking up his hand and wanted to wretch, wanted to shut his eyes and hide from this horror, wanted to go back and wake up that morning and demand Helena not leave bed much less come liberate a kingdom.

“Don’t go.” He whispered, “Please, Helena. Please don’t go.”

“I’m sorry, Sirec.” The quiet apology made Sirec’s chest heave several times as he closed his eyes and bowed his head to cry over her.

“Wh-where’s Girik!?” He snarled when he could find some breath to spare.

“I think I’m going to have to go to sleep now, Sirec.” Helena said in a patient tone mothers used on children.

“No! No, you have to stay awake, Hell! You have to stay here. You can’t leave without seeing Girik.” he was reaching for straws now, praying the promise of her love would keep her in the world a little longer, at least. Long enough for the healer to mend her, to make her whole and well again, to pull her back from Death’s grasp.

“I’m sorry, little brother. You two have to take care of one another now. I’m sorry.” And then her eyes were closing and all Sirec could do was scream and cry and wail at Helena to stay, at the gods to bring her back, and at the cruelty that had taken her.

Moments later, Girik was running across the still battlefield. His stomach dropped the moment he made out Helena laying in a sobbing Sirec’s arms with a healer and healer’s apprentice standing tall and away from the pair, heads bowed in silent prayers. Girik stumbled to his knees and slid to a stop before Sirec, barely aware that his hurry to be at Helena’s side had resulted in skinned knees.

“Helena? Helena! Sirec, what’s wrong with her? Sirec, tell me!” But Girik already knew. He had known the moment he laid eyes on the scene and Sirec was sobbing so much he could not speak even if he had wanted to answer Girik’s demands.

Girik took Helena’s limp but still warm hand. He patted the back insistently a few times as he cooed urgently at Helena’s still, lax form, “Darling. Darling, please. We’ve come so far, I’m a free man now, it’s hardly fair to hide your eyes from me.” But there was not so much as a flicker of her lashes or a twitch of her fingers. He grit his teeth hard as he silently brought her lifeless hand to his cheek and soaked it in his tears and quiet sobs.

Both men had been ready to pay high prices for their freedom, had been willing to lay their lives on the line and lose them if things turned bad. They had been so very willing to die for victory, had been willing to bury their comrades and friends for this cause. But neither had ever been prepared to—had even conceived of—paying the price of their liberation with Helena’s life. It was not fair.

But no god had ever promised fairness and the world did not stop for a merchant daughter’s death; not even one who had lead a revolution and taken down The Bloody Mad King. Some day there might be memorials or songs or histories of their brave and smart Helena or, like so many other women who changed the world, she might be simply forgotten. None of that mattered to the two men on the field, however.

Helena was dead.

And none could bring her back.