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The ride back to Knightsrest takes less time than the initial ride to Granite Falls had, which Lucían assumes is due to it being downhill, and also possibly due to the Badger’s claim that the returning always takes less time than the going. Whatever the reason, they make it in just over a week and Lucían has the singular experience of once again riding into Knightsrest in the late afternoon, only this time he actually knows his way around the city and can deftly guide Daffodil through the bustle of traffic at the main gates. The weather has edged further toward true summer at this lower elevation, the trees fully filled out with leaves and he can see occasional tiny apples or pears starting to develop here and there. The rooftop and window box gardens are absolutely overgrown with peas and leafy greens, and much of the populace has removed the sleeves from their dresses and tunics. It’s an option Lucían’s never really considered before, but he’s sweating into his underlinens in the simmering afternoon heat and it seems like it might be necessary.
They make it to the Guild Headquarters right at the beginning of dinner, and Glory leads them directly into the dining hall. Someone yells, “She-Wolf!” and tackles her into a hug, but then someone else yells, “Lucían!” and the Knife barrels into his chest and lifts him off the ground.
“I heard the Guild made you an offer!” she says, bouncing him in the air, her arms an iron shackle around his ribs. “You’re taking it, right? What’s your Guildname?”
“It’s nice to see you too. I can’t breathe,” he says in response, batting at her head, and she sets him back down with mild reluctance. The Knife picks up his abandoned saddlebags, tosses them over her shoulder, and gives him a little shove in the direction of the food. It’s so familiar and friendly and easy to be like this that Lucían’s breath catches a little, and not just because his ribs are still a bit sore from her hug.
“The Guild did extend an offer,” he tells her as they work their way across the room. He can smell something with chilies in it and tries to work out where on the large serving tables that item is located, like a spice-tracking bloodhound.
“And?” The Knife grabs a tray, sets a plate and a bowl on it, and starts loading it up for Glory. Lucían can tell due to the massive pile of pastries. The chili smell proves to come from a massive vat of soup, so Lucían starts with a bowl of that and constructs a meal around it.
“I’m going to accept,” he says, and from the corner of his eye he can see the Knife struggle between the urge to hug him again and the knowledge that she’s carrying a large tray of food. Her arms vibrate, jangling the flatware, but she schools her face into impassivity.
“Guess it was all my training,” she says in a bored tone. “Good that they trust you not to die immediately and all.”
Lucían knows what she’s doing, and has a joking response on the tip of his tongue, but he remembers the first time he came into this dining hall and the Knife’s immediate, abrupt adoption of him, like a brooding hen sitting on a kitten and saying, “This one’s mine, too.” That’s probably the reason that when he actually speaks, what comes out is, “I’m glad I’m sticking around, too.”
The Knife blinks at him, turning to face him fully. “What?”
“The Guild—” Lucían starts, hesitates a moment to get his thoughts in order “—the Guild has always treated me like I belong, not like an interloper or a guest, and that all started with you. I don’t know what it’s like to actually have a family, but I think maybe it’s a little bit like this. Thank you, Knife.”
The Knife’s eyes go very wide and wet, and she clenches her jaw and tightens her hands on the tray until her knuckles pale to a milky tea color. She takes a deep breath, considering him for a long moment, and finally says, “My name’s Kia.”
Lucían nearly drops his plate. “Pardon?”
“My given name. It’s Kia.” The Kni—Kia shrugs, and it almost looks casual. “If we’re gonna be family and all I figure you ought to know.”
“Oh,” Lucían says. “Thank you, Kia.” It sounds weird in his mouth to call her something other than the Knife, but he supposes he’ll get used to it.
“So,” she says, ladling out some soup into the bowl for Glory, “what’s your Guildname gonna be?”
“You’ll have to come to the swearing in and find out yourself,” Lucían says, going for mysterious. The look on her face lets him know it’s only somewhat successful, and she pours two mugs of a chilled fruit tisane that Lucían sets on his tray. By the time they work their way back over to where the Kni— where Kia was sitting, Glory’s done wrestling with her welcome party and the Black Bear and the Kestrel have joined the table. The Wall and the Badger are out on a mission, he learns over dinner, and everyone promises to come to his swearing-in, which is apparently the following morning.
“No point in waiting,” Glory says with a shrug, and Lucían supposes that’s true enough. After they’re done the group drifts apart, and Lucían shoulders his saddlebags and heads to his and Glory’s rooms. He realizes halfway there that he’s actually leading, Glory one pace behind, and that’s such a startling feeling his feet almost miss a step. She unlocks their door and Lucían lights the lamps when they step inside, and—
The riot of color and pattern hits him first, and then the smell of the room, rosemary and pine and something else familiar he doesn’t quite recognize even under the unaired, dusty smell of a room left empty for what, a month and a half? Two months? It doesn’t matter, because they’re back now and the time he and Glory have spent in this room wraps around him like a blanket, or a hug, squeezing his heart. This is where he belongs, in this room with this woman, right here, right now and for as long as she’ll have him.
“Lucían?” Glory asks, cradling his face in her hands, which is when he realizes his eyes are streaming. Lucían drops his luggage and wraps his hands around her wrists, thumbs making little circles on the tender skin over her pulse point.
“I’m fine,” he says, blinking up at her, pale face dappled with new freckles from the summer sun, her green eyes and white-gold hair framed by an explosion of color on the wall behind her. “I’m great, actually, it’s just—I’ve never come home before.”
She smiles down at him, so brilliant it hurts to look at, and kisses him. “Welcome home,” she says against his lips, and he’s just so wonderfully, purely happy that he has to pull her down and kiss her again, and then he keeps kissing her until she picks him up and carries him to the bed, to their bed. Later, after they’ve made love and they’ve both scrubbed up in the tub and climbed back in between the sheets, Lucían curls up against her and breathes the rosemary smell of her skin. That other familiar smell is still here, and he can’t quite figure out how he knows it. He turns his face into the pillow, sniffing, and yeah, it’s there, too. The sheet also smells like it, but it’s not the smell of the soap they use for the laundry, so what is it?
“What are you sniffing so furiously?” Glory asks, slanting her green eyes down at him through her lashes. “I’m the wolf in this relationship, stop trying to steal my gig.”
“I’m trying to figure out why the room smells different,” Lucían says. “It used to smell like you, but it’s changed. There’s a bit of a sweet sort of smell now and I don’t know where it’s come from.”
“Oh,” Glory says, and she rolls over on her side so she can look him in the eyes. “That’s you.”
Lucían blinks. “I smell sweet?” he asks, bewildered, and Glory laughs and kisses him on the forehead.
“Yeah, a bit,” she says, tracing the line of his nose with her fingertips. “I like the way you smell, it’s like dried fruit or something. The room smells different because it’s ours now, and it smells like both of us together.”
“Oh,” Lucían says again, a complicated welter of feelings building in his ribcage. “I didn’t realize.”
“It’s only going to get more obvious as we spend more time together in here,” she says, rolling onto her back again and pulling him in until he curls up against her side, laying half on top of her. “Eventually it’s going to become its own specific smell, you’ll see.” Lucían finds he doesn’t have anything to say to that, so he kisses her collarbone, settles his head on her shoulder, and twitches his fingers to turn out the lamps.
***
THE SWEARING-IN CEREMONY turns out to be less of a ceremony and more of a meeting. Lucían stands in front of a large desk in what must be the main gathering hall for the Guild in front of three grizzled Guild elders, two women and a man, who look over some paperwork. Glory and a handful of other Guildmembers wait along the walls, mostly people he recognizes with a few new faces mixed in. He wasn’t entirely expecting to have an audience and it makes him a bit nervous.
“Given name?” the slender woman on the left asks, her dark skin wrinkled around the eyes and her curly black hair shot through with silver. She’d introduced herself as the Lioness and yeah, he can see that.
“Lucían,” he says, trying to figure out what he should do with his hands and finally just leaving them hanging at his sides.
“Do you have a family name?” the Lioness asks, writing down his given name with quick strokes.
“Not really,” he says, frowning a little. “I was taken in by a monastery as a foundling, I don’t remember my birth family. I suppose on the monastery records I was Lucían Abbey.” All the monks were called Abbey, not a particularly creative naming convention, and not one he’d actually thought about for some time.
“Well,” says the woman in the middle, pale with a shock of curly red hair and a stout, muscular build gone a bit soft around the edges. “We’ll put you down as Lucían Abbey for now and if you ever want to change it we can amend the paperwork.” She apparently goes by the Banshee.
“Lucían Abbey,” the Lioness reads out loud to herself. “Check my spelling, please.” Lucían leans forward and nods his approval, and she pulls the paperwork back over to herself and waits, quill poised over the next section. “Have you made a decision about your Guildname?” she asks, and Lucían can feel all the onlookers go silent, the weight of their attention as they lean forward. Oh. That’s why they came to watch, they’re all curious about this. He can just see Glory out of the corner of his eye, and she nods in his periphery even as he carefully keeps his eyes on the Lioness.
“I have,” he says, keeping his voice steady as his heart speeds up. “I’ve chosen the Flame.” That sends up a murmur around the edges of the room, which cuts off as the man on the right leans forward. He’s tall, muscular in that rounded way you get sometimes, with the long black hair, brown skin, and tattoos that mark him as coming from one of the island nations. Other than introducing himself as the Shark he hasn’t spoken yet.
“That’s an unusual choice,” he says, and even with his voice pitched low it practically booms. “What’s your reasoning?”
Lucían makes direct eye contact, extends a hand, and with a small effort of will makes it burst into flames. The Shark’s eyebrows climb up his forehead, the Banshee stares in unabashed delight, and the Lioness smiles. “Had to see it for yourself, didn’t you?” she says to the Shark. “You probably could have just asked, I hear he’s a very polite and agreeable young man.”
“Yes, well,” the Shark says, eyes still locked on Lucían’s burning hand, “I like to give people a chance to prove themselves. Does that get hot?”
“No,” Lucían says, letting the fire fade until it’s just dancing on the tips of his fingers. “Not to me, anyway. Um.” He frowns at his hand and pulls the fire in to just a single point, burning on his palm like a candle. “I didn’t just choose the Flame because of how I can use this in combat. I’m not—I’m really not a warrior, not like the She-Wolf or the others. I’m a healer, first and foremost, and fire... it’s been our tool and constant companion since it was first stolen from the gods. Without it we wouldn’t have survived or thrived the way we have. We cook with it, warm ourselves with it, and use its light to see by in the darkness.” He raises his eyes away from his palm, up to the three Guild elders, his jaw set in a determined line. “I want to be that light for people. I want to be able to spread hope and comfort like a hearthfire, and I want to be the guiding spark to show people the way when they’re lost in the dark. That’s why I chose the Flame.”
Silence greets his words, and Lucían isn’t sure if he overstepped, but it’s all the truth so he keeps his eyes up and his shoulders back, the little flame flickering in his palm. The Shark looks between the flame and Lucían’s face a few times and finally nods, his face breaking into a grin, white teeth flashing. “It’s a good name, son,” he says. “Welcome to the Guild.”
“We have to finish the paperwork first,” the Lioness says in a sing-song voice as she finishes her writing. “You always jump ahead, we still have the vow to go and everything.”
“To be fair, you could have finished the paperwork if you weren’t distracted by the magic,” the Banshee points out, and she nods toward Lucían’s hand. “You don’t need to keep that up if you don’t wish to. Your reasoning is well-thought out and exactly the kind of motivation we look for here.”
“Thank you,” Lucían says, and drops the spell, letting his hand fall back to his side. The nervousness is still there, but now it wars with pride. He has a place here, really and truly.
“I understand you wish to be officially assigned a partner?” the Lioness says, looking up from the paperwork.
His heart pounds once, hard, and he says, “I’d like to be assigned as the She-Wolf’s partner, please.”
“She-Wolf?” the Lioness asks, looking over to where she’s waiting on the edge of the room.
She steps forward, armor gleaming as brightly as her eyes, and says, “I would be honored to have the Flame as my official partner in all Guild business.”
“That’s settled,” the Lioness says, finishing up the paperwork with a flourish and setting down her quill. “Now then, Lucían Abbey, you have been invited to join the Warrior’s Guild of Knightsrest. Do you swear that you are joining us of your own free will and not due to coercion or force?”
“I swear,” Lucían says, mouth going dry at the same time that his palms go sweaty.
“Do you swear to uphold the principles of the Guild in all that you do? To protect those that need protecting, to help those that need help, and to stand up against those who would do harm to others?” That’s from the Banshee, and all the previous good humor in her eyes is gone as she fixes him with a steely blue stare.
“I swear,” Lucían says again, meeting that gaze levelly.
“And do you swear to work for the good of the Guild from within? To participate in its culture, to vote on the direction it goes, and to maintain the physical and social structures that make it up?” The Shark leans forward and regards him seriously as he asks.
“I swear,” Lucían tells him, honesty and determination behind his words.
“Then, by the power vested in us by those that chose us for leadership, we officially welcome the Flame as a full member of the Warrior’s Guild.” The Lioness grins at him, those wrinkles at the corners of her eyes crinkling up as the rest of the room starts clapping. “You’ll just need to sign here.”
Lucían signs where he’s told to, and Glory signs a couple of things as well to certify their partnership, and then Kia demands that they celebrate and drags everyone out to a nearby pub. Lucían’s initial concerns about everyone getting drunk before noon turns out to be unfounded, as the place has a larger inner plaza shaded by grape vines growing on trellises, and also a more extensive food menu than he’d expected. They eat platters of cheeses and smoked meats served with pickled vegetables and herbed breads, and the wine is served with massive amounts of fruit floating in it and has been mixed with a tisane, so it’s not too strong. Apparently whenever someone gets sworn in at the Guild everyone else uses it as an excuse to take some time off, so warriors he’s never seen before turn up to shake his hand, clap him on the back, and have a drink. It goes on until the early afternoon before the Shark, the Lioness, and the Banshee turn up and shoo everyone back to the Guild Headquarters, and Lucían leans against Glory, just the littlest bit tipsy, as they walk.
“We should contact the University about returning the books,” he says. “They’ve been waiting a long time.”
“So dedicated to the Guild already, are you?” she asks, squeezing his shoulder. “Want to show everyone what a good choice they made swearing in the Flame, huh?”
“A little,” he says, biting his lip to stifle a grin. “But mostly I want to be rid of them so I can never think about them again. Those books got me stabbed, punched, struck by magic lightning, and made me fight a necromancer. They’re a menace.”
“I don’t know. Those books brought us together, didn’t they?” She smiles down at him and runs her fingers through his hair. “I know I’ll remember them fondly. Maybe not the grimoire, though.”
“Then we’re agreed, at least, that the grimoire can go pound rocks.” Lucían bumps his shoulder into her bicep companionably. “Should we send a messenger when we get back?”
“Oh, I sent one this morning, actually,” Glory admits. “It might take a couple days for them to get back to us with an appointment time, so I wanted to stay on top of things.”
Lucían pulls away and narrows his eyes at her. “You are incredibly thoughtful,” he says, almost accusingly. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
“It’s possible,” Glory says, grinning, “but I don’t get tired of being complimented so please continue if the mood strikes you.”
He swipes at her, and she puts him in a headlock, and then the Knife insults them both for smiling their fool heads off so they both turn on her instead. It’s a good day all around.