Dusk was still two hours away, but the air already tasted of metal rubbed on whetstone.
Shen's engineers worked without curses now—a bad sign; men save breath for dying.
Lan walked the reverse slope, checking caltrop cords, when a runner found her:
"General's compliments. Bring your sharpening stone."
The boy flushed as if he'd caught himself eavesdropping on lovers.
She found Shen behind the command dug-out, alone, helm off, hair plastered to skull by sweat that froze as fast as it formed.
A whetstone balanced on his knee; beside him, her own stone—the one she'd lost three nights ago in the crow-swing assault—sat waiting like a returned stray.
"I borrowed it," he said without looking up. "Edge was better."
He gestured: sit.
Between them lay his dagger and her short-sword, both nicked from rib-bones at noon.
They worked in silence—stone kissing iron, iron kissing stone—a lullaby of sparks.
Each spark lived a heartbeat, died on the snow, became a star no one would name.
Lan counted them the way some count prayer-beads.
After the tenth sweep he spoke, voice pitched only for her ears.
"Do you remember the peach orchard outside Red-Forge? The night before we left for the northern garrisons."
She did.
Spring night, lanterns strung like drunken moons, petals sticking to boots.
He had been twenty-three, she seventeen—not yet scout-captain, not yet legend, only two cadets stealing hours.
He'd tried to teach her the courtly harp; she'd broken two strings, then kissed him to hide embarrassment.
They had tasted sap and cider on each other's mouths.
"I remember you swore you'd never wear black," she said.
"And you swore you'd never follow a man who did."
A smile ghosted across his face—small, crooked, belonging to the boy not the prince.
"Look at us now," he murmured. "Perjurers in good company."
He turned her blade, examining the edge.
"Still chipped at forty-five degrees. You favour the back-swing too much."
"Your wrist is too stiff on the forward draw," she countered.
They adjusted—not instruction, but ritual, the way old married folk finish each other's proverbs.
Snow began to fall—fat lazy flakes that hissed on hot steel.
He lifted the dagger, tested balance, then—unexpected—laid it across her open palm.
"Keep it till dawn. Edge remembers the hand that feeds it."
His fingers lingered a breath longer than metal required; skin met skin where stitches had been, warmth finding warmth through cracked linen.
She should have joked, should have slid the dagger beneath her belt and risen.
Instead she closed her hand over his.
"Shen."
The name tasted of cider and sap and the dust of five campaigns.
"If dusk goes badly—"
He shook his head once—not denial, but refusal to mortgage the moment.
"Then we'll owe each other nothing. Debts cancel when ledgers burn."
But his thumb traced the half-moon scar on her knuckle—a gift from the salt circle night—as if tallying interest that could never be called.
A shout drifted from the ballista line—"String ready!"—and the world rushed back in.
He withdrew first, but slowly, like a man stepping from warm water into winter.
She slid the dagger inside her left boot—his place until returned.
He stood, offered no farewell; they had long ago spent that coin.
At the dug-out mouth he paused, spoke without turning.
"Lan—when the ridge shadow touches the red rectangle, find me. There's a ledge behind the third pine—west side. Bring your harp if you still carry it."
She almost laughed—the harp had been fire-wood at the third ford—but understood: come as the girl, not the scout.
She answered with the only promise that mattered.
"I'll bring the strings."
He walked off, cloak swallowing him, black on grey.
She sat a moment longer, palm tingling where his pulse had beaten against hers—one second of peace bought at the edge of extinction.
Then she rose, tested her short-sword on a falling flake—cut snow, cut silence—and went back to caltrops and cords, heart warmer than steel, colder than hope.
Above them both the clouds lowered, counting heartbeats until dusk, until iron, until the ledge where two perjurers might—for the length of a song—remember peaches.