They were children the first time the words crossed her lips.

Years later, Elowen could still remember the way her cheeks had ached with laughter as the two of them crouched behind an old wheelbarrow. William had been clutching a firecracker in one sweaty palm, a shaking flint in the other. She recalled the nervous glances he’d cast around the town square, anxious that a passerby would rat out the duo before they had their chance at mischief.

“This is dumb,” he’d whispered.

“You’re the one holding the match Willy,” was her reply.

“And you’re the one who stole a firecracker. Where’d you get this, anyway?”

“Not important- oh, here she comes. Get ready!”

The Empress’s armed guard had entered the square, followed by her escorts and soon the Empress herself. Elowen remembered the way the sun had set the Empress’s crown ablaze, the silks of her gown trailing behind her while they’d all bowed in rags, the air filling with the perfume of a life they’d never touched.

William had turned to Elowen then, a sly grin beginning to break through his nerves. “You know, we could get caught.”

“We won’t.” She grasped his arm eagerly. “Light it!”

He hesitated.

She leaned in closer. “I trust you.”

The firecracker streaked through the air, going off over the Empress and her entourage with a shriek. The two had bolted off into the growing crowd, laughing so spiritedly it stung their lungs.

***

By the next time she said it, time had blurred the soft outlines of youth, etching sharper forms in their place.

At nineteen years old, they'd stood hand in hand in the darkness. The other recruits, or rebels as the Empress would call them, were all sleeping after hours of trekking across the country before finally clambering into the back of a wagon. With any luck, they’d reach the rebels home base before dawn- and, more importantly, before anyone realized they had gone.

“I heard that two thirds of recruits don’t make it past the border,” William had murmured.

“Don’t think about that. We’ll make it.”

“I’m not scared for me.”

She’d squeezed his hand. “You don’t need to protect me, Will.”

“I know.” When he turned towards her, she could barely make out his silhouette in the moonlight. “But if we did get separated…”

“We aren’t going to.”

He didn’t speak again until the sun was high in the sky. But when she’d whispered the words, they both knew it had been a promise.

“I trust you.”

***

The third time, they’d been bloodied and buried deep behind enemy lines. When William had stumbled, Elowen had been there to drag him through ash and fire, each step an echo of their vow. When she’d pulled him into a collapsed corridor away from the fighting, she knew that blood stained what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

“It’s going to be okay,” she promised as she pressed her hands against the wound that split William’s side.

“You shouldn't have risked yourself for me. Leave me, please,” he’d rasped.

“No.”

“They'll kill you too. Or the others will leave you behind. You’re dead either way if you don’t leave now.”

“Shut up.”

She pulled a bandage from her pack and began wrapping it tightly around his torso. She tried not to notice how quickly the blood soaked through the gauze. 

“You know, we always used to dream about getting to see inside the castle. And I must say, it doesn’t look a bit like I’d imagined. Even her highness has abandoned the place.”

“Yeah well, I imagine it looks better when it isn’t on fire, El,” he smiled.

They fell into silence for a long moment. As Elowen finished securing the binding, her hand had brushed against his chest. It was more to check his breathing than it was out of tenderness, though the line between the two had blurred over the years. 

William grabbed her wrist weakly. 

“You really won’t leave?”

“You know I won’t.”

She could almost hear his mind working as his eyes darted about.

When he spoke, hesitation edged his voice. “...They’ll come back for us if they think we found her. We could pretend.”

Surprised, and admittedly intrigued by the suggestion, Elowen had leaned in closer.

“I’m already going against orders by not leaving the wounded behind. You really want to implicate yourself when we get caught in a lie?”

“If they think you came back for me because I spotted the Empress, nobody would blame you. We can tell them she got away just before they arrived. I don’t think they’d leave us behind then. They’ll need us for information.”

“And when they realize we never saw her? What then?”

“I don’t know. But you won’t leave, and I’m not going to let you stay here just so you can get killed.”

“William…”

A flicker of mischief played at his lips then- subtle, but unmistakable to her. She’d seen that smile too many times not to know it by heart, and it struck her with the same force it always had.

“We’re already rebels, Elowen.”

And then she said it, unwavering.

“I trust you.”

***

The fourth time had been different.

It hadn’t taken long for the others to realize there had been no run-in with the Empress. William sat before a jury of rebels, his back to Elowen, but she could see his hands trembling slightly as one of their leaders carried on.

“She disobeyed a direct order, and your lies put your fellow soldiers in danger. And you’re saying it was done out of good faith? Perhaps your mind was muddled with injury at the time, but as for Elowen…”

The air felt too still. Elowen knew they were willing to pardon William, that all he had to do was place the blame into her own hands.

Finally, he said it- because anything else would have betrayed something deeper.

“I trust her.”

No one in the room accepted his explanation. But still Elowen exhaled.

Later, William had found Elowen sitting alone in a stairwell.

“You shouldn't have said that,” she sighed when she saw him.

“Why?”

“Because they think we’re hiding something from them. They know we grew up near the castle, they likely worry we are sympathizers. It isn’t enough to say I went back because I couldn’t lose you.”

“I know.”

She couldn’t find it in herself to thank him then. She just closed her eyes and let her head rest against the wall.

***

The fifth time, the words came from her lips again.

The punishment for their crimes had meant returning to the fallen castle, searching for any whisper of the Empress or her treasures beneath the rubble. The rebels had reason to believe- so they said- that deep within the castle walls there was an armory which housed weapons that might turn the tide of the war.

It was a sacrifice dressed up as strategy, that much was clear to them both. The rebels likely didn’t expect the pair to ever return.

And yet, to their utter surprise, the castle seemed to be all but abandoned after their most recent attack, and it wasn’t long before they were standing before what they believed to be the door to the armory.

“Do you think they’d have placed some sort of trap around this?” Elowen wondered.

“Almost definitely. One wrong move and it backfires,” William nodded as he bent forward to examine the handle.

“So don’t make a wrong move. I’ve seen you pick all sorts of locks. This one should be no different.”

He glanced back. “You sure you want to gamble your life on that El? Even if I can get this thing open, we don’t know what could be in there.”

“I trust you.”

The lock hissed. The vault door opened.

***

By the sixth time, she felt so distant from the child who had so heedlessly uttered the words all those years ago.

The two of them had run into the woods after removing the strange weapons from the castle. The next day, William was kneeling beside a metal cylinder they’d placed down on a pile of moss.

“You know,” he’d mused, “it almost looks like those old firecrackers we used to throw near the castle walls. Remember those things? And look, it’s even got one of those strings.”

Elowen squatted down beside him, taking the object in hand. “I don’t know. It’s heavier than I remember. And it smells wrong.”

“Well, only one way to find out, I suppose. Let’s see if we can wake this thing up.”

William struck flint together until a spark began chasing its way up the fuse. It occurred to them in the same moment to create distance between themselves and the firecracker. 

A spark. A beat of silence.

Then the world exploded.

It seemed as though the very sky was split in two. Trees shattered, and roots were ripped from the earth as William and Elowen hit the ground hard.

Smoke filled the air as they lay stunned.

“That,” Elowen gasped for air, “was no firecracker.”

Hours later, they were still staring at the pile of explosive weapons reflecting in the moonlight. 

“We can’t give these to them, William. We just can’t.”

“Weapons like these will end the war. We won’t have to suffer anymore.”

“But how many others will suffer in our place? They think civilians are hiding the Empress, and they think they need to kill the Empress to win the war.”

“Maybe civilians _are_ housing her. People are scared. It would explain why we haven’t found her.”

“And if they are, what then? Rebels would use these weapons to destroy entire towns if it meant finding her, you know they would. It wouldn't end the war, it would turn the war on our own people.”

William sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“So what do you suppose we should do, bury the weapons?”

“Or we run with them. They might come looking for them if they realize we survived.”

She felt the weight of her words settle between them, shifting the gravity in the room. She was asking more than she’d ever dared and she knew whichever way he answered, there was no going back.

That time when she said it, it was almost like a dare.

“I trust you.”

He didn’t respond. He reached through the darkness, and for a moment, took her hand. 

Not a promise, not a plan.

Just contact.

***

The final time, everything had changed.

It had taken months for a band of rebels to catch up to them. And it had only taken minutes for them to fall to the Empress’s weapon. 

“We couldn’t let them tell the others about the weapons. We had to do it,” Elowen finally whispered.

“They took us in when nobody else would. And now I killed them, for you. Because of you.”

When Elowen looked up, she realized William was standing over her with a knife. For a moment she wondered if he was posturing for the others, then she remembered it was just them now. When she searched his gaze she found only echoes- of the things they’d seen, and of what he was still afraid to face.

But she didn’t cry or plead. She only watched.

He lifted the knife. Pointed it at her throat. Something in her shifted, but she didn’t turn away from him.

“I trust you,” she said.

Not out of defiance or bravery. Just truth.

His eyes never left hers. His hand trembled. The blade lowered, almost imperceptibly, then finally fell to the ground.

He knelt before her, their foreheads touching. Neither spoke.

In the silence, something passed between them- heavier than forgiveness, older than hope.

Trust, though splintered by time, still knotted between them like an old scar.

She’d meant it. And somehow, that was enough.