Beyond the Shadows

“Kylar, what you do scares me. I can understand it in my head, but it’s still hard to fit my heart around. It’s, well, it’s horrifying and terrifying for me.”

“It’s horrifying and terrifying for me, too.”

She looked him in the eye still. “When I was escaping from the slavers, there was a Khalidoran who was going to kill a boy. I killed him. I killed the guilty so the innocent might live, and that’s what you did with the queen, Kylar. I hope I never have to kill again, but I won’t think that I’m better than you because you have to.”

“What? Slavers? Wait, you got kidnapped?”

“There’s a story more important than that, Kylar. When you died, I had a dream. A very short man appeared to me. He was handsome, with amazing white hair and yellow eyes and burn scars.”

Kylar froze again. It could only be the Wolf.

“He told me what immortality costs. Every time you die, someone you love dies in your place. He told me that this time it’s me. He said that the most he could do was hold off my death until spring.”

“I didn’t know,” Kylar whispered.

“Kylar, I think the hardest thing for me in Caernarvon was that I realized you were important and I wasn’t. Now instead of envying you or fighting against you, I’ll fight with you. All the good you do for a lifetime will be possible because of me. I guess this is a kind of heroism that no one sees, but maybe that makes it better, not worse.”

“I love you, Elene. I’m sorry I’ve been such a fool. I’m sorry I left.”

“Kylar, you love a girl with scars; I love a man with a purpose. Love comes at a price, but you’re worth it.”

“How can you say that? I’ve killed you. I’ve stolen your life.” Kylar swallowed, but that damn lump wouldn’t go away.

“You can’t steal what I freely give. I can live with eternity in mind because I know I’m going to be facing it soon, and I’m not going to waste a second of what I have left. Being here, with you, is exactly what I choose.”

And then Kylar was crying. Out in the yard, he felt Vi fumble a weave in shock, then go back to it, trying to distract herself, trying to give Kylar privacy. Elene hugged him and in her arms he found such boundless warmth and unqualified acceptance that his tears redoubled. All his doubts and self-recriminations, his self-loathing and fear washed away. And when his tears stopped flowing, she cried. The tears were an ablution and, holding her, Kylar felt clean for the first time in years.

When the tears had passed, they looked at each other, tear-smudged face to tear-smudged face, and laughed and held each other more. Then, slowly, they spun out their stories. Elene told him of her trip to Cenaria and her capture by the slavers. Kylar told her of Aristarchos’s attempt at killing him, about Jarl’s death, about fighting the Godking and being ringed, of his work to enthrone Logan, and his death on the wheel, his discovery of the cost of immortality, and his reunion with Durzo.

Then she asked him about wet work, about his first kill, about his training, about the Talent and what he saw when he looked at people through the ka’kari. He told her the unvarnished truth, and she listened. She couldn’t understand all of it, she said, but she listened without judgment, and she didn’t draw back after hearing it.

As he spoke, Kylar slowly relaxed. He felt the tension of secrecy and guilt, the fear of discovery and condemnation—all the tension that he had carried for so much of his life that it was simply part and parcel of how he experienced life—begin to unwind. In Elene, he found rest. For the first time, peace.

He looked at her with new eyes, and her beauty was warm blankets on a cold winter morning. It was home after a long journey. It wasn’t a beauty to covet, like Vi’s; it was a beauty to share. If Vi’s body was art shaped to stoke desire, Elene’s whole being was shaped to share love. Elene had scars, her figure was attractive but not such as left men incapable of speech—and yet her beauty surpassed Vi’s. The intuition that had kept Kylar from Vi even from the first time she’d tried to seduce him at the Drake estate suddenly crystallized: You don’t share your life with a woman’s body, you share your life with a woman.

“Marry me,” Kylar said, surprising himself. Then, realizing that his mouth had only uttered what his whole heart longed for, he said, “Please, Elene, will you marry me?”

“Kylar . . .”

“I know it’ll have to be secret, but it’ll be real, and I want you.”

“Kylar . . .”

“I know, this damn ring will probably keep us from making love, but we’ll figure something out, and even if we don’t, I love you. I want to be with you. I want to be with you more than I want sex. I know it’ll be really hard, but I mean it. We can—”

“Kylar, shut up,” Elene said. She smiled at the look on his face, smoothed her dress, and said, “I would be honored to be your wife.”

For a moment, he couldn’t believe it. Then, at her spreading smile and her delight in taking him off guard, light burst over a thousand hills. Somehow, she was in his arms, and they were holding each other and laughing and Elene was crying, and they were good tears, and then he kissed her and his whole body dissolved into that point where their lips met, and her lips were soft, full, warm, inviting, moist, responsive, eager. It was beautiful. It was amazing. It was the best feeling of his whole life, right until he threw up.

67

Their lovemaking was completely one-sided. Again. Jenine had been a virgin only a month ago, so Dorian told himself it was a lack of practice, that her awkwardness was an awkwardness of how. But Jenine was coordinated and Dorian was ravenous, so that justification was getting strained. She averted her gaze as he lay atop her, unable to match the intensity in his eyes. He buried his head in her hair, trying to ignore her body’s lack of arousal. He finished alone.

He held her, inhaling the scent of her, trying not to feel lonely.

She never denied him, even when he came to her a second time in a day or a third, and that made it worse. She didn’t pretend to climax, at least not yet. But even when she did climax, afterwards, the gap still wasn’t bridged. In everything she didn’t say, he saw a woman trying desperately to love him, and give love every chance to grow.

Even now as he held her, she held him. He’d tried everything short of vir to make her love him as he loved her. He had a kingdom to defend and administer, men to train, plots to unravel, reforms to institute, magic to practice, but every day, he carved out hours simply to spend with her, to talk with her, to listen, to dance, to recite poetry, to tend the garden together, to tell stories, to listen to bards, to laugh, and only to make love after all that. The hell of it was that it seemed to be working. Jenine seemed more comfortable with him, more delighted with his presence and humor, more in love—everywhere but in the bedchamber. Was that because she was sixteen and lovemaking was new, or was their love as much a lie as Logan’s death? Or was everything fine except that it was poisoned in his own mind? What if she did love him, and he was simply going mad?

“What are you thinking about?” Jenine asked.

Dorian propped himself on his elbows and kissed her breast to give himself time to think. “How much I love you” would have been a partial truth. “How much I love you and you don’t love me” would be too brutal. But love needed truth to grow. He rubbed his aching head. “I was thinking of how hard you’re trying, and how much I appreciate it.”