For a long moment an ache gripped his throat, stilling his voice; an ache of love indistinguishable from grief.
"I think . . ." he forced himself to say the words. "I think that you should make the attempt one day. For yourself. For our child. And for me."
She touched his tears with a hand that trembled, but when she tried to speak, he forestalled her, touching his fingers to her lips.
"Promise me," he breathed. "For the sake of our child. For us. If something were to happen to me . . . or if we became separated . . ."
She closed her eyes as though in pain, knowing what the outcome of such a promise would cost her. Without being joined to Anest she would no longer be able to draw from his strength, which until now was all she had to sustain her.
Yet she saw that he was right, that if the unthinkable happened, if they were to become separated, or if Anest were to die . . .
Unbidden, an image came to her mind then, of herself, utterly alone on the shore of some strange distant island, with the gull-crying wind blowing her hair and the roar of breakers, and Anest laying with his head pillowed in her lap.
Pushing the image from her mind, shaken by what it implied, she nodded and closed her eyes, and felt the salt-water tears spill from them like glistening, cruel prophecies of doom that promised life, even as they took it.