Seregil hung his head and let out an unsteady breath. After a moment he said, "He knew. He should have told me."
"You would have tried to stop him."
"Damn right I would have!" Seregil flared, clenching his fists on his knees. Angry tears spilled down his cheeks, the first Alec had ever seen him shed.
"If you'd done that, we'd have failed," Alec said, moving to sit beside him on the log. "Everything Nysander worked for would've been lost. The Helm would have taken him over and he'd have ended up as their Vatharna"
For an instant Alec thought he felt the wizard's touch against his hand again. "I think he must be grateful to you."
Seregil covered his face, giving way at last to silent sobs. Alec wrapped an arm around him, holding him tightly. "You were the only one who loved him enough not to hesitate when the time came. He knew that. In the end you saved him the only way you could. Why can't you let yourself see that?"
"All these weeks—" Seregil shrugged helplessly.
"You're right, right about everything. But why can't I feel it? I can't feel anything anymore! I'm floundering around in a black fog. I look at the rest of you, see you healing, going on. I want to, but I can't!"
"Just like I couldn't make myself jump that time at Kassarie's keep?"
Seregil let out a small, choked laugh. "I guess so."
"So let me help you, the way you helped me then," Alec persisted.
Seregil wiped his nose on his sodden sleeve. "As I recall, I threw you off the roof into a gorge."
"Fine, if that's what it takes to show you that I'm not about to let you slink away like some old dog going off to die."
The guilty look that crossed his friend's face told Alec his worst fears had been correct. "I'm not letting you go," he said again, gripping Seregil's sleeve for emphasis.
Seregil shook his head miserably. "I can't stay here."
"All right, but you're not leaving me."
"I thought you'd be happy at Watermead."
"I love everyone there like my own family, but not—" Alec broke off, feeling his face go warm.
"But not what?" Seregil turned and brushed a clump of damp hair back from Alec's face, studying his expression.
Alec forced himself to meet Seregil's questioning gaze squarely. "Not as much as I love you."
Seregil looked at him for a moment, grey eyes still sad. "I love you, too. More than I've loved anyone for a long time. But you're so young and—" He spread his hands and sighed. "It just didn't seem right."
"I'm not that young," Alec countered wryly, thinking of all they'd been through together. "But I am half faie, so I've got a lot of years ahead of me. Besides, I've only just begun to understand Aurenfaie, I still don't know one style of snail fork from another, and I can't jigger a Triple Crow lock. Who else is going to teach me all that?"
Seregil looked out over the pond again. "'Father, brother, friend, and lover.""
"What?" A coldness passed over Alec's heart; Mardus had spoken almost those same words when asking about his relationship to Seregil.
"Something else the Oracle of Illior said that night I asked about you," Seregil answered, watching an otter slip into the water. "I kept thinking I had it all sorted out and settled, but I don't. I've been the first three to you and swore that was enough, but if you stay on with me—"
"I know." Catching Seregil off guard, Alec leaned forward and pressed his lips to Seregil's with the same mix of awkwardness and determination he'd felt the first time.
But when he felt Seregil's arms slip around him in a welcoming embrace, the confusion that had haunted him through the winter cleared like fog before a changing wind.
Take what the gods send, Seregil had told him more than once.
He would, and thankfully.
Seregil drew back a little, and there was something like wonder in his grey eyes as he touched Alec's cheek. "Anything we do, tali, we do with honor. Before all else, I'm your friend and always will be, even if you take a hundred wives or lovers later on."
Alec started to protest but Seregil smiled and pressed a finger across his lips. "As long as I have a place in your heart, I'm satisfied."
"You always have to have the last word, don't you?" Alec growled, then kissed him again. The feel of Seregil's lean body pressing against his own suddenly felt as natural and easy as one stream flowing into another. His last remaining worry was that he had very little idea about how to proceed from here.
The sound of a horse coming up the trail at a gallop forestalled the issue for the moment.
"I can guess who that is," Seregil groaned, standing up.
Micum burst into the clearing. "So here you are!" he exclaimed, glowering down at Seregil. "By the Flame, the whole house is in an uproar because of you!"
He pulled a rolled letter from his coat and held it up angrily. "You gave us a scare with this, you idiot. I don't know whether to kiss you or kick your ass from here to Cirna!"
For the first time in months, Seregil summoned a cocky, crooked grin. "Don't strain your leg on my account. Alec already done both."
Micum took a second look at the two of them and returned this'. grin knowingly. "Well, it's about time!"
Two days later Micum and his family gathered in the courtyard to wish Alec and Seregil a proper farewell.
"Will you be heading to Mycena from here?" asked Micum as they made a final check of their horses and gear.
"I imagine the queen will have some use for a couple of trustworthy spies." Seregil shrugged noncommittally. "Winter's not that far off. Idrilain is supposed to be somewhere above Keston now. There won't be much to do once the snow flies. Maybe in the spring."
Kari shifted Gherin in her arms and embraced him tightly, then Alec. Blinking back tears, she whispered, "Take care, both of you."
Micum rested a hand on Seregil's shoulder, looking at him as if he didn't expect to see him again. "By the Flame, it's hard not riding out with you. I wish you'd take my sword."
Seregil shook his head. "That blade belongs with you. I'll find another if I ever feel the need of one again. In the meantime, Alec'll keep an eye on me."
"You see that you do, Alec, or you'll answer to us," Micum said with gruff affection, exchanging a quick look with Kari. They'd both noted the new light in Seregil's eyes whenever he looked at Alec, and how that same warmth was returned.
After all their farewells had been said, Seregil and Alec swung up on their Aurenfaie mounts and rode out the gate.
"What if the Queen doesn't want us for spies in the spring?" Alec asked as they cantered down toward the bridge.
Seregil shrugged again. "Well then, we're still some of the best damned thieves I know of. Never any shortage of work there."
Kicking their mounts into a gallop, they raced down the hill side by side, and swung north to the open road beyond.
About the Author
Lynn Flewelling grew up in Presque Isle, Maine. Since receiving a degree in English from the University of Maine in 1981, she has studied veterinary medicine at Oregon State, classical Greek at Georgetown University, and worked as a personnel generalist, landlord, teacher, necropsy technician, advertising copywriter, and freelance journalist, more or less in that order, She currently lives in western New York with her husband, two sons, and other assorted mammals.