As night deepened, the crowd in the He-Ain’t-Here Tavern thickened, then waned to the small group of patrons who had paid for lodgings. Kelryn sat at a table by the unlit fireplace, alone, becoming more alarmed the longer the absence of Prince Edward and Nightfall stretched. She knew she could no longer assume they had just stepped out and would soon return. Something had happened to them, though whether a voluntary escape from her or trouble she had little information to surmise. She knew only that, earlier in the evening, one of the Mitanoan travelers claimed to have overheard them talking about joining the Tylantian contests. She doubted Edward would leave her without explanation, but Nightfall would do everything in his power to strand her and talk the prince into doing the same. She knew no one better at manufacturing emergencies.
Tears welled in Kelryn’s eyes, smearing the color to a pasty green-brown. Love ached within her, a burden she felt certain she could never shed. Though understandable, Nightfall’s hatred cut like shards of the broken swan, and she felt as if her heart had shattered with it. Truth, if he would listen, would have to win him back; but even that did not seem the answer. Although it would exonerate her, the explanation might hurt him more than just letting him believe she had betrayed him.
Memory assailed her brutally then, as it did whenever she allowed her thoughts to stray to the ugliness she could never forget: the man on the floor twisting his body to escape the agony the sorcerer gleefully inflicted. The screams that cut straight to the heart and seemed to turn her insides into liquid. The driving need to do something, anything, to stop the cruelty, and the fear that had paralyzed her into a shocked and helpless silence. The knowledge that any action on her part would only have meant death for them both did not assuage the guilt she lived with every day.
Kelryn gritted her teeth, forcing the image away before it solidified. From experience, she knew that, if the details became clear in her mind, the picture would haunt her through the remainder of the day and nightmares would terrorize her sleep.
“‘Excuse me, ma’am."
Glad for the interruption, Kelryn glanced to her right. A boy dressed in the same gray linens as the serving maids stood at her elbow.
Kelryn tried to keep her voice steady. "What can I do for you?"
"Here." The boy tossed a scrap of parchment to the table. Without further explanation, he turned and headed toward the outer door.
"Wait," Kelryn said, many questions coming to her at once. She could never recall a messenger not waiting long enough for a tip, at least.
But the boy ignored the call, scurrying outside before Kelryn could shout for him again. She let him go, more interested in the parchment. Although illiterate, she knew a few words, mostly ones Nightfall had taught her; and the two had developed a sparse language of hand signs and pictograms during their courtship. She unfolded the parchment. Nightfall had used the picture code, his handwriting bold and crisp. He had drawn only two symbols. The first, a gently waving series of lines, meant love. He had penned it neatly, then slashed over it with dark, brazen lines to indicate an error. The only other marking took the shape of a guiding arrow.
Kelryn crumpled the parchment in her hands, driven to tears by the implication. She knew he intended to tell her that the feelings he had once held for her had been a mistake; and the arrow pointed for her to go away. She folded her arms on the table, buried her face between them, and let the tears fall where they would. She found herself pinned in place, hopeless beyond moving but not beyond suffering. The love symbol and its covering lines seemed like a branded impression against her eyes, a picture that would never fade. It’s over. Kelryn tried to let go of all the promises and hopes for the future, but they clung, a fiery agony that made the tears come faster.
Why do I care? Kelryn had asked herself the question too many times to need an answer now. He’s a thief and a killer: Yet Dyfrin’s words returned to haunt her: "I think what he struggles with most is that deep inside he’s a good man, fighting to become the demon his mother and the populace named him. If he committed half the crimes ascribed to him, he’d have to be quintuplets; and I know it’s closer to a tenth of the burglaries and a hundredth of the murders. And every one, no matter how necessary or deserving haunts the conscience he doesn’t even believe he has. Why do you think he plays so many people? With each one, he tries to escape the very thing he believes he has to be. He has no realization of how much time he spends in other guises compensating and consoling the families of those he robbed or killed. But I know."
Kelryn had listened raptly with a skepticism deeper than she would have believed anyone could allay. But Dyfrin had done so, countering every question and quelling every doubt. That he knew Nightfall as well or better than Nightfall knew himself swiftly became obvious. More eerie, he seemed to understand her to the core as well. Only later she discovered the explanation, knowledge that had cost her the man she loved, a fear that would not leave her, and evil dreams that lasted long into the day. So innocent. So simple. And yet nothing had held such a price. If Nightfall would only let her tell him, he would understand.
The burden Dyfrin had placed on Kelryn would not allow her to surrender. "Someone has to break the cycle, Kelryn; and that someone is you. I admit, I worried that you would hurt him and drive him deeper into the abyss he doesn’t realize how much he wishes to escape. But now I know you truly love him. You can help him. He needs you."
Kelryn remembered how those words had made her feel at a time when she still grappled with the realization that the man she had fallen in love with was the world’s most notorious and vicious rogue. All she had ever wanted was a normal life, never to change the world or any person in it besides herself. Yet Dyfrin convinced her. Nightfall was not the wanton killer the citizens believed him; and, unlike the conscienceless mercenaries who could only be controlled or executed, Nightfall rehabilitated could become a boon to the very continent that had so long cowered to hear his name. "Why me?" she remembered asking, the burden too much for one common dancer to carry.
"He loves you."
Kelryn had thrown the answer back at Dyfrin. "He loves you, too. And for much longer."
Dyfrin had worn a pained expression that showed he understood, but the matter had too much significance to allow for doubts. "I’ve done what I could. I showed him the other side of life and relationships at a time when he needed it. I demonstrated that love and pain don’t have to go together, that loyalty does not always lead to betrayal, and gave him as much self-worth as an impoverished street orphan could have. Without those things, he would have been lost, every bit the night-stalking demon so many believe him to be. I’ve done all I can. Now, he has to know that I’m not unique in the world, that others can be trusted. And he needs to learn it from a woman."
Utter panic had suffused Kelryn then, the need to run from a responsibility she had no competence to handle. She still lived amid the wreckage of her own less than adequate home circumstances. To help her family eat, she had lied about her age and started dancing at twelve. By thirteen, she had needed to sell her body as well. No matter the notoriety of the source, Nightfall’s gentleness had made her feel special, and his obvious love for her had turned sex from a chore and duty into the beautiful and joyous thing she had always heard it should be. She owed him, wanted to do what she could for him, and Dyfrin understood that as he did everything else about her.
Kelryn’s crying slackened to a trickle as gentler scenes from the past paraded through her mind, but realization of the tragedy that had followed their conversation jarred her back to the present. She would not abandon Nightfall until she forced him to listen and he understood what had really happened. He could believe her or not. He could react in any fashion that suited him. He could still choose to leave her, and she would handle that as it came. But she would not let him do so without first hearing the truth. Without the facts, he could only assume, and he could do little else but believe she had betrayed him. Yet, though she had considered it a thousand times, she still could not discard the realization that the truth might hurt him more.