He felt all the air drain from him, her words leaving him emptied out. Had he heard her right? One of them? A leper? No, he told himself quickly, he must be mistaken. There was nothing wrong with her. He could see there was nothing wrong just by looking at her.
But then he remembered how she had flinched when he reached for her that first night, how she had told him not to touch her. He remembered how she had been so careful to keep herself covered up while they traveled, always making sure to keep some distance between them.
He felt his heart sink.
“I came to Tajarin to help my parents and my brother, all of whom had the disease. While I lived among them, I contracted it, too. But I don’t regret it. I did what I felt was right. When Kronswiff and his Het appeared, I went in search of you–a man whose reputation reached even so remote a place as Tajarin–because I was mostly sound still, mostly able, and the only one who had any use of magic. I was the one on whom the marks of sickness were least visible and who could use magic to help heal myself should I get worse. But it doesn’t change the truth of my condition.”
She pulled open her cloak and lifted her blouse. Large sections of her torso were blotchy and raw where the disease had settled in. Her eyes lifted to meet his. “I am too sick already to leave.”
She dropped her blouse and closed her cloak. “I hid my condition from you so that you would come. I was afraid you wouldn’t, if you knew. I kept my use of magic secret, as well. When the crossbow bolt was fired at me, I used magic to deflect the blow. I used it again to help you against Kronswiff. I had not intended to do so, but I felt I had to. No one else could have killed him, if you had failed.”
Her voice gathered strength. “Kronswiff had learned of a leprous people living on the Tiderace, a population possessed of gold and silver kept concealed within the walls of their remote city. He came to rob us and to feed on us. It did not bother him that we were lepers. He was immune to our disease and hungry for our bodies and wealth. He took both. There was no one to stop him; no one cares about lepers. What did it matter what became of us? We were already the walking dead. We were at his mercy, and he had none to spare us.”
“You could still come with me,” he said. “Back down to the Southland. Your people are safe now. The Het won’t return if there is no one to pay for their services. There are Healers at Storlock who could help you. There are medicines …”
He spoke the words in a rush, as much to convince himself as to persuade her. He couldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t. Not when there might be a chance, however slim, that she could be saved.
But she shook her head. “No, Weapons Master. I have to stay here. This is where I belong. Take the gold and go and know you did something important by helping us. We had no one, and we were being destroyed. Even lepers have a right to the life that is given them, no matter their condition, no matter their fate. Others would have passed us by. You were not one of those, and we will never forget you.”
She paused. “I will never forget you.”
Her eyes held him, and what he felt for her was so strong–even knowing how sick she was–that he could barely stand it. He had never felt like this about anyone before, and he was stricken at the thought of simply walking away.
She pointed to the doorway. “Go left down the hall, then take the stairs. From there, go straight through to the door at the end. It will lead you outside. You can find your way from there.”
He nodded, knowing there was no other choice. He couldn’t stay here. He didn’t belong here. His life was outside these walls, but hers was not.
“Lyriana.”
He spoke her name once and stepped close, bending his face to hers. This time she didn’t move away, didn’t flinch, didn’t tell him not to touch her. Instead she lifted her mouth to accept his kiss and kissed him back.
He left her there and went down the hallway, out through the door into the streets of the city and over its walls to the world beyond. It had been a long time since he had cried, and he didn’t cry now.
He understood better now why he had been drawn to her, what it was that had attracted him so. He had sensed the connection between them, but had not understood it. Now he did. He was as damaged as she was, and just as lost. He was fated to die of a cause not of his making as surely as she was; it was only a question of when. But while she had achieved peace of mind, his own remained a slippery and elusive thing. Lyriana had shown him how he must be if he were ever to find his way, and it had generated in him something that approached love.
Perhaps, in its own fashion, that’s what it actually was.
The courage she evidenced in accepting what was to happen to her was the true measure of her strength. He would learn from that. He would find grace as she had. But he could not help wishing he had been able to do so with her beside him. He had wanted his kiss to express how much he wished it.
So much so that even the risk of contracting leprosy by placing his mouth on hers had not been enough to dissuade him from doing it.
For the first two days of travel back to Tombara, he was miserable. He could not stop thinking about her. He could not stop his aching. Then, on the third day, the pain began to ease as his thoughts drifted to other things. He was the Weapons Master first and always, and the time he had envisioned for himself and Lyriana–even in the best of circumstances–would never have lasted. It would have required him to change, and it was too late for that. His path in life was already determined, and he knew he was fated to follow it to its end.
In Tombara he found the commission waiting that would take him to Varfleet. And by then, Lyriana and Tajarin were already fading into the dark well of his past.