But unexpectedly, as he half-turned to meet her eyes, he smiled. “Let me try,” he suggested, and there was even a suggestion of self-deprecating humor. “You feel smothered by your honored parents and, perversely, wish for their approval of a life so different from theirs. Additionally, you fear that their influence will either purchase you an easier assignment than you warrant, or will insure that you are never placed in any sort of danger. You wish to see what you can do with only the powers of your own mind and your own skills, and if you are not far away from them, you are certain you will never learn the answer to that question.”
“Yes!” she exclaimed, startled by his insight. “But how did you—•” Then she read the message behind that rueful smile, the shrug of the dark-skinned shoulders. “You came here for the same reason, didn’t you?”
He nodded once, and his deep brown eyes showed that same self-deprecating humor that had first attracted her. “The same. And that is why, although I wish that you were not going so far or for so long— or that we were going to the same place—I wanted you to know that I am content to wait upon your return. We will see what you have learned, and what that learning has made of you.”
“And you think I will be different?” She licked her lips with a dry tongue.
“At least in part,” he offered. “You may return a much different person than the one you are now; not that I believe that I will no longer care much for that different person! But that person and I may prove to be no more than the best of friends and comrades-in-arms. And that will not be a bad thing, though it is not the outcome I would prefer.”
She let out her breath and relaxed. He was being so reasonable about this that she could hardly believe her ears! “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I think I’ve spent so much time proving who I’m not that I don’t know who I am.”
“So go and find out,” he told her, and laughed, now reaching out to touch her hand briefly. The touch sent a shivery chill up her arm. “You see, I had to come here to do the same thing. So I have some understanding of the process.”
“Are you glad that you came here?” she asked, wondering if the question was too personal, and wishing he would do more than just touch her hand.
Now it was his turn to look away, into the sunset, for a moment. “On the whole—yes,” he told her. “Although in doing so, it became impossible to follow the alternate path I might have taken. There was a maiden, back in my father’s court—but she was impatient, and did not like it that I chose to go somewhere other than to the court of another emperor. She saw my choice as a lessening of my status, and my leaving as a desertion of her. I have heard that she wedded elsewhere, one of my more traditional half-brothers.”
“Oh—I’m sorry—” she said quickly, awkwardly.
But he turned back to her, and did not seem particularly unhappy as he ran his hand across his stiff black curls. “There is not a great deal to be sorry about,” he pointed out. “If she saw it as desertion, she did not know me; if I could not predict that she would, I did not know her. So. . . .” He shrugged. “Since it was not long before my sorrow was gone, I suspect my own feelings were not as deep as she would have liked, nor as I had assumed.”
“It’s not as if you were lacking in people willing to console you here!” she pointed out recklessly, with a feeling of breathlessness that she couldn’t explain. She laughed to cover it.
“And that is also true.” His smile broadened. “And it was not long before I felt no real need of such consolation, as I had another interest to concentrate on.”
Her feeling of breathlessness intensified; this was the nearest he had come to flirting with her, and yet behind the playfulness, there was more than a hint of seriousness. Did she
“Well, I think, on the whole, it will be a good thing for you to have six months to learn what it is that Blade is made of,” he said, in a lighter tone. “And I shall have the benefit of knowing that there will be no other young men at this outpost that may convince you to turn your attentions elsewhere. So any decisions you make—concerning our friendship—will be decisions made by you, only.”
She snorted. “As if any young man could ‘make me change my mind’ about anything important!” she replied, just a little sharply.
“Which only proves that I cannot claim to know you any better than any other friend!” he countered. “You see? This much I do understand; you have a strong sense of duty, and that will always be the first in your heart. I would like to think that I am the same. So, whatever, we must reconcile ourselves to that before we make any other commitments.”
It was her turn to shrug. “That seems reasonable . . . but it isn’t exactly . . . romantic.” That last came out much more plaintively than she had expected, or intended.
“Well, if it is a romantic parting that you wish—” He grinned. “I can be both practical and romantic, as, I suspect, can you.” He took one of her hands, but only one, and looked directly into her eyes. “Silverblade, I crossed an empire, I left my land and all I have ever known. I did not expect to find someone like you here, and yet—I do not follow some of my people’s reasoning that all is foredestined, but it sometimes seems as if I was drawn here because you were here. Now I know something of what I am. I believe that there is in you a spirit that would make a match for my own. If, in the end, a few months more will bring us together, such a wait will be no hardship.” He
