back. But she saw no virtue in that. She had done as much as anyone to drive him into his plight. And she had helped create the conditions which had forced her to violate him. “All my life”-her hands flinched-“I've had the darkness under control. One way or another. But I had to give that up, so I could get far enough inside you. I didn't have any left for Ceer.” Severely, she concluded, “You should've let Brinn punish me.”

No.” His contradiction was a hot whisper that seemed to jump the gap between them like a burst of power. Her head jerked back. She saw him clearly, facing her as if her honesty meant more to him than any act of bloodshed. From the depths of his own familiarity with self-judgment, he averred, “I don't care about your mother. I don't care if you possessed me. You had good reason. And it isn't the whole story. You saved the quest. You're the only woman I know who isn't afraid of me.” His arms made a wincing movement like an embrace maimed from its inception by need and shame. “Don't you understand that I love you?”

Love? Her mouth tried to shape the word and could not. With that avowal, he changed everything. In an instant, her world seemed to become different than it was, Stumbling forward, she confronted him. He was pallid with exhaustion, damaged by the pressure of his doom. The old knife-cut marked the centre of his stained shirt like the stroke of fatality. But his passion resonated against the added dimension of her hearing; and she was suddenly alive and trembling. He had not intended to refuse her. The efforts he made to withhold himself were not directed at her. It was himself that he struggled to reject. He was rife with venom and leprosy; but she recognized those things, accepted them. Before he could retreat, she caught her left arm around him, raised her right as high as she could to hold him.

For a moment longer, he strove against himself, stood rigid and unyielding in her clasp. But then he surrendered. His arms closed around her, and his mouth came down on hers as if he were falling.

Twenty Two: “Also love in the world”

LATE the next morning, after the long night of the full moon, she awakened in her hammock. She felt deeply comfortable, assuaged by sleep. Her right arm was warm and drowsy to the tips of the fingers, like a revenant of her former self, the child unacquainted with death — aneled of numbness as if her blood had become chrism. She was reluctant to open her eyes. Though the cabin beyond her eyelids was refulgent with sunshine, she did not want the day to begin, did not want the night to end.

Yet the whole length of her body-freshly scrubbed the night before and alert to caresses-remembered the pressure of Covenant's presence, knew that he was gone. Somehow, he had contrived to leave the hammock without rousing her. She started to murmur a sleepy protest. But then the nerves of her cheek felt a faint tingle of wild magic. He was still in the cabin with her. She smiled softly to herself as she raised her head, looked over the edge of the hammock toward him.

He stood barefoot and vivid in the sunlight on the floor below her. His clothes, and hers, hung on chairbacks, where they had been left to dry after being washed by the Haruchai- a task which Brinn and Cail had undertaken the previous afternoon at the behest of their particular sense of duty. But he made no move to get dressed. His hands covered his face like an unconscious mimicry of sorrow. With the small flame of his ring, he was cleaning the beard from his cheeks and neck.

In silence so that she would not interrupt his concentration, she watched him intently, striving to memorize him before he became aware of her scrutiny, became self-conscious. He was lean to the point of gauntness, all excess burned away by his incessant heat. But the specific efficiency of his form pleased her. She had not known that she was capable of taking such an unprofessional interest in someone else's body. Then his beard was gone, and he dropped his fire. Turning, he saw that she was studying him. A momentary embarrassment concealed the other things in his eyes. He made a vague gesture like an apology. “I keep thinking I ought to be able to control it, I keep trying to learn.” He grimaced wryly. “Besides which, I don't like the itch.” Then his mouth became sombre. “If it's small enough-and if I don't let myself get angry-I can handle it. But as soon as I try to do anything that matters-”

She went on smiling until he noticed her expression. Then he dismissed the question of power with a shrug. Half smiling himself, he touched his pale clean chin. “Did I get it all? I can't tell-my hands are too numb.”

She answered with a nod. But his tone made her aware of the complexity in his gaze. He was looking at her with more than just his memories of the past night. He was disturbed about something. She did not want to give up her rare and tender easement; but she did not hesitate. Gently, she asked, “What's the matter?”

His eyes retreated from her, then returned with a tangible effort. “Too many things.” He faced her as if he did not know how to accept her care. “Wild magic. Questions. The sheer selfishness of taking your love, when-” He swallowed thickly. “When I love you so much, and I'm so dangerous, and maybe I'm not even going to live through it.” His mouth was a grimace of difficult honesty. “Maybe we're not going to get back in time for you to do anything about that knife in my chest. I want out. I don't want to be responsible anymore. Too many people have already been killed, and it just gets worse.”

She heard him, understood him. He was a hungry man who had at last tasted the aliment for which his soul craved. She was no different. But the possibility he dreaded-the knife-wound in his chest-was not real to her. The old scar was barely visible. It had faded into the pallor of his skin. She could not imagine that healing undone, abrogated as if it had never occurred.

Yet that was only part of what she felt. In her own way, she was content to be where she was-with him on Starfare's Gem, seeking the One Tree accompanied by Giants and Haruchai, Findail and Vain. She was willing to confront the future Lord Foul prepared for them. As clearly as possible, she gave that to Covenant.

“I don't care. You can be as dangerous or selfish as you want,” The danger in him had been attractive to her from the beginning. And his selfishness was indistinguishable from love. “I'm not afraid.”

At that, his gaze clouded. He blinked at her as if she were brighter than the sunlight. She thought that he would ascend the stepladder, return to her arms; but he did not. His countenance was open and vulnerable, childlike in apprehension. His throat knotted, released, as he repeated, “Findail says I'm going to destroy the Earth.”

Then she saw that he needed more from her than an avowal. He needed to share his distress. He had been alone too long. He could not open one door to her without opening others as well. In response, she climbed out of her comfort, sat up to face him more squarely. Findail, she thought. Recollections sharpened her mood. The Elohim had tried to prevent her from entering Covenant. He had cried at her, Are you a fool? This is ruin! The doom of the Earth is upon my head. Her voice took on severity as she asked, “What did he mean-'Did we not preserve your soul'? When he talked to you yesterday?”

Covenant's mouth twisted. “That's one of the things that scares me.” His eyes left her to focus on what had happened to him. “He's right. In a way. They saved me. When I was alone with Kasreyn-before Hergrom rescued me.” His voice was lined with bitterness. 'I was helpless. He should have been able to do anything he wanted. But he couldn't get past that silence. I heard every word he said, but I wasn't able to do anything about it, and he wasn't able to make me try. If I hadn't been that way, he probably would've gotten my ring.

“But that doesn't tell me why.” He looked up at her again, his features acute with questions. “Why did they do it to me in the first place? Why is Findail so afraid of me?”

She watched him closely, trying to gauge the complexity of what he knew and remembered and needed. He had the face of a single-minded man — a mouth as strict as a commandment, eyes capable of fire. Yet within him nothing was simple; everything was a contradiction. Parts of him lay beyond the reach of her senses, perhaps even of her comprehension. She answered him as firmly as she could.

“You're afraid of yourself.”

For a moment, he frowned as if he were on the edge of retorting, You mean if I were arrogant or inexperienced or maybe just stupid enough, there wouldn't be anything to be afraid of? But then his shoulders sagged. “I know,” he murmured. “The more power I get, the more helpless I feel. It's never enough. Or it's the

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