LOST IN THE EMPIRE
PART 10

Deidre had chosen not to watch. Terry knew this and held her close, but the shelter of his body as she stood positioned between him and the stone outcrop they used as cover did not prevent the sounds of blades cutting into flesh from penetrating her ears; or the tense anguish of Cort and Rachel beside them from shaking the resolute calm she had been fostering all morning. This is only a movie, she kept telling herself. He will survive a bit further.

No good. Her heart refused to stay where it belonged, behind her ribs, in its proper rhythm. It now sat in the base of her throat, threatening to crawl out through her mouth and onto the mud at her feet. They heard Maximus call for the praetorian, one final blow, and then the sound of galloping as the general fled the scene, unaware he still had company. She looked up to watch Terry’s eyes follow the trek Maximus took, then turned to find Cort sitting on the ground, his head buried in Rachel’s torso as she stood, his arms wrapped around her in a tight embrace.

Terry relaxed somewhat and slumped down himself.

“I wish there were a way we could skip ahead,” Deidre said to break the awful silence taking over the forest. “Couldn’t we just head to Zucchabar, cut across country? We know he’s going to be picked up by the slavers, we know what direction…”

“I’m not entirely sure that can be done,” Terry replied. He was a bit pale himself and, like Cort with Rachel, reluctant to let go of his hold on her. “Geography in a movie can be a bit…sketchy, at best. Has its own perimeters.”

“Ever play Ultima, Dee?” Rachel asked. “Computer simulation of a fantasy world?” When Deidre nodded that yes, she had, she went on, “and you know how you reach certain borders and can’t go any further, you have to skim the edges just to find out they don’t lead you anywhere? Sometimes the surest course is to stay in the middle, even though logically, our three-dimensional reasoning says do something else. Cutting across to Zucchabar might be the equivalent to traveling around the movie at the edges and we’d get nowhere in a hurry.”

“And yet we stay on the edges of a scene?” Deidre found herself laughing, a rueful, ‘it-figures,’ kind of laugh. In all the time they spent training, apparently this was a concept no one had bothered mentioning. Rachel nodded in sympathy, while Terry gave her a wan smile. “Okay, okay,” Deidre said. “It was an idea, but I’m a believer, now. No bypassing.”

They re-mounted the horses they had tied up in a shaded area not too far from their hiding place and trotted to the trail left by Maximus’ departure; but not before Cort got off Tiber and began scavenging the bodies. Rachel tried to protest, but Terry shook his head to quiet her. Cort was not too far off in that practicality.

For the next several days, it took expertise acquired by Terry’s military training and Cort’s days as a fugitive from the law to stay on top of what little evidence there was of Maximus’ passing, which in Deidre’s eyes, was akin to finding a gold coin in a minefield of replicas. Worse still, it became apparent that more and more distance was drawing out between themselves and their target, since neither man was willing or as desperate to drive their horses as hard as Maximus drove his. Nor did it take long for the topography to change, from the soporific and haunting vaults of the forest to rolling granite hills, a boon for smoother travel, but nowhere near as pleasant or as protected. The open plains had them under the rising and falling sun without much shade for miles.

The four of them didn’t do much talking, either, beyond appraising each other of their condition, or their supplies, or their progress. The endless plains became barren mountains, moonscapes of rock and dust with little vegetation and thinner air. Deidre kept having flashbacks of Peru, despite the disparity of ecology, with Terry holding her hand and pulling her along, ever forward, relentless…

“Can’t we just…stop…for one day?” She finally gasped, as they crested one craggy rise. “What good is it going to be if we can’t survive this?”

“He was here,” Cort said, pointing. True enough, on a ledge before them, there were remains of a fire, hoof prints of horses, blooded bits of cloth.. Still more sharp points of mountains lay before them, turning unearthly shades of red and black in the wake of the setting sun, a waning gibbous moon rising, the ragged pass below a spill of the faintest green. “We’re on the right path,” he told them with a small smile of relief.

“Then we rest, too,” Deidre announced, and slid off her horse, ready to give Terry any challenge she could muster. He and Cort and Rachel were several shades darker than they used to be, from dust and sunburn and fatigue. Deidre imagined she probably looked the same, if not worse. There would be no stream to freshen up in, but the solid ground beneath her feet was beckoning for repose. “We’ve pushed and pushed, Terry. We’ve lived off remnants and dregs of sleep and food. I need…I need…” She was unconsciously stamping her feet, jealous of the thought that they would be deprived earth to stand upon.

“All right, all right,” Terry gave in. He watched Rachel and Cort dismount with audible groans of relief. “I don’t think it wise to wait long, but getting more than a few hours of sleep would probably help us make the final push into Trujillo. I concede, Nolia. Let’s call it a day.”

“Thank you,” Deidre gave him her most genuine smile. “That’s my knight in shining armor,” she added with a kiss when he dismounted.

^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^

How long had he been riding? He couldn't begin to remember. One day flowed into the next and on into the next, each like some huge boulder of passing time, rolling over him, crushing him. He was well aware that each night there was less of him left. Each morning as he woke from the few hours of fitful sleep he permitted himself, he lay there a moment, wondering would he have the strength to mount his horse. The fever was
rising as infection spread in his gaping wound. The heat of it was beginning to consume him.

This morning he was close. His eyes traced the edges of a high ridge. Home was just beyond. He stood beside his one remaining horse. The white had died a week ago. Lifting his leg, he attempted to mount. He couldn't do it. He tried again. And once again. Looking behind him, he saw the rising tip of the sun. He had to go! He couldn't be this near and not make it in time! For a brief moment he lay his forehead against the
side of his saddle, closing his eyes, picturing his wife and son waiting for him. They would be. They HAD to be! He heaved a ragged breath, lifted his head and led the horse near a large rock he could use to mount. It was the only way he could manage to heave himself onto the saddle. And, so, he began to ride again. He'd not gone more than a few miles when he felt himself fading and his chin dropped onto his chest, his left arm, aflame with shooting pain, hung limply down. The horse slowed to a walk. He didn't notice.

Cort smiled as the sun sparkled through the low branches of a tree just beyond the grassy area where he and Rachel lay on their blankets. She was still asleep, her lips slightly parted, and he leaned forward, letting her breath flow gently over his cheek.

It was warm here in Spain. The passing of time and distance had left winter behind. He was glad, being used as he was to the warmer climes of the American Southwest. The Germanium winter had not been to his liking. Not at all. But now it was getting green again and the air carried promises of blossoms. He picked a long seed head of grass and began to trail it over Rachel's brow then down her nose, grinning as she wrinkled her face.

"Good mornin', Love," he whispered, kissing the tip of her nose.

Opening one eye, she looked up at him. "Are we there yet?" she asked.

"Later today, I think," he replied. He turned, looking over to where Terry and Diedre still slept, noticing how Terry's arm lay protectively over her side. Looking back at the now fully-awake Rachel, he whispered, "Come with me." He extended his hand to her as he stood, helping her to her feet. "I think I hear a small stream just beyond those bushes. Shall we go see?"

They found a flat ledge of rock that jutted out just above the level of the water. Cort knelt to drink. Rachel's instinct, as a woman of the 21st century, was to stop him. It always took her a bit to remember that the streams of 180 AD had quite a few less, um, factories pumping industrial by-products into them. The water flowed by, sparkling and clear.

"Mmmmm...cold," Cort murmured. "But good." He settled back on the rock, pulling her into his lap, lifting his face into the morning sun. "The water's not the only thing that's good, you know, my Rachel." Her head was tucked beneath his chin and he lifted one hand, playing with her loose waves, his other hand curved about her torso, hers lying atop it.

He felt entirely one with her, had for quite some time now, and all these days spent so closely together had only increased and deepened his sense of that. He loved the nearness of her, loved how she fit there in his lap, how her head filled the hollow under his chin. Sighing with happiness, he lowered his hand from her hair, wrapping it, too, about her, just...holding.

Maximus was jerked brutally from the darkness as though a firepot had crashed just behind him. His head shot up, eyes opening. What...? He turned his head, looking around. Nothing...no one was there...only empty land. Then it pierced him. He had suffered more than one great wound in battle, but this was like nothing he'd ever felt. This blade went right through his center, twisting as it moved, then wrenching back, taking his insides with it. He almost fell from the saddle with the very unbearableness of it. It had come, accompanied by a cry, a primal cry that seared its way through his soul. Sinking his heels into the sides of the horse, he began to gallop almost wildly down the track, whipping the beast with his reins. The structure of the earth itself was beginning to crack open. He had to get there! He had to get to the edge of the crevice, had to leap it before it became too wide. He had to get across! The earth made a hideous tearing, ripping noise as he rode and he knew parts of himself were being torn from him. He dug his heels harder, whipping furiously.

"Do you feel it, Rachel?" Cort murmured. "The great peace of it." He kissed her hair several times, then turned her shoulders slightly so he could see her face. "We fit, Rachel, we fit together...you and I. I feel like...like...my world is somehow healed when you are near me like this and I am whole again, as though the missing half of me has been found...and is in place."

There it was...up on its slope. He didn't see the pink stones of it, nor the poplar just through its gate. He didn't see the wheat glistening in the sun. All he saw was the billow of black smoke beginning to blot out the blue of the sky. The blade in his gut twisted sharply, biting deeper. He gasped, sinking his teeth in his lower lip. Down the slope he flew, his mount beginning to emit a strange, heaving noise. He didn't hear it. He only kicked its sides harder. Then up the slope toward his home. His mouth was open as he rode, sucking in air that seemed to bear no oxygen in itself as his lungs were nearly bursting with lack. It was as though the horse simply...broke...toppling onto its left side, taking him with it, sending him crashing heavily onto his wounded shoulder.He had no time to be stunned, so he lifted his head, dirt clinging to his sweat-dampened cheeks. Unseen behind him, the horse struggled once, then lay its head down and died.

He pushed himself to his feet, staggering through burnt wheat, past the charred remains of his farm workers. His knees kept trying to fold on him, but he moved ahead by will power alone. His vision blurred. He couldn't quite make out what was up there at the entrance to the remains of his house. Everything went black briefly, but he shook his head, willing himself on. He came to the large urns that graced either side of the entrance, their flowers still in full bloom, untouched by fire or violence. Sweat stung his eyes and he wiped at them furiously, needing to see.

Then he...saw. Breathing was not an option as he came the last several yards, stopping right at the edge of the shadow that was left of his life. His mind could not take it in. It was too much to ask of it. He stopped, just looking. His knees refused to hold him. He made them. He looked from one to the other. He blinked. And then the blade twisted again in his gut and what little air remained in his lungs burst out. The earth broke in half right before him and they were on the other side of it. Shaking, he reached toward her feet, curving his fingers gently around the soot-blackened flesh. A shudder took him head to toe. They had that blank solidness that comes when life has departed. He held them, looking up the hanging length of her, the odor of her burnt hair settling over his upturned face. "I'm sorry," his heart cried in a silent scream. "I didn't come in time...didn't save you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" his soul cried over and over and over. That he had been so very near made it all the more unbearable. The earth had split but he was... almost...home. He pressed his lips softly to her feet, his fingers fluttering over them as though he might cause some further injury with his touch. His sliced insides came out of him in the form of his own wetness, the strands of it making some last connection between husband and wife. Blinking back the tears, the sweat, he tried to look again at her face, but the giant crevice lay open at his feet and he began, almost in slow motion, to fall into it. There was nothing left in him to keep him from it now. Blackness pressed him down, heavy with its emptiness and loss, and he could not longer fight it back.

"Back in the pines...that night...that first night," Cort said, "when I made promises to you...you remember?"

She nodded, smiling. There was no way she could ever, would ever, forget.

"And," he continued, "for me...it was as though I were taking you as my wife." He kissed her eyes. "For you...are...my wife, Rachel. You know that. There could be none other."

Somehow, later he would never know how, he had forced his way, clinging by his fingernails, up the side of the abyss where his dark lostness lay, had looked up one last time at the woman who was his wife, his other half, had got her down from where she'd been hung and sat there in the dirt with her across his lap, rocking back and forth, his face buried in the burned remnants of her glorious dark hair.

Then he had taken down his son, thinking in some odd little part of his brain that seemed to still be functioning, how much he'd grown in the nearly three years since last he'd seen him. His vision faded in and out with the fever and he knew he'd be joining them soon. He had one last thing to do. If the scavenging beasts found him, it didn't matter. He could not let his wife, his son, go unburied. And...so...he dug, using the very last ounces of his strength...he dug. Even that little part of his brain stopped its thinking and all there was in the whole world was the need to scoop the dirt, to make a safe place for those whom he had been unable to keep safe. He would do it now in the only way left to him.

When the dirt had been mounded, he half-crawled to the urns by the entrance, pulled off the flowers and placed them atop the high blankets of soil he'd made. He kissed each mound, giving each a final press of his palm, then he lay between them, closed his eyes, curled his fingers into the dirt. "I'm coming," he sighed. "Don't walk too fast. I'm right behind you, my loves." Then the darkness came again.

"Rachel, Rachel....my Rachel," he murmured over and over into her hair. "Without you I would be afoot in the desert again and all the light in my life would be turned to night." He turned her more so that she faced him fully. "I love you, Rachel, with all my heart, with everything in me." He kissed her long and gently, then reached his hand up, touching her lips.

"When...this...is done, when we get back...I...," his voice shook slightly, "I want the world to understand ...everyone to know...so...." His chin trembled and he had to pause a moment, gathering himself again. "Rachel, my beloved Rachel," he cocked his head, smiling at her, "will you do me the honor of marrying me...in front of them all...will you be my wife?"

The long fingers turned the wheel on his binoculars, bringing the couple on the blanket by the stream into clearer focus.

"Yes," the slightly-accented voice purred to his companion, "it is him."

Dimetri Zoloft lowered the glasses, smiling. "We have found Cort."

^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ *

“I wonder what Harkin is doing?”

Terry felt his reverie come drifting down out of the vaporous mirage above the fire at the sound of Deidre’s question. He lay on his back in a hazy crossroads of weariness and anxiety, arms crossed and behind his head, waiting for the silence of the night to take over, but it wouldn’t come. The four of them had made a fire from the remnants left by Maximus, the usual evening patter dampened by the thought of what would happen the next day. Cort made quick work of claiming a grassy spot just beyond the pallid rim of firelight, and not long after Rachel joined him, they were both still, as silent as tombs. Terry was too knackered to argue for Cort to stay closer, reflecting that he had yanked the younger incarnation back enough on his chain. And he was a capable man, Terry reminded himself, as the darkness closed in. Didn’t come to be who he was without survival skills of his own. However, he chose to stay close to the makeshift hearth, the desert’s heat dissipating the further the moon rose.

Terry turned somewhat to look at Deidre. She had shifted her spot perpendicular to his, and he stared at her for a moment, wondering why. For the last several nights since coming into the movie, they had been quite cozy with each other, taking comfort in each other’s presence through the night. It had been nice.

The magnolia from Alabama was curled up on her side, her head close to his, gazing with a faraway look into the crumbling fire. Terry realized the question had surprised him, not for the words she spoke, but that the air had been incredibly still and quiet until then.

“Your brother? I imagine, if he’s in Iraq, the bloke’s trying to keep the taste of sand out of his mouth, cursing the camels, and plotting a pass at the gorgeous nurse he met earlier in the day,” Terry posited, giving Deidre a small grin.

She returned his grin briefly, but didn’t seem to be up to their usual light banter.

“I beg for some extra time to rest, and here I am, wide awake,” she said, disconsolate. Terry noticed her ‘Bama drawl was more pronounced, as it always was when she was upset, angry, or tired. “I think it’s been the heat. When did it get so hot?”

“I can’t sleep either,” he replied. “Too much on my mind.”

“Poor Terry. I worry about you. The brain is always going. I’d love to take that brain out and soak it in some cold water, just to give you respite.” She reached across the sliver of ground that divided them, throwing open her palm for his, and he obliged. Their hands curved loosely around each other.

“You’ll get your chance soon enough, I’m sure,” he teased. “There’s a stream just down the way. You can dunk me in the morning.”

“Promises, promises!”

Terry found himself watching her watch the fire, the hazy vapors still dominating his languor. Deidre’s glorious mane of auburn hair had frayed tendrils coming loose from the coil of braid she had fastened up as a crown, framing her face with a charming halo. A thin veil of grime covered her fine features, turning her hazel blue eyes into odd beacons of expression. The simple robes she had chosen to wear were repaired in several places now, due to deft fingers and a seemingly endless supply of thread.

“Terry?” She asked after several very long minutes.

“Yes, Nolia?”

“You…you haven’t said much about what we’re…what all’s been goin’ on. I mean, if Cort were a radio station, he’d be broadcasting it all over the place. But you…I….” She raised herself up on her elbows in her sudden spate of words, but collapsed somewhat when she reached some that he knew instantly would take the conversation into the personal realm. Her eyes flickered in hesitation. “I guess we haven’t had much time to discuss things, have we?” She gave him one hopeful glance before retreating.

For several seconds, a myriad of thoughts passed through his mind. Impressions. Emotions. Atmospheric influences. He took a deep breath, began stroking the fingers in his loose grip with his thumb.

“As in everything we’ve done, a lot of ground to cover,” he replied, wondering if he could…if he should…say what was starting to rise to the surface. “I guess I was wondering the same thing you were…only…,” he paused, looking to the shimmering vapor again to concentrate the scattering threads.

“Maximus?”

“No. I mean, yes. Him, too. His son.” My son, he added to himself. What if it were him?

The fire crackled, filling another silence with indifferent sparks. Deidre released his hand.

“Are you thinking of his wife, too?” she asked, standing in front of him, gazing down. Motioning for her to join him, Terry made space. That’s more like it, he thought, as she sat down beside him, leaning on one hand, resting her other on his torso.

“I was thinking,” he said, with a bare nod. He had refused to let Deidre stray more than an inch from him as the general cut down his enemies. Was it because he was afraid she would bolt? Or, because he thought he might not keep from jumping in himself? When was the last time he was able to hold on to someone like Deidre? “When he was fighting the praetorians. Nothing stood in his way. Nothing would stand in the way of his son, or his wife.”

He couldn’t quite get it out, although Deidre’s presence encouraged the thinning of obstruction. He could feel the shell he had cultivated so well begin to stiffen around him, in reflex, but the thoughts wouldn’t yet be constrained. Something in the way she was looking at him made him feel safe. He shook his head in some weak form of denial.

“You could see it, in every movement. He was going home. It was so fuckin’…” he faded off in a half-laugh, half scoff of disbelief, glancing at her as if checking to make sure she wasn't going to retreat at the removal of some of his armor. “Well,” he added more softly, the muscles of his jaw and face fixing into a tight mien. “Good thing Rachel was there to stop Cort, else he’d have become another fallen obstacle,” he added.

Deidre was studiously tracing the slubs of the fabric of his tunic, now a sienna color from the sweat, toil, dirt, and debris of their travel.

“What obstacles stand in our way, Terry?” Deidre asked, her fingers now moving up to his collar bone, the hollow of his neck. “I saw someone…in your story…overwhelmed by all the obstacles put before him. There was no way you could control what was happening to you…”

“It’s my job, Nolia,” Terry interrupted, the blue-green eyes getting dark.

“I know. But…you chided me for trying to take on a project by myself. I wasn’t able to overcome my situation in Peru until I met you. And you remember my reaction. I was not happy to see you.”

“What are you saying?” Terry could feel himself getting testy. “You were in dire need, yours happened to coincide…”

“And there were obstacles for both of us. Until we met. And I thought…” Deidre stammered, her voice a bit tremulous as she tried to keep her voice calm. “When you asked me to be a part of this, you asked me to work with you…not the company, not the team. With you. And I felt like obstacles I had faced...had been overcome.”

Terry stared at her, remembering. That had been what he asked, and he had meant it. “I remember accusing you of luck, as well,” he said.

Deidre picked up the hand closest to her and wrapped it in her two, bending once to kiss a knuckle. “You are right, of course,” she said, her voice almost a whisper now. “There is a lot of ground to cover. But there aren’t as many obstacles as you think there are.”

“Come lay with me,” he requested, not liking the idea of her returning to her perpendicular separation, not liking the idea of a cold night with the discomforting thoughts melding together into inseparable fragments. The more he tried to sort them out, the more clumped in logic they became. He let go of the trying when Deidre made one last adjustment in the curve between his arm and his body and relaxed with a sigh. He hugged her in close, finally feeling drowsiness set in.

“Its hard…understanding…love like the kind Maximus has for his family,” Deidre whispered a few minutes later, between the kisses they shared. “Don’t you feel that way? Thing is, as hard as it is to comprehend, I don’t think I’d give up, either. I hope.”

“I’ve told my clients not to give up many times,” Terry recalled. “That’s a big enough obstacle in itself.”

It was the nicest dream Rachel had had in a long time.

Stretches of highway that rolled and rolled through the Texas hill country, the yellow dashes of the divider clicking past in time with the music on the radio…warm winds blowin,’ heat and blue sky, and a road that goes forever (*Chris Rhea “Goin’ to Texas”)…the windows of the truck cab down and her hand trailing out the window, feeling the power of the wind slough through her fingers. Green hills mounded all around them as they passed, a shallow crystal river rushing over limestone under a bridge, a mockingbird flitting his wings to chase the bug out from hiding. Bluebonnets! Fields and fields of bluebonnets, landscape so blue one would think they saw ponds. Winecups, buttercups, Indian paintbrush, all waving in a breeze.

She never looked to see who was driving. She just knew who it was, that together, where they were going, was a peaceful place. A grand place. A place with Cort.

She wasn’t sure when they stopped, but the next thing she knew, they were wandering in the field of wildflowers, falling down every now and then to luxuriate as though in bed. She was in a deep cup where grass soared above her, framing a precious color of blue. A stalk of prairie oats bent down, seed heads dangling, tickling her face…

“Good mornin’, Love,” murmured Cort, as her eyes flew open. Half of her mind was crawling back into the cab of the truck, just beginning to wonder where they were going, the other half stretched out in perfectly relaxed composure next to Cort.

“Are we there yet?” What’s a trip down a long country road without asking that question?

Cort gently prodded her from her prone position and led her down-slope from their campsite, past a scraggly set of bushes to a nook where a stream burbled through a cascade of rocks, on down into the valley below. All very picturesque, she asked him, but shouldn’t we wake…?

Cort knelt down by the water, scooped up water in his hands, drank deeply, and then splashed water on his face. Rachel found herself cringing.

“That water isn’t…” she began and he turned to look at her, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. He looked like a little boy ready for mischief with his wet face and wet hair. Shaking his head, he grabbed her hand and tugged to coax her down.

“Drink,” he said, with a laugh. “It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry, I keep forgetting,” she explained, dabbling her hand in the water. It was ice cold, probably run-off from the snows. “Give me an old fashioned spigot anytime.”

By the time she had taken her fill and splashed some water onto her face – oh, ugh! Her reflection in the water spoke volumes of the strain they had been under – Cort had moved back to lean up against another rock, using his cloak to rub his face dry. When she had done the same, laughing about what good it did when their cloaks were as dirty and travel worn as they were, she nestled into his lap, a position that they had both cultivated by now.

The morning’s rays were hinting at coming heat, but for now, helped unfurl the sleep from their eyes. While his hand played with her hair, she stroked the back of his other hand as it rested on her belly. She closed her eyes to listen to the winds in the vale, the burble of the water, to soak up the strength and assurance of Cort’s presence surrounding her. She tried to climb back into the truck cab once more, wanting to watch the hills go by, the flowers and prairie grass in the winds. Cort’s voice carried with the wind, recalling memories, affirming the truth of who they were together.

He stroked her cheek when he recalled the pines, his arm tightening around her as the spell of that night tingled through, echoing their union; it always did. His voice fell to a murmur in her ears.

Wife, he called her. She pressed against him with a shiver. That was the Name for it, the Name she had known in her heart since that moonlit night, but a Name too precious to bring out into the open. It had been tucked away, conserved; now that he unveiled the word, the Name expanded until it fit, fit like the curve of his arms around her. The sound of Wife, the knowledge of it, fit. Sound became sensation when he kissed her and she responded. Their arms, their hearts, their lips fit.

Cort paused to touch her lips with his fingers, as if amazed by the bond. Sunlight turned every hair into red-gold strands and his eyes a crystal green. She couldn’t stop staring at the illumination of his features. Like gold leaf in a medieval book.

The halo was fleeting, though; he glanced at her as thoughts proceeded from him. Emotion changed the golden tinge to a slight blush, a fault-line of doubt crossing his brow. Was he shy now? She felt a tremble go through him as he proposed.

For several unfathomable moments, Rachel was silent, drinking up every second that ticked by.

Marriage!

He wanted to say that Name out loud, declare it to the world, now that it was too big to put back into the glade of pines. A Name that had, until this moment, been such a private Name, withheld from her own voice because it seemed no one but Cort would understand. And so often in the past, she had caught him gazing at her as if he could hear that Name but was too afraid to speak it.

She blinked, realized that one of her hands was tightly clutching at his tunic. He was watching her, holding his own breath. He needed to hear a Name, too.

Hadn’t she wiped all the water off her face by now? His features were blurry.

“Yes,” she replied. “I will be your wife. I want you as my husband.”