When the tears had passed, they looked at each other, tear-smudged face to tear-smudged face, and laughed and held each other more. Then, slowly, they spun out their stories. Elene told him of her trip to Cenaria and her capture by the slavers. Kylar told her of Aristarchos’s attempt at killing him, about Jarl’s death, about fighting the Godking and being ringed, of his work to enthrone Logan, and his death on the wheel, his discovery of the cost of immortality, and his reunion with Durzo.

Then she asked him about wet work, about his first kill, about his training, about the Talent and what he saw when he looked at people through the ka’kari. He told her the unvarnished truth, and she listened. She couldn’t understand all of it, she said, but she listened without judgment, and she didn’t draw back after hearing it.

As he spoke, Kylar slowly relaxed. He felt the tension of secrecy and guilt, the fear of discovery and condemnation—all the tension that he had carried for so much of his life that it was simply part and parcel of how he experienced life—begin to unwind. In Elene, he found rest. For the first time, peace.

He looked at her with new eyes, and her beauty was warm blankets on a cold winter morning. It was home after a long journey. It wasn’t a beauty to covet, like Vi’s; it was a beauty to share. If Vi’s body was art shaped to stoke desire, Elene’s whole being was shaped to share love. Elene had scars, her figure was attractive but not such as left men incapable of speech—and yet her beauty surpassed Vi’s. The intuition that had kept Kylar from Vi even from the first time she’d tried to seduce him at the Drake estate suddenly crystallized: You don’t share your life with a woman’s body, you share your life with a woman.

“Marry me,” Kylar said, surprising himself. Then, realizing that his mouth had only uttered what his whole heart longed for, he said, “Please, Elene, will you marry me?”

“Kylar . . .”

“I know it’ll have to be secret, but it’ll be real, and I want you.”

“Kylar . . .”

“I know, this damn ring will probably keep us from making love, but we’ll figure something out, and even if we don’t, I love you. I want to be with you. I want to be with you more than I want sex. I know it’ll be really hard, but I mean it. We can—”

“Kylar, shut up,” Elene said. She smiled at the look on his face, smoothed her dress, and said, “I would be honored to be your wife.”