He just didn’t understand what could lead someone to fight for a living, and it didn’t look as though he ever would. She’d tried to point out that if a relatively ethical person didn’t do the fighting, that would leave it to unethical people—he’d stared at her as if she was speaking Shin‘a’in. For her part, she could not understand his fanatical devotion to an abstract: a country. What on earth was there about a piece of property that made it worth dying for? Never mind that territorial disputes were what paid for a merc’s talents, more often than not—she still didn’t understand it. In a way, she was as alien to him as one of those Karsite priestesses. She disturbed him more than they did, because he knew they were alien—she was the woman he loved, and seemed completely rational to him—until she would say something that completely eluded him, or he would say something that made no sense to her.

There were other differences, too; serious ones. Like his attitude toward Mindspeech. The way he shared his thoughts so freely with Ratha made her skin crawl and her shoulders tighten defensively. No one should be able to get inside your mind that closely.

It makes you vulnerable, she thought, with a shiver of real fear. What happens when you open yourself that much to anyone? Gods and demons, the power that gives them over you ... even if they never use that power, it’s a point of weakness that someone else can exploit. And will. There’s never yet been a breached wall that someone doesn’t use to invade.

Then there was that fanatical devotion to duty of his. He’d make it back to Valdemar if it killed him, just to get information back there personally. It isn’t sane, she thought grimly. It just is not sane. There are a dozen ways he could get that news back, and if he took all of them, that would virtually guarantee it would get there. Maybe not as quickly, but it would get there. But it has to be by his own personal hands....

He frightened her; as much as she loved him, she feared him, and feared for him. She was torn between that love and that fear, and when you added in her reluctance to place herself in a position where she would be dependent on him, there was only one conclusion she could come to.

It’s impossible. Oh, gods, it’s impossible. And I still love him....

She clutched the trunk of the tree in anguish, bark digging into her palm, the pain keeping tears out of her eyes. She fought to keep control, finally attaining it just as Eldan himself appeared under the tree, waving at her to come down.