Kat groaned softly and shifted in a way that indicated to Henry that she was experiencing pain. As always with these increasingly rare moments of lucidity, he didn’t want her to suffer, but he felt desperate to share any conversation that might be possible. She appeared even more weak and sallow than she had earlier in the day. His confidence in his own theory that the end was drawing near increased. She’d made declarations to him and Amala that she’d felt the need to make; she now had no other purpose in living, especially when she knew that dying would release her from the awful pain she’d been enduring for so long.

“I’m here, my darling,” Henry said, leaning close to her face.

Kat’s eyes barely flickered open for a few seconds. “Henry,” she said with a raspy voice, but her love for him was evident even as she simply spoke his name.

“Do you want your medicine, my dear?” he asked. “I know you’re in pain.”

“Not yet,” she said. “Just . . . give me a few minutes . . . with you.”

He nodded and asked, “Water?”

“Just . . . a little.”

Henry carefully lifted her head and helped her drink, and he knew its purpose was more to moisten her mouth and throat than to give her body any fluid. The doctor had told Henry that Kat’s body had stopped feeling the need to take in any sustenance or liquids because it was slowly letting go. Henry found some comfort in learning that the lack of sustenance in her body seemed to actually reduce the pain. Oh, how he didn’t want her to suffer!

After helping make Kat comfortable again on the pillow beneath her head, Henry instinctively went to his knees beside the bed, where he could hold her hand and lean his face more comfortably toward hers. There was something he needed to say, and he knew his time was brief. Before he could form the words, she murmured in little more than a whisper, “Forgive me . . . if what I said earlier . . . upset you. I knew that it likely would, but . . . it had to be said.”

“I understand,” he said, even though he was, in truth, still only trying to understand. More accurately, he could understand why Kat needed to let them know that she was aware of the situation of his past relationship with Amala; her edict for them to marry was not something he felt pleased about. But she was dying, and he wasn’t going to argue with her. Whether or not he made the decision to honor her wishes was something he couldn’t even think about right now.

“I need you to know, Kat,” he said gently, “that once I committed my life to you, I never harbored feelings for Amala. Never! I need you to know that.”