It seemed to him his heart had stopped beating, lying dead in his chest, waiting for her to speak. After a moment she shook her head just barely, her brows drawing together in confusion as though she worked to decipher his words.

“You cannot.” Her hands had dropped the hood to her shoulders and she looked up at him. “You must do as the king commands. You must, if you are to live, and rule.”

He wanted to kiss the frown from her lips, but he only drank in the sight and sound of her. “I will rule with you by my side, or not at all.”

She was shaking her head, denying it, staring at him until he saw her finally understand that he meant it. It did not gladden her, or make her throw herself into his arms. She only pulled her cloak tightly around herself and turn to look again at the sparkling lake.

“You belong here. It’s why you felt the loss so keenly, because you are meant to be here.” Her eyes scanned the peaks around them. “You are not meant to give it up.”

“Nor am I meant to live without you.”

She only shook her head again, so stubbornly sure, refusing to believe him. Of course she would not believe him. He had given her every reason to disbelieve.

“Nan, listen to me.” Urgency strained his voice. “Think you that I do not know the risk? Think you that I would not give this and more – as much as you would give to keep me safe?”

Silence. Always silence, because she thought it was only words. He stepped closer to make her hear him.

“Let him take my land. Let him take my power and my title and my name. Let him take all of it, every possession to the very clothes off my back – and at the end I will come to you on my knees, pitiful and powerless, just as you found me. And I will call him a fool for making so poor a trade, for before God I swear that you are a prize greater than any kingdom.”

She blinked rapidly. He could almost feel her barriers crumbling, all her feeling flooding free of its careful containment. She looked out on the green hills. It was the same way he looked at them, with love and wonder. “You belong to this place,” she said. “It belongs to you.”

“Aye,” he agreed. “It is my heart. And my heart is naught but a desert without you.” He looked at her in the midst of the mountains, the shimmering water, the wide sky. “Well do I know it is what I deserve for leaving you, that no place on this earth can be home to me, without you are in it.”