“There was always someone nearby on the ships. Or else we were in lessons and...” He shrugged. “I... I didn’t want to burden you. Or frighten you.”

She nodded and spoke without rancor. “Was it because you think I am insufficiently strong? Or because you find me insufficiently brave?”

“Because I find you insufficiently...” he faltered.

“Capable?” she suggested. “Helpful?”

“. . . replaceable,” he finished.

Her eyebrows lifted at that. She returned his earlier gesture, rolling her hand for him to continue.

“I can’t lose you,” he said quietly. “I can’t. And I’m not sure that I’m able to protect you. I’m not sure anyone can.”

Kitai stared at him for a moment without expression. Then she pressed her lips together, shook her head, and rose. She walked around the table with that same severe expression on her face, but it wasn’t until she was standing beside Tavi’s chair that he realized that she was shaking with unreleased laughter.

She insinuated herself onto his lap, lovely in the green grown, wrapped her pale arms around his neck, and kissed him. Thoroughly. Her gentle laughter bubbled against his tongue as she did. When she finally drew away, moments later, she put her fever-warm hands on either side of his face, looking down at him fondly.

“My Aleran,” she said, her voice loving. “You idiot.”

He blinked at her.

“Are you only now realizing that forces greater than ourselves might tear us apart?” she asked, still smiling.

“Well...” he began. “Well... well no, not exactly...” He trailed off weakly.

“But that was always true, Aleran,” she said, “long before the vord threatened our peoples. If they had never done so, it would still be true.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged a shoulder. Then she took up his knife and fork and cut another slice of roast as she spoke. “Many things can end lives. Even the lives of Aleran Citizens. Disease. Fires. Accidents. And, in the end, age itself.” She fed him the piece of roast and watched him begin to chew before nodding approval and beginning to cut another. “Death is certain, Aleran—for all of us. That being true, we know that all of those we love will either be torn away from us, or we will be torn away from them. It follows as naturally as the night after sundown.”

“Kitai,” Tavi began.

She slipped another piece of roast into his mouth, and said, quietly, “I am not finished.”

He shook his head and began to chew, listening.

She nodded approval again. “In the end, the vord are nothing special, Aleran, unless you allow them to be. In fact, they are less threatening than most.”

He swallowed, and said, “How can you say that?”