She put her hands on his face, and whispered, “Death is nothing to me, chala. Not if we are together. Death is not to be feared.” She leaned forward and kissed his mouth, very gently. Then she rested her forehead against his. “Being taken from one another. That terrifies me. It terrifies me. I will go to any wasted wilderness, to any horrible city, into any nightmare to keep you at my side, chala, and never flinch. I never have. But do not ask me to leave you. To send you into danger alone. That, I cannot do. That is who I am. And that is why I did not tell you. Because I knew who you were.”

Tavi inhaled slowly, understanding. “Because both of us can’t be true to ourselves. Someone has to change.”

“How can we stay together in the face of that?” she asked. There was something desperate in the quiet words. “How can you respect me if I abandon my beliefs? How can I respect you if you abandon yours?”

“And how could either of us respect ourselves,” Tavi said.

“Yes.”

Tavi took a slow breath. Neither spoke for a long time. The noise of the camp around them was growing louder as it began to get ready for the day’s march.

“I don’t know what to do,” Tavi said. “Yet. But there’s time. I’ll think on it.”

“I’ve had weeks,” Kitai said. “I haven’t thought of anything.”

“It’ll take us another two days, maybe more, to reach Calderon. There’s time.”

Kitai closed her eyes and shook her head. More tears fell. Tavi could feel a nauseating fear in her he had never felt from her before.

“I’ll think of something,” he said gently. “Take off the armor.”

She hesitated.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Take it off.”

She did, very slowly. Tavi helped her unbuckle the vest. He slid it from her. Then he grasped the hem of her shirt and lifted it slowly. With his hands, he guided her lovingly down onto the bedroll again.

Then, very gently, as if he might shatter her to so many chips of ice if he moved without utmost caution, he laid his hand over her belly, spreading his fingertips over her pale skin until his palm rested against her. The child was too small yet to show to the eye. But he closed his eyes and once more could feel the small, contented presence there, within Kitai’s own quiet, controlled terror.

“Can you feel? Have you tried?” he asked her.

“I can’t,” she said, her voice quietly miserable. “I overheard some midwives talking. They said that you can’t sense the baby with furycraft when it’s in your own body. It’s too much like you. And the child is too little to have moved in me yet.”

“Give me your hand.”