“It’s my fault,” Aliam said. Tears stung his eyes. “If I had—”

“You couldn’t know,” Estil said, a hand on his arm. “You couldn’t be sure. You had reasons …”

“Reasons!” Aliam said. The bitterness in his voice shocked him, and two of the servants passing through the hall turned to look at him and then hurried on. “Tammarion died because of me,” he said more softly. “I’m the one who tutored Kieri in the courtesy of warriors and taught him how women fighters should be respected; it’s not just the sword, but … if not for me he would surely have drawn it sometime or other. Their children would be alive, she would be alive, he would be whole.”

“He is whole,” Estil said. “You are the one who’s not.” Then her hand flew to her mouth, as if to take the words back, and her face paled.

Aliam looked at her. “I know. I know I’m not. I can’t live with it, Estil, what I’ve done and not done. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of it, and that it can’t be changed, and that I … can’t go on.”

“Aliam—”

He shook his head and moved past her. Up the stairs, each one harder to climb than the next, and into his study, where a bowl still held a sprig of undying apple blossom, a gift of the Lady. The scent should have refreshed him, but now … now it was another wound. He sat down heavily.

Estil could manage without him; she’d done it summer after summer, all those years. The steading was more hers than his; she had managed it for him with all the skill and grace a man could ask for. His sons were all alive, barring Seliam—more tears came when he thought of Seliam, killed in Aarenis. Cal had heirs of the body; his eldest son was as old now as Aliam had been when he hired his first soldier. Kieri certainly didn’t need him; he would be only a constant reminder of what could have been, if Aliam had had the courage to say what he knew. He could trust Kieri to treat his family well, in matters of inheritance; that was all he could ask for.

All he had to do was make it through the Count of Andressat’s visit, play the host as he’d done for so many others, and then … his imagination failed. Old men died so many ways. Their eyesight dimmed; they tripped down stairs and stumbled off walls. Their hearing dimmed; they did not hear stampeding herds, shouted warnings of danger. They fell off horses and broke their necks; they fell into rivers and drowned. He had to be sure it was not seen as anyone’s fault; he wanted no more guilt carried by his family than they already bore.

On that resolution, he stood, feeling a little stronger now, breathed in the scent of apple blossom, and went out to find Estil striding along the hall looking angry. “There you are—”