'It was not my choice either, but I am willing to make the best of things! Believe it or not I would rather have married someone who did not hate me!' Jezal shoved one hand through his hair and pressed his anger down with some difficulty. 'But let us not fight, please. I have enough fighting to do out there. More than I can stand! Can we not, at least… be civil to one another?'

She looked at him for a long moment, a thoughtful frown on her face. 'How can you?'

'How can I what?'

'Keep trying.'

Jezal ventured a fragment of a grin. 'I had hoped that you might come to admire my persistence, if nothing else.' She did not smile, but he sensed, perhaps, the slightest softening of the hard line of her mouth. He hardly dared suppose that she might have finally begun to thaw, but he was willing to seize on the slightest shred of hope. Hope was in short supply, these days. He leaned towards her, staring earnestly into her eyes. 'You have made it clear that you think very little of me, and I suppose that I hardly blame you. I do not think so very much of myself, believe me. But I am trying… I am trying very hard… to be a better man.'

The corner of Terez' mouth twitched up in a sad kind of smile, but a kind of smile nonetheless. To his great surprise she reached out, and placed one hand tenderly on his face. His breath caught in his throat, skin tingling where her fingertips rested.

'Why can you not understand that I despise you?' she asked. He felt himself go very cold. 'I despise the look of you, the feel of you, the sound of your voice. I despise this place and its people. The sooner the Gurkish burn it all to the ground the happier I'll be.' She took her hand away and turned back to the window, a glimmering of light down her perfect profile.

Jezal slowly stood up. 'I think I will find another room to sleep in tonight. This one is altogether too cold.'

'At last.'

It can be a terrible curse for a man to get everything he ever dreamed of. If the shining prizes turn out somehow to be empty baubles, he is left without even his dreams for comfort. All the things that Jezal had thought he wanted—power, fame, the beautiful trappings of greatness—they were nothing but dust. All he wanted now was for things to be as they had been, before he got them. But there was no way back. Not ever.

He really had nothing further to say. He turned stiffly and trudged for the door.

Better Left Buried

« ^ »

When the fighting is over you dig, if you're still alive. You dig graves for your dead comrades. A last mark of respect, however little you might have had for them. You dig as deep as you can be bothered, you dump them in, you cover them up, they rot away and are forgotten. That's the way it's always been.