They weren’t acknowledged lovers. At his insistence, they maintained the illusion in public of being just friends. Oh, his reasons had been very logical, very considerate. He knew Luthvian would be enraged if he openly became another woman’s lover, and he hadn’t wanted her to take her anger out on the rest of the family—or on Sylvia. And he hadn’t wanted people backing away from her because she had chosen a Guardian for a lover.

At first, she had gone along with him, mostly because she was rediscovering the pleasures of the bed, and had been able to accept that he was a lover in the bedroom and a friend outside of it. But gradually, over the past year, she had become more and more unhappy with the secrecy, had wanted an acknowledged relationship.

He had expected her to leave him. Instead, one night during the Winsol celebrations a few months ago, she had asked him to marry her. And, may the Darkness help him, he had wanted to say yes. Had wanted to share a bed with her, a life with her.

But he didn’t say yes. Not because of Luthvian or because he was a Guardian, but because of a vague uneasiness that had warned him to take care, to wait. So he had smiled and said, “Ask me next Winsol.”

He had understood why, for a few weeks after that, there were no invitations to her bed. He had understood why she was always “busy” when he stopped at her home to spend a little time with the boys.

He had missed the friend far more than he’d missed the lover, but he had missed those hours in her bed.

Then, just a few days before the attack in Glacia, they had gone to Amdarh for a couple of days to spend time together away from everyone else, to try to rebuild their relationship. And they had made love, but he had known as soon as he touched her that, despite wanting him, she was trying to keep her distance from him emotionally, that she was trying to protect herself from being hurt again. Even when she was caught up in her climax, he had known.

Now, staring at the rain, he almost wished he had said “yes” at Winsol, almost wished he had asked her to stand with him before a Priestess when they had arrived in Amdarh. And he wished he could make love with her one more time to erase the unhappiness that had been in the bed with them that last time.

But the conviction had been growing in him for days now that there wouldn’t be another chance.