She should say nothing; just let him go. That would be honest of her. She did not find herself drawn to him in the least, though she had spent so long fighting against the flesh that she was not sure she even had such feelings in her anymore. And in truth, she had surely known that the great fire-mage had been holding a torch for her, and she had not put him straight, and so perhaps she had led him on, in some way. Now was the time to let that go, so that they could face the Dark as comrades and professionals, and nothing more.

But abruptly there was a rush of sentiment in her, a burst dam of it that surged through her: not love, not even affection, but she felt sorry for him. She felt so sorry for him, for aiming his dart at someone as unfit and wretched as her.

“When our work is done,” she told him, even though the wiser part of her was fighting to trammel the words up, “who knows what may happen? I may not even be allowed to hold my office then. I am a murderer, and I have struck down another priest of the Light. When this is done, who knows?”

She saw him take it as the ray of hope it was not, and she wanted to call it back, the stupid thing she had just said. And it came to her, This is my penance: if the Potentate would not punish her, then she would punish herself, and by extension those around her.

“Yes,” he said, and again, “yes, of course,” and he was turning in the doorway, almost skipping away, the happiness practically leaping about his frame. He looked back, that same awful focus building in him as had birthed the flower, and he took hold of himself with all the fierce fervor of his power, and forced himself to say, “Because I love you,” and then he was gone.

Dion cried then, because she was sick: sick of being a devotee of the Light and all its rules, and sick of not even being good at that, so that she would tell mortal lies over something as trivial as a magician’s feelings. Sick of being herself, she left their chambers and crept cloaked through Cad Nereg until she found a storeroom that was quiet and deep in the earth and away from all the intolerable life that hurt her so much, and there she slept.

Cyrene woke slowly, odd fragments of information trickling into her mind. Yes, today was the day they sallied forth from Cad Nereg. Yes, it wasn’t until dusk, so for the moment she could lie here listening to the quiet activity of the fortress that never slept. For once, her companions weren’t carrying on already, bickering and muttering magic nonsense and clattering about with armor.