“You know it was them?” Tedrey queried nervously.

“Yes, we know it was them. And yes, I know that you were amongst the collaborators, but your heart was not true to their cause. If it was, nothing could have kept you in my home while that attack was being carried out. Not even the grave injury they did to you.”

Tedrey felt heat hit his cheeks and terror burn in his chest.

“Y-you know?”

“I have known practically since I met you, amico.”

“And you still call me amico?”

“Do you wish me or my wife harm?”

“No.”

His answer was swift and not at all nervous.

Lorenz’s lips twitched.

“And do you think I did not know this too?” he asked softly.

Tedrey looked away.

His tone was still soft when he asked, “How deeply are you in love with her?”

His gaze skittered back. “I…I don’t…I don’t feel that way—”

“I know it is not my wife’s body you desire, but her heart that you adore,” Lorenz decreed and grinned. “When I fell, I went about it the other way.”

Tedrey did not doubt that and found it amusing.

However, he also found his feet and took them.

Standing and staring Lorenz right in the eyes, he declared, “I will never—”

His grand declaration didn’t come to fruition.

Lorenz shook his head and again interrupted him. “I know, Tedrey. You do not love her as I do. You’ll never love her as I do. Or you would not be right here, right now. But you love her, do you not?”

He did not know about love.

However.

“She, and you, are the only beings who have ever in my life shown me kindness.”

Tedrey watched with no alarm as Lorenz’s face grew hard.

Lorenz never liked to think of these things that had always been a way of Tedrey’s life.

And so perhaps he was learning about love.

“I will take that as a yes,” Lorenz said through gritted teeth.

“I don’t know how to show it in return,” Tedrey whispered.

“You will not learn, staring at the road and being morose,” Lorenz replied.

This was very true.

“Do you…do you want to know about The Rising?” he offered, and Tedrey did not miss the flare in his eyes at the last two words.

However, he mistook it for the fact Lorenz already knew.

Maybe not all of it.

But he knew of The Rising.

He was surprised when Lorenz answered, “When you’re ready to tell me.”

“I would suspect that, if the priests have fled, it’s rather in disarray,” he mumbled.

“I would suspect the same, but we are not counting on that.”

Tedrey continued mumbling, “That’s probably wise.” He drew breath into his nose and spoke more distinctly when he noted, “I do not understand why you forgive me.”

“I have not said I forgive you.”