He slid his head back to listen, closely, but she did not go on.

“What is our problem?” he prompted.

“Words, they have awesome power. Awesome power to wound. However, sadly, once that is done, they lose their power if you attempt to use them to heal.”

Aramus wished this wasn’t true, but he feared it was.

His wife was not finished speaking.

“It is worse. Worse for us. For you don’t understand. It’s impossible for you to understand. To understand who I am and how I am and what means something to me and why. To understand what has made me and how. To understand how your words would so thoroughly kill what was budding between us.”

“Make me understand.”

“It’s impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible, Ha-Lah.”

Suddenly, she whispered, “I need the sea.”

“We will leave tomorrow. We will take the fastest route. We will wade in the shores. You will swim with the dolphins. We will meet the others later or not at all. They can battle this Beast. We will return to Mar-el and reign side by side.”

She shook her head on her pillow.

“Please, talk to me, my Ha-Lah,” he pleaded.

“My father grieves my mother still,” she said.

“You’ve shared this with me,” Aramus replied.

“Every man in the village wanted her as his wife. Wanted to put babies in her belly. Wanted to live his life at her side.”

Aramus remained quiet and listened.

“My auntie, she said all the women thought it was because she was so beautiful. ‘But really,’ she told me, ‘she was. Though it was a beauty you could not see.’”

“So she was kind,” Aramus guessed.

“And lively. And amusing,” Ha-Lah added.

“She has given you this.”

Her head moved on the pillow again, negatively. “No. My father says I’m too serious. He says if I were a man, I’d take up a sword and be a crusader. It wouldn’t matter what cause. I just need a crusade.”

From what Aramus knew of his wife, he could not dispute this.

“He won her,” she said so low, Aramus barely heard her.

“He won her?” he asked to make certain that was what she said.

“Auntie Ha-Zahlah told me that if Momma told my father, to win her heart, he had to travel into the night sky and bring back a star, he would have found a way. And somehow, he found his way to prove this to her.”

It was at that, Aramus’s body went solid.

“He grieves her still,” she whispered.

“I will bring you a star,” he whispered back.

“You do not wish to win me, Aramus. You want a queen. A wife to give you sons. And the partner who will help all defeat the Beast. You regret your words because it takes you further from these goals. You do not regret your words because they harmed me.”

“You are very wrong,” he stated firmly.