She sighed. “You will never understand.”

“You’re correct,” he agreed, and finished, “if you don’t explain it to me.”

“There will never be a time when you don’t have power. I was not free to leave my rooms today, because you bid it.”

“For your safety.”

“I was not free to see to my husband because you did not wish it.”

“And I regret that.”

“I am not free.”

Aramus’s entire frame jerked.

“No. You will never understand,” she declared.

“And do you wish for me to set you free, wife?” he asked cautiously, disturbingly, for if she wished that, and to win her, he’d need to give her that, how would he keep her safe as she made her way back to him?

For he couldn’t think of an option that did not include him again going about earning her love.

She had to come back to him, for she was earning his.

“I would wish that would be the last thing on your mind, especially if you’re hurting.”

She’d wanted to comfort him.

She had been comforting him.

Since the attack was over, she had not left his side.

He was such a bloody fool.

“Ha-Lah,” he murmured, again burying his face into her hair.

“I was torn from my home to be your queen. I did not make you earn anything from me. I wanted nothing but your respect. And then you disrespected me. And I cannot say, in your anger, no matter the regret you feel now, that the words you spoke, you did not speak true, from the heart, what you are feeling. Now, here we are. And here I’m afraid is where we will stay.”

“Because you cannot forgive me.”

“Because I have no worth to you.”

“You cannot possibly think that’s true.”

“He will not be burdened with a queen the likes of you,” she quoted, and he ground his teeth at hearing the words that had come out of his own mouth. “I cannot possibly think it is not.”

They were getting nowhere.

“Perhaps we should talk about this in the morning,” he suggested.

“As you wish,” she replied.

He didn’t like the way she said that, but he’d learned, not easily, to keep his mouth shut in matters such as that. At least until he’d found the right words to say.

She lay in the curve of his arm, no less tense, but he did not leave her be.

She was his wife.

He was her husband.

They would disagree. They would fight. They might even wound each other (again).

But from then on, at the end of the night, they would fall asleep in each other’s arms.

Or, in this case, she would fall asleep in his.

“It is odd, do you not think, that this destiny before us would bring me a crusader?” he asked.