“Oh, no, oh, no, don’t—” Eyvind moved, his arms enveloping her, holding her close, his cheek against her hair, his heart thumping. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” he murmured, knowing this to be both true and untrue, for the past could never be refashioned, but the future, surely, was theirs to make. “Weep all you will, my pearl; you have held back these tears long enough. Let them flow.”

For a while Nessa clung to him, and he felt the strangest of feelings flowing through him, as if while he sat here cradling her in his arms his heart were being slowly mended, stitch by stitch, seam by seam, until it would be whole again. At length, she sniffed and wiped a hand across her cheeks, and told him, “I knew where you were because I knew you’d try to make things right for me, for us. That’s what you’ve done all the time. It is no more than the ancestors showed me, though for a while I would not believe them. But you were hurt and sick. I was worried. There’s so much in the balance here, so much to be decided. My people depend on me, and I’ve never done this before, treaties and negotiations, games of power. I’m frightened. I’m frightened I may get it wrong, and lose even what little we have left.”

She had moved back from his embrace now, but her hands were still in his, small, warm, and sure. Gods, she looked weary. What a burden it was she bore; the whole future of her people rested on her shoulders.

“I hoped it might help, just a little,” Eyvind said hesitantly. “What I did this morning, I mean. It seemed important to set it right. But there’s no undoing the ill deeds my own people committed here. And I am still a warrior, Nessa, that’s what I’m best fit for, and I don’t think that will change. I’ve tried to show you. I’ve tried to show how I will help, if you’ll give me a chance. There were children there this morning, boys and girls of your own folk. They can forgive, they can still smile. They can learn to survive.”

Nessa nodded gravely. “I heard the tale of what you did. It was good, Eyvi. It was no less than I expect from you, and will always expect.”

“Nessa—”

She looked up at him, brows raised, but he found, this time, he could not put the question into words. Too much depended on the answer.

“What is it you want to ask me?”

He shook his head, looking away, releasing her hand. “I can’t. It doesn’t matter.” But it did, of course; it mattered more than anything. He thrust his feet into his boots, fumbled for a cloak.

“Eyvi?”