Page 100 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy

So passed an hour or two. Bees worked on the tree in a dreamy hum, the low harmonics of summer. Fairhrim’s hair, loosening from its plait, tumbled past Osric’s knee in a curling cascade. He ran a strand of it through his fingers. He did it lingeringly, lovingly, hopelessly. He looked at her unkissed neck.

Petals fell and he fell with them in this aimless, fluttering descent.

His happiness was traversed by pain. This was not a vision of the future, but a phantasm of what could have been. If he had made better decisions. If he hadn’t led a life so tainted by his tacn.

Fairhrim moved. Osric withdrew his hand. She mustn’t catch on. She would flee. (He didn’t have her, but he didn’t want to lose her. What a stupid loop; it wasn’t even logical.)

Wistful, dreamful, she awoke.

Osric assumed an expression. Which expression, he didn’t know.

Fairhrim muffled a yawn. She asked, “Why do you look so serious?”

“I’m thinking of serious things,” said Osric.

“What?”

“Lady Windermere,” said Osric plausibly.

Fairhrim pushed herself into a seated position. Osric immediately missed the weight of her across his lap.

“I wouldn’t have spilled her blood if she hadn’t spilled mine,” said Fairhrim.

The shawl fell away from her shoulder. There was a tear in the Haelan dress, under her left breast.

Osric’s eyes flew open. “She got you?”

“Hardly,” said Fairhrim.

Osric withheld the urge to paw at her torn dress and check the integrity of the skin below. Fairhrim had almost died because of him, and here she sat, buttering toast. He wanted to shake her—hold her—crush her—lock her away somewhere safe. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

“I’ve healed it,” said Fairhrim, covering up with the shawl again. “Dealt with her before she could do much damage.”

“Dealt with her?” repeated Osric. “You popped her brain out of her eyes.”

Fairhrim winced. “I hoped you wouldn’t remember that.”

“I remember. To think I once thought Haelan useless pacifists. You gave death with the brush of a palm.”

“Time was of the essence.”

“There’s something I’d like to tell you,” said Osric.

“Yes?”

“Youarewild enough for me.”

Fairhrim turned to him.

Had he been too forward? Had he reminded her of hurt? Had it been a mistake?

She smiled a smile that made his soul irrevocably hers.

(The thing—the comfortable, convenient thing—was that he could tell her heartfelt, gutting, vulnerable truths, and she thought they were jokes, and so they were both safe.)

“How long did I sleep?” asked Fairhrim.

“An hour or so.”