Page 148 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy

“What’s between you and this Haelan, exactly?” asked Tristane.

“Something doomed,” said Osric. “It’s over.”

“Was it at your bidding that she freed me from Tintagel?”

“No,” said Osric. “That was her own doing. She doesn’t take orders from me, even when her life depends on it. I’d rather not talk about this debacle. It’s an embarrassment to our Order’s tacn.”

“An embarrassment to hers, too,” said Tristane.

“Yes. We’ve cut ties.”

“So she said.”

“We’re nothing to each other.”

“Nothing?” Tristane made a moue. “She certainly protected you like you were something.”

“What do you mean?”

“She threw herself over you when that Dreor’s scythe was coming down.”

“What?”

“Yes. In her little Haelan dress. There was no backplate to take that hit. She knew it would kill her. You don’t remember?” In the face of Osric’s confusion, she continued. “Perhaps you had already fainted. It was quite tragic. An act of abnegation: absolute self-sacrifice. But do go on grandiosely about your severed ties. It entertains me.”

Osric was silent. In his final moments before passing out, he had lost sight in both eyes and stumbled towards where he knew Fairhrim stood, hoping to shield her to the last. But she had shielded him? The idiot. The perfect idiot.

He passed a hand through his hair.

Tristane regarded him with mingled amusement and disgust. “Hearts are such wretched things.”

After his last interaction withFairhrim, Osric had not expected to hear from her for a long time—if not forever. He planned, vaguely, to keep tabs on her at a distance and an ear out for rumours about any acts of vengeance planned by the three thwarted Tiendoms. Why? Because he, stupidly, still cared about her. In spite of everything.

In spite of the returned ring.

It was a surprise when Fairhrim’s seith touched his tacn about a week after his departure from Xanthe’s ward. He was tempted to ignoreher deofol—thought that it would be for the best—agreed with himself to ignore it, and promptly let it through.

“Interesting,” said Fairhrim’s deofol as it materialised upon the desk in Osric’s study. “I’m surprised you haven’t severed the link yet.”

“I’m surprised your mistress hasn’t severed it,” said Osric.

“She thought about it and decided against. Said it would feel too final.”

Osric, in private agreement with this sentiment, asked, “What do you want?”

The genet sat in the middle of the letters Osric had been leafing through. He was reproachful. “You left without saying goodbye to Aurienne.”

“We’ve already said our goodbyes.”

“Then why let me through?” asked the deofol.

Osric had no answer.

The genet was seated with all four paws tucked neatly below him, but he was unsettled. His tail drew out broad, discontented sweeps. “Will you ever see her again?”

“To what end?” asked Osric.

“She’s unhappy,” said the deofol. Osric hadn’t ever seen the creature worried, but it certainly looked worried now. “This affair was meant to be only a business transaction. But—you became more to her.”