Page 82 of Legacy Ascended

“Treaty administration. There's a placement in Bern. Four days a week. It's a perfectly sound use of the qualifications I have.”

“Do you want Bern?”

“Bern is fine.”

“That's not what I asked.”

He looks at the form for a long moment.

“I wanted the Geneva placement.”

“Why?”

“International treaty negotiations. House treaties, territorial agreements, succession disputes.” He pauses. “I've spent years learning how those rooms work, and I'm good at it. It's a narrow, unglamorous, extremely specific competence that almost nobody has, and there are about four places in Europe where I could use it properly. Geneva was one of them.”

“I'd have been useful there for forty years.”

“And Bern?”

“I'd be bored inside two.”

“Do you regret standing up?”

"No." Immediately, flatly, no gap at all. "I'd do it again this afternoon. I knew the price when I stood."

"Then—"

"Not regretting it isn't the same as enjoying it," he says.

I don't tell him something better will come along. He wanted Geneva. Losing it fucking sucks.

"You know you can come see me without bringing something I need to read."

He looks at me.

"I'm serious. You can just come over."

“And do what?” Soren asks, looking at me.

"Nothing."

That gets the smallest movement at the corner of his mouth.

"You're very bad at nothing," I tell him.

"So are you."

"We can practice."

Soren reaches over and takes my hand off the arm of the chair. He holds it in both of his and looks down at it instead of at me.

“I love you,” he says.

I don't say anything. I'm not sure I could describe what my face is doing.

“I love you,” he says again.

“I know.”