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“Would you give half of your painful burden to someone you love, knowing they would suffer forever?”

I thought of the word forever and felt it settle in my stomach like a stone dropped into still water, rings spreading outward long after the splash. “I don't know.”

“Then you've never been in love.”

“Of course I have.”

“No, Destiny. If you've ever truly loved someone, you'd know that you could never hurt them, especially not like that—for eternity. Watching them suffer would be a living death.”

“Even if they wanted to help you? If they saw your love and immortality as worth the price?”

“It is not worth it! I wouldn't wish this upon an enemy, much less someone I loved.”

“And the monks didn't understand that,” I said slowly, piecing it together.

“No, you misunderstood. They didn't try to conduct a Severing. They didn't know enough about it, only that a vessel had managed to extract part of its Curse. With only a sliver of information, they came to false conclusions. They thought they could perform a ritual and remove all of it.” His mouth twisted, something bitter and old moving behind his eyes. “They wanted to contain Heartbreak, like poison decanted into a bottle. They didn't know they needed another living vessel to put the Curse in, or that both vessels had to be willing to make the transfer. I didn't consent, and that alone guaranteed failure.”

“So, a Curse can't be put into an inanimate object. That's why you think Osric can't remove it.”

“Yes, a Curse needs a living vessel, someone capable of feeling the Pull, moving toward the victims, and releasing the Curse. You cannot pour Heartbreak into a box and expect the box to hold it. It doesn't matter how many spells you inscribe on it.”

“But Osric has done more research. Maybe he thinks with a—”

Tristan tilted to one side, like a ship catching an unexpected wave. His hand tightened around mine hard enough to make it ache, and his eyes went distant.

“Tristan?”

He didn't answer. His breath came out unsteady, and the air around us seemed to thicken, pressure building the way it does before a storm breaks. When it crested, I felt it.

I must have lowered my mental shields in my need to connect with Tristan. Or maybe touching him weakened it enough for a blast of pain to break it. Whatever had happened, Heartbreak flowed into me before I even understood what was happening.

Images came to me. I saw my mother's kitchen as my father left us, yellow curtains and the smell of burnt toast nobody bothered to throw away. I saw the boy who broke up with me in a parking lot in college, his car keys jingling in his hand as if he couldn't wait to leave. But my father had never left, I had never seen that boy in my life, and these weren't memories. They were glimpses of things happening in the present to strangers. I saw a hospital hallway I'd never walked, a woman's hands twisting a wedding ring off her finger in a bedroom I'd never stood in, a phone dropped onto tile somewhere far from Georgetown, its screen still lit with an unanswered message. Heartache moved through me like weather moving through a valley, alien, immense, and unstoppable.

Across the city, people were breaking. A phone rang with news nobody wanted. A woman stood in doorway saying words she'd rehearsed a hundred times and still couldn't get right. A boy clutched a beloved pet as it passed. So much pain. It poured through Tristan and overflowed into me.

Tristan's whole body had gone taut, muscles standing out along his jaw and throat, his hand still crushing mine. His eyes shivered within their sockets, as if looking from one thing to another too quickly. I felt him fighting with everything he had, sweat beading on his forehead. Seventeen centuries of practice, and he still suffered. This was what he'd been trying to explain to me. This was what he could never share with someone he loved.

“Tristan.” I cupped his cheek with my free hand. “I'm here. I don't know what to do, but I'm here, and I'm taking as much as I can. Let me help you.”

A ragged breath tore out of him, and the pressure in the room broke all at once, shivering away into nothing. The grief drained out of me, leaving me hollow and shaking, the false memories leaving with it. Tristan slumped forward, and I caught him, diverting him into my direction. His weight fell on my shoulder, all of his immortal strength vanishing, and I fell back against the couch arm with him. Exhaling, he settled against me, his cheek against the mound of my breast.

Panting, he looked up at me. “I haven't felt pain like that since Stylos.”

“Do you think you can make it to bed?”

Tristan shoved himself off the couch. I hurried to get up and support him by bracing my shoulder under his arm. Lurching forward, he stumbled down the hallway and into the room at the end. I flicked the switch and overhead lights came on. An old four-poster, English manor bed stood against the wood-paneled wall across from us. Sapphire blue curtains hung from the tester atop the posts. To one side was a dresser, to the other was a door, open on a bathroom. There was no art on the walls and no closet. Just the dresser, the bathroom, and the bed. Thick black carpet covered the floor.

I got him to the bed, yanked back the black comforter, and a white blanket and sheet came with it. Tristan fell onto the bed and rolled onto his back. I took off his shoes, then removed his pants while he fumbled with his shirt. I did not stare at his body or the bulge in his green silk boxers. I just covered him with the blanket and went around to the other side. After stripping to my underwear, I climbed in beside him. Tristan was in no state to appreciate my state of undress, so I figured it was fine. Fitting myself against his side, I laid my head on his pillow and my arm on his chest. His left arm got tucked between us, nestled against my breasts. Under my palm, his heartbeat slowed gradually, like a storm finally moving out to sea.

Chapter Eleven

I was in the kitchen the next morning, making coffee, when Tristan stumbled in.

“How do you feel?” I asked him.

“Better.”

I studied Tristan the way I might study a painting I'd been assigned to restore—searching for cracks in his surface. His color had returned, and his eyes were clear again.