Esag closed his eyes. "You were in a library, working on manuscript restoration with the other ladies. You were drowning in guilt because you knew you were planning to leave them behind and couldn't even say goodbye to them. You felt like you were betraying them. Every interaction was colored by that knowledge, by the awareness that these were your last days together."
Tears shimmered in her eyes, though she blinked them back furiously. "I felt so guilty."
"I know, and I understand. I'm no stranger to guilt. The guilt of disappointing people, of making choices that hurt others, of being unable to save everyone. I recognized the taste of it because I've been choking on it my entire life."
She turned to look out the window, though there was nothing to see but darkness and clouds. "You don't get to understand. You don't get to act like we're the same."
"I'm not saying we're the same. I'm saying I recognize what you're carrying, and I know how heavy it is."
They sat in silence for several minutes, the steady drone of the engines a soothing background music to the turmoil of their thoughts.
Tula took a deep breath and turned to him. "Did you really plan to break the engagement to Ashegan?"
Esag met her eyes steadily. "I did, but by the time I'd worked up the courage to talk to my father, Gulan was already gone."
Tula studied him for a long moment. "Did you tell Wonder?"
"I did. After I had told you in the vision. But I need you to understand something." He leaned forward, holding her gaze. "I don't want your forgiveness. That's not why I told you about it. What I want is for you to understand that I see you, truly see you, because I recognize myself in your guilt and your fear and your desperate hope that somehow everything will work out despite all evidence to the contrary."
"That's not—" Tula started, then stopped. "You can't just say things like that."
"Why not? It's true."
"Because it's—" She gestured helplessly. "Because you don't know me. You just think you do."
"We know each other better than most people who've spent years together," Esag countered. "I've been inside your head, Tula. I've felt your guilt and your love for those women and your fierce determination to protect your child at any cost."
She seemed lost for words, but he knew her better than to assume that she wouldn't eventually find them.
Tula shifted so she was facing him. "That was a brief glimpse into my life that was not representative of how I usually feel or act. In the same vein, I don't assume that I know you because I saw you in your workshop, surrounded by the faces of everyone you've lost, carving them over and over because you can't save them, but you can at least remember them. That's just one part of you. There are probably hundreds of other parts."
He loved that she'd set up her own trap. "And yet you chose to view me through the very narrow prism of how I acted toward your sister as a nineteen-year-old man five millennia ago. You didn't see my love for my sisters and my worry about their future and what my actions would do to their prospects of good marriages. You didn't see my love for my parents and the respect and obedience I was taught to show them. All you saw was your sister's pain."
This time, Tula really was speechless. "I don't know what to say."
"Say that I'm right because you know I am."
"I didn't say that. I believe in patterns, and if a person is selfish in one thing, they are selfish in others. If they are dishonest in one thing, they are dishonest in others, and so on."
She was clutching at straws, and they both knew it.
"Give it some thought." Esag forced himself to lean back, to give her space. "All I'm trying to say is that there is a good reason for me looking at you as if I know you. I can't pretend you're a stranger when you're not. The dreams connected us somehow. I don't understand how or why, but denying it won't make it less true."
"Connection could mean many things. It doesn't mean that we are destined for each other, so don't even go there." She put a hand on her rounded belly again. "Tony and I are having a child together."
"I know he's the father of your child, but is he still your lover?"
Her jaw clenched. "That's none of your business."
"You're right. It's not." He paused. "But that's another thing that we have in common. I've been where you are, trying to make something work because you think you should, because you want to do right by everyone and end up hurting everyone instead."
"Stop acting like you understand me."
"I don't understand everything, but I understand guilt, and I understand the burden of choices that might hurt people you care about. I understand what it's like to carry regrets."
She was quiet for a long moment. "I just ended things with Tony like an hour ago. I thought that our relationship was doomed from the start because he's human, but he said something that got me thinking. What if he's a Dormant? What if he can become immortal? What do I do then? He's not my truelove mate, but he's the father of my child. My parents weren't truelove mates,and yet they built a home and raised a family. I've been accusing you of being selfish, but pushing Tony away and having our child grow up shuffling between homes just so I can seek my truelove mate is the epitome of selfishness."
Esag's gut twisted into a tight knot. What if Tony could turn immortal?
