Kell brooded. He paced. And once they were close enough thattheir voices would carry, he burst out with, “This place would work if you’d just try.”
Oh, so they were the quarreling couple? That made sense.
“It’s too late, Kell. It’s always been too late.” Saeldian sighed so deeply, it echoed off the water. They hitched their pack on their shoulder for the dramatic march, everyone chasing after, the curtain drawn on the touch. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Then why did you?”
“I had to!” Saeldian shouted. “Because I wanted—”
Saeldian whirled away. They clamped their lips shut and looked down at the leaves carpeting the ground. Becausetheywanted? That was supposed to be,Becauseyouwanted.
“Because you wanted what?”
To play along so you’d leave me alone.“Because I wanted to make it up to you.”
That’s not what Saeldian meant to say. It was an argument! You hold on to your position and then you do everything it takes to win it, no matter what. You don’t give ground. You don’t confess.
And Saeldian would never have said that to Kell. There was no way to make it up to him, and they knew it.
“You wanted to make it up to me?” Kell sounded even angrier now. Good. He had to carry this for a bit. “Like you cared how it felt for me?”
This was going sideways. Attack. “Don’t you remember what it used to be like? Don’t you feel like we lost something?”
What in the—
They meant to say,Of course it’s about how it felt for you. You, you, you. I’m sick of it.But you had to speak like getting words in claimed ground on the battlefield. There was no room to think, only to use what your opponent said and jab with it. Why—
Saeldian told Jubilee last night when they arrived. There was an enchantment. It made it easier to tell the truth.
But they were wrong. It didn’t make it easier to tell the truth.
“Yeah,” Kell muttered. “But we didn’t lose the same thing, did we?”
Confusion on Kell’s face. Saeldian went cold. That wasn’t what he meant to say either.
Saeldian tried to remember lying here. Even the smallest comforting lie. Even a demurring response. Nothing. Not when they answered Ilondrel’s question, and every time they had tried to find the right lie, they couldn’t speak at all.
Fuck.Fuck!“What do you mean?”
“I lost the most important person in the world to me.” He tensed. Not what he meant to say.
Gods.
It was impossible to lie here. Saeldian saw it on Kell’s face as he figured it out. But then he shook his head and relaxed. How could he relax at a time like this? What were they supposed to do?
They couldn’t lie here. So they couldn’t fake an argument. But they could still pull off the game, if they were careful. Kell could storm out of the domain; the plan would still work. Saeldian just had to give him the right line.
“You’re sayingIwas the most important person in the world to you?”
They tried to flavor it with skepticism. It came out like shock.
Now he could say half a dozen things.This isn’t going to work. I don’t know why I try. It doesn’t matter, anyway.And then he could turn around and run from this place, and they would never, ever come back.
But he didn’t say any of that.
“Yes. You were the heart of my world.” He shook his head, then accepted it and went on. “But I wasn’t that for you. It’s him.”
That wasn’t true!
