Page 108 of Beds and Blades

“And Mytharo corrected it?”

“Mytharo removed my ability to stand at a safe distance from my own life.”

She listened with the full attention she gave to things that mattered.

“Everything here was too immediate. I had to act. I had to decide. I could not analyze events forever and call the analysis participation.”

I looked toward Gaius.

“You have spent years holding the wall. You do the work. That is honorable, but Yravel’s principle cannot apply only to war.”

Varia’s eyes narrowed slightly, though she did not interrupt.

“The flame burns completely,” I said. “That includes wanting things. It includes moving toward them. It includes choosing the full version of your life instead of the protected one.”

Her grip tightened on the flask.

“Loving your claimed man did not become a mistake because you lost him. The loss was terrible because the love was real. Refusing to love anyone again does not change what happened. It only gives the loss authority over everything that comes after it.”

She went very still. I chose the next words carefully.

“The flame going out is not an argument against burning. It is the reason to burn while you have time.”

She closed her eyes and drew in a slow, steadying breath.

“He would have wanted that,” she said quietly.

Her eyes focused on the yard. Gaius finished his sequence and reached for his water flask.

“And the available evidence regarding Gaius remains extremely encouraging,” I added. “Tall, capable, excellent with his hands. Statistically, those traits tend to predict promising developments elsewhere.”

Varia’s solemn expression broke into a grin.

“Oh, would be thorough. Extremely thorough. Have you watched him strip and oil his blade? A woman notices these things.”

“Obviously, a transferable skill.”

“One would hope.”

We sat together in the companionable warmth of two women who had reached the same empirical conclusion through rigorous observation.

“Go and talk to him,” I said.

Her amusement faded.

“I do not know how to do this anymore. I have forgotten how to want things I am allowed to keep.”

“You speak to him regularly.”

“As his lieutenant.”

“You begin the way you begin everything else. You move toward the thing instead of away from it.”

“That sounds like Scipio.”

She looked back at Gaius.

“You do not wait for the perfect moment,” I said. “The moment becomes possible because you move.”